 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 254, 26 May 2008 |
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Welcome to this year's 21st issue of DistroWatch Weekly! An interesting week that brought two big enterprise Linux updates (SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP2 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, both released on the same day) and a number of smaller distribution releases, of which Absolute Linux 12.1, Ultimate Linux 1.8 and TinyMe 2008.0 seem the most impressive. But the big focus of the coming weeks is undoubtedly openSUSE 11.0 - the most innovative Linux distribution release for some time. Do help with testing, though, if you can. In the news section, Paul Frields and Mark Shuttleworth talk to various publications about their respective distributions, CentOS explains why it takes three weeks to build a new version of its distribution, Xubuntu plans to add some of the much-requested features into Intrepid Ibex, and Famelix GNU/Linux receives undue attention from Microsoft's anti-piracy body. Also not to be missed: our first look at OpenSolaris 2008.05 and an update on Zenwalk's package management utility, Netpkg. Happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story |
A look at OpenSolaris 2008.05 (by John Frey)
OpenSolaris is based on the Solaris operating system by Sun Microsystems. The Solaris code was released under an open source license in June 2005 and has since spawned at least five distributions (unlike the BSD developers, the OpenSolaris coders don't object to calling these operating systems "distributions"). In March 2007, Sun Microsystems hired Ian Murdock and it was the founder of Debian GNU/Linux who launched "Project Indiana", a desktop-oriented distribution based on the OpenSolaris source code and complete with a graphical system installer and proper package management. Indiana was later renamed to OpenSolaris and this has now become the distribution that Sun Microsystems would like us to install and use on our desktop computers.
I ran the OpenSolaris 2008.05 CD on two test systems. The first with an AMD Opteron processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, a Radeon 8500 video card and an ASUS nForce3 motherboard. The second system was a Dell Pentium 3, with 256 MB RAM. I've installed several distributions on both of these machines and the hardware is well supported under Linux. The CD hung while booting on the Dell and that was it for testing on that machine. OpenSolaris needs at least 512 MB of RAM and so the Dell was under specifications.
The CD boots into a GRUB menu where you can choose OpenSolaris or boot from the hard drive. You need to select a keyboard layout and language to complete the boot process. This is nice and simple but I would have liked to see more text information about what is going on during boot and/or a progress bar. The boot messages stopped at a prompt "opensolaris console login:" and it stayed there for a long time before eventually starting GNOME. Obviously something was happening but there was no feedback and it had me confused, thinking I needed to type a user name and password to get to a desktop. The boot is neither fast nor slow, about what you would expect from a recent Linux distro.
OpenSolaris 2008.05 - the default desktop look
(full image size: 439kB, screen resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
The operating system has a standard GNOME desktop with four icons: LiveCD, Device Driver Utility, Getting Started and Install Open Solaris. I chose the Device driver utility first to check how well my hardware was supported. There were four devices not supported, both Ethernet cards (onboard and an add-on card), the onboard Promise SATA controller and a Syba 2-port SATA controller I added some time ago. This led me online to check out the hardware support on the OpenSolaris site. The list of supported hardware was well laid out and easy to browse but none of my devices were listed. Hardware support for OpenSolaris appears to be well behind Linux.
While browsing for information I found the Installation Check Tool, a bootable ISO image. I recommend running this tool before downloading OpenSolaris to see if your hardware is supported. After the detection scan I was informed that there was 3rd party support for my Ethernet cards, but no drivers for the SATA controllers. The IDE controller worked fine but I had no IDE hard drive and that put the kibosh on any plans to install OpenSolaris.
I didn't want to hassle with drivers without an Internet connection so I swapped out the D-Link and replaced it with an SMC 1211TX which seemed to work OK. On restarting the system there was no network connection but this time the device driver utility said the drivers were installed for the network card. OpenSolaris uses Service Management Facility (SMF) to start and stop services and daemons. Pretty soon I was reading the man pages for svcs (services) and svcadm (service administration). "Svcadm restart svc:/network/physical:nwam" was the command I needed to get a network connection. Throughout my testing I kept getting a pop-up telling me the network was going down then up again but this could have been a hardware issue.
I could read the network settings with ifconfig. My Ethernet card was called rtls0. I presume because the chip on the card was a RealTek. There must be a general system name like eth0 for all Ethernet connections but I did not find it. Some other commands like cat, nmap, and vi are available, but things like lspci, sed and cfdisk are not. The fdisk utility is available but you have to learn the Solaris designations for partitions as /dev/hdx are not there. You will find most of the standard file tree but there was a new (to me) folder named "platform". My Linux knowledge was useful but not reliable. Obviously if I wanted to administer OpenSolaris there would be a lot to learn. That's part of its appeal.
The OpenSolaris website is well laid out and easy to navigate. Digging down into the information will often lead you to the Sun site and Sun documentation. This means there is a lot of stuff to read and I had little difficulty finding answers to questions I had, whether it was about the operating system administration, the file system or software.
For general desktop use, OpenSolaris mostly has one application for each function. There is only a document reader but of course OpenOffice.org can be installed. Java is installed by default, no surprise there, and there is a Solaris Flash plugin on the Adobe site that I installed but it didn't work for me. I was not able to test video playback, but I have to assume that playable formats will be limited. There's no Skype or any other VoIP application for OpenSolaris, as far as I can tell. Other than that, the usual software for browsing, e-mail, photo editing, etc, are available. Don't expect to find a lot of alternatives in the repositories either. There is some extra software but you won't find a variety of web browsers or chat programs available.
From this experience I would not recommend OpenSolaris for older computers, although I would be interested in trying it on a PII or PIII server with the required 512 MB or more RAM. Also, hardware support is very limited. For OpenSolaris to become a player on the desktop they will need much better hardware support. I suspect that as far as Sun is concerned, this is fine because they are interested in rolling out end-to-end solutions that include hardware. The selection of software is certainly adequate for a general desktop computer, at least once OpenOffice.org is installed. The desktop was totally stable with nothing crashing during testing. The only real instability with the system was the network which may very well have been hardware related and the operating system handled user notification about the issue very nicely.
Just a note on licensing. Most of OpenSolaris is licensed under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL). This is a free software license according to the Free Software Foundation (FSF), although incompatible with the General Public License (GPL) 2, and open source according to the Open Source Initiative (OSI). There are rumours that OpenSolaris may be released under the GPL 3 but that remains to be seen.
So to sum up, stable, fast, good documentation and web site. Very poor hardware support, on-board Promise controllers are as common as houses. Adequate GNU/Linux compatibility and an adequate software selection. This is mostly a release for developers but it is a fully functional, stable operating system on which to build.
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Editor's note. While OpenSolaris is a highly interesting project, it still belongs to the developers' domain, even after the first stable release. Why? Firstly, the minimum requirement of 512 MB of RAM (and that's "untested", according to the project's web site) seems unreasonably high. I booted the OpenSolaris CD on my old test machine which has 384 MB of RAM - just to find it completely unusable (the GNOME screenshot utility took 20 minutes(!) to launch). Interestingly, it wasn't the case with the two developer previews that the project released prior to stable 2008.05, both of which ran fine on the same box. It goes without saying that all Linux distributions and BSD operating systems (including live CDs) run satisfactorily on this system. Secondly, OpenSolaris 2008.05 ships with no text-mode installer, a feature that every serious Linux distribution has had for years. Yes, OpenSolaris 2008.05 might be targeted at the desktop, but with a large combination of hardware available today, it's ludicrous to assume that a graphical installer will work in all possible scenarios.
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| Miscellaneous News |
openSUSE's final testing push, interviews with Paul Frields and Mark Shuttleworth, plans for upcoming Xubuntu and CentOS, Linux.com on Famelix and NimbleX, Zenwalk's new Netpkg
 Following the recent wave of new releases of many popular Linux distributions, all eyes are now on openSUSE and its upcoming version 11.0. Those interested in helping with beta testing and bug reporting will get their last chance later this week - the one and only release candidate is expected to hit the download mirrors before the weekend. What should we expect? Masim Sugianto gives a partial answer in this test report of openSUSE 11.0 beta 3: "Here is a short of summary of beta 3 from my own perspective: the live CD is much better than the previous one and it looks pretty stable for production use; beta 3 come with KDE 4.0.4, Firefox 3.0 beta 5, OpenOffice.org 2.4.0; the Zypper package manager is much faster and has become my default package manager...." One other quick note: if you are following the openSUSE 11.0 factory tree with Zypper and your recently updated system fails to boot, remember to add the "acpi=off" argument to the GRUB boot prompt before attempting to boot the system.
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 Softpedia has published an excellent interview with Fedora Project Leader Paul W. Frields. Replying to the author's question on how Fedora intends to overtake Ubuntu, Frields argues that the two projects have vastly different goals and that for Fedora, increasing the number of its users is not nearly as important as increasing the number of its contributors: "Interestingly, this question assumes that Fedora's goals, and the way we achieve them, are exactly the same as Ubuntu's. Like Ubuntu, we have millions of users. We're able to report that, based on the entirely open source technologies we use for our project. The key to Fedora's strategy is realizing that doubling our number of users doesn't help advance free and open source software as much as doubling the number of active contributors. The work those contributors do creates a far better experience with Linux, and that work reaches audiences through many channels besides just the Fedora Project. Some technology examples include NetworkManager, PackageKit, IcedTea and OpenJDK 6, and ext4. You can see these technologies in distributions other than Fedora, which shows the impact this 'culture of contribution' idea is having across FOSS."
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 Another week, another interview with Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu. This time, however, the interview was conducted by a major UK daily newspaper, The Guardian. Does the benevolent dictator of the most popular desktop Linux distribution think that GNU/Linux will ever become a significant force on the desktop? "I think that depends on how people define a desktop. If people continue to define a desktop as the thing that they run Microsoft Word on, then Windows will retain its position. My sense, though, is that people are increasingly defining the desktop as the thing that they get access to the internet from. In that case, there's a real possibility that we're able to shift people onto different platforms. I think it's the emergence of the internet as the killer application, the thing that describes what you want from the computer, that opens the door to us."
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 Those readers who are interested in Ubuntu technologies, but would prefer a distribution with a lighter footprint should take a look at Xubuntu, one of the project's most successful derivatives. Cody Somerville, in his blog post entitled Why Xubuntu Intrepid is going to rock, hints at some of the innovations and enhancements expected to feature in the project's next release, version 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex": "One things that has been constantly requested of Xubuntu is to maintain a light-weight, fast profile. Unfortunately, we're not seeing the performance we'd like, but one thing I've been focusing on is learning about ways to profile and slim down our desktop. If all goes well, I think we'll see Xubuntu lose a few pounds for Intrepid. Another item that I'm looking at implementing for Intrepid is browsing of Samba shares in Thunar via FUSE; another common request. Although this isn't guaranteed, I am rather confident this is an enhancement that we will be able to provide on time and one which will most undoubtedly improve user's experience while using Xubuntu."
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 Following the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 last week, CentOS (and other Red Hat clones) are preparing to issue their own updated releases. But why does it take so long to build CentOS 5.2 from source code that is already available on Red Hat's download servers? Tim Verhoeven explains: "First, we need to remove all the logos and trademarks of upstream. Secondly, we need to build everything from source and this for both i386 and x86_64 architectures. Then everything that gets built goes past the QA team that verifies that everything works as it should. From all the build packages install media will be created and these also need to be tested by the QA team. For each release a set of release notes are created and these are translated in different languages (12 for CentOS 5.1). Finally, all the packages and media need to be uploaded in distributed to the mirror network so you can download it. So this is why it takes a couple of weeks for a CentOS release to come out and remember that all this is done by volunteers and we could always use some more. So if you have some spare time and are willing to help you can make yourself known in the centos-devel mailing list."
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 Should Linux distributions look and behave like Windows or Mac OS X, or should they introduce their own features and technologies without copying other operating systems? While each of the two sides has valid arguments, the simple fact is that as long as they are other operating systems, there will be Linux distributions trying to imitate their user interfaces. One of the more successful among them is Brazil's Famelix GNU/Linux, a Debian-based distribution that has successfully cloned the look and feel of Windows Vista: "One of the perennial debates about the GNU/Linux desktop is how much it should resemble Windows. Usually, the debate is framed in terms of whether the desktop should look familiar to new users, or be developed in whatever way seems most logical. However, if the experience of the Famelix distribution in Brazil is any indication, imitating Windows and outperforming it can also leave you open to other threats, including accusations of piracy and changes of policy by Windows-centric management."
Famelix GNU/Linux 2.1 - even a Microsoft representative apparently mistook it for an illegal copy of Windows Vista.
(full image size: 1,207kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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 One more distro-related story from Linux.com: it's about a Slackware-based live CD that can be generated and customised through an intuitive web-based interface. The project is called NimbleX and the name of its creator is Bogdan Radulescu: "After realizing that others could make their own custom CD if the proper interface was present, Radulescu began work on the Custom NimbleX site to let users generate a custom live CD. The interface utilizes JavaScript to grab user input. Users can add a pre-selected variety of software to the CD image, as well as custom wallpaper, and can set the sound volume, root password, user, and language. Once the image is created, the user has to wait 48 hours before he can create another image, in order to avoid overloading the server. Radulescu now spends most of his time on NimbleX. He plans on making changes to the safe install and USB install. He also plans to implement methods of remote booting and mass deployment."
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 Finally, a note and a screenshot from Jean-Philippe Guillemin, the lead developer of Zenwalk Linux. The reason? A large number of interesting improvements in Zenwalk's graphical package manager, Netpkg: "Netpkg 'NG' is a full object-oriented rewrite of the graphical user interface and package processing engine in multi-threaded Gtk-Perl and C. Netpkg is designed around two modules: the Netpkg module providing main and common functions, and the PVfilter module providing the binding to Netpkg's binary version parser. Improvements: better layout - treelike view of packages, many help pop-ups, ultra-intuitive user interface, automatic colorization of icons depending on the status of each package; full internationalization of the user interface; real-time multi-level recursive dependency computing; repository browser, with history and automatic saving; two levels of full-text search into packages descriptions; 500% faster."
Zenwalk Linux 5.2 - package management with Netpkg
(full image size: 63kB, screen resolution: 922x628 pixels)
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| Released Last Week |
eAR OS 1.08
Acoustic Reality has announced the release of eAR OS 1.08, an Ubuntu-based, multimedia-oriented distribution featuring an advanced media centre: "eAR OS Free edition 1.08 has been released for free download. New features have been added, for example you may now record your LPs to the hard disk in lossless FLAC format. Also the dockbar has been recompiled to be visible on all workspaces and users with much RAM may enable the 3D desktop effects. eAR OS Free Edition Version 1.08 has build-in recovery of the eAR Media Center It also comes with semi-automatic installation of proprietary hardware drivers; compared to a previous release, the live CD now supports more than 20 extra sound cards that work out-of-the-box. eAR OS 1.08 comes with Linux Real-Time kernel 2.6.24 for audiophile sound quality." Visit the distribution's news page to read the full release announcement.
eAR OS 1.08 features a Mac OS X-like dockbar with a variety of effects.
(full image size: 679kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
PelicanHPC 1.5.1
Michael Creel has announced the release of PelicanHPC 1.5.1 (formerly PrallelKnoppix), a Debian-based live CD designed to make it simple to set up a high-performance computing cluster. This updates fixes the recent "predictable randomness" vulnerability in Debian's build of OpenSSL and all users are strongly encouraged to upgrade. From the announcement: "PelicanHPC1.5.1 released. Changes: fixes a major security problem related to SSH keys, all users who connect their cluster to a network are strongly encouraged to update; added fail2ban to discourage brute force SSH attacks; MPITB and other example code for Octave is now pre-compiled; package updates, including Octave 3.0.1 and OpenMPI 1.2.6."
Absolute Linux 12.1
Paul Sherman has announced the release of Absolute Linux 12.1, a light-weight, Slackware-based distribution featuring the IceWM window manager: "Absolute Linux 12.1 final released. Last tweaks before release involved file-finding utility (ff.py) for which I improved the graphical user interface (colors, font usage). Because I also updated to latest PCMan File Manager (4.1.1), which I believe was a code clean-up, performance improved and I further customized it to include the file finder utility mentioned above in the Tools menu. Absolute Linux CD2, additional software and documentation: recompiled libsndfile and Audacity for CD2; latest libsndfile does not work with latest flac. Also read that Audacity will be worked on in Google Summer of Code for additional sound formats, which would be nice - but I updated Audacity for CD2, anyway." Read the full release announcement for more details.
Absolute Linux - a light-weight, Slackware-based distribution with IceWM
(full image size: 192kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP2
Novell has announced the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, Service Pack 2: "Novell today announced the availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Service Pack 2 (SP2), containing enhancements in virtualization, management, hardware enablement and interoperability. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 is the only Xen-based virtualization solution with full support from Microsoft for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 guests and live migration of those guests across physical machines." This release provides security fixes and feature enhancements to SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, originally released in July 2006, but also includes package updates for popular software, such as Firefox (2.0.0.14) and OpenOffice.org (2.4.0). Please read the complete press release for further information.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2
Red Hat has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2, the second update to its RHEL 5.x product series: "Today we released the second update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. As with earlier minor releases, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 comes with a broad set of bug fixes, updated hardware support capabilities, quality improvements, and a set of new software features that have been backported from upstream open source projects to the Enterprise Linux 5 code base. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 enhancements are primarily focused in six areas: virtualization, laptop and desktop improvements, encryption and security, cluster and storage enhancements, networking and IPv6 enablement, serviceability." Read the press release and release notes for more details.
Ultimate Edition 1.8
Ultimate Edition 1.8, an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a variety of user-friendly enhancements, has been released: "Ultimate Edition 1.8 is built based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron; unlike the previous builds, which were created by a tool called 'reconstructor', I built this one by hand. I am releasing both a 32-bit and a 64-bit edition. Hotrod is a fitting name for it, if you have a 64-bit processor I highly recommend the 64-bit edition. This release was built from scratch using Ubuntu 'Hardy Heron' LTS with all the goodies you have came to love with previous editions and a few new ones. I would like to point out that the usplash is fully carried through after installation (the dragon)." Read the complete release announcement which includes a number of screenshots.
Ultimate Edition 1.8 delivers an enhanced DVD with extra applications and attractive artwork.
(full image size: 773kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Musix GNU+Linux 1.0R4
Marcos Guglielmetti has announced the release of Musix GNU/Linux 1.0R4, the fourth revision of the Debian-based distribution featuring a large collection of free software for creative artists: "The Musix GNU+Linux 1.0R4 live DVD was produced on the basis of the stable version 1.0R3 CD. Musix 1.0 is based on KNOPPIX and stable Debian but it has the latest versions of many important applications. New and upgraded software on the live DVD: Rakarrack (a great effects processor for guitars), LASH 0.5.4, AZR3 1.0.3 (a high quality Hammond organ emulator, ported from a VSTi), Asma davul drum kit... Many fundamental programs have been updated since Musix 1.0R3: Ardour 2.1 (2.4.1 available as a DEB package), Rosegarden 1.7.0, Jackd 0.109.2, LMMS 0.3.2, QJackCtl 0.3.2, WhySynth 2008-04-12, and more. Dozens of packages were upgraded to the latest Debian Etch versions for security reasons." Read the complete release notes for further details.
Musix 1.0r4 is the project's first live DVD release.
(full image size: 188kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
FreeNAS 0.686.4
Volker Theile has announced the release of FreeNAS 0.686.4: "FreeNAS 0.686.4 stable was released today. It is a maintenance release so no new features have been included. Changes: Set subnet mask to 24 per default if DHCP is activated, otherwise WebGUI is not accessible in most networks when changing from DHCP to static; do not validate sync time values when pressing 'Now' on status report page; add ability to add multiple destination email addresses on status report page; display interfaces with status 'associated' in UPnP services WebGUI too; add ability to configure multiple host names for Dynamic DNS service; add patch to do a file system check on root if necessary; display correct share name for mounted ISOs on initial system page; fix CPU graph script error...." More in the release announcement.
VMKnoppix 20080519
VMKnoppix (formerly Xenoppix) is a specialist Debian and KNOPPIX-based Linux live medium featuring a collection of Virtual Machine (VM) software, such as Xen, KVM, VirtualBox, QEMU, KQEMU (QEMU with accelerator) and UserMode Linux. A new version, based on KNOPPIX 5.3.1, was released yesterday: "VMKnoppix 5.3.1 CD with Xen 3.2.1 (20080519 version) is released. Features: the KNOPPIX base is updated to version 5.3.1 (kernel 2.6.24); include secure virtual machine monitor, BitVisor 0.2;updated Xen to version 3.2.1; include Internet boot loader InetBoot; includes network bootloader gPXE which deals with normal PXE and HTTP/iSCSI boot; include GRUB-IMA (Integrity Measurement Architecture) which treats trusted boot; set up Xen 3.2.1 + vTPM (TPM Emulator) for trusted computing; include Internet Client, OS Circular; includes QEMU 0.9.1 (x86_64) which offers ADM-V instruction set for virtual machines." Visit the project's home page to read the release announcement.
TinyMe 2008.0
The first stable version of TinyMe, a PCLinuxOS-based mini-distribution designed for older computers, is out: "TinyMe 2008.0 has been released! TinyMe is a PCLinuxOS-based distribution, which is targeted at older computers and people who want a very light and fast desktop environment. Although TinyMe comes as a small, 200 MB ISO image, it provides tools for most everyday wants and needs: AbiWord word processor; Opera web browser; Audacious media player; GThumb photo viewer and digital camera application; Asunder CD ripper; easy-to use Control Centers which make customizing the system and desktop look and feel a snap; Sylpheed e-mail client; ePDFView, a PDF viewer; SciTE text editor. TinyMe's desktop environment consists of Openbox for the window manager, LXPanel for the panel, Nitrogen sets the wallpaper, and iDesk provides the icons." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details.
TinyMe, a mini-distribution for older computers, features the Openbox window manager.
(full image size: 954kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- Untangle Gateway. Untangle Gateway is a KNOPPIX-based network gateway with pluggable modules for network applications like spam blocking, web filtering, anti-virus, anti-spyware, intrusion prevention, VPN, SSL VPN, firewall, and more.
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New distributions added to waiting list
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 2 June 2008.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments |
1 • When is Ultima upgrading? (by Jerry on 2008-05-26 09:23:52 GMT from United States)
I await Ultima and Yoper.. ??
2 • TinyMe 2008.0 (by johncoom on 2008-05-26 10:11:36 GMT from Australia)
A new Final TinyMe-2008.0 torrent has been posted, due to last minute update been u/l to 'sourceforge' and 'ibiblio' during the first day of being announced. By now both 'souceforge' and 'ibiblio' (+ mirror sites) have this new ISO a couple of issues fixed.
BUT the torrent link on the Distrowatch main page only goes to the old ISO and some people may encounter problems (issues) with it :-(
This is for those who may have problems the first ISO and want to BitTorrent the New ISO (as on the morrors etc.) See:
http://linuxtracker.org/index.php?page=torrent-details&id=38f1e927f064b1a63a1bc2ac7707c6fe8668c5bd
:-)
3 • Famelix & pirating Windows Vista (by Kurt_Aust on 2008-05-26 10:13:01 GMT from Australia)
If the image in DistroWatch Weekly #203 is valid (http://distrowatch.com/images/screenshots/famelix-2.0-beta.png) then it's a fair call as the wallpaper used is one of the most popular ones that ship with Windows Vista.
It's a great photo, but one should use one's own artwork.
4 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 10:45:08 GMT from Canada)
Angry pclos mod - pleases leave this functioning forum alone, you are ruining the linux experience for many people - trust me , this community functions just fine without your rude manner . Why is this behavior still being tolerated - its like a playground bully that no one will confront - or the biggest elephant in the room .
Please Tex , take a hint from other distros , and dont be afraid to show them the door
im boycotting the forum and not helping new users while this behavior continues
5 • comment politely... (by capricornus on 2008-05-26 11:21:19 GMT from Netherlands)
and please comment on the content of the Weekly. It is not the question who might better, brighter and more popular; the question could be how some feature contributes to "Linux".
OR/OR often ís diabolic and leads nowhere, while AND/AND is synthetic and gives us added value.
6 • Nice one (by Eric on 2008-05-26 11:31:06 GMT from Canada)
Nice DWW this week indeed :) about 3x last weeks. Yea Solaris' kernel and filesystem have been structured around massive servers(big iron), and thus has kept some of its roots showing. The kernel automatically will take a lot of memory, but ALSO mainly from ZFS as being the default FS. ZFS is very very demanding and honestly, it shouldn't even be considered unless you gave 1GB of RAM, never mind 512MB. Actually, the same specs for ZFS alone, regardless of kernel(freebsd or Solaris) ZFS wants at LEAST 2 GB of RAM, and is happy with 4 GB of ram, based on it being 64/128bit. Logically, 32bit comps ran good with say 1GB, 64bit boxes run good with at leas 2 GB, and of course, 128 bit run smooth with at least 4GB, so the increments are almost linear concerning platform bits and hardware requirements... logically lol.
So that's why Solaris is so darn demanding, just the filesystem itself needs an ass-load of RAM, and ZFS pokes its ugly head of requirements out in FreeBSD as well so its not just platform specific but from the true nature of its design.
Well good DWW and can't wait for next weeks!! (BTW I'm using Haskell for my main language now) :P
Later !
7 • There is a tiny point in O Solaris nice review which bothers me :sed (by dbrion on 2008-05-26 11:32:15 GMT from France)
"Some other commands like cat, nmap, and vi are available, but things like lspci, sed and cfdisk are not"
I used a closed solaris ~14 yrs ago until ~5yrs ago ...
and sed was very useful ... I believe, if my memory is good, it was used by automatic tasks I wrote ca 10000 times a day; (lspci is new, cfdisk is seldom needed)
Perhaps it is not GNU's sed (for example, "sed file" works with the GNU one to modify "file", meseems, but one has to recompile it twice! (at least, it happened to me) under BSD to configure other softs).
"http://www.sunfreeware.com/indexintel10.html" can lead you to sed (v.4.15) for solaris.
This is a very tiny point and doesnot alter the very interesting nature of this review (I am not in such a hurry O Solaris freely resurrects, if it comes some year)
8 • Windows Clones (by NeverMyself on 2008-05-26 11:58:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think the number of Windows clones are ridiculous. Although I'm not a fan of them, I can understand where distros aimed to be user friendly are coming from. But when distributions like Linux XP, Famelix, even Mandriva to an extent decide to copy windows in order to gather as many users as they can who have decided to jump on the open source bandwagon, that isn't the spirit of Linux, that's just using a trend to get money; something Micro$oft has been doing for years.
Linux should be independant, it shouldn't use windows as a stick to lean on. There's a thin line between taking a few good ideas and copying. I think Famelix has shown us that much.
On an unrelated note: Is that dragon from Ultimate Edition the same one I've seen in the Backtrack distributions?
9 • desktop is for internet (Mark - ubuntu) (by gk on 2008-05-26 12:12:51 GMT from India)
correctly said by mark(ubuntu) - i use desktop(linux) for net connection.
i am a newbie . got tired of constantly updating anti-virus, anti-spy, zero-day-whatever... and even then getting caught by virus, bah ; so left windows and now surf only with linux.
only one thing to say -- it's so Peaceful riding out into the unknown net on linux's shoulders.
six months usage, no problem......
and by the way what's the use of word 2008 when i use only ten features of word. thumbs up for open-office.
thank u all guys/girls for contributing to the open source, it zooommss.....
10 • OpenSolaris is unusable even with 512 mb RAM (by Tom on 2008-05-26 12:14:19 GMT from Germany)
You just need 1 GB.
ZFS is to blame.
11 • OpenSolaris (by Joaquim Gil on 2008-05-26 12:22:35 GMT from Portugal)
^^^^^^^ The same with me. :(
12 • RE 8 Copying W$ "ergonomy" (by dbrion on 2008-05-26 12:26:16 GMT from France)
copying the Windows look and feel, to summarize....
"that isn't the spirit of Linux, that's just using a trend to get money; something Micro$oft has been doing for years"
I agree that is not THE spirit of GNUlinux,
if its has some spirit ;
but does it harm to a student not to have to "learn" another "ergonomy" (even if this ergonomy is better, which would need some very convincing arguments?"
FYI I spent a quarter of an hour explaining my nephew some icons of the eeeeeeeeeeeePC (with a very limited GNUlinux preinstalled) , though he is accustomed to W$. Now, he seems happier...
Is a trend to get money such a bad thing?
I suppose users would be even happier if the devs *gave* them money..., plus the work.... plus being bashed....
More seriously, I suppose HW testing and developpers breeding has some cost, at least if one is not a bank robber....
13 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 13:03:16 GMT from United States)
Famelix looks to me more like a copy of the Vista interface rather than a clone. I think we can all agree that copying is wrong because it is illegal (last I heard, Windows was not released under a free software license). Frankly I don't care enough to investigate further.
The other thing about cloning Windows is that it's fine in some cases to give new users a familiar interface. OTOH, Windows does a number of things wrong, so we have to be willing to make new users learn to use Linux. Otherwise you just have a cheap Windows. and eliminates about 99% of the reasons to use Linux. An OS is complicated for all but the most basic tasks; we're sticking our head in the sand if we think making an effort to learn is optional. Denying that would be the same as denying the existence of gravity because gravity is inconvenient.
I prefer the look of Linux. I think Windows is ugly. That's not true of the vast majority of users though. KDE 4 (after more development) provides the nice-looking interface that Windows users are looking for. Fonts are almost there as well, but we need more contributions there too.
The future of Linux is with the artists, not the programmers!
14 • @ 7 (by MindYourself on 2008-05-26 13:03:50 GMT from Canada)
> But when distributions like Linux XP, Famelix, even Mandriva to an extent decide to copy windows
How does Mandriva copy Windows?
I use Mandriva and I haven't seen anything like that.
15 • @ 8 (by MindYourself on 2008-05-26 13:05:30 GMT from Canada)
Sorry, I meant @ 8, not @ 7
16 • eAR OS (by RedHawk on 2008-05-26 13:13:45 GMT from United States)
Can eAR OS play dvd movies right out of the box or do you
have to endure the typical Ubuntu setup crap ?
17 • Open Solaris, open but not free (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 13:20:24 GMT from United States)
The Solaris kernel still requires a non-free build environment, so its not exactly free. Kinda like gnu/darwin that still requires mac os x to be installed.
18 • @4 (by Landon on 2008-05-26 13:48:56 GMT from United States)
Left PCLOS forums almost a year ago. Their Mods are jerks, especially 1 in particular.
This was brought up on the mailing lists back then and all the devs and texstar had to say was users had a lot of nerve criticizing something they got for free and that the mods were volunteering their time for free.
The forums will kill PCLOS and the attitudes that they are better than their users is pathetic. No matter to me, there are other distributions I can donate monetarily too. I will never support PCLOS again.
19 • OpenSolaris (by My Linux Page on 2008-05-26 14:03:56 GMT from United States)
I'm not to crazy about Solaris operating system by Sun Microsystems only because it seems redundancy to me. We already have Linux and BSD. Why do we need another Operating system that basically does the same thing that Linux's and BSD already do?
20 • Forums (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 14:15:16 GMT from United States)
The thing that really upsets me about bad mods is that they are missing two things:
a. Don't disrespect the user. It serves no purpose. It is especially bad when they have the attitude that they have contributed so much more to free software than the user, so the user has to be eternally grateful for his/her charity. Doesn't work that way. The mod might be insulting Linus Torvalds or someone else who has made big contributions to free software. Free software is just that, free. It is NOT charityware. We're all contributing to the same availability of free software.
b. Don't insult free software. 99% of the time when mods turn people off it is due to the confusion that because they are volunteering their time, they can do anything they want. No. Volunteering means you promise to do something right. Saying you will do something and then failing to do it correctly is worse than doing nothing at all. Those of us who have done real volunteer work do not appreciate when idiots drag our names through the mud.
A few bad apples like the status that comes from being in such a position but do not accept the responsibility that comes with it. Free != charity. Free != poor quality. Free != unprofessional.
Even dirtier is when someone uses the free software community to advance his career and then comes along with stuff like this.
21 • RE 19 : And why do cars have 5 wheels? (by dbrion on 2008-05-26 14:16:19 GMT from France)
plus the stirring wheel + any number of spare wheels you feel necessary to add if you are likely to have nails/glass/roots on your road....
Dual-boats were used for redundancy, at a time where GNUlinux kernel and applications had less failures (they were simpler, too)....
Now, it might be interesting , with an increase of complexity, to have free multiboats, in the hope that strategic bugs wonot appear at the same time....
BTW, it is amusing to see GNUlinuxen competing like race horses : if they developp too fast, with too much already_outfashioned (even before it is released) HW, this is a cause of bugs....
22 • Maybe spamming the world with buntus will be the answer? (by Sam on 2008-05-26 14:34:01 GMT from United States)
Okay Freezy linux. You're officially the buntu that broke this camel's back. As a current Ubuntu user, I don't at all mind the mother distro. I also don't mind the Kubuntu and Xubuntu flavors (have eeexubuntu turned kubuntu on my eeepc). But all these special purpose derivatives can fade into oblivion for all I care. Now with Freezy Linux we're getting buntus that seem to exist for no other purpose than the fact someone can change the wallpaper and add a couple programs then remaster a CD and viola!
Maybe what the world needs to end the needless expansion of the Buntuverse is the creation of thousands of Buntus. Spam the Net with buntu derivatives.
Some early ideas:
GeorgeWbuntu - add wallpaper of George W Bush, a few extra programs like a WMD-inspired clone of Microsoft's Minesweeper
Hummerbuntu - add a picture of a Hummer H1 for wallpaper and a pre-installed copy of GPSdrive and oh, maybe calculator that shows how many starving kids in Africa you could feed for each mile you drive your Hummer...
The possibilities seem endless.
23 • ubuntu flavours (by jonabyte on 2008-05-26 14:42:37 GMT from Canada)
there seems to be a number of distro's based on Ubuntu these days.
not sure why I would go use another one over the original since its pretty easy to customize it myself.
24 • PCLOS forums (by wam on 2008-05-26 14:43:12 GMT from United States)
I left pclos forums many months back. Some Mods are ok....There is about 1 maybe 2 that made me leave and because of rudeness towards me and others. I like Texstars work, but im not using it because of their forums. Im a Mint and Mandriva user.
25 • No subject (by jg on 2008-05-26 14:48:17 GMT from United States)
I don't know how bad the PCLinux forum mods are, as I haven't used those forums. But I do know that the mods on Canonical's forums are totally irresponsible and unprofessional. I actually witnessed a Canonical mod lock a thread, and then later reopened that thread in order to let a specific enduser post in the thread, and then immediately relocked the thread. The mod was never reprimanded, and still moderates the forums. They're really bad.
26 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 14:59:56 GMT from France)
Since this is going to be another PCLOS week here: on several occasions, when asking a question on the forums, I got a prompt reply from a regular there. The problem is, his answers clearly proved he *didn't read my question*. I spotted this pattern of his across a number of threads.
He was probably answering fast so that people got the warm feeling that the community is responsive. But that's actually a lack of basic respect and a loss of everybody's time: if you don't bother to read a post, why do you bother to answer it? And it's counter productive for his aim: the image of PCLOS gets hurt.
27 • I would like (by peter on 2008-05-26 15:24:56 GMT from Denmark)
First i use Ubuntu because its good, and i can get my bamboo tablet to work, kind of easy, have to build/install the driver my self (Im just so good ;-) !!!) - second opensolaris surported my tablet, but did not get my sound to work..... need more hardware detection and...inkscape *S*
Now, if i want to make a new desktop, what would you guys do? should i try and use the gnome stuff, or try using som xfe thing, programming new stuff in that, or im looking at gdesklets to try and make some usefull thing for my desktop ???
dont copy windows, its not that good, i feel at home in the gnome desktop right now, but like playing with different distros, and kde is also easy, just dont go the 3d is better, if you dont have a really great idear *S*
28 • Qu Can you prove the badness of PCLONE and UBUlinux fora mods (by dbrion on 2008-05-26 15:29:14 GMT from France)
As they are registered... an IT link may be sufficient.. and sooo funny.
FYI, as it is a matter of professionalism.... if one buies some help from a software seller (say Red Hat), one is *very* careful just to ask relevant questions, and to verify the answer is not already here:
as a paying client is a king, but not a dictator,
a professional sys-ad who would ask irrelevant, redundant questions might be a victim of a fire war.... and one can understand that a man who has already answered too many irrelevant, redundant questions becomes rude and unkind....
29 • Ref 18, 24 (by Dr.Saleem Khan on 2008-05-26 15:35:12 GMT from Pakistan)
I am a regular user of PCLinuxOS and visitor of both PCLinuxOS IRC and forum. I guess there might have been some accidents of rudeness but overall the PCLinuxOS community is very helping . This is a common pratice in many Linux rooms and Forums and I have written a post about it already.
http://saleem-khan.blogspot.com/2008/04/unfriendly-know-it-all-attitude-of-some.html
I think this is an attitude which is really unacceptable and needs to be addressed.
30 • ref#25 Ubuntu Forums (by Verndog on 2008-05-26 15:42:44 GMT from United States)
I have to TOTALLY disagree with your assessment regarding the mods at Ubuntu forums. To me they display considerable restraint.
There has been numerous occasions where users have posted the same topic question twice! And the same questions keep coming up. They get professional courteous replies . It's not just the mods but the seasoned veterans that I enjoy Ubuntu forums.
I have yet to see any flaming at Ubuntu forums! Regardless of how you feel about Ubuntu, the forums over there are great.
31 • Opensuse 11 looks really good (by morgan cox on 2008-05-26 15:59:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've been running Opensuse 11 beta 3 for about 9 days now, it does seem much better than the previous versions, KDE4 actually works (although desktop effects still crash my machine) and is usable (unlike Fedora 9..)
The package manager also now works faster than a snail....
P.s - I have tried various methods to try and get a backtrace for kwin with no success can any one help ?
32 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 16:00:25 GMT from United States)
It's funny how people can complain about something but they cant even show there real name or face when making a post.
How would any one take that seriously ?
Yes im Anonymous just to prove a point.
33 • What is the size of overredundant information?(1nm?1000km?) (by dbrion on 2008-05-26 16:04:51 GMT from France)
"the forums over there are great.
"
...There has been numerous occasions where users have posted the same topic question twice! And the same questions keep coming up"
"
If there is 2[0[0]] times the same 'information', it is likely to be never read -too time consuming until one cames to a similar solution- This is *clearly* forbidden in really helping (this is not a slogan, but a fact) fora for useful free applications : One can use such fora *before * one meets a problem.... not in fora to stuff Google trends and give a very superficial help...
34 • Windows Clones (by corneliu on 2008-05-26 16:32:23 GMT from Canada)
> But when distributions like Linux XP, Famelix, even Mandriva to an extent decide to copy windows
Dear poster at @ 8,
How does Mandriva copy Windows?
Mandriva uses a standard KDE or Gnome or IceWM just like any other distro (actually, you can use many more desktop environments). How does Mandriva copy Windows? Because it is user friendly?
I asked you politely the first time. You can't just throw up things like that and then hide.
I am still waiting for your arguments. Be a man, show yourself and back up your assertions with arguments. The more time passes the more I tend to consider you biased. And please come up with valid arguments.
Cheers,
Corneliu
35 • Slow OpenSolaris LiveCD (by Sam Exner on 2008-05-26 16:44:59 GMT from United States)
"I booted the OpenSolaris CD on my old test machine which has 384 MB of RAM - just to find it completely unusable"
I have 4 GB of RAM, and the same thing happened to me.
36 • RE 34 : Mandriva copying Windows was a matter of war (by dbrion on 2008-05-26 16:45:07 GMT from France)
5 years ago, as MNDRV had a Control Centre very original, at this time (it waas better looking than W98s one, anyway). As some people preferred editing config files, they found it was a treachery (now, it is very popular)....
HP-UX and Solaris -the close one- had nice graphical Control Centres for limited tasks in the early 90s, before W$ and Mandriva (resp) had one or even existed : sys"ads" could configure very easily (add a user, add a line), and then go on administering/reading docs.
Never did M$ claim Mandriva copied it (and they like suing), and I am almost sure it was ideas borrowed from the main-frame world and made more general...
37 • @ 36 (by corneliu on 2008-05-26 16:58:44 GMT from Canada)
Ok, so just because Mandriva features a nice set of tools that allow you to manage stuff from GUI instead of CLI, that means Mandriva copies Windows? It doesn't make any sense. You can ignore Mandriva Control Center and use CLI just as well. It is just a convenience set of tools. You can use them or ignore them.
38 • OpenSolaris; Windows "Clones" (by BlueJayofEvil on 2008-05-26 17:14:12 GMT from United States)
I find it strange that OpenSolaris doesn't recognize many ethernet connections. Solaris 10 and Solaris Express Developer Edition recognized mine just fine, but OpenSolaris? No.
I'm glad to see Sun is working on making Solaris a viable alternative to other operating systems out there, even if it still needs work yet.
As for distro's that "clone" Windows, I have mixed feelings about this. It's one thing to copy artwork, but is it really that hard to find an original piece of artwork on the internet and get permission to use it? Or better yet, author some interesting artwork of your own? Even if you lack the skills/talent, it's not hard to find someone willing to help or contribute.
39 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 17:22:41 GMT from United States)
I've really wanted a slim *buntu but Xubuntu is still too resource intensive for an old computer. I've looked into Fluxbuntu but that seems inactive. I guess I'll look elsewhere.
40 • Why Open Solaris (by Mepis User at 2008-05-26 17:56:22 GMT from United States)
I don't understand why Sun and Open Solaris folks think they have (or will have) a better solution for the desktop then any of the Linux versions out there.
41 • Qu 40 IT links wanted (just a matter of common-sense proof) (by dbrion on 2008-05-26 18:04:37 GMT from France)
"I don't understand why Sun and Open Solaris folks think they have (or will have) a better solution "
Or telepathic ones... if it is a matter of thought..
* Where did they state it??
* When?
What remains to understand?
42 • Reinventing The Backspace Key (by Landor on 2008-05-26 18:04:53 GMT from Canada)
It's kind of sad to see someone who volunteers to state that the "obligation" of a volunteer is to be right. I would gather that every dev who has ever created a bug for any piece of software should step down immediately on that premise. The obligation of a volunteer is to "try" to provide some useful help in whatever manner they are able. I'm thankful many in this community do just that. The software isn't the only learning curve in life. Life is the learning curve. When I was younger I was a total harda**. I may be a bit still today, but over time "most" people grow and settle in to who they are. You can't do this without experience, and you can't judge someone who hasn't grown via experience. The learning curve never stops.Lest we forget, this is the digital as well, and with that you don't know if on the way home someone's tire went flat, and they broke their eggs they just bought changing it. To come home and find out they forgot another item at the store, then found out their child is failing a class or classes. If you find something intolerable in our community. Don't pay lip service to it. Try to correct it in some fashion. Barring that, find a more adequate place to spend your time.
Extremists linger in any aspect of life. People often adopt children not of their Race/Creed. This is usually found to be a God-Send to them. Why is it so profoundly dispicable to adopt other ideas and asthetics that have "proven" to be pleasing to the masses. Why is difference in all areas the key? Should Linux be the introvert of the OS world? Secluded, only of it's own design, or should it be intelligent, learn new things, and take those things it learned through it's life?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
43 • re 40 (by corneliu on 2008-05-26 18:33:55 GMT from Canada)
If you don't understand because you don't want to, then you have a software problem.
If you don't understand even if you are trying hard, then you have a hardware problem.
Sun wants to offer a different desktop. What's wrong with choice?
Using your logic, why Mepis exists in the first place since we have Debian?
44 • Qu 43 "Sun wants to offer a different desktop" (by dbrion on 2008-05-26 18:52:07 GMT from France)
Who funded and supported the OOffice suite?
(which, sometimes, makes GNUlinux working desktops not that different from W$ ones......).
It is likely that Sun's desktop will _look_ very much like other desktops...
Sun has a new (very greedy, but hopefully very reliable) filesystem, and a developping kit (the announce was very intriguing ); BSDs, two years ago, seemed in a worse state.... from the user friendliness point of view....
I could VMplay the installation process (which may be more greedy than a normal process) of O Solaris Indiana on 512 M RAM (with unaccelerated qemu and ~400 M, it did not seem to work : I could understand why from this weeks DWW , as it took 20 mns to start Gnome with ~400 M on a real CP ... and the ratio of emulated/real CPUS speeds is #15 under qemu ....).
What annoyed me was the lack of other OSes supporting ZFS ... and the fact I had installed *only* ZFS, all this can be fixed with time.
45 • re 44 (by corneliu on 2008-05-26 19:00:39 GMT from Canada)
By "different desktop" I didn't mean different GUI (Gnome remains the same) but different kernel under the GUI. And their file system seems to be one of the best out there even if it is resource hungry. With today's hardware, I think 1Gb RAM should be pretty common.
46 • Freezy Linux (by NK on 2008-05-26 19:11:46 GMT from United States)
I encourage any distrubution that removes itself away from Ubuntu's ideologic butt-ugly-UPS brown. Or Halloween orange. I wish UPS would sue them for using their trademark color. I really do.
47 • No subject (by slow_down_tito on 2008-05-26 19:15:03 GMT from United States)
@42 - re: adopting "proven" asthetics
I think there IS something to be said for learning from others; both their failures and their successes. As far as Famelix, I applaud them on one hand for their due diligence in trying to create something that is familiar and easy to adopt. But, on the other hand, having a GUI that is SO similar in presentation to Windows is a bit strange.
In attracting computer users to linux: there is a fine line between having a baseline of familiarity on which to present the other things that are foreign, and being so similar as to not be able to justify the loss of productivity while on the flat parts of the learning curve.
Unfortunately, there has to be a reason for someone to use linux -- in other words, you have to be motivated by something. Either you are fed up with Windows, or you have a sickness for all things computer (like myself), or you have been converted by a friend/family member/other, or some other equally valid reason.
Because of this, I think, there has to be a middle ground of not only being enough different that the casual user would know that they aren't using some knock-off/off-brand/cheapo version of Windows, but also being enough convenient that they are willing to stick out the flat parts of the learning curve.
Case in Point: I gave my sister a copy of Dreamlinux, because of it's similarity to Mac. She was impressed enough at first to want to install it, but not over her windows install. That's fine, I understand (I did the same thing; "training wheels" syndrome I call it). But, the problems she had with even installing it on a USB hard drive made her give up on linux altogether. It just wasn't worth her time to make it work -- which I know I could have -- when she could just stick with Mac.
48 • Negativity Has No Color (Ref#46 - NK) (by Ubuntu User on 2008-05-26 20:04:22 GMT from United States)
"I encourage any distrubution that removes itself away from Ubuntu's ideologic butt-ugly-UPS brown. Or Halloween orange. I wish UPS would sue them for using their trademark color. I really do."
Sounds like another 12 year ago posting. It's this kind of trash that gives Linux a bad name. Grow up dude! If anyone could sue because of color, the lawsuits would be endless. How about Big Blue (IBM) suing anyone using the color blue. "I'm feeling blue today", oops, almost forgot, I can't use that word, IBM has it locked up.
It amazes me how low someone will go to bash a group of people trying to make the best distro they can, in Ubuntu.
Do you think for a millisecond that someone will take you seriously. If you have a distro you love and you want to promote it, then say good things about that distro. Leave the others you don't like alone. Being negative isn't going to promote your views.
49 • re 22 (by masher23 on 2008-05-26 20:06:52 GMT from Australia)
why not let all these ubuntu dirivitives come about as they will only bring and end to ubuntu all together as enough people will eventually get sick and tired of it all as the distro will break them all eventually
50 • Re. 46 (by uz64 on 2008-05-26 20:27:17 GMT from United States)
"I encourage any distrubution that removes itself away from Ubuntu's ideologic butt-ugly-UPS brown. Or Halloween orange. I wish UPS would sue them for using their trademark color. I really do."
LMFAO... that last line just cracked me up. :D
I agree that brown... well... sucks, and most of the time Ubuntu's theme is either butt-ugly (literally) or so-so (one of the previous wallpapers looked like chocolate... mmmmm...). On the other hand, it's easy and quick to change: download a new wallpaper since freaking EVERY one of the defaults is brown (not that there's much of a selection anyway), open up the preferences, set the theme, and then change the background. The sound effects also suck (and I hate sound effects in general on computers... annoying), but that's also a quick and easy fix.
Which leaves two "problems" I never got around to changing: the drums sound effect on the GDM login screen, and the actually GDM theme itself.
51 • PCLOS Forums (by Reluctant PCLOS User on 2008-05-26 20:31:34 GMT from Canada)
To # 4/18/20/24/26
I agree. As a long time user and extensive poster I've dropped off the radar at those forums. There are a few persons there ( a 'term', a '6' and a '7') who are useless blowhards who have illusions of grandeur.
It used to be a good forum. It really is a shame for Tex...
52 • Re: #46 & 50 - What's wrong with brown? (by Ariszló on 2008-05-26 20:39:13 GMT from Hungary)
It is a nice fertile color unlike sterile blue.
53 • color issue (by corneliu on 2008-05-26 20:45:22 GMT from Canada)
Since when the color became the cause or flame wars?
You don't like brown? Change the color and the wallpaper in Preferences. It is easier than complaining about it.
54 • Amazing .. (by DeniZen on 2008-05-26 21:18:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
a few peple critisizing Ubuntu last week for 'not being able to become root'. Obviously, you can - easily.. it just takes more than 2 minutes - clearly longer than attention span of said commenters ..)
Anyhoo ..
Now .. its too ... brown...
!!!!
If you cant manage to change a theme .. really ... how do you imagine you are ready to offer a comment with any conviction?
55 • @ 39 - yes, better to look elsewhere for now (by DeniZen on 2008-05-26 21:31:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
"I've really wanted a slim *buntu but Xubuntu is still too resource intensive for an old computer. I've looked into Fluxbuntu but that seems inactive. I guess I'll look elsewhere."
Well, ..sticking a (relatively) light DE on top of the Ubuntu base is not ever going to be a sure-fire solution for old(er) hardware.
I read that the Xubuntu Devs themselves have admitted that their offering is not 'zippy' enough for their own tastes - and plan to slim it down further.
There are many Distro's better suited for older hardware - even if not specifically designed for older hardware.
Zenwalk for example. A better bet on old hardware / low ram, than Xubuntu - for sure (tried many, many, many! - and Zenwalk was the only 'polished' Distro that worked acceptably out of the box on my old 128mb ram PIII Laptop)
56 • eAR OS a letdown (by Soloact on 2008-05-26 21:51:44 GMT from United States)
I think someone already mentioned this last week, but it's my turn: eAR OS Free is an huge letdown, and misleading. eAR OS disables a slew of functions that are mentioned as the capabilities of the Distro. However, if one wants those functions to "just work", one must pay them a fee (49 Euros, or US$77.27+bank conversion fees{at the time of this comment}) to get the "Enterprise Edition", to get working functions of what they advertise their Distro of being able to do. This reminds me of those software programs and utilities that offer a "free download", which means one can download the program for free, but have to pay to get it to work.
57 • Re: 20 - Forums (by Anon. on 2008-05-26 22:08:05 GMT from Norway)
Anonymous, USA, wrote: "Volunteering means you promise to do something right. Saying you will do something and then failing to do it correctly is worse than doing nothing at all."
Yes. This is true - at least to the extent, and as pointed out by Landor if I understood him correctly, that you promise to do your best to get things right. As for the 'chaos' at the Ubuntu fora, I much prefer that over the condensension and sometimes outright intimidating atmosphere in some fora. None mentioned, none forgotten.
58 • 57 (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 22:35:10 GMT from United States)
Someone who volunteers is allowed to make an effort. It is OTOH totally unacceptable to do something that is very low quality because you're not in the mood, or just leave everything sit for two months, or otherwise neglect your duties, then say, "I'm not being paid so this is good enough." Being a volunteer does not give you a right to say poor quality is acceptable. Honest mistakes are a different story. Being an idiot mod is completely unacceptable.
59 • 39 (by Anonymous on 2008-05-26 22:35:45 GMT from United States)
Try this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/LowMemorySystems
You get a regular Ubuntu system with just what you want on it.
60 • OpenSolaris & FS types (by dooooo on 2008-05-26 23:06:49 GMT from Jordan)
I tried OpenSolaris with a (P4 2.4GH ,1G ram) and It was very slow . The package manager was even slower and I was very disappointed when I found out that I couldn't add repositories in Live Mode (no free desk space) .
Both The Ethernet card and the HP printer were properly detected though .
I noticed that a FAT32 partition was auto-mounted but non of the EXT3,XFS partitions were . A list of filesystems supported by the Solaris kernel would be nice .
On the subject of ZFS not being supported by the Linux kernel , NILFS and BTRFS are promising projects under development . I would like to see an article in DWW about testing those two filesystems in real environments (Distrowatch is all about technology after all *according to last week's DWW).
61 • 39 (by Anonymous on 2008-05-27 00:39:52 GMT from United States)
Forgot to mention that you should try AntiX 7.2 unless you have a very old CPU. That'll give you what you are looking for. It will also give you access to the Debian repositories.
It's a lot easier to start with something that is a complete minimal distro rather than having to create one as you do with a minimal Ubuntu install. AntiX will also look a whole lot better.
62 • RE: Famelix (by mt_deb on 2008-05-27 00:51:53 GMT from United States)
I may get flamed for this and so be it. I see nothing wrong with Famelix and this is why I feel this way. ( and this is just me folks and I'm only an average Linux user. No developing or coding or any of that stuff here......) I have had quite a few friends that when they come to my house and see me using Linux, start asking questions and some want to know what would be good for them to start out using so they can learn. If we have a few distributions out there that look a little more familiar to them and a few distributions that make the transition just a little easier for them, then I am all for it. Anything that gets them to think about giving Linux a try is a good thing, IM VHO. Now, that said, is Famelix one of those distributions? I do not know yet. Would I use it as my distro? No, but I will download and try it to see just how easy it is and if it's good to recommend to "new" users. I guess my point is, if it gets the average Windows user to start thinking about Linux then I am all for it. If this IS what the developers of Famelix were after ( attracting new users) then I applaud them and others that do the same.
63 • Mint LTS Spport (by Interesting roadmap on 2008-05-27 02:18:28 GMT from Australia)
12. LTS aspects
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa is built on top of the Ubuntu Hardy Heron package base. Hardy is a Long Term Support (LTS) release, meaning that it will be supported and it will receive security and package updates for the next 3 years.
Starting with Elyssa, Linux Mint will consider two of its releases "current": The latest release, and the latest LTS release. Basically, this means that innovations put into Linux Mint 6, Linux Mint 7 and Linux Mint 8 will be backported into Linux Mint 5 until the next LTS release comes out. Users will have a choice to stay current over the next 2 years by keeping Linux Mint 5 Elyssa, or by following the latest releases every 6 months.
Although Linux Mint isn't a rolling distribution an LTS strategy will be put in place to ensure that Linux Mint 5 Elyssa will stay up to date over the next 2 years. Users will have the choice to enable the backport repository for Elyssa in which upgrades for important desktop applications (Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice..) will be made available.
http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_elyssa.php
64 • @54 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-05-27 02:20:07 GMT from Canada)
This just in - could Ubuntu be causing cancer? We talk to some forum trolls who say it could. Film at 11!
:)
65 • A look at OpenSolaris 2008.05 (by John Frey) (by D. Adam Karim on 2008-05-27 02:38:01 GMT from United States)
> The Solaris code was released under an open source license in June 2005 and has since spawned at least five distributions (unlike the BSD developers, the OpenSolaris coders don't object to calling these operating systems "distributions").
The reason that BSD's do not call themselves distros is that they are not; they are complete operating systems with completely different kernels and for the most part, userland. Now, there are a few which are distros, such as DesktopBSD or PC-BSD which simply build upon FreeBSD but FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD are different operating systems derived from BSD code and not distribution based on BSD.
It's an easy mistake when one does not use BSD ;)
66 • PCLOS Forum (by windtalker on 2008-05-27 03:36:22 GMT from United States)
I've been a user of PCLOS for somewhere around a year now give or take.
Firstly, one mod that was halfway named here is temporarily out of service., Exterm.
Jaydot is taking up the slack and doing a bang up good job until such time as Exterm returns.
Next, I also have left a few distro's in the dust due to the arrogance of those who frequented the respective forum.
PCLOS isn't one of them.
At 20,000+ registered forum members and growing daily, the forum definitely can't be that bad.
If anyone wishes to start the perfect forum, let the rest of us know and we'll gladly join.
Notice I'm not anonymous.
67 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-27 03:37:16 GMT from United States)
> It's an easy mistake when one does not use BSD ;)
Question. What "mistake" are you pointing out? I see nothing in the quote that is factually incorrect.
It's easy to make mistakes when you use BSD, because after writing comments that nitpick on trivial points for years, you start to just claim everyone is wrong no matter what they say about BSD ;)
68 • Re: "No Subject" (by D. Adam Karim on 2008-05-27 04:41:10 GMT from United States)
> Question. What "mistake" are you pointing out? I see nothing in the quote that is factually incorrect.
The fact that the BSD's are not distributions in any respect. They are different operating systems that share the same roots. Unlike Linux which uses the same kernel and similar userland on every distro, the BSD's use different kernel's and userland (for the most part). Now, Linux is the kernel with GNU userland tools. If we replace the kernel, it cannot be called a Linux distro can it? Obviously, no. By that same token, if I replace the OpenBSD kernel with a NetBSD kernel, it is not a distribution of OpenBSD (in fact, since they use different kernels, I'd be in pretty bad shape on reboot...)
The point is simply this, BSD's are operating systems and not distros is the only point that I wanted to make. I'm sorry if you don't agree with this fact I was trying to point out.
Also, Belenix, OpenSolaris, Nexenta and whatever else is out there are all distros as they use the Solaris Kernel so that was correct :)
69 • isnt Linux about choice? bad or good? (by binskipy2u on 2008-05-27 05:32:12 GMT from United States)
Isnt linux about choice??? Why are people complaining, bitching, about mods, forums, package managers, or whatever.. who cares? linux is about choice.. so make another choice..
I use PCLOS and NEVER looked back, tried over 20 distros, I CHOSE to check out 20, I didn't complain about their ups and downs. I just chose to use one that worked FOR ME.
If your life is that empty you need to go to one forum or another to complain about the last forum you've been using,use one distro and complain about this or that, or cry that someone chastised you , then just turn off your computer, change your diaper, and move on.
70 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-27 06:26:37 GMT from United States)
Bravo #69, Bravo! My thoughts exactly. No one thing is best suited for EVERYONE, so use what you like best and be happy.
71 • RE 45 : todays HWis not always RAM greedy (by dbrion on 2008-05-27 06:33:06 GMT from France)
"With today's hardware, I think 1Gb RAM should be pretty common.
"
Depends on which HW :
* modern PCs : I agree. This leads to the unfinite RAM hypothesis, used to program quickly, with nasty consequences:some modern softs cannot be used on big data bases, and one is sometimes obliged to find and adapt 30 yrs old softwares to deal with really big databases... If ones filesystem/kernel consumes too much, even if it leadss to more reliable databases, it may be annoying.
* emulated one should eat as little RAM as possible, to give some RAM to the underlying system.
* old one : one cannot open it and one does not want to get rid of it.. and there seems to be a growing demand for these old PCs... (economical or sentimantal reasons?)
* new CPUs (I think of big cell phones, routers and perhaps ultraportables) : one can embed a linux kernel (ca 1 M) in them, plus some drivers, plus perl (say) or lua, plus something to manage their tiny screens (to have little games, measuring instruments, what one can/wants) and exotical mice : their RAM is far below 1G, and will likely remain small.
The fora for these HW are oriented towards problem solving, not blabla, in the most "user "friendly'" case : if these tiny hardware stuffs are used to teach, moderators may just verify that their students learn something by themselves (like any human being in a normal anatomical state, no need for a grandiloquent "chart") and ... do not risk electrical shocks....
72 • OS Life Cycle support - CentOS (by Food for thought on 2008-05-27 06:49:47 GMT from Australia)
19. What is the support ''end of life'' for each CentOS release?
CentOS-2 updates until May 31 2009
CentOS-3 updates until Oct 31, 2010
CentOS-4 updates until Feb 29, 2012
CentOS-5 updates until Mar 31, 2014
http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General
73 • Re: #68 - BSD distributions (by Ariszló on 2008-05-27 06:55:53 GMT from Hungary)
> The fact that the BSD's are not distributions in any respect.
BSD is an acronym for Berkeley Software Distribution.
> if I replace the OpenBSD kernel with a NetBSD kernel, it is not a distribution of OpenBSD (in fact, since they use different kernels, I'd be in pretty bad shape on reboot...)
Try and replace Slackware's kernel with Fedora's and see what happens.
74 • RE.#8 Windows Clones (by dubigrasu on 2008-05-27 07:34:55 GMT from Romania)
Agreed.You're totally right. Without a bit of shame, those Mandriva guys have copied many Windows great features. For example the start button. On Windows you can find it on the bottom left corner.On Mandriva you can find it EXACTLY in the same place although they renamed it "Menu". Such lack of imagination, huh? Also the window decorations are BLUE! And they build a so called "Mandriva Linux Control Center" which is a pitiful attempt to imitate the "Control Panel" Such an audacity! And the list can go on an on...
But the biggest of them all is the mouse cursor. If you look at Windows cursor, you see that is pointing to the upper left corner. The Mandriva cursor does the SAME! Can you believe it ? Such a nerve !
So,I totally agree with you, Microsoft should sue those imitators and force them to point the cursor bottom right...
75 • OpenSolaris (by Faust on 2008-05-27 13:03:39 GMT from United States)
Do me a favor and stop comparing OpenSolaris to Linux. Yes its behind any new project would be. It took ubuntu a few years to get up to speed and it still lacks in areas. OpenSolaris I feel will be a awsome OS to use for desktop use. Anything that has worth is worth waiting for.
76 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-27 13:11:42 GMT from Canada)
actually exterm is back and rude as ever - jaydot was doing a good job - there is no need for rudeness when manners are just as effecive
77 • re Opensolaris comments (by john frey on 2008-05-27 13:31:30 GMT from Canada)
1st of all regarding networking, the one review I read on the web also had problems with networking. One poster commented that Solaris and Solaris Developer Express networking worked better than OpenSolaris. I would surmise that previous Solaris network drivers were proprietary and now incompatible with the new license. In spite of that I (and others) have found USB devices are supported very well. I suppose development is not even across all hardware.
The note about BSD's and Distro's was an editors remark, not mine. That said, Ariszlo makes a good point. If they are not to be called distributions why are they called BSD?
dbrion: I did not use repositories for software. I am sure you are right regarding sed. It was not included in the live CD.
Interesting to hear others experience with OpenSolaris. Keep the remarks coming.
78 • @64 Ubuntu causes cancer (by john frey on 2008-05-27 13:36:41 GMT from Canada)
Now we know. Ubuntu causes cancer. I'm not surprised. This should have been picked up by QA and fixed a long time ago.
79 • Ref.76 (by Dr.Saleem Khan on 2008-05-27 13:46:42 GMT from Pakistan)
Sorry but I totally disagree with you, No flames to be raised here against anyone, Exterm is a very responsible team memeber from PCLinuxOS, it`s just that he is having so much on his nerves all the times that he would act absent minded at times, but rude: not at all. 2 days back I had an incident of being unintentionally misdirected but exterm regarding the latest kernel for PCLinuxOS. When I could not find the kernel in repo I asked about it from another friend there known as clarjon1. While we were discussing about the unavailability of the kernel mentioned by exterm, he interrupted us and told me that infact it was his mistake to mention me the kernel which was only meant for testing purpose for developers. He not only corrected me but apologised me for the inconvinence.
I have no complaints about PCLinuxOS or in that anyone, but in general whoever is misconducting at IRC rooms or forums, I do feel sorry for them to behave that way.
But not PCLinuxOS people, not exterm at all. Sorry again to disagree with you.
80 • After posting about sed, it occurred in my slow mind that (by dbrion on 2008-05-27 14:00:54 GMT from France)
it could have been
forgotten
by the OSolaris distributors....
(this month, PC-BSD 1rst alpha had no top, the 3rd one had it, gentoo second beta had no gfortranbegin.a [ one can compile Fortran stuff, but not execute it.... like in HP-UX in 1991....]).
These are things which may happen that the distributor forgets some very useful softs.
Else, your review was very good and very clear....
I noticed, too, that the Belgian and Swiss keymaps were nicely supported by OSolaris (it is a matter of great frustration in Europe when typing an email adress...)
81 • SystemRescueCd 1.0.3 (by VMC on 2008-05-27 16:03:20 GMT from United States)
I just downloaded it and I'm using it right now.
This is a great tool. It has freedos, gag, and lot of other useful utilities.
It took me a while to figure out the net. Using 'rescuecd dodhcp' worked for me.
82 • pclos forum mods (by Todd R. on 2008-05-27 16:35:54 GMT from United States)
I honestly thought I was doing something wrong in there, back in '95 when I first started attempting to get help at pclinuxos, because of the negativity to my queries about upgrading, etc.
It's a shame to see that it's still going on after a couple of years, as noted in here.
In '96 I just finally did what I do when not treated right at a store or gas station or whatever: I took my business and my money elsewhere.
83 • '05 and '06 meant, obvously :) (by Todd R. on 2008-05-27 16:46:52 GMT from United States)
In '95 and '96 I was still using Windows 95!
84 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-27 16:53:25 GMT from Canada)
so many posts about how rude the pclos mods are but I haven't seen any links to such threads. Please guys, show me the links!
I'm not a pclos user and I don't visit pclos forums. I checked a few threads (randomly) just out of curiosity and I haven't seen anything wrong.
85 • pclos mod (by Anonymous on 2008-05-27 17:06:41 GMT from Canada)
Below is a prime example of how the "term" is just rude when other mods are polite and focused on the job - notice how even though a post has been moderated , he still has to give his two penneth - threatning to "deal with" the OFFENDER - this guy must be a prison guard in his spare time , probably voluntarily . The worst part is how normal users are defending this behavior on the forums - Stop kissing ass. Pretty much any topic is banned before it can be started.
Therefore I propose a new topic for the pclos members
"red or blue ' which is your favorite color?
but hey , knowing it like i do "red or blue" will be misconstrued as a political topic and shut down.
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Posts: 4024
PCLinuxOS: A revolution in personal computing
Re: Mars Phoenix Probe Has Landed.
« Reply #5 on: May 26, 2008, 04:15:48 AM »
Post removed that broke rules on politics and religion. And reply to it. Locked to prevent recurrence.
Logged
Running PCLOS on Athlon AM2-4200 with 2Gb Corair Ram using ASUS M2N32 WS Pro Mobo with Nvidia GF7600GT graphics, and Acer 1692 laptop with ATi X700 graphics.
exterm
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Have a PCLinuxOs nice day :-)
Re: Mars Phoenix Probe Has Landed.
« Reply #6 on: May 26, 2008, 06:12:20 PM »
Professor tried pulling the same stunt with another thread same topic then locking it. his post has been removed also.
Folks the rules here are simple please read them.
If some ones outta line report them so they can be dealt with
86 • PCLOS forums (by Anonymous on 2008-05-27 18:54:24 GMT from United States)
I was going to avoid the topic, but I disagree with some of what I've seen.
I used to visit the PCLOS forums from time to time. I seldom saw any outright rudeness. I did see blunt answers, touchiness, and a mod who thought he was a teacher of elementary school students. That mod talked down to people, and used his authority way too much, but I didn't see what others are describing.
That said, one bad experience out of a thousand is one too many for most users.
87 • PCLOS forum (by Anonymous on 2008-05-27 19:48:59 GMT from United States)
I have mix feelings about it, some people are very nice and love to help, other are very rude (moderators mostly) one time I started to think that they were racist, but i think that is not the case. I like PCLINUXOS but I try to avoid the forum as much as I can.
I hope texsar would pay more attention to what is going on at the forum after all that is as much as important as a good distro. (hope I say that good)
88 • Review (by antiX-M7.2 VETËVENDOSJE! on 2008-05-27 21:28:33 GMT from Greece)
Ok, sorry to interrupt the PCLinuxOS forum gossip.
Here is a review of antiX-M7.2 VETËVENDOSJE! via TuxMachines
http://reddevil62-techhead.blogspot.com/2008/05/antix-m72-vetevendosje-mepisdebian.html
89 • PCLOS 2.6 of 5 (by Mark F. on 2008-05-27 22:16:38 GMT from United States)
PCLOS 2.6 out of 5:
Looks 4,Forums 2,Support 3,Repositorys 1,Current Applications 3,Hardware Compatibility 3
90 • Forum crybabies------>Grow Up and (by Stop Whinging on 2008-05-28 01:12:44 GMT from Australia)
IMHO, one does not (or stop to) use an OS (Distro) because of forums or personality clashes on them! You use it because it works on your hardware and does the minimum what you want it to do.
Stop overflowing DWW Comments section with trivial drivel.
Try using usenet forums, you can say what you like there, unless they are one of the very rare moderated ones.
91 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-28 03:26:58 GMT from United States)
It is unfortunate there are a few people who lack effective communication skills to properly interact in a social environment.
Some things to keep in mind:
Respect everyone online. Do not spread rumors or send hateful or harmful messages. Don't use inappropriate and offensive language.
Think before you type; make sure what you write cannot be misinterpreted. Use emoticons or abbreviations to convey humor, teasing, or other emotions while online.
Avoid spamming. Unwanted junk mail, chain letters, and jokes can be annoying and time consuming.
Use the KISS principle - Keep It Simple Silly. Be short and to the point in both e-mails and in chatrooms.
Don't type in all CAPITAL letters. This is considered shouting by the online community.
Don't be pest and annoy people while online. People may have work to do and can't continue to communicate with you at that particular time.
92 • ATT. All Open-Source coders (by upNorth on 2008-05-28 03:44:02 GMT from Canada)
Check out the following link if you want to code a CPU the way you want-- not the way Intel or AMD want!
http://www.viaopenbook.com
Yes, you heard that correct. This is indeed your chance to join a growing number of countless coders to bring a truly advanced and unique CPU, which has strong potentials to force the traditional CPU giants Intel and AMD to react.
How?
That i don't know. At least not at this time. However, not to worry too much, as time will tell all, hopefully sooner than later :)
93 • Ref#91 Good report (by Verndog on 2008-05-28 04:19:17 GMT from United States)
Your comments remind me of Robert Fulghum and his book
"All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten".
(Interestingly I saw one of his books at library today)
Here's a short quip, for the hate mongers to study:
These are the things I learned:
* Share everything.
* Play fair.
* Don't hit people.
* Put things back where you found them.
* Clean up your own mess.
* Don't take things that aren't yours.
* Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
* Wash your hands before you eat.
* Flush.
* Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
* Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
* Take a nap every afternoon.
* When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
* Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
* And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
94 • Post 93 by Verndog (by Earl on 2008-05-28 09:29:12 GMT from United States)
Your preamble to that list of Robert Fulghum's reads like hate mongering.
The cycle will only stop when the problem stops, and it is not hate mongering to identify the problem, even repeatedly.
95 • @ 90 (by texasmike on 2008-05-28 10:29:32 GMT from United States)
There is more to a distro than the software. Forums are a main avenue for customer support and service and in most cases the Only avenue. So I would hardly call it "drivel". I am sure the pclos folks would love to have you and #69 above join up.
96 • Qu 92 What is open in your IT links? (by dbrion on 2008-05-28 10:33:51 GMT from France)
"Check out the following link if you want to code a CPU the way you want-- not the way Intel or AMD want!"
Are you sure gcc will make different codes for a VIA? that would be somewhat inconsistent with 'VIA Technologies, the self-proclaimed No. 3 maker of Intel-compatible processors' ... the first sentence of the first link you give.....
From all these links, I could not see what was open with a 'Vista compatible architecture' ... as it is claimed in .. the second link you gave.....
It is a subject I find(and I believe many others) interesting, but perhaps it should be treated more seriously than some photos, a video and 3 slogans....
97 • 95 PClol fora (by dbrion on 2008-05-28 10:48:02 GMT from France)
"There is more to a distro than the software."
This is Pavlovian "thought". Sometimes ,there is less (essential parts being broken or forgotten)...
"Forums are a main avenue for customer support "
Well designed software distributions, like RedHats, very seldom need customer support and service.
Customers in a normal mental state verify that the answer is not already here before posting and whining (if a sys-ad did not verify, and complained he did not feel welcome, his boss could *fire* him : as being not able to read a doc, this, even in the world of *paid* services... One can reasonably suppose people having a text editor and a browser ... can read)
Who can explain how colorimetric and extraterrestrial topics, quoted in @85, are part of any support and service????
98 • P (by Anonymous on 2008-05-28 13:30:34 GMT from Canada)
I have to agree. Good distro, really rude forum moderators in PCLOS. You stick to the straight and narrow and all is well I suppose.
99 • PCLOS Forum (by JohnF on 2008-05-28 15:07:43 GMT from United States)
I've been posting on the same forums for well over a year with no problems. However, I seem to be the exception here, as I actually http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=2401.0">READ the posted forum rules that I agreed to when I signed up!
It amazes me that people don't read the fine print. When I join a forum, to me it's the same as visiting someone's house. I may not agree to how they run their place, but it is THEIR place, not mine. I think the posters who are having a problem might have a better case if the moderators were giving them a hard time despite following the rules. I have not seen a case yet where that has happened.
100 • Windows look (by Anonymous on 2008-05-28 15:35:01 GMT from United States)
I agree with the posters that think copying the Windows look is crazy. I really don't think it buys you anything. When I was setting up a linux box for my 5 year old, I first setup a KDE distro, which he picked up right away. Then one day I changed it to Edubuntu with Gnome (since it had the educational apps I was looking for), and before I had a chance to "show him where everything is", he had figured it out on his own. Even Micro$oft doesn't stick to one look. Look at the differences from Windows 3.x, to 95/98, 2000, XP, and now Vista. And on the M$ Office front it's a disaster. Look at M$ Office 97 through 2003, then look at M$ Office 2007. I can't tell you how many people ask me how to print from Office 2007. Anywho, I use linux because I think it's better than Windows, not because it's a free variation of Windows.
101 • Too true!! (by davemc on 2008-05-28 16:42:23 GMT from United States)
"64 • @54 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-05-27 02:20:07 GMT from Canada)
This just in - could Ubuntu be causing cancer? We talk to some forum trolls who say it could. Film at 11!
:)"
Actually, I think the latest "in thing" with the Trolls atm is that -
1) "Linux destroyed my Hard Drive." Technically not possible, yet the possibility of it draws one in to read the rant meant to draw a flame war.
2) "Hardy is the worst release EVAARRR!!" (They copy and paste the exact same post but just change the release name each time).
3) "Linux suxxx!! Im going back to Windows!!!" (Usually 10-15 of these every release from first time posters with stupid names like "MadPenguin", or "111Ubuntusux111").
4) "Help me to stay with Linux!!!!" (This one can take the form of a plea which turns into a completely unintelligible rant, which typically draws some of the most offensive flames imaginable).
5) My personal fave - "I switched to Linux and now im getting hacked all the time!!", or "am I getting hacked?", or "I think I have a virus!.. Please help me!!!".
6) Smart Troll post - "I installed Ubuntu and now my system freezes all the time111!!! (this is also a cut and paste from release to release. Its a smart post because some people actually DO have issues like this, and they take advantage of that situation to trying to start up a flame war). On that note -
7) "I have an issue with Ubuntu." (Innocent title, but after clicking on the link and reading the message body, it turns into a rant intended to draw flames, or a rant about some obviously made up issue which just cant exist, with no supporting details or data.) This is a dumb troll post (LOTS of those - dumb trolls I mean).
Funny thing is, its sometimes fun to flame them, but doing so usually just makes things worse because everyone hops on the bandwagon and spoons out more negativity. For this reason, I think its best just to learn the ways of the Troll, and then ignore them.
102 • RE 10 A+men! But it would work better with a logical translation (by dbrion on 2008-05-28 18:51:19 GMT from France)
" Technically not possible, yet the possibility of it'
Could you explain this possibility?. Technically?Logically?
In less than 30[00] lines ?
Without saloon "psychology"?
103 • Reward offered to distro developer.. (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-28 19:23:25 GMT from United States)
.. I am SERIOUSLY and HONESTLY offering a reward of $200 American to any Linux distribution developer who can make a Linux distribution that will detect and cause to work properly all of the hardware on my Toshiba Satellite A205 S5809 notebook computer. Wireless is the big problem (other hardware I have been able to configure in the usual ways with little or no hassle at all).
Look at that model number closely, because all A205s are not the same: S5809.
No distro I have tried so far has been able to get wifi going.
- Realtek 8187b wireless card (won't work despite many, many attempts with ndiswrapper configurations via tutorials from many sites and sources.
- Marvell ethernet card (no problems with Linux).
- "Duo Core" Intel 1.6Ghz
- 2Gbytes RAM
- 200Gbyte hard drive
- Intel sound card (works in most distros)
The distros I have tried over the past 7 weeks since I purchased this machine (with Vista Premium on it, I purchased a spare hard drive for Linux): Suse 10.3 and 11 beta 3, Fedora 8 and 9, Sabayon 3.5 beta 3, Vectorlinux 5.8 SOHO and 5.9, Ubuntu 8.04, Mint 5 RC2, Zenwalk 5 and 5.2 beta, Dreamlinux 3, TinyME and Ark.
I will send $200 dollars via money order to the developer of a distro that will detect and allow configuration of my wireless card. I use WPA2-PSK security, a hidden ESSID and a router enabled firewall on my Belkin G Plus Mimo 10842D router.
104 • #103 (by RC on 2008-05-28 19:41:24 GMT from United States)
Have you tried making your ESSID visible rather than hidden? That seems to be a problem at times.
105 • Ubuntu derivates (by whocares on 2008-05-28 19:56:23 GMT from Finland)
I think that in the end the BIG WINNER will be "mother" DEBIAN!
All those apt based distros will drive users to use the pure one.
Waiting for D5
106 • re 103 (by corneliu on 2008-05-28 20:03:08 GMT from Canada)
You should give Mandriva a try. It has (in my honest opinion) the best hardware detection.
107 • A few things :O) (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-28 20:18:52 GMT from United States)
I tried Mandriva 2008, but did not include it on the list because it is still on the Linux hard drive and I have not finished my ndiswrapper attempts.. as it is now with that distro, it did not see the wifi driver at all and only reported the ethernet card.
Also, I did not want to leave the impression that I've never donated money to Linux distro developers. I have purchased Vector CDs, Sabayon, Linspire and Xandros. Those were all available free or to order the CDs. I also sent Sabayon and Vector donations.
Those were only $24.99 or whatever for the CDs a couple of years ago. I want to keep donating, of course, what I can no matter what happens here with this new laptop.
But the distro that does the job, out of the box so to speak, gets at least $200 money order from me.
108 • re: 101 Ubuntu (by Anonymous on 2008-05-28 20:37:49 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu turned me into a newt! ... I got better.
109 • KDE 4 Goes On A Diet (by Landor on 2008-05-28 20:44:48 GMT from Canada)
Some here liked the fact that I stated a couple times that Gentoo offered KDE Apps as single installs (Split E-Builds).
Something I didn't mention, and honestly forgot I read it. Those that go the KDE 4 route to my knowledge should have the same advantage in any distro. It's my understanding that KDE 4 is going to do away with the monolithic packages.
Kind've smart too. Gentoo's reasons are many, one being why update or upgrade a monolithic when say only one application in that package had a security fix or bug fix, or new release.
Anyway, just some info for those that may be interested.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
110 • TinyMe (by Rebel on 2008-05-28 21:30:13 GMT from United States)
Thank you very much for bringing TinyMe to my attention. I downloaded an iso image via dial up and now am writing this letter to you on the installed system! TinyMe is a system that truly rocks! If I can do this anyone can. Great job...keep up the good work all.
Best Wishes,
Rebel
111 • Ref#102 Plausibility (by Verndog on 2008-05-28 22:08:15 GMT from United States)
" Technically not possible, yet the possibility of it'
Maybe he means plausibility of it'
At any rate I enjoyed your last two posts. The latter with the homage to saloon "psychology". Very funny indeed. I'll have to
remember that one.
===================
Well last week it was ubuntu's turn in the circle, now it appears it's PCLinuxOS's forums turn.
Two alteratives are LinuxQuestions found here:http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/index.php and Linux Froum, found here: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/.
In fact I think that LinuxQuestions is Slackwares home base.
112 • @107 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-05-29 00:25:21 GMT from Canada)
If Mandriva doesn't see the card at all, there might actually be something wrong with it, or it may be disabled at the hardware level (which would explain all the trouble you've been having). Could you paste the output of:
lspcidrake -v
to www.pastebin.ca and link it here?
113 • re: 103 Reward offered to distro developer (by Dopher on 2008-05-29 00:30:56 GMT from Belgium)
Well Jerry, you expect that someone will work for many hours/weeks/months to make a distro especially for your system for only 200 dollars? That's just insane.
First of all, you should have done some research. Because for 200 dollars your can easily find a pcmcia (or usb version) wireless interface card that works perfect with linux. Next time you might wanna buy a laptop that is fully supported.
114 • PCLOS and Ubuntu (by cobraskin on 2008-05-29 01:30:19 GMT from United States)
I made a post a couple weeks ago talking about the whining of users when they use something free and also some of the "'tudes" on the forums.
I may have an answer about the rudeness some talk about on PCLOS. I downloaded the Gnome version to give it a try and on my desktop the file read as 666 mb.
THERE!!!!!! It's a demonic distro and the mods and such must be tools of the devil!!!!!!!
Now you know why.
As far as Ubuntu. I go to all kinds of non-linux forums dealing with sports, politics and whatever and invariably some groupie comes in and posts something about "Great OS, replaces windows!!!!!! and leaves a link to Ubuntu mainpage or download site.
Ubuntu groupies, WILL YOU GIVE IT A REST????? OK???????
115 • Linux tip for novices (from one novice to another) (by Stumped Once on 2008-05-29 03:43:32 GMT from Australia)
Clearing your console commands history:
[user@localhost ~]$ history -c
116 • RE: 109 would definitely make it easier... (by KimTjik on 2008-05-29 09:09:45 GMT from Sweden)
... for other projects as well. Not only Gentoo does provide KDE split in smaller packages. KDEmod for Arch is likewise such a blessing.
Modified KDE even of version 3.x are quite snappy and fast on slower computers. Pardus is such an example, but it's not modular since it installs the whole Pardus-version of KDE.
I'm not a KDE user myself, but I appreciate the split packages approach (I installed KDEmod for my mother-in-law; if I would go KDE this is without doubt the version I would choose). Personally I prefer XFCE if I've to choose a DE. No, it's not because of the traditional view of XFCE being good for low-end computers. There's some few minor things missing, but overall it's a very good DE, not getting in your face, easy to modify to your liking.
(Low-end? I've a too old laptop running Slackware with Window Maker... it's nice, but the laptop is too old to like besides it's nostalgic value ;) )
117 • an open-source CPU&DIY Laptop and eat your cake too:) (by upNorth on 2008-05-29 10:20:38 GMT from Canada)
Well, dbrion, monami, i'm exactly not sure as to what you are complaining about. But hopefully this new link (stated below) may satisfy you a bit :)
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/27/via-laptop-goes-open-source
118 • PCLOS fora (by Anonymous on 2008-05-29 10:34:21 GMT from France)
I wrote post #26, which was only negative.
I should have outlined that overall and overwhelmingly, PCLOS fora, moderators and IRC were very helpful - and I was a complete newbie at the time.
True, the few unavoidable rotten apples here and there were more visible than at other places I've experienced.
IIRC, the OffTopic section was quite often quite childish, and self-cheeringness somewhat pervasive, but that's quite commonplace in Linux fora.
But again, overall I've had a positive experience.
NB: Personnally, in a forum that is *Anonymous by default* like DWW is, I don't give extra weight to "signed" posts nor less weight to "unsigned" posts. So I don't get #32's point at all ;-)
119 • 112 and 113 (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-29 10:47:17 GMT from United States)
112: Nothing wrong with the card if Vista sees it and uses it, is there? I want off Vista and on (with wireless) Linux with this machine.
113: The developers are working on their products during those times whether I offer then money for wifi functionality or not. The hope is that some distro developer out there will look at this as a solvable issue and a challenging, even fun project. If I had the know-how to make it happen, and believe me I have been trying for several weeks with many distros, then I would report my path to wifi functionality in here and elsewhere and the developers would benefit from that.
I understand the very likely possibility that this offer will fall flat; indeed, in one Linux distro's forum, I think it is in the Mint forums, there was a poster there who remarked to a user with wifi problems words to the effect, "..if that doesn't work then you might just have to consider your lappy a Windows machine."
120 • RE 117 : Another link which proves your previous post had (by dbrion on 2008-05-29 10:48:46 GMT from France)
NOTHING
to do with CPU..... nor with this weeks' topic...
"The design drawings are offered for download under a Creative Common Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license, but you'll probably need to hire a few engineering Phds and come up with a couple of million quid in development capital to make it all work out.
" copied and pasted from *your* last link..........
All this to remaster a laptop, which keeps the same CPU!!! Intel and AMD compatible.....
reread your post 92....
Your link keeps on comforting my 96 post, that
* your post was offtopic
and
*denoted a great absence of knowlege w/r to the structure of any computer (there seems to exists affordable opensource{;friendly} really exotic HW -I know links in -alph order- Canada, France, Germany and in Italy- it has nothing to do with blindly cutting and pasting an IT link (I could do ith ca 200 sources ) and adding a slogan... OTOH, it an intersting subject (GNUlinux magazine France dedicates 10% of its cellulose to it, so does Elektor, but both can convince they know what they are writing about -else these paper journals would go bankrupt).
PS : If I was in fierce mood, I would ask you to explain what a CPU is.....
FYI a list of CPU types can be found by typing "man gcc" ; it might be a very first start to wikipedia search for convincing knowledge......
121 • DeLi (by Anonymous on 2008-05-29 12:20:24 GMT from United States)
DeLi now requires 32 MB of RAM for a graphical environment (excludes a few machines, though not many, that are still in operation). However, I note that they use pacman. Went to their homepage and found that they also have the Crux ports system.
Might have to try out DeLi. These two additions, in principle at least, make it perhaps the best of the very lightweight distros.
122 • Fedora 9 and NVIDIA (by Anonymous on 2008-05-29 12:45:27 GMT from Finland)
Good News!
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showpost.php?p=1021008&postcount=135
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=113919
123 • @119 (by john frey on 2008-05-29 15:23:04 GMT from Canada)
Adam asked you to open a Konsole and copy and paste lspcidrake -v then post the results. You have Mandriva installed so that should be easy to do.
Just because Vista sees the card does not mean there is nothing wrong with it but you are probably right. Now instead of snapping back, reply with the requested info if you want some help.
Just because there are no drivers today does not mean that there will never be drivers. There will probably be drivers for the chip you have in well under a year. I know you want it now but sometimes that is not possible. A computer is rarely doomed to be a windows machine forever.
The best way to get your $200 to work for you is to find out who the developer(s) for the earlier version of your wifi chip and offer them the money. It is not a whole distro you need but a driver.
You can find out who that would be by Googling. You may also open the driver package of the earlier version with a text editor. You will find name and contact info for the package maintainer who can help you find the author of the driver. The package maintainer may very well be the driver author as well.
Good Luck
124 • Ref#118 (by George W Bush on 2008-05-29 16:07:32 GMT from United States)
"NB: Personnally, in a forum that is *Anonymous by default* like DWW is, I don't give extra weight to "signed" posts nor less weight to "unsigned" posts. So I don't get #32's point at all ;-)"
Exactly! There's no point at all. You can sign any name you want. So someone is Anonymous and another lies and says there David Krammer for example. Who's to know. It's pointless.
Forget the name and read the comment. That's what this is after all, the Comments section.
Although you do see the same style and yes people do use their real name, and there are those that you recognize from time to time. So what, by George?!
125 • 121 • DeLi... (by Verndog on 2008-05-29 16:20:09 GMT from United States)
That sounds interesting to me as well.
I have an old Compaq, PII, 300mHz, 192meg ram, 40gig HD.
So by the sound of it, that distro should work well. The problem I have is my CD drive doesn't work half the time, USB is _not_ bootable. So I'm left with the loop-back method. Slackware worked well using that method.
126 • @119 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-05-29 16:32:30 GMT from Canada)
Nope, you're right, if Vista works then there's obviously nothing intrinsically wrong with the hardware. lspcidrake -v output would still help, though - it's the easiest practical way to try and identify what card you actually have. Thanks.
127 • Windows or Linux? (by Ultra on 2008-05-29 19:04:51 GMT from Canada)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4a1z7NLnNk
128 • 125 (by Anonymous on 2008-05-29 19:10:11 GMT from United States)
I believe DeLi can also be booted from floppies. A box that old probably has one.
129 • 126 Adam.. (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-29 19:17:42 GMT from United States)
,,it's a Realtek 8187b on an internal USB.
That command, and commands like it with "pci" in them, do not detect it.
130 • @82 (by devnet on 2008-05-29 19:56:35 GMT from United States)
"I honestly thought I was doing something wrong in there, back in '95 when I first started attempting to get help at pclinuxos, because of the negativity to my queries about upgrading, etc."
That's pretty neat that you started helping pclinuxos 8 years before it was created!
131 • 130 "devnet" (by Anonymous on 2008-05-29 20:00:51 GMT from United States)
read the post after that one (83) goofy.
132 • Eee PC revisited (by Anonymous on 2008-05-29 20:56:37 GMT from United States)
I posted a message back when Ladislav reviewed the Eee PC about another low cost laptop that may be a scam. The name escaped me at the time, but I found it. Here is the US$150 laptop: http://www.medisoncelebrity.com/price.html
133 • @129 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-05-29 23:02:28 GMT from Canada)
lspcidrake actually shows USB devices as well as PCI. See the bottom of my output, for instance:
Mouse:evdev|imwheel:MX500: Logitech, Inc.|MX510 Optical Mouse [Human Interface Device|Boot Interface Subclass|Mouse] (vendor:046d device:c01d)
usbhid : Chesen Electronics Corp.|PS/2 Keyboard+Mouse Adapter [Human Interface Device|Boot Interface Subclass|Keyboard] (vendor:0a81 device:0205)
sisusb : unknown (0711/0900/ffff/ffff)
So, *still*, please show it :) I'd really like to see it, honest. 'lsusb' output is a good backup too.
134 • #103 (by dooooo on 2008-05-29 23:47:51 GMT from Jordan)
Have you tried Mepis ?
It worked OOTB in my nephew's laptop with a Realtek wireless card & WPA2 (TKIP+AES) . There's a wireless assistant that asks you for the SSID , password ....etc . After that you might have to restart your laptop to get your connection going .
Realtek cards are usually Linux friendly . They (Realtek) even have Linux native drivers for some of their cards .
135 • Mepis, et al.. and useless csi commands (when hardware isn't seen) (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-30 01:20:23 GMT from United States)
This is all very amusing to me, having been through so much at so many distro forums (17 in all!!).
The output of a command such as lspcidrake -v, etc, shows all but my Realtek card. I will swap out to my Linux hard drive tomorrow morning and post that shell result (thanx for asking).
I have been around and around with this issue to such an extent that I finally posted in here an offer to distro developers to resolve the issue for payment (a rather token amount, which I can afford, of $200 American, and now I am upping that to $350).
I would like to see THIS laptop boot up and act like (hold your judgementalism) Vista does: all hardware recognized and wireless right there for me to utilize immediately upon login.
136 • REF#135 If you keep going... (by John Grub on 2008-05-30 01:50:49 GMT from United States)
At the rate your going, in a couple of weeks the price you will be offering you can go out and buy another laptop that is Linux approved :)
Seriously though, just take your money and do as someone else suggested and buy another wireless card for way under $350 USD, that will work with Linux!
137 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 02:03:16 GMT from United States)
Maybe you should stick to windows if you aren't willing to listen or learn. Throwing money at the problem will not solve it either. Instead of offering $350 for someone to program a driver, which may not be possible or legal, for $40 you could easily buy a Linux friendly WiFi card, such as an internal Intel or Athros one.
138 • @136 - Wotchu talkin' 'bout Willis? (by Seargent Hardnut on 2008-05-30 02:11:17 GMT from Australia)
That would be way too easy to spend say (max) US $50 on a solution rather than SCREAM TO THE WHOLE WORLD how much of a damn hardnut I am 'cos I want MY, and I mean MY, wireless card in MY dang laptop to work JUUUUUUUUUUST like it does with *drum roll....* Viiiiiiiisssssstttttaaaa... ;-)
@135 (Jerry B) - surely a little compromise???
I had the same issue with a laptop. Hoped for the best but to no avail, no wireless... Bought a dongle that worked. End of story...
139 • @ 138....Where is LOGICAL common sense? ----> (by Lost in USA on 2008-05-30 02:24:32 GMT from Australia)
+1 on your comment and suggestion!
Cheers
PS: Now he can give you the difference in the price he was willing to pay! :-)
140 • Laptop Feeding Frenzy (by John Grub on 2008-05-30 02:42:32 GMT from United States)
Hold on guys. Remember me #136. I also suggested it. If he's willing to throw good money around, I should get a part of the $350 loot.
Actually none of this makes much sense. He surely thought of just buying another wireless card. Either that or he's just heard-headed and refuses to give in to the whole idea.
141 • lol wut (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 02:57:08 GMT from United States)
@140 I'm guessing the latter but you'd be surprised anymore.
@138 I lol'd
142 • @ ALL OF US (by Seargent HardNut on 2008-05-30 02:58:01 GMT from Australia)
Yeah but you're a Septic Tank and you don't count! ;-)
Just gagging... We should all share in the joy of $300 ($350 less $50 for new Linux friendly USB dongle ;-) ) I say Jerry donates it to a worthy cause... Hand it to a poor homeless soul in the street. No need to donate to some open source IT project...
143 • Linux Newbie (by Rhonda on 2008-05-30 03:02:05 GMT from United States)
New to Linux and would like to try it out. The PC I would like to try it out on has a Pentium 75MHz with 64 MB RAM.
Requesting opinions on which Distros to try.
144 • Maybe a translation is required for those not versed in Oz... (by Seargent HardNut on 2008-05-30 03:02:14 GMT from Australia)
Septic Tank = Yank = A person from the U.S.A.
Comprende amigos?
Hasta la vists... but I will not be back.
145 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 03:47:53 GMT from Canada)
I just went through a great experience on a Ubuntu IRC chatroom. I vented my problems galore, and on dedicated user helped me out and solved my problem regardless. Had this been in the PCLinuxOS IRC chat, I would have been banned.
A little bit of venting is natural for humans. It's how we get frustrations out. This person was understanding and patient.
A bit of tolerance goes a long way for new users!
146 • @143 (by Seargent HardNut on 2008-05-30 04:33:51 GMT from Australia)
You must have knocked at the right time... Deli Linux just released!
http://www.delilinux.org/
Sounds like it fits your requirements!
147 • 146 • @143 Knock, knock (by John Grub on 2008-05-30 05:33:37 GMT from United States)
"Pentium 75MHz with 64 MB"
It's hard to believe a Linux system can run with that setup! I thought my PII, 300mHz, 192 MB system was old. I'll have to try Deli Linux.
148 • FreeBSD - Solaris - XP (by Eugene on 2008-05-30 06:03:56 GMT from Poland)
John Frey on Open Solaris: "...I would not recommend OpenSolaris for older computers, although I would be interested in trying it on a PII or PIII server with the required 512 MB or more RAM. Also, hardware support is very limited."
This is why I wil continue using FreeBSD 7.0 with the KDE as my desktop OS. It is stable, fast, and performs well on my AMD 1000 with only 256 MB RAM. In fact, it runs faster and without my hard drive constantly working than my former Windows XP. The RAM and processor requirements of FreeBSD are very low and you can revive those old pc's rather than disposing of them. I've never witnessed such speed and stability on any Linux distro as well.
149 • TGIF (by MiniMe on 2008-05-30 06:12:17 GMT from Germany)
Ladislav, keep up the good work...
Thanks god its friday!
150 • @135 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-05-30 06:43:25 GMT from Canada)
The thing is, it's pretty hard to work out what's going wrong with your adapter if we don't even know exactly what it is. :) When it comes to working on hardware support, what we basically really need is the PCI or USB ID. Anything else - manufacturer name, device's brand name, whatever - is insufficiently specific. If we can at least get the USB ID of this card then we know exactly what it is and it becomes easy to know at least theoretically *how* it should work, in any distro. Which helps in getting it to work, helps in fixing it in the distros where it doesn't work, and probably will help in knowing what distro it *should* work on. Without a precise ID of the hardware we're basically playing pin the tail on the donkey.
151 • 143 (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 09:06:13 GMT from United States)
That's a Windows 95 machine? You can try Damn Small Linux, Slitaz or DeLi. Don't expect much in the way of looks - that's really old.
152 • LMAO (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-30 10:56:38 GMT from United States)
There are some seriously impaired readers in here, some posting anonymously and some posting a name.
A "windows 95 machine?" LOL! Yeah.. My Toshiba Satellite (which I named up there many posts ago) with it's 2 gig RAM, etc (which I reported up there many posts ago) came with Windows 95.
Give me a break.
Some of you will not THINK, chosing to REACT instead, and apparently you chose to react without even reading an entire post: you're just letting certain words jump out at you and then you scroll down to the text box and start your goofy venom. That says a lot about you.
Now, the issue of this offer, maybe I'll up it to more than the price of the laptop, so? You don't "get it" do you? READ: it's about the most oft posted problem at the various Linux forums with regard to laptops and Linux, "problems with wifi/wireless." I want the developers to focus on that issue and hone it down to working "out of the box" as they have with nVidia and other grapics cards over time when that issue kept showing its face.
You hate talking guys might want to chip in to this issue let's get some real money into this and to the Linux makers, isn't that what you advocate? I see "show your true colors and donate, don't just use the software and then cry about it when you can't get something working" in here from time to time. Put YOUR money where your hateful mouth is.
153 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 11:03:57 GMT from France)
Who's hateful now?
154 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 11:44:14 GMT from France)
But no matter whether it was intentional or not, the first half of his message was rather humorous...
155 • 152 (by Andy on 2008-05-30 12:31:22 GMT from United States)
Uh, Jerry? Calm down, please.
The anonymous poster who asked about a Win 95 machine was responding to posting 143, an inquiry about a Pentium 75MHz with 64 MB RAM machine.
Considering this, your post *is* a little funny.
Andy
156 • re 152 (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 12:52:02 GMT from Canada)
Jerry, who's funny now?
157 • RE 143 : an incomplete list of distrs for older PCs. (by dbrion on 2008-05-30 14:37:03 GMT from France)
"New to Linux and would like to try it out. The PC I would like to try it out on has a Pentium 75MHz with 64 MB RAM"
I would try (arbitrary order) Slitaz, DSL, Austrumi and AntiX) I do not recommand Deli, though John Frey recommended it 3 months ago here to a very skilled man (and I should have thanked him) because it needs to configure on the CLI, at least the former version : wo not emulate the newer version this week end...).The four first ones appealed me, but need a CDROM reader.....
This subjective appeal results *only* from qemulating|vmplaying them... which is easier than having really old HW .
Deli Linux needs to be fully installed before judging...
If you are new to linux, and before trying on real stuff, perhaps you could try Virtual Box, if you have a newer PC to see whether the looks and functionalities appeal you - for HWrecognition, it is not convenient- (if your old one is still working, whatever your system, training yourself to have a working linux would not harm...).
Hope I am not too wrong, nor too tedious
PS It was @143 answer...
158 • Jerry B. (by john frey on 2008-05-30 14:46:00 GMT from Canada)
It's OK to be funny Jerry, even if you didn't mean to be:) Everyone else was just joking around too.
One mistake that people asking for help often make, they think they know what they need and refuse to listen to the help that is being offered.
A little tale: A man was floundering in the water and doomed to drown without rescue. A boat came by and offered to pull the man out. "That's OK, said the man, I'm waiting for god to help me." A helicopter appeared shortly after and the man refused their help. "God will surely save me", he said. The man drowned and went to heaven. He asked God, "Why didn't you save me?" God replied, "I tried, I sent you a boat and a helicopter."
Now, you may insist that you have tried everything and nobody has any help for you but there are solutions presented already and poor Adam can't get your output for love or money. Do you really want help? Then help others to help you.
You've probably used up all your patience on those other forums but if you want help then dig deep and, rather than offer money, offer just a little more patience.
159 • 143, 157 (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 15:15:17 GMT from United States)
Yes AntiX is best for a new user if it will run on that machine. You will have to use the older Spartacus version for a Pentium.
If it works, there is no question that AntiX is the best choice.
160 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 15:17:14 GMT from Canada)
The dilemma comes down to this:
How much effort and time one needs in order to fix the problem?
How much effort and time one needs in order to find another problem to complain about once the original problem is solved?
It seems that Jerry decided that finding a new problem requires more effort and time.
161 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-30 15:41:01 GMT from United States)
Jerry B #152 Obviously it is you who is not reading since you just BAWWED over a post that wasn't even talking to you. Please, take your problems somewhere else if since its obvious you aren't listening to anyone here. Several of us have posted requests for a bit of information and you seem steadfast in not providing it. So if you won't give the information needed, then we can't help. If you don't want to help us help you, then either bugger off or buy a card that works with Linux. Its that easy. Also after your fit over something that wasn't even directed at you you'll be lucky if anyone helps you at all. I have a feeling your temper and refusal to listen and provide information is why no one else helped you at other places.
162 • Cor 157 (by dbrion on 2008-05-30 15:42:45 GMT from France)
You should at least, if you try Austrumi, try two versions (it needs "a lot" of RAM to start, when I tested it last year... and it evolves with the capacities of old computers -yours is *very* old)
I forgot to mention detaolb , a pure life mini-CD(http://detaolb.sourceforge.net/ ), if you want to learn how to program (else??? : it is meant to teach.. : you can get a very nice vim, among many other useful tiny softs I (try to) put on my real systems...) as it may recognize some real disks (it is not meant for (!!) but this has been reported!!) and it never needs more than 16 M RAM to start, and it has a US key,qp/keymap by default , and it boots very fast (minimalistic HW recognition) and....
Hope you have a working CDROM reader, anyway.....
163 • @152 (by DeniZen on 2008-05-30 18:22:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
Jerry said: "Linux, "problems with wifi/wireless." I want the developers to focus on that issue and hone it down to working "out of the box" "
Well, its getting close eh?
But .. does Windows work with (all) Wifi cards 'out of the box'?
Nope ..
Vista may stand a chance I gather. - if so then so it should do for the $$$ and the sheer bloat.
Generally, for Wifi in Windows, you need the driver / driver CD, and a bit of fiddling (like Linux may need a bit of fiddling .. or quite likely - it might not nowadays)
With most Windows releases , if you dont have the drivers, you cant get on the net to get the drivers.
Familiar? ;)
So what the benchmark for 'outta the box' ?
164 • No subject (by random bystander on 2008-05-30 19:07:45 GMT from United States)
I've owned Toshiba, Dell and Acer laptops though the years and my WiFi has always worked either out of the box or with minimal effort. Granted I've only used the one distro constantly while distro hopping on other machines. Intel seems the best bet, or Atheros.
165 • Wired On The Wireless Topic (by Landor on 2008-05-30 19:36:47 GMT from Canada)
Isn't that the same Jerry from the USA that knocks Linux every other week and proclaims Bill Gates and Windows as his supreme overlord? I found it kind've funny if it is, he found a new way to rope people.
On a note regarding wireless. I couldn't have had an easier time totally configuring Gentoo for wireless and can't understand all the headaches. I said this here when I first went wireless and remember someone else agreeing. I think all it take is a bit of research beforehand and some common sense.
A friend of mine just recently went wireless. They run triplel boot for XP and Ubuntu and Mandriva. For both Linux systems their wireless card was configured out of the box (older P4 box with a card they installed) and with XP they had to install the driver. Even with updates they continually have issues with the wireless randomly shutting down them for them. While with Linux they've never once lost their wireless.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
166 • Jerry-Rigged (by Verndog on 2008-05-30 21:25:00 GMT from United States)
There's one thing for sure,Jerry whoever you are, has kept us busy either trying to help him or flaming him. This could very well be his plan all along
Maybe we need to give it a rest and concentrate on Linux distros for the moment.
I just downloaded that "deli-0.8.0-full.iso" and will try it on an old Compaq to see how well it works.
167 • Jerry keep your cash (by jeverettk on 2008-05-30 22:34:52 GMT from United States)
Your comment that this is a major problem in Linux is ill informed. The bottom line is that your wireless card uses one of the newest chipsets and you're simply suffering from basic Linux kernel development delay.
There are in fact drivers available for this and if you're in a hurry, then you can DIY with some basic googling.
Kernel development is not something that distro devs usually deal with, esp when your "major problem" will probably only impact a dozen or so people for about a month or so until kernel updates are available in your favorite distro.
SO, save your money, save your breath. Go with PCLOS (in spite of the negative fora issues), and when the next kernel update is rolled out, you won't even have to reinstall, just update your kernel in Synaptic, and VOILA - outta the box (the rolling release jack-in-the-box) functionality.
168 • Linux Newbie Again (by Rhonda on 2008-05-31 01:25:08 GMT from United States)
Yes, I know the Pentium 75 MHz/64 MB Ram PC is very old. Just something that I acquired recently. It is my PC instructor's opinion that we will be seeing a lot more of Linux in the future and I just wanted to see if I could get any kind of Linux Distro on this system just to check it out. I appreciate the suggestions.
169 • @guy w/ toshiba (by Josh Lane on 2008-05-31 02:18:43 GMT from United States)
I have a Toshiba Satellite A205 S5809 and it works fine with Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04, PLOS GNOME, Mandriva 2008 and 2008.1.
You are obviously doing something wrong, or just want to flame and whine.
170 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-31 03:03:07 GMT from United States)
I'm guessing either his card has malfunctioned or successful troll was successful.
171 • Jerry Bee Good... (by Seargent HardNut on 2008-05-31 06:56:44 GMT from Australia)
Bahhh, if he was a troll then I hope that not only does the wireless malfunction but the whole laptop melts into a stinking pile of vista-juice.... eeek! ;-)
Sheeesh, try to help someone and looks like they are just trolling... Dangnamit! I'm gonna get ya, ya varrrrrmin... We even try to help him spend LESS money! Could have saved himself a packet not purchasing Vista and buying a working Linux friendly USB dongle... And still have money to donate to some homeless soul...
On a brighter note, am enjoying latest offering from Slackware - 12.1.
172 • Troll (by #169 on 2008-05-31 11:15:52 GMT from Jordan)
Ladislav knows his ip & I think he should do something about it .
173 • To morrow is Sun Day (by dbrion on 2008-05-31 11:54:17 GMT from France)
and a simple attractive review of O Solaris should be congratulated.
w/r to HW issues, it takes time to have HW support (and, if the analogy with BSDs is relevant, I was ennoyed last year with PCBSD not recognising external USB drives : mine was found too big, like MacOS >128G, this year, it is well recognized).
w/r to software issues, OSolaris has a sed (in /usr/bin or /bin) but it might be found unusable, like make (gsed and gmake can display their version numbers, --version, and have more functionalities than the old sed and make (unless gnu - sed is invoked "sed --posix"...).
The number of packages is very small, but the definition of a package varies (Landor pointed out that KDE4 was not more monolithic, but split into many packages one can choose not to install). In OpenSolaris, they seem to make ultramonolithic packages :
* from its dependencies, R { a statistical and teaching GNUproject } is linked by OSolaris (in its latest release, R-2.7.0-sol10-x86-local.gz ) with gnome, and, from its size, it is huge w/r to traditional R binary installs(twice the size) : this can make a very pleasant R, like under Windows (under Linux, one never knows (remote connections) which desktop -if any- one will have, and it therefore remains -almost - pure CLI; for beginners, it is sometimes unpleasant).
OTOH, Skolelinux (and likewise Debian) splits the traditional R into ~20 packages, each with a distinct topic (or meant to have the documentation printable without breaking a normal lprinter)....
174 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-31 12:15:03 GMT from United States)
"this can make a very pleasant R, like under Windows (under Linux, one never knows (remote connections) which desktop -if any- one will have, and it therefore remains -almost - pure CLI; for beginners, it is sometimes unpleasant)"
Huh? R is R.
You run it from the command line in Linux. You don't get much more in Windows.
I use RKWard and have a pretty good IDE. Tinn-R is being ported to Linux I have heard. And there is Emacs. R is a programming language. The default interface is different in Windows, but it's still a command line interface.
175 • RE 174 I *fully* agree .... for me (by dbrion on 2008-05-31 12:43:49 GMT from France)
But, on a remote connection, with low BP, what would KDE+RKward give (I can connect to GNU/linux servers having many Gs of RAM if needed, but without any desktop... and, if needed, I first test/read the manuals under Windows on my desktop).
But, if I tell it is a very pleasant CLI, colleagues who begin can be intimidated by the mere geeky acronym.... if I give an almost user-friendly interface (based on vim or geany Windows ports ) and if they do not have to install a linux (on computers that are meant to be Windows ), they can better understand when I speak about the way R works...
(it would be funny to know the ratio : (free soft $ported)/ (free soft under a free kernel), if the kernel they work on and popularity (hordes of newcomers!) are| were that relevant....)
In French, linux users are called linuxiens (linuxers). How can one call R users? RERs?
176 • Sick reactions in here.. (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-31 14:20:20 GMT from United States)
"..troll.." ?? etc..
This is disgusting stuff to read in distrowatch. "..knows his ip and should do something about it.." etc.
I emailed the sysop here and told him of my intentions and even made the suggestion to mention it himself if he saw fit, as a way to get this problem resolved for those of us with this model of laptop (S5809). The person up there who posted that his/hers is working may not have this particular card, Toshiba Satellites, as was pointed out earlier, are NOT all the same, even those with the "A205" designation.
What is "trolling?" What would be the point? To get people to hate something? To hate Toshiba laptops? To hate the distros I've tried? To hate Linux? A person would actuallly sit down at their computer and decide to go into distrowatch and make posts to get people to hate something or other by offering money for a fix of a networking apparatus?
Some of you are very imaginative. Some of you seem to mimic paranoid schizophrenia rather well; get help. Those of you who sense my sincerity here, thank you! You seem to be the minority in this particular comments area.
Again, the challenge is not about me or my machine, it is about networking with laptops that have no compatibility at the moment. Devs can earn extra money by solving this. That's it. Plain and simple.
177 • ref176 (by Verndog on 2008-05-31 15:41:14 GMT from United States)
I find it very telling Jerry B., that you didn't address the simple and eloquent solution of just handing a dongle on the Toshiba, for your wireless solution.
178 • @177 • ref176 (by john frey on 2008-05-31 16:55:07 GMT from Canada)
Exactly (although I think you mean "elegant solution", that's the usual terminology) :)
Still neglecting to post your output Jerry.
You see why people call you a troll? You don't address the solutions and won't provide an output to show you have an actual issue. All we get is complaining about the problem and responses you don't like, name calling and attacks. Cooperation Jerry. Ever heard of it?
What will the devs work with if they don't have your hardware? They will need something to start with and your output would be something they could use.
179 • Post "output"?? (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-31 22:00:56 GMT from United States)
I've posted the output of various commands all over the distro forums.
We've been talking about this, here where we use the old pc (with the new "AntiX" by Mepis on it), the new, high teck machine and the damned Toshiba notebook with the Linux networking problem, and the prevailing opinion seems to be that we should all have gotten together and hammered out a strategy having to do with this thing of offering money to a distro for the networking solution.
There are now 6 users of the laptop in question (there were 5 up until late April), and none of us want Vista to remain as the default OS on that particular computer. It was my idea to post here about the problem and to offer a reward do developers; I did not consult with those in the house about this idea.
Now I'm being yelled at for not just going to to the various forums and posting an offer in a new topic instead of coming to distrowatch and making a post with the money amount and the problem. They are saying that I should have picked "five or ten favorite distributions" and posted in their forums or (as one in the house suggested) emailed them one at a time with the idea and the offer, along with the specs on the machine (one HELL of a troublesome mishmash of hardware, it turns out: Toshiba A205 S5809 Satellite) that has so much problems with Linux networking.
Posting here about it has just caused the nutsos to come out en masse, along with a few of you who do see what we're trying to do and have posted positive remarks (thank you!).
The offer is now $500 American money. Just produce and allow for free download an iso that creates a Linux distribution that detects and allows "out of the box" configuration of wireless/wifi on a Toshiba Satellite A205 S5809 laptop, then the money is yous (not a fortune, but I will tell you developers this: if you do it, we will not just send you the money via money order, we will crow about your achievment here and in every Linux forum, including Linux Questions.org that we know of!).
- Jerry B.
180 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-05-31 22:25:35 GMT from United States)
Hello Jerry,
For $549 you can buy a Dell laptop that comes with Ubuntu linux preinstalled! I wish I could help more than that, but I'm no developer. I wish you the best of luck with your laptop!
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
181 • 180 (again) :( (by Jerry B. on 2008-05-31 22:55:19 GMT from United States)
I know you mean well, but as I have posted here before, it is not about me (actually "us," being as how there are several users of the laptop in question), it is about all in the world who own that model/make: Toshiba Satellite A205 S5809.
The money is for development, not to satisfy the users in this house of that laptop sitting there. Please read all of the post by Jerry B. in this comments area, as it has been mentioned more than one time. :)
182 • Toshiba Satellite A205 S5809. (by anticapitalista on 2008-06-01 00:36:31 GMT from Greece)
I have been reading this thread and I am very disappointed with a lot of replies to Jerry B and generally I'm disappointed with a lot of posts here. It seems that there are far too many people who post here that want to slam one distro over another or label someone who has a genuine question as a troll.
I know Jerry B has tried getting his internal usb wireless to work on antiX (and we couldn't get it to work) as well as trying on other distros without success. My knowledge is limited, many devs also have limited knowledge too. But there are too many smart arses here that seemingly 'know-all', but show-nowt.
I don't like jerry B's financial reward (personally speaking) way of solving his and others problems, but I don not think there is anything sinister about it.
The guy has bought a laptop and he wants it to work 'out-of-the-box' with linux. Most of it does, only his wifi doesn't work. Instead of replying, 'get a new linux-friendly lappy' or 'buy a wifi that works' he wants someone to solve the wifi problem.
Can linux do it? I couldn't care less which linux distro succeeds. It will benefit us all (and without the money)
183 • No subject (by VRK on 2008-06-01 01:05:13 GMT from United States)
Jerry B.
I saw you said you were using WPA2 and a hidden SSID. I've found that a lot of WiFi drivers for Linux cannot do that quite yet, but have no problems with WEP and a broadcasted SSID. It might be possible that WPA2 and the hidden SSID is whats stopping you. I'll do a little research and see if I can dig up information on a driver.
184 • No subject (by VRK on 2008-06-01 01:12:59 GMT from United States)
Me again. After digging around a little I've found the driver and its install guide, but it also says its included in a lot of modern distros. Try using WEP instead of WPA2, I think thats what might be giving you all the trouble. Hidden SSID's cause issues SOMETIMES too. The page I found is here:
http://rtl-wifi.sourceforge.net/wiki/Installing
Its a little complex and involves compiling source code, but its worth a try. It should be a Linux Realtek driver.
Best of Luck
185 • Linus Torvalds Advice When Buying (Or Looking For) Hardware For Linux (by Food For Thought on 2008-06-01 02:54:43 GMT from Australia)
APC: Out of curiosity, do you have anything to say to hardware manufacturers who refuse to release datasheets or specifications about the functioning of their hardware so it could operate with the Linux kernel?
LT: Is "I hope you all die a painful death" too strong?
The good news is that a lot of hw manufacturers are actually doing the right thing. Intel in particular has improved wrt open source a lot, and for that reason I tend to suggest that when buying a machine, just make sure that you buy one with Intel graphics and wireless. That takes care of the two biggest annoyances right there.
But Intel certainly isn't the only one, and we're doing fairly well in general - with just a few dark spots.
http://apcmag.com/node/7012
186 • There is a project running for Linux Driver Development, why not take driver (by issues there? on 2008-06-01 03:15:49 GMT from Australia)
Developers free to work on open-source Atheros Wi-Fi
Aug. 01, 2007
While Linux desktop users have long been able to use Wi-Fi cards based on Atheros chip sets, they haven't been able to do so without using proprietary Atheros code. Now, the Software Freedom Law Center has given the green light to developers working on an open-source substitution for the closed-source code.
The technology in question, OpenHAL, enables users with wireless cards based on technology from Atheros Communications to connect to networks using exclusively free and open-source software.
OpenHAL is low-level interface software for Atheros 802.11 Wi-Fi cards. Without OpenHAL, Linux-based systems need a proprietary HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) plus a wrapper driver to use these wireless cards. Thus, OpenHAL is an open-source replacement for Atheros' proprietary HAL.
[...]
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2566703695.html
Linux device driver project needs more unsupported devices to work on!
Oct. 24, 2007
Desktop Linux needs drivers. Right? Of course. So why is Novell's Greg Kroah-Hartman, a Linux kernel developer and head of the Linux Driver Project, having to ask people to tell him about devices that need drivers?
It's a good question, and Kroah-Hartman doesn't have the complete answer. What he does know, as he explained in his blog, is that while the Linux Driver Project now has "over 300 different developers signed up to help create and maintain Linux drivers," at the same time he doesn't have "enough work to keep them busy."
[....]
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6669895837.html
Food for thought
187 • The Linux Driver Project----> The Right Place For Driver Issue Discussion (by Suggestion on 2008-06-01 03:25:01 GMT from Australia)
The Linux Driver Project is focused on creating and maintaining OpenSource Linux kernel drivers for all types of devices.
About us
We are a group of Linux kernel developers (over 200 strong) and project managers (over 10) that develop and maintain Linux kernel drivers. We work with the manufacturers of the specific device to specify, develop, submit to the main kernel, and maintain the kernel drivers. We are willing and able to sign NDAs with companies if they wish to keep their specifications closed, as long as we are able to create a proper GPLv2 Linux kernel driver as an end result.
[...]
http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view
188 • RE: #143 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-01 04:05:56 GMT from United States)
I'd add Puppy v.2 to that list.
I had a old machine with a even older non-atapi cd drive that worked with a boot floppy and 3 files put on the hard drive.
I had to use dos to be able to install the driver for the CD to copy the 3 files.
Now if getting a reliable and well tested windows xp share to work in PCLOS 2008 was that easy.
189 • re: 182 negative advice? (by Dopher on 2008-06-01 09:41:49 GMT from Belgium)
I don't think that my advice of buying a linux supported wifi interface (pcmcia or usb dongle) was such a negative advice anticapitalista.
It was merely a realistic way of solving his issue. You can make an elephant out of a fly, but if his only problem was the wifi connection, why not solve it immediately by such a simple solution.
Sometimes you have to accept that certain stuff is not supported. And, instead of wasting alot of energy on complaining, coming up with unrealistic demands, it's better to just use the simple solution. In this case, just buy a cheap linux supported wifi interface.
That way you can continue your work. And just use your system. Also, if everyone just buy's linux supported devices, it might motivate companies to just come up with linux drivers for their products.
190 • some people just don't get it (by Mike on 2008-06-01 11:48:44 GMT from United States)
how to sell win xp machines? make them cheaper that the same machine with (free) linux! I suppose we'll soon see Balmer displaying this as proof that windows is cheaper.
the link is to an amazon ad for 2gopc :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016ONIS0/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&s=pc
the drop down let's you see the spec for the "cheaper" windows xp version.
This is a link to 2goPC with the machines side by side.
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-alias=computers&field-brandtextbin=2goPC
191 • Parsix Viola Release Schedule changed (by H-MC on 2008-06-01 14:22:36 GMT from Iran, Islamic Republic of)
Parsix Viola Release Schedule changed !! TEST-3 on June 8th and Viola FINAL on June 15th
http://www.parsix.org/html/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=1341#1341
192 • Qu 188 : Is Puppy Linux a good choice for very old PCs (by dbrion on 2008-06-01 15:04:19 GMT from France)
and beginners (cf 143) :
As everything is preloaded (in Puppy) in RAM, this makes (even with an old version) very few functionalities for 64M....even if starting times are INCREDIBLY faster for textprocessing_browsing_THE_web_music_listening (after, does it change anything?)... As I do not know which apps @143 needs for learning (perhaps he needs a gcc compiler, which can be found on cygwin I massively used before trying GNUlinux -there was no potemkining (qemu|Vbox|VMplayer) then- ..., or in books -no power shortage issues-...)
However, the
use of old versions of distributions (if they still remain)
or of
netinstalls (if he knows someone to do the difficult job until he is satisfied : I have a Debian Image without Window Manager which does not eat more than 3M RAM, when VMplayed, to operate a cross-compiler, it is enough!!, else one must add a WM, make it sexy, etc...)
is a good idea (I fear AntiX gave up supporting old 386s...)
193 • No subject (by VRK on 2008-06-01 15:47:34 GMT from United States)
@189
Sometimes using something other than the internal can break the Centrino Platform or something like that but since he's using a RealTek card, it wouldn't be Centrino. On the other hand, a lot of linux users are told to "Buy Taiwan" since they are supposedly more linux friendly. RealTek is indeed a Taiwanese with a linux driver, there just seems to be something stopping it from working properly.
194 • @179 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-06-01 17:49:51 GMT from Canada)
The 'output' in question is the output of lspcidrake -v on Mandriva, and the output of lsusb on any distro. I keep saying we need to know the ID of your device to really look into support for it, and you keep not providing it.
195 • geezzz (by tech2k on 2008-06-01 19:11:26 GMT from United States)
He wouldnt even need to change and boot from a hard drive to post some lspci type info just boot a live drake cd.
Im starting to think troll and may not even own the hardware in question and gets unsupported devices with google to start cryin about.
Or maybe just anal retentive and wont listen...just guesses.
Ive been m$ free for a number of years and can remember askin my buddy how to start that X thingey back in the day :)
When I needed help search engines were my first line of defence and when I turned to mailing list,irc,bbs,fourms,newsgroups,etc. I posted any requested information quickly and followed instructions and often got a working sloution in a short time.
196 • I forgot.... (by tech2k on 2008-06-01 19:25:39 GMT from United States)
Moving on....This article is a few months old but very well written and worth a read if anyone missed it.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/02/07/why-does-microsoft-really-want-yahoo/
Opensource have a very bright future and has already come so far in such a short time.
Looking foward to the next DW weekly and what everyone here has to say. The issue a few weeks ago with the bash tips from everyone really rocked.
197 • sick sick sick! (by Jerry B. on 2008-06-01 21:33:25 GMT from United States)
I am not even sure if "sick" is appropriate to describe some of the strange interpretations of our efforts here to get a networking distro on our Toshiba machine.
It is beginning to appear as if neurosis, paranoia and all around idiocy is the order of the day here at the comments area of distrowatch.
I came here this afternoon to report my results with "Myah 3," the latest distro release noted at the main site. I can tell you it failed, too. But that is the least of our worries, it appears.
We cannot BELIEVE what we are seeing in here in reference to our offer of money for a "out of the box" networking system for the new laptop we have: Toshiba A205 S5809. The concensus here is that posters in this area are about 10% sincere and 90% nut cases with weird views of one another.
Shame on those of you!
We'll have to correspond with each distro developer individually with our offer. We will not be back to this strange place.
What a disgusting eye opener here!
198 • re:197 (by Dopher on 2008-06-01 21:49:19 GMT from Belgium)
Jerry B, man, geez.. What a dramatic response. I guess you forgot to take your medication today. Anyway, i wish you good luck in your search.
199 • re Toshiba A205 S5809 (by hab on 2008-06-01 22:05:12 GMT from Canada)
These two links seem to provide an ndiswrapper solution for the realtek 8185 wifi chipset, at least on ubu 8.04. It should be adaptable to other distros as well. http://mycirilo.com/?p=24 , http://zibland.com/blog/?p=820
One may have to get one's hands a little dirty and do some manual config work, but then everything doesn't work out of the box in win or mac either!
In a perfect universe, yada yada..........
cheers
200 • Re: 197 - Jerry B. drivel (by Anon. on 2008-06-01 22:22:12 GMT from Norway)
Jerry B. wrote: "We will not be back to this strange place."
A good idea. Hope you stick to it.
201 • And The Beat Goes On... (by Landor on 2008-06-01 22:26:20 GMT from Canada)
I was reading this trying to find more useful info in this week's discussion (which I did) and I couldn't help shake a feeling I had last time as well when reading it as something I've seen before.
I don't know if it was here, or a link posted here. But I remembered reading something very similar about donating money to get something done for them within the last year and people getting uptight about it.
Anti, I know he has been in contact with you, but that still doesn't mean it's true.
I enjoyed the recent release of Slackware. As per usual. It's an amazing build from thee Hallmark distro. I wasn't impressed with a couple others as of late, but I won't say anything negative about them. I'm lookin' forward Gentoo releasing 2008. If the beta1 run was any example we should see it in the next day or so. But as I read in the forums there, it's going to be released when it's ready to be, not before.
Oh, and I forget where the blog is, but someone wrote a bit about you in their blog Ladislav. About your call to anyone who has anything positive to say about Gentoo and, or their experience with it. I think the blog quoted many places such information could be found. While I'm on the topic about stuff like that. I remember you replying to me here that Gentoo gave no reason for 2007.1 not being released. When I clicked cancelled on the Release Engineer Page (I think, but I'm sure you know what I mean) it had a reason for it not being released in early January. All it took was for someone to want to find it instead of not wanting to.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
202 • 189 • re: 182 negative advice? (by Dopher on 2008-06-01 09:41:49 GMT from Belgiu (by anticapitalista on 2008-06-01 23:28:34 GMT from Greece)
No it wasn't negative advice, and my post wasn't referring to you. I know you give good advice and you help people here, but my point is that the comments box here on DistroWatch is pretty awful on the whole. One post in maybe 10 (probably much less unfortunately) is useful comment/criticism the rest is just distro-baiting rubbish. Usually the first 10 posts are ok, then all it takes is one post and the whole thread is useless.
I was hoping people would seriously discuss the issues that came up in the latest DW and discuss the latest releases, especially the least known ones like TinyMe for example. But 200 plus posts later only, 3 (I think, maybe only 2) even mention TinyMe.
I think it's best for me to retire from the comments section.
203 • Jeery B... Gone? (by Sergent HardNut on 2008-06-01 23:30:42 GMT from Australia)
What a shame Jerry u won't be to 'listen' to advice. You can rant and rave all u like regarding "out if the box experience" and offerings of money to developers but if you'd only listened and tried something, hmmm... what is the correct word? Different? Logical? Sensible? Ahhhhhh.... there is it! You may have been happier instead of venting off about something so pathetic.
Please go back to your Vista machine and stop whiiiiiiiining...
By the way where is that output something someone kept asking you for? We're still waiting... ZZzzzzzzzzzzz.... Wake me up when you come to your senses...
204 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-01 23:59:29 GMT from United States)
Honestly I'm surprised Ladislav even bothers to keep the comments section here. The newsletter and Main site would suffice. I just wish people actually paid attention to the quote on the comment box, perhaps it would be a better place.
205 • Two Parter (by Verndog on 2008-06-02 00:43:33 GMT from United States)
"...The concensus here is that posters in this area are about 10% sincere and 90% nut cases with weird views of one another...." This statement was quite funny, sad, but true.
The problem is that these comments are not monitored very well. Ladislav, needs to have a ruthless moderator. I know, get that guy from PCLinuxOS forum over here to straighten out this comment section. The one that everyone keeps complaining about. Once its understood what is going to be allowed or tolerated, then this section will change.
Back on topic, if there is such a thing, I was at my financial web site and I couldn't download a PDF file. Actually it a link to a PDF file. I wasn't sure what it was. I was using Firefox on ubuntu. It kept failing , saying only I needed thirsd party add on.
So I fired up Mandriva and used Konquarer. It went through this time. Ubuntu 8.04 uses that Firefox 3 beta. I just realized theat Mandriva uses version 2. I'll try that later and see if that works. I've heard a lot of complaints regarding Firefox version 3 beta.
I used Operat when I use to use Windows to visit my financial web site. I refuse to use Windows and see how long I can do things without it.
206 • Second Part (by Verndog on 2008-06-02 00:49:29 GMT from United States)
Okay, I back, and Firefox version 2 failed as well. I did install the PDF add-on, but that didn't work. The dialog says I need some third party software and to see your help desk?! It doesn't say what I need.
Konqueror didn't need anything, or its built in.
207 • @Verdog (by DRDOS on 2008-06-02 02:34:35 GMT from United States)
You may be needing the Java runtime package, you might want to check whether you have it.
208 • Ref#207 Thanks DRDOS (by Verndog on 2008-06-02 03:57:58 GMT from United States)
I'm running ubuntu, and when I search Synaptic, there's a ton of Sun Java related files, but is this the only one I need:
"Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture dependent files)"
209 • OpenSuse 11 RC1 installed as x64 / AMD on an HP notebook. (by Andre Gomp. on 2008-06-02 07:07:50 GMT from United States)
Open Suse 11 RC1 -AMD64 with KDE 4 quick report.
Machine used: HP NoteBook Pavillon dv2610us with 2GB RAM
And with Vista 64 bits.
Downloaded openSUSE-11.0-RC1-KDE4-LiveCD-x86_64.iso (685MB)
Installed from the CD, (downloaded from Web site).
Partitioned manually (in the YAST based Installer) to my taste:
/dev/sda1 90 GB NTFS /windows/C (Do not Format this one !)
/dev/sda2 59 GB Extended
/dev/sda5 4 GB Linux swap
/dev/sda6 352 MB ext3 /boot
/dev/sda7 30 GB xfs /
/dev/sda8 6 GB xfs /other
/dev/sda9 18 GB ext3 /common
Shrunk the existing Windows Vista x64, by about half (to approx 85 GB)
Used XFS for the main file system.
Used ext3 for the /boot partition (where GRUB files resides)
Allowed (implicit) dual boot using GRUB.
Problem encountered (annoying but minor): error message durinf swap partition formatting. Had to restart thye whole install process, but shrinking, partitionning went just fine.
And installed pretty much the default "Open SUSE 64 bits KDE4"
The install went smoothly, and at completion, I could boot the system, in dual boot, with VISTA and Open Suse 10 (RC1).
After booting the system, it detected properly thegraphic card and the quality was good (but not perfect).
I could immediately (no setting required) connect to the internet using ethernet connection: both browsers worked: Firefox and Konqueror (slower).
----
YAST was good, and it is getting even faster, better from previous releases:
I am a big fan of KDE based YAST, one of the best Linux management tool, that I have seen: a great combination of ease of use, power, and versatily.
Yast is a part, what makes OpenSuse so nice!
----
NVIDIA Install and Setting:
Downloaded the NVIDIA package NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-71.173.14.05-pkg2.run
YAST-Installed the following packages (used YAST to install) required to install the NVIDIA driver.
1) gcc
2) make
3) kernel-source
Installed the the NVIDIA driver as documemted (run the script in single user mode).
Rebooted (to be sure): the NVIDIA driver worked just nicely, and the NVIDIA control panel is installed. (Application menu -> New Applications).
Suggestion to the SUSE developpers: try to install by default the three packages mentionned above.
I have installed several packages, and so far, so good!
----
DUAL BOOT and Windows Vista access:
The dual boot works perfectly "out of the box".
The Acccess to the NTFS windows partion is mounted by default "Red only" for "users":
I had to modify manually the "fstab" file of every version of OpenSuse, to fix this!
It would be nice, if default access was read write for the "users" group.
----
SKYPE Install and Setting:
Downloaded the Skype RPM for SUSE 10+ (skype-2.0.0.68-suse.i586.rpm), andinstalled it using YAST (dependencies then were automatically resolved: Nice!)
Skype worked immediatly (no manual setting required)with excellent sound quality is just excellent (Skype Linux sound is excellent since kernel 2.65 !)
Minor wrinkle: the user list does not display the usual icon at line end, with user status, but is is there when this user is selected.
Comment: this is the first time I installed Skype (no hassle) on Linux 64 bits... This is a big enhancement!
----
FIREFOX Install and Setting:
Although I was satisfied with the default install, using YAST I removed Firefox and reinstalled it, in order to get the FIREFOX 3 RC1 (excellent).
I had the nice surprised to get a 64 bits version: very fast and stable, and added a few themes and extension (incl. the great nice FOXMarks)
----
WIRELESS:Here this no "piece of cacke" I had to install manually the firmware, and wlassistant (a qt4 application).
And then it worked fine.
Here no "nice automatic install from Yast", hopefully this will be fixed in the future: after all most notebooks and other use
either Broadcom, or Atheros WIFI chips! And the manual install being simple (when you know!) an automated install should not be a big task!
Should we hope the next release (maybe OpenSuse 11.1) can do this?
----
Menu and look... and taste:
SUSE may be the best KDE-4 Distro today, but I do prefer the KUBUNTU 8.04 menus, that I just find simpler to use (less clicks too!)
However, I have to say that for the rest KDE-4 on this SUSE is very good! (Not bad at all for a pre-KDE.1 release!).
I wish and hope, that the OpenSuse 11 Release will have KDE.1 and Firefox 3 releases.
Open SUSE default KDE nackground screens, are quite ugly... but very easy to change yourself!
But OpenSuse could take a bit from Ubuntu where default look is great?
This is not that important, and I am sure that ooner or later, one volunter with great taste will give this excellent distro the look it deserve, out of the box!
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ENCRYPTION:
I installed one "partition" as "Blowfish" encrypted, but the system never asked me for the key at power up, so I must assume this does not work, "out of the box" as it did in OpenSuse 10.2 (and even before).
Hopefully the release version will have this fixed.
----
CONCLUSION:
This was my short experience with OpenSuse 11 RC1, that seems to be a very good "Release Candidate": congratulation to the dedicated OpenSuse developpers!
Since, I have Yast installed several packages, and so far everything seem to work!
Hopefully the on line updates will bring me to the release version, without a full reinstall.
----
Number of Comments: 209
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| Archives |
| • Issue 508 (2013-05-20): Review of Debian 7.0, interviews with Clement Lefebvre and Gaël Duval, scripting with xdotool |
| • Issue 507 (2013-05-13): Impressions of Calculate Linux, 13.4, Ubuntu's portable packages, mintDrivers |
| • Issue 506 (2013-05-06): Ubuntu and Kubuntu 13.04, Debian "Wheezy", Slackware on systemd, distros for Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 505 (2013-04-29): First look at PCLinuxOS 2013.04, Saucy Salamander, Remastersys and System Imager, Linux containers |
| • Issue 504 (2013-04-22): Look at Bodhi 2.3.0, Ubuntu 13.04 features, building OpenBSD ports, opening large files |
| • Issue 503 (2013-04-15): CentOS versus Scientific Linux, PCLinuxOS 64, Lucas Nussbaum, ZFS/Btrfs versus ext4 |
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| • Issue 500 (2013-03-25): Look at openSUSE 12.3, Ubuntu release changes, Debian backports, growing divide |
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| • Issue 491 (2013-01-21): Fuduntu 2013.1, Fedora 18 desktop choices, Consort, accessing encrypted drive |
| • Issue 490 (2013-01-14): Look at Manjaro Linux 0.8.3, openSUSE on Chromebook, Able2Extract 8.0 |
| • Issue 489 (2013-01-07): PC-BSD 9.1, Arch spin-offs, rolling-releases, year-end PHR stats, removing applications |
| • Issue 488 (2012-12-24): Reviews of Unity and Puppy Linux 5.4 "Slacko", FreeBSD 10 |
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| • Issue 484 (2012-11-26): Look at SMS 2.0.1, Fedora pre-beta report, Illumos, Secure Boot update |
| • Issue 483 (2012-11-19): DragonFly BSD 3.2.1 and Xubuntu 12.10, Gentoo and udev, switching file systems |
| • Issue 482 (2012-11-12): Review of Zenwalk 7.2, Clang in FreeBSD, Omniboot 0.5, priorities on external drives |
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| • Issue 480 (2012-10-29): Review of Ubuntu 12.10, Wayland 1.0, FreeBSD's pkgng |
| • Issue 479 (2012-10-22): Look at Zentyal 3.0, Debian bug reporting, initiating a halt |
| • Issue 478 (2012-10-15): Slackware 14.0 review, Ubuntu donations, connecting to multiple machines behind router |
| • Issue 477 (2012-10-08): Review of ODROID-X, OpenBSD's anti-Linux song, interview with Vincent Untz, Linux as operating system |
| • Issue 476 (2012-10-01): Review of openSUSE 12.2, Slackware 14.0 features, accessing home computer with SSH |
| • Issue 475 (2012-09-24): Look at PCLinuxOS 2012.08, Ubuntu and Amazon, SolusOS and PiSi, ownCloud |
| • Issue 474 (2012-09-17): Bodhi Linux 2.0.1, OpenIndiana interview, Frugalware history, update notifications |
| • Issue 473 (2012-09-10): The Linux Command Line, Slackware documentation project, Debian's new primary arch, Goobuntu |
| • Issue 472 (2012-09-03): Kororaa Linux 17, OpenIndiana and SchilliX, Ubuntu GNOME remix, home server tip |
| • Issue 471 (2012-08-27): Linux Mint 13 "KDE", Ubuntu 12.10 features, Slax update, folder quotas |
| • Issue 470 (2012-08-20): Liberté Linux 2012.2, Arch and systemd, NetBSD's sysbuild and sysupgrade, 19 years of Debian |
| • Issue 469 (2012-08-13): Peppermint OS Three, SUSE on Secure Boot, GNOME OS, moving email to Linux |
| • Issue 468 (2012-08-06): First look at CentOS 6.3, Debian installer beta, Fedora and MATE, Libtrash |
| • Issue 467 (2012-07-30): Ubuntu Made Easy, Debian "Jessie", OpenBSD on Secure Boot, Rawhide troubles |
| • Issue 466 (2012-07-23): Fuduntu 2012.3, Linux in PC-BSD jails, secure boot on older computers |
| • Issue 465 (2012-07-16): Netrunner 4.2, Mandriva's two codebases, firewalls and window frames |
| • Issue 464 (2012-07-09): Zorin OS 6, FSF's views on secure boot, Virtual PDF Printer |
| • Issue 463 (2012-07-02): TurnKey Linux 11.3, Red Hat and Btrfs, Sabayon's MATE spin, ZFS on Linux |
| • Issue 462 (2012-06-25): Sabayon 9, "Wheezy" freeze, Zorin OS overview, Vinux interview, mounting network shares |
| • Issue 461 (2012-06-18): Linux Mint 13, openSUSE 12. delays, Debian Multimedia, Mageia 3 roadmap |
| • Issue 460 (2012-06-11): Look at Fedora 17, PC-BSD and Slackware interviews, Openfiler and FuguIta |
| • Issue 459 (2012-06-04): Impressions of Mageia 2, Fedora updates, Debian or Raspberry Pie, improving software performance |
| • Issue 458 (2012-05-28): Impressions of SolusOS 1, Linux kernel 3.4, encrypting home folder |
| • Issue 457 (2012-05-21): Linux accessibility, Fedora 17 overview, MultiSystem, launching tasks |
| • Issue 456 (2012-05-14): Look at OpenBSD 5.1, Debian Installer 7.0 alpha, UDS news round-up |
| • Issue 455 (2012-05-07): Review of Ubuntu 12.04, "Quantal Quetzal" plans, Debian infographic |
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