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1 • LOL (by Alex on 2004-02-16 17:55:40 GMT)
You're just an old fashioned Linux zealot who has lost track of things and is scared to see proprietary software enter the Linux market.
Your examples are ridiculous and show nothing but your ignorance in your over the top generalizations and distaste for all things proprietary.
What did Xandros say that was so bad? They said that at Linux world they had a new booth which people liked and a great sucess at their giveaway. How do you know that wasn't true? I for one would be glad to have a free copy of their distribution.
Even Adobe, have you tried PhotoshopCS? What Adobe said was all true, Photoshop is the best in its class, aka superior and it definitely is powerful/. The rest is debatable , maybe the new features are only essential to some, who knows, but it is a matter of opinion hence not a lie. If you do not believe them, than go ahead and downloat their trial version.
In addition there are many OSS projects which have quite good marketing, for example Mozilla. More OSS projects should learn and start marketing theirselves better, of course not with lying but by making their key features more clear and having more attractive website designs etc.
All you have showed is a flaw in some OSS software, not an advantage. GIMP.org should not even mention Phtoshop, last time I checked GIMP wasn't made by Adobe, there is no reason to endorse Adobe . Their statement is pathetic, it's as if I told you, well you know I'm kind fo good, but than of course I'm not half as smart or qualified as Jim for most jobs. Instead GIMP should list its key features, sucess stories, and other useful things to its users. If you are looking at the GIMP you obviously either can't properly run Photoshop CS or have some grudge against it so that statement was really irrelevant and just makes the project look bad.
Thank you for identifying this big flaw in the marketing of most OSS projects..
2 • No subject (by michael on 2004-02-16 18:46:55 GMT)
Marketing doesnt just have to be hype. While its nice to see xandros take such pride in themselves, such a newsletter doesnt really promote a sense of community, which is what i thought would be the main point of such an endeavour.
If all their going to do is push new products on you why dont they call it the "xandros weekly sales promotional tool", or "the list of amazing things xandros have done".
It seems to me what hes trying to say is its not so much a newsletter, as a set of adverts. No offence intended.
3 • Re: LOL (By Alex) (by FedUpPenguin on 2004-02-16 19:02:39 GMT)
I for one have complained here that every time somebody is reviewing Xandros they behave as if they were sucking a lollipop: Xandros is the best thing after sliced salami!
I have tried it, and apart from finding their EULA disgusting, their prices exorbitant, there is very little about Xandros that I like: it is incredibly shabby.
I have noticed a similar attitude with many Gentoo users (but not with the people in charge): there CANNOT be a distro better than Gentoo! Next I find them in another place as advocates of M$!
Then give me Lindows everyday (note that I AM NOT a Lindows user): it is very polished and Kevin Carmony is very open to any criticism.
Other are the distros which deserve my respect, and most of them don't cost a cent.
4 • No subject (by Dave Kluck on 2004-02-16 19:17:58 GMT)
I recall hearing somewhere (and the story may be apocryphal, I don't know) that Ian Murdock was inspired to start the Debian project based on his disgust with just such a lying proprietary linux advertisement claiming that WINE offered full linux compatibility for Windows apps. Look where that got us: it founded one of the most respected forces in the linux market today. Bottom line is, no matter who markets the software, it's still developed--for the most part--by good people who are interested in producing a good product, but are not afraid of admitting its flaws. I can't forsee that changing anytime soon.
5 • RE:LOL (by jlowell at 2004-02-16 19:20:35 GMT)
Oh, cow flop, Alex. Anyone with the sensitivities of a chimpanzee is capable of sensing a threat to something they value and Ladislav Bodnar's concerns over the Xandros-speak he illustates are well placed. Frankly, I share them. Spare us; your ad hominems don't make for an argument.
jlowell
6 • Evil Newsletters (by Bob from Accounting on 2004-02-16 19:20:50 GMT)
I bet Dogbert could put a stop to the evil newsletters. It is simply amazing how much material marketing can produce that says absoloutely nothing. It reminds me of the old ASCII stegano tools that would produce mad-libs style email. (sorta a stelthy ascii-armor, for those not familiar with it) The email was completely pseudo-random and would read normally.. perhaps such a tool exists for evil newsletters? :) If not, we could create one. The flame above demonstrates this technique by giving no opinions and drawing no conclusions of their own. It would be an excellent study for developing the algorithim.
DNRC!!
7 • Speaking of great newsletters... (by madhunter at 2004-02-16 19:42:42 GMT)
You forgot to mention the DistroWatch Weekly Newsletter!!! I love this thing, and I don't ever miss it. It has become part of a ritual reading it... I know you couldn't exactly toot your own horn, but of the newsletters I read, this one is the best.
8 • Hahahaha... (by madhunter at 2004-02-16 19:54:00 GMT)
Alex's opinions remind me of a dirty, sleazy car salesman (not that all car salesmen are sleazy... just the one's that know who they are).
Ladislav was making a point that newsletters should be more than advertising. Hence the name- NEWSletter. If people want to advertise, call it ADvertising. Two different things.
9 • Alex (by None on 2004-02-16 20:22:29 GMT)
Did anyone ever think that Alex might work for xandros?
No, xandros has not said anything bad with in their newsletter, it is what they didnt say , which would be the problem. And thats the point that Ladislav Bodnar was trying to make.
Correct me if I am wrong (Ladislav Bodnar)?
10 • sourcemage (by seth on 2004-02-16 20:22:44 GMT)
the source mage site says that .9.1 was been Released , distro watch does not have it on the source mage.
http://news.sourcemage.org/article.php?story=20040205080123492
11 • Fedora core 2 test 1 (by Randy on 2004-02-16 20:51:00 GMT)
I downloaded and installed Fedora core 2 test 1.
The install is virtually identical to core 1 install.
Gnome seemed very slow and some of the features didn't work correctly(sound, controls).KDE ran exremely fast and stable but all the multimedia programs I tried were nonfunctional. As far as networking, it was flawless. I haven't tried much more of it than that, as I have only had it installed for 1 day.
12 • software benchmark (by MixMatch at 2004-02-16 21:39:17 GMT)
hey, I think that while the idea of a distribution benchmark, is neat, its a particular challenge to linux. First, you must consider that all the things listed were desktop linux features. Servers rarely have things such as flash players and such installed... Sure, it would be a nice thing to consider for those desktop distos though... I suppose that I am biased to disagree with the concept from the start because of the fact that I prefer using a source-based distribution like Sorcerer. While source-base distributions often do not have the configuration tools that other distros have, they come with other benefits, like the fact that there is no need to update the distro itself to newer versions, as software is updated daily in conjunction with their releases... All this leads to the fact that configuration tools and other such things are not as necessary because of the install-once nature of things...
As for the PR issues, this problem goes two ways. First of all, there are too many linux companies using this worthless advertizing. At the same time, there are many OSS projects that are not getting enough attention for the things they offer linux...
13 • New Gentoo Release (by Nathaniel at 2004-02-16 23:37:15 GMT)
There is a new Gentoo release coming in the next week or so. I believe the release date is Feb 23rd.
14 • FreeBSD (by Anonymous on 2004-02-17 00:14:49 GMT)
I know FreeBSD isn't Linux, but I think it would be useful (and great as well) if you included it on DistroWatch. There are lots of sites such as linuxiso.org that include FreeBSD. There's nothing wrong adding it.
Thanx!
15 • Wrong replies (by Alex on 2004-02-17 01:15:38 GMT)
People, I was replying about this part of his article:
"One of the main reasons I prefer Linux to proprietary operating systems is the inherent honesty that exists in our small world of Free Software. I still remember my early steps with Linux and its applications, particularly a friend's assertion that Linux has "The Gimp", a graphics editor as good as (if not better than) Adobe's Photoshop, except that it doesn't cost a penny. Having been "conditioned" by Microsoft's sales-driven web sites, I was later shocked to see the following paragraph on gimp.org:
"Warnings. The program(s) might crash unexpectedly or behave otherwise strangely. ... Many people do find GIMP very useful. But it is not a Photoshop killer (for professional Photoshop users, that is). Photoshop has lots of features that the GIMP lacks."
Now compare the above statement with the Photoshop product description from adobe.com:
"Get superior results faster with industry-standard Adobe® Photoshop® CS software, the powerful new upgrade from Photoshop 7.0. You're in control with indispensable new features for graphic and Web designers, photographers, and video professionals."
The shock came from the realisation that, in the world of Free Software, there is no need to claim that some software will enhance your life beyond recognition and produce incredible user experiences you had never before believed possible. In other words, there is no need to lie."
I thought the Xandros quote was a continuation of it.
I misunderstood you, I did not fully read what you were saying.
I agree that their newsletters have very little credibility as Xandros has never put a word in edgewise, all they say is positive and happy. But I remain in my opinions of the Sex lies etc part of the article.
And I don't work for Xandros, it is a good distribution, I use it, but of course it has its faults.
16 • RE: FreeBSD (by ladislav at 2004-02-17 01:29:11 GMT)
This has been covered before and the answer is "no". Unless you are willing to set up, maintain, monitor releases and reply to user feedback about all *BSD variants.
17 • Sex, lies and distributions (by Andrew on 2004-02-17 01:55:08 GMT)
Hi,
In general I agree with you on this, Ladislav. It does seem to me to be more PR or marketing, rather than useful news and information. Sort of like putting out some bait to attract attention, rather than offering a substantial meal. I prefer the meal.
It reminds me of my own weekly reports to my boss, on the occasions when I don't really have anything milestone-wise to report. I write in some drivel to be fed up the food chain while I continue on with my work.
However, for me at least, there is this exception in the OSS/Linux world, found at this site:
http://qhacc.sourceforge.net/index.html
While he does provide useful news about developments to his project, there is also a lot of additional promotional stuff. BUT; this is woven into the real stuff with tongue-in-cheek humour, which for me makes it a pleasure to read.
Comments like this one on stability - Generally pretty stable. (At least, more stable than many things which are less stable.)
I have no interest in accounting, but I check this site every week or so for the humour. OSS can be a dry subjuct, and this style of light-hearted writing can add some fun!
I especially enjoyed his 'story' on why he began QHACC.
Perhaps if more distro or project sites stuck to factual reporting, and added in their PR with this kind of humour, they might get greater exposure for the enjoyment of reading them?
Just thought, even if it is a bit oblique.
Andrew
18 • Xandros and the Register (by FedUpPenguin on 2004-02-17 02:08:12 GMT)
Eventually a breath of fresh air!
A good, objective review of Xandros.
Good, old Register!
19 • Mail Server Down? (by jlowell at 2004-02-17 02:09:15 GMT)
Is the Distrowatch mail server down?
jlowell
20 • Xandros, for example (by Benjamin Vander Jagt at 2004-02-17 04:01:47 GMT)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Xandros more of the same copyright-restricted software? If so, then Xandros is being unethical and immoral in its very business practices, and you can't expect their newsletters to be any wiser. I don't use Linux for its ease of use, reliability, logical construction, and free availability. I use Linux because it's *right*! I don't call Xandros a Linux. I call it immoral software that also comes with a version of Debian.
http://www.engrish.com/recent_detail.php?imagename=propagandaboard.jpg&category=Engrish%20from%20Other%20Countries&date=2004-02-05
(But like I said, correct me if I'm wrong.)
21 • No subject (by MixMatch at 2004-02-17 05:09:41 GMT)
"I don't use Linux for its ease of use, reliability, logical construction, and free availability. I use Linux because it's *right*!"
I use it for all those reasons... I could care less if windows was *right*, I still wouldn't want to use it... I've never used Xandros myself, but it obviously offers something other linux distributions do not give, as it is still around...
22 • BSD, Unix and you... (by madhunter at 2004-02-17 05:31:09 GMT)
And if Ladislav were to post information about the *BSD variants, what's to say he should stop there? I mean, Unix isn't Linux but it's as close as BSD is. There's got to be a limit, and I think keeping it Linux works, or the line starts to get greyer as you move out.
23 • Distrowatch & Xandros 2 (by etnaale at 2004-02-17 05:31:14 GMT)
Kudos to Distrowatch. I scan through it every day. It is the best linux source web page I have seen. Good stuff.
Xandros 2. As one of the 90 - 95% of all computer users (24 years) who could care less about programming, servers, and a gazillion options, I find Xandros 2 the best Linux I have used. I have used 5 versions of Mandrake, 3 of SUSE, 2 of Red Hat and MEPIS, Windows and MAC. They are all good to a specific end user. But, not for me. I use my computer to work, play some games when I have a chance, communicate via the internet and play some music. Xandros 2 is the first distro that has worked correctly right out of the box. It is simple, elegant, secure, stable, fast and easy to update. I don't have time to spend hours & hours messing with an OS.
All of the comments made are correct about each distro. Correct to the reviewer, whatever his or her agenda might be. Xandros might not be a programmer's or high end user's "cup of tea" but don't beat the hell out of it just because it dosen't meet your specific requirements. Xandros 2 meets my requirements beautifully. I do agree about their newsletter. It does not have a lot of news. I have contacted them and voiced my opinion about it. They responded within 12 hours. Not like Mandrake (average of 3 days) or SUSE (never did respond to an installation problem inquiry).
Also, in my opinion, if Linux is to compete with the masses of Windows and MAC users, it had better be simple, elegant and work right out of the box and be far superior to each. Linux does that well. But, until Linux consistently gets to the mainstream users, it will just be like any other cult, small and essentially irrelevant.
Such is my opinion. Thank you for letting me voice it.
24 • No subject (by MichiganMud on 2004-02-17 05:39:43 GMT)
Ladislav, you are a sensible man. I agree with your points on the growing blather coming from certain distributiions. But, I am more offended by the relentless astroturfing engaged in by some distributions. The new astroturf champ is Xandros, which has easily deposed last year's (Lindows). At one point, I considered buying Xandros, out of curiosity. However, the lack of respect the company has for community forums is deplorable. If I never buy a copy of Xandros, it will be far too soon.
25 • Xandros, Schmandros (by jlowell at 2004-02-17 06:24:22 GMT)
I have some real agreement with B. Vander Jagt when he states, "I don't call Xandros a Linux", although I'm not prepared to explore some of his follow on remarks about software morality. Ever since Knoppix there has been a surge of copy-cat CD "distros", some with KDE, some with Gnome, some with both, some with neither. There are also special purpose distros given coverage at this site, of course, some stressing server features, some security utilities, etc. I think a case can be made that all of these are, perhaps, pseudo distros and that it may now be important to define a distro as something that is intended by its architech to be operated as installed. Searching the site for new light weight distros on the order of, say, Crux these days, one runs into considerable trouble. Virtually everything new is a CD "distro". Many of us do not have a need for portability and, therefore, don't share the excitement of so many for the Morphixes. Why not redefine the word distro. It seems to me that the time has come to do that.
jlowell
26 • Xandros comments (by Alvin on 2004-02-17 08:40:38 GMT)
First I will like to clarify that i am no xandros fan. What the author comment on the sex, lies, distribution is not entirely false. But reading the comments keep making me has the impression that the author is gear towards more on the technical side of the OSS. Yes it true that in near future, linux/oss will be a force not to be reckon on the os market. On the view the author, he mention on the newsletter mailed by commerical distro and there is defintely one channel of their marketing strategic. Bear in mind that for a commerical distro, they are a company of it own and they have headcounts under them. They will have to gear towards the marketing way to generate more sales. I agree that in their newsletter, they will have to use sales tatics to generate interest for those first linux users or timer. No company will want to follow the footstep of manfrakelinux right. They file for bankrupty last year and it is also after much marketing strategic before they breakeven and profit. Did you guys ever receive their newsletter, they have to emphasis on their product more than explaining how their product wok. Just my 2cents worth
27 • Re: Xandros,Schmandros (by jlowell) (by FedUpPenguin on 2004-02-17 13:17:47 GMT)
Doing what you suggest would be very difficult, considering that most of the Live CDs can be installed as well.
Where would you put, for instance, Mepis and PCLinuxOS, loved and installed by so many users?
I tend to visit many forums, linux and 'general purpose' (like ExtremeTech) and this of making the first CD of a distro 'LIve' is a growing trend, which I applaud, because you can try before you install and because LiveCDs can be invaluable work tools:
they are available in minutes, you can still have an OS when your HD has failed (it happened to me)....
28 • RE: Xandros, Schmandros (by jlowell at 2004-02-17 14:53:14 GMT)
FedUPPenguin inquires:
"Where would you put, for instance, Mepis and PCLinuxOS, loved and installed by so many users?"
A touchy area, undoubtedly, but if we are to adhere to a definition of the word, "distro", that requires of it's author a specific, primary intention that it be operated as installed I think we have a solution. Knoppix would not fall into this category, of course. It was designed to be used principally as a portable, that not precluding it's use as an installed affair. So I think we have a workable solution to the point you raise, a good one no doubt.
FedUpPenguin goes on:
"I tend to visit many forums, linux and 'general purpose' (like ExtremeTech) and this of making the first CD of a distro 'LIve' is a growing trend, which I applaud, because you can try before you install and because LiveCDs can be invaluable work tools"
This proliferation, as it were, is what I see as the problem. As you describe it there is even the sense of trying-to-be-first with these things, an unfortunate fact in my opinion. In such an environmnt the whole idea of what it means to be a Linux distro tends to be trivialized. With little thought, someone can slap together a "distro" based on, perhaps, Debian, and other, purely arbirary criteria and voila. Looking at the documentation even of the most mature of these "distros", one is struck with the slapdash nature of their instructions for a hard drive install, if, in fact there are any at all. That's a bit schlok either for my tastes or my sense of comfort. While I have no doubt that these CDs represent a real convenience for many, the standards applied to them when installation is a consideration are hardly as high as those applied to, say, a Gentoo or an Arch. They are not properly called distros in my estimation, but something else, maybe "Cdistros" (my apologies for that one).
jlowell
29 • To jlowell (by FedUpPenguin on 2004-02-17 15:28:55 GMT)
I don' t have a lot to disagree with what you are saying, but just one last (from my part) consideration, maybe slightly offtopic: I can't count in how many forums I have read that people had tried linux for the first time with a LIveCD.
Who says that they won't be the power users ( or just 'ordinary' users, for that matter) of tomorrow?
30 • RE: To jlowell (by jlowell at 2004-02-17 15:54:22 GMT)
Yes, their value as a tool to introduce newcomers to Linux is beyond question. The command line now a distant memory if a memory at all for those familiar only with DOS based OSs, the Linux CD with its simplicity and verve, serves a very useful purpose. You're quite right. I can remember the days when I felt that openning the case to add a memory module was a little scarry. We all start somewhere.
Regards.
jlowell
31 • Who said Linux can't change your sex life? (by GP at 2004-02-17 22:53:15 GMT)
http://www.programgeeks.net/downloads/cartoons/switch_linux.swf
GP
32 • Mepis hard disk install is more than an afterthought.. (by gnobuddy at 2004-02-18 00:02:31 GMT)
jlowell wrote of Live CD Linux distros:
the standards applied to them when installation is a consideration are hardly as high as those applied to, say, a Gentoo or an Arch.
------------------------------
Never having installed Knoppix to a hard drive, I can't speak for it. But I'd like to assure you that the Mepis distribution has a very well designed hard-drive installer that was clearly no afterthought. To my knowledge, this is one of the many things that sets Mepis apart: being a great Live-CD, and also having a great installer. (Mepis has done better with hardware recognition on my hardware than the $89 Xandros 2 Deluxe did, when it came to the usb Wacom Intuos graphics tablet).
Not intending to flame, or anything like that, but I find it rather funny that you'd choose Gentoo as an example of a well-designed installer. In many ways the Gentoo installer does less work than most other installers, after all: it doesn't configure X, much less KDE, or Gnome, or Mozilla, or any of a hundred other things. Again, in direct contrast, the Mepis installer leaves you not only with a working and configured KDE desktop, but also with Nvidia drivers (if you have an Nvidia card, obviously), Realplayer and Flash plugins installed, antialiased fonts, all network printers auto-detected, etc, etc, etc.
-Gnobuddy
33 • RE: Mepis hard disk install is more than an afterthought (by jlowell at 2004-02-18 02:49:02 GMT)
gnobuddy remarks:
"Not intending to flame, or anything like that, but I find it rather funny that you'd choose Gentoo as an example of a well-designed installer. In many ways the Gentoo installer does less work than most other installers, after all: it doesn't configure X, much less KDE, or Gnome, or Mozilla, or any of a hundred other things."
Not in any way considering your comments a flame, gnobuudy, I'd point out that they nevertheless presuppose the desirability of an installer's configuring X, KDE, Gnome or Mozilla. Not everyone has all that in mind, of course. All that some require of an installer is getting base packages including a compiler and appropriate libraries, a decent editor, a text-based browser and source code for the kernel on properly. They'll take it from there, thank you. While I realize that my own preferences are hardly universal, they do run along the lines of this last so what a Gentoo or an Arch or a Crux offer in this connection is more than enough for me. One doesn't need KDE, Gnome or XFCE4 to run programs.
Regards.
jlowell
34 • I have a tendence to hit nerves (by Benjamin Vander Jagt at 2004-02-19 03:07:17 GMT)
maybe I could produce an occasional controversial piece for DW? :-D
and BTW, from reading the comments here, it surprises me that even many in this crowd don't realize that Linux isn't going to be a force to reckon with someday. it's the leader and reigning king already. the only reason that fact isn't widely accepted is that we accept so much of the major media to be the ultimate truth of the world...if you only see Microsoft ads, then Microsoft must be the only choice... but then, look at Intel and AMD...
you can't expect Linux to get any television advertisement time, since there's no money involved in its development. even so, long time Microsoft rival (and battered wife) IBM has been producing some quite intriguing Linux ads.
here's a cute anagram I came up with that never made it into gnu.org: Red Hat Linux = Nerd Hail Tux
35 • Mepis hard drive install (by Mistshadow at 2004-02-19 13:49:27 GMT)
Mepis is very much on the right track, but it's not ready for prime time yet. What do I mean? Apt-get upgrade; that breaks it. Of course, one could say the Debian guaranteee applies to this, but you can't upgrade at all. That definitely needs to be fixed.
Another thing is permissions. Mepis is one of those distros that's set to revert all permissions to root on every reboot. Fixable, but not entirely because of all the bugs. I know, I tried. I don't bother with those distros that revert permissions on reboot now because of my awful experience with that on Mepis.
36 • RE: Mepis hard drive install (by jlowell at 2004-02-19 14:46:03 GMT)
Mistshadow,
These are very interesting comments and add real shoe-leather to the suspicions I've had about the honest-to-goodness capabilities of these CD "distros". To this point, the lack of any or of trust-inspiring documentation respecting hard-drive installation has been enough to discourage my even making the attempt at it.
B. Vander Jagt,
Interesting concept, IBM as "battered wife". :-)
jlowell
37 • Mepis hard disk install is more than an afterthought.. (by gnobuddy at 2004-02-19 17:27:48 GMT)
jlowell wrote of Live CD Linux distros:
the standards applied to them when installation is a consideration are hardly as high as those applied to, say, a Gentoo or an Arch.
------------------------------
Never having installed Knoppix to a hard drive, I can't speak for it. But I'd like to assure you that the Mepis distribution has a very well designed hard-drive installer that was clearly no afterthought. To my knowledge, this is one of the many things that sets Mepis apart: being a great Live-CD, and also having a great installer. (Mepis has done better with hardware recognition on my hardware than the $89 Xandros 2 Deluxe did, when it came to the usb Wacom Intuos graphics tablet).
Not intending to flame, or anything like that, but I find it rather funny that you'd choose Gentoo as an example of a well-designed installer. In many ways the Gentoo installer does less work than most other installers, after all: it doesn't configure X, much less KDE, or Gnome, or Mozilla, or any of a hundred other things. Again, in direct contrast, the Mepis installer leaves you not only with a working and configured KDE desktop, but also with Nvidia drivers (if you have an Nvidia card, obviously), Realplayer and Flash plugins installed, antialiased fonts, all network printers auto-detected, etc, etc, etc.
-Gnobuddy
38 • Re: Mepis hard drive install (by Gnobuddy at 2004-02-20 01:54:21 GMT)
Jlowell wrote:
Not in any way considering your comments a flame, gnobuudy, I'd point out that they nevertheless presuppose the desirability of an installer's configuring X, KDE, Gnome or Mozilla. Not everyone has all that in mind, of course. All that some require of an installer is getting base packages including a compiler and appropriate libraries, a decent editor, a text-based browser and source code for the kernel on properly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Agreed; different horses for different courses, and all that. That said, even if you like bicycles better than BMW's, it's hard to make a convincing argument that a bicycle factory is more complex than the factory that makes the 750i. Likewise, you may prefer a minimal installer, but that still doesn't mean it's as sophisticated as an installer that adds all the trimmings.
BTW, Mepis is not the only distro I've ever used. I have in the past used FreeBSD, with almost everything built from source except the basic system, and I have also used Gentoo 1.4, likewise almost entirely built from source.
--------------
Mistshadow wrote:
Mepis is very much on the right track, but it's not ready for prime time yet. What do I mean? Apt-get upgrade; that breaks it.
--------------------
I've experienced this too; apt-get upgrade on a Mepis box clobbered enough config files to make it difficult to get everything working well again.
Then again, I just totalled my Gentoo 1.4 install by using emerge to update everything after a delay of a few months. Enough config files were clobbered to make it easier to re-install from scratch than to try to diagnose and repair the damage.
Food for thought: time to restore everything after a hosed Mepis install: approx 40 minutes, including fresh install and any manual tweaking. Time to restore everything after a hosed Gentoo install: at least two days. KDE 3.2 alone took over 9 hours to compile on my Athlon XP 2400+ box...
-------------------------------
Mistshadow also wrote:
Another thing is permissions. Mepis is one of those distros that's set to revert all permissions to root on every reboot.
----------------------------
Mistshadow, could you clarify what permissions you're referring to? I have not experienced the problem you refer to. I have also not seen any permissions reset to root on every reboot. I'm assuming you're referring to a hard-drive install; if you're running from a Live CD, of course, all permissions will revert on every boot because all the configuration information is read-only on the CD...though I still haven't encountered your problem even when running from a CD.
If you've found a genuine problem, it's worth reporting on Mepis.org. Warren is more responsive than most when it comes to fixing any problems.
-Gnobuddy
39 • Re: Mepis hard drive install (by Mistshadow at 2004-02-20 05:55:08 GMT)
The permissions problem is with your devices; cd-roms, cd-rw, floppy, and so on. Very, very bad if, say, you want to mount a second hard drive as /home.
The problem I had was that it would revert all my devices to root even after I had just changed them and had *not* rebooted. In other words, log in as root, change device permissions to my user account, log out, log in as user, and find that the device permissions are all root-only again.
I posted about this at the Mepis forum, but I didn't get an answer. I hope Warren read it. I frankly think it might be a Debian problem with Sid because I'm hearing of this elsewhere. Perhaps Warren and others should consider keeping it almost entirely Sarge-based, except for drivers.
Also, Mepis isn't the only one with this problem; SuSE is almost as bad. I couldn't change the device permissions on SUSE at all; it was like my keyboard quit working when I tried to edit the config files.
Frankly, the permissions problems on so many distros are a major hindrance to new users, and a continual pain in the backside of experienced users. It's high time someone coded a prog to set the permissions once and for all until you *deliberately* change them yourself.
40 • Xandros propaganda (by Kelly at 2004-02-20 06:00:02 GMT)
I'm in total agreement with Ladislav on this one, and I like Xandros. To me it looks just the MS ads (ugh!). Please, if anyone working for Xandros might read this, cut the nonsense and supply us users with info and tips.
41 • Re: Mepis hard drive install (by jlowell at 2004-02-20 08:17:04 GMT)
Gnobuddy writes:
"That said, even if you like bicycles better than BMW's, it's hard to make a convincing argument that a bicycle factory is more complex than the factory that makes the 750i. Likewise, you may prefer a minimal installer, but that still doesn't mean it's as sophisticated as an installer that adds all the trimmings."
Recalling your initial comment,
"Not intending to flame, or anything like that, but I find it rather funny that you'd choose Gentoo as an example of a well-designed installer. In many ways the Gentoo installer does less work than most other installers, after all: it doesn't configure X, much less KDE, or Gnome, or Mozilla, or any of a hundred other things."
it had been my purpose in making the remarks I did not to assert the universality of my own preferences but rather to point out the adequacy of any installer as long as it achieves the end for which it was designed. I'm afraid I did that rather poorly. Your initial remarks concerned themselves with the fact that you'd found it remarkable that I'd chosen Gentoo as an example of a well-designed installer. It would have been decided more helpful if I'd said from the outset that since the Gentoo installer limits itself to the installation of base packages, a kernel and a boot loader and achieves that purpose admirably in the eventmprovement had I simply pointed, it would be hard to consider it anything but well-designed. Sorry to bring you to the table twice on that one.
jlowell
42 • Re: Mepis hard drive install (by jlowell at 2004-02-20 08:23:55 GMT)
Gnobuddy,
Please ignore the "mprovement had I simply pointed" abasement I'd made of the next to last sentence of my post. It doesn't belong there and we have no editor sadly.
jlowell
43 • Mepis device permissions, cont'd (by gnobuddy at 2004-02-21 02:07:06 GMT)
Mistshadow wrote:
The permissions problem is with your devices; cd-roms, cd-rw, floppy, and so on. Very, very bad if, say, you want to mount a second hard drive as /home.
The problem I had was that it would revert all my devices to root even after I had just changed them and had *not* rebooted. In other words, log in as root, change device permissions to my user account, log out, log in as user, and find that the device permissions are all root-only again.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I see. I have a second hard drive that I use as a backup device on my Mepis box, and it is accessible to non-root users, but I did this by editing the permissions of the mount-point to allow my normal user account to write to it:
su
passwd:
mkdir /backup
chgrp myuser /backup (where "myuser" is my regular user name)
chmod ug+rwx /backup
chmod o-rwx /backup
(/backup now has permissions rwxrwx---, so that "myuser" has full read and write access.)
I'm the only user on this system; if I had multiple users, I'd probably create a new group called "backup" and add myself and other users needing to use the backup drive to it, and use "chgrp backup /backup" instead of "chgrp myuser /backup" in the code above.
I then edited /etc/fstab to automatically mount /dev/hda2 (my backup IDE drive) to /backup:
/dev/hdb1 /backup reiserfs noatime,notail 0 2
I've never tried to directly edit the ownership or permissions of the actual /dev files, since I would imagine those sorts of changes could upset a lot of programs that require read or write access to those devices, and possibly create security holes in the system.
After a couple of years using Linux, I still consider myself a newbie because there is so much to learn. So tell me, are there pros and cons in doing things the way I did (alter permissions of the mountpoint) versus altering the permissions of the underlying devices themselves?
-Gnobuddy
44 • Mepis device permissions (by Mistshadow at 2004-02-21 22:28:39 GMT)
Yes, what I tried was much the same, except the second hard drive was mounted as /home.
When I tried a second installation, using only the one hard drive, it still kept reverting permissions to root on my devices. I couldn't even mount a floppy unless I was logged in as root.
It would also do this anytime I used the su command. Once when I did that with my regular account and then logged out and logged back in to find that my regular account's /home had changed to root only. When I had fixed this, I still couldn't get the audio system to be usable to my regular account even after I had edited the files and made sure my account was in the audio group.
To summarize, it was a constant headache with Mepis, having to constantly change permissions back to my account, and then seeing it not even work sometimes, so I gave up on it.
45 • If Linux wants to succeed.... (by Brandon on 2004-03-03 07:14:19 GMT)
Most people will not like this post... or should I say disagree with it. As long as linux is considered "many' distros, then it will never become main stream. For linux to become mainstream, it needs to be come an "OS", and IMO, that means some stuff proprietary. Take for example, Xandros, Lycoris, and Lindows... if you ask ANY of them if they consider their product(s) distros they'd flattly say no. Linux needs to be more than a distro. It needs to be an OS, a platform.
46 • so called "OS" distro's (by Nick Borrego at 2004-04-28 02:41:29 GMT)
It's too bad xandros, lycoris and lindows all suck.
The only difference between them and other distro's
is the owners are only looking for a quick buck...
sure they add a couple of utilities like a lot of other distro's do,
but since when did paying for them make them better?
They don't even work as good as free distro's
and just create more bloat.
linux doesn't need to become proprietary, it needs
standards... mainly when it comes to issues
like package management. I'm sorry if you feel otherwise
but RPM's, apt, tgz.... none of them quite cut it...
This is one of the reasons why gentoo has thrived
so well recently. It basicly eliminates the need for pkg's
and replaces it w/ a system which works off of the original
way linux handles programs: source.
gentoo has it's problems too, but the way things are going,
gentoo's going to progress much faster than everyone
else until package management systems get their
act together, or someone steps up w/ a newer, better
system to capitalize on the faults of existing management
systems. (I havn't used arch just yet but it seems to
be heading in that direction w/ ABS)
Number of Comments: 46
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