 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 324, 12 October 2009 |
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Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It was a bit of slow week as several popular distributions are gearing up for their next major releases, but the news has been exciting. Novell got annoyed at Red Hat claiming 75% market penetration and Debian was used to power an underwater vehicle to victory. Then I moved into Sabayon's latest to see if their KDE 4 build could perform any better than others I've tried. All this and more in this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (18MB) and MP3 (18MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
Sabayon Linux Five Point OH!
 We've been drifting through the Doldrums lately on the Good Ship Linuxlovers, but one bright isle is Sabayon Linux 5.0, or 5.o as the developers called it. Sabayon is the one distribution I keep thinking I'll switch to next release - just as soon as issue X is solved. I try it every release, but end up going back to my long-time favorite Gentoo. Sabayon seems like the perfect upgrade. It comes with most of the codecs and drivers folks need, it has some convenient default settings, and it always comes with lots of applications. This release brings all that with a performance boost and a great new look.
Installation
Sabayon Linux DVDs have always offered several boot modes. In the past they've offered a Gaming mode and Kiosk mode, among others. These are gone now, but a new XBMC mode is available. One can still boot to the desktop environment with or without the music or boot directly to the installer.
The installer is simple and easy-to-use. However, I did have some issues with the partitioner. Having just installed a new hard drive, I needed to set up partitions and thought I'd use the Sabayon installer for that. If memory serves, Sabayon adapted portions of Anaconda for their installer several version back and I thought it would be up to the job. Depending upon your perspective, it may have been. The issue I had with it was its insistence that it knew better than me how to arrange my partitions. I kid you not. I'd set up a few partitions in the order and size I wanted, and then they would just mysteriously rearrange themselves to meet some developer's idea of how they should be ordered. And it would not allow me to set up some unused partitions. It insisted they all have names and filesystems. I messed with it for a while but finally gave up and fired up fdisk. The install proceeded without incident after that. I chose to use the Ext4 filesystem and installed all software. There isn't a complete individual package selection, but broad categories and a few optional packages are listed one can disable. One can set up user accounts and a root password is desired, even though by default the first user account will be set up as the administrator. The GRUB bootloader will be installed if and where you wish and it'll try to detect and include other systems. That part is a bit hit and miss, but most are.
The Sabayon boot process isn't going to win any races. In fact, it seems rather slow by today's standards, but it gets there. It's nice that all the hardware is configured automagically, including 3D graphical drivers, and even CPU Scaling is set to ondemand for me. I didn't have to do anything except boot and start customizing the desktop appearance.
Desktop and Applications
The new theme for this release looks really great. It's tasteful and understated. Some versions of Sabayon in the past could be considered a bit gawdy, but the graphics for this release are quite attractive. However, the windows retain the plain decoration and style from KDE 4. I'm not sure why Sabayon developers stuck with the stock KDE window theme when they include some nice ones such as QtCurve and Klearlooks. Sabayon also has six or seven extra wallpapers if someone wanted something a bit more colorful. Unfortunately, I'm still not able to stretch a wallpaper across two displays, but that's on KDE.
The Sabayon Linux KDE 4.3.1 Environment
(full image size: 500kB, screen resolution 1680x1050 pixels)
Desktop effects are enabled by default and for the first time I was almost able to enjoy them. Whether the credit goes to Sabayon developers or KDE developers, I don't know, but the performance of KDE 4 in Sabayon is much improved over my past experiences with KDE 4. One of the most annoying issues with KDE 4 in the past was slow response times when using KMail and Akregator. Again, I don't know where the credit belongs, but both are much more tolerable in Sabayon's KDE 4.3.1. Akregator still pulls in agonizingly slow and random, but switching between feeds and articles is much more responsive. Also, I found it a bit annoying that some of my settings were lost in-between uses - again, I recall that being a characteristic of KDE 4. In the end, I disabled the special effects, desktop searches, and Konqueror plug-ins and javascript in order to feel more comfortable. Still I wasn't able to enjoy any screensavers. Even asciiquarium taxed the CPU and ran rather choppy and slow.
Sabayon Linux ships with a customized Linux kernel 2.6.31, Xorg 7.4, and GCC 4.4.1. Besides the mass of KDE applications, Sabayon includes several other handy apps. For multimedia enjoyment your choices include VLC media player, XBMC media center, and Amarok, although Dragon Player is the default for most video and DVD purposes. OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 is included for those pesky work tasks and Firefox 3.5.3 is available for Web surfing. Both of these seem quite peppy and Firefox is equipped with the plug-ins needed for media playback. Yakuake, NVIDIA Settings, and Wicd are also found. But where was the GIMP? Ah, there it is in Sulfur.
Package Management
Sabayon Linux is based on Gentoo and as such many telltale signs can still be seen under the hood. One of these signs is Portage and the /etc/make.conf file. While Portage is intact, operative, and directed at Gentoo repositories, Sabayon comes with its own package management system set up to use Sabayon binary packages. Sulfur is the graphical front-end to Entropy which can also be used in a terminal with equo. This can loosely be equated to the Synaptic front-end for APT which can also be used in a terminal with apt-get. At the commandline one can install by typing equo install <package name>. I like the commandline version for quick and easy installs when I know the name of the application, but if I need to search or examine the dependencies I prefer the compact nature of the results in Sulfur.
The Sulfur package management interface
(full image size: 262kB, screen resolution 1680x1050 pixels)
Sulfur has the same basic attributes and functionalities as other graphical package management tools - lists of applications by category, search by keywords, mark for installation, review, and apply. Sulfur looks a bit different than many of the others, but it doesn't take long to acclimate to its interface. Sabayon also comes with an update applet that sits in the System Tray to alert the user when updates are available. When activated, it opens Sulfur to take care of the actual work. Soon after my system was installed, an update to Entropy came down the pipe which then triggered a mass update of 186 packages. I was a bit hesitant to click that "Commit Actions" button, but it finished with no problems.
Conclusion
I always like Sabayon Linux, but I've never quite made the switch. I know I need to bite the bullet and just get used to KDE 4, and perhaps Sabayon 5.o will be the one to do it for me. It's the best implementation of KDE 4 I've tried to use, but it still has quite a few rough edges. KDE 4.3.2 hasn't shown up in Entropy yet, but I'm hoping it will soon and perhaps I'll see even more improvement. In any case, I think I'll be sticking with Sabayon and its KDE 4 for a while to see how it fares over the long haul.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Debian develops kFreeBSD port, Debian submarine wins competition, Red Hat and Novell argue numbers, Gentoo release statistics, Mandriva re-introduces itself
 The Debian project announced the port of the Debian system to the FreeBSD kernel in 32- and 64-bit architectures. These ports will see official support with the upcoming release (codenamed 'Squeeze') and will be given equal importance in determining release status. Motivations include broader choice and the ability to benefit from some of the components admired in free BSD systems such as the OpenBSD Packet Filter and NDIS kernel drivers. This subproject has been a long time in the making, with it roots going way back to 1999. It's been a long and arduous journey and continued challenges are inevitable, but as the Linux Weekly News said, this is one more step towards their goal of creating a universal operating system. In their informative piece, Koen Vervloesem delineates the history of the project and describes the some of the technical aspects for the current and future releases. This port comes with all the trimmings such as an official port site, fine manual, wiki, a #debian-kbsd IRC channel on irc.oftc.net, and install CDs.
In other Debian news, a press release announced that Debian was a key component of the winning entry in this year's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, sponsored by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Office of Naval Research. The Cornell University team took first place as their submarine completed the challenging course which required the vehicles "pass through a gate, follow a path, ram a submerged buoy, fire through a square target with small torpedoes, drop markers into bins containing simulated targets, recover a PVC target and surface through an octagon shape, all without human intervention." Debian and other Open Source software was used for the on-board computer of the vehicle as well in the labs and on servers. The Cornell software team has replaced all their Windows, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, and Gentoo installs with Debian because, as the software team leader said, it "works amazingly well for us." Underwater videos of the winning run can be seen on the Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle web site.
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 Developers celebrated Gentoo's tenth birthday by releasing a live DVD recently that received quite a bit of attention. An updated 10.1 was released this past weekend to address a few bugs discovered with 10.0. Probably while reminiscing, but officially in response to inquiries, Robin Johnson, aka robbat2, a long-time Gentoo developer, posted some interesting release statistics for Gentoo for the last five years. He has broken the numbers down into architectures and media categories for fine-grained comparison, but he doesn't appear to have included numbers on Stage tarballs. For the 2005.1 release the universal install CD received 374388 hits. The 2007.0 and 2008.0 releases garnered the most hits at 1046455 and 968065 respectively. Interestingly, the 10.0 Birthday DVD recorded 33703 hits in just five days.
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 Red Hat Executive Vice President Paul Cormier was quoted as saying that Red Hat has earned 75% of the paid Linux market at their annual analyst event in New York last week. While it was sandwiched in between other financial reports, forecasts, and plans for the future, that one quote seemed to bounce around the Internet getting quite a bit of attention. In fact, it got the attention and ire of the management at Novell. Novell public relations manager Ian Bruce wasted no time in setting the record straight. Bruce quoted an independent study that pegs Red Hat at about 62% of the Linux business market. Whatever the true numbers, Red Hat certainly seems to be faring quite well these days in this depressed economy.
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 Mandriva is hoping to re-introduce itself to the public by publishing a series of articles examining their place in the Linux landscape and the community's role in their evolution. The first of these articles, Being a Linux distribution publisher, describes some of the steps involved in creating a Linux distribution. These include the software selection and integration processes, original tool creation, integrating graphics, hardware support planning, quality assurance, and development packages. One fun fact states there are over 20,000 software packages on Mandriva mirrors. Upcoming entries are titled 1001 ways to contribute and a new contribution option, so keep an eye on The Official Mandriva Blog for those.
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| Released Last Week |
Tiny Core Linux 2.4, 2 4.1
Robert Shingledecker has announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 2.4, a very small (10 MB) minimal Linux GUI desktop: "Tiny Core 2.4 is now posted. Change log: updated flwm_restart to use new capability of menu refresh; updated appbrowser - dropped access to TCE repository, 'Install Local' defaults to optional/; updated wbar.sh to read extra configurations from $HOME/.wbar; updated flpicsee to v1.0 - replaced Alt with Ctrl hotkyes; updated setbackground to process compressed logo template, saves much space; updated .Xdefaults for aterm transparency mode; updated .xsession to check and start flit and/or watcher...." Find more details in the changelog. Update: The developers have later released a bug-fix version: "Version 2.4.1 is posted and has a single character change, which only affects special permissions, e.g., setuid, and only when installing to the file system, i.e., not mounting. This fixes the X.Org not starting issue under such conditions."
Dragora GNU/Linux 1.1
Matias Fonzo has announced the release of Dragora GNU/Linux 1.1, a 100% "libre" distribution based on the concept of simplicity and inspired by Slackware Linux: "Dragora GNU/Linux 1.1 is the evolution of its previous version 1.0. Notable changes in this version are: Linux Kernel 2.6.30.9 free; toolchain - Binutils 2.19.1, GCC 4.3.4, glibc 2.9, Coreutils 7.6, util-linux-ng 2.16.1; X.Org Server 1.6.4 and Mesa 7.5.2; the inclusion of KDE 4.3.1; new compression format based on the LZMA algorithm; support for Free Java and JavaScript through Icedtea6 and Rhino; support for Bluetooth and IrDA devices; support for printing with CUPS 1.3.11; support for the PCMCIA subsystem; new language support - Galician. It is worth mentioning the large environment such as KDE 4.3.1 (included on CD 2) and the numerous corrections and improvements in the packaging system and the Dragora system start-up." Read the full release announcement (scroll down for the English version) for further details.
LliureX 9.09
LliureX 9.09, an Ubuntu-based educational distribution developed by the Council of Culture, Education and Sport at the Municipality of Valencia in Spain, has been released. New features and software packages: a LliureX control centre that allows teachers to control the activity of students in the computer room, with support for thin clients; F-Spot - an application for managing digital images; Gobby - a collaborative editor; Gmount-ISO - a graphical utility for mounting ISO images; new tools for cleaning and restoring a desktop; new tools for creating educational digital objects, such as resource preparation, mind maps and desktop recordings; a new TrueType font installer; a set of new custom tools for configuring applications and for broadcasting audio and video.... Read the detailed release announcement (in Spanish) for additional information.
LliureX features lots of software with a GNOME interface
(full image size: 220kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Clonezilla Live 1.2.2-31
Steven Shiau has released a new stable build of Clonezilla Live, a specialist, Debian-based live CD designed for hard disk cloning tasks: "We are happy to announce that Clonezilla Live 1.2.2-31 is the new stable release. In this release some programs were updated and some bugs fixed. Features: based on Debian 'Lenny' repository as of 2009-10-05; Linux kernel 2.6.30; updated Partclone to 0.1.9, Memtest86+ to 4.00, live-initramfs to 1.157.3; bugs in partclone.xfs and partclone.fat have been fixed; by default '-r' option is on; option '-g auto' is skipped when GRUB 2 is found in the restored OS; an option to mount NFS 4 server was added to prep-ocsroot; language files have been updated...." See the release announcement for additional technical details.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
DistroWatch database summary
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And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next installment will be published on Monday, 19 October 2009.
Susan Linton
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| Archives |
| • Issue 508 (2013-05-20): Review of Debian 7.0, interviews with Clement Lefebvre and Gaël Duval, scripting with xdotool |
| • Issue 507 (2013-05-13): Impressions of Calculate Linux, 13.4, Ubuntu's portable packages, mintDrivers |
| • Issue 506 (2013-05-06): Ubuntu and Kubuntu 13.04, Debian "Wheezy", Slackware on systemd, distros for Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 505 (2013-04-29): First look at PCLinuxOS 2013.04, Saucy Salamander, Remastersys and System Imager, Linux containers |
| • Issue 504 (2013-04-22): Look at Bodhi 2.3.0, Ubuntu 13.04 features, building OpenBSD ports, opening large files |
| • Issue 503 (2013-04-15): CentOS versus Scientific Linux, PCLinuxOS 64, Lucas Nussbaum, ZFS/Btrfs versus ext4 |
| • Issue 502 (2013-04-08): Look at Mint 201303 "Debian", Ubuntu versus openSUSE, comparing ZFS and Btrfs file systems |
| • Issue 501 (2013-04-01): KANOTIX 2013 and GhostBSD 3.0, openSUSE Rescue-CD, Haiku package management, computer forensics |
| • Issue 500 (2013-03-25): Look at openSUSE 12.3, Ubuntu release changes, Debian backports, growing divide |
| • Issue 499 (2013-03-18): MINIX 3.2.1, openSUSE 12.3 on desktop, Ubuntu GNOME and UbuntuKylin, distros for musicians, KolibriOS |
| • Issue 498 (2013-03-11): Sabayon Linux 11, Ubuntu's Mir, Linux malware |
| • Issue 497 (2013-03-04): Rebellin Linux 1.00 "Adrenaline", rolling-release Ubuntu, Arch vs spin-offs, justification and diversity |
| • Issue 496 (2013-02-25): Review of Chakra 2013.02, The Book of GIMP, Ubuntu and privacy, FreeNAS vs NAS4Free |
| • Issue 495 (2013-02-18): SparkyLinux 2.1 "Ultra", Fedora 19 schedule, Xubuntu on DVD, cloud privacy |
| • Issue 494 (2013-02-11): FreeBSD 9.1, web server stats, Anaconda, rolling-release PC-BSD, fixing broken packages in Arch |
| • Issue 493 (2013-02-04): UberStudent 2.0, OmniBoot 1.0, MariaDB, Enlightenment 0.17 |
| • Issue 492 (2013-01-28): Fedora 18 review, systemd, Kali Linux, Ubuntu Unleashed |
| • Issue 491 (2013-01-21): Fuduntu 2013.1, Fedora 18 desktop choices, Consort, accessing encrypted drive |
| • Issue 490 (2013-01-14): Look at Manjaro Linux 0.8.3, openSUSE on Chromebook, Able2Extract 8.0 |
| • Issue 489 (2013-01-07): PC-BSD 9.1, Arch spin-offs, rolling-releases, year-end PHR stats, removing applications |
| • Issue 488 (2012-12-24): Reviews of Unity and Puppy Linux 5.4 "Slacko", FreeBSD 10 |
| • Issue 487 (2012-12-17): Cinnarch 2012.11.22, OpenMandriva, Fedora Magazine, Tumbleweed, OpenJDK vs Oracle Java |
| • Issue 486 (2012-12-10): Linux Mint 14 review, Ubuntu "spyware" controversy, Haiku overview, troubleshooting Linux servers |
| • Issue 485 (2012-12-03): Kwort Linux 3.5, Mint bug-fix update, Fedora's new Anaconda, defining a distribution |
| • Issue 484 (2012-11-26): Look at SMS 2.0.1, Fedora pre-beta report, Illumos, Secure Boot update |
| • Issue 483 (2012-11-19): DragonFly BSD 3.2.1 and Xubuntu 12.10, Gentoo and udev, switching file systems |
| • Issue 482 (2012-11-12): Review of Zenwalk 7.2, Clang in FreeBSD, Omniboot 0.5, priorities on external drives |
| • Issue 481 (2012-11-05): Look at Tails 0.13, EFF on Ubuntu and privacy, Debian installer changes, ext4 data corruption bug |
| • Issue 480 (2012-10-29): Review of Ubuntu 12.10, Wayland 1.0, FreeBSD's pkgng |
| • Issue 479 (2012-10-22): Look at Zentyal 3.0, Debian bug reporting, initiating a halt |
| • Issue 478 (2012-10-15): Slackware 14.0 review, Ubuntu donations, connecting to multiple machines behind router |
| • Issue 477 (2012-10-08): Review of ODROID-X, OpenBSD's anti-Linux song, interview with Vincent Untz, Linux as operating system |
| • Issue 476 (2012-10-01): Review of openSUSE 12.2, Slackware 14.0 features, accessing home computer with SSH |
| • Issue 475 (2012-09-24): Look at PCLinuxOS 2012.08, Ubuntu and Amazon, SolusOS and PiSi, ownCloud |
| • Issue 474 (2012-09-17): Bodhi Linux 2.0.1, OpenIndiana interview, Frugalware history, update notifications |
| • Issue 473 (2012-09-10): The Linux Command Line, Slackware documentation project, Debian's new primary arch, Goobuntu |
| • Issue 472 (2012-09-03): Kororaa Linux 17, OpenIndiana and SchilliX, Ubuntu GNOME remix, home server tip |
| • Issue 471 (2012-08-27): Linux Mint 13 "KDE", Ubuntu 12.10 features, Slax update, folder quotas |
| • Issue 470 (2012-08-20): Liberté Linux 2012.2, Arch and systemd, NetBSD's sysbuild and sysupgrade, 19 years of Debian |
| • Issue 469 (2012-08-13): Peppermint OS Three, SUSE on Secure Boot, GNOME OS, moving email to Linux |
| • Issue 468 (2012-08-06): First look at CentOS 6.3, Debian installer beta, Fedora and MATE, Libtrash |
| • Issue 467 (2012-07-30): Ubuntu Made Easy, Debian "Jessie", OpenBSD on Secure Boot, Rawhide troubles |
| • Issue 466 (2012-07-23): Fuduntu 2012.3, Linux in PC-BSD jails, secure boot on older computers |
| • Issue 465 (2012-07-16): Netrunner 4.2, Mandriva's two codebases, firewalls and window frames |
| • Issue 464 (2012-07-09): Zorin OS 6, FSF's views on secure boot, Virtual PDF Printer |
| • Issue 463 (2012-07-02): TurnKey Linux 11.3, Red Hat and Btrfs, Sabayon's MATE spin, ZFS on Linux |
| • Issue 462 (2012-06-25): Sabayon 9, "Wheezy" freeze, Zorin OS overview, Vinux interview, mounting network shares |
| • Issue 461 (2012-06-18): Linux Mint 13, openSUSE 12. delays, Debian Multimedia, Mageia 3 roadmap |
| • Issue 460 (2012-06-11): Look at Fedora 17, PC-BSD and Slackware interviews, Openfiler and FuguIta |
| • Issue 459 (2012-06-04): Impressions of Mageia 2, Fedora updates, Debian or Raspberry Pie, improving software performance |
| • Issue 458 (2012-05-28): Impressions of SolusOS 1, Linux kernel 3.4, encrypting home folder |
| • Issue 457 (2012-05-21): Linux accessibility, Fedora 17 overview, MultiSystem, launching tasks |
| • Issue 456 (2012-05-14): Look at OpenBSD 5.1, Debian Installer 7.0 alpha, UDS news round-up |
| • Issue 455 (2012-05-07): Review of Ubuntu 12.04, "Quantal Quetzal" plans, Debian infographic |
| • Full list of all issues |
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