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1 • Minimal LXDE (by Mahmut Sedat Eroğul on 2009-05-04 08:29:20 GMT from Turkey)
Thank you very much for the Minimal Xubuntu review :)
I think if you can make a minimal LXDE on top of the command line Xubuntu results could be better. Might be better for comparison if you just make it on the same hadrware that you used as an extention to todays review ;)
2 • No, wait, we didn't mean to badmouth ubuntu, because you can fix up ubuntu (by ueto on 2009-05-04 08:58:55 GMT from United States)
love comment #3
Plenty of distros can be remixed if a custom effort into it. I don't see why we should apply this as some magical exception that makes critical views of a prominent distribution invalid for ubuntu-family distros. I don't remember another case where a distro's default set-up is shown to be lacking, but an apology is issued in the form of: hey, look, you can do this obscure DIY thing to really change the distro to fix it more to this specific taste, and then it addresses that taste, so it's distance for the crowd looking for those attributes really doesn't exist.
3 • Zenwalk? (by Martin on 2009-05-04 09:10:55 GMT from United Arab Emirates)
I would be interested to see Zenwalk included in the comparison.
4 • Arch magazine (by PP on 2009-05-04 09:23:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
OK Arch users, please drop an email to Daniel Griffiths and help with the new magazine!!!
5 • Insight vs ranting (by ladislav on 2009-05-04 09:23:48 GMT from Taiwan)
Please guys, I'd really appreciate it if you could keep this comments section on topic and insightful. Senseless rants and politics have no place here. Thanks a lot for your cooperation and have a great start of the week :-)
6 • Typo: $200 vs $300 (by Rahux on 2009-05-04 09:43:37 GMT from Australia)
Hey, just letting you know the heading of the python prize says they receive $200 but the body says $300.
Good read. I'm hanging out for the next Sidux release
7 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-04 09:44:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref start to week...It's a Bank Holiday in UK so that's about the best start you could have...
Tried the Kiwi...dunno about being sorted for Hungarian/Romamian folk, it works very well for English users too and installed on my Toshi Sat just like that. As usual for me, my criteria of a "good" distro is the wifi thing. The wifi just worked and away we went. If "everything" else works well too then it becomes a "great distro".
Ref the Mepis comment on User Manual...excellent idea and possibly a step up from help pages, only snag, for me was Mepis a bit choosy with wifi devices.
I note several comment from last week re using the default ext3. system...did that mean folk had a prob with ext4.? It was my contention this might have had a bearing on the U9 install comments. I have not as yet had any luck using ext4. thus far.
Lastly, very interested about UK Ubuntu launch parties,..as ever Ubuntu brings new innovation and new meaning to "networking".
8 • ubuntu tweak (by hcman on 2009-05-04 10:14:09 GMT from Sweden)
I was disappointed to find this tweak thingy in todays newsletter. Just because ubuntu came out second in last weeks comparison, you had to write a piece on how to make it look better? Should we expect a post on a debian tweak next week, and then one on ubuntu again, a week after that?
9 • Minimalist Ubuntu with IceWM (by ozonehole on 2009-05-04 10:16:28 GMT from Taiwan)
I also like a minimalist system. Bells & whistles are nice, but speed matters. My way of achieving this is to install plain ordinary Ubuntu, and then set up IceWM as my desktop. Of course, it lacks the various system tools that you'll find in Ubuntu's Gnome or XFCE desktops. That's fine - I can always log in to those desktops in case I need them, but that is seldom necessary.
Of course, there are other fast and simple window managers. Another personal favorite is fvwm-crystal. Some like Fluxbox, however I find it a little too simple. But to each his own.
10 • Mandriva 2009.1 (by markymark on 2009-05-04 11:27:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
I was disappointed that Mandriva 2009.1 didn't make more of an impact in its first week (c.f. ubuntu and derivs.).
I tried the live kde 4.2.2 edition and the look and feel of the desktop is much closer to kde 3, than in many other distros. I think it may be a good distro to encourage those of us who are still hanging onto 3.5.9/10 to upgrade.
11 • choice (by SlaxFan on 2009-05-04 11:30:48 GMT from United States)
I agree that choice in distros is critical. Lately, many more distros boot slowly or not at all on my older AMD Mobile 64 processor w/2 GB of RAM. Some boot well but don't support WPA well. Some don't support my touchpad anymore. I'll keep looking and I'll keep using Distrowatch. Choice and Distrowatch are the best things Linux has going for it.
12 • Mandrive 2009.1 (by Rich on 2009-05-04 12:02:50 GMT from United States)
Installed it yesterday. Looks and runs good. No major complaints. Glad to see them keeping up with the rest of the Distro's. Waiting for Fedora 11 release. So many good distro's to try and run on my system. Hard to determine which one I'll keep. Problem is I just keep jumping around from one to another.
Rich
13 • distrowatch (by NoName on 2009-05-04 12:12:48 GMT from United States)
I have an idea for the new distrowach name: **buntuwatch.com
14 • No subject (by Sertse on 2009-05-04 12:25:22 GMT from Australia)
I wish Mandriva got more converge. It was a good solid release,
and there are no major KDE 4 distro releases on the near horizon I think (Fedora KDE is very...vanilla), so this would be the last snapshot of how things are for a while.
Fedora I'm looking towards though, but this will be an odd number release...
(Fedora tends to be better on even numbers, Mandriva with their ".1"'s)
15 • Little distro that could (by Moose on 2009-05-04 12:31:08 GMT from Canada)
Quite a few features in the past month or so seem to have focused on minimal distros. We heard from TinyCore and the Ubuntu family and a light Debian install.
I realize Linux often gets put on older hardward because of its ability to be light and flexible. However, I would love to see some reviews of Linux on really high end desktops. Something with a giant hard drive, 8GB of RAM and three screens. Anyone have a system like that they'd like to write about? Maybe compare openSuse with Solaris or something.
Okay, my comment is a little tongue in cheek, but I'm half serious. Reviews of Linux on newer, higher-end hardware would be nice too.
16 • Fantastic Xubuntu Article. (by chemist on 2009-05-04 12:32:35 GMT from Germany)
You explained your Xubuntu/Xfce observations from last week in detail.
Well done.
One of the most interesting articles I have read in a long time here at Distrowatch.
17 • Something I would like to see - Probably of more interest to developers (by Glenn on 2009-05-04 12:42:28 GMT from Canada)
Hi Gang.
It is becoming more common for the use of dual monitors. At first it was a boon to developers but I see more and more mainstream users going the multi-monitor route. My experience to date is that there is a lot of tweaking, editing of XORGS, etc,
I think it would be nice if there was a script, etc somewhere that Distros could package which would remove a lot of the manual interference and assist in the setup of dual monitors for those who do not have the time to play with it or those who do not have the technical skill to do it.
Does anybody know if there is a distro that has that capability?
Glenn
18 • Re: No 14 (by Sam on 2009-05-04 12:45:08 GMT from United States)
From testing the Fedora 11 preview release for a few days, I personally don't see a compelling reason to upgrade from Fedora 10 given my daily work needs. Guess I'll wait for 12.
19 • @13 (by joojoobee on 2009-05-04 12:49:21 GMT from United States)
I'll be surprised if your comment doesn't get deleted. Distrowatch doesn't like it when you leave even the slightest negative comment about them or ubuntu
20 • Useless Xubuntu article (by corneliu on 2009-05-04 12:51:12 GMT from Canada)
If you want to tweak something, then tweak Debian. Tweaking Xubuntu is like scratching your left ear with your right hand. If you are skilled enough to tweak Xubuntu then you are ready to use Debian. No point in running Xubuntu (even if it's tweaked). Xubuntu got coverage last week AND this week. Two weeks front page coverage for Xubuntu. When is that Mandriva review coming? Are you going to leave it to just that Miscellaneous News entry?
21 • **buntuwatch (by joojoobee on 2009-05-04 12:51:22 GMT from United States)
Since when does distrowatch censor comments with **buntuwatch.com (replace the stars with "ub") in them? Does the truth hurt?
22 • Minimal Gnome, KDE, Lxde, Fluxbox... (by CLI fan on 2009-05-04 12:57:09 GMT from Canada)
Could anyone share the "$ sudo apt-get install" lines to build other minimalist *buntus? I found this enlightening and I'd prefer this over starting with Debian (for now).
23 • Mandirva 2009.1 (by Jose on 2009-05-04 13:17:27 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Mandriva 2009.1 and PC-BSD are the distros that feature KDE 4.2 and are user friendly with no issues. Also Mandriva recognized the wireless on my laptop without problems at all, something Ubuntu has yet to work on. But gotta give the 'buntu folks credit. 9.04 has finally being able to work on my deaktop and laptop without major tweaking.
Anyway, the beauty of Linux is choice, and there's space on my desktop for PCLinuxOS and PC-BSD along with Windows and PCLOS sits comfortably with Windows on my laptop.
Have a great week y'all.
24 • Xubuntu Minimal (by Leo on 2009-05-04 13:19:53 GMT from United States)
Chris, excellent article!
This is a prime example of how configurable Linux is, no wonder it is so popular for embedded (and not so "embedded", the trendy Archos players run on Linux, even though they are looked up even much worse than a mac or windows system)
25 • Heh (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-04 13:20:31 GMT from United States)
So the "Ubuntuwatch" trolls are back. I thought they left for good this time.
People like Ubuntu. It's not a bad OS, and quite a few people like reading articles about it. Plus, the mainstream tech media are discussing it (still) and considering a release just came out two weeks ago, there are still users trying to get the ins and outs of the new version. Like it or not, the Linux community is buzzing about the thing (in a positive or negative manner) and will for probably another week.
Go ahead and look at the side of DWW. See all the issues? See all the issues with only a passing mention of Ubuntu. Okay, now that you see that, you can shut up and go away. We know [YOUR FAVORITE DISTRO] exists, and that's fine.
Why is it every time there's an article about Ubuntu, someone posts the "Ubuntuwatch" nonsense? It's funny how bigoted people become against an OS when it's (relatively) popular. Sure, there may be better in the Linux bubble, but it works just fine.
I for one enjoy a good IceWM approach like an above user suggested. Very good and fast way to get Ubuntu running without a full DE.
26 • Ubuntu w IceWM (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-04 13:23:05 GMT from United States)
Here's a good tutorial for an above poster's question:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal
You can use the Alternate Disc installer for that. You can replace IceWM with nearly anything (as long as it's in Ubuntu's repos).
27 • @21 (by jeje on 2009-05-04 13:25:40 GMT from France)
That's true.... It was very funny, the first hours of this Ubuntu weekly, the posts against it stay between 15 seconds and 3 minuts. I saw Lars from Sweden, me and others disappear ! That's why there is so few comments this week !
I suppose that Ladislav is going to rest...
But I don't want to be censured any more, that's why I write you from my new Mandribuntu 2009.1 . Great Job !
28 • No subject (by jeje on 2009-05-04 13:29:56 GMT from France)
Perhaps some people were interested by this week's release, I mean Mandriva ... And perhaps they thought that they will find a rewiew on a site named distrowatch ? No ?
29 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-05-04 13:50:01 GMT from United States)
Where's the mandriva review? It was released this week wasn't it? Xubuntu articles back to back?
30 • *bunutu (by Alex on 2009-05-04 13:54:55 GMT from United States)
So, once you've stripped all of the extras out of the Buntu family, you wind up with something like Debian? Who would have thought it? LOL. I frequent run a Ubuntu derivative (Linux Mint), but even I think you're bending over backwards over this, Chris. Call a spade a spade. Xubuntu is heavy and really shouldn't be marketed as a light distribution. Sure you can strip it down, as you can with all distros, but then you're not exactly running Xubuntu any more are you?
31 • CAINE (by James on 2009-05-04 14:15:26 GMT from United States)
I think it's a very good thing to have, and a nice tribute, but I sincerely hope they've gotten permission for the images they appear to be using.
32 • This week's feature, choice and Ubuntu (by Felix Pleșoianu on 2009-05-04 14:17:58 GMT from Romania)
I'm not particularly fond of Ubuntu either, but I found this week's feature useful. Knowing how to balance functionality vs. performance is a good thing in any distribution. For this purpose, Xubuntu is as good a testbed as any other, maybe better since apparently it is quite bloated by default. And some of us are neither newbies nor experts, but rather halfway down the road.
Also, I really don't see why people enjoy bashing Ubuntu. So, it's arguably more popular than it deserves. How does that prevent one from using another distro? One great thing about Linux is that various distributions can talk to each other just fine, regardless of technical differences. I use Fedora, and more recently Mandriva as well, and I have zero trouble being on the same wavelength as my Ubuntu-using friends.
33 • My laptop works at last. (by Jim Welch on 2009-05-04 14:20:18 GMT from United States)
I have been limping along for a year, with mint, etc. Now for the FIRST time since Vista was ripped out of my Compaq, with K 9.04, I have working wireless (after upgrading to WICD), and my projector output works. I probably will go back to mint when the new version switches to 9.04. Yea! Verily Yea! (Danny Kay)
34 • Mandriva, Arch Linux (by Shawn on 2009-05-04 14:25:46 GMT from United States)
I've been running Mandriva 2009.1 since the first RC and I must say, I was pretty impressed with it. I actually had the final release (gold version?) of Mandriva before it was announced on Distrowatch because I went to Mandriva.com and downloaded it before it hit DW I guess. Is it me, or does it seem that Mandriva is avoiding the spotlight lately? It seems they were always first to advertise when a new release was coming out and it ended up being buggy. Now that the QC on Mandriva is getting top-notch, the advertising/marketing for it is hidden in the shadows. Either way, Mandriva has been releasing some great stuff ever since the 2007 version.
Regarding Arch, I'll be contributing to Arch again hopefully soon. I'm no artist, but I have made contributions to Arch since Gimmick and with Chakra out in Alpha 2 form, Arch is much easier to install and the Chakra installer, in my opinion, is just about as appealing as openSUSE's and Sabayon's in terms of functionality and aesthetics. What keeps me from using Debian is its outdatedness. Here we are talking about Gnome 3 and Debian is still on 2.22.3? I can't complain because this is its mantra, and this is also the reason I'm such a huge Arch fan - stability with current technological advances.
I liked the article, but I have noticed Xubuntu being just as "heavy" as regular Ubuntu for a couple of years now. If Xubuntu wants to make a name for itself and be "light", it has to do a better job because Ubuntu is just as fast as Xubuntu is on the same hardware that I tested it on. I know Linux can be tweaked to be whatever you want it to be, but it's not common a lightweight distribution has to be tweaked to become whatever the definition of light is.
35 • bad apples (by stuckinoregon on 2009-05-04 14:27:02 GMT from United States)
Thanks Chris for your commitment to keeping DWWeekly going. Can't be easy with all the nay-sayers around. Seems that no matter what you do, you can't win. If you had a Mandriva writeup the Fedora people would get bent. Fedora writeup the Gentoo camp gets in a bother. The silly infighting is not only doing a disservice to linux as a whole, but it ends up hurting the distros these "fanbois" are touting.
If people are unhappy with the way DWW is going, you can always do something about it. Get your cadre of internet bully buddies and go set up your own distro review site. You can write articles about your favorite distros until the cows come home. Then those of us that DO enjoy DWW won't have to listen to you whine.
Cheers!!!
36 • Mr. Smart your Minimal Xubuntu install? (by Barney Rubble on 2009-05-04 14:32:46 GMT from United States)
Mr. Smart, great article on Xubuntu. But, it appears you may have left out quite a few people. I can only get on the Internet using wireless, it's a long story. So moving forward, In the full Xubuntu GUI I can use the wireless app effortlessly and get online. Sorry, but the only way I can connect to the Internet is wirelessly And on another one of my systems I need to use the ndiswrapper which works great with the *.inf files from the linksys cd-rom to connect wirelessly.
In later half of you Xubuntu tutorial there's a "sudo apt-get install" command which I cannot execute because it appears you are assuming everyone connects to the WWW wired. Is there a way around this situation for wireless only clients or is it mandatory that a wired connection is required to perform the Xubuntu Minimal install? If there isn't a way around this I'll just settle for the fully loaded Xubuntu Desktop install and call it a day.
Barney
37 • BSD (by My Computer at 2009-05-04 14:54:29 GMT from United States)
I have a regular 160 GB IDE hard drive and None of the BSD's ever detect it and try to install on my thumb drive. Do I need to format it with a BSD specific file system first with a 3rd party prog?
38 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-05-04 15:19:48 GMT from France)
Yes distrowatch is working hard, I've been a reader for long time, and I know it's not so easy with "bad apples"...
But what would you say if on the ubuntu's release week, there was a review on another distro ???? Yes, I (and you) know, it's impossible !
But other distros have people who work hard too (like Ladislav and Chris)...
And look at the comments : "yes i'ts a good think to see how to tweak Linux... " Does't it mean that since now, speaking from Linux is speaking from Ubuntu ????
I know it's not Distrowatch wish, it's only the sad today's reality...
And I guess that Ladislav knows that too, since he has to censure... Look at post #2... How is it possible that he loves comment #3... Perhaps, it was comment #4 or #5 before the censure , funny, no ?
Perhaps, there is no more "raison d'etre" to a site like Distrowatch today... not a good news for all Linux fans in fact...
But one of these days, the question will be : has Canonical's money helped or disserved the Linux Community... We will see.
In conclusion, today, on my desktop I use Mandriva (KDE + RPM) , Zenwalk (XFCE + tgz) and... Ubuntu (Gnome + deb)... But I am really worried.... Will that be possible in the future ?
I hope Yes but I think Distrowatch, because it's a reference in the Linux Community must care about that.
39 • Xubuntu Love Fest (by scribe63 on 2009-05-04 15:23:02 GMT from United States)
It's seems redundant to me to have the same distro (Xubuntu) reviewed twice, even from a slightly different perspective, in two weeks. When other distros were released during that period, what point is trying to be proved here.
I guest it's an Xubuntu lovefest.
Since it is suppose to be lightweight, i had tried 8.04 on an old Compaq Presario 1235, and found it not to be that lightweight and responsive. I remember back in the day, installing an earlier version Vector Linux on a Compaq Armada 7380DMT, and it was very responsive. These days the term lightweight seems to get thrown around a lot, but if i truly want a so called lightweight distro i would try something like Vector Linux or install for command line usage.
Good to see CAINE added to the distrowatch database, i used it couple of times for data recovery and liked it. I had also tried similar distro called Helix, but couldn't get the CD to boot for some strange reason.
Anyway it's all good, keep up the good work.
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. (Mark Twain)
40 • Good article again - a bit like a 'part deaux' to last weeks (by DeniZen on 2009-05-04 16:16:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks Chris, good article, and a lot of work went into it.
To those who dont even have the manners to acknowledge a decent article, and simply moan that they want something else instead- usually the moon-on-a-stick, with extra jelly and cream - then, IMO, either suggest/request with some manners, and show some sense/patience. or take the time to do it yourself, and offer it to others.
Distrowatch is no more *buntu-watch than a general motoring forum would be 'ford-watch'. Its just likely to crop up, due to popularity and ubiquity. Obviously ..
*buntu is a popular subject, and has always been surrounded by some assumptions and myths, a few of which the DWW articles have both illustrated, and disproved in some cases
Thus, that equates to interesting to many people.
Now .. wheres the article on BobsGarageUberDistroNix ('wah')
;)
41 • @40 (by joojoobee on 2009-05-04 16:26:22 GMT from United States)
I'm interested in hearing more about these "assumptions and myths".
42 • @40 (by Adam Drake on 2009-05-04 16:31:55 GMT from United States)
I'm with DeniZen on this. How disappointing for the guys who want attention so bad that they hold their hands up to have their posts censored and then it doesn't even happen. If this keeps up, I'm heading over to joojoowatch. :)
43 • Minimalizing Xubuntu without reinstalling (by Scott Dowdle on 2009-05-04 16:34:03 GMT from United States)
Greetings,
I appreciate your effort to create a minimal Xubuntu by doing a fresh install but what about simply turning off or uninstalling the stuff you don't want from the default install. That has to be doable too, right?
44 • @43, @36 (by Adam Drake on 2009-05-04 16:36:23 GMT from United States)
Chris mentions a "reverse minimal install" (where you do the full installation and remove the packages you don't want) in the article. Seams like that would take care of concerns on 43 and 36...
45 • About tweaked Xubuntu (by Pancho Jácome on 2009-05-04 16:38:18 GMT from Ecuador)
Please dont't take this as another (yet) complain against *buntu crowd, but I totally agree with @20 and @30. Your very numbers show that a plain Debian Xfce install performs equal or better than the tweaked Xubuntu, so why not show people a proper Debian install instead? Would be more educational.
Anyway, DistroWatch and DistroWatch Weekly are excelent sources of Linux related information, and we appreciate very much your efforts and contribution.
Keep up the good work!
46 • @ 41 - joojoobee (by DeniZen on 2009-05-04 16:41:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Quote : " interested in hearing more about these "assumptions and myths" "
I'm surprised you have not already come across many such examples, many times?
I assume you generally read stuff, generally, on the err, general subject and generally take it in . .generally?
;)
47 • Xubuntu light article (by Michael Fox on 2009-05-04 16:43:25 GMT from Canada)
I for one found the article on Xubuntu very interesting and informative. I didn't think of it so much as an Xubuntu article, but rather a way to compare the approaches of two distros using the same wm and to speed up and lighten a given installation. I related better to the article because it was about Debian-based distros (I use both Ubuntu and Debian), and I assume that you chose to compare them because both are popular distributions that use the same base. It also helped to explain why Debian seems faster than Ubuntu, even when both are using Gnome.
48 • comparison... (by m1k on 2009-05-04 16:44:40 GMT from Italy)
Who cares!!!
Adopting a distro is a matter of feelings....
i just love MY sidux...ever have a look on new Fedora's...Sabayon and Slax.
Really don't have ANY feeligs with 'buntos...
Sorry...
49 • @34 mandriva (by glyj on 2009-05-04 16:50:17 GMT from France)
I think you are a bit unfair about official news relarted to the Mandriva 2009 spring.
They made real efforts to let us know the distro is available.
Did you see the links given with the anouncement ?
have a look there this is a good presentation, isn't it ?:
http://www2.mandriva.com/linux/overview/
and osnews related it too:
http://www.osnews.com/story/21401/Mandriva_Linux_2009_Spring_Released
regards,
glyj
PS: the problem is that there are too few revieiwers of the new mandriva, I don't know why.
50 • @49 (by Anonymous on 2009-05-04 16:54:52 GMT from France)
"PS: the problem is that there are too few revieiwers of the new mandriva, I don't know why."
Ubuntu, ubuntu, ubuntu...
51 • mandriva test (by glyj on 2009-05-04 16:55:39 GMT from France)
I finally found someone writing about mandriva :
http://www.itnewstoday.com/?p=355
enjoy !
regards,
glyj
52 • Mandriva reviews (by DeniZen on 2009-05-04 17:01:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
@ those concerned over lack of Mandriva reviews already (i.e. - so far)
Surely, these will come - in time, i.e. when reviewers have had time to .. well .. review it! - and, more importantly, review it properly.
People would want it to be reviewed properly I assume?
The announcements were covered, 'here' and most places that one would expect.
How about just simply asking Chris/Lad/DWW 'nicely' whether the new Mandriva might make a fair choice for an upcoming DWW article, bearing in mind that the article subjects might already be mapped out.
After all, an interesting subject could always find itself nearer the top of the queue.
53 • Mandriva 2009.1, I like kde4 (by Anonymous on 2009-05-04 17:36:55 GMT from Spain)
First time I like kde4, I use to hate it ;)
I don't know why ubuntu is always recommended to linux beguinners, I think Mandriva is much user friendly.
I have to add too that my wireless card seems to work perfectly fine now, after having problems with kubuntu.
54 • Mandriva review (by corneliu on 2009-05-04 17:43:45 GMT from Canada)
OK, since there is no Mandriva review at distrowatch, here is one: http://www.itnewstoday.com/?p=355
55 • @46 denizen (by joojoobee on 2009-05-04 17:44:27 GMT from United States)
How about some specific examples, if you can come up with any.
56 • Mandriva coverage (by Adam Williamson on 2009-05-04 17:46:37 GMT from Canada)
"Is it me, or does it seem that Mandriva is avoiding the spotlight lately? It seems they were always first to advertise when a new release was coming out and it ended up being buggy. Now that the QC on Mandriva is getting top-notch, the advertising/marketing for it is hidden in the shadows."
Well, it used to be me doing that. :) Now I'm looking at it from the outside, I think they did a good job with the 2009 Spring release stuff - between the company and the community, they got announcements on the major news sites, even including Slashdot and 'mainstream' sites like The Register, and all the release documentation on the Wiki is in good shape, like the release notes, errata, tour etc. I think it's a bit unfair to blame MDV (company or community) for the lack of coverage, it more seems like lack of interest by the media, unfortunately. Hopefully there'll be more reviews and stories over the next few weeks.
57 • @ 55 (by DeniZen on 2009-05-04 18:00:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
I can. I think you can too - so .. how about you have a think for yourself instead of expecting others to spoon-feed you?
It is clear enough that you are not really 'asking out of honest interest'.
Surely you are aware of the often quoted views upon (against?) Ubuntu, and som surely you can work out - for yourself - how this weeks, and last weeks DWW articles may _apparently_ challenge, or uphold some of those views?
Hint: it was essentially the whole premise behind the article.
But, you would like it on a spoon for you? - well, 'sorry' not by me, not by demand anyhoo.
If you think I'm unhelpful there, then so be it, but check out my post history in the archives before you decide (more effort on your part .. I know .. ouch.)
58 • would you 'Adam and Eve' it (excuse UK/Cockney rhyming slang) (by DeniZen on 2009-05-04 18:13:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
:) Adam, I think you just answered (gently ;) ) the question regards the Mandriva (or lack of it) awareness (or lack of it) Campaign ( .. or .. lack of it) ;)
You don't frequent 'here' so much since leaving Mandriva?
I think we miss your insider insights ;)
Anyhoo - trust RedHat is treating you well.
59 • MDV @Adam Williamson (by Stranger on 2009-05-04 18:17:06 GMT from United States)
Adam,
I kind of admired you when you were sending notices for Mandriva, I kind of liked Mandrake, but not Mandriva and you were the voice of that company. Now, you are no longer making those announcements, instead you are now leading the development at Fedora/Red Hat or helping in leading it. I hope that you like Fedora as much as you apparently liked Mandriva. Mandrake was a great OS back in the day, but Mandriva is a "piece of shit" OS. I am sorry to say, but it is. They are lousy and they are in it for the money. That is why the **Buntus kicked their ass :)
60 • @57 denizen (by joojoobee on 2009-05-04 18:17:35 GMT from United States)
Insulting me. Hmmmm. You wouldn't happen to be an ubuntu user, would you? If you can't or won't give examples, then just say so.
61 • Mandriva (or other OS) reviews (by Pearson on 2009-05-04 18:20:22 GMT from United States)
This is not a snark at anyone, but how about one of you here do some sort of Mandriva review (or other non-Ubutu OS)? Perhaps Ladislav or Chris will include it in a future DistroWatch Weekly? If you've never done a review, just look at the reviews whose style you like and apply what you see. I'd bet that, if your review shows promise, they would be glad to offer suggestions if you need them. Warning: you may get folks complaining that your review is biased or incomplete :-)
Personally, I today's article was very helpful for me. I think my wife's laptop will be "upgraded" from XUbuntu 7.10 to Debian Lenny (it only has 256MB RAM). The review showed me that XUbuntu isn't really "the lightest", and that it's not the Debian base as much as the Ubuntu add-ons. I thought it was fairly critical of XUbuntu.
62 • @61 (by Stranger/Mandriva hater on 2009-05-04 18:29:01 GMT from United States)
Who cares about Mandriva? I personally don't give a shit about a company who gets rid of its most caring and wonderful individuals that worked for it. 1) Gael Duval the founder and creator of Mandrake which is the true and only one, Mandriva after Mandrake bought out Conectiva, 2) Adam Williamson, the voice after Gael and leader of it at one time. Just because of this, I hate Mandriva very much. I used to like them very much when they were Mandrake, but now they don't exist.
BTW,
This is why Ubuntu kicked their ass a long time ago@!!!!
63 • Agree with upper end hardware request (by dedguy on 2009-05-04 18:29:25 GMT from United States)
I'm interested in learning how linux takes advantage of the latest and greatest hardware components, and which hardware brands are the most linux friendly, for people looking to put together a desktop or buy a laptop! That would be great.
I'm an OpenSuse user myself, but if it weren't for Ubuntu, I would't even know how far Linux had come along in the first place.
Everyone one who learns to ride a bike needs training wheels...
Anybody who loves Linux should be thanking Mark for making such a successful distro, and in so doing, is really helping to move the Open Source revolution along at a rabid pace.
64 • @ 60 (by DeniZen on 2009-05-04 18:32:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
If you think thats an insult, then theres a biiig bad world you aint seen yet Bud!
That was probably a bit insulting , but then, you were fishing for that eh?
Hope that suffices.
Previously, I just made suggestions - no big deal - take it or leave it.
You guessed wrong BTW.
I'm a long (long) term Debian user. I do happen to run Ubuntu 9.04 on one of my machines though, and I happen to like it a lot. Not so with previous Ubuntu releases. I didnt like them much at all.
The rest of my boxen are all 'pure' Debian, which is what I know and like.
Oh, apart from the intel Mac that i also happen to have (but ..which also has Debian running real fine on a Bootcamp partition).
Happy Hunting .. :)
65 • Mandriva (by Shawn on 2009-05-04 18:36:35 GMT from United States)
I wasn't trying to sound harsh at all, just simply stated that I actually had Mandriva downloaded and tested on QEMU and in Live mode before it showed up on Distrowatch. :) It's just uncommon for a distro, especially one with the reputation of Mandriva, not being "up there" in real-time on this site when it's officially released like Ubuntu is. My main Linux site is Distrowatch, it's my defacto standard of what's new and upcoming in the world of open source and Linux, so if it wasn't here, it was delayed I thought. Mandriva's website IS the reason I got it but I knew the release date from checking the link of "upcoming distro's" on Distrowatch, that's why I was wondering why it seemed Mandriva was out of the spotlight. I'm actually seriously contemplating replacing my Ubuntu 8.04 LTS install with the new Mandriva 2009.1 Spring KDE4 because I think it really is that good. I apologize if my original message came off as rude or pointed or whatever, that wasn't my intention.
Thanks for the reply, Adam! How's Red Hat treating you? Have you fully converted to Fedora/RHEL yet?
66 • @64 (by joojoobee on 2009-05-04 18:42:33 GMT from United States)
I wasn't fishing for anything, I was trying to get you to give a straight answer. It would have been faster for you to give a few examples, you wouldn't have had to go into great or any detail.
All you had to do is either give the examples, or say no. For some reason, you had to be hateful & condescending.
BTW, since you do run ubuntu, that makes you an ubuntu user.
67 • No subject (by Stranger on 2009-05-04 18:43:52 GMT from United States)
@Shawn
Back in the day, it (Mandrake) was up there, and it deserved to be up there. Today, I believe that they get what they deserve. If there is a system that could be up there it is Ubuntu, but PCLinuxOS based of Mandrake now Mandriva could well be up there, just that they don't have the corporate backing of a Mark ShuttleWorth or a company like Novell/Red Hat backing them up. But if they plan things out, they can beat Ubuntu??? Ubuntu might not be the best, but it is up there and people like it :)
68 • @Stranger (by Anonymous on 2009-05-04 18:47:15 GMT from France)
After the Distrowatch, here comes the Distrowar !
So childish, so cute, so funny...
69 • Xubuntu vs Debian (by fstephens on 2009-05-04 18:53:59 GMT from United States)
I liked the article, and I'm sure I am not the only one to find it useful. I am using Xubuntu on an old Thinkpad with only (maxed out) 256MB RAM, so any optimization is helpful. I just upgraded to 9.04 so I tried the default XFCE window manager again. Nice, but uses too much memory for this old system. I was using LXDE the last few weeks and it is better, but for now at least I am back to Fluxbox. Booted into the GUI I only use about 41-41MB RAM with Conky running. Still, since it looks like Debian is lighter still I may try another install of that on a duplicate machine.
70 • @68 (by Stranger on 2009-05-04 18:57:44 GMT from United States)
Yep!!! I don't particularly care for any of the top 3 distros!!! I don't know why but I really liked Mandrake, but when they became Mandriva I started to hate them and hate them with a passion. I also hated Lindows --> Lindash --> Linspire, they are at the top of my Hating list. I don't hate Ubuntu, but I don't love it either. I am a Fedora/Slax/SystemRescueCD/GpartedLive/GeeXbox/RipLinux/ user that usees these distros and I don't care very much for the others. I can use OpenSuse(2), I like FreeBSD too, but I still hate the ones ripping you off like Mandriva , Lindows|Linspire, I did not say Xandros, but they have to now be there since they bought out the piece of trash that was Lindows, OOOOH did I sound that bad.
Distrowatch ---- UbuntuWatch ---- Distrowars ---- have come to have a great time here!
Yes I have opened my mouth and removed all doubt, Mark Twain is a also a piece of shit. He could not say he was Samuel Longhorn Clemens and Not "Mark Twain" :( This is sad stuff. It is like saying Obamatu is the new No. 1 Linux and not Ubuntu :)
71 • #36 Wireless and lightweight Ubuntu, #2 et all: Apology, Censorship??? (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-05-04 18:58:28 GMT from United States)
#36: You don't need the full (X)Ubuntu desktop to have wireless and you can use an application which is significantly lighter than Network Manager to do it. Good choices include wicd and wifi-mananger. Basically you do your minimal install as Chris suggests and:
sudo apt-get wicd
Configuration of wireless in wicd shouldn't be any harder than Network Manager. If you use WEP or WPA encryption you just click on the little arrow next to the network name to configure your security. That's the only bit that isn't intuitive to some people.
--
For all the people complaining about how this article is an "apology" to the Ubuntu crowd or whatever.... I'll remind you that Chris wrote the same sort of article for OpenSUSE. Not everyone is a Linux guru and step-by-step instructions on how to lighten a popular distro are clearly popular with some. There is no way every article is going to appeal to everyone. You can't please all of the people all of the time.
Censorship? I will remind everyone again that this is Ladislav's website and he has the right to edit it any way he sees fit. That is NOT censorship since nobody is preventing you from posting anything you want that is negative about DW anywhere on the web where you own the site or on other Linux fora. Censorship is denying you the right to speak, not denying you the right to post in a specific place.
72 • Upcoming DWW Mandriva Review (Yes! It's coming!) (by Catlyn Martin on 2009-05-04 19:03:59 GMT from United States)
I've read all the clamor for a Mandriva 2009.1 review and had to smile a little. Blame me for the fact that I like to actually use a distro before reviewing it. You see, it's all my fault. Chris asked me to write an article this week and my schedule didn't permit. I *AM* writing a Mandriva 2009.1 review for DWW and it will likely appear week after next, on May 18, unless Ladislav or Chris have something more important that bumps it.
Patience is a virtue :)
73 • Great articles - wrong audience? (by Anonymous on 2009-05-04 19:09:46 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu is not a preferred distro in my house. However, it works fairly well on our various PCs. Its leadership position is understandable.
Fedora and Mandriva, over the past few years, have taken more effort to put into "operating condition". That is, they generally have had more issues and more difficult issues, given the particular preferences and hardware of users in my house, and given our limited technical talent.
Novell/Suse has lost the trust of some of us. Puppy lacks the convenient ability to be run without admin privileges.
So, speaking for several non-technical desktop users, we would prefer to see more articles on Ubuntu than on Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, and Puppy all together!
However, the majority of DWW readers are not non-technical desktop users.
Chris, given the nature of your readers, you might consider staying away from user-friendly distros for a while. Your articles are outstanding. You have the ability to make a technical subject understandable. You would be an excellent Linux ambassador to encourage the transition of users who would like to leave Windows behind.
You may be addressing the wrong audience here.
74 • 99.999% of the time .. (by DeniZen on 2009-05-04 19:12:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
I dont get drawn in to 'quid pro quo' postings.
But to conclude from my POV,
1. I simply suggested that, where there is no real guide required, that you think for yourself - we all need to - it is important really.
2. I guess I am an 'Ubuntu user' - a happy one too, as it happens.
In the same way that I'm a carrot eater. I eat carrots - sometimes. I like them. I did not previously. I tried, but I did not like them - but now I find I do. A surprise. They are far from the only thing I eat. I like other things that are not orangey-brown.
I like Ubuntu 9.04. I did not previously. I tried again, and hey, I liked it. A surprise. I like other things that are not orangey-brown...
;)
75 • @74. (by dragonmouth on 2009-05-04 19:32:57 GMT from United States)
So, DeniZen, you CAN'T (or won't) come up with any examples of myths/misconceptions about *bumtus. You're just shooting your mouth off to see your comments in print.
76 • TuxRadar Distribution "Guide" (by em4r1z on 2009-05-04 19:51:27 GMT from Argentina)
The article on TuxRadar about choosing a GNU/Linux distribution is a joke.
Mandriva is for "coders"? Ubuntu Server is a better server than Debian? openSUSE and gOS are for "business"?
Did Linux Format buy DistroWatch? Honestly, I cannot find another reason to recommend such a biased article, specially from you.
77 • Xubuntu Strikes Back (by em4r1z on 2009-05-04 20:05:54 GMT from Argentina)
We got four BSD releases, and an article or review about them would enlighten many of us about a different approach the to open source software. We also got the new Mandriva, an excellent user-friendly GNU/Linux distribution. What's the main article about? Xubuntu. A bit of coherence might help you, mate.
78 • @72 (by joojoobee on 2009-05-04 20:22:44 GMT from United States)
"unless Ladislav or Chris have something more important that bumps it"
Like what? Another *buntu review?
79 • No subject (by jg on 2009-05-04 20:23:19 GMT from United States)
I don't know if this comment will be censored (since it's not going to be gushing over either Ubuntu or this week's DistroWatch newsletter). But I'm sorry. I just don't see the point of using Ubuntu's alternate installer (which is certainly no easier to use than Debian's), and spending all that time manually adding/removing packages to a base Xubuntu install just to get a final result that uses more memory, and runs more slowly, than Debian's Xfce desktop. You'll save a lot of time/trouble by just installing base Debian, and doing one apt-get for the Xfce desktop. Honestly, if this sort of thing is a "selling point" for Xubuntu, then it's actually counterproductive.
What's next? A Distrowatch tutorial how you can take Ubuntu and trade out apt-get for OpenSuse's new package manager so that you can use YAST instead of Synaptic? With enough effort, it's probably possible, but when the end result is no better, and actually more difficult, than just switching to OpenSuse, it tends to make a tutorial seem silly.
And I believe that's the crux behind the complaints. The frequency of the Ubuntu-oriented newsletters, particularly with questionable merit, tends to suggest that there's a slant toward focussing on Ubuntu just because the author has spent too much time with it, and not enough time with alternatives. Hence, it seems like UbuntuWatch.
80 • Suggestions for DWW (by Páncho Jácome on 2009-05-04 20:31:40 GMT from Ecuador)
For a more propositive approach, two suggestions (if you allow me) for comming reviews from Cris or whoever for DDW:
a) A comparison of Home Media Centers like MythTV, Freevo, Elisa, XMBC, etc.
b) A comparision of VoIP Asterisk solutions, like Elastix, Trixbox, Thirdlane, etc.
Just some ideas...
81 • @58, 59, 62, 65 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-05-04 21:09:05 GMT from United States)
I know I've not been around here as much as I used to - really I'm not entirely sure why, I was if anything busier at MDV than I am at RH, I guess I feel like there's more than just me who will come here and talk about Fedora :). Stranger, please don't overstate my influence! I never 'led' Mandriva (I was just the community manager, which is a nice way of saying 'guy who hangs around forums a lot and bugs the developers with feedback from users'), and I'm definitely not leading anything at Fedora! As far as there are hierarchies in Fedora, I'm at the bottom of the QA one =) I'm just trying to help develop community involvement in Fedora's QA team, that's all.
I'm getting along fine at RH, thanks guys. Fedora and Mandriva are rather different, but I like both. Fedora is much more centred on development of upstream software than Mandriva; Mandriva certainly contributes, but most Mandriva engineers are basically focused on producing a quality distribution for end users by packaging upstream code, whereas most Fedora engineers are focused on actually developing code, and Fedora is a vehicle for that as much as anything. Which makes it a bit of a wild ride, but it's definitely fun.
My desktop and laptop run Fedora (Rawhide and 10, respectively) and have since the day I joined RH, but my HTPC and servers still run Mandriva. It's all Linux, Mandriva's great, and there's just no benefit in switching them to Fedora that would be worth the time and effort of doing it.
82 • @80 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-05-04 21:10:32 GMT from United States)
"a) A comparison of Home Media Centers like MythTV, Freevo, Elisa, XMBC, etc."
Here ya go:
MythTV - great, heavy
Freevo - great, gigantic pain in the ass to configure
Elisa - shiny! so shiny! almost usable, missing a few things, but lots of fun. Doesn't do TV-watching stuff
XBMC - popular and works well, but hideous *hideous* codebase
83 • They have arrived (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-04 21:31:08 GMT from United States)
The "This site should be Ubuntuwatch" trolls have come, and their festering, fermenting smell permeates the entire website. It happened during 8.10's release, and again back when 8.04 came out.
It will never stop. Soon, once Fedora 11 comes out, then it will be "Oh noes it's Fedorawatch" and "all those distros based off Fedora are all just dumb" and anything more.
The bias against Ubuntu users is staggering. I'm like DeniZen; I use Debian and Ubuntu. Oh, no, I like something popular; all the kids on Distrowatch were making fun of me!
Grow up. Please. It's a bunch of articles that were submitted to DWW. If you don't want to hear what the author has to say, then write your own articles and submit them. If you want to hear about openSUSE, Sidux, Fedora, Mandriva, write an article about it and submit it. Chris is writing articles for the people who might not know that yes, you can customize Ubuntu.
And Caitlyn hit the nail on the head. Mandriva has only been out for less than a week. It takes much longer than that to review a distro.
84 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-05-04 22:24:37 GMT from France)
Last Distrowatch :
"Yes, it's Ubuntu release week and yes, we'll be looking at Ubuntu for our feature article"
And what lot of us were expecting for this distrowatch :
"Yes, it's Mandriva release week and yes, we'll be looking at Mandriva for our feature article"
And what we expect for soon :
"Yes, it's Fedora release week and yes, we'll be looking at Fedora for our feature article"
That's all, folks !
85 • Irrelevant (by Anonymous on 2009-05-04 22:59:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
Never commented here before, but I find it sad that people don't even bother reading other people's comments before they make their own comments.
86 • @84 Pots and kettles (by Miq on 2009-05-04 23:03:23 GMT from Sweden)
That was perhaps the whiniest post I've ever read here.
87 • @72 (by corneliu on 2009-05-04 23:03:58 GMT from Canada)
Caitlyn said: I've read all the clamor for a Mandriva 2009.1 review and had to smile a little. Blame me for the fact that I like to actually use a distro before reviewing it. You see, it's all my fault. Chris asked me to write an article this week and my schedule didn't permit. I *AM* writing a Mandriva 2009.1 review for DWW and it will likely appear week after next, on May 18, unless Ladislav or Chris have something more important that bumps it.
I can't help but wonder what would've happened if Chris asked you to write a Wolvix review. We'll never know but I have a strong feeling that your schedule would've permitted that. And don't tell me that it would've been done because Wolvix is a smaller project.
88 • Great read (by Andrew on 2009-05-04 23:33:25 GMT from Australia)
Chris, you continue to write brilliant weekly wrap-ups - thanks for making my Tuesday mornings brighter (timezones and all that)!
After reading many comments about the amount of buntu news here, we all have to remember that Ubuntu is arguably the most popular distro and that it has a huge number of distros based off it. The reason why it's often commented on is because a huge number of people are interested in it. On a side note, I'd love to see a breakdown showing how many 'active' distros are based off it compared to 'active' distros based off the other flavours of Linux.
Love it or hate it, Ubuntu is very popular and has converted many Dozers to Linux.
89 • #82: Obviously you don't know me (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-05-04 23:46:13 GMT from United States)
#87 Corneliu: Is that meant to be a personal attack? You obviously don't know me. I wasn't asked by Chris to do a Mandriva review at all. I was asked to write a lead article on any subject I wanted. I simply did not have time. I also don't feel that a Wolvix review is in order until the final version is released. I made an exception with Vector Linux 6.0 because Ladislav specifically asked me to at the time. Even then it was more of an overview than an in-depth review.
Neither Ladislav nor Chris ever have dictated to me what to write. Ladislav has made suggestions and, yes, the Mandriva review was his suggestion. It makes sense to me and I have been recommending Mandriva as the best choice for newcomers prior to this release so I said yes. Once again, he left the final choice up to me.
Why do you assume the worst of me?
90 • On Ubuntu reviews and forum comments (by ladislav on 2009-05-05 00:04:32 GMT from Taiwan)
I actually have to agree with some of the comments here - having two Xubuntu articles in two weeks doesn't say much about the huge variety out there. But I think this is an exception, rather than a rule; normally we try to cover different topics every week, but sometimes we can slip. Still, many people liked the article, so at least it was useful to some.
On a different note, I still find it rather disheartening to read so much trolling and hatred here in the comments section. I wish people only commented if they had something interesting and insightful to say, but I guess that's not going to happen, no matter how many pleas I issue. One idea that crossed my mind today was to enable the comments form only to those readers who view the site with a free operating system. That should eliminate quite a bit of trolling. Take joojoobee, as an example, who is posting from a Windows machine (yes, I checked the Apache logs) and so is Miq from Sweden (another self-proclaimed Ubuntu hater).
I really really dislike deleting posts and preventing people from expressing their views, but at the same time I am so tired of posters who have absolutely nothing interesting to say, but still want to comment here.
91 • best of them (by joline on 2009-05-05 00:22:05 GMT from United States)
the page ranks are said to be not accurate for the true "best," just for what is popular to some who search and end here for a distro.
maybe we can agree about "best" overall in a "comments page top 10 list."
my top ten starts with antiX then goes to zenwalk then mint. and those three could be in any order even though I said "starts with antiX.
the whole thing of competing with windows makes suse look like the "best" because of popularity in europe I'll bet.
92 • I agree with Ladislav (by Shawn on 2009-05-05 00:40:28 GMT from United States)
I agree with you Ladislav, I had to defend myself for making an open comment and then another poster hinted to Adam for "being nice to me" because of what I said that had something to do with Mandriva, Mandriva's publicity and wondering why Mandriva seems to be "not as camera friendly" as it used to be (from my own point of view). Adam stepped in, was courteous and respectful and pointed me in a direction I didn't see yet with regard to other sites (as he always has done in the past) regarding the company making an effort to regain its popularity based on better quality control and less slipped schedules and just because Distrowatch didn't have Mandriva the day it was released didn't make it unimportant.
Don't know why everyone hates Ubuntu or has something to say that's derrogatory in nature, I guess that's the turf Ubuntu's on now because of its popularity. Still, in the year 2008 and now in 2009, if I had it my way, I'd most likely be booting from an 8 partition hard drive because all the Linuxes have grown, matured and are more than a tinkerer's or hobbyist system. I'm finding myself hopping more now than I was back in 2002 when I first got into Linux. With hundreds of distro's out there and most of those distro's offering ways to customize a system to your own liking, anyone can make a system that's best for them with relatively little fuss but I guess it's just easier to spew in a forum.
So to finish off on a positive note, does anyone want to try out one of my multiboot Live DVD's I created a few weeks ago? :) If so, hit me up via email. I have a triple boot Live DVD with Fedora 10 KDE4, openSUSE 11.1 KDE4 and PCLinuxOS 2009 Gnome or I have my quad-boot Live DVD with the three listed above plus Arch Linux (Chakra) as the 4th option. This is my way of "fighting the power"!
93 • No subject (by jg on 2009-05-05 00:43:49 GMT from United States)
I posted from a Windows machine because I'm currently writing a Windows device driver. (Some people also set their browser to spoof IE on Windows for certain support issues). I'm not going to reboot to comment here. Last month, I was writing a Linux shared library for OSC. Some of us actually do use more than one OS (and therefore can see why Ubuntu in particular is vastly overhyped. I find it to be very, very overrated compared to what else is out there -- especially Debian upon whose shoulders Ubuntu weighs). Singling out the alleged "lack of quality" of comments based upon the browser used is frankly beyond silly.
You may think that the criticisms of this week's Distrowatch seem "uninteresting" and "uninsightful", but to be frank, I believe what you're seeing is that a number of your readers also found the newsletter feature to be "uninteresting and uninsightful". It does linux users a bit of a disservice to advise them to take Xubuntu and then waste time and trouble eschewing its graphical installer, and manually adding/removing packages, just to get it to be "almost but not quite" comparable to what you can get with Debian's vanilla Xfce desktop (the latter; easier and quicker). If you want to write about that degree of manually configuring a distro, a better article would have focused upon Arch. Ubuntu is not intended for the sort of audience your article attempts to address. Arch is.
It's also plain weird for a website devoted to covering lots of distros to eschew the notion that different distros are for different purposes, and instead try to take one distro (too often Ubuntu) and expend time/effort to inexplicably make it comparable to another distro. (I don't know. Maybe you can rename the site "DistroMaker" and indicate that all articles will be about retooling your own Ubuntu-derived distro). The fact that you've done something so inexplicable is why people are now questioning whether the website emphasizes Ubuntu at the expense of more informed and useful distro reporting.
In conclusion, whereas I suppose some *buntu fanbois may think it's awfully great to read an article that advises spending time/effort getting Xubuntu to run like Debian's vanilla Xfce desktop, I can certainly understand why a number of commenters have obviously disagreed with this further "followup" to last week's Distrowatch. It's your website to do with as you wish, but I'd think that a significant criticism of the site may be something you may want to examine (with more care than just censoring posts expressing an opinion you don't like, or just arbitrarily locking out people based upon browser settings).
94 • Distrobuntu (by bueh! on 2009-05-05 01:00:28 GMT from Spain)
Put the fuck back into computing, use xyzBuntu
95 • Xubuntu -> Xubuntu (Debian package list) (by noname on 2009-05-05 01:10:13 GMT from Lithuania)
can anyone provide package list to get from Xubuntu (minimal) to Xubuntu (with Debian package list)?
96 • RE: 93 (by ladislav on 2009-05-05 01:24:13 GMT from Taiwan)
Singling out the alleged "lack of quality" of comments based upon the browser used is frankly beyond silly.
Yes, I agree, it's silly. Unfortunately, so are too many posts that appear here.
It does linux users a bit of a disservice to advise them to take Xubuntu and then waste time and trouble eschewing its graphical installer
Advise? I am sorry, but the article didn't "advise" anything, it merely showed what could be done with a distribution that isn't really meant to be used that way.
I believe what you're seeing is that a number of your readers also found the newsletter feature to be "uninteresting and uninsightful"
Fair enough, but that would be true about any feature article. It is nearly impossible to come up with articles that are 100% interesting and insightful to 100% readers week after week.
*buntu fanbois
It was a decent post until the above point. You couldn't just say "Ubuntu fans", could you? Is it really so hard to accept that many people like and enjoy Ubuntu?
with more care than just censoring posts expressing an opinion you don't like
Are you new to DistroWatch and online forums? Because there is a big difference between constructive criticism and sensless ranting. The former I won't delete, whether I agree with it or not. But if the best a poster can do is to say "$distro sucks" or "first post", then sorry, these kinds of comments WILL BE DELETED.
(By the way, if you think you can do a better job in moderating the comments, you are welcome to take over. I'd be more than happy to retire from this task).
97 • Mandriva 2009.1 Working flawless on HP 2140 Mini HD (by mandriva user on 2009-05-05 01:29:30 GMT from United States)
Mandriva 2009.1
Recognized 1300x768 screen, all peripherals, wireless including WEP and WPA. I bought the 2 GB ram upgrade for the netbook and Mandriva KDE is as fast as Xfre (the non-decorated window option -- sorry forgot the name) on my 3 Ghz 512 MB P4.
I had an old powerpack subscription and I just renewed ($70 for 1 year) to get the updates for all my machines at home. I am upgrading my son's as I speak, and I am planning to buy another HP 2140 mini-note HD so that we have no "resource contention" for those who want to work from the sofa.
This is the first distro that I have run that has performed everything that I asked of it perfectly.
Good work Mandriva. And good work HP on the 2140 mini-note. (My only advice is that you buy only the three cell battery if you want the mini-note to be thin, as the 6 cell battery mounts the extra three cells vertically.) You'll need a USB DVD drive to easily install Mandriva without downloading some portion to the windows partition. I got the bundle with XP because it was cheaper than no OS or Suse.
98 • RE: 96 (by ladislav on 2009-05-05 01:37:58 GMT from Taiwan)
And just to prove my point, here comes a poster from Spain who gives a really great insight with comment number 94! Do you see what I mean?
Unfortunately, the poster also breaks my theory of allowing comments from Linux clients only. He used Debian to send that line of exceptional wisdom.
99 • @97 what a waste (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 01:41:23 GMT from United States)
Mandriva user,
Why did you waste $70 for 1 year to get updates ?
This is the part that Mandriva puts them in bad shape. This is why Ubuntu is much better and on top of the charts. They don't charge for the UPDATES, and they have a great deal of fans from many parts of the world.
You could just have gotten your $70 and burned them in a trash can.
100 • @98 (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 01:47:20 GMT from United States)
Ladislav
I can more or less see what you want and mean. Anyhow, I see that these people have a very valid point. Distrowatch is not the same as it used to be :( We visit it to get news about the Linux world and I mean the linux world not the "??buntu world". We have noticed nearly every time that we come here, we see "??? buntu ???" plastered all over this site.
This is what people are fed up about. I have a machine running Ubuntu, but I have others running OpenSuse, Fedora, FreeBSD, ..., etc. So it is not the only one.
This reminds me of a one time deal where you replaced cdrtools with the cdrkit. You know which one is original right. Like Coca-Cola and pepsi, the original is always better. The original does not need the publicity, you know it always performs and satisfies. The original is Debian and without it The #buntus are meaningless and not represent anything.
101 • What's the Big Deal (by Ubuntu Fan on 2009-05-05 01:50:53 GMT from United States)
Honestly, Ladislav, I don't see any reason for you to be so sensitive. Most of the comments are reasonable enough, whether they were pro-Xubuntu or not. I'm sure next week's newsletter will be focused elsewhere and we'll see reader ire likewise focused elsewhere. Nature of the beast.
102 • RE: 100 (by ladislav on 2009-05-05 02:03:15 GMT from Taiwan)
I have a machine running Ubuntu, but I have others running OpenSuse, Fedora, FreeBSD
Great, then why don't you write an article about those and submit it to DW? I am sure that many readers would be interested in your experiences with different distros.
103 • RE: 101 What's the Big Deal (by ladislav on 2009-05-05 02:07:39 GMT from Taiwan)
Most of the comments are reasonable enough
Oh, you didn't see the ones that got deleted or blocked! As I write this, there is a reader who keeps re-submitting a post that is full of horrible, vulgar insults towards one of the anti-Ubuntu posters above. Trust me, it's an all-out war out there!
104 • re 89 (by corneliu on 2009-05-05 02:08:35 GMT from Canada)
@ Caitlyn: I apologize. It seems I was a little bit too frustrated. Maybe it should've been explained earlier that Mandriva review was coming.
105 • Re: @ 71 to Caitlyn Martin (by Barney Rubble on 2009-05-05 02:10:28 GMT from N/A)
Unfortunately Ms. Martin I cannot apt-get anything because as I stated earlier I get on the web wirelessly and not wired. With that said I must launch the GUI so that I can launch the WiCd in the distro.
My whole point Ms. Martin is I wish to do the the Xubuntu Minimal install. If I am starting from ground zero I have no Internet because I am not wired. I cannot "sudo apt-get" anything because I am 100% wireless. How do I do the Xubuntu Minimal install and "sudo apt-get" anything? I cannot. Because I am 100% wireless with no driver support at boot time I cannot "sudo apt-get" anything because I have a wireless adapter that must be configure first which can be done in the full Xubuntu GUI Ms. Martin.
If I launch the Xubuntu GUI I can use the built in WiCd manager but then this defeats the whole purpose of setting up a minimal install. I thought I made that clear in the first posting.
So to be clear Ms. Martin I have no wired connections to the Internet at boot and i wish to deploy the Minimal Xubuntu install. I cannot "sudo apt-get anything because I may also need the ndiswrapper as well.
My issues are solved 100% if I launch the full GUI because once there I can configure my wireless ndiswrapper wireless link-sys adapter and get online. so then what happens to minimal setup? So I guess the answer is no to installing the Xubuntu Minimal install.
Barney
106 • re 99 (by corneliu on 2009-05-05 02:15:28 GMT from Canada)
Stop spreading FUD. It makes you look stupid, not smart. Mandriva is free. There are no fees for updates. Some people buy Mandriva Powerpack because they want to support Mandriva. Unlike you they want to give something back. It is their way to express their gratitude. Some people are not ungrateful like you. It is entirely up to the users to pay for powerpack of use the free edition. The free edition can do as much as the paid edition. There is nothing the paid edition can do that the free edition can't do.
107 • #105: You don't need a GUI to configure wireless (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 02:25:50 GMT from United States)
#105: @Barney: You can configure wireless in Ubuntu from the command line just as you can in any other distro I understand that you don't know how to do that. Fine. Would you like me to give you step-by-step instructions or do you prefer to throw stones? I read and understood that you don't have wired ethernet. You apparently didn't understand my suggestion unless I spell it out step by step.
Let me repeat what I said but really spell out the details for you:
Do the minimal install as Chris suggests. That includes installing a basic GUI. apt-get can be used to install packages from the CD-ROM. No connectivity needed.
You can then proceed to configure wireless at the command line -OR- install NetworkManager (from the CD with apt-get), configure in the GUI, install wicd, and rip out NetworkManager again.
Read up on iwconfig and ifconfig, both of which work just fine in Ubuntu.
108 • 106 (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 02:40:08 GMT from United States)
Mandriva Paid edition does much more than free edition, it takes away $ much Like Microsoft does to its many unsuspecting users. Why should users pay for it, when they can get sed -i s/*buntu/g where * can be X, U, K, Flux, LXDE, ..., etc. Do you know why Ubuntu unseated Mandriva, not because it is much much better, but because they appreciate and value their users where Mandriva does not even value the people that work for them, just ask Adam Williamson and Gael Duval. /end of Mandriva RANT
109 • No subject (by jg on 2009-05-05 03:04:34 GMT from United States)
[i]it merely showed what could be done with a distro that isn't really meant to be used that way.[/i]
If _that_ was the point, note that you can print out the Canonical web site and make a paper airplane out of too. But I wouldn't see much point in a DistroWatch article about doing that either. (But it could be good for a laugh. You should do it, since some people expect another newsletter about *buntu _real soon_, and at least a good laugh could break some of the tension).
[i]It is nearly impossible to come up with articles that are 100% interesting and insightful to 100% readers week after week.[/i]
Judging by the reactions I'm seeing, I think it's _much_ less than 100%. In fact, it sounds like people who formerly thought of the site as a resource to learn about distros other than one particular distro, are starting to wonder if the site is leaning toward one particular distro.
[i]Is it really so hard to accept that many people like and enjoy Ubuntu?[/i]
Is it really so hard to accept that many people think Ubuntu et al are vastly overhyped, and that a lot of ubuntu-related content on the web is really of little value and actually misguided (such as the above "how to expend a lot of time and trouble getting Xbuntu to be no better than an easier-to-install vanilla Debian Xfce desktop" thing)?
Is it really so hard to just say "If you want a faster, more memory efficient Xfce based distro than Xubuntu, then use something else such as Debian with its Xfce desktop"? Is it really not counterproductive to follow such a conclusion in a DistroWatch newsletter with another back-to-back newsletter that attempts to completely discredit that earlier conclusion with an inadvisable investment of time and effort that yields no notable benefit? What is so special about Ubuntu and its deriviatives that deserves that questionable treatment? (And I'm not the only person to have asked that question here). When you _honestly_ answer that question, then perhaps you'll understand why a number of people are saying "Enough (ubuntu) is enough", and pointing out that other distros do exist.
P.S. If you're planning on filtering out Windows users, you probably should alert the folks who write those "How you, as a Windows user, can switch to Linux" guides which advise Windows users to go to distrowatch to "check out" distros. They may want to direct them to a more accomodating site. It astounds me that you actually think this is a good idea. Please take a vacation, and come back with a refreshed perspective on at least Windows users and *buntu. Maybe _that_ is what's really needed.
110 • No subject (by jeffcustom on 2009-05-05 03:32:47 GMT from United States)
Actually, I hope Windows users aren't directed here. If they were, they might read this comments area and think all Linux users are arrogant, egotistical, paranoid human beings.
Why should anyone care if Ubuntu is overrated or not?! I am happy when any of my friends give Linux a try and I don't care what version they use. Once they are comfortable, they can start the journey of finding their Linux home if they like.
Ladislav, if I were you, I would consider just removing this comments area of the website. It's been a very long time since I've seen anything really useful in this area. Sad to say but, apparently, Linux users are not to be trusted with open comment areas.
111 • So is there going to be an article about the latest hardware? (by dedguy on 2009-05-05 03:32:47 GMT from United States)
Seems to me it would be a good marketing opportunity as well. What's the latest and greatest hardware brands that can optimize Linux the best....
112 • The gloves come off (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-05 03:38:27 GMT from United States)
I've had enough of this nonsense.
301: Ubuntu
300: Debian/Ubuntu
299: General article
298: PC-BSD
297: Parted Magic
296: Tiny Core
295: Tiny Core
294: General article (using Ubuntu as an example)
293: General article
292: SimplyMEPIS
291: OpenSUSE
290: Debian
289: Moblin
288: General article
287: General article
286: Arch
285: Absolute
284: General
283: OpenSUSE
282: Ubuntu (Chris' first DWW)
281: Vector
280: General article
279: General article (OpenSUSE is discussed)
278: General
277: Ubuntu
276: General
275: General
274: General
273: Mint/CentOS
272: General
271: General
270: Ubuntu
269: Debian
268: Everybody
267: PC-BSD
266: Mandriva
265: General
264: Parsix
263: NimbleX
262: Sabayon
261: General
260: General
259: General
258: OpenSUSE/Fedora
Ubuntu had 5.5 of the past 43 stories. Sure, it has the most. But OpenSUSE had 3.5. Debian had 3. And the wide majority of stories were about Linux in general, or other occurrences.
So why is there moaning and groaning, again?
@109: I prefer the six month repositories. I'd use something like Debian stable, but it's old, and Testing moves too much. Xubuntu would work better for me if I wanted Xfce.
113 • ...and really we should all ignore the negativity (by dedguy on 2009-05-05 03:44:06 GMT from United States)
You are what you think you are and that's all that you are...
This is a great site with a lot of credibility, and people do read the comments. If you have to clean up for the sake of maintaining your business...so be it. Free speech is only protected in the public sector any how.
But it would really be a great article, like they do for propriety OS's in Tom's site, to see what hardware components are optimized on Linux for the person who want a more powerful PC experience (250mb of ram? Really?) for the DIY computer users. Linux could be handled on a more mainstream basis.
And also what Linux software out there could use the horsepower...I'm sure the *buntus will get their obligatory mention (lol j/k).
114 • 112 (by jeffcustom on 2009-05-05 04:11:31 GMT from United States)
Thanks for posting the data for perspective.
115 • Caitlyn on Mandriva (by friend on 2009-05-05 04:11:45 GMT from Indonesia)
Caitlyn knows what she is doing,
period.
Mandriva 2009.1 I have had for a couple of days and I can attest that a review of this
is not served well by merely installing and gawking at the trinkets and bobbles.
The functionality of Mandriva hinges quite strongly on being a KDE showcase,
but beyond that is obviously an enormous effort by Mandriva on the guts of making
installation and updates/upgrades so convenient.
Some notes for Caitlyn:
1. Maybe you can tell, I cannot from my browsing, but the biggest fly in the ointment
remains a KDE issue being the near brain-dead decision to replace the
uber-functional Konqueror with the nearly comical Dolphin.
Along with that KDE somehow seemed to have misplaced the quite strategic
"storage media" access in their resurrection of Konqueror. Others have noted this.
(http://forum.kde.org/kde-4-2-2-the-disappointment-continues-t-44034-3.html)
I cannot see any Mandriva comments on this, but I would have thought there would
have been a quiet riot inside the Mandriva organization over this 'dumbing-down'
with some sort of thoughts about alternatives. The crown jewels of Mandriva
is the ability to intelligently tweak and control things - very unlike the m$ and
most of the other distros which give you either a default choice or require you
to scrounge through the /usr/share/doc folders in a hit-and-miss exercise
to find commandline documentation which may or may not articulate whatever it is
one may wish to do with the package (did I say draklive?... read on)
Any linux distro can be tweaked, but it is approaching the point where the
sheer volume software is overwhelming for someone trying to use it to spend
their days hunting up the documentation necessary to keep on it.
This is an issue Mandriva has foreseen, if I read between the lines correctly.
Konqueror was less a file shuffler (a la Dolphin) than a portal through which
we could 'put our hands into the guts of' the system and
'have our way' with what we had on disk and on Lan.
Dolphin reeks of a chastity belt mentality.
Or was it simply that using the new QT-basis destroyed konqueror functions?
2. Mandriva's software management remains the best in the business,
along with their 'control center' which makes managing the OS such an easy task.
That said, along with the new Kleansweep and the system Sweeper I was under the impression we would be able to use draklive a bit easier to build USB keys.
Alas, draklive seems to be still under development - your thoughts?
The thought was there - is there still Mandriva hope for this or are they waiting for
a different tool to 'come of age'?
3. A some others have noted, people like myself prefer dual monitors for the added
screen real-estate, and Mandriva has always worked well in this regard.
That said, I note they seem to be holding off on the latest Intel xorg drivers for
some reason, and I wonder why this is (Everyone knows Intel has stumbled a bit,
but then this occurs to nVidia and ATI as well from time to time)
4. I note that the KDE4 is much more robust in 2009.1 and the thought occurs
- is this merely a KDE4 improvement or is there Mandriva code at work there?
I suspect Mandriva has pulled some things together here because the QT base
seems to have some glitches remaining - these appear from time to time
and I expect that KDE4 in other distros probably has more problems which
Mandriva has pre-empted. I note many slight, almost imperceptible delays
which I attribute to some mechanisms at work behind the scenes keeping the system
stable. My plans to upgrade moved forward when my 2009.0 plasma environment
decided to sigseg, so I just hit upgrade on the friendly notification, which
was the only thing left standing on my desktop.
One strong reason for the KDE4 development was to leave behind bowls of
spaghetti code in favor of a stronger system based on something which would
remain open (QT), but there were also words about clearing desktop clutter
which is a fetish with some people. Pre-empting clutter is sentimental at best,
but I wonder if the philosophy behind this will actually fit the Mandriva road?
In short, Mandriva is not for everyone, (some people need a nanny system
complete with idiot-proof default options [note - I did Not even mention *buntut])
but for those of us who enjoy being
able to make the system work outside the boundaries of normal video-slurping
and spreadsheet twiddling Mandriva is the friendliest and most adjustable
system on the market.
So, Caitlyn, some of us will patiently your verdict at your own pace,
as we know you will do this review justice.
116 • RE: 109 (by ladislav on 2009-05-05 04:13:44 GMT from Taiwan)
Judging by the reactions I'm seeing, I think it's _much_ less than 100%.
That's because you see only what you want to see. Read the comments again and you'll find many who appreciated the article.
Is it really so hard to accept that many people think Ubuntu et al are vastly overhyped
How many is many? If the number of people who thought of Ubuntu as "vastly overhyped" was greater that those who actually love it, you wouldn't have to post your anti-Ubuntu rants here now, would you?
When you _honestly_ answer that question, then perhaps you'll understand why a number of people are saying "Enough (ubuntu) is enough", and pointing out that other distros do exist.
I understand that sentiment and, as I said in an earlier post, I also think that covering Xubuntu twice in two consecutive weeks wasn't the brightest thing to do. That said, you are fighting a lost cause. Why is it that many web sites review Ubuntu, but won't bother with Mandriva? Why is it that many publishing houses write books about Ubuntu, but none about Slackware? Do you also write to O'Reilly to "point out that other distros do exist"? Do you email Apress saying that they must stop publishing books about Ubuntu because "many people think it's overhyped"?
If you want unbiased, facts-only distro reporting, then please stay on the home page of DistroWatch where every distro gets equal treatment. As for DistroWatch Weekly, we do have to take into account popularity and reader's interest. We cover as many distributions as we can, but the popular ones do and will get more exposure. If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to visit here.
If you're planning on filtering out Windows users...
Sorry, but this again only shows that you don't really read (never mind accept) other people's arguments, only repeat your own pre-conceived ones. I never said I wanted to filter Windows users. Next time, please read my comments carefully before replying.
117 • Oh well, such is life (by friend on 2009-05-05 04:22:28 GMT from Indonesia)
"103 • RE: 101 What's the Big Deal (by ladislav on 2009-05-05 02:07:39 GMT from Taiwan)
Most of the comments are reasonable enough
Oh, you didn't see the ones that got deleted or blocked! As I write this, there is a reader who keeps re-submitting a post that is full of horrible, vulgar insults towards one of the anti-Ubuntu posters above. Trust me, it's an all-out war out there! "
I would hope you might just delete the content and let the timestamp/name in place
so we can all make a note of who it is we can ignore - we may encounter them
somewhere else and knowing their preferred 'handle' gives us a head start
on 'avoiding the Dark Side encounters' in other venues.
[Distrowatch is still one of the most interesting places to come to because we
get the opportunity to rub shoulders with people who are not necessarily
approachable elsewhere.]
That said, thanks for your oversight anyway...
118 • Informative article (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 05:34:00 GMT from United States)
Chris, I enjoyed reading what I think is an informative, well-written article. That said, the following statement (copied from #93) is also true:
"[X]ubuntu is not intended for the sort of audience your article attempts to address."
This was also the first impression that popped into my mind when I was reading your article. Still, it was far from a waste of time.
119 • this week (by dave at 2009-05-05 06:37:37 GMT from United States)
Wow,Im worn pretty thin after reading the previous 117 comments,but as always i can't submit a comment until i've read all before me.
First of all i'd like to start by saying as i have in the past I come to DWW to see whats new this week in the linux world and possibly see a review of something released this week.I two was dissapointed to see a continuation of last weeks article and thought to myself yep chris thought he made xubuntu look bad last week so this week he's going to struggle to make xubuntu something it's not.Yes it was a well written informative article and yes indeed chris has an uncanny way of bringing the linux world to a level for all to understand.Nice choice ladislav ...i'm convinced he really is the right man for the job.But IMO it really was a poor choice.No biggie.I also would like to point out that this is the third week in a row that ubuntu headlined,as the first week you offered tips on an ubuntu netbook install.I personally would like to see one of the distros from the past week installed and reviewed...every week for a feature article.An occasional sidestep is fine like the tecchie volume management article a while back.I know your open too suggestions ladislav so just thought i'd lay that out there again.Truly i hear where your coming from having to deal with the entire world there is bound to be some real idiots posting profanity and hatred and that sucks you have to deal with that stuff.Ok on another note
The folks at mandriva seem to be losing ground with the recent firings of top individuals and not letting the community in on what the future holds.Kind of the same with PCLOS community they also have some unanswered questions.A big kudos for mandriva and SUSE though working on the implementation of KDE 4.3.
Over in the puppy world it seems Barry Kauler is much needed and without him they could go downhill.
and as far as the HUGE diversity in the linux world I know I'm always feeling like there is a better distro out there for me and I'm on that relentless search.
I tried to run Saybayon on my dimension 4400 but it was a no go.I made it to the desktop but at least in live mode it was hogging up bad,and i am running a p4 2.4 and a gig of ram it was just unusable.
and finally python was an excellant choice for the money you always hit the nail on the head with your monthly contributions.Ok that's all thanks for another wonderful week and keep up the good work guys!!
120 • @97, 99 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-05-05 07:01:44 GMT from United States)
Since I'm off the clock I can do a bit of Mandriva moonlighting :)
97, good to hear Mandriva's being good for you, but you don't need to buy the Powerpack to get updates - Mandriva's never charged for updates and never will. Of course, it's good that you bought it, as that helps the guys who build Mandriva to eat. And eating is good!
99, see above.
121 • @108 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-05-05 07:04:00 GMT from United States)
Please don't imply that I would back you up in some kind of 'Mandriva sucks, Ubuntu rules' argument. Your suggestion that the paid edition of Mandriva is somehow akin to Microsoft is a bit absurd - last I checked, Mandriva didn't have a monopoly on *anything*. The Powerpack edition of Mandriva comes with some commercial software that you don't get in any free Linux distribution, but essentially people choose to buy it to support the company. No-one gets forced, tricked or otherwise hoodwinked into buying Mandriva.
122 • @115 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-05-05 07:08:19 GMT from United States)
I haven't really used 2009 Spring much, but I can comment on a few bits of your post. AFAIK, no-one in the Mandriva KDE team is particularly unhappy with Dolphin. draklive, practically speaking, has mostly wound up being a tool for the MDV release team to use. It's a bit sad that it's not much used outside the company, I guess the fact that you need an entire mirror tree to use it has a lot to do with that. I'm not sure what you mean about Intel drivers; looking at the MDV changelog mailing list, it appears that 2009 Spring is shipping with 2.7.0, which is the latest stable release. 2.7.99.1 is an unstable development release.
123 • Comment Roundup (by Andrew on 2009-05-05 07:12:02 GMT from Australia)
Wow...It might be just me but is DWW comment section turning into an anonomous garbage pit of rants, abuse and threats?
Not that I want it to happen, but IF you had to 'log in' to write a comment I believe it will cut out a large amount of the rubbish here. I remember when www.geek.com allowed anon comments - that degraded into a nth post / fake / nth fake mess.
On another note, we FOSS people have day jobs, sometimes those day jobs require the use of non-FOSS machines, so sometimes the person lurking behind an IE browser is forced by a pay cheque to do so :)
Ladislav & Chris, you do a brilliant job and for ever vocal fool bringing you down, there's 100 quiet lurkers that support you. Keep up the good work.
124 • Re #99 and why I like Mandriva (by Mandriveiro on 2009-05-05 07:54:46 GMT from Spain)
I didn't see any reason to complaint when DD wrote "this is Ubuntu week", but I think that people who like Mandriva, like me, we were a bit disappointed when we saw that no Mandriva review appeared this week in DW. I agree that sometimes is simply impossible to do the job when the distro was released on Wednesday and DW is out on Monday. But please, next time, try to understand that the excitement for a new realease of a distro is the same for all its followers, not only for Ubuntu's.
For #99, Yes, Mandriva is worth those 69EUR (sorry, 69EUR>>70$) for many reasons, just a few: its coherence with the main 4 desktops from the very same repos (KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce); clean updates; great comunity (at least, the spanish one, http://blogdrake.net/); the excellent control center and _security_. The control center and the current security system in Mandriva, msec, are two great features that I haven't seen in any other distro, except (open)Suse's own control center and AppArmor. Talking about security, Mandriva, like any other serious distro, does not lie to the users by mixing the root user with the first user.
I understand that other people prefer other distros, and that's fine. For now, I stick to Mandriva.
125 • Ladislav (by Vinze on 2009-05-05 07:57:36 GMT from Netherlands)
Ladislav,
Maybe it's better to stop with the comment section. Don't waist your time anymore.
I like Distrowatch but could do without the comment section witch is getting irritating more and more. There are some very good commenters here like Catlyn, Adam, Landor etc.. I don't always agree with them but I do respect there opinions.
Save your energy for more important things.
126 • Quick solution for nerd rage (by Amusing on 2009-05-05 08:35:03 GMT from United States)
Just block everyone that is not using GNU Hurd which will give you about 7 people with the ability to comment, at least if Debian's popcon is accurate. I find that solution fair.[/ironic tone]
127 • @ 107 (by Amusing on 2009-05-05 08:42:21 GMT from United States)
Read up on iwconfig and ifconfig, both of which work just fine in Ubuntu.
If you are going to point people towards the CLI solution to wireless configuration you could at least have the courtesy to point them to a solution that would work consistently on a system re-boot.
a "man interfaces" is the least you could have done to be helpful.
128 • Linux (by Distrowatch Reader on 2009-05-05 10:52:51 GMT from United States)
It is nice to see Mepis back in the top ten.
129 • A question (by Greg on 2009-05-05 11:54:39 GMT from Greece)
Are there any standards for distributions in waiting list, in order to get added in DW? I am asking cause some have been in waiting list for years, while others dont get to stay much.
130 • has no one mentioned this yet? (by Matthew T. on 2009-05-05 11:57:26 GMT from United States)
I'm not a very technical Linux user but appreciate the lead article for the simple reason that the Xubuntu menu takes up less screen space than the default xfce menu.
131 • RE: 129 A question (by ladislav on 2009-05-05 12:00:33 GMT from Taiwan)
No, not really. I scan various data to see which distros on the list are most in demand and add (or try to add) at least one new every week. A lot depends how well a distro is managed in terms of its web site infrastructure, forums, repositories, graphics, bug trackers, etc.
Why are you asking? Is there a distro you'd like to see added to the database?
132 • are you mandriva reviews greedy as I am ? (by glyj on 2009-05-05 12:42:29 GMT from France)
here is a small review of mandriva 2009 spring :
http://izanbardprince.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/mandriva-2009-spring-kicks-vista7-back-to-devnull/
I don't know if it's woth adding it to the "review list"
May be the other one i gave could be added : http://www.itnewstoday.com/?p=355
regards,
glyj
133 • Higher-end Hardware (by Matt on 2009-05-05 12:47:56 GMT from United States)
My first post...
I too would like to see some articles with Linux on higher end hardware...
I recently built a computer with an AM3 processor, 4 gigs of ram with the ATI 3000 graphics chipset (saving for a discreet card). Are their significant benefits moving to 64-bit? What software can take advantage? etc...
I appreciate each DWW, and I enjoy reading ALL of the articles, as I am still exploring which distro works for ME.
Thank you Ladislav and Chis, and all of those making constructive comments. (I am at a loss when Ladislav has clearly, politely, requested that people keep their comments "in check" on HIS website, and there are people who refuse to do so.)
Matt
134 • high end. (by dave on 2009-05-05 12:55:14 GMT from United States)
Actually they do installs with high end machines.I believe its ladislav himself with the 8 gb ram machine,and then people say "yeah but sure you got 8gb ram on your machine...."
135 • Dual head (by MR on 2009-05-05 13:50:00 GMT from United States)
Wow ... 100+ posts later, nobody seems to have responded to #17.
FWIW, 17, I have some recent experience with dual head setups and newer distros. Modern versions of Gnome and KDE (3.5.10 and 4.2) provide graphical tools for sizing and positioning the screens to your liking once you've got the proper driver loaded, and in an experiment a few months back with Fedora 10, *buntu, and OpenSUSE 11.1 I didn't need to do any manual editing of X.Org configurations to get it working. Mind you, I was using an NVidia graphics card and NVidia's binary driver, which would be a show-stopper to some.
Something I did learn the hard way: until you've installed the driver you need (be it NVidia, ATi, or an open source driver), use one monitor only. The 'buntus got very confused (again this was the 8.10 version so it may be fixed) and tended to give me an unusable display otherwise.
Ladislav, can I add my vote for a piece on new, high-end hardware? Since one of the knocks on Linux is still driver support, it would be nice to see how well the communities are doing with keeping up with evolving hardware.
136 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-05 14:14:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #132.
If Mandriva affionados wanted a write up, glyj has kindly provided some reviews.
Thanks, I found the stuff interesting...especially the comment apropos the choice of file systems...ext3. or ext4.
Reading between the lines it seems, to me, ext4. is still regarded with some reservation or even trepidation perhaps...and I had wondered whether this may have been the cause of some discontent about the "distro-that-dare-not-speak-its-name No. 9" not working for some, as reported in last week's comments section?
It occurs to me that if we "knew" the choice of file systems was so critical, for a particular distro/machine combination it might save endless debate and libelous comments.
Caitlyn, to name but one, has been fairly instrumental in banging the drum that not all distros work on all machines...perhaps it might be a notion to now do the same for the file system used? So, Caitlyn or Chris, you are pretty much up on these things so what is your take on the matter?
Turning to the point abut how "a" distro behaves on a high end machine, perhaps it might be an idea to qualify/quantify what a "high end" machine is?
I gather 8GB ram is indicative of a 64bit proc, but you would surely need to specify the cores. fsb, size of cache etc, etc, as well as overclocking and so on and so forth. Or even the size of cache(?) on the hard drive and its speed, seek time...or even were you to use an SSD.
And, how many distros are written for both 32 and 64 bit procs...
137 • Delay between submit and post? (by Jesse on 2009-05-05 14:20:07 GMT from Canada)
Ladislav,
Perhaps it would save some time and frustration if a small change was made to the way comments are posted. Right now they show up as soon as I hit "Submit". And I'm sure you spend a lot of time going through the comments in real time, deleting flames and garbage.
It might be better if a delay was put in place. So let's say I submit this comment and it goes into a holding place. Then you could go through, as you felt like, and approve or delete comments. It might save you some time and would prevent garbage from showing up here. Sure it would slow things down, but it would keep the comments from getting so off-topic and only useful or insightful stuff would show up here.
138 • Xubuntu...So called light distro. (by Barnabyh on 2009-05-05 14:31:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've always wondered why Xubuntu is so much recommended and talked about when it comes to looking for a light version.
Surely if you're looking for something light and fast with XFce as desktop that is also extremely user friendly with their tools to accommodate the noobs then Zenwalk is the perfect choice.
Running Xubuntu defeats the objective completely.
139 • minimal Xubuntu (by Mahmoud at 2009-05-05 14:42:39 GMT from Egypt)
hello
about the topic of minimal Xubuntu, i don't think the problem Xubuntu has is the memory it take. i think it is all about proccessing time.
if we want to say that an OS is for old and legacy Hardware, we should have an OS with low processing time and also it less memory usage
i usuallly use vectorlinux and achieve this hard equation but we hope to find the speed with the performance of debian and its derivatives.
thanks
140 • No subject (by Eyes-Only on 2009-05-05 14:46:28 GMT from United States)
I'm yet another one who appreciated this week's article by Chris. For me, I could have cared less the actuall name of the distro used in his example - what I looked forward to reading in the article was taking a "fairly large beast" of a distro, one which calls up a seemingly unlimited number of daemons to run in the background, and thereby doing a minimal install in which one may "tame said beast."
In this respect I found Chris's article to be more comparable to his past article of "taming the beast" known as OpenSUSE. ;) So to have read all the wolves here huffing and puffing in an attempt to blow the house down ( DWW and an excellent reviewer ) really surprised me.
"Que sera, sera" I guess?
Ladislav and Chris do such an excellent ( and mostly thankless ) service to we in the Linux Community - yet how do we repay them by and large?
Ladislav? I agree 200% with the few other posters who have brought this idea up: Close the comments section. For myself I'd miss the great URLs that I get here from many of the regulars, like Forest, Glgy, Caitlyn Martin, Tom, Nobody Important, et al - yet I could easily live without those as I belong to other fora. You, on the otherhand, really don't need this hassle one bit!
Please give it some serious thought?
Cheers,
Eyes-Only
"L'Peau-Rouge"
141 • @Adam & other Mandriva Freaks (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 14:48:12 GMT from United States)
Mandriva is not GOOD, it might have this or have that. Mandrake was GREAT, Mandriva is no Mandrake. I liked Mandrake very much, but could still fall back to Red Hat if I wanted.
I know people have to eat, they can get Food Stamps. The Government is also very helpful. Tell their stinking club to feed em.
I am so SORRY that you guys did not get your Mandriva Reviews, Good thing Chris nor Ladislav wasted their time writing up one just to keep you guys happy. I don't understand how many people are against me and others who tell you that Mandriva is a lousy company. There are no ifs ands or ors.
142 • No subject (by Squalphin on 2009-05-05 15:14:27 GMT from Germany)
I liked the Xubuntu article but I think that there must be something wrong with the distro if you have to strip a lightweight distro down to get a lightweight distro. Nevertheless, it's still interesting to see that it is possible ;)
I can't wait to read the review about Mandriva 2009.1. I tried it out myself and I like it. There is just a little annoying bug with Okular and Lyx. Okular just shows some black blocks instead of a readable font when I want to see a preview of my document. But everything else was working very well :) And KDE4 isn't that bad.
I don't understand why there is so much hate against Ubuntu. Without this distro I would never be a linux user like I am now. When I first tried Ubuntu 2 years ago I really loved it. After that i tried many other distros, but Ubuntu seemed to be the easiest for me. I like Operating Systems which do the work for me. I am not a command line guy. And Ubuntus usability is very good. My second favorite is Mandriva. Most of the time I am jumping between the two. And sometimes even Fedora lands on my PC. For a short time I was using Arch Linux, but that was a bit too much tinkering for me ;P Windows XP stays for gaming. It's the only reason i still need it.
Maybe the comments section really needs a user system but I am not sure if this would help much. It doesn't take that much time to create an account, login and post something stupid...
143 • improving comment board (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 15:35:58 GMT from United States)
Ladislav
Please consider Jesse's suggestion (censoring, #137), or Andrew's (logging in, #123) to improve this comments board.
The board is usually worth reading, with interesting and informative comments. However, it is getting to be a chore to wade through the muck.
DWW articles are excellent. Well written. Good topics. Your policies with respect to articles would be difficult to improve.
144 • Systems (by Shawn on 2009-05-05 15:50:53 GMT from United States)
Ladislav shouldn't have to be doing major work and editing out the comments section if everyone was mature enough to make a critique with respect in mind instead of just bashing anything and everything that they might have an opinion on or a disagreement with. However, it's amazing how attitude's change once the anonymity is removed from an author's content and are responsible for their own postings. They wrote the stuff, let them be seen by the content of their posts. Mark Twain was a man who was ahead of his time.
145 • #141: Menudo gilipollas (by Mandriveiro on 2009-05-05 15:55:01 GMT from Spain)
"I know people have to eat, they can get Food Stamps. The Government is also very helpful", yeah, that sounds very american, and very rude, btw.
"I don't understand how many people are against me": If you make rude statements, what do you expect?
146 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-05 15:57:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the comments debate...on reflection the number of comments now at 142, and it's not not even teatime yet (well, UK time anyway) and it's only Tuesday must be a record (?).
It does indicate that the Linux community...ahem...is alive and well and not about to let itself be trodden on. I know the comments verge on the libelous at times but at least it shows there is very little apathy...so apart from the odd pejorative comment...there IS debate.
And to stay on topic..anyone tried out the Super U distro? Definitely NOT lightweight but does have plenty of apps loaded by default if you like watching films/movies/vids...it even has Real Player...
I even get to say, "Nice artwork"...
147 • @135, @17 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-05-05 16:01:57 GMT from United States)
135: good catch. Having said that, I found your comment odd. The tools in GNOME (system-config-display) and KDE (krandr_applet) both rely on the newish X.org standard for multiple display configuration, RandR 1.2. As stock, they don't work at all with the dual-head capabilities of the NVIDIA proprietary driver, because that doesn't use RandR 1.2, it uses NVIDIA's own multi-head system. So the only way you can configure that is via nvidia-settings (NVIDIA's own GUI tool) or by editing xorg.conf directly.
For drivers that use RandR 1.2, the GNOME/KDE tools should work well. That's intel, radeon, nouveau and I think openchrome. There's a caveat, which is that for side-by-side configurations, the driver needs to cope with dynamic framebuffer resizing. radeon has done this for a while. intel does it in recent releases (2.6+, I think) if kernel modesetting is used. nouveau has supported it since, er, the middle of last month. :) If you have a driver version which doesn't do dynamic framebuffer resizing, side-by-side configurations probably won't work out of the box, unless your distro patches the driver to default to a big framebuffer size (which eats memory). You have to add a Virtual line to the Screens section of xorg.conf to set the framebuffer size you need, which should be the combined size of the two displays (e.g. 3360x1050 for two 1680x1050 displays side by side). Details at http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Xorg_RandR_1.2#the_Virtual_screen .
148 • @Mandriveiro (by un usuario de UTUMBU XUNIL on 2009-05-05 16:43:12 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (disrespectful).
149 • re 148 (by corneliu on 2009-05-05 17:04:22 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
150 • 148: Ubuntu is #1 and Mandriva is not! (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 18:28:22 GMT from United States)
@corneliu,
I saw a doctor on TV, does that count? Why don't you and others accept that Mandriva lost the no. 1 spot and get over it? It is no longer the "best thing since sliced bread".
Do you see that Ubuntu is no 1 and Mandriva is nowhere where it was before. Listen, Mandrake was no. 1, Mandriva is not Mandrake, it became Mandriva ==> Mandrake + Connectiva. After that merger, I lost all the interest and respect I had for that company. That and after they fired Gael which once led that great company which was Mandrake not Mandriva.
Sorry to you and all other Mandrivores out there, Mandriva might be your OS, but it has lost this soul for good. This is why other Linuxes like Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora, Slackware, Gentoo, Puppy, ..., are much better than it :)
151 • Mandriva (by Jose on 2009-05-05 18:39:28 GMT from United States)
Has anyone tried Gnome in the new Mandriva? In Mandriva 2009 I and others thought the Gnome desktop was better than KDE's. I happen to be a KDE fan, but Mandriva's Gnome was solid.
I paid for the PowerPack edition. I did it because I wanted to help out. Not all distros have a billionaire to support it.
I also pay for Moneydance and Crossover linux. I have paid for kaptial (remember the KDE personal finance program that went no where?), Win4Lin, Parallels, VectoLinux (when Tony was in charge) and SuSe.
I pay to help out.Sure I can get things for free, but I rather help when I can.
It's just me.
152 • re 148 (by corneliu on 2009-05-05 18:41:21 GMT from Canada)
@Anonymous,
Look, It was not a question of who is #1. Ubuntu is leading by far. No question about it. It's true that I would've liked to see Mandriva leading like in the good ol' times. But my posts where not about that. I merely wanted to see Mandriva treated the way it deserves. IMHO Mandriva is a first class citizen and should receive first class treatment. Now that Caitlyn said the Mandriva review is coming, I'm just waiting patiently to see it happen.
Cheers,
Corneliu
153 • The Mintiness Cometh .. (by DeniZen on 2009-05-05 18:57:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just to change the subject a little ..
http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=796
154 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 19:17:24 GMT from United States)
@152
I beg to differ. Like I said. For some reason or another, Mandrake was the best, but that is not the case with Mandriva. I am sorry. I don't know what did them, but I don't like them anymore. I used to be a Mandrake fan, used 9.0, 9.1, 9.2 and 10.0. As soon as it became Mandriva I left and have not looked back since. I use something else. I always used the free editions and got the other stuff from PLF(Penguin Liberation Front), I wanted to give back with the Mandrake Club but the prices were not reasonable, and I still believe so that they are not, also they charge too much for a usb disk for Mandriva One or whatever it is called. PCLinuxOS got the old Mandrake users and it too has lost some steam, so I am sorry. For me they were at one point the best, but know I don't think they are worth it. Sorry!!!
Cheers!
Bring Back Mandrake!!!
This one I would love to see back not Mandriva!!!
155 • Mandriva is good (by Mattias on 2009-05-05 20:08:15 GMT from Sweden)
I like the new Mandriva 2009.1. It is a great release and it works perfect.
156 • I like Mandriva. (by Mr. Me on 2009-05-05 20:42:45 GMT from United States)
Wow, this week's comments has turned into a shouting match. Sounds very emotional, very out of hand. I think it gets worse every week.
Re 154: I can't understand all the HATE! I tried Mandriva and I like it. One has to give credit when it is due. If you don't like Mandriva, why don't you use PCLinuxOS? Because it has "lost some steam"? Do you judge all distros on the amount of steam they have lost or gained? Have you tried the latest PCLinuxOS? Sounds like the answer's no. You say "for some reason or another, Mandrake was the best". You do not know the reason? Was the Mandrake Club super cheap compared to what it is now? Do you use Ubuntu because it is number one? What is your criteria for distros? Where they are ranked on Distrowatch, apparently. Sorry, Pal. You sound like the idiot to me. Anybody who would say distro XXX is a "piece of shxx" must know that it takes one to know one. Get a life. While you're at it, try to learn what the word respect means. Get some for yourself. You sound miserable. I use Ubuntu, but I call no distro a "piece of shxx". People like you, sir, ruin the comments on DW every week. I am sorry; seems like you have indeed opened your mouth and removed all doubt.
157 • Hate (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-05 21:04:46 GMT from United States)
I agree.
I hate nothing. I have tried most distros in the top twenty and used most of them for at least a week, barring any technical difficulties.
My desktops run Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora. I like them all equally, though I know Ubuntu takes the least amount of time to set up. Debian might take a bit of time, but it's usually worth it. Fedora's configuration is between the two. I also like Absolute and CentOS, but I use those less frequently (Absolute for speed, CentOS for stability). I like to try new distros occasionally; about once a week I'll leave the torrents running and give a few new releases a try. More and more I'm finding they're all getting similar to each other.
I like them all, and it's come to the point that they all operate in such the same way that I forget which one I'm running. I just keep using the one that I've set up shop in, which is random at best. Right now it's Ubuntu 8.04 with Debian on another partition. I also have a Windows XP hard drive on the shelf in case I need to whet my Half-Life 2 appetite.
I'm finding it hard to find a reason why any distro is "overrated," unless you're under the argument that "it didn't work on my computer" means a distro is bad, which is a poor piece of judgment on such a large piece of software.
158 • Mandriva the company not Mandriva the distro (by IhateMandrivaLindowsXandros on 2009-05-05 21:18:40 GMT from United States)
Look guys, you seem not to understand. I am hating the company, not the distro. The distro might be good or great, I don't care for it. I hate the company and all the decisions that they have made. It is like I also hate Lindows, LinsPire, Lindash or now it is Xandros, did I say that right. The company period. Get your facts right. The company the business part, not the distro. Mandrake the company, Mandrake the distro both were great, just that people did not support it and it was going down south. Mandriva the company. Get it, Got it.
Microsoft the company, Windows the OS. Is that fair. Which is the reason that you guys use Linux, because you like it or is it because you hate Bill Gates and his company? Is it because Linux is superior? I don't think so, not even adding up the thousands of distro's here touch windows userbase. I am sorry to say, even though I prefer one thousand times over any linux excepts the ones in my hate list.
159 • No subject (by HH on 2009-05-05 21:39:30 GMT from Canada)
Another good week, thanks Chris.
I see the usual haters are out, but I also noticed more than a few good comments and people taking the haters to task... cheers to the people who know what community and free software is really about.
I hope we'll see an in-depth article on the BSDs next week, the timing couldn't be better, what with all the new releases. I realize there's a general attitude that BSD is weak on the desktop, but I think most of the criticisms are undue and more exposure on the functionality of BSDs would be a good thing.
Stay strong, stay free.
160 • About distro-wars (by Patrik J. A. on 2009-05-05 21:57:40 GMT from Sweden)
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20071111
161 • mandriva the company (by glyj on 2009-05-05 22:12:34 GMT from France)
The company made mistakes with the club. Since then, the company is paying the price for those mistakes. They are still fighting hard to survive.
I agree it's really sad when you hear Gaël Duval, Adam Williamson, Wolfgang Bornath and others been fired.
But if they had kept everyone, the company would have been already dead. That's a very high price, I know.
I think they now have a good boss.
We should keep in mind that regarding the size of the company, Mandriva is contributing more to the community than for example canonical/ubuntu ( Kde devs, kernel devs, Nepomuk, etc...) ....
All the code written by mandriva -as always- is under GPL.
All the distro is available for free including updates (except the restricted media repo : there are only few proprietary software and some of them are trial versions)
The company is the only one trying to make money with free software & desktop linux.
It's hard, but I think they'll do it finally.
regards,
glyj
PS: I know they don't want to (for now) but I think they should show something under the lights : the Mandriva control center and the drakwizards.
how ? Simple.
Create a dedicated site.
162 • NetBSD and simplicity (by Kevin on 2009-05-05 22:52:56 GMT from Canada)
The BSD in general are praised for their simplicity. However, I believe it's time for them to give up an interface that was designed to run on the Vax and other dinosaurs.
163 • HateWatch.com, FreeBSD, PCBSD too easy (by Anonymous on 2009-05-05 23:12:32 GMT from United States)
This is a hateWatch.com site. Where I hate $x, $y, $z distribution because of
1) _______
2) _______
3) _______
@162
BSD's are great. I like FreeBSD. There's PCBSD, but it is too dumbed down, there's no fun with pbi's too simple, can't get away from what I really like
# cd /usr/ports/NameofApp-I-need
# make && make install && make clean
After all Gentoo based itself on the ports system and they named their system portage. This is what it is all about. Things can be alot easier, but many people like it hard.
164 • @159 (by stuckinoregon on 2009-05-05 23:22:53 GMT from United States)
About the *BSDs - Couldn't agree with you more. I think there just needs to be more involvement from "the community" to tailor some sort of a desktop presence. I have set up several laptops with either FreeBSD, OpenBSD or PC-BSD in the past. Obviously PC-BSD is pretty much set up with a GUI environment from the get go. It just still feels too bloated for me. Part of that may be my, until recent, hatred of KDE. (This will go over well. I have a box running Kubuntu 9.04 that is working great and another with Mandriva 2009.1 KDE that also seems to be doing well.) I would love to be involved in a project to setup instances of the BSDs that would give the ability to fairly easily have a desktop environment/WM on initial install. Yes, I'm aware of them being great for servers blah, blah blah....no gui.....CLI only......TWM is all I need...yadda yadda yadda. Why should that exclude them from being great on the desktop? If the principles of code-correctness and quality that the BSDs stand for rings true. Then that should make them that much the better on the desktop, correct?
I just don't have the chops to do anything about it. It's frustrating as hell.
165 • Mandriva hatred (by Lars on 2009-05-06 00:42:23 GMT from Norway)
I don't understand how it's possible to criticize Mandriva for being dependent of money contributions. And worse: Criticizing Mandriva for firing employees and at the same time criticizing them for trying to sell the linux distro. How on earth is it possible to combine the two?
If the company is going in deficit and need to cut costs and thus reducing staff, what's your answer: Stop buying their products? Well, in the real world such actions have consequences. More more deficit and more people getting sacked. If you really cared, you would support the distro in one way or another.
I don't understand the logic of those people who seems to punish a company for not having a rich benevolent. Ubuntu have Mr. Shuttleworth. That's great! But should Mandriva just stop developing or give up because they don't have a rich benevolent? Or should they try making it go around on they're own? The merits of Mandriva are quite impressive, and considering the lack of financial backing make it even more impressive.
166 • Thanks Adam + dual head + add me to the list of paid subsrcibers (by friend on 2009-05-06 01:22:18 GMT from Indonesia)
#122 - I had a problem and hadn't checked it out - I will give my intel setup another go.
#135 - I wish I could (I use dual head all the time) but I can't find one either.
I always end up handcrafting my xorg file to make it work. I am trying to get a G45
to work with my Mandriva, and, as usual, it is back to the doc scrounging routine.
A 'dual-head' script seems like a nice idea, but in my experience there is always
the problem of the different ways Radeon/ATI/Intel regard dual-head implementation.
In my travails: Once imbedded in the single driver instance,
once requiring two driver instances with PCI address taken for granted,
once requiring two driver instances with declared PCI address,
and this time Intel seems to want declared the exact pixels to put the screen corners at (duh!)
They all seem to speak the same dialect - proprietary standards, and a lot of that
seems to be done specifically to avoid being usable by a single standard configuration script.
I doubt they do this deliberately - more than likely it is a subconscious corporate agenda.
#143 - an anonymouse asks for censorship - what's up with that?
Most adults simply ignore children when carrying on mature discussions.
#97,106,120,151 - I paid as well, just to help out a bit.
Wish they would post how many paid Powerpacks are out their (Smolt won't tell)
I reckon it has to be more than just the handful of us posting here,
but one thing about Mandriva is their corporate philosophy is allergic to such transparency. (Smolt seems to indicate there are as many Win95 installations
as there are Mandriva installations, so it must not be that popular yet (;^{
167 • #136: Filesystems (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-05-06 01:34:47 GMT from United States)
Filesystems do, indeed, have different characteristics and differences in design. Which is best is dependent on both hardware, size of the filesystem and the type of data stored (large files, large numbers of small files, etc...) I think covering those issues is an outstanding idea for a series of articles, here or elsewhere. Comparisons of features and performance benchmarks in different configurations could easily be covered in a single article.
It's a great suggestion but it goes way, way beyond what can be done competently within the confines of a review. What I do cover in a review is if various filesystems are well supported by a distro or not and whether there are any distro-specific issues. Articles on filesystems, much like Chris' excellent articles on LVM, are definitely something that should be considered.
168 • @1 (by DavidN at 2009-05-06 01:56:55 GMT from Serbia and Montenegro)
caitlyn is misinformed about censorship. for a journalist its a suicide.
the article about making xubuntu lean will make a disservice to xubuntu in the long run. as users learn more about linux and a particular distribution they will value their time and make easier choices. in the header of http://crunchbanglinux.org/ everyone could see that it was already done.
the donations from DW to coders may be disproportionate to those from south africa to DW as it seems that new slogan beneath the comment box stands for everyone but the owner. the actual warning is already written by Dante Allighieri.
169 • Re: 168 (by Sertse on 2009-05-06 02:09:24 GMT from Australia)
But if they learning about minimal installs, and building up from nothing, they might have well use what they've learnt, learn to choose their own options starting from minimal install, which will even lighter than the preconfigured crunchbang. ;)
170 • RE 131 Ladislav (by Greg on 2009-05-06 02:34:12 GMT from Greece)
No i dont have a distribution in mind i'd like to see in the database. I was just curious. Thanks for the clarification.
BTW many of the distributions in waiting list might be defunct, especially ones that have been there too long.
171 • Re: 168 (by Kelvin on 2009-05-06 03:50:21 GMT from United States)
"caitlyn is misinformed about censorship. for a journalist its a suicide."
Well said. When voices are silenced by the powerful, journalists are not the only ones to suffer. Keep a watchful eye on those who try to define and restrict your speech. What will they take away next? Your life?
The defence of our freedoms, even our choice in operating system, requires constant vigilence.
172 • Re: 171 (by Kelvin on 2009-05-06 03:53:15 GMT from United States)
Oops. That should be "...requires constant vigilance".
173 • @166 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-05-06 04:54:12 GMT from United States)
the radeon, intel and nouveau drivers all use exactly the same multihead system with the same configuration, RandR 1.2. nvidia and fglrx drivers use completely different and incompatible systems.
174 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-06 08:46:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #167
Appreciate your "positivity" on this one Caitlyn.
The "possible" articles (I take nothing for granted...but should I infer you have plotted Chris's horoscope on this one already? LOL) might go some way to explain/demistify why MS works, virtually 100%, on millions of machines using NTFS/FAT16/32, say, yet there are still probs with Linux using ext2, ext3 or ext4, etc...even when, from a distro's "Table Notes and Explanations", the "Journaled File Systems" feature suggests complete compatibility with "ext3, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS"?
As you say the requirements to answer the question would need to span a fairly comprehensive list of procs, architectures, etc, etc. but can you imagine the irony should it prove to be "simply" the choice of file system that decreed whether "a" distro installed and "just worked"?
175 • Suggestion for DWW (by Azzorcist on 2009-05-06 08:59:58 GMT from Indonesia)
I think for Distrowatch Weekly, why don't you write a profile and maybe behind the scene of a distro.
Explain it completely from the background of the distro birth. The people associated, the goal of the distro, technical thing, etc.
I think that's good.
176 • Mint 7 "in the Gloria" (by capricornus on 2009-05-06 10:53:07 GMT from Belgium)
Well, all went well with this Glorious Mint Release Candidate. Better than Mandriva 2009.1 that still (since 2007?) has these strange sound problems all the time. And just as well as Ubuntu 9.04. Everything is there. Everything works. And about the green wallpaper, well, know you see and almost smell Mint. A pleasure to have - and use.
177 • Mandriva 2009.1: Bluetooth [the perils of upgrading, redux] (by friend on 2009-05-06 11:15:14 GMT from Indonesia)
To plagiarize the kind folk elsewhere
Tip of the hat to Bryan Lawrence for this gem:
'A release without working bluetooth is a not really a release at all.'
or, as my console mourns:
"kbluetooth4(9507): KUniqueApplication: Cannot find the D-Bus session server"
178 • And then it was fixed (by friend on 2009-05-06 11:31:39 GMT from Indonesia)
but shades of days of yore,
After gleaning the endless reams of bluetooth and KDE4's dBus/Bluez flaws,
I had to pull a Micro$oft by uninstalling everything associated with bluetooth,
reboot,.
reinstall the hardware,
reboot,
and then reinstall the KDE bluetooth,
and then reboot one more time
and then remove the usb BT
and reinsert it into a different port hub after waiting a few seconds.
and voila - it works! amazing, simply amazing
179 • My initial experiences with Mandriva 2009.1 installation. (by IMQ on 2009-05-06 13:10:57 GMT from United States)
I downloaded 4 flavors: One KDE4 i586 (Euro-America), One GNOME i586, Free DVD i586, and Free DVD x86_64, not knowing that I had a chance to try 3 of them on the same machine.
The One KDE4 failed to install, hanging with a blinking cursor on a black screen.
The Free DVD i586 somehow failed to read from the DVD drive from which it booted fine.
The One GNOME failed on nVidia driver when xorg started. However, unlike its One KDE4 cousin, it gave the option to configure xorg to use other driver (I chose the generic 'vesa' driver) so that the installation can be completed.
I have installed numerous flavors of distros on this machine so the installer definitely was a possible problem. The older 2009.0 previously installed without a hitch. Who knows. Maybe the machine (ECS KT-500A) is too old and dying so it gets picky to which distro it allows to work. :)
Things seem to be working OK from the hard drive installed. Still has problem with using nVidia driver, so I am using the 'vesa' driver, which is what I usually use.
It was speedy adding packages from the terminal using command urpmi. I also added third party repos using Easy URPMI.
Wireless setup was OK. Only time will tell if it stays connected.
I am going to try to install the the One KDE4 and the Free DVD on another machine to see if the installers work or fail. But that is another day.
180 • Chris & Ladislav another great DWW (by Verndog on 2009-05-06 15:28:15 GMT from United States)
Thanks Chris for the great article. I will use that as a base to install Xubuntu. I have noticed that Xubuntu has gotten slower of late. Even so, while following Arch docs to the letter, I found Xubuntu to be faster. That was a year ago - AND more importantly, on my Dell Optiplex GX270 machine.
Ladislav. This.is.your.house! You can do as you wish. Don't allow the nay sayers to bully you into leaving there hateful comments to contaminate the rest of the distro comments.
I would rather hear what people are FOR instead of what their AGAINST.
If you like a distro and have good experience with it, tell us.
181 • DWW (by Not Bob on 2009-05-06 16:47:18 GMT from United States)
I am not a fan of Ubuntu, and even less so of the 75% of 12 year olds that use it. The other 25% are mature and fantastic people. The distro it self is OK, it's the community that has issues.
However, I enjoyed this weeks article. It was well written, and contained useful information. I can't blame Chris for not choosing a subject I'd enjoy more :)
Maybe only general Linux articles should be posted? Link to outside reviews. Perhaps under a pseudonym.
The comments section does get a little over bearing from time to time. Perhaps some type of forum would be better? Maybe open a section at linuxquestions.org. I'd say 85% of the comments posted here would not be moderated.
182 • Clonezilla (by Verndog on 2009-05-06 17:13:10 GMT from United States)
If you go here:
http://clonezilla.org/download/sourceforge/testing/changelog.php
Clonezilla is updated to "Clonezilla live 1.2.2-10", but no where to be found.
I'm very interested in the "isohybrided" technique. I've searched and no cigar.
183 • Clonezilla live 1.2.2-10 (by Verndog on 2009-05-06 17:22:21 GMT from United States)
Okay, I found it! For those interested, here it is:
http://www.clonezilla.org/download/nchc/testing/iso-zip-files.php
184 • returnee (by AliasMarlowe on 2009-05-06 19:39:34 GMT from Finland)
It's been a few months since I visited Distrowatch, and there are certainly more comments now with rather antagonistic (bordering on vitriolic) content. The moderators have my sympathy - it looks like a few several cat-fights are in progress.
Why all the objections to an article on trying to streamline Xubuntu? Last year I could have made use of such an article - there are reasons to prefer the Ubuntu repositories over the Debian ones (Debian's = stable and old OR dodgy and up-to-date, Ubuntu's = acceptable compromise). The PC in question was a 1998 vintage machine, and ran a slightly slimmed-down Xubuntu tolerably well. It has since been replaced with a modern quad-core system.
FWIW, we run PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu at home, and in the last few years we keep returning to them, despite trying several other distros, including Suse and Mandriva last year. In fact, we started with Caldera OpenLinux more than a decade ago.
185 • @181 (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-06 21:07:37 GMT from United States)
I'd like to ask you why you think Ubuntu has a higher proportion of idiots in its community, if you do think so.
I'd say far less than 75%. It's always the vocal 1% that make it seem like 75%, but in reality there's a 99% majority standing on the sidelines shaking their heads.
It's that way with any community, who make it miserable for everyone else or paint the community in a bad light. You can look at everything from video game forums to religion - there's always a subset who make the rest look silly. What's equally damaging is the outsiders who judge the rest based on that vocal 1% - imagine making a judgment about Linux users when all you see is Distrowatch Weekly comments!
Once again, I wonder why there's such a bigotry toward people who use Ubuntu. I really do.
186 • I'm not misinformed (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-05-06 21:22:58 GMT from United States)
#168 & #171: How am I misinformed about censorship? How has Ladislav stopped you from publishing whatever you want on the net or elsewhere? Clue: he hasn't done. Not at all.
What are you arguing for? The right to say whatever you want on his website? Let's look at what you are demanding.
Let's say you subscribe to a newspaper. It doesn't matter if it's the New York Times, Le Monde, or The Telegraph in the UK. You disagree with an article. Is the paper obligated to publish your disagreement? Must they accept anything you write even if it doesn't meet their standards? Must they accept foul language or libel? No, of course not. Is that censorship? No, of course not.
DistroWatch is no different from a television station or a newspaper in this respect. It's simply another form of media.
Here is another example: Do you have the right to publish something Muslims would call blasphemous or insulting to their religion on an Islamic website? No, of course not. Is that censorship? No, of course not.
Now, if the government prevents you from publishing those opinions, period, THAT is censorship.
Nobody is a bigger defender of the First Amendment in the U.S. or equivalent laws in other free democratic countries around the world. You have a right to publish your opinions. You don't have a right to dictate where they should be published.
I see many differing opinions here. The ones claiming Laidslav is deleting anything he disagrees with are full of it, to put it mildly.
187 • re#186 (by hab on 2009-05-06 21:56:25 GMT from Canada)
Couldn't agree more with your statements Caitlyn! Mr. Bodnar is under no obligation, moral or otherwise to publish anything that in HIS estimation is unfit.
Judging by some of the rather childish/immature posts in this thread i believe he is showing some restraint in his deletion powers!
I dl'ed the 9.04 kubuntu and ubuntu dvds but unfortunately neither one has been able to install and so far i have not been able to sus out what is wrong. I also dl'ed the new 2009.1 mandriva dvd but it too will not install, which is somewhat odd because a previous release candidate (rc4 i believe) installed without issues. I am leaning toward an old dvd firmware problem possibly being the culprit here.
This of does not make either mandriva or (k)ubuntu evil or bad or whatever pejorative adjective you wish to apply. And of course there are so many other distros to run that it sure doesn't keep me off linux! I am currently liking a lot Dreamlinux 3.5. It works very well on a bit older hardware. Using wicd for net connection it does a good job on my old tosh lappie and it's older broadcomm pcmcia wifi card. This network card has been a showstopper for many a distro.
Dreamlinux is an interesting effort!
cheers
188 • A few things (by Anon on 2009-05-06 22:15:31 GMT from Norway)
Please don't make any changes to DW's comments section. I like it as it is - an informal 'pub' where we can all drop in and exchange info & opinions.
Now - who, precisely, decided to make Dolphin KDE's default file manager? File managers aren't Linux' strongest point - I had a better choice of file managers under OS/2 15 years ago! - and in 2009 we are offered, of 'all things', this non-functional thingy called Dolphin. Even the name is an offense. This ridiculous, lobotomized 'tool' should be done in, done away with and forgotten. Sheesh.
On a lighter note: I just had a session with System Rescue CD Live. What a gem! A really useful tool, and I could surf with Firefox while it was working :)
Get it, test it, study it and donate!
189 • Xubuntu -- Debian/Xfce Article (by dialup on 2009-05-06 22:54:34 GMT from United States)
Actually, I took it to be a single two-part article that included useful de-bloating tips. I'm not a 'buntu user, but there is an active community and I often consult their forums and wiki for solutions to software/hardware problems. One doesn't have to be a fan of a distribution to learn something from it.
190 • Re: #186 - Censorship (by Anon on 2009-05-06 22:57:32 GMT from Norway)
Caitlyn Martin wrote: "Now, if the government prevents you from publishing those opinions, period, THAT is censorship. (...) You have a right to publish your opinions. You don't have a right to dictate where they should be published."
Very true.
However, when Ladislav deletes a post, he is censoring the forum. He is exercising his obvious right - according to the law and as most of us see it - but it is of course censorship. We don't like the word, so we tend to use others, like 'edit' or 'moderate', but it is what it is: censorship.
Nothing wrong with censorship. We love it and expect it to be enforced everywhere! Censorship, as well as the opposition to it, makes the world go around :)
191 • #174 - Filesystems (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-05-06 23:22:39 GMT from United States)
#174: Forest, thanks for the kind words.
IME, the MS filesystems don't just work, certainly not better than *nix ones. I've had to clean up more filesystem corruption on Windows systems than I care to think about. Linux filesystems, for the most part, don't have to worry about fragmentation. There is a lot less maintenance required on most (but not all) *nix filesystems.
Linux adds a layer of complexity by offering a wide variety of competing filesystems from different sources and insuring interoperability. Windows doesn't do that. It's the Microsoft way or the highway unless you use external add-ons.
I used to support a lot of SGI servers and workstations running Irix. xfs, even a decade ago, was almost flawless on SGI hardware. Of course Irix didn't directly support other filesystems (other than legacy SGI) except through nfs to other *nix servers or through samba to Windows. It's a lot easier for things to "just work" in a homogenous environment than in an increasingly diverse and ever-changing heterogeneous filesystem environment we have under Linux. The cost of freedom of choice is complexity. Complexity and a wide variety of choices makes some more issues inevitable. All things considered Linux handles it all amazingly well.
192 • Fedora user (by Anonymous on 2009-05-06 23:28:30 GMT from United States)
@other Fedora users,
Why doesn't Distrowatch make Fedora articles kind of like install Fedora with LXDE, light and not bloated and without the big depencies that can work with 64MB of Ram with an old Dell Optiplex G1 or such dinousaur computer. Minimal Fedora install without the Big Guys, KDE, GNOME and even XFCE(since it pulls some in some gnome stuff). Are there any such debloating tips for Fedora?
Also by the way, I also see that the delta rpms was no longer going to be the default in Fedora 11, maybe Fedora 12. This is sad to hear, there are a great deal of updates to be released and the downloads get huge right away. This is why OpenSUSE or maybe one of the reasons, that they are above fedora in the Distroratings here at Distrowatch? What do you guys think?
@dialup users,
would'nt you guys save some download time if you used delta rpms instead of regular rpms that come via updates. What do you think? OpenSUSE uses lzma compression and the updates are smaller and not massive like Fedora. I have a friend that told me this, I want to ask OpenSUSE users out there, how can one run multiple kernels on OpenSUSE like in Fedora?
If you use OpenSUSE and install updates you get a new kernel and it becomes the default and the old one removed and you only have one kernel, how can you keep your kernel and get other ones too? This might help for users that are on dialup and want to have another kernel to fall back on?
193 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-07 08:59:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #191
Thanks for the tekkie explanation Caitlyn...I blush to say I understood the second para as far as reading the words as words...it was in putting them all together that I got lost, LOL.
With reference to my own particular experience of MS (XP as it happens) file systems, apart from having to defragment the drive on occasion, for the most part I never had any real probs.
All the software I loaded over the six/seven odd years I used the machine installed correctly and ran as intended... (on 128MB of ram...but a tad on the sluggish side) ...as did the occasional virus or trojan, which took up residence until evicted by whatever AV was flavour of the month. In fact it was the anti-malware palavers which convinced me to do the exodus thing to Linux.
As for how the various file systems you touched on hold up during their service life then I bow to your experience as an IT manager type matey.
I confess it was the question of "installation of "a" distro I was interested in. You will know of the introduction of ext4...being included as an option for formatting a drive during the install process. It was the odd comments regarding files systems v installs which first piqued my curiosity
Following the difficulties some folk reported a week or so back regarding installation of U9 (which needs no repeating here, LOL) I had wondered if it had anything to do with attempts to install using ext4. as the "new" file system of choice.
It then occurred to me that, when we read a "lot" of anecdotal evidence about this or that distro which would or would not install on "a" particular machine then perhaps it was as an yet unrecognised indication that the choice of file system was pivotal in whether an installation would succeed, or not.
Obviously this is only a pet theory of mine, which is only a theory and could be completely wide of the mark at that.
So, what are your thoughts on choice of file system with strict regard to installation, not touching on consequential functionality of "a" distro for the moment?
194 • Ext 4 (by DeniZen on 2009-05-07 12:33:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
Phoronix EXT4 Benchmarking here: (conclusion page)
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ext4_benchmarks&num=9
Conclusion seems to suggest that in everyday use, the improvements would not be especially noticable.
But then, Ext4 's advantages over Ext3 are not only about real-time disk performance in any case.
I have seen a few comments in reviews / fora that makes me suspect that a lot of folks might installed Ubuntu Jaunty over Ext4 and then spotted the vastly reduced boot time, and incorrectly assumed that obvious improvement may be something specifically to do with Ext4, alongside an apparent overall snappiness in 9.04
It made no noticable diference either way - in my experience. I tried both Ext4 and Ext3, and I stuck with Ext3 - for now.
195 • don't close this commenst section (by lurker on 2009-05-07 14:42:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just read through nearly 200 "comments" and have to say that this doesn't seem to be the best week for comments that DWW has had. So much anger, animosity and polarised views. Very disappointing when it's remembered that what this site is really all about is a group of people sharing a common interest in the development of Linux distros. Not trying to tear them apart.
I guess it's to be expected as so many folk here are passionate about the subject and have very strong (but personal and specific) reasons why they find this or that distro any good. But if you have followed forums like DSL, PCLinux and now Puppy you'll see the harm that befalls such sites (and eventually distros) when decent knowledgeable debate is replaced by bigotry and lack of respect for anyone's own opinion. Isn''t it by listening to others that we can learn?
As an example one of the news items above says Barry Kaulker who started Puppy has been "tempted" back out of retirement; due to a lot of bad feelings, strongly versed, about the latest Puppy release v4.2 and the bugs within plus the future direction of the distro. Seemingly a power-struggle at the top. Not looking good for the long term.
Ladislav in #131 mentions how he views the importance of a distro and includes such things as its forum, and I would go further and say it's the community as well. When that starts to fail so can the distro.
But I would not like to see this comments section close. Generally I find it very useful and censorship is in no-ones eventual interest but power brokers.
Now, back to lurking.
196 • Madriva 2009.1 Installer... again failed. (by IMQ on 2009-05-07 14:45:20 GMT from United States)
I just attempted to install Mandriva 2009.1 i586 DVD on the 2nd machine, an old HP530 with onboard graphic i810.
It failed just like the 1st machine (KT-600A with GeForce4 MX4000)). The installer went into text mode after booting, then asked which CD-ROM to install from. The machine has a regular CD-ROM and a DVD-RW. So I pointed to the DVD-RW where the it original booted up from.
I switched to Mandriva One 2009.1 KDE4 i586 and it installed OK since this machine does not have ATI/nVidia video card.
I have a strong feeling that something is wrong with the DVD version, but I will try a couple more things before making a conclusion. I will try it on a 3rd machine (Asus mainboard with ATI Radeon 9600 Pro). If that fails, I'll burn another DVD on a different machine to give it one final spin.
All of these machines are quite old yet still capable of doing the typical home PCs. Each one has at least 512MB of RAM, enough for its job.
Has anyone else experienced failure to install with either the One or the Free editions?
197 • re 196 (by corneliu on 2009-05-07 14:51:47 GMT from Canada)
Have you checked the md5sum on the iso file AND the DVD?
Have you burned the iso slowly on good quality media?
I suspect you have a bad media installer.
198 • Mandriva (by peter w at 2009-05-07 16:02:28 GMT from United States)
Just to add my two peneth.
Been using Mandriva for quite some time now, at least back to the 9.2 Mandrake Days.
I still find this the most user friendly of the distros, and it apeals to end users as well as power users.
No spending months trying to get an installation that does what you want, mostly works out of the box.
Sure it has its issues like any OS release, but being that its Redhat based, and I work in a Redhat environment I obviously prefer this to the Debian based distros, its simply more familiar.
Have installed it on several peoples home PC's who are fed up with virus infections and spyware from the windows camp, and those users are not SA/tech background, but still they can use it as a drop in replacment for Windoze.
I often look at the various other dists, as a linux(ubuntu format) subscriber.
but im still to be shown a better Desktop then Mandriva (imho)
199 • RE: 196 (by IMQ on 2009-05-07 16:55:50 GMT from United States)
I always check the md5sum/sha1sum if they are available.
I burned the CD/DVD at the lowest burnable rate (8x for CD, 6X for DVD using K3b).
Keep in mind that I have burned and successfully install numerous distros, so the burn speed cannot be a problem.
I might have a bad media. That was why I said I am going to burn another DVD using a different brand on another machine, if my attempt on the 3rd machine fails.
I had no problems with previous versions of Mandriva. This was the first time since I can't recall the last time that happened.
The Mandriva One failed because, I believe, it tried to use the nVidia driver instead of the generic driver.
Stay tuned...
200 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-07 16:59:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #194
DeniZen, thanks for the link ref ext4. As you paraphrased, ext4. does not seem to be a "problem" whilst machine is running so to speak, and from your comments you installed [U9?] using both file systems and again had no probs.
I am trying not to fall into trap of drawing an incorrect, but possibly feasible, conclusion that installing on ext 4 could be the cause of the problem with U9 installs.
I believe it would have been useful were the folk who slammed U9 installs last week to have mentioned the file system.
Going a bit further with the install topic (but leaving aside file systems for the moment) I read on occasion that folk are using kit which Noah would have chucked overboard had the Almighty not been watching his every move...
I have just bought a refurbished Optiplex 280 (inc licensed copy of XP Pro!) and was rather cheesed that the cost of buying one in the US was rather less that buying one in UK...in fact the money asked in the US would be the same as filling up the fuel tank on a largish 4X4 in UK! Therefore I can only urge you folk to put the antiques back in the display case and get something a bit faster (slightly tongue-in-cheek).
The reason being is I am keen to test another theory that some of the newer heavyweight distros "need" to live on young(er) and fast(er) machines with lots of ram, and, this notion is in line with the requests for distros to be tested on "high end" machines.
Thus far, my universal theory of everything Linux is that you really do need a newish machine running ext3, clocking at least 2GHz, sitting on at least 1GB of ram to do full justice to what's on offer. I hasten to add this is just a theory.
I know of the legacy argument, but with used, reasonably high spec, business machines being so cheap (and very likely to get cheaper still...) why would you bother with old kit?
201 • Think I'll switch... (by proto-bear on 2009-05-07 18:31:35 GMT from Australia)
I didn't know that one is paying quite a hefty price of inefficiency in order to have user convenience!
I'm willing to learn Debian if that's the case. Stability and efficiency is important to me as I rebuild and restore Pentium III era systems on a regular basis.
This is one area the Xubuntu folks need to look at in the next release. (ver 9.10)
202 • Update on Mandriva 2009.1 Free DVD (by IMQ on 2009-05-07 19:03:04 GMT from United States)
The attemp to install 2009.1 Free DVD on the 3rd machine failed the same way as the other two machines.
So I burned another DVD using different brand media.
It seems to fix the problem!
Just FYI.
203 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-07 19:48:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref "public perception" of Ubuntu(s), not intended to be controversial BTW but interesting nonetheless:
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6745/1/
204 • Do not burn at low speed (by BitBurners.com on 2009-05-07 20:55:17 GMT from Finland)
#197
Do not beleive this "burn at low speed" -crap that is persistently spreading in the Linux community when installer fails. Burn slightly below disc certified speed, and with the MINIMUM of half the certified disc speed. Remember to enable Verify function of your recording software (where is ImgBurn for Linux :,( )
205 • @200 (by Nobody on 2009-05-07 21:12:52 GMT from United States)
You keep on saying "reported problems" with Ubuntu 9.04. I wish you would elaborate.
I've only heard a few issues with the Intel drivers, which had some rather large regressions, and a lack of an ATI driver. Considering the issues with 8.10 and 8.04 at launch, this release seemed pretty tame.
ext4 is stable, and the problems discussed by Slashdot have now been fixed (they were patched practically immediately once 2.6.29's development started, and nearly every distro since then has backported the change). There are no reported issues running ext4 at this time.
I'm not being an Ubuntu fanboy here, because I know this ext4 business will hit Fedora 11 straight in the face (they're using it by default) and if people keep on going "ext4 data loss oh no!" over and over again without realizing that IT HAS BEEN FIXED then all of the Fedora 11 reviews are going to knock the thing for what's really not that controversial of a swap.
206 • Filesystems and installation failures; Ubuntu 9.04 issues (by Anonymous on 2009-05-07 22:46:47 GMT from United States)
@Forest: As a general rule the selection of one filesystem or another (ext3, resierfs, jfs, xfs, etc...) shouldn't be the cause of a success or a failure to install. The obvious exception was when ext3 was updated to use larger extents and grub was not updated. Historically grub also had problems with xfs when used as the boot partition. AFAIK all of those issues have been resolved but when they were hot issues the choice of a given filesystem and the use of grub rather than lilo in combination did, in fact, cause installation failures.
ext4 is brand new. Most reports indicate that it is stable and works well. Having said that it is still leading edge technology and it can't possibly have been tested on all possible hardware. Could choosing ext4 cause a failure at install time on a given piece of hardware? It's possible but I haven't seen any documented evidence of that yet.
Some distros support a very limited subset of available filesystems. This is true of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Centos. It's also true of Wolvix at the other end of the spectrum. That's the kind of issue I do cover in a review. That doesn't cause failures but does limit choices.
#205: "I've only heard a few issues with the Intel drivers, which had some rather large regressions, and a lack of an ATI driver. Considering the issues with 8.10 and 8.04 at launch, this release seemed pretty tame."
It's only tame if you don't have the graphics chipsets in question. The Intel issue is huge unless you are knowledgeable enough to do the workaround and back down to the previous driver or tinker with your xorg.conf file.
The ATI issue was caused upstream. X.org decided not to support some older ATI chipsets. Considering that Linux is often a distro of choice for legacy systems, both desktop and server, the idea of dropping support for older graphics cards and chips is absolutely infuriating to me. I don't know what the Ubuntu developers could do in this case. You can't stay with older X.org releases forever. That limits support for newer chips. The folks at Canonical were in a damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don't situation. There was no good choice.
207 • #206 is mine (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-05-07 22:47:30 GMT from United States)
Sorry, the previous post is mine. I hit submit too quickly.
208 • GRUB menu.lst (by IMQ on 2009-05-07 23:25:59 GMT from United States)
Is there a way to detect what other OS are installed on partitions spreading over the 4 HD so they can be added to the menu.lst?
Some distros detect other OS during the installation process and add them to the menu.lst. Some do a pretty good job of creating the entries and some don't.
How did the installer detect what other OS on the partitions to create that list?
Thanks.
209 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-08 00:06:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #205.
Ah, perhaps you did not read the flak from last week? Quite a few folk were less than happy with the install of U9. I don't know if you subscribe to any other news service but there were similar remarks on those too.
I work on the principle that the folk who posted about their difficulties were not the ONLY folk who had probs...so see these:
http://backintime.le-web.org/2009/04/30/system-freeze-on-ubuntu/
and, having googled for other instances you can see here also:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=ext+4+problems&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=
and here:
http://www.linux-magazine.com/online/news/linus_torvalds_upset_over_ext3_and_ext4
and in some ubuntu forums, see here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=333
Hence my theory (?) about a possible prob with installing U9 being caused by folk trying out ext4...as in if it can cause the problems detailed above...could it cause problems with an install?
210 • Blah blah blah (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-08 00:33:29 GMT from United States)
@206/7: Of course it's a big problem. But considering that's really the only BIG issue out there, it's actually fairly good for an Ubuntu release, ironically enough. Usually the release notes are longer.
Actually, I'm looking around at the Distrowatch list again to see if there's anything different. Ubuntu's the devil I know, but it sure is a devil. I don't agree with some of the changes they made in 9.04, and even though the community doesn't like most of them the dictators have spoken. So I'm moving elsewhere. I have OpenSUSE in the downloader now (which I've never tried before, oddly enough).
@209: All I see is the usual "my hardware didn't work" or "it didn't load" or "Ubuntu just isn't that awesome because DistroXYZ is ten times better and it can do headstands all day long." I saw nothing that suggested an actual problem that wasn't simple incompatibility, an opinion based in little to no fact, or simply just looking at Ubuntu expecting something that it wasn't (like, for example, "fast," or "as stable as Debian"). And never forget the silent majority of users who have no issues whatsoever.
Caitlyn hit the nail on the head AGAIN (on a roll!) in saying that filesystems should not cause problems, including ext4. They don't DO enough to create issues, unless they're randomly deleting files behind the scenes.
But, if you're hell bent on chasing your hypothesis, go search Launchpad and see if there are any ext4 released bugs.
211 • Addition (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-08 00:43:32 GMT from United States)
Also, this "delayed allocation" thing is not new. Mac OS X has been using it for a while without issues.
212 • BSDs (by klu9 on 2009-05-08 03:34:44 GMT from Mexico)
agree with #159 et al. This perfect storm of BSD releases is begging for a deeper look into the BSD world.
re #165, also have tried PC-BSD (and found it a bit too much) but just too intimidated by the barebones nature of installing the "pure BSDs". A middle ground would be much appreciated.
Another point re BSD adoption, also coinciding with another topic here: do the BSDs only recognize UFS filesystems? That's a deal breaker when it comes to trying it out on one partition and leaving my data on another.
213 • Puppy (by klu9 on 2009-05-08 03:41:30 GMT from Mexico)
I was fairly involved in the Puppy community for a while, attracted by the distro's size, speed etc.
But eventually two worries I'd always had finally tipped me away: it's always come down to just one person (Barry); and it was always always going to be single-user/root.
This latest episode just seems to confirm my suspicion that (at least one of) these two things will never change.
214 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-08 09:32:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks for the feedback in #210/211.
I only use Ubuntu...using U9 (SuperOS) at present, and I have always had success with the various releases, including the spin offs/clones. The Us installed on all the machines I play with "just like that" and it was only because I read of folk having problems with U9 that prompted me to consider why there were issues.
In common with a lot of other folk I have tried all the "major" distros, some with more success than others, and of the "successful" distros they were mainly based on Ubuntu. I suspect my hardware might be lacking with respect to installing some distros so new hardware is being installed as I type.
It occurred to me that the best place to start would be installs...the new file system sprang to mind as a possible culprit, hence my general enquiries via DWW. Strolling around "a" distro's forum can be tedious because of the sheer mass of data. DWW covers all distros so a question here might throw some light on whether U9 was unique in having probs with ext4...ie if ext 4 was a common denominator...you take the point.
And yes we all suspect it might be a simple incompatibility, but what exactly? LOL.
I must say tho' that the silent majority can't be said to have no issues...how would you know...they're all silent...perhaps they simply say, silently, "Blow this for a game of soldiers." And try something else...without a word to anyone else...
I see mention, above, that Fedora 11 will come out with an ext4 option...
The Rawhide version, out today, according to the Table Notes and Explanations, and only details ext3 and XFS...so I got a bit lost ref #205, last para, perhaps a fix is not as universal as was first hoped?
Caitlyn threw some light on the matter, and I paraphrase...by mentioning ext4 was not known to cause probs thus far, but her caveat was that perhaps not all hardware had been tested exhaustively.
215 • @214 (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-08 17:50:56 GMT from United States)
Fedora 11 will use ext4 by default (out of the box). So maybe if there are common problems with 9.04 and Fedora 11, there might be something in your hypothesis.
216 • yes freebsd can see/mount work with other filesystems besides UFS (by Anonymous on 2009-05-08 21:31:45 GMT from United States)
Another point re BSD adoption, also coinciding with another topic here: do the BSDs only recognize UFS filesystems? That's a deal breaker when it comes to trying it out on one partition and leaving my data on another.
No, FreeBSD also can see other filesystems too. ext2/ext3, and others. Don't know about ext4 because it is a young and new filesystem, but the others can be seen and worked with.
HATREDWATCH.com could also be another name here for all the hatred towards one or more distros/companies that produce the distros.
217 • Figures (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-08 23:08:41 GMT from United States)
I know I've been posting here a lot; sorry about that.
But it figures that the day after I post that I'm moving from Ubuntu, I get the new 9.04 release from ShipIt. Dang, they did a nice job with that packaging! It looks very nice!
Oh...they know how to rope me back in. Those devils.
218 • @217 (by stuckinoregon on 2009-05-09 04:34:04 GMT from United States)
You might want to give it a try. The few little initial glitches do seem to be fixed at this point. Except for some that I know with midlevel ATI cards that are dropped from the propietary drivers and don't seem to work with the open source drivers. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before that's fixed and shouldn't be specific to Ubuntu.
Quite a few people I know have started using the 9.04 release and have had absolutely no issues. They are completely jazzed to be able to seriously entertain the idea of dumping Micro$oft.
BTW, even though I use Ubuntu as well as Kubuntu, Debian, Arch and the BSDs, I am currently posting this from a T42 running Mandriva 2009.1 KDE. I do like their default implementation of KDE 4.2. Just feels more "usable" without a lot of tweaking required. No complaints with it so far. The one glitch I did run into was when X tried to start. No big surprises though since we're again talking about an ATI card. Dropped to init 3, ran XFdrake and was able to get it running again. No worries. Nice work from the Mandriva crew.
219 • @218 (by Nobody Important on 2009-05-09 18:47:03 GMT from United States)
It wasn't a glitch that drove me away. It was that stupid, half brained decision to make the Update Manager pop up as a minimized window. (As well as its poor performance on my computer)
What scares me is that Shuttleworth has posted on the bug report and basically said, "I know you all hate it, but I'm in charge so this stays." This annoys me, and feels like foreshadowing of things to come.
Incidentally, I've been thinking about who would pick up Ubuntu's crown if Ubuntu dies. Probably Fedora, if it would make non-free easier to get, maybe. That would be an interesting DWW article: A World Without Ubuntu.
220 • @206 Not X.Org, but AMD (by Anonymous on 2009-05-09 19:34:43 GMT from Spain)
'The ATI issue was caused upstream. X.org decided not to support some older ATI chipsets... '
It was not X.org, but AMD who decided to drop support for chipsets below R600, so ALL the distros based on xorg server 1.6 will have the same problems.
Mandriva was considering at some moment having two X servers: 1.5 for ATI users up to R500 so they can use the fglrx, and the new 1.6.
Eventually, the Mandriva cooker testers (among that I include myself, using a X1400) decided that the radeon and radeonhd drivers would fulfill the most (not all, there are issues in games or other demanding graphic applications) of the needs of these ATI users. I'm using Mandriva 2009.1 Free, KDE 4.2 with composite desktop using the radeon (ati) driver and I'm able to see videos using xv, only having some visual glitches starting or stopping the laptop.
221 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-10 11:34:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #210.
Thanks for the hint...about having a gand at Launchpad for Ubuntu probs ref ext4...well, yes, there are one or two comments about the odd difficulty with ext4 and certain aspects of Uxx...
222 • *buntu feelings (by steve on 2009-05-10 20:16:32 GMT from United States)
i don't use *buntu, tried it and didn't like it
that said, i like to read about it, i like to know what they're up to down there
that way i can stay informed WITHOUT having to turn my computer brown
if i want to know about some other distro, i install it-- i'm smart enough to judge for myself
kudos to distrowatch for helping me to stay *buntu-free!
223 • nonsense (by Anonymous on 2009-05-10 20:45:55 GMT from United States)
Comment #222 is just the sort of comments that are meaningless! You told us what you didn't like how about what you do like.
224 • 223? (by steve on 2009-05-10 21:03:31 GMT from United States)
i think there's a comma missing from your sentence, rendering it somewhat 'meaningless'
i guess you're asking me what distros i like?
who cares!
but, since [i think] you asked, i like--
puppy [daily usage]
dynebolic [rastaman vibration]
slackware [never use it but for a big distro it's the best]
arch [want to learn]
lfs [REALLY want to learn]
have also tried--
red hat [ancient]
mandrake [also ancient]
couple of debians
dsl [and half-hearted attempt at tcl]
blag, slax, some others i have probably forgotten
and, of course, ubuntu [5.10]
is that what you were asking?
225 • @224 (by Anonymous on 2009-05-11 02:00:27 GMT from United States)
you forgot gentoo! :(
what do you mean couple of debians?
There is only one Debian. It is the mother of the *buntu's and many others. Happy Mother's Day Debian. Happy Mother's Day Red Hat, Happy Mother's Day Slackware, Happy Mother's Day Linus Torvalds/FSF/Richard Stallman, et all. Without you guys there'd be no Linux. And we know what a world without Linux would look like :(
226 • No subject (by forest on 2009-05-11 08:13:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Perhaps Ubuntu evolved into the "parental child..."?
Number of Comments: 226
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