 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 335, 4 January 2010 |
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Welcome to the first issue of DistroWatch Weekly in 2010! We'll start the new year with a rather unusual review - a look at MINIX 3. An operating system that helped to inspire Linus Torvalds to create Linux (and whose creator, Andrew Tanenbaum, once famously described Linux as "obsolete" due to its monolithic design), continues to evolve in small steps, but is it still just a toy for students and those interested in operating systems design? Or has it finally become practical and usable for solving real-world problems? Read on to find out. The review is followed by a brief statistical look at the past year, where we'll highlight the winners and losers among the popular distributions. Then, in a more technical topic (although explained in a layman's language) we look at the possibilities of optimising 64-bit distributions with compiler flags. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the December 2009 DistroWatch.com donation is the Krita project. Happy new year and happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (22MB) and MP3 (22MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
A Look at MINIX (version 3.1.4)
 I believe it was Paul Gauguin who famously questioned: "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" (D'où venons nous ? Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?) While it may be impossible to say for sure, I think he was expressing the idea that we can't really know what we are or where we're headed unless we also know where we originated. Bearing that thought in mind, I decided to take a look at MINIX, the operating system which helped to inspire the creation of Linux.
MINIX has traditionally been an operating system with an eye toward education. Both versions 1 and 2 of the MINIX system were designed to be useful for students learning about operating systems. The code behind MINIX was small and clean, making it a practical study tool in this complex field. The latest offering of MINIX, version 3, attempts to keep the same principles as the previous versions, but also strives to be more practical as a modern, UNIX-like, operating system.
The MINIX web site is an example in clean, easy to read documentation. The site covers a good deal of the project's history, current development goals and benefits of the MINIX design. The most interesting point of the design, perhaps, is that the MINIX hardware drivers run as user processes. This means if a driver crashes, the kernel does not become unstable. Instead, the kernel simply restarts the failed driver and continues on as before. This makes MINIX somewhat self-healing. The web site also contains a good deal of information on how to install and use the operating system, including disk partitioning, multi-booting and setting up user accounts.
The MINIX project released their latest version, 3.1.5, in November 2009, but this review covers version 3.1.4, released in July 2009, as it was the latest stable build at the time of writing. The install image I downloaded from the project's web site fit on one CD and weighed in at about 550 MB. Once the image burned to a CD, my odyssey got under way. I placed the CD into my desktop machine, which runs a 2.5 GHz CPU and has 2 GB of RAM, and rebooted.
MINIX boots up from the live CD to a text console with a brief explanation on how to install the operating system to the local machine. This isn't a tutorial or even a walk-through. It's expected that you have some experience with UNIX-like operating systems and know what you're doing. I logged in as root (there's no password on the live CD) and ran the installer.
The system installer is text-based and is an odd mix of friendly and terse. Options are explained and things are easy enough, for a text-only installer. To demonstrate what I mean, there's no way to back up and try again, short of killing the installer and running through it all from the beginning. On the other hand, there are helpful messages such as this one I encountered, typo and all, while repartitioning: "Please confirm that you want to delete region 0, losing all data it contains. You're disk is not actually updated right away, but still. Are you sure you want to continue?"
MINIX 3 - the installer finishes successfully.
(full image size: 10kB, screen resolution 698x400 pixels)
Sane defaults are offered throughout the installer and I was able to complete the process without any missteps on the first attempt. When I rebooted my computer, I was asked where my MINIX install was located. This location was remembered for future start-ups. The system booted to a command prompt and I was given instructions on how to add new packages to the system using a program called "packman".
Packman, like the system installer, is text-based, terse and fairly easy to use if the operator is familiar with a command line. There are 118 packages on the CD to choose from, most of which can be found in a modern Linux distribution. These include system utilities, a desktop environment, compilers, multimedia, emulators and games. To start, I installed the X11 package to enable a graphical desktop. The packman tool not only grabs packages from the install CD, but will also attempt to download packages, and optionally their source code, from a remote repository. My only complaint while using packman is that there's no indication of progress. The system sits and waits quietly for the package to install. For large packages, such as X11, this requires a lot patience, especially when installing over the network.
MINIX 3 - using packman to install software.
(full image size: 13kB, screen resolution 719x401 pixels)
Having played with packman a while, I'm not sure if the MINIX project supplies security updates. One MINIX developer let me know that they can upgrade packages through the repository. Whether any are updated, or how often, is more open to speculation. There doesn't seem to be any way to see if new packages have been added, short of manually checking the version numbers and comparing them with previously installed packages. The packman utility does not yet have the functionality to compare version numbers.
Once the X11 package finished installing, I tried to launch a desktop and ran into an interesting quirk. The X graphical system ran, but there was no desktop environment. Those readers who used Linux during the 1990s probably know what I mean when I say there was a graphical display and no desktop. There's just a grey background and a big, black X mouse pointer. I soon realized my mistake and went back to packman to install the JWM desktop. Unfortunately after installing JWM and manually setting up the proper configuration files, I was no further ahead. In fact, X would consistently crash and I eventually moved on to exploring the power of the MINIX command line.
The standard UNIX command line is where MINIX, if not shines, at least becomes more familiar. There are minor differences between the MINIX version of commands and the equivalent commands in Linux or BSD. The basics are the same and most command names are familiar. Happily, the customary man pages are there for reference. Various items common among UNIX systems, including a secure shell server, user accounts and a C compiler, were easy to set up. These procedures are all covered by the documentation on the MINIX website for those unfamiliar with configuring a UNIX operating system from the command line.
MINIX 3 - testing the C compiler.
(full image size: 4kB, screen resolution 615x398 pixels)
MINIX comes with the usual collection of command line network tools, including the lynx web browser; FTP, telnet and SSH clients. No network services are enabled by default, helping to keep MINIX secure while things are being set up. Once things are installed and one has services running, how to secure them? As far as I can tell, MINIX does not come with a firewall as most Linux or BSD users would recognize it. There's no iptables, for example, and no allow or deny files in the /etc folder. The best I could come up with was some advice given on the MINIX forum: create a file called /etc/serv.access and place rules for remote access there.
While writing this review, much of my test hardware was unusable. As far as I can tell, MINIX does not have any USB support. This effectively makes my printer a paperweight. It also excludes many modern keyboards and mouse devices. My video card was properly detected and handled for the brief period I spent using a graphical environment. I was unable to get any sound to come out of my speakers while using MINIX, though I've read others have managed to get MPlayer working. My network card was properly detected and enabled on each boot up. In an attempt to get around the lack of USB support and grab some screen shots, I installed MINIX in a virtual environment (VM). The operating system works well in VirtualBox and I was able to make use of my USB mouse in the VM.
An aspect of MINIX which took me by surprise is that the system installer does not create a swap partition for you. (Perhaps it does in expert mode, I mostly took the defaults.) Swap is something that needs to be added manually later if the administrator is worried about running out of RAM. Also, there doesn't appear to be any application to show how much memory the system is using at any given time. A forum post indicates this is a work in progress and will hopefully be included after this year's Summer of Code.
Speed, or the lack of, was sometimes a concern. When installed to the hard drive of my 2.5 GHz desktop machine, the system took about thirty seconds to reach a login prompt. Keeping in mind that the login prompt was of the command-line variety, not a graphical one, this didn't strike me as being quick. Small packages, such as the grep tool, took around two minutes to install from the CD. Larger packages, such as X11 took closer to twenty minutes. I suspect this may be caused by packman compiling software that it's installing, but there's no indication of what's going on behind the scenes.
It wasn't all bad, though. On the positive side, my network connection was fairly quick and most commands ran with about the same performance I'd expect on any other UNIX-like desktop. Disk usage was low; an install of MINIX is small (under 1 GB with compilers, multimedia and X11 packages included), allowing it to run on just about any Pentium-class computer. The operating system remained stable, if a bit sluggish, even when I was installing extra packages and starting and crashing X.
I don't think it would be fair to complete this review without mentioning the team behind MINIX. I had a chance to swap e-mails with a few developers and they have a small, but active, Google Group. All exchanges were pleasant and helpful, showing a calm respect on the part of the development team which is easy to appreciate. Any lack of user-friendliness in the MINIX operating system is made up for by these volunteers.
Whenever I test drive an operating system, especially one that is less mainstream, there's the question in my mind: "Where would this be useful?" My conclusion, after playing with MINIX for a week, is that it holds down a small niche. It's for people who want less functionality than Linux or BSD, but wish to stay within the same family. Or, perhaps, for those who want to experience running a microkernel. I think MINIX will continue to find its home in universities where students will be able to get hands on experience looking at, playing with and trying to improve upon a small, functional operating system.
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| Statistics (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics in 2008 and 2009
With the end of 2009, here is a quick look at the movers and shakers of the past year, with the help of our Page Hit Ranking statistics. The most noticeable change among the top distribution was the rise of Fedora which has replaced openSUSE on the second spot. While some of the reasons for openSUSE's drop could be attributed to the distribution's switch to less frequent release schedule, there is no doubt that Fedora has attracted a lot of interest with its constant innovation and fearless adoption of interesting features. Among the small distributions, the previously highly rated Damn Small Linux has fallen off the radar due to its prolonged inactivity, with Puppy Linux accepting the role as the most popular mini-distribution.
However, if I had to single out one distribution that was the shining star of the past year, I would pick Arch Linux. Although designed for intermediate Linux users, many seem to be attracted to the idea of a "rolling-release" distribution which is installed once and kept up-to-date throughout its lifespan via daily package updates. This is, in a way, a Gentoo of binary distributions, minus extensive time required for compiling software and without the complexity of many under-the-hood features. This growing popularity of Arch Linux can also be observed by the number of Arch-based distributions and community projects that have appeared during the past year, including the excellent Archiso-live, Chakra, Kahel OS and the brand-new ArchServer. The first-ever Arch Linux Handbook was also published last year. Maybe it's time to replace Gentoo Linux with Arch Linux on our Top Ten Distributions page?
As always, the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics shouldn't be taken too seriously - they are a fun way of looking at what's hot among this site's visitors, but they probably do not reflect install base or distribution quality.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Optimizing 64-bit distributions with compiler flags
Pushing-performance asks: My question relates to performance and optimization of 64-bit distributions. We all know that some x86 distributions compile with different processor flags, and optimizations to improve the performance of their distro. Arch Linux (which I use) is one of these. So besides the services started at boot time, some distributions are significantly faster due to using more modern, faster CPU settings, i.e. i686 instead of i386 instruction set. I've now been using Arch Linux 64-bit for a while and it has got me thinking. Is there a similar set of CPU flags and optimisations for 64-bit CPUs for distro maintainers to use when compiling their distro that will make distro X faster than distro Y? Or are all 64-bit distributions essentially of the same performance?
DistroWatch answers: In a way, we have two different topics here, both of which relate to compiler flags. The first is different architecture types, for example: i386, i686 and x86_64. Source code can be compiled to target a specific type of architecture, such as one of the three I just mentioned. When you're compiling software for your own machine, you'll want to compile for your specific processor. So if you're running an i686 processor, that's the target you'll pass to the compiler. But, since x86 architectures are backward compatible, code compiled for i386 machines will also run on i686 machines. Likewise, i386 and i686 code can be made to run on a x86_64 processor.
Sadly, the reverse isn't true, code compiled to run on a x86_64 processor will not run on an i386 system. This one-way street has led many distributions to compile their software packages to target older architectures. As a result, their software will run on a wider range of computers, but there is also a performance hit from not using the modern, more efficient methods offered by newer processors. People who compile their software can target their specific architecture and gain performance benefits by having code that best matches their processor.
At this point, you're already compiling for your processor type, so are there any other flags to optimize your code? Yes, there are. The GCC compiler provides several levels of optimization which can improve your software's performance, regardless of which architecture you're using. These options will try to make the code more efficient in a variety of ways and you can read more about the specific optimizations on this website.
Back in October last year, Chris Smart wrote a really interesting piece on optimizing code on 64-bit machines and tested how the different levels of optimization changed the performance of several applications. The article talks specifically about Gentoo Linux, but is well worth reading if you're interested in compiling your own packages. You can read the article here.
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| Released During Last Two Weeks |
VortexBox 1.0
Andrew Gillis has announced the release of VortexBox 1.0, a Fedora-based server distribution that turns an unused computer into a music server or jukebox: "VortexBox 1.0 released. After several months of hard work we have released VortexBox 1.0. It has many of the features requested by the community including: FLAC to Apple Lossless (m4a) mirroring through the web GUI; MusicBrainz and CDDB used for ID3 tags; tool tips for each section in the GUI; Logitech SqueezeCenter 7.4.1 pre-installed and configured; software upgrade through the web GUI. VortexBox 1.0 also has a lot of bug fixes including better handling of existing cover art. You can update to this version from the command line." Read the release announcement and visit the project's home page to learn more about this distribution.
ClearOS 5.1
ClearFoundation has announced the availability of ClearOS 5.1, a CentOS-based server and gateway distribution for small businesses formerly known as ClarkConnect: "ClearFoundation released the ClearOS Enterprise 5.1 final version. What's new? anti-phishing, Windows 7 support, graphical console tool, improved usability and web interface, core system upgraded to CentOS 5.4. ClearOS 5.x supports upgrades from ClarkConnect 4.x and later. Upgrades from earlier versions (or systems originally installed with an earlier version) are not supported. When you run the ClearOS installer, make sure you select the upgrade option. As with any upgrade, please backup any critical data. For those of you upgrading from ClarkConnect 5.0, a live upgrade (via yum) will be made available shortly." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information.
Salix OS 13.0.2
George Vlahavas has announced the release of Salix OS 13.0.2, a Slackware-based Linux distribution with Xfce as the default desktop: "The Salix team is proud to announce the release of Salix 13.0.2. The most important change is the addition of a 64-bit port of Salix OS. As the 32-bit counterpart, Salix64 is fully backwards compatible with Slackware64 and provides a simple and fast way to install an Xfce-based system that follows the 'one application per task' philosophy. The 64-bit repositories already include a considerable number of packages, making it the largest third-party package repository for Slackware64 users available. The Salix team has also created and maintains a repository that includes dependency information for all Slackware packages, 32-bit and 64-bit." Read the rest of the release announcement for a more detailed list of changes.
Sabayon Linux 5.1 "Gaming"
Fabio Erculiani has announced the release of a special "Gaming" edition of Sabayon Linux 5.1: "This is our Christmas gift to our beloved community. A Sabayon DVD full of games to instantly play on every PC. This release comes straight from the north pole, I've found it under my Christmas tree this morning and wanted to share it with you. Santa made it for all our users. A cute Sabayon Linux 5.1 x86 full of games to not get bored during the holidays. Feature list: based on Sabayon Linux 5.1 x86 GNOME; filled with gigabytes of games, the best free and open-source games in the Linux land. Games included: Battle of Wesnoth, Foobillard, Freeciv, Frozen Bubble, GNOME Games, NeverBall, Nexuiz, OpenArena, Pingus, Pychess, Scorched 3D, Spring, Stepmania, Torcs, Tremulous, Warsow, Warzone 2100, Wormux." Visit the Sabayon Linux forum to read the release announcement.
Tuquito 3.1
Mario Colque has announced the release of Tuquito 3.1, a user-friendly, Ubuntu-based distribution for desktops developed in Argentina. New features in this release include: Linux kernel 2.6.31; GNOME 2.28.1; new functions added to Garfio, a system configuration tool; improved Tuquito RSS feed; addition of Banshee and VLC players; 100% compatible with MS Office file formats; support for reading and writing to FAT and NTFS partitions; automatic mounting of NTFS partitions; support for booting from USB storage device or DVD drives; addition of Google Chrome browser; support for netbooks; improved support for Broadcom wireless chipsets; support for Windows wireless drivers; ext4 as the default file system; out-of-the-box support for MP3 and DVD playback; support for ADSL modems; integration of VINE; addition of VirtualBox.... Read the rest of the release announcement (in Spanish) for more information and screenshots.
Tuquito 3.1 - an Ubuntu-based distribution from Argentina
(full image size: 641kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Berry Linux 1.00
Yuichiro Nakada has announced the release of Berry Linux 1.00. The project, which started in November 2002 with version 0.01 (based on Red Hat Linux 8.0) and continued with regular incremental updates, has now produced exactly 100 releases. Version 1.00 is based on Fedora 11, but includes updated Linux kernel 2.6.32.1 (with SMP, ndev/udev, bootsplash and Aufs support), KDE 4.3.2, Rasp-UI 0.14 window manager, up-to-date versions of MPlayer and xine, the latest Mozilla Firefox, (version 3.5.6, with Flash plugin updated to version 10.0.32) in English and Japanese, and WINE 1.1.32. The MadWiFi kernel modules have been removed from the live CD. See the complete changelog for further details. Berry Linux is a user-friendly live and installation CD designed primarily for Japanese-speaking users, but support for English is also available as an option in the boot menu.
Kahel OS 12-25-2009
Meric Mara has announced the release of Kahel OS 12-25-2009, an Arch Linux-based, rolling-release distribution with GNOME and GTK+ applications: "On this very day of 'gift-giving', three months after our first installer release 09-09-2009, we give you the new Kahel OS (Desktop edition) installer version 12-25-2009. Kahel OS now has Linux kernel 2.6.32, X.Org 7.5 and GNOME 2.28.2 by default." Some of the other improvements include: "simplified installation, the installer appears automatically upon boot-up; KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) is automatically detected, which means faster boot process, faster X server load, seamless graphical 3D effects, faster graphics, and an improved animated boot sequence; faster boot-up - the start-up process has been tweaked enormously to speed up the boot process." Read the rest of the release announcement for additional information.
Sabily 9.10
Mehdi Magnon has announced the release of Sabily 9.10, an Ubuntu-based distribution with Islamic software and web content filtering tools: "The Sabily team is proud to announce the release of Sabily 9.10. New in this release: Noor - new Quran browser; sample books for Thwab; Fsool - the Sira of the prophet Mohammed; Rejaal - men around the prophet Mohammed; Arabeyes Qamoos - and Arabic - English dictionary. Changes: new theme; new structure of Islamic software; Monajat is re-developed in Python. Main features: parental control tool (WebStrict); Zekr (Quran study tool), able to play Quran recitations; prayer times - Minbar and Firefox Pray Times add-on; Thwab (encyclopaedia); custom artwork; full support for Arabic; the DVD edition contains multimedia, scientific and educational software." More details in the release announcement.
Sabily 9.10 - an Ubuntu-based distribution with Islamic software
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SystemRescueCd 1.3.4
François Dupoux has released SystemRescueCd 1.3.4, a Gentoo-based live CD containing a collection of data rescue and hard disk management utilities. What's new? "Updated the standard kernels to Linux 2.6.31.9 with btrfs update from 2.6.32; updated the alternative kernels to Linux 2.6.27.41; updated X.Org Server to version 1.6.5 (graphical server and drivers); Updated NTFS-3G to 2009.11.14 (standard release); updated gDisk to 0.5.1 (gDisk is a GPT partition table manipulator); updated FSArchiver to 0.6.2 (default, stable version); added FSArchiver 0.6.3-beta10 (alternative, beta version); added scsiadd which allows to add and remove SCSI devices; added suspend-usb-device script to safely disconnect USB disks; Memtest+ 4.00 is now booted as a kernel to fix issues; replaced AIDA with HDT 0.3.6 (hardware detection tool floppy disk image)." Here is the full changelog.
Super OS 9.10
Super OS is a Linux distribution that can be described as an Ubuntu enhanced with various extra software and features for improved out-of-the-box usability. Version 9.10, announced a few hours ago, adds the following applications and features: "Better multimedia support - VLC, support for DVD-playback, support for MP3 and other media formats, like QuickTime video, Real video, Windows Media Video, Flash Video, DivX, Xvid; Internet software - aMSN, Opera, Google Chrome, Skype, Firefox with Flash and Moonlight; portable applications available (RUNZ included); programs are easier to run - App Runner is included; mount tar.gz, .zip, .rar and .iso files with file mounter; other software - Java, Ubuntu Tweak; system beep is disabled; Super OS now has its own repository, in addition to the official Ubuntu repositories; most commonly used KDE and Qt libraries included." Read the release notes for further details.
Linux Deepin 9.12
Linux Deepin 9.12 has been released. The new version of the Ubuntu-based Chinese community distribution, formerly known as Hiweed Linux, comes with the following features: a careful selection of lightweight, easy-to-use and optimised software packages; usability enhancements of desktop start menu and file manager right-click menus; inclusion of popular software for day-to-day use, including OpenOffice.org; customised system installer with only two steps that need manual intervention; streamlined post-install configuration; various enhancements in Mozilla Firefox, such as replacement of rarely-used search engines with more popular ones, addition of several pre-configured add-ons, Flash Player 10 and multimedia plugins; graphical configuration tool for ADSL (PPPoE) and other high-speed and mobile Internet providers.... Read the detailed release notes (in Chinese) for additional information.
Linux Deepin 9.12 - a beginner-friendly, Ubuntu-based distribution localised into simplified Chinese
(full image size: 658kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
NuTyX 2009.2
Thierry Nuttens has announced the release of NuTyX 2009.2, a Gentoo-based French Linux distribution with binary packages for four desktop environments: GNOME, KDE, LXDE and Xfce. According to the release announcement, this version has had over 900 commits, mostly package upgrades and dependency updates, but also some bug fixes. There is a new theme that is now a common feature across all the different desktop environments. An alternative kernel, supporting more than 4 GB of RAM, is now included in the distribution. Some of the package upgrades include: ALSA 1.0.22, Amarok 2.2.1.90, Firefox 3.5.6, GNOME 2.28, KDE 4.3.4, Linux kernel 2.6.32.2, K3b 1.69.0alpha4, LXDE 0.5.0, Midori 0.2.1 and X.Org Server 1.7.3. Read the release announcement (in French) for more details and screenshots of the new theme.
sidux 2009-04
Stefan Lippers-Hollmann has announced the release of sidux 2009-04, a desktop distribution with KDE and Xfce based on Debian's unstable branch: "We now have the pleasure to announce the immediate availability of sidux 2009-04 'Moros', shipping with Linux kernel 2.6.32 and KDE 4.3.4. For 'Moros', the development concentrated on updating the bootloader infrastructure for live and installed systems, but also took into account upstream changes like kernel 2.6.32, KDE 4.3.4 and further KDE 4 applications. On the installed system, GRUB 2 now replaces the traditional GRUB bootloader, while the live system now employs isolinux and an improved gfxboot theme. Kernel 2.6.32 doesn't only improve and stabilise hardware support for newer devices, it also allows KMS for Intel graphic chipsets and supports DRI and basic 3D support for ATI Radeon graphics cards." See the detailed release notes for more information.
sidux 2009-04 - a desktop distribution based on Debian's unstable branch
(full image size: 246kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
blackPanther OS 10.1
Charles Barcza has announced the release of blackPanther OS 10.1, a Hungarian desktop Linux distribution built from components and concepts borrowed from several major distribution projects. The new version is built on Linux kernel 2.6.32.2 and includes X.Org Server 1.7.3, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.6, OpenOffice.org 3.1.1, GIMP 2.7.0, KDE 4.3.1 and other popular applications. Some of the notable changes include: EasyInstall - an installation routine which ensures that even older and less powerful hardware is set up correctly; DisplayController - a program whose function is to bring up a graphical subsystem under any circumstances; DesktopSelector - an application that provides new users with an option to choose a preferred desktop environment based on visual impressions; MyInfo-Tool - a graphical hardware information program.... See the rest of the release announcement (in Hungarian) for further details and screenshots.
blackPanther OS 10.1 - a Hungarian desktop Linux distribution
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Zorin OS 2.0
The first release announcement of 2010 belongs to the Zorin OS team which has just announced the release of Zorin OS 2.0, an Ubuntu-based distribution designed primarily for Linux newcomers: "We are proud to announce that Zorin OS 2.0 has been released. Zorin OS 2.0 is available in five different flavours: Zorin OS 'Core' which is the regular desktop edition; Zorin OS 'Gaming' which includes over 40 of the best open-source games; Zorin OS 'Multimedia' which includes over 40 extra multimedia applications; Zorin OS 'Educational' which includes many educational programs; and Zorin OS 'Ultimate' which has some of the best open-source programs around. Zorin OS Core is available to download and the other releases are available for purchase from the Store page." Here is the full release announcement.
Zorin OS 2.0 - an Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution for Linux beginners
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Kahel OS 01-01-2010 "Light"
Meric Mara has announced the release of Kahel OS 01-01-2010 "Light" edition, an Arch Linux-based distribution featuring the Xfce desktop: "Today let us introduce to you Kahel OS 'Light' edition 01-01-2010, designed for netbooks with limited storage capacity. Just like the Kahel OS 'Desktop' edition, the 'Light' edition has 32- bit and 64-bit installers. What describes Kahel OS 'Light' edition 01-01-2010? Lightweight - the light desktop operates on Linux 2.6.32 and uses Xfce 4.6 which is suitable for PCs with low memory and resources; power-packed - the installer is compressed and the standard install is just 1.8 GB; SSD-friendly - KahelOS 'Light' includes Btrfs and NILFS file systems; bundled with lightweight applications - includes Claws email client, Midori web browser, gThumb image viewer and organizer, and Exaile music player." Read the rest of the release announcement to learn more.
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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 |
December 2009 DistroWatch.com donation: Krita receives €200.00
We are happy to announce that the recipient of the December 2009 DistroWatch.com donation is Krita, a creative application for raster images and part of the KOffice suite. It receives €200 in cash.
The project has recently launched a fund-raising drive to enable one of the developers, Lukáš Tvrdý, to work on the project full-time and to take Krita to a "next level". That was after receiving valuable feedback from an artist: "It was about that time when I got in contact with David Revoy. He's the concept artist who has been working with the Blender team on Project Durian: their latest open source movie project. I asked him for his opinions on Krita to get some feedback from a professional. I like when people use my applications, and David has plenty of experience with various tools like GIMP and MyPaint. His opinions seemed very valuable to me for making Krita ready for actual users. ... He was willing to provide us with feedback on the issues he bumped into. So that's when we decided we should put a strong focus on getting Krita ready for him. If he can work comfortably with Krita, so will many other users, both casual users and professionals." The project has since raised over €4,000 - well over the initial target.
Launched in 2004, this monthly donations programme is a DistroWatch initiative to support free and open-source software projects and operating systems with a cash contribution. Readers are welcome to nominate their favourite project for a future donation. Here is the list of the projects that have received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NDISwrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and Sabayon Linux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
- 2008: VLC ($350), Frugalware Linux ($340), cURL ($300), GSPCA ($400), FileZilla ($400), MythDora ($500), Linux Mint ($400), Parsix GNU/Linux ($300), Miro ($300), GoblinX ($250), Dillo ($150), LXDE ($250)
- 2009: Openbox ($250), Wolvix GNU/Linux ($200), smxi ($200), Python ($300), SliTaz GNU/Linux ($200), LiVES ($300), Osmo ($300), LMMS ($250), KompoZer ($360), OpenSSH ($350), Parted Magic ($350) and Krita ($285).
Since the launch of the Donations Program in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$23,128 to various open-source software projects.
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 11 January 2010.
Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments |
1 • Arch & MINIX (by megadriver at 2010-01-04 10:38:56 GMT from Spain)
Go, Arch, go!
Also, the MINIX article was quite an interesting read. I'm going to give it a try one of these days.
2 • Arch in the top ten list (by dosenpfand on 2010-01-04 10:49:03 GMT from Germany)
In my opinion you should replace Gentoo with Arch, its more popular then Gentoo, it isnt a "one hit wonder" since it jhas been around for nine yeras or so , and imho it has the brighter Future and didint almost collapse when the founder leaved like what happend in Gentoo land.
3 • Gentoo and Arch (by Anonymous at 2010-01-04 11:07:50 GMT from France)
In my opinion, Gentoo linux is more popular than Arch linux.
The page hit ranking will only give you the number of IP who click on a link on distrowatch, no more, no less.
4 • Minix !!! (by mika480 at 2010-01-04 11:17:03 GMT from Italy)
Nice!...something new and not bunto related at last!!
5 • CFLAG optimisation by architecture (by Ed at 2010-01-04 11:17:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
It would be possible to get a small performance gain with x86-64 with certain proccessors, such as -march="core2".
A few years ago I did some automated benchmarking of different march and O settings with Nexuiz:
http://img123.imageshack.us/i/nexcompileoptionsvr6.png/
A small difference but it is generally graphically limited, not CPU.
6 • Gentoo vs. Arch (by Randall at 2010-01-04 11:18:59 GMT from United States)
It certainly isn't the case that Gentoo is a "one-hit wonder;" it's been around >10 years, which (if dosenpfand is correct) makes it older than Arch, and is still in existence. To be fair, this says little about the relative popularity of the two distros. But since we're not likely to get hard numbers on that any time soon, and DistroWatch has a noticable anti-Gentoo bias anyway, go ahead and replace it; if I have to see Gentoo lose to any other distro, I'd want it to be Arch.
7 • Arch vs. Gentoo (by Voharte on 2010-01-04 11:47:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
Greetings all and a Happy New Year.
Please please, don't start the year off with a "this version is better than that one" argument. It is all about the choice of distribution each and everyone uses and his/her personal preferences. This is the great thing about Linux, at least we can pick and choose. Thanks for a great year for 2009 and I look forward to each new weekly Distrowatch in 2010.
8 • Arch & Gentoo (by megadriver at 2010-01-04 12:00:53 GMT from Spain)
Yeah, both Arch and Gentoo are awesome, each of them in its own special way. No need to fight.
The Page Hit Ranking thing is "just for fun". More (and better) distros means more (and better) choices. Nobody "loses". We all win.
9 • Arch Vs. Gentoo (by AmblestonDack on 2010-01-04 12:12:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
Oh no, not another my x is better than your x comments section. Both Arch & Gentoo have their strengths & weaknesses, and I have used both and I like each for different reasons. So please no squabbling :D
Nice to see Fedora get 2nd place in the overall page hit rankings, but has anybody else noticed that apart from Fedora, Mandriva and a few notable others, most distro's figures are lower than 2008!
10 • No subject (by Anonymous at 2010-01-04 12:12:51 GMT from Germany)
@Randall
Sorry must be my bad english , but i didnt want to say that Gentoo is a "one hit wonder" , i just wanted to point out that Arch isnt any new thing which may or may not last till the next year.
Arch has a grown user and dev base, and seems to be better organised then Gentoo.
Well regarding to the popularity, besides DW ranking,in my humble opnion arch is much more present on linux boards, forum and pages then gentoo
11 • Distrowatch hit rankings (by rich on 2010-01-04 12:59:24 GMT from United States)
The hit rankings to me seem to reflect the Distro's popularity and ease of use. I can agree with most of the distro's in the top 25. I watch the distribution rankings to basically summarize which distro's are making the progress to meet these end goals hopefully reflecting the overall community satisfaction with them.
Rich
12 • Arch & Gentoo & Top Ten (by greenLegs at 2010-01-04 13:04:10 GMT from France)
I've used Arch (very nice), I've never used Gentoo.
To replace Gentoo with Arch in the top ten, we might also consider:
- the size of their 'ecosystem'. Arch's seems quite small.
- that without Gentoo, no source distro would be in the top ten.
Maybe leave Gentoo there, and instead replace PCLOS with Arch? PCLOS is already mentionned as an alternative to Mandriva (another 'codec loaded' distro, and, with Mint, there would be two of them in the list).
Or wait till 2011 to let the dust around the rise of Arch settle a bit?
13 • Grateful for any distro which adds to the community (by Grateful for All Alternatives on 2010-01-04 13:11:18 GMT from United States)
I am relatively new to alternate OS's started with Puppy 1.* and Mandrake, the only two I tried which I could get running without much trouble even though I had been messing with computers since the VIC20 (circa 1983). I am grateful for Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch, and Puppy mostly for the excellent community and user forums. All have provided many answers to questions I have come up against regardless of which distro I choose to run at the moment. I have found vital answers on both Gentoo and Arch wiki's that were not present elsewhere. I am particularly happy when a new distro chooses to support older hardware by providing a low resource version. Thanks.
14 • Arch in the top ten list (by dosenpfand on 2010-01-04 13:16:31 GMT from Germany)
@ greenLegs
Well there is no "dust around the rise" of Arch , it constantly evolved and didint appear "out of nowhere" like PCLOS for example.
And i dont understand what you exactly mean by a small ecosystem ?
compared to Gentoo? I doubt that. Gentoos "ecosystem" seems kinda fragile to me
And by the way arch can be run as sourcebased distro too , thanks to ABS
15 • MINIX (by Adam Michael Drake on 2010-01-04 13:35:40 GMT from United States)
Is MINIX really a "distro"? It's not a distribution of Linux or BSD. I've heard the Distrowatch saying "Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD." used as an argument against adding non Linux and non BSD operating systems in the distro list. Does MINIX really belong in the list?
16 • Arch or Gentoo? Maybe both? (by KimTjik at 2010-01-04 13:41:25 GMT from Sweden)
Both are great distributions. Sure Gentoo has had a ruff time, maybe what's happen when folks with really strong opinions try to collaborate without any historical tradition to fall back on. Still Gentoo looks as a pretty healthy distribution and has recovered some interest also, and it's an important distribution.
Arch and Gentoo share some ideas. Some users are using both. It would however be sad to not have a single source-based distribution in the list. In my opinion it makes a lot more sense to have both Arch and Gentoo in the list, instead of both Mandriva and PCLinuxOS. I've used Arch for some years now, and I don't think the core users and maintainers of the distribution would wish to take a place on Gentoo's expense just for the sake of being on the top 10 list.
It's not clear as to whether top 10 represents important as popular or as examples of the more important design decisions, examples of different ideas and approaches to computing on top of a Linux kernel. To me top 10 looks like a mish-mash. Yes, LinuxMint represents a bit more than a slightly modified Ubuntu, yes, just as PCLinuxOS isn't just a rip off of Mandriva. I'm not suggesting any of these to be removed, so spare your flames to a better occasion, I'm just reasoning about what "Major distributions" really means here at Distrowatch. Major, or important, isn't equal to popularity, even though it could be.
17 • Only a matter of choice(s) (by Abu Abdillah on 2010-01-04 13:59:56 GMT from Indonesia)
For an ordinary people (desktop user), 'codecs loaded' distro is preferable. Why should people say 'this distro is better than that' if we (all) know that nobody's perfect. It's true, every single distro has its own strength and weakness. Thus, it's only a matter of choice(s).
18 • Is MINIX a distro? (by Jesse on 2010-01-04 14:03:47 GMT from Canada)
I don't see why MINIX shouldn't be considered a distribution. It's an open source operating system that includes many of the same applications, libraries and concepts as Linux and BSD. It's certainly in the same family of operating systems. DistroWatch also covers OpenSolaris, so why not MINIX?
Also, thanks Ed, for pointing out more compiler flags.
19 • archserver (by Reuben at 2010-01-04 14:05:38 GMT from United States)
I'm interested to see what archserver produces. I think a stabilized version of arch is exactly what is needed for a server.
@15: They also list OpenSolaris and it's variants. The trend here is to list all free unix variants. It's some times refreshing to learn about something else.
20 • SuperOS.... (by Tom G on 2010-01-04 14:24:36 GMT from United States)
Best of luck to Super OS, but there already IS a "Ubuntu with added features" distro - it's called Linux Mint. I've used it for quite awhile and really enjoy it. I'm not sure what differences Super OS has, but Mint seems very well supported and in for the long haul.
21 • MINIX (by I'm Right on 2010-01-04 14:26:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Minix stays. OpenSolaris stays.
I hope that a bunch more distros appear, so that they can stay too!
22 • The Year of the Death of -buntus (by Sam on 2010-01-04 14:49:45 GMT from United States)
My New Years Linux wish: That we see Ladislav write a review in the first issue of 2011 noting how many of the -buntu derivatives seem to have died over 2010.
23 • Warning - DistroWatch publishes your email address! (by Getting Smarter on 2010-01-04 15:09:54 GMT from Germany)
NOBODY publishes the email addresses of their commenters, except for DistroWatch.
Give them a phony address, unless you like to get spam.
24 • @22 (by Nobody Important at 2010-01-04 15:15:45 GMT from United States)
Now I've seen everything. A commenter that actually wants distros to fail!
Astonishing.
25 • Linux and wireless printers (by Vernon at 2010-01-04 15:20:02 GMT from United States)
Sorry, I am not in the "Arch vs Gentoo" discussion. I have a boring query.
I have inherited a laptop, Toshiba. I wish to be able to print using the in-house printer several offices away. I am able to do this with the Windows 7 operating system, but am unable to configure our Mint 8 linux to connect with the printer.
Is there a distribution that specializes in this sort of thing with little "geek knowledge?" We are limited in configuration know-how, and have heard that Linux is way past the stage of needing techy types to set up and use.
A suggested distribution would be much appreciated. We enjoy reading in Distrowatch's comments and other pages.
V.R.
26 • #12 Keep Your Hands Off Of PCLINUXOS (by RayRay on 2010-01-04 15:39:10 GMT from United States)
Apparently you haven't tried PCLinuxOS lately.
It puts all those other distros to shame. Compared to PCLOS Arch and Gentoo need loads of work. Mint should never be compared to PCLOS ( mint is nice but Ubuntu works just as well).
PClinuxOS with the KDE4 desktop is much better than all those other Linux Distros and has a ROLLING RELEASE FORMAT and an Update manager which in conjunction with Synaptic are much better.
As to the why Fedora has so many hits it's probably from people that want to learn the workings of Red Hat .
Right now PCLinuxos is the only Distro that can compete with Windows 7 in looks and ease of use.
Distrowatch has ignored PCLinuxOS pretty much, I guess because PCLinuxOS has a true ROLLING RELEASE format, but it has made greet strives in appearance and ease of use.
In my opinion as far as replacement desktops I would rate as follows:
1.PCLinuxOS
2.SimplyMEPIS.
3.Mint.
4.Ubuntu.
5.OpenSUSE.
6. DamnSmallLinux.
7.PUPPY.
The rest just aren't ready.
Ciao
27 • @23 E-mail addresses are revealed by Debian too (by Debian user since 2002 at 2010-01-04 15:46:15 GMT from Finland)
Fortunately filling the e-mail field here in DW is totally voluntary. But a more serious problem is that I don't know how to file bug reports to Debian without revealing my e-mail address to spammers. That is why I have never filed a bug report to Debian bug tracking system. And Debian bugs may be extremely long lasting in less popular packages without anyone even reporting the problem.
28 • MINIX - a learning tool (by John Doe at 2010-01-04 15:52:43 GMT from United States)
MINIX will most likely never see the light of day outside of collages and classrooms.
Right now it has some fame because of DW's review. We'll see if anyone even remembers it in say 3 months.
29 • #25 (by RayRay on 2010-01-04 15:53:25 GMT from United States)
See comment #26.
!. Get PCLinuxOS.
2. Install PCLinuxOS.
3. Go to the Control Center.
4. Click on "Network & Internet"
5. Click on "set up a new network"
6. Choose "Wireless (WiFi).
7. Follow the steps.
8. Any problems go to Pclos forums.
30 • Operation Systems (by Armin at 2010-01-04 15:56:20 GMT from Austria)
There are other interesting operation systems, that are not listed here:
BeOs or its newer offspring Haiku
eComStation (well it's not fully open source i guess)
Amoeba (distributed operating system - from tanenbaum, the developer of minix to close the circle to this week's dww)
Plan 9 (should be new unix, not sure if it's still out there)
AmigaOS (I'm not sure if there still are Systems based on it)
JavaOS (based on Java, but now only an API as Java ME)
i wonder if one of those could also fit to this page
31 • RE 26 (by KimTjik at 2010-01-04 15:59:01 GMT from Sweden)
Shhhh Shhhh
It's nice and quiet
Shhhh Shhhh
But soon again
Shhhh Shhhh
Starts another big riot
...
Why go down that road? Nobody has accused PCLinuxOS of not being good or not working. That's not the question.
For some Windows 7 works greate...
For some it doesn't...
But your point was probably that if working then PCLinuxOS is comparable.
Computers are dumb, so the most important factor is as usual the user. In my view there are several distributions that works better than Windows 7, but that alone doesn't make them major or important.
I don't think the ultimate goal for Linux is to be a replacement anyway. Linux isn't a replacement for anything, it's all about better computing, or if you so wish a system that sucks less.
32 • Operation Systems (by Armin at 2010-01-04 15:59:15 GMT from Austria)
Comment deleted (duplicate post).
33 • distro envy.. and egotism (by brad on 2010-01-04 16:00:04 GMT from United States)
it's a shame, ive tried installing gentoo & arch upwards of about 7x each.. either kernel panics, or no desktop, or takes FOREVER(gentoo) or cant get help besides "read the wiki, read the manual, rftm, go back to ubuntu, you dont DESERVE arch" blah blah blah blah blah.. if these distros are sooooooooooooooo great, so awesome and so elite.. why cant the users be more considerate, (i'm sure only 7 of 10 arch, gentoo users were BORN out of the womb knowing linux) why cant the other 3 help out just a lil bit more then just using degrading sarcastic comments?
It'll NEVER be the "year" of the linux desktop when the people that want to use it the most, want to learn it but need a small piece of extra help here and there, NEVER get the respect they deserve from the people that proberly got the same respect when they needed it the most.. (i mean the 3 of the 10 that werent BORN knowing everything about linux)
34 • email spam (by RayRay on 2010-01-04 16:03:06 GMT from United States)
The problem of spamming is easy to resolve by setting up an account with gmail yahoo or aol to use only on forums (I don't use hotmail because MS will fill with junk a sort of prespammed email, I haven't used it in years so it might have changed). Keep your address book empty so you won't give spammers access to to your friends and family.
35 • #33 (by RayRay on 2010-01-04 16:12:12 GMT from United States)
We all like to try out different distros but on these forums there are people that are just rude. Always do a search on the forums, perhaps your problem was already asked, I find that LinuxQuestions.org often has the answer.
Or just got to post # 29 and follow steps 1&2.
36 • Operation Systems (by Armin at 2010-01-04 16:15:26 GMT from Austria)
Comment deleted (duplicate post).
37 • Sorry (by Armin at 2010-01-04 16:16:35 GMT from Austria)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
38 • PCLInuxOS and #22 (by Vakkotaur at 2010-01-04 16:19:59 GMT from United States)
I use PCLinuxOS (great distribution, terrible abbreviation: PCLOS) and like it as it seems to do what many others claim to do without my having to fight to get it that way. That I didn't have to turn off all the silly "candy" in KDE (Why, when we finally have _snappy_ machines, do we slow them down with silly special effects?) to make it tolerable because it had already been turned off was a nice bonus.
BUT... if something else works for you, fine. I have an older (ancient by now) laptop for which the only reasonable choice seems to be Slackware or a descendant thereof. I came close to using Ubuntu and having used it a while, found it annoying. It was n't one little thing, but a bunch of things that meant it seemed more in the way than out of the way to me. But that's just me. Others get along with it fine.
As for wishing any distribution ill... no. But I certainly do understand the frustration of looking for things PCLinuxOS, or Slackware, or whatever-related and winding up with Ubuntu link after Ubuntu link. Ubuntu is something like RedHat was accused of being a few years ago: "Linux? Oh, you mean RedHat, don't you?" can be replaced with, "Linux? Oh, you mean Ubuntu, don't you?"
If one isn't interested in Ubuntu and its descendents, reading DWW is often a matter of skimming over most of it looking for something of interest. So while I do not wish Ubuntu or its relatives ill, I do get a bit tired of hearing of them when there is more to the Linux/BSD/Minix world. I do not expect to run Minix, but it was nice to see it reviewed here.
39 • #31 (by RayRay on 2010-01-04 16:33:35 GMT from United States)
Most of computer users do not use LINUX they use Windows and most will not convert to a system without codecs and with an unfamiliar feel.
People reading distrowatch have already converted to Linux and will often say proudly that they spent many hours in setting up their system to their liking( get a life).
I agree with you and it's nice to have a system that just works, but the more people use the system the better it will get.
Unfortunately Distrowatch talks a lot about Rolling Releases but penalize the Distros that use this system. People will go to the sites of distros that have a scheduled release cycle. Often these Distros release even though they are still full of bugs which has happened with Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and very often with Fedora.
If PCLinuxOS made a developement release every 3 months and a Distribution release every 6 months, it would score much higher on the Hit Ratings. Since it is a rolling release it would as usual be up to date no matter how many times a year it releases(of course it could always include new wallpaper for the distribution releases).
40 • PCLOS vs. Mint (by Tom G at 2010-01-04 16:34:08 GMT from United States)
I've used PCLinuxOS a lot and it's currently on my older laptop. It's VERY nice indeed. I wouldn't say it's better than Mint, though. Both are excellent choices. One main difference is that PCLinuxOS uses rpms (but also uses a Synaptic front end), while Mint uses .debs like all Ubuntu flavors do. I do like the rolling release - my old laptop can't see burned CDs so I had to use a PCLOS DVD from last months Linux Magazine, then bring it up to date.
41 • Re: #25 (by Mandriveiro at 2010-01-04 16:48:12 GMT from Spain)
You can try Mandriva, but you should bear in mind that if you use the CD One version, you will have to download all the printing stuff after installing. However, cups is included in the DVD.
Install the system, go to the Control Center, and install the package task-printing. Then, with the Control Center > Hardware, you can setup your printers, graphically.
P.D: PCLInux Control Center is 90% "borrowed" from Mandriva's.
42 • Lovely Spam... Wonderful Spam (by Spam Spam Spam Spam at 2010-01-04 16:55:02 GMT from United States)
Did anyone else smile at the thought of using a hotmail address to file bugs with Debian? By the way, the reason hotmail accounts are filled with Spam is because there _are_ Microsoft employees working part time as Spammers to supplement their wages. Considering that it is possible to make $25,000(US) with a few short hours of work selling email addresses, I can't say that I blame them. Some ISPs will sell your address as well to keep your rates low.
43 • Arch ? Are you kidding? , & Fedora (by JD at 2010-01-04 16:59:37 GMT from United States)
I can't belive opensuse has fallen so, what stinks is fedora 12 is hella broken and it still wins! I loved fedora 10 but 11 on have major issues. This distribution is not that easy for newbies either it's radical Stallman like opnion creates issues for suppurt of codecs and drivers we all need.
Distrowatch please don't give into Arch, their community is full of "my way" or "no way" unresonable indaviduals as made clear by their diliberate souless bashing of Arch based distro Kathel OS was it? They cry about how they don't get enough "Credit" other then "Based on Arch!" they really should just shutup this happens to ubuntu all the time but do you see that community acting like jerks? No! , you will find the gentoo community much kinder.
Salix is a great slackware distribution! Anyone who hasn't given it a go try it!
44 • Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits (by Sly_Fox at 2010-01-04 17:26:03 GMT from United States)
Linux distros (especially *buntu) breed like rabbits, they are all redundant.
i bet the net congestion from noobs downloading a 700 meg ISO because a different *buntu derivative has different colored icons and different wallpaper but under the hood it is essentially the same damn distro, sheesh just stick with the same kludge you installed the first time and change the icons & wallpaper and save your self the time and trouble of reinstalling the same old crap over & over again.
45 • Distro bashers. (by AC on 2010-01-04 17:26:38 GMT from United States)
Please stop, your stupid experience doesn't represent the whole community. I don't feel like wasting more time on you.
46 • Arch vs...? (by Fernando on 2010-01-04 17:27:27 GMT from Brazil)
Why not Centos? Why not PCLOS?
Why Gentoo? (and I agree with Greenlegs --#12: Gentoo is the unique source- distro in the 10).
47 • Spam@42 (by Nobody Important2 at 2010-01-04 17:32:27 GMT from Canada)
JFC!! A great example why there are still many people who do not take us seriously when a Linux-related forum spits out such idiotic comments.
Also ref the Mark Twain quote right above the "Submit comment" button.
48 • minix (by Mikko on 2010-01-04 17:49:42 GMT from Finland)
In my experience, Minix boots in a few seconds even with a 100 MHz Pentium.
49 • 43 (by RayRay at 2010-01-04 17:51:47 GMT from United States)
I can't explain it either. OpenSUSE has a more professional look and feel. It also has one of the best implementations of KDE 4. The package manager is still a bit slow but works decently and the addon repositories are a plus making it easy to add codecs.
Fedora has improved and the last release was relatively bug free, hopefully they will do as good on the next release, yet OpenSUSE still works better with little tweaking ( I always tweak anyway, it's a habit.)
I use PCLinuxOS but I dedicate partitions to OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Debian Stable and Debian Testing. Fedora still hasn't made it on my permanent partitions.
By the way Debian Testing works great, it also has a very good implentation of KDE 4.
Lets face popularity should not be based on the Distros you try but on the Distros you keep.
I like Mandriva also but I like PCLinuxOS better. Everything just works and it has a great feel. They formally haven't release their KDE4 version but it is the best implementation of KDE 4 I have seen to date, when the next Distribution Release comes out it will be much more solid.
If you are using KDE 3 on PCLinuxOS you can try KDE 4 by changing the repo line in Synaptic or /etc/apt/sources.list from kde to kde4. Update, upgrade, and voila (don't use the command line use Synaptic).
50 • @34 Having two e-mail addresses to prevent spam?? (by Debian user since 2002 at 2010-01-04 17:59:11 GMT from Finland)
Having two e-mail addresses to prevent spam may be something for diligent people. But in the worst case one arrives to a situation with two spam collecting e-mail addresses. I am not sure but I am afraid that two spam collecting addresses may be almost as annoying as having one spam collecting e-mail address :-/
Another question is why doesn't Debian care to secure bug reporters against spam. Isn't security an important goal in Debian?
51 • Arch, Gentoo, and all that (by Fred Nelson at 2010-01-04 18:02:27 GMT from United States)
I too like both Arch and Gentoo a lot. While they have some similarities, they both have their own place. Arch is more cutting-edge, and of course you don't have to compile anything. I also really like rolling releases a lot more than periodic releases; no more having to either perform a questionable large in-place upgrade or start from scratch yet again. Unfortunately, even with Yaourt, packages from the AUR is a pain to manage and keep updated, so it's best not too use too many of them, which effectively means that Arch effectively has *much* smaller repositories than Gentoo, much less Debian. That plus the lack of a good security infrastructure (unless the Arch Security Task Force has gone past the planning stages since last time I've looked) or even just signed packages is pretty much the only thing that's kept me from using Arch full-time.
Gentoo on the other hand, I had used as my main distro for a few years. In a way, it's almost more a source-based Debian than a source-based Arch, in that it has lots more packages available without having to mess around with unofficial repositories or packages, and it doesn't take the view that some auto-configuration is necessarily evil. In that, I agree more with the Gentoo philosophy than the Arch one in the first place. And in addition, Gentoo is the most configurable distro hand-down out-of-the-box. (Yeah, you can hack your Fedora/Arch/Debian/whatever system to death and build lots from source, but it will be a lot harder than just using the USE flags and package.keywords and package.unmask in Gentoo.) The main two reasons I eventually switched away from it were bit-rot (the packages tend to be too old, compared with Debian testing even!) and it really is a bit of a pain to have to compile every package from source.
So there are two wonderful community-based distributions that I like in theory more than most other distros, but that both have flaws that make it not worth it for me for now. I hope that Gentoo can eventually get a bit less outdated (without having to always resort to ~arch) and Arch can get a sane security framework and signed packages.
For now, I've settled on Fedora; it may be Red Hat-sponsored, but still seems to have a good community around it, and is bleeding-edge enough for me (mostly) yet is actually completely, 100% stable for me despite its reputation. And unlike a lot of people on DW, I actually prefer a 100% Free-as-in-freedom distro; frankly, if I didn't care about freedom (both as in Free Speech and free to tinker with), I would still be on Windows. Even when I tried F12 when it was still Rawhide. And with Adam Williamson there now, how can it go wrong? ;) (Seriously, have you ever seen a person actually employed by one of the major distros as active as him in interacting with the community?)
52 • replace Gentoo Linux with Arch Linux in Top Ten Distributions page (by Anonymous at 2010-01-04 18:18:34 GMT from Canada)
I vote for Arch !
53 • RE: 43 of JD (by KimTjik at 2010-01-04 18:27:18 GMT from Sweden)
I don't know if you JD is the same person that previously has posted about another complaint, that Arch isn't a democracy. Here was at least one who did that several times. Anyway this complaint is a bit similar: much ado for nothing.
The thread related to Kahel is available for anyone interested at the forum. I've read through it, and I see nothing particular. The folks behind Kahel made some pretty bold claims and set up a public website that wasn't kosher, some oddities what concerns licenses and the relation to Arch was hazy. It's obviously not so much about getting due credit, but more about the risk of a backlash on the Arch project if the Kahel project wasn't straight about facts. There's a potential danger in claiming from the first release that Kahel is ready for newbies, be it on the desktop or as a server (see website). In the end it's more or less Arch which isn't designed as such. As far as I can see though the parties reached some sort of consensus. Hence it looks like you're trying to dig up dirt about a minor issue that circulated in the forum for two days in one thread only.
The Kahel project could have avoided this little incident if they would have had some contact with the Arch team before suddenly out of the blue post release information in the Arch forum and set up a website. The whole thing could have been settled nicely. I don't think it was intentional, just a mistake because of inexperience. I haven't seen any developer or even user of Arch discouraging anyone from using Kahel and developers stated that the folks behind Kahel were free to contact them. Good communication is crucial.
If you then don't like a particular project, be it from a technical point of view or even as in this case differences in ideas and opinions, you do have the privilege of us using free software: choose something else more to your liking and be happy.
54 • Trisquel (by relativ on 2010-01-04 19:05:25 GMT from United States)
Great first issue. So glad to have this site for dreary Mondays.
It looks like Distrowatch missed the December release of Trisquel (versions 3.0.1 and 2.2.2, respectively)
http://trisquel.info/en/download
Seems it was a quiet update...
thanks to all at DW,
rel
55 • RE:22 Your kinda people are a mystery to me. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-01-04 19:26:31 GMT from United States)
"My New Years Linux wish: That we see Ladislav write a review in the first issue of 2011 noting how many of the -buntu derivatives seem to have died over 2010."
Why? And try to make some sense.
56 • Sidux (by Someone at 2010-01-04 20:31:14 GMT from Spain)
May credits go to Sidux. A great release. The fastest loading distro ever tried. Still having problems with the (lack of) background of GRUB2 but this is not a problem of Sidux. Need to dig more. May be the only annoying thing is the use of apt-get only. Now Sidux resides side by side with Slackware on my PC. Tried several times Arch some time a go but every time I got problems. May be it is time to give it a new try.
Anyway there are distros for everyone´s taste.
57 • Minix review (by Berk Walker on 2010-01-04 21:03:04 GMT from United States)
After having read your review with text-screen shots, I noticed deeper in the 20100104 issue some Minix graphic-screen shots. It would be nice for you to tell us about doing that.
Still enjoy your writing,
b-
58 • how many (by fullflavor on 2010-01-04 21:09:06 GMT from United States)
come on now how many people use just 1 distro? right now I got 15 on my box not counting the puppies got one of those on every drive so add 10 more to the 15 lol!
I have to scroll thru grub. I love to try them all I have certain distros that do certain things great and I use them for that . my old box liked Dedian and Slackware but my new one likes Mandivia and Suse but I am now posting with Puppy go figure lol!
59 • RE. RE:55.RE:22 (by realchoice at 2010-01-04 21:29:36 GMT from Portugal)
Why?
In fact... maybe because:
Released During Last Two Weeks: from this section, 5 are Ubunto based
and
New distributions added to waiting list: here, there are 2 more
Choice is good, but this doesn't add too much value or real choice, let alone the lack of innovation.
Contrary, I wouldn't comment in case instead of all those Buntu's, people were developing distros directly from (let's say) Debian, and achieving the same or better usability that Ubuntu does.
60 • @43, 53 - KahelOS (by Allan on 2010-01-04 21:31:35 GMT from New Zealand)
I think the main issue the Arch users had with KahelOS was that it is not upfront about what it really is and still is not really. It is an installer for Arch. That is all... Have a look at the total packages in their own repo (http://www.kahelos.org/kaheldesktop/i686/). That is zero. Everything "else" is provided by the Arch developers. So any packaging bug in Arch will also break KahelOS. How it managed to get a distro page here still confuses me.
Now, Chakra is quite upfront about being a "distrolet" because it uses the Arch repos and supplements them with its own KDE packages. In contrast to KahelOS, the Arch community has been very supportive of this project.
61 • RE 58 (by realchoice at 2010-01-04 21:41:09 GMT from Portugal)
Yes...
Lol, I do also scroll Grub.
It's exactly as you said: some distros like better my machine, some other behave better with this or that package, others have certain functions that I like or just for the look and feel.
So, I always have the right choice for each particular circumstance.
62 • Screen shots and number of distros (by Jesse on 2010-01-04 21:47:51 GMT from Canada)
I didn't provide the screen shot toward the end of this issue, but I think it may have come from the MINIX website. They have some screen shots available.
In response to how many distros do I have on my machine? On my production machines, I have one. Not always the same one across the board, but one per computer. My test boxes (used for reviews) generally have two at a time. I don't want to maintain multiple operating systems on one box, it would be a waste of my time and my main boxes are for work.
63 • Re: #39 (by Anonymous at 2010-01-04 21:48:25 GMT from Netherlands)
If [a distro] made a development release every 3 months and a Distribution release every 6 months, it would score much higher on the Hit Ratings.
I would be curious to see what the rankings would look like if the calculation were changed from unique IP addresses per period, to unique IP addresses per period per number of announcements during that period (or 1 if no announcements)
I also thought it bizarre that in Ladislav's statistics for 2008 and 2009, that there wasn't an overall increase in the HPD (hits per day?) in 2009 compared to 2008. In fact, most of the positions shown had fewer HPD.
64 • Next week Frugalware's coming with 1.2pre2 (by Anonymous at 2010-01-04 21:51:37 GMT from Hungary)
http://distrowatch.com/frugalware
Roadmap: http://frugalware.org/roadmap
#####
http://distrowatch.com/syllable
Syllable's new year happenings:
http://web.syllable.org/news/2010-01-01-16-50.html
http://web.syllable.org/news/2010-01-02-22-16.html
#####
Happy New Year for the DW-sfuff & readers!
65 • PCLinuxOS (by Vernon at 2010-01-04 22:07:26 GMT from United States)
If this "rayray" is an example of the PCLinuxOS community, I for one don't feel much of an urge to become a part of it. ;)
We've decided to give Vector Linux a shot (again, it is on another machine but that has a dedicated printer) and see how the wireless printer issue works out.
V.R.
66 • @59 (by Patrick on 2010-01-04 22:13:52 GMT from United States)
"Contrary, I wouldn't comment in case instead of all those Buntu's, people were developing distros directly from (let's say) Debian, and achieving the same or better usability that Ubuntu does."
This says it all what your reasons are for complaining: mindless prejudice. Base it on Debian, you wouldn't complain. Base it on Ubuntu: it's somehow bad.
Next week someone will complain that people should do something else than make all these Linux derivatives. Do something innovative, instead of repackaging the same old Linux kernel / GNU tools / desktop environments. They would have just as much of a point actually.
67 • replace Gentoo Linux with Arch Linux in Top Ten Distributions page (by realchoice at 2010-01-04 22:26:34 GMT from Portugal)
Gentoo has a very popular distro based on it wich is Sabayon.
Chakra seems to be a good project based on Arch, but it's still in the Alfa stage, and its development looks now to be quite slow.
It would be fair for both to be in the top ten. If not not possible .... why not make it the Top Eleven?
68 • Your opinion doesn't matter (by Sertse at 2010-01-04 22:29:43 GMT from Australia)
Unless you're so arrogant as to believe your personal experience trumps so many other peoples. All of those distros mentioned (Arch, Gentoo, PCLOS etc) all have reached a certain threshold of popularity that it means something.
There's also a huge misconception that OOTB distros are somehow better than "customise everything" distros and vice versa...
This is why I now don't get into distro wars.
69 • gentoo v arch (by mrchilly on 2010-01-04 22:45:54 GMT from United States)
I wrote up a quick synopsis comaring the two... I like and use them both, and each is a great distro. When will everyone learn that we don't need ONE linux saviour and that the beauty of open source is that we can run what WE want?
here's my little blurb: http://mrchilly.net/?q=node/21
70 • @14 • Arch in the top ten list (by mrsloppy on 2010-01-04 23:41:32 GMT from United States)
PCLOS did not just show up out of nowhere. It climbed the chart in 2007 topping out at number 1 then slowly dropped down through 2008/2009 to where it is now. I have nothing to say about Arch as I have never used it but I've heard good things about it.
71 • Distro wars again? (by Scott on 2010-01-05 01:51:06 GMT from United States)
My O/S brings all the geeks to the yard
And they're like, "It's better than yours,"
Da*n right, it's better than yours,"
I'd teach ya but I'd have to charge (repeat)
I remember a page I put up on Arch way back in 2002 or 2003 (it might still be listed on DW's Arch page, though the URL is incorrect) where I predicted that it wouldn't surprise me if it took off the way Gentoo did. Oops, just hurt my shoulder patting myself on the back.
They all have good points and they all have things that make us scream, Didn't anyone test this? Fedora is often broken, but that's kind of what they're about, testing things and whipping them into shape. Lots of bad ideas get put in, but a lot of good ones get in there too.
Of course, one can also define a bad idea as "One that *I* don't like." :)
72 • ANYONE HAVE INFORMATION ABOUT Dread Moon Linux ??? (by Linuxinmypants at 2010-01-05 03:33:29 GMT from Belgium)
DOES ANYONE HAVE INFORMATION ABOUT Dread Moon Linux ???
Dread Moon Linux, one of the new Linux Distros in the list, in this 'weekly', seems an interesting idea. A Distro dedicated to games programming, and multimedia. But some things are weird in it, and in its WebSite. Knowing the amonunt of extrange things that happen in the Internet, the Websites and applications that install malware, rookits, spyware, virus etc, im a bit suspicious...
FIRST of all is the fact that, to download the distro they force you to donload first a Microsoft Windows application (an .exe file) that you have to install in your PC, in Windows. Then you download the distro trough that application that is apparentenly using a torrent.
Why to use a Windows executable that have to be installed in your PC to download a Distro???
Why not to put the distro to download in a torrent site like Linuxtracker, for instance, or another???
Why not to download the torrent directly and let the user user its own torrent client???
If they want to save bandwidth, why no to put it in one of the Free hosting sites so popular nowadays???
Another thing: not even one reference to the licence or the source code of the distribution. where is the source code, and how to obtain it if anyone is interested (I know, I could maybe ask them for it, but still...) ???
I have a strange feeling. All seems very weird and obscure. So, maybe someone have references about the 'Dread Moon Linux' Distro that can be usefull for all, in order to try, download, and trust this distro or not.
Anyway, it seems that the lack of transparency and clear and open information, and compulsatory use of a Windows application to obtain the Distro have not much to do with the way in wich 'Free Libre Open Source Software' and 'Linux' were created, and how they work. And NO, I don't 'want-need to-know if' Wine would work for that Windows executable file that they force you to install to obtain the distro.
Not to say about the imposibility to get the Distro in a 'normal' way is harming the potential use of this distro by Mac OSX, Linux, BSD, Solaris, MorphOS, Amiga, Syllable, Menuet etc users.
73 • moon (by Moon-me on 2010-01-05 04:02:11 GMT from United States)
Everybody knows the moon is a hoax:
http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/The-Mad-Revisionist.htm
74 • How about an Android Review? (by RO at 2010-01-05 04:31:50 GMT from United States)
Just to fan the flames a bit ;-}
I have gotten an Android phone recently, but it has been so frustrating in certain respects, that I looked into dabbling in some development to fix my issues, and found it is quite a Linux-based development ecosystem. That seems as legitimate for DW review as Minix (I have had fun dabbling with 1.x and 2.x versions on old 8088 PC's in the dim past, something Linux could never do with its 386 architecture requirement).
Although the original mobile phone target platform might be too far afield, it is gaining traction in netbooks and other devices crossing over into the more traditional DW platforms. Although all that platform diversity is probably an issue, an overview with a focus on netbooks/tablets might be relevant?
TIA,
RO
75 • Minix (by x on 2010-01-05 05:31:53 GMT from United States)
Thank you for adding Minix to Distrowatch. I had suggested this a few years ago, because Minix was being developed and had no real exposure outside of a few classroom environments. At the time, it really did not qualify as a functional system and this was one of reasons it was rejected. While it has a long way to go, it has matured considerably.
Most of the Distrowatch readers may never use it, but, they may never use most of the projects tracked by Distrowatch. Minix fits in due to the fact that its' license is open source, ala BSD style, and it is and always has been recognized as part of the unix-like family of operating systems. It also has the distinction as one factor that inspired the father of Linux.
One of the opportunities presented to us, is the access to a micro-kernel system that works. It is a different approach than what most of us are familiar with. The other open source micro-kernels are nowhere near usable, the Hurd is a primary example.
If you want to know what it like to learn an operating system as many did in the early years of Linux or BSD, this it. The experience would be valuable to those who undertake the task.
76 • @72 : Come on, it's 2010. (by Paul at 2010-01-05 08:53:55 GMT from Netherlands)
Google is your friend too.
http://dreadmoon.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=4&func=view&catid=8&id=3
77 • @51: Gentoo is not Debian (by Reuben at 2010-01-05 10:03:09 GMT from United States)
Here are a few key differences between Gentoo and Debian:
- Debian maintains equal packages across all of it's supported archs. A package doesn't make it into testing or stable unless it works on all archs. Packages for Gentoo are unmasked seperatly for each architecture.
- Gentoo stores all of the init scripts in a single directory and uses rc-update to control the init. Debian uses symlinks in seperate directories.
- Debian has seperate repositories for proprietary software and software that depends on proprietary software. Gentoo mixes free and non-free software in a single portage tree.
- Gentoo by necessity inculdes header files from each package, while Debian splits off the headers into a -dev package.
- Apt also handles configuration for many different programs, and automatically adds any installed daemon to init.
In a lot of ways, Arch is a lot closer to Gentoo than Debian.
78 • Unity Linux Beta 2 Looks Good (by Bob W on 2010-01-05 11:49:23 GMT from Austria)
Boot with the "copy to RAM" option to get a sense of flying without KDE and Gnome lags. Even though WLAN was not working on my hardware the project gives the impression that there is a bunch of pretty capable developers involved. I am a bit relieved to see such projects (including Slitaz) evolving after recognizing that the latest KDE 4 is still not where KDE 3 once was.
79 • Super OS (by Tony at 2010-01-05 12:41:55 GMT from United States)
Congrats. to the Super OS team for being in the number One spot. I have a Dell Inspiron 1000 that only hold 512mb RAM and Super OS runs great on my ole' Dell 1000. I would try more RAM, but DELL BLOCKS the addition of more than 512mb of RAM from the factory. I know Super OS is a remake of Ubuntu, but in my opinion Super OS has been remade Better. Thank You!
80 • Come on, it's 2010-ANYONE HAVE INFORMATION ABOUT Dread Moon Linux (by Linuxinmypants on 2010-01-05 13:01:46 GMT from Belgium)
FOR 76 • @72 : Come on, it's 2010. (by Paul at 2010-01-05 08:53:55 GMT from Netherlands)
Google is your friend too.
==============
Thanks, happy New Year 2010 to you too!
Like if you wanna recommend Wolfram Alpha, he is your friend too!
I had already visited and read the page you linked, before writting my comment. Thanks, anyway; but it doesnt change a bit all the facts that I exposed. And, it does not give any anwsers to the questions that I asked...
Please re-read my whole comment (72 • ANYONE HAVE INFORMATION ABOUT Dread Moon Linux ??? (by Linuxinmypants)
What I want is answers to the questions i posted, like:
Why to use a Windows executable that have to be installed in your PC to download a Distro???
Why not to put the distro to download in a torrent site like Linuxtracker, for instance, or another???
Why not to download the torrent directly and let the user user its own torrent client???
If they want to save bandwidth, why no to put it in one of the Free hosting sites so popular nowadays???
Where is the Source Code, and the licence?
Telling me that I can unistall the Microsoft Windows application, of compulsary use to download the Distro, is not of great help.
Why should I be forced to use Microsoft Windows to download anything from the web, and NOT any other Operating System?
This is even more weird if we take into account, that they force you to use a Microsoft Windows Operating System and/or executable application to download a LINUX DISTRIBUTION? Come on...
Is like if you want to buy a Ferrari, but the vendors force you to go to their door to take the Ferrari in a Porsche. And only in a Porche; if you don't do it, if you don't go in a Porche, you don't get the Ferrari. LOL
Besides, why should I be forced to install a specific application in my System, just to download a Distro, or anything from the Web? How do I know what 'really' get installed on my System? Could be any crap. The history of Computing and the Web is full of crap being isntalled in your PC, without your knowledge or consent, tru programs instalation, or tru Web Pages visited.
I can understand maybe that there is a reason. They maybe want to force people to share more; and to keep feeding the Torrent once they have finished their download. Because people tend to be selfish and mean, and when they finish, they cut the torrent feed, true.
But, if is that what they want, their way to force people to do that is equally mean or probably worst. Even if you get uninstalled the whole application, using the method they explain in the page you linked, that is not the way to do things in the Web, and less even in the Linux - Free Libre software world. And, as is common knowledge, uninstalling a Windows application is risky; and is not sure you ever have uninstalled all the pieces of code that you installed.
If I were responsable for that Distro (Dread Moon Linux), I would avoid right now they way they are using for the downloads. That is risky, at the very less, and proves that they have understood nothing about Linux/Free Libre Open Source software.
The thing is that, that remake of Ubuntu could be a good Distro, and in fact, the idea of a Distro centrered on game developing is very interesting. So IMHO thumps up for the idea, and a big thumps down for the obscure way they are exposing it, the licence, the source, and how they make it available to the potencial users. If their aim is business , they have learnt noting either (take a look at Redhat, Mandriva, Novell-SuSe, rpath etc)
They can use plenty of resources in the web to hang a Distro and the sources in the Web, and make it downloadable for plenty of people. There are plenty of torrent web sites or ftp/http web hosting services that are costless. Instead of uploading a film, like plenty of peole do, just upload the distro there. If not, there are general software info Websites were they can do it too, like sofpedia, or downloadplex, etc.
And finally there are a bunch torrent web sites or ftp/http web hosting services that are costless, and that, like Distrowatch, are specifically related to Linux and Free libre Open Source, like: linuxfreedom.com, nluug.nl, linux23.com, linuxtracker.org, tuxdistro.com, tlm-project.org (The Linux Mirror Project), osst.co.uk, bestlinuxtorrents.com, legittorrents.info, sourceforge.net, torrent.ibiblio.org, legaltorrents.com, etc. I bet they would be very happy to talk about and host/torrent any new interesting distro. Use them, please.
81 • Arch (by matyas at 2010-01-05 13:34:19 GMT from Argentina)
I migrated from Gentoo to archlinux. Love it !
82 • @72/80 : More than linux in your pants? (by Paul at 2010-01-05 13:43:18 GMT from Netherlands)
I think your brains may be located somewhere in your pants as well.
This is the place to comment on DWW, your question (and the frustrations that apparently go with it) should be put to the guys @ Dread Moon not here.
I installed XP in a VM, downloaded the thing, threw away the XP VM and now have another VM happily running Dread Moon, which (without trying to fan the flames of war) is just another *buntu with specific purposes in mind.
83 • SuperOS (by KevinC at 2010-01-05 15:07:12 GMT from United States)
I must admit I bit & dl'ed SuperOS. Installed it yesterday & it is basically just Karmic with codecs, some multimedia apps and UbuntuTweak unstalled (plus some additional repos). It's themed the same....just basically Ubuntu 9.10...which is fine; could save a bit of hassle in having to type "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras" and the subsequent dl/ install time. In comparison to Mint tho, there IS no comparison. Personally, I would probably be more apt to use SuperOS, as I rather like/ prefer the default Ubuntu setup, which I mod to my liking. Mint is nice and polished and all that...I freely admit this...it's just a matter of personal taste.
Also, went thru the latest Chakra install (alpha 4)...it's getting better and better & is, IMHO, one of the better KDE 4 distros out there (with the caveot of ltd. experience/ time of use w/ Chakra). The Kahel installer was a buggy, in my experience, tho my time with it was ltd, due to work, I didn't get a working distro at the end....plan to revisit this on my 1st night off (sadly, 12 hr. shifts put a damper on my distro hopping/ testing).
As an aside, I enjoyed the Minix article....definitely off the beaten path. Tho it's probably nothing I would ever play with---BSD would be way "out there" for me---it's still fun to read about.
84 • Gentoo v Arch (by Jonatan Kazmierczak at 2010-01-05 15:17:41 GMT from Switzerland)
I used both of them.
Both includes all the multimedia drivers, players, codecs etc. in their repos, both includes Sun JDK - so both applicable for me. Both have independent package management systems.
Gentoo's emerge is written in Python - since v. 2006.0 checking deps was extremally slow (maybe now is faster). Released packages are well tested and very stable. I had never complete updating successfully without hand-removing blocking packages. After every update I needed to change at least few config files. Updates were very painful and eventually stopped to work after portage tree was reorganized.
Arch's pacman is written in C or C++ so it's fast enough for me. Released packages are very new and often unstable. Updates usually worked well (I used -f[orce] flag only once). Kernel was compiled during installation in opposition to other binary ditsros - big advantage for me. Update failed only once so far and I solved problems by reinstalling some packages. Sometimes it was needed to edit config files after update. I stopped to update my Arch for some time and after 5-6 months of not updating I cannot update repositories.
So finally both systems are short-term supported: 6 month without update and you need to install system again. Now I use Debian-based systems (mostly SimplyMepis because of all the codecs) which are at least really long-term supported and very stable and I had never problems with update nor work after update.
85 • RE:59 and others. Remember the sprit of open source software. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-01-05 15:42:18 GMT from United States)
When people talk about too much choice I do understand what they are talking about. When people talk about too many distros off of a certain base I understand what are talking about. We have to remember what the sprit of open source software is all about. Everyone has the right to take any open source project, modify it, improve it, abuse it and then make it their own. Really it's none of out business. If people re-spin something and share it then they are doing what they are suppose to do. There are no limits of how many times a person can do this. We may not like it, we may find it foolish, unnecessary, or even counter productive, but all of that does not matter for that is the nature of the beast. Whenever someone wishes an open source project to fail in any way, shape, or form, then they also wish for the failure of open source software as a whole. It can be no other way. Without this open source model there would be no Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, CentOS, Chakra, Mepis, sidux, and the list goes on. Should we change the open source model and only let certain projects and certain people develop? Of course not. We would then lose everything we have gained. This may be something a person should think about before we speak or wish that anybody's project should fail. We should never trample on peoples rights.
86 • Distro flamers and stuff (by davemc on 2010-01-05 16:16:17 GMT from United States)
90% of the folks that read/post here have tried more than say 10 or so of all the most popular Distros, and many have even tried alot more than that. There is no big surprises here when it comes to Linux. You have a kernel, a DE, a packaging/repo system, various init scripts/systems, and what else?.. A different shell? Wohoo!
So one distro includes codecs. So what? Anyone can get codecs quicker than the time it takes to complain about not having them. So some distro looks prettier than another. So what? You can change themes, wallpapers, and taskbars quicker than the time it takes to complain about how brown/blue/green or rustic looking a distro is OOTB. Such stupid and trivial things to complain about!
I tried GNOME 2.28 on Arch a long time ago and loved it. I tried GNOME 2.28 on Karmic and loved it! It was exactly and precisely the same GNOME. I tried KDE4.3 on Arch a long time ago and fell back in love with KDE. I tried KDE4.3 on Kubuntu Karmic and guess what? It was KDE4.3 -- the same! The underlying sytems may be setup differently, but the DE, shell, and kernel were the same. PCLOS is no exception to this rule. Linux is linux is linux. Flame one distro, you flame them all, including your own favorite.
87 • Upward and Onward (by Micky Source at 2010-01-05 16:23:10 GMT from United States)
What's with the surge on the top 25 distro's. With just just a couple exceptions, them most have green arrows.
Lots of activity. Maybe because of the new year.
88 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-05 16:29:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref Dread Moon...you mean it's for real? lmao
89 • Reply to 78 (by JMiahMan on 2010-01-05 16:41:46 GMT from United States)
By reading into your comment a little I'm getting the impression you have the wrong idea of what Unity Linux is. I could be wrong, and by all means correct me if I am.
No matter the state of KDE 4 or Gnome, XFCE, E17 or (insert your DE here) The Unity Linux developers did not choose to not include other Desktop Environments because Unity Linux is not for end users, but developers or wanna be (soon to be) developers who would like to create there own Live Image. You can create your own image because you want to run a distribution or just because you want a bare metal restore of all your custom tweaks.
The key to Unity Linux, is not seen in the graphical manager, but in it's RPM packaging tools that are currently being developed and in it's community philosophy.
The fruits of it's labor will be seen in Distributions like TinyMe, Granular, and Synergy Linux and what ever distributions would like to use it's core for thier own projects.
Now not to create a flame war as I know I'm going against popular opinion, but in currently Packaging KDE 4.4 RC 1 for Unity Linux and Synergy Linux, I see no comparison to KDE 3.5 versus the 4 series. For me going back to 3.5 would be like being on a XP machine and going back to Windows 3.1. It's ugly and the code is ugly, but most of all it's dead. You could have argued functionality with 4.0 maybe even 4.1, I was with you on those releases. With the current series of releases (4.2+) though I can strongly disagree Of course then again my use of function and your use of function are obviously different and I have spent a few months patching and packaging KDE 4.4 so I may be a little biased ;)
90 • Reply to 26 (by JMiahMan on 2010-01-05 17:02:38 GMT from United States)
RayRay, it's great that you've found a distribution that you really like. PCLinuxOS is a very decent distribution and Tex has always done a very nice job with KDE. In fact if you've been around since PCLinuxOS' beginnings you'd know that's how PCLinuxOS got started, by Tex packaging a better KDE then Mandrake, who at the time was the RedHat distribution with KDE.
PCLinuxOS focuses on desktop use. You have to realize though, no Linux distribution is the answer. That's why there's so many. In trying to be the one answer to all of people's computing needs you become so general you're really no answer at all. Instead of being really good at one thing your kinda good or maybe not good at all with everything.
I know you're excited that you found something that works for you, for your desktop needs, but you have to realize that your over zealousness could be doing more harm then good. Tone it down a bit and represent the PCLinuxOS community as you would like it to be seen. Be excited that you're using Linux and someone has taken the time to use opensource tools to fill a need you had.
91 • Sabily سبيلى (by Mahmoud Slamah on 2010-01-05 17:38:50 GMT from Egypt)
Very good Distribution for Arabic users and anyone know Arabic language
Sabily an Ubuntu-based distribution with Islamic software :-)
92 • #84 (by megadriver at 2010-01-05 17:43:50 GMT from Spain)
Mmmm... Arch doesn't compile the kernel during the installation. It creates an "initial ram disk", which has nothing to do with compiling the kernel (and takes a lot less time). You can compile and use your own custom kernel afterwards, of course.
AFAIK Arch is actually not "supported" at all (at least in the sense the "big" distros are). You are basically on your own (just how I like it). I've always found it very stable, despite being the most up-to-date distro around. Having a minimal system surely helps. Stuff like GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Pulseaudio, HAL and all those pesky *kits tend to add a lot of complexity, and the result is often some instability (specially on a bleeding edge distro like Arch).
If you don't want to (or for some reason can't) update your system for months, then it's obvious that Arch is not the best option for you. The much more conservative Debian is indeed an excellent choice in that case.
93 • Cicawaife (by graittaticexy on 2010-01-05 17:54:32 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
Comment deleted (spam).
94 • @84 Updates after a long period of absense (by Fred Nelson at 2010-01-05 17:55:24 GMT from United States)
Actually, Gentoo at least can handle it just fine, just be prepared to devote a few hours to deal with the quirks. After quitting Gentoo, I still left it on my first partition controlling GRUB. Being from that far back, its GRUB didn't support ext4, which all the major distros are using, so I had to boot back into Gentoo (or chroot, but both work equally well with Gentoo...) in order to update it. I figured as long as I was doing that, I might as well update everything. In updating the year-and-a-half-old Gentoo, I had to baby emerge quite a bit and remove stuff from an overlay that no longer existed, but after I did that, it ended up working just as well as a newly-installed Gentoo. I really do believe that one of Gentoo's great strengths is how malleable it is, which makes it possible to recover from just about anything you throw at it, given enough time and patience (which albeit for binary distros would take less time just to reinstall than to fix Gentoo in such extreme cases).
As for blockers: Portage 2.2 now (mostly) takes care of them automatically. Of course, it is still hard-masked, but it is *really* worth unmasking.
I tried the same thing with a year-old Arch install, and simply couldn't do it, but in this case I think the fault lies more with KDEmod; they had split into KDEmod 3 and KDEmod 4 in the time I had been away from Arch, so I was stuck in an unupgradeable KDE 3.5 configuration there, which held back lots of other packages, so I couldn't upgrade anything. Cue reinstall.
95 • Arch and Gentoo (by Landor at 2010-01-05 17:56:36 GMT from Canada)
I think the article regarding Arch and Gentoo is misleading. When you consider the two you think about a source based distribution (a measure of Gentoo). That's an incorrect assumption. I would place a fairly sure bet that most people would not compile from source for the most part in Arch. Where everyone compiles from source in Gentoo. That in itself makes the two projects extremely different. Thus making the comparison of the two unwarranted. It would be like comparing Puppy to Slackware. Actually, I would believe that Slackware and a lot of its older users who do still compile from source closer to Gentoo than Arch is. That's just my opinion though.
Also, the article leads one to believe that Arch is all of a sudden this new and newly desired up and coming distribution, breaking ground in the ranks of popularity. What's not mentioned is Arch is only a couple years older (at best) than Gentoo and only now is making its mark, if that is the case. Yes, there's a few distributions basing off of Arch now this year. The article forgot to mention how many base off of Gentoo already (that are quite popular, Sabayon and SystemRescueCd to name two) and how many have sprung up in the last couple years as well.
Not to take anything away from Arch at all, as I said, the article is misleading and a poor comparison. I for one can't seem to wrap my head around why it was written in this manner.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
96 • Clarification to 94 (by Fred Nelson at 2010-01-05 18:00:00 GMT from United States)
Just so it's clear, when I say "year-old" and "year-and-a-half old", I am not referring to the time that I first installed the distro, rather how long it had been since I updated it.
97 • Clarification to 95 (by Landor at 2010-01-05 18:33:08 GMT from Canada)
I need to make one too :)
Couple years older should read: couple years younger.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
98 • Printer Support (by sly on 2010-01-05 19:33:38 GMT from United States)
I just bought a Canon MP210 printer. CUPS doesn't seem to fully support the printer so I may have to use it with that other OS (which I shall not mention here) only. Where can I find tips and tricks to get the printer to work correctly with Linux.
99 • Statistics of DW 2008 vs. 2009 (by Claus Futtrup on 2010-01-05 20:46:34 GMT from Denmark)
I think Ladislav Bodnar forgot to mention "Tiny Core Linux" which strikes me as being extremely fast going from nowhere to a position as no. 16 (this is one-year stats, although Tiny Core has only existed for a shorter period of time).
100 • @98 - Canon hardware w Linux (by gnobuddy on 2010-01-05 20:46:45 GMT from United States)
Unfortunately, Canon is one of the worst-supported brands of printers when it comes to Linux. :( A real pity, since they make some excellent inkjet printers.
I've been Linux-only since 2001, and when I need a new printer, I look for full Linux compatibility before I buy it. Pretty much every HP or Epson printer is well supported, with other brands it is hit and miss. Check OpenPrinting.org ( http://www.openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi ) to see if your printer is supported before you buy.
I like having a cheap laser printer as well as an inkjet for printing photos, and the cheap HP lasers are not very good. Fortunately some of the (monochrome) Samsung lasers work with Linux, and I finally found a colour laser printer that is Linux-compatible: a Brother HL4040-CN. The Brother now handles all my printing except for any photos I want to print out at high quality.
-Gnobuddy
101 • @99 - Tiny Core (by Gnobuddy on 2010-01-05 20:57:48 GMT from United States)
Ladislav Bodnar forgot to mention "Tiny Core Linux" which strikes me as being extremely fast going from nowhere to a position as no. 16 (this is one-year stats, although Tiny Core has only existed for a shorter period of time).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree. There is a reason why Damn Small has tanked even as Tiny Core took of and soared - it turns out the creator of Tiny Core (Robert Shingledecker) was also the brains behind Damn Small's success, though he was given little credit for his (enormous) contributions to Damn Small by the ostensible head of the Damn Small project.
Well, Robert's talents are now shining clearly in the miraculous little distro called Tiny Core. I had been hunting for years for a good distro to keep ten old computers - PII's with 128 M each - in harness, serving as web kiosks in my classroom in a typical underfunded public school. By mid 2009 every distro I tried either failed outright or ran too slowly to be usable, except for Puppy Linux. Puppy worked, but the icon-heavy desktop confused my students and I don't have the time to tweak every PC by hand after each re-install.
I tried Tiny Core in late 2009, and was blown away - a miniscule distro that actually WORKS! Robert Shingledecker and his Tiny Core linux have kept those ten doddering wrecks of computers alive, and thanks to his work, my students continue to have access to the website and online learning tools I created for them, despite California's disastrous educational funding policies.
-Gnobuddy
102 • to 66/85 (by realchoice at 2010-01-05 21:19:13 GMT from Portugal)
"This says it all what your reasons are for complaining"
"Base it on Debian, you wouldn't complain"
I'm not complaining, I'm commenting.I'm telling why in my opinion sometimes we hear people say what @22 said. Anyway I don't mean these *buntos should fail. Nor that they should be promoted. This does not include Mint, Crunchbang and a few other valid derivatives, plus those made for better localization purposes.
Ubuntu is an extraordinary work made based in Debian. If someone else decides to do some equivalent development wok, based on Debian ( was an example), Ubunto, or what ever, I applaud. Copying other distros, put a new wallpaper and a different program does not bring value nor choice nor innovation, and does not further promote the advancement of Linux.
103 • Printing with Lexmark --Fedora Saves the Day! (by pfb on 2010-01-05 21:34:44 GMT from United States)
I was in the process of installing F12 on an old hard drive mounted in an external case (I hardly ever throw anything away). I started to load printer drivers when I noticed that Fedora had already found all my printers on the adjacent Mandriva machine. I tried them and they printed without my having to load drivers on the Fedora system. Astounding!
I didn't know if this was a Fedora development, or a kernel thing, so I tried other systems. My other installed systems, SuSE and Mandriva both worked, so I started with the live CDs I had. Slax, Knoppix, Parted Magic, Sabayon, Sidux, and PCLOS all worked. I figure this has to be the best kept secret in linux development in a long time. I am no longer restricted to rpm based systems because of my "too good to throw away" Lexmark Z816. All I have to do is keep it connected to an rpm based computer. Yay!
I am still experimenting, and found that Vista won't do it (no surprise). But also Ubuntu 9.10 expects the drivers to be loaded (won't recognize the installed drivers on the printer machine). That was a surprise! PCBSD showed problems with permissions, and I didn't try very diligently to get "localhost:631" recognized. Those are the only ones so far to not use the printer drivers on the host computer.
Happy New Year everyone!
104 • @98 Printer (by Jesse on 2010-01-05 21:53:07 GMT from Canada)
Canon is one of the worst companies for Linux-compatible printers. Actually, in my experience, their support has been pretty bad period. Your chances of getting it working aren't good. if you can, see if you can trade it in for a Epson or HP, both companies have (again, in my experience) done a much better job of being Linux friendly.
105 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-05 23:23:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref printers, #100
I have a fairly oldish Samsung monochrome laser, ML-1510, (5+yrs) which was recognised by U9.10 and "just worked"...and continues to do so after quite a few sheets.
(Cartridge can be refilled "at home"; just make sure you buy the right type of toner/powder/ink. It seems the particle size of the toner stuff MUST be compatible else the "holes" clog up.)
One caveat with older printers...eventually the manufacturer's price for a replacement cartridge exceeds the cost of a brand new printer, (you can't top them up for ever). Third party replacements, although cheaper are not that cheap...
106 • Statistics (by Ladislav Bodnar): Why is Fedora 12 ahead of Suse (by Jeffersonian on 2010-01-06 00:12:31 GMT from United States)
Hi all:
Ladislav wrote: "While some of the reasons for openSUSE's drop could be attributed to the distribution's switch to less frequent release schedule, there is no doubt that Fedora has attracted a lot of interest with its constant innovation and fearless adoption of interesting features."
Long time Linux user (about 12 years, after just as long of Unix), I was a long time Redhat user, then when Suse became very good (Suse 9.0) I switched to SUSE.
This was until Open Suse 1o, and then 11, 11.x
But Open Suse, after its acquisition by Novell, and some Microsoft money became slowly "less good": it seems that marketing on glitter, replaced excellence in engineering. In short the quality of the product started to deteriorate: hitherto "rock solid", updates often turned my machine into an unusable brick, packages became unreliable, and worse what worked started to creep up. And Novell did not seem to react to it....
So I tried a few distros, Ubuntu did not cut it for my purpose, but Fedora 11 (I since installed 12) was an immediate "WOW this is good stuff".
Fedora 12 is not perfect, but it is still the very best Linux Distro that I have used so far... as long as I sticked with GNOME: KDE4 is still slow, blotted and buggy in my view.
The two remaining (very annoying but workable issues) are the use of the NVIDIA driver from NVIDIA (still better that the open source version), and the support fore Broadcom WI-FI chips (there is an RPM available on line at autoten { http://dnmouse.org/forum/ } and other "good" places.
If Fedora 12 "yum" and its GUI front end "YUMEX" are not as fancy as Suse/Yast2, these tools are a lot more reliable... and faster too!
For Nvidia the kmod (kernel module identifier) allows a kernel update without losing the Nvidia 2D acceleration: this is very nice.
For Yum, two plugins are very nice: the one finding the faster server, and the one allowing only incremental (like rsync does) updates: only what has been changed is downloaded.
And the newer more per-formant compression algorithms for RPM's also help on the speed side.
If you are a programmer, Fedora 12, may very well be your best Linux Distro today (Along with Gentoo less supported, and time consuming install).
Else... the Ubuntu and derivative (Mint...) may be your choice.
What I would like to see in" Fedora Core 13", could be a better system repair (Like Suse!) and rescue, ideally with an auto mode, allowing to recover to the latest working version...
Also better USB based sound....
Open Suse: please impress us, with the next version simplified, cleaned up, and much more solid! Also better quality of packages (too many are buggy).
Please agree / disagree for the latter explain in details why.
Jeffersonian.
107 • Minix, ah, the memories :-) (by jake at 2010-01-06 02:07:08 GMT from United States)
I looked into using Minix to replace my AT&T 3B1, which was slowly chewing it's hard drive to bits (1989-ish). I tried to get TCP/IP running on Minix for about two weeks, and then a Dual Pedestal Sun 3/470 "Pegasus" fell into my lap. From 67 megs of hard disk to a pair of 470meg drives, and 8 megs of RAM to 128 megs, and from a 10mHz 68010 to a 33mHz 68030 ... Bliss! I could add Usenet to the family's email and FTP services :-)
I later used Minix 1.5 as a textbook when teaching OS and driver design ... came in a 3-ring binder, with published source code and a handful of installation floppies, for about $70. Over the years, I've looked into it occasionally, for nostalgia reasons. Thanks to this review, I'll probably download 3.x and take another look at it :-)
The Sun box is still sitting under Bryant Street in Palo Alto, serving the family FTP, email and Usenet system (and the newcomer, Web) twenty years later. It has a headless laptop running BSD sitting on top of it as a fallover box. It's the third headless laptop, the first two died ... But that old Sun box keeps chugging along.
As a side note, that location is probably the oldest co-lo in the world ... I first had a PDP-11 there, around 30 years ago. (I was working on the fledgling, pre-TCP/IP network that would become TheInternet, and sometimes write strange things into contracts ... 99 year lease @100/yr, I pay my electricity bill, no mention of bandwidth allowed, but I can only connect to the outside world thru' two "free" network links, or unlimited POTS (which I pay for) ... If you recognise me from this, kindly keep the rest of my name to yourself, but feel free to contact me. I'm in Sonoma, CA, and I'm in the book.)
108 • MEPIS (by CuriousMEPIS at 2010-01-06 02:42:09 GMT from United States)
I have been curious about MEPIS name for the longest time.
Why do they call it SimplyMEPIS? Why not just use MEPIS.
Was it ever MaybeMEPIS, HardlyMEPIS, or SometimesMEPIS. :)
Why SimplyMEPIS?
109 • RE: 108 MEPIS (by ladislav on 2010-01-06 02:49:17 GMT from Taiwan)
In the early days of MEPIS Linux there were two editions - SimplyMEPIS and ProMEPIS. Later they dropped the Pro edition, but the name SimplyMEPIS was retained for the other one.
110 • Wireless printer solved in Linux (by Vernon at 2010-01-06 03:08:12 GMT from United States)
Mint 8 took care of it. All we needed was a step-by-step for the set up, and we found that at the Mint forums by search (didn't even have to post and ask).
We're good to go now and will install Mint 8 on the other laptops here to take advantage of the wireless printer.
V.R.
111 • Minix 3 (by Shawn on 2010-01-06 04:09:47 GMT from United States)
I might have to give Minix a look and a test drive. I've always been kind of curious as to the differences/similarities between Minix and Unix/Linux, so here's my chance! ;) I'm into education and this would be a good addition to my LFS disks.
The distro wars are pointless. There are those who complain about too many distros and then if somehow all these distros became unified, people would complain there's not enough choice.
Just for the heck of it, I decided to run Sabayon 5 (Gnome) on my laptop in live mode. I've had it running since Sunday with absolutely no problems whatsoever. All my hardware was found, I can watch videos from crackle.com and hulu.com as well as youtube. I plugged in my Touch 2nd generation and it was detected in like 2 seconds. I'm a huge Arch fan and I've always admired Gentoo, but the updates for Gentoo kill me because it takes too darn long. My problem is I can't settle on just one distro. I could be running Mandriva, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, Slackware, sidux or openSUSE at any given time.
I agree we don't need all these Ubuntu derivatives where the only change that gets made are to the icon set and default background, but hey, to each their own. At least Mint added something to make Ubuntu easier fresh from the CD burner.
112 • @103 - CUPS set up as a print server (by Gnobuddy on 2010-01-06 04:38:47 GMT from United States)
I started to load printer drivers when I noticed that Fedora had already found all my printers on the adjacent Mandriva machine. I tried them and they printed without my having to load drivers on the Fedora system. Astounding!
======================================================
CUPS can be configured to turn the machine it's running on into a print server - CUPS broadcasts over the network the existence and identity of the printers it is configured to print to. It seems your Mandriva install has CUPS configured this way, so it's telling all the other machines on the network about the printers it knows about. CUPS in Fedora picked up the broadcasts from your Mandriva machine, and then printed through it.
It's a nice feature in CUPS, the only real hitch is that the print server (the Mandriva PC in your case) has to be on for printing to work on any of the other machines.
I usually put my printer(s) on an inexpensive print server (Airlink and other cheap brands work fine), and just configure CUPS on each PC to print over the local network, so all the computers can share one printer, without depending on one PC being on all the time.
-Gnobuddy
113 • back to Berry - waddya know, it works - sometimes (by gnomic at 2010-01-06 06:02:51 GMT from New Zealand)
Just a wee note about Berry, thanks for the comment in response to my query about apparent checksum error in the final DW for 2009. Hmmm, no idea what may have been inhaled there . . . . I have had a bit of a soft spot for Berry, world's most beautiful distro is the claim iirc, but have found recent versions often seem reluctant to run on any box I have to hand. Imagine my surprise when the latest ran with no apparent problems as a live CD on a ThinkPad Z60m with 1G RAM and Intel 915 graphics. W00t, even got wobbly windows. Not so good I fear on a couple of desktops with 64MB Nvidia cards from early in the century, and another ThinkPad with Intel 82852/855. Latter would boot in Japanese but not English!?? So still quirky, but in fact nice if it can be persuaded to work. This from the Berry desktop via wireless to an open access point. That reminds me, the range of wifi firmware included is limited compared with most current distros.
114 • remastering (by Reuben at 2010-01-06 12:27:27 GMT from United States)
I'm not going to discourage anyone from remastering. I want to see people tinkering with what is out there. However, that doesn't mean that everyone's project deserves a spot on distrowatch. I think the effort to remaster must show some significant value to users if they are to be included on this site.
The trend that I would like to see slow down is copying the look and feel of windows. Seriously? Taking good ideas from other operating systems, whether they be windows or mac os is great. But disros should be striving to create an identity of their own.
115 • re #65 (by RayRay at 2010-01-06 18:07:05 GMT from United States)
Vernon, Vernon, Vernon..
Why stereotype a whole community because you disagree with one person.
What is it that ails you?
When a Distro is well made there is little reason to go to the forums.
On the forums we often find people that are nasty and think they know it all.
Just like on this comments page we find people that knock a whole group of people because they disagree or can't understand the point of view of one individual.
Good luck with Vector Linux, by the way if you can't get the wireless printer working go to post #29 and follow steps 1 & 2.
I have an hp wireless printer working on that other Distro, it's a snap, but if you ever need help I'm sure someone else in the PCLinuxOS community will be more than willing to give you a hand.
116 • reply #90 and #110 (by RayRay at 2010-01-06 18:40:03 GMT from United States)
To JMiahMan post #90 my comment # 26 was a reply to the comment in post #12
"Maybe leave Gentoo there, and instead replace PCLOS with Arch? PCLOS is already mentionned as an alternative to Mandriva (another 'codec loaded' distro, and, with Mint, there would be two of them in the list)."
I have a cold and too much time on my hands.
To Vernon post #110 glad to see you resolved your printer problem with Linux Mint. I wrote post #115 before I read all the other comments.
117 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-06 23:38:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
For those interested in the netbook side of Linux( a la Lenovo) it seems there is yet another category...a notbook...aka smartbook...probably best to just read the article.
This appears to be from the Las Vegas CES press preview day or something like that:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/hands-on-skylight/
118 • Toorox (by shady on 2010-01-07 05:17:44 GMT from United States)
Although it wasn't listed in this weeks edition, I just installed Toorox and its pretty awesome because it's basically Gentoo for Dummies (me). I'd been waiting on a 64bit version and it's looking great so far. I did an update and it took forever because it was source and it was AWESOMEEEEE.
119 • Toorox (by RollMeAway at 2010-01-07 05:58:34 GMT from United States)
I too, just installed the latest Toorox. Finally a distro that doesn't wipe my MBR with grub2. Grub 0.97 installed nicely to my root partition.
This is a lazy persons way to install gentoo, with a KDE 4.3.4 desktop.
The developer put some interesting widgets on the desktop, and included an expanded version of SystemConfig. There is also a "Starter" icon with common apps listed.
It is a live DVD, so you can check it out before deciding whether to install, and maybe get some new ideas for KDE4. Nice to see some innovation, instead of the generic plain KDE4.
Right now I am puzzling over the 7.03 GB of disk space used by a 1.98 GB DVD.
120 • RE: 118/119 (by Landor at 2010-01-07 07:45:56 GMT from Canada)
I think they've done a fine job with KDE 4.3.4 . I do have one caveat that basically makes it under Fedora's KDE 4 releaase, they removed the option to switch to the classic menu. I'm not a fan of that menu style to say the least. The problem I have is I know little about the 4 series so I'll have to dig to find out how I re-enable it. :)
With compression being what it is now, it's not hard to see DVD based distributions go over 6 GB installed. Something that adds more space for Gentoo is the Portage Tree.
My son was very impressed with the whole look and feel of Toorox as much as I was. In the aesthetics I was a bit saddened to see they didn't have the theme right from boot to desktop, but that's a small issue of course. They're doing great things with that project every release.
Just a general side note, I found it ironic that just after I posted my comment where Gentoo was "somewhat" used as a comparison to Arch, and what I spoke of about distributions based on Gentoo, two had releases within days. :)
Anyway, if the project continues to grow I'd keep a close eye on it. I can easily see this project be one to rival Sabayon without any big games and such.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
121 • @ 120 (by Untitled at 2010-01-07 08:43:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
Landor, the classic KDE menu is basically just another widget. If it's not possible to change to it on a right click have a look if it's installed at all (right click on panel, add widget) and if it's not you'll have to add it. Never used Gentoo or its family members so I can only assume that you will have to compile it.
122 • #101 (by Notorik(Off the Naughty List) on 2010-01-07 09:22:33 GMT from United States)
I have not had the same good experience as you with Tiny Core. I really liked DSL and wish it would return. I like the idea of Tiny Core but it is a different distro all together. I hesitate to mention Puppy but I won't go into my feelings on security so maybe it will be ok. Puppy is the only distro that gives me a decent resolution on my wide screen monitor. Puppy. Not Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, Sabayon, Mint, Mandriva...My wife was using it last night with Citrix to connect to her desktop at work. How can a distro of 100 MB be better than a 700 MB + distro? In my experience on numerous machines with differing hardware, Puppy just keeps on impressing me. Am I a Puppy "fan boy"? So what if I am? I got to be one by my experiences with this little gem of an operating system.
There are some very interesting things going on with the Puppy .sfs system with talk of hot mounting(?) and unmounting(?) applications on the fly. Ok, I just wanted to get that out of my system for the new year. I will move on to other topics now.
123 • #43 (by Elder V. Lacoste at 2010-01-07 13:08:56 GMT from United States)
How does Salix compare with Absolute, Vector, Wolvix, and Zenwalk? Does it bring anything new to the table?
124 • "rolling release" distros (by Joy at 2010-01-07 14:32:02 GMT from United States)
Experts! The only "rolling release" distros I can find mentioned are Arch and Gentoo.
Please, can somebody point me to a page that has a list of all of them? I have used Bing and Google but find only the wiki as a descriptive page and a few other ones talking about "release engineering."
Sorry for the bother here in this informative comments area.
125 • ** (by shady on 2010-01-07 15:07:31 GMT from United States)
I hope "release engineering" involves a massage, first. Otherwise, you're getting robbed.
126 • Re 123/124, Salix and sidux (by Sertse at 2010-01-07 15:10:45 GMT from Australia)
Re 123: The main thing Salix brings to the table is that it's honest about being Slackware. Many of the others are based on Slackware, but imo are vague exactly on it's relationship to it, especially as some are now forming their own flairs that make it not exactly Slackware anymore.
Salix on the other hand *is* Slackware. It gives you "pure" Slackware in a single cd, where you booting into something right away, either as basic console, a basic xfce+slapt-get, or a full desktop, the rest of up to you. Contrast this if Slackware itself, where it requires a whole DVD, and wants you to setup everything before you install.
Re 124: sidux is rolling release distro based on debian's unstable branch. The sidux dev add in their own stuff to keep it manageable to be run as a day to day OS as a difference from running plain debian sid.
127 • Gentoo and Arch (by archetype at 2010-01-07 16:26:21 GMT from United States)
Both are great, and there is always room for healthy coexistence.
Btw, Arch is a few weeks OLDER than Gentoo. Arch was released March 11, 2002, whereas Gentoo Linux 1.0 was officially introduced March 31, 2002. :P
128 • Has the Ubuntu crowd come full circle? (by Jon Iverson at 2010-01-07 16:56:01 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu is a great distro doing very good work, and I’m glad it suits a large group of users as near perfectly as possible. However I'm one who believes that Linux Mint is a far better fit when it comes to the increasing flow of novice users gravitating to Linux.
Mint's developers are building on Ubuntu the same way Ubuntu built on Debian and other distros. Arguments insisting that Mint is simply Ubuntu with codices and a new paint job remind me of similar arguments we used to see posted about Ubuntu by hard core Debian users. I find such silly arguments quite instructive now that this 'circle the wagons' dynamic has come full circle and taken root with certain hard core Ubuntu fans. Ubuntu users need to be reminded of the problems they had with hard core elements of the Debian community in the early days, and not allow themselves to slide into the mindless trap that in some respects a few old line Debian users still struggle with.
The beauty of the GPL and our free open source development model is that we share community advances and developments in common, thereby becoming stronger as a whole. That’s the main thing all of us need to remember as we cheer on those who dare to think bigger and better than what came before.
There’s no legitimate place for in-fighting and finger pointing in the world's open source Linux community. When we do this the winners are M$ and Apple, and we understand from experience that they will do anything and everything they can to stir up strife and discontent when it comes to open source OS offerings. We’re far better when we pull together than when we waste time, emotion and energy throwing barbs at the open source camps set up next door to whatever our personal favorites happen to be.
129 • Re: 128 & Expanding Logical Volumes (by sly at 2010-01-07 17:25:09 GMT from United States)
Very well put Jon. There is no need to bash. Mint 8 is very nice indeed!! Everytime I boot Mint 8 up, I strongly question why I am still fumbling around with OpenSuse 11.2.
Speaking of Opensuse 11.2, does anyone know whether Opensuse 11.2 allows users to increase logical volume sizes, after installation, without using the command line to make the changes?
130 • Ref#128 Minty Green (by Redondo at 2010-01-07 19:53:17 GMT from United States)
I agree. If any video, music and the like doesn't run on Mint, it won't run anywhere.
I use mainly Ubuntu but I have Mint installed and it is a beautiful system !
131 • Resizing logical volumes (by Jesse on 2010-01-07 20:00:32 GMT from Canada)
Sly, I haven't tired it myself, but I think YaST will let you resize logical volumes, as long as the volume is not mounted. If you're trying to resize a volume that needs to be mounted to run the system, try openSuSE's live CD. Remember to backup your data first.
132 • Resizing Logical Volumes in OpenSuse 11.2 (by sly on 2010-01-07 22:05:02 GMT from United States)
Thanks Jessie!! I've done a little more research and I think I'm ready to give it a shot.
133 • LVM GUI (by Anonymous at 2010-01-08 00:02:46 GMT from United States)
I just searched in Aptitude (Debian system) and found "system-config-lvm".
This is a LVM GUI, but it is Gnome based.
Since I use Windowmaker and not Gnome, in order to install it, Aptitude
show's (tell's me), that it has to download sixty extra packages that are needed or recommended for it to operate.
Needless to say I'll stick with the command line before I fill up my system with all of that Gnome or KDE stuff.
If you already are a Gnome user then those support packages most probably are already installed; and it would probably be a much smaller additional installation.
P.S. Those sixty extra packages are a direct result of one dependency:
python-gnome2.deb which is "Python bindings for the Gnome desktop enviroment".
Without python-gnome2 there is no other needed package for my Debian system to install system-config-lvm.
134 • LinuxShark - wasted a CD (by gnomic at 2010-01-08 04:15:13 GMT from New Zealand)
Downloaded 414 MB of LinuxShark mentioned in this week's Weekly - sadly a waste of time and a CD. This was the 32 bit version which doesn't boot on account of an 'Invalid or corrupt kernel image'. It gets as far as a splash screen, and will proceed to boot from HD and perform a memory test. Couldn't check the md5 sum as none is supplied, nor apparently is there any way of contacting the makers. I was able to open various files on the CD I burned, so it seems the kernel image probably is no good. A good candidate for several years on the waiting list.
135 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-08 12:25:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Tech tweaks for netbook energy efficiency for those interested:
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/make-your-linux-netbook-battery-last-longer-661874
136 • keep Gentoo (by realchoice at 2010-01-08 12:40:43 GMT from Portugal)
Still regarding the actual relevance of Gentoo, I'd like to say that yesterday, I installed the 2010-01-06 Distribution Release Toorox 01.2010 and it come out to be a very pleasant surprise: very easy to install, good hardware detection and stable (so far). After installation, the usual proprietary stuff can be installed with a simple click in a few icons.
An earlier release of Toorox was reviewed by LWN.net, and they conclude it with the following phrase:
"Toorox is very close to being a true Gentoo desktop with the advantages of easy installer, simple software management, some great tools, good looks, and a ready-to-use KDE 4 desktop"
Kudos for Gentoo and Toorox
137 • Ubuntu with codecs (by trotter1985 at 2010-01-08 13:29:35 GMT from United States)
I tried to ask this question before but there was no response.
What does Linux Mint do in terms of multimedia that you don't get with Ubuntu
with the following packages installed:
ubuntu-restricted-extras
libdvdcss
codecs-w64/w32
The last two of course are from the Medibuntu respository.
Not trolling. Just trying to understand what the issues are.
trotter1985
138 • Why Gentoo? (by Alex at 2010-01-08 15:15:39 GMT from United States)
As a relative Linux newbie, can someone tell me the advantages of running Gentoo? Is it faster because the programs are compiled by your system?
139 • Toorox or Calculate Linux (by Mike at 2010-01-08 15:20:24 GMT from United States)
@Landor, how would you compare Toorox to Calculate Linux in terms of being compatible with Gentoo proper? Can either of these distros be recompiled once installed through an emerge world? I haven't tried Gentoo but have alwasy found it interesting. I use Slackware on my main machine but I have an old G4 ibook that I may have to try Gentoo on.
140 • Re. #137 (by sly on 2010-01-08 15:22:54 GMT from United States)
Trotter1985, are you familiar with the phrase "There you go again". It was used by a late president in a debate and it effectively silenced the line of attack being pursued by his opponent.
"There you go again" Trotter1985. Not specifically you but that specific line of attack.
141 • Min better? How? (by Anon on 2010-01-08 15:59:33 GMT from Norway)
@ trotter1985: Good question!
Perhaps it's the colour, I don't know. In general, Linux reviews don't tell you how/why a particular distro might be preferable in some way or other. If a distro will install, convention is to say it is 'friendly'. If it works after installation, it's called 'good'. If it doesn't, something is wrong with your hardware. If this isn't good enough for you, you can always ask at LinuxQuestions.org, but it will be a waste of time.
142 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-08 16:01:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #137
There are no real issues as such. Lots of folk have simply been excercising their right to an opinion. Mostly nobody actually cares about another's opinion owing to the diversity of machines/systems and what runs on what. (See First Law of Linux...) as in what works for you may not work for me sort of thing...so I'll try something else.
At the end of the day, as we say in UK of a night, you use what you can install and boot on your particular setup.
Hobbyist folk like a challenge and some folk simply want a no hassle system, ie it just works as d/l and the only extra d/l s are the usual updates.
Some folk like to have a system as close in "functionality" (t-i-c) as XP say, where you can have DVD players or wifi, say, just working or some folk like to avoid anything with commercial codec/drivers whathaveyou.
Others like to see if they can run a distro on a 1Hz processor with 1 byte of ram; yet others are running quad core 8GB ram stuff.
You might consider there is NO generalised way of the distro as it all depends on your needs/wish list/kit available. So making comparisons is not as straightforward as you might imagine.
The most recent thread as it were touches on Gentoo and Toorox. Rather than ask questions (which, as you remarked earlier don't always receive a response...) about a distro simply d/l, install and boot.
That is the surest way to learn, (tho others may not agree, lol) simply jump in the deep end and see what happens. If you can find find a "mentor/tutor" to help or guide you then you are fortunate indeed.
There are forums for just about any distro, so if you lose your way you have a reasonable chance of getting help.There is no such thing as a disaster really, you can always install something else.
The one caveat being of course is that you save any important data first...even better is to have a stable system (I use Uxx) on one machine and another similar machine to try everything and anything else.
You have nothing to lose 'cos the time spent experimenting is never really wasted, and you have everything to gain.
143 • Re: #139 • Toorox or Calculate Linux (by DG at 2010-01-08 16:14:33 GMT from Netherlands)
I haven't tried Gentoo but have alwasy found it interesting. [...] I have an old G4 ibook that I may have to try Gentoo on.
I have a 4 or 5 year old machine as my desktop environment at home, and I use Lunar Linux which is a source-based distro. It takes a little discipline and patience to keep everything updated to the latest and greatest, as it isn't the fastest machine for compiling large packages. Building a kernel, or firefox, or ImageMagic take about an hour each. OpenOffice takes all night. Therefore it's advisable to make regular small updates which can run in the background, while you are having dinner for example, rather than a big bang update less frequently.
Of course, if you only want to run a server, you won't need as many packages installed so you won't need to build, or rebuild as much to keep the system updated.
Compiling source in the background can be quite relaxing and cathartic. Good luck.
144 • Mint (by Anon on 2010-01-08 16:25:52 GMT from Norway)
Re: #142: Slow day today, forest? That was a long-winded avoidance of saying that you either don't know or won't tell how Mint might be better than its Ubuntu mother.
As I tried to imply in my earlier post, I think we could gain a thing or two by being a bit more direct and specific about the virtues or lack thereof in the various distros. It would be both useful and interesting.
145 • RE: 138 + 139 (by Landor at 2010-01-08 20:06:04 GMT from Canada)
#139 First:
As long as it's Gentoo based and basing off of Gentoo's portage tree you can. While I'm unsure about Calculate I do know Toorox can and will upgrade and or install packages from Portage (I was told this by another person and I believe someone here spoke of it this week as well)
I find one problem with this type of build in this regard, it's use-flags. I remember saying before that Sabayon wasn't that much like Gentoo, though it is. That's accurate for Sabayon and possibly Toorox and other Gentoo variants. To get such a mainstream Gentoo based desktop build you have to really pump in the functionality into each application via use-flags. Meaning, to try to think ahead for every user's needs you'll basically have to (at the very least) add the most common functionality for every application/package via use-flags. More so, some may even add every use-flag available for each package. That's going to increase compile time greatly. When I looked at Sabayon their inclusion of use-flags was enormous and I literally cringed thinking about how long it would take to do updates, or add a new application, due to compile time for everything but the kitchen sink, then maybe even that too, thrown in.
That said, from my own personal view point, if I was going to use Toorox (or another Gentoo variant)as a daily runner, I would definitely take a look at /etc/make.conf and /etc/portage/package.use to see what they've included. I'd check to see if optimisation in the /etc/make.conf was set to -02 or -03 perhaps, -03 increasing compile time even more, of course. I'd make any changes I felt necessary based on the above and referring back to the list of available use flags to maybe clean them up based on my preferences/needs to help alleviate compile times.
A great place to go to information regarding all Gentoo packages and use flags is portage.gentoo.com
#138
I'll use an instance that I still haven't tried. I have a netbook and though some think I'd be crazy to compile a distribution on it, I feel Gentoo is perfectly suited for this kind of hardware. The reason being is you can optimise every aspect of Gentoo to get the very last fibre of speed and overall hardware performance out of it. That's one of the key reasons for using Gentoo, total control over your system. A lot of people love Linux for that ability, to take control of their computer, Gentoo or a source based distribution is the epitome of belief.
Eventually, if I ever get my butt in gear, I'll definitely be putting Gentoo on my netbook, it's the kind of hardware that just screams for it.
Hope this helps both of you somehow.
Keep your stick on the ice..
Landor
146 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-08 22:05:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #144
That's about the size of it Anon of Norway, I have no idea in the slightest if Mint is better than Ubuntu is better than Mint is better than...wotever.
Nobody can know objectively. How could they if everyone has a different setup or needs or priorities...or wotever?
If you you were hoping for definitive answers then GNULinux is not going to give you any...it is part of the first Law of Linux.
Perhaps you might consider researching the relevant distro forums or Launchpad (or similar) for your direct and specific response apropos the virtues, or not, of various distros.
You are probably aware that DW "deals" with over 300 active distros, we both know that there is no room on DW for more than a passing reference to ten percent of those and only about one or two per cent get more than a few hundred words in the editorial.
On a good week there are probably about 200 posts in the comments section...direct and specific on your particular interest of the moment isn't going to happen, is it.
147 • No subject (by Sertse at 2010-01-08 22:56:57 GMT from Australia)
Re 137 - It'll bite, though the chance it explodes with some epic argue-fest is high. lol
Mint is about polish. A better theme, codecs as you said. a few in-house gui improvements, (Mint Menu, also I think(?) their own software installing gui, etc). Technologically it isn't too far from Ubuntu, but it has brilliant execution, that the end of the day that many, especially new users find more comfortable and enjoyable than Ubuntu. It's popularity and results speak for themselves.
Personally, I think what causes arguments is that people find it hard to accept that. They just.....can't accept "polish" as a reason, but think it because it's not technologically different it's less worthy. Nevermind it's popularity, nevermind at the end of day, it tapped into something other distros couldn't offer (polish), It's less of a distro. Perhaps because there are so many phony "theme-change + codec ubuntu distros", it's hard to fathom one that's done right and has success as a result.
Re:145 - Personally I think it'll be crazy to put a source distro on a netbook, those things get *hot* in compiling!
148 • No subject (by greenLegs at 2010-01-08 22:57:32 GMT from France)
Comparing HPD distro n°1 and n°3 where n°3 is based on n°1 seems legitimate enough.
149 • RE: 147 (by Landor at 2010-01-08 23:33:01 GMT from Canada)
Could you expand on polish though?
I know Ubuntu doesn't have these things installed default, but does a different menu system that's easily configured/installed by someone constitute polish? I also would ask the same about the control centre. Maybe I am wrong, I can switch to the control centre style in Ubuntu easily enough and it didn't look any different (at all) than Mint's. There's info on the forums for a Web Control Centre and Parental Contol as well for Ubuntu. I'm not trying to argue here, but every single time I personally delve into this topic I find less and less difference for Mint than just what people say, some easily added packages, more or less. I will admit there are a couple different things, but not so much to make it stand out as people believe it does. That being that, it's just personal opinion of course. :)
I don't think compiling will kill it. my 1005HA runs very cool. I also probably wouldn't do it all in one shot either. The only real heavyweights that would take a fare bit of time are X and Firefox. I could even install the Firefox binary from Gentoo, though probably won't. I won't be adding OO to the netbook, a bit too much in my opinion. Again though, if memory serves, and it might not, there's an OO bin if someone really wanted to go that route.
All in all, I don't see it that much of an effort. I'm going to be running a light WM, which I haven't decided on. I'm still considering LXDE, but I'm also considering just OpenBox, Fluxbox, PekWM, etc.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
150 • Mint (by Jesse on 2010-01-08 23:46:40 GMT from Canada)
The Mint thing has been beat pretty much to death already, but I'll give it one more shot. Yes, Landor, you can change the Ubuntu settings and the theme and install the extra packages and tune the system the way you want and get, basically, the same system Mint provides. The thing is, with Mint you don't have to, it's already done for you. Most people, people with better things to do with their time than install/compile packages, appreciate the ability to install and go.
When you get right down to it, you could argue, "Why use a distribution at all? I can download some packages, partition my hard drive, compile the software and copy everything over and it's just like having a distro." That may even appeal to some. But most people don't want to do that, they'd rather use a distribution. And, by extension, Mint offers another level of stuff that's already been done above what Ubuntu offers. The Mint folks have taken the time to add a little extra touch (polish). Sure, you could download the same drivers and the extra codecs and install flash and tweak the themes, but some people like the luxury of having that done for them.
Asking what's appealing about Mint is sort of like asking what's the appeal of having a pizza delivered when you have all the ingredients in your kitchen to make your own.
151 • Ref#150 Minty fresh (by Redondo at 2010-01-09 00:54:11 GMT from United States)
Your comments pretty much summed up what Mint is all about, in this weeks comments section. Not that you even use it. Just plain old common sense.
You missed one - go out for pizza , as another alternative :)
Those that like to tinker and build things probably won't consider Mint. Unless, of course, at the end of the day, they just want to relax and read email, write a letter, or play a game or two.
152 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-09 01:01:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
And there you have it, Anon of Norway, as specific as you could ever wish...everything from polish to pizza....with the odd brief mention of a distro...just to stay on topic.
153 • Media? (by Anonymous at 2010-01-09 01:28:39 GMT from United States)
My current box is a 1.6 Ghz Athalon 32 w 512M ram.
I use Debian stable running Windowmaker for my window manager.
I assume this means I do not have a "desktop enviroment".
I have alsa sound in use.
I use alsa player and audacity.
For video I have mplayer, plays most formats as is.
My graphics is Nvidia Gforce4 Mx 4000 using the legacy non-free drivers from non-free Debian.
To make mp3 type files for music players I also have libmp3lame installed manually, since I don't appear to need anything else from
the debian-multimedia.org repository.
I use Iceweasle 3.0.6 which allows me to use things like YouTube or Hulu with Adobe flash player. (My DSL service quality is the weak link here.)
Open Office works ok. Although I don't have much use for office software.
GL games run, Unreal tournament is slow, most likely the old video card.
Maybe I'm missing something by not using a more user (beginner?) friendly distro and desktop enviroment, but when I try Gnome or KDE I notice that my current setup (Windowmaker) is much more responsive; I like that.
Oh and the few non CSS dvd's play fine also, I don't have libdvdcss.
So there it is: basic Debian which for me plays all of my multi-media files.
And it all updates when I use aptitude and type u (update);except for the manually installed libmp3lame.
Oh and if I remember correctly, way back when kernel 2.4 was just becoming the norm; my friends 650Mhz AMD would take about 7-12 minutes to compile a custom kernel when the MAKE=n was set higher than normal.
I used to wait 90min or more for my old 386 to compile a 1.3 or 2.0 kernel.
154 • #149 Landor's netbook (by anticapitalista on 2010-01-09 01:40:00 GMT from Greece)
Landor, fancy giving the latest antiX-M8.5-beta4-base (or full) a go on that netbook and letting me know how it went?
I'd appreciate it.
155 • Pimp my Linux (by XZibitlinux at 2010-01-09 01:46:01 GMT from United States)
We took plain ole Ubuntu, added some custom wheels, new upholstery, jamming sound system, custom paint job and a turbo charger. We called the result Linux Mint. :D
156 • Just say no ... (by jake at 2010-01-09 01:55:31 GMT from United States)
... to delivered pizza, that is.
Homemade is so much better, and not difficult to do. It's just a hot, open-faced sandwich, after all! Helps if you purchase a bread-machine to make the dough, but making it by hand isn't exactly rocket science ... or buy the dough from a local pizza place (most will sell you a lump of raw dough if you ask, some will sell you pre-formed dough. Ask. Squeaky wheel & all that). Want a recipe for dough? Ask.
You can buy pre-made sauce if you don't make your own. Personally, I have a freezer full of assorted tomato sauces from last year's tomato crop. If you don't know how to use knives properly, these days you can buy pre-chopped veg ... although I'd recommend taking a cooking class instead; the markup on pre-chopped veg is horrific! Likewise, your local Deli is a good source of sliced meat, and most supermarkets stock pre-grated cheese if you can't manage a box grater.
Crank your oven as high as it'll go, and pre-heat for at least 45 minutes or an hour. (500F+ is good!). Don't put it on a sheet-tray, instead use a stone on the bottom shelf of your oven (sheet-tray will work in pinch). Don't buy an expensive stone from a kitchen store, get a thick chunk of quarry tile from a home improvement center. Much cheaper, and will last longer. Get a peel from a restaurant supply store.
Remove pie when GB&D and the cheese is bubbling nicely. Rest it for ten minutes before cutting into it.
Some assembly required? Absolutely ... but the results are worth it.
Does this belong on DWW comments section? Probably not ... but one could make a case that hacking around in the kitchen is a fairly useful survival skill for your average nerd ... and it might even get you a date eventually!
157 • #156 (by Notorik at 2010-01-09 02:42:18 GMT from United States)
#156 Metaphor overload. I don't get it.
#154 I have an Acer netbook and I really like antiX. I will give it a try if I can get it on a flash drive.
158 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-09 06:24:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
ref #156
Good gravy Jake! From the last part your final sentence (hyperbole warning) A.N.Other might be forgiven for thinking nerds were obsessed by sex...
But, despite this mania, can I thank you for the tip about quarry tiles re pizzas, sounds like a genius solution for avoiding the usual uber hype we get here in UK about kitchens...as in the more "complicated" (read expensive beyond the realms of sanity) the better cook you, or the missus, will become...
Same as the distro thing...
159 • Mint (by Anon on 2010-01-09 07:32:38 GMT from Norway)
#152, forest, wrote: "And there you have it, Anon of Norway, as specific as you could ever wish... (...)"
Indeed. Goes to prove that some people are willing to try to answer the questions that were actually asked... ;)
160 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-09 13:05:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #159
Anon of Norway...you don't really get this forum thing do you, lol, that's not intended as a dig you understand.
The folk that answered gave an opinion based on what they knew from their own experience. What you might find is a totally different answer from someone who found entirely opposite. Unless you have two or more responses, both for and against, say, it's a tad difficult to have a "balanced" result.
In any event my initial response was to trotter from #137. Then, you remarked in #144 something to the effect you wanted specific responses. Perhaps in future you could number the specific post you were alluding to...so I can follow your thread.
To get a specific answer you have to ask specific questions, hence my suggestion you might be better rewarded by having a look at the individual distros' forums; you know this anyway.
All the forums I have been on are so specific they almost want to know what you had for breakfast and the colour of your socks. Such forums should be your first port of call for anything of a specific nature.
Don't forget the folk who visit DW may not be GNULinux/BSD users anyway. Should they encounter vastly technical discussions it is not outside the realms of probability they could be "frightened off".
Instead, had they gone on, to try a distro they would have experienced hassle free (well almost) computering, almost certainly a lot superior to MS or possibly Mac.
As mentioned earlier, by me, DW does its best to provide a very general oversight to GNULinux/BSD platforms, with the occasional more detailed examination of a distro or security or other OSs.
It really isn't the place for hugely detailed articles.
161 • #160 Forums or non-forums (by jack at 2010-01-09 16:52:25 GMT from Canada)
Some forums are difficult to join.
I have just finally managed to register with the KDE forum. Not easy.
And I did this because I wanted to know how to back up my Kmails in a form that was identical to the way the emails appeared in the kmail app.
The search brought up some post asking almost the same question---posted
Oct. 2008.
No response!
I suppose that the organization of the KDE forum is more obvious to developers than it is to "joe six pack"
If anyone knows of an email app usable with KDE and that has a SIMPLE way of backing up the emails (received and sent) that allows one to see the back-ups (on a cd) the same as they look on the original screen please let me know
Happy new year
162 • Lectures (by Anon on 2010-01-09 19:51:21 GMT from Norway)
#160, forest, wrote: "Anon of Norway...you don't really get this forum thing do you, lol, that's not intended as a dig you understand. (...)"
What I get or not is anyone's guess, and you are of course entitled to yours.
A general problem with technical fora is that some people seem to be more interested in lecturing on generalities, often bordering on moralizing, rather than trying to answer the questions posed. It isn't always wrong, but it is tedious and usually unhelpful.
Comparing distros is a very useful and ought to be smack in the bull's eye relevant in this forum. To tell people to download, test and compare themselves is simply redundant. It's the resulting comparisons I and others are interested in.
163 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-09 20:34:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
Rerf #162
Then this forum is clearly not the one you are looking for...and no you not get the point of this at all. The forum have discussed the comparison thing for some while and all that happens is someone calls "time" when the discussion veers towards the "my distro is better than your distro" nonsense.
If you were to read the editorials you would note a distro is described in a just a few lines, with links to more info if desired. The main distro review/test is a little more in depth but the reviewers do issue caveats. Said reviews usually deal only with installation and very rarely a test of an application.
Perhaps you missed the comments of the past few months, when some of the esteemed reviewers were taken to task about the kit they used to review a distro.
The conclusion reached, by some of the forum users, was that such reviews were of little use, seeing as how the results, so to speak, could be at odds with those obtained by others using different machines...hence the invention of the spoof Laws of Linux.
You might have caught some similar remarks along the lines of "Koala is great...oh no it's not...oh yes it is". Yet nary a tech spec given in proof one way or another.
Were you to configure googlemail to alert you to any Linux news releases you will find there are sites which do far, far ,far more rigorous testing of a distro on a wide range of machines, from old single core with tiny rams to quadcore with 8GB ram.
These tests are accompanied by reams of no doubt meaningful data...even to the temp of the processor under load, half load, running multiple apps and no load.
Your error is in believing this is a "technical" forum...I would have thought that, for example, the metaphor in post #156 disproved that fairly conclusively.
164 • @137 Pre-installed codecs (by Anonymous at 2010-01-09 21:11:03 GMT from Finland)
Pre-installed codecs may be useful in live-CD mode.
165 • I need a Linux OS with goals. (by Zac on 2010-01-10 07:24:47 GMT from Australia)
The main reason of me using Linux is to encourage adoption with the aim of competing on the desktop for mainstream users. I want Microsoft market to drop heavily. Linux is capable of doing this. So, with that in mind I choose a distro which share these goals. Even though there are hundreds of excellent distros out there, not many share my goal. At the moment Ubuntu is way ahead on this, hence I use Ubuntu (and of course it has to work on my hardware). Novell and Red Hat don't seem to be interested. Mandriva, PCBSD, PCLinuxOS has got some hardware deals so there are a few and I'm sure there's more. So for me, I use Ubuntu. Still on 8.04, and 100% stable, humming along nicely but I just need a quieter PC.
Complaining, whinging, having sour grapes and being jealous of other distros only helps Microsoft. All these distros are good, if like yours, well, don't put the other distros and even their users down to bring them to your camp, that's not the way to do it, it just turns people off. I hope 2010 will see less of this.
166 • Google a monopoly....? (by KevinC at 2010-01-10 10:26:16 GMT from United States)
Seems the Germans are getting stoked about Google:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6081F820100109
As an aside, I have often wondered how Apple seems to skate on the monopoly charges...seems they get a free pass & they're even a more locked-in/ exclusive club than MS, IMHO (i.e, the recent Psystar ruling):
http://www.psystar.com/
167 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-10 11:12:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #166
On the contrary Anon from the US, this is the very place for folk converting or thinking of converting to GNULinux should gather.
This website is one of the very few to list distros from all over the planet, with a very brief outline of the distro.
Language is no bar at all to featuring on DW and you may have seen a remark to that effect in the copy apropos the release notes. (If release notes are in the venacular).
Links are given for d/l from DW or from a distro's website. The whole ethos is to encourage folk to download, install as "live" and/or install to hard drive.
(Installing to hard drive assumes of course the distro meets your needs, and more importantly, can run on your kit. You may noticed tho' that a lot of distros include a note to say the distro does not need to be installed and will run perfectly well in live mode.
This is probably good advice because you do not need me to repeat that very often the glitchy part of running a distro is getting it onto a hard drive in the first place. and then running into the sometimes dreaded "grub".)
If we read from some posters than they think telling people to suck it and see is redundant, then they have lost the plot entirely. Why do they suppose the reviews generally cover the install in detail and the apps less so?
168 • @166: Apple (by Jesse on 2010-01-10 14:58:39 GMT from Canada)
>> I have often wondered how Apple seems to skate on the monopoly charges
This is a little off-topic for an open source forum, but the answer is pretty simple, really, Apple doesn't have a monopoly. That's how they avoid monopoly abuse charges. To abuse a monopoly, first you need to have a monopoly. Apple has what, about a 10% desktop market share? If Apple were to ever rise to having more than 90% of the desktop market, and that's not likely to happen, then they'd have to be careful.
169 • @167 (by KevinC at 2010-01-10 18:30:05 GMT from United States)
Yeah, I guess you're right...tho many suggest Apple is quite happy with the 10% they control---e.g., the high-end of the desktop market & have little interest in offering budget machines. And there is some tie-in with FOSS, since Apple took open-source base (BSD) and closed it even moreso than MS does(to the extent that one cannot buy a legal license for OSX and install it on hardware of choice--as Psystar was doing). I can see Apple's logic--control the hardware and they can offer as stable of a d.e. experience that can be offered & Psystar was offering these machines for sale---I doubt Apple is losing any sleep over individuals' home-brewed "hackintoshs". Anyhoo, that's enough of that---the comment on Apple was just an afterthought r/t the Germans accusing Google of potentially monopolistic practices link.
170 • RE: Many (by Landor at 2010-01-10 19:08:33 GMT from Canada)
#121
Thanks for the information and I can now say that Toorox is the nicest implementation of KDE 4 I've seen yet thanks to your help. They had the panel/widgets locked and the moment I unlocked it (my first step then I was going to look for the widget) the classic menu showed up. Thanks again.
#127
I was thinking more along the lines of date of concept and starting it, which again I was inaccurate regarding the length of time. I'll try to reduce my assumptions more and increase their viability with a bit more research. :-)
# 150
I couldn't help but feel the comment was mainly in reply to me when the latest Linux Mint query was posed by someone else. I was just stating another set of facts based on comments about polish and such, which are descriptives that do little to answer the real question. I have to say your comment only really was in reply to mine, and not the one question that has haunted this section for weeks now, what makes Linux Mint warrant a separate review from Ubuntu (previous and still not answered fully) and this week, what makes Linux Mint different than Ubuntu.
Thus far there's only been opinions and very colourful descriptives. I think anyone asking the question should understand what that means fully.
An example of something that's just and opinion is #151's last sentence. It's just laced with human bias. It leads one to believe that if you want to "relax" then Linux Mint is the distribution that will help you relax. I'll have to search that on Google Trends..lol
#154
I'll be getting at that today Anti. I have it near full (due to testing so many flavours) and don't want to put it on an SDHC or USB stick. So I have some cleaning to do. A friend of mine (she posted here a few weeks ago installed the full version yesterday on her Samsung NC10 (I wish all netbooks followed Samsung's footsteps, great little machine) and was up and running in no-time. If it's not an issue, you should get a full-report over on the forums from both of us by Wednesday at the latest.
-----
Just a little addition about what is popular and what is not. First and foremost not long after I came here I realised that the PHR wasn't to be trusted and only a measure for this site. Also a means to an ends for some that want to "actively pursue" the greatest level of that popularity they can, by any means.
I prefer common sense and also try to remember that most here mainly use the PHR for a measure of popularity for "desktop-use". That doesn't even begin to measure true popularity. Not by far.
Google trends shows a completely different picture and I think a more accurate measure than a ranking system that by its very nature begs to be manipulated.
Anyway, I found the information about the PHR being manipulated here at DW. If you like, start reading from comment #9 and down. Form your own opinions based on reality of any given situation.
Something tells me there's even one more but I found this one out of the blue without looking. I'm not going to look further.
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20071112&mode=67
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
171 • Mint 8 review.... (by KevinC at 2010-01-10 21:22:15 GMT from United States)
Perhaps this review (Dan Lynch's Adventures in Open Source, a decent site, IMO) can add some to the discussion and point out some of the value added features of Mint which make it worthy of consideration:
http://danlynch.org/blog/2009/12/mint8/#more-1540
172 • RE: 171 (by Landor at 2010-01-10 22:20:28 GMT from Canada)
I didn't put much stock into that review when I read it before and honestly still don't. It was loaded with opinion and bias. One thing I noticed almost instantly was the fact that the first part of rhe review the author spoke of the installer and how Ubuntu got it right. Giving credit where credit is due. The next part I read he's talking about AWN and installing the NVIDIA drivers and speaks of "Mint making it easy". I may be wrong here, but I'm fairly certain that Ubuntu made it easy (sarcasm intended).
Anyway, no matter and I honestly do appreciate your effort to reply (no sarcasm intended).
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
173 • @172 (by KevinC at 2010-01-10 23:17:23 GMT from United States)
No effort involved there....just posted a link & I do think the review did offer a rundown of the value-added features of Mint (tho the extent of "value" added is the point of contention here). I don't really have much invested one way or the other in Mint. I think it's a good suggestion for those new to Linux/ transitioning from Windows...but I prefer base Ubuntu (as I've said before) configured to my liking. A lot of the "make it easier" stuff that Mint adds just gets in my way & tho Mint can be changed to one's liking, as Dan Lynch points out...sometimes the layers added can be restrictive to a more intermediate/ advanced Linux user (I could post examples just feel too lazy right now to do so, I'm sure you know what I'm speaking of). That being said me thinks the Mint issue has been pretty well fleshed out as much as possible here & apparently DW is going to do a review of it....so now it's kinda regressed to beating a dead horse. ;>)
174 • Re: 170 (Or really re: 149) (by Sertse at 2010-01-10 23:29:21 GMT from Australia)
"Could you expand on polish though?"
I can't tbh. As I suggested in my original post, a rare combination of Mint's timing, the niceness of it's themes, a few gui changes, and better default apps meant Mint "clicked" with the people, in a way the average Ubuntu-wallpaper/codec-clone you see every week didn't. Perhaps it's because it had better support, smart(er) marketing and already had a respectable support base when it started, the first Ubuntu-clone before Ubuntu-clones are something we see every week and groan about :) In turn meant it had a head start on "polishing" itself when other clones came about.
Then you could look at it another way; perhaps people are so fickle that Mint's change is all they need?
In short "Why is Mint arguably so popular for an Ubuntu-clone? What's it's unique secret?" is a good enough reason for me for a review. So in a round about way, your question is the answer, if you know I mean ;) I wondered a few reasons just then, maybe we'll find the answer in DW's review :)
PHR isn't gospel, I agree, but I like to think the longevity of such a high rank legitimises it somewhat, manipulation won't last so long.
175 • Re: 174 (by KevinC at 2010-01-11 03:04:58 GMT from United States)
The ease of use factor is probably the biggest draw &, yes, most of that is inherited from Ubuntu...but one should not downplay this (ease of use/ installation). Many of the top distros have made installation and use a "no-brainer," esp. relative to distros of the past. Perhaps, one of the most user-friendly distros, as of late, Pardus has earned much praise, not only here at DW but there are other glowing reviews...Dedoimedo's recent review really exemplifies Pardus' ease of use/installation features:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/pardus.html
Note the parts about not using standard Linux nomenclature for disc drives, the boot loader; the first boot (& thereafter) use of Kaptan to configure everything r/t your fresh install. He even links back to CM's review of Pardus here at the end.
I can see for an advanced user such as Landor, how all of this could be off-putting. However, we see many reviews of these distros, B/C of the fact that they're so easy to get up and running. It would be much more time consuming to set-up and review Arch, Slack, or Gentoo vs. one of the -buntus, Mandy, OpenSUSE, Pardus and so on (tho Distrowatch has offered reviews of several of these in the not-so-distant past. Personally, I would love to read an LFS review/ setup article, but that would be a lot of effort for, perhaps, what would be a niche audience.
176 • RE: 174/175 (by Landor at 2010-01-11 04:12:05 GMT from Canada)
#174
Longevity could be a very rewarding thing. I don't the exact metrics of the PHR, but couldn't a distribution that's artificially inflated by a fair amount stay quite a bit longer. Let's also not forget that once a distribution his the top 10 or 5 for the 6 month period its page is most likely going to be visited a lot more than it would have been if it was somewhere around 25.
#175
Yes, I have made some opinions be known against distributions that are full of codecs and such, it doesn't mean I'm against them though. Pardus is an example. I have enjoyed Pardus for a number of years now and have continually watch from the sidelines as it's grown. At one point (until life became somewhat busier for me) I even considered doing some packaging for Pardus. Even if it wasn't accepted by the team I would have done it for myself and my family. It was mainly packages that kept me away from Pardus.
I wouldn't call myself an advanced user by far. Hell, I don't even know what denotes an advanced user, or an elitism as some consider the term. :)
My main contention with Linux Mint still stands, what makes it different. Not the codecs and included extras, not totally anyway. :)
My other main problem which I spoke of was the whole logo and branding issue. Something I found disturbing, but most don't care about that stuff. Most don't care about much. Much has changed. :)
Anyway. I've read that review too..lol :) One this time that I liked. Maybe there's a pattern..lol ;-)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
177 • RE: 175 Again (by Landor at 2010-01-11 04:24:40 GMT from Canada)
I forgot to mention Susan Linton wrote an article about LFS quite a number of years ago (Sorry Susan, don't want to make you sound old in any way :) ). It's on tuxmachines and in three parts I do believe. Here's the first anyway:
http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/1715
However dated, I hope that helps.
Keep your stick on the ice..
Landor.
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