 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 76, 22 November 2004 |
Welcome to this year's 46th edition of DistroWatch Weekly. This week we are pleased to present our readers with two new and noteworthy resources for novice Linux users, and introduce Berry Linux, one of the few Fedora-based live CDs. Happy reading!
Content:
New resources for Linux beginners
 Let's start with a report about two new resources for novice Linux users (and two possible gift ideas for the fast approaching Christmas holidays). The first one is a new book called Point & Click Linux by Robin "Roblimo" Miller of NewsForge fame, while the second resource is a new Linux magazine for beginners called TUX. Point & Click Linux is available for immediate purchase from Amazon.com (US$17.99) and other retailers, while TUX will launch early next year with the inaugural February issue.
Point & Click Linux includes SimplyMEPIS 2004 on its cover CD: "MEPIS is proud to announce that Prentice Hall is now shipping Point & Click Linux by Robin Miller. The cover of the book proclaims, 'Have Linux up and running in 5 minutes or less with the incredible MEPIS bootable CD-ROM'. 'Robin's book will show you the benefits of switching to Linux immediately,' according to the publishers. 'Your computer will run faster and more reliably than you ever believed possible. Surfing the net will no longer be an exercise in paranoia. And you'll discover a whole new world of powerful, free software that can run rings around the programs available for windows.'"
The TUX magazine promises to be another great Linux resource to tame that learning curve: "SSC Publishing today announced the launch of a new monthly print and online publication, TUX, the First and Only Magazine for the New Linux User. The magazine will launch February 1, 2005. TUX will address the needs of the vast numbers of people who use Linux as the operating system of choice on their PC desktops. Although Linux's fame stems primarily from its success as a rock-solid, corporate server platform, millions of people worldwide have quietly decided en masse that Linux is the desktop OS that meets their home and office needs most effectively. In fact, market analysts have been reporting for years that Linux is the world's fastest-growing operating system, and they peg its marketshare above that of Mac OS from Apple Computer, Inc."
Point & Click Linux - a new book by Robin "Roblimo" Miller is now available.
* * * * *
 Late last week, the familiar colours and design of SUSE.com finally became history when SUSE's English language web site was fully integrated into Novell's. Although the SUSE logo is still prominently displayed on the new web site, one has to wonder: is this the beginning of the end of SUSE as a brand name? Is is going to be Novell Linux all the way from now on? Interestingly though, the German language web site at SUSE.de and other non-English SUSE web sites have remained unchanged for the time being.
* * * * *
 As reported last week by many Linux news sites, the founder and developer of Slackware Linux Patrick Volkerding is seriously ill and is fighting for his life. Unfortunately, according to this unconfirmed forum post at Dropline Systems, Patrick's situation has turned for worse: "Wish I had a better report. They've done absolutely nothing to rule out an anerobic infection, and the heart pains are getting more severe every hour. With Marfan's, you are born with a defective heart. It's such a red herring that I'm stunned. Hope this isn't my last email." Is this a terrible tragedy in the making or do we still have hope? Words don't come easily in these situations, so let's just say: good luck, Patrick, we'll keep our fingers crossed!
Microsoft intensifies anti-Linux FUD
If you still believe that the anti-Linux propaganda as displayed on web pages of some of the so-called "Linux" web sites is just a little Microsoft "advertisement" not worth getting worked over, then consider these two signals coming out of the Redmond-based company last week. The first one was an open threat by Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer: "Ballmer told Microsoft's Asian Government Leaders Forum that Linux violates more than 228 patents. 'Some day,' he continued, 'for all countries that are entering the WTO [World Trade Organization], somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property.'"
The second signal was even more bizarre - Microsoft has decided to launch an attack (link in Portuguese) on Kurumin Linux, an innocent, but increasingly popular Brazilian community project that aims to educate users about the advantages of Libre Software. The project has produced a quality Linux distribution/live CD and many pages of superb documentation for novice users. Unbelievably, Kurumin has now become a thorn in the eye of a multi-billion dollar corporation in some far-away country!
As the above examples illustrate, Microsoft's sponsorships of these so-called "Linux" web sites is not a small matter we can simply laugh off and forget about. They are part of a carefully orchestrated attack with the goal to discredit Linux at every opportunity and by whatever means. If this is what we are seeing now, when Microsoft's profits are barely affected by Linux and Libre Software, imagine what will happen once Linux makes real inroads into corporate desktops and cuts hard into Microsoft's bottom line! As a Linux community, we need to guard against these types of anti-Linux FUD campaigns, not help to disseminate them!
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| Featured distribution of the week: Berry Linux |
Berry Linux
When it comes to live CDs, Debian users have long had a huge advantage over those who prefer other distributions - a mind-boggling number of Debian/Knoppix-based live CDs exist for just about every taste and purpose. But what about those who prefer Fedora or Red Hat? Well, the truth is that there just isn't much to choose from. We have ADIOS, a more or less internal project by an Australian university, Basilisk, a semi-dormant distribution formerly called "RPM Live", and Berry Linux, a Japanese project by Yuichiro Nakada (中田裕一朗). Of these three, Berry Linux is the most active and up-to-date Fedora-based live CD.
Despite coming out of Japan and defaulting to Japanese, English in Berry Linux is fully supported. All you need to do is to hit "A" at the GRUB boot prompt, then type "lang=us" as a boot parameter and press "Enter". The CD will then boot into an English-language KDE by default. For older computers, the light-weight Fluxbox desktop is also provided ("desktop=fluxbox"). As is the case with most live CDs these days, it is possible to install Berry Linux on hard disk by means of one of the two available installation scripts.
Applications in Berry Linux are kept highly up-to-date, thanks to the developer's policy of releasing new ISO images often - around one new release every 3 - 4 weeks. The latest version is 0.50 and it comes with kernel 2.6.9, X.Org 6.8.1, KDE 3.3.1, Firefox 1.0, GIMP 2.0.6 and other useful software. Several Japanese true type fonts are also included. Certain applications, such as the NVIDIA driver RPM, can be downloaded separately from the project's development page on SourceForge.
For more information about Berry Linux please visit the distribution's home page.
Berry Linux - one of the very few Fedora-based live CDs.
(full image size: 699kB)
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| Released Last Week |
Hakin9 Live 2.3.D
A new version of the Hakin9 Live CD is now available for download. Changes since the last release: "New kernel (2.4.26 + squashfs + cryptoloop + orinoco), better WiFi support, more applications. We've also managed to fix problems with booting Hakin9 Live on certain hardware platforms. If you happened to have problems with booting Hakin9 Live 2.0.1 on your machine, try the new version. We've used a new window manager: XFce 4. It definitely looks nicer and we've managed to hold on to low memory usage. Most of the tools are still available, some were added. If you'd like to see some new tools on Hakin9 Live, email us." The release announcement and a list of download mirrors can be found on the distribution's home page.
Berry Linux 0.50
An updated version of Berry Linux, a Fedora-based bootable live CD with support for Japanese and English, has been released. Version 0.50 runs the Linux kernel 2.6.9 with devfs and bootsplash, and it comes with newly included hwdata 0.145 and translucency 0.7 (an original version for kernel 2.6). The default desktop is KDE 3.3.1. Several packages have been upgraded to their latest versions, the more notable among them are GIMP 2.0.6, Firefox 1.0, K3B 0.11.17 and xine-lib 1-rc7. Three new Japanese fonts - YOzFont, Konatsu and Aoyagikouzan - have also been included. For further details and current changelogs please visit the distribution's home page.
Gibraltar Firewall 2.1
Gibraltar Firewall 2.1 has been released: "As from now the new version 2.1 of the security solution 'Gibraltar Firewall' is available. Besides some significant improvements in Gibraltar's spam filter, the main focuses of enhancements were the advancement of the web interface usability and the stabilization and extension of some basis functions. The most important enhancements: improved spam filter; SMTP authentication; black and white lists for mail checking; more concise representation of firewall rules; support of different WLAN adapters by a new kernel; SPF support in the mail server (for recognition of counterfeited e-mail addresses); support of SMTP-TLS...." Here is the full release announcement and changelog.
CRUX Evolution 2.0.1.1 (PPC Edition)
The PPC edition of CRUX 2.0.1.1 (codename Simona) has been released: "Inspired, in the beginning, by CRUX Evolution for i686, it's an extended version of the CRUX PPC 2.0 GNU/Linux distribution for the Apple and Pegasos II systems that, in addition, comes ready with printing utilities, common libraries and contains pre-compiled packages for the GNOME and KDE desktop environments. This ISO contains CRUX PPC 2.0 plus pre-compiled CLC packages for GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, ALSA and printing." CRUX PPC Evolution is the project's first attempt at providing a full desktop environment on top of base CRUX PPC.
IPCop Firewall 1.4.1
An updated release of IPCop Firewall 1.4 is out: "IPCop 1.4.1 is now available. Updates in the release include: new pulsar driver (4.0.15); Squid 2.5.STABLE7; Conexant driver update; ECI ADSL Nortek support; DNSmasq 2.17; latest versions of Apache, OpenSSL; many bug fixes to the CGI scripts and upgrade procedures. For a full list of updates, check out the CVS logs." Read the complete release announcement for further information.
Hikarunix 0.2
Following the successful initial release of the Damn Small Linux-based live CD dedicated to players of "Go" of all levels, an updated version of Hikarunix has now been released: "Announcing Hikarunix 0.2. Hikarunix is a live Linux CD dedicated to learning, studying, and playing Go. New features of 0.2: qGo 2.2 added; ngo ncurses IGS client added; glGo added; full Sensei's Library Snapshot; GoGrinder with 5500 problems that actually work; GNU Go upgraded to 3.5.10; Firefox upgraded to 1.0PR (with Java and Flash plugins); WINE added for compatibility with some Windows Go software; 100% read/write to NTFS via the captive driver; kernel upgraded to 2.4.26; based on DSL 0.8.2 with all of its new features; many DSL applications returned (like Sylpheed, a mail client and Ted, an RTF editor)." See the full release announcement for more details.
Hikarunix - a live CD dedicated to the fans of "Go"
(full image size: 137kB)
Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Lycoris SME Server
Lycoris has published a brief roadmap and feature list of the recently acquired SME Server distribution: "For our first release, we do minor touch-up to the current 6.01 Contribs.org release. We have both a GPL edition for free download and a Lycoris-branded commercial release. Here's what we plan to do: add RH/Fedora errata, Samba 3, and a newer kernel with SMP and bigmem; update the backup software, e-smith-* packages; update Squid, qmail, Python, ProFTPd, dovecot, horde, Netatalk, LILO; add logwatch, Lazy Admin Tools." Read the full message at Contribs.org for further details.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Web Site News |
DistroWatch has moved, part II
Last week we reported about the reasons behind the DistroWatch.com server move - from Debian to FreeBSD. We also mentioned that Ubuntu Linux was a strong contender to replace the aging Debian Woody installation, but we were hesitant about the upgrade process to a fast-growing, but still very young distribution. After the site was safely on the new machine, we decided, out of curiosity, to upgrade the old Debian Woody installation to Ubuntu Warty. We are pleased to report that the upgrade went without a single hitch. First we installed the Ubuntu base system, then upgraded the remainder of the installed applications, before proceeding with the kernel upgrade - from 2.2.20 to 2.6.8.1. All went well and we were able to boot into the new kernel and new operating system without any hassles at all. Well done, Ubuntu developers, we are impressed!
Solaris in DistroWatch?
The recent high-profile press releases by Sun Microsystems about open-sourcing Solaris and releasing it under some kind of "freeish" license (the details of which are yet to be communicated) has prompted several readers to suggest that Solaris should be included in DistroWatch. This is a possibility - if there is demand, we don't see a reason to reject a traditional UNIX OS to compliment all the Linux and BSD operating systems already under the DistroWatch loupe. However, bear in mind that Solaris is no longer what it used to be. While its name still has a certain resonance with experienced UNIX system administrators, its future is less than reassuring. Last week's edition of Linux Weekly News had a very interesting analysis of the situation (subscribers only until Thursday), with a rather pessimistic outlook for the once powerful OS player. Still, we shall revisit the issue once Solaris 10 final is released and the details of its license are known.
New distribution addition
Hikarunix. Hikarunix ["hee-kah-roo-nix"] is a Linux live CD based on Damn Small Linux and dedicated to Go - a popular East Asian strategy game. It is known as Baduk in Korea and Wei Qi in China where the game started somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago. Today it is played in nearly every country in the world and has even been played in space. This CD was designed especially for Go players of all levels. Whether you've been playing for decades or have never heard of the game until now, this CD is for you. Any machine that can boot to CD can boot to Hikarunix instead of the computer's regular operating system. Since it boots entirely in RAM and only borrows the peripherals, Hikarunix doesn't touch the host machine at all.
New on the waiting list
Linux-EduCD. Linux-EduCD is a Knoppix-based live CD developed by Poland's SIMP Studium Techniki. It focuses on education, graphics, office and multimedia use.
Discontinued distribution
Shabdix GNU/Linux. The development of Shabdix GNU/Linux, the Iranian Knoppix-based live CD with support for Farsi, has been discontinued: "Basically due to many personal reasons and more importantly lack of interest to Shabdix among its main intended audience i.e Iranians, the original team developing Shabdix has been disintegrated and currently there are no plans to produce a new version." Here is the mailing list post explaining the decision.
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of Linux distributions in the database: 357
- Number of BSD distributions in the database: 9
- Number of discontinued distributions: 43
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 76
That's all for today; see you again next Monday!
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Debian vs BSD (by maceto on 2004-11-22 15:14:16 GMT)
I must say when I did read this a tear dropped from my eyes, but I can understand you a little, here is why: bsd has less security updates, that is to many bugs have been discovered in linux this year. Debian is slow getting Sarge out the door, but still...
I don`t understand why you could not have gone with Redhat and paid like 200 $ wich would proabably give a better product. I am not flaming BSD nor Linux her but it`s more a comment/question for debate.
And I am the fist poster here, so start the war:
2 • Beat me too it :) (by bubba on 2004-11-22 15:22:30 GMT)
One of these days, i shall be the first poster :)
3 • Berrry is Based on Fedora Core 2, Knoppix 3.6 (by martx on 2004-11-22 15:22:35 GMT)
Taken from http://yui.mine.nu/linux/eberry.html, it seems that berry is based on debian too! well at least for the hardware detection apparenty...
4 • Solaris and Berry Linux (by Anonymous Penguin on 2004-11-22 15:23:48 GMT)
I downloaded the free Solaris 10.
I am not an experienced Unix administrator, only a desktop linux user of average experience.
However what a disappointment when you compare Solaris 10, for instance, to RHEL or SLES. The last 2 come with plenty of tools, plenty of documentation...
Having said that, I agree that it could be included in Distrowatch, why not?
As to Berry, a very trivial question: where can I get that lovely wallpaper, short of downloading the whole iso?
5 • Ubuntu (by deeLer at 2004-11-22 15:26:07 GMT)
ubuntu is indeed a very nice distro
I used to play around with FreeBSD also... which is also very good, but more aimed to servers .
I'm also looking forward to try out Lorma 6 (what's keeping them so long?) since I'm most familiar with redhat-based distro's.
Ubuntu is Debian based, and a lot of commands are different.
Does anyone know a site with a comparison between Redhat and Debian on a technical basis. For example; redhat=netconfig / debian=network-admin.
Thanks, bye
http://users.pandora.be/comotix
6 • Google and Microsoft (by Max on 2004-11-22 15:40:32 GMT)
Check this out!
Go to the brazilian google website at www.google.com.br
and search for "Debian", "Suse", "Mandrake or "Red Hat".
Either the first result or the spondored link on the right will be Microsoft....
Funny to say the least.... ;)
7 • ubuntu (by ray carter at 2004-11-22 15:46:05 GMT)
I've been happy with what I've seen from Ubuntu - it seems very clean and professional. I also did an ftp install of Mandrake 10.1OE last week - I've been running 9.0 and 9.1 on my computers at home. I did have an interesting experience over the last couple of days - I decided to look for open source linux software for doing 'panorama photos' i.e. stitching together several digital images to make one long panoramic view. I discovered three programs which work together to facilitate the process: autopano, hugin, and enblend. Unfortunately, I could not find them in the software repositories of Gentoo or Ubuntu, and when I attempted to install from source, I ran into dependancy problems on both platforms. I did, however, find Mandrake 10.1 rpm's which installed with no bother, and ran fine, out of the box. That's clearly a point for Mandrake.
8 • ^^ (by poolio on 2004-11-22 16:07:18 GMT)
It doesn't work :|
9 • Shabdix not dead? (by Anonymous on 2004-11-22 16:24:56 GMT)
See this post https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/shabdix-users/2004-November/000016.html where it looks like it is still being developed.
10 • Berry Linux (by Staggerforth at 2004-11-22 16:31:07 GMT)
Berry Linux is a beautiful live CD that appears to be, as much as anything, a labor of love. It's the kind of distro a child would love because it hast some cute graphics, from boot-up, to sign-on. But it's always cutting-edge stuff, like crunching a really good Fedora/Knoppix blend into one CD.
I've downloaded every upgrade and always keep a copy. I haven't installed it yet because I use something else regularly. Besides, it works fine from the CD.
The download connection is always fast and, like was said about it, there's an upgrade at intervals no longer than a month, sometimes more frequent.
It's a really nice distro and the person doing it deserves a lot of pats on the back.
11 • The kitty (by Staggerforth on 2004-11-22 16:33:21 GMT)
Forgot to mention, the kitty wallpaper is the default with the distro this month. Even the wallpaper changes pretty often and it's always something very nice and very serene.
12 • No subject (by soul_rebel at 2004-11-22 16:41:19 GMT)
last week bill gates came to italy where we (italians) treated him like a king or similar... sad thing... you can't hope the people will change anything in a world where individual are considered this much for their money/power instead of they actions. (the same for berlusconi and bush)
13 • Re: Google and Microsoft (by Regular poster on 2004-11-22 17:05:25 GMT)
It is strange cosidering that Google uses Linux/ (insert distro) for their servers. However, Google does list them as sponsored links.
14 • Linux market fragmentation (by Offer Kaye at 2004-11-22 17:09:02 GMT)
Hikarunix - great, just what the world of Linux needed: a distro specifically geared for a single game. So what, I'm supposed to download yet another huge ISO file, burn and boot a whole other OS, just to play GO?! Does no one else see how *strange* this is?
When people talk about the fragmentation of Linux, this is a perfect example. No good can come of projects like this, IMO. The developers could have benefited an existing distribution by developing packages, software etc. for that distribution (or better yet for another a group of ditributions). Instead they choose the path of seperation.
I'm all for choice - RPM vs. APT, etc. competition is good. But this - this is not good at all. This kind of fragmentation can only weaken Linux, which is a shame.
15 • another thing (by soul_rebel at 2004-11-22 17:12:33 GMT)
Steve Ballmer: "Ballmer told Microsoft's Asian Government Leaders Forum that Linux violates more than 228 patents."
Me: "grab 20 asian windows users randomly: they usually violate more than 228 closed-source software patents"
16 • fud (by mark at 2004-11-22 17:13:01 GMT)
Iam reminded of the scene in the movie
casablanca where the military
have dueling bands
But what can we do to help?
also would like to see
a power bar to indicate
activie levels of bittorrents
17 • Berry (by mike on 2004-11-22 17:13:02 GMT)
Yup, Berry seems to be pretty much an individual 's project. It works quite well. I keep a copy at work in case I need to write Japanese E-mail or something like that.
For Anonymous Penguin who asked about the wallpaper, You could try an E-mail to the author and ask for the kitten image. He handles English E-mail just fine.
18 • Microsoft (by William Roddy at 2004-11-22 17:15:15 GMT)
First, I want to wish Patrick Volkerding a speedy recovery to health. I drag a 50-foot air line around with me all day, to breath, but Patrick's illness sounds terrible. I hope someone can help him soon. Though I don't use it, his distribution, Slackware, is one against which all others are measured for quality. Godspeed on your journey back to health, sir.
==
A few weeks ago, I made the silly mistake of saying I would no longer view DistroWatch because of some people's rude posts. But I can't seem to get along without it.
This morning, I was, in part, prompted to write by Steve Ballmer's obvious attempt to spread fear of Linux throughout Asia with his comments about alleged patent violations by the Linux community. For a person of his stature in the business world to openly use such a tactic is, to my mind, the poorest example that could be set by a leader in any community or country.
I have never bashed Microsoft and, in fact, have used Neal Stephenson's contention that there wouldn't be so many cheap computers to put Linux on if it weren't for Microsoft, so live and let live.
But, having seen Ballmer's allegations migrate from computer and Linux sites, to prominent positions in the major mainstream press, simply because Ballmer Has Spoken, made me furious.
I had one Windows system on a computer last week, a partition I never use, but left, to show others it could be done. I removed it and every sign of Microsoft, including CrossOver Office, from ever computer (I lose nothing). And I will work all the harder to try to convince others to use any form of open-source operating system, in place of Windows. I may be old, house-bound, and disabled, but I have e-mail.
To say his comments were a distortion and exaggeration would be too mild, because of his expertise and position. They were lies, by ommission, and they have damanged the Linux community.
For the first time, I will say it: Microsoft is a MONOPOLY. And it has chosen to openly play dirty to maintain that illegal position.
Thank you for allowing me to say these things, and for DistroWatch.
19 • Distrowatch+Solaris (by EEDOK at 2004-11-22 17:25:32 GMT)
So how long until the title of distrowatch becomes, Put the fun back into computing, Use Linux, BSD, Solaris, Hurd, ReactOS, Syllable, Haiku, menuetOS, QNX, or PalmOS?
Or could it just be changed to something a little more general
20 • Re:Linux market fragmentation (by Anonymous Penguin on 2004-11-22 17:30:46 GMT)
I don't agree at all.
In my view that is the beauty of linux: being flexible and open source you can use it for anything you like.
Distros which serve (mainly) one single purpose? I welcome them, and Hikarunix is not the first or only instance. I might have no interest whatsoever in Go, but many others will have.
21 • Mr Roddy (by doodle at 2004-11-22 17:52:26 GMT)
Good to hear you're back Willam Roddy! Chatboards always heat up a bit too easily. It's not as serious as it seems, I think. Anonymity just too often encourages inconsiderateness.
Well, Keep going and good luck!
22 • re:fragmentation (by Anonymous on 2004-11-22 17:52:29 GMT)
I have made alot of coasters
Now I use rw
But hikarunix is something I support
Yes been a go fan for many years
Its a great way to introduce people to both linux and go
Just wish he had made packages for Ubuntu as well as the livecd
23 • Brazil is not a "some far-away country" (by Marconi at 2004-11-22 17:52:40 GMT)
I'm a little bit disapointed by seeing Brazil being refered to as a "some far-away country". I consider the expression to be depreciatory since it's usually employed to mean lack of economical, cultural, social or technological development. Geographically Brazil is more close to the USA than Japan or most European Countries. I know was not the inttention of the editor to express this so I'm sendig this comment in hope the will be corrected.
24 • Microsoft should talk less and fix more (by wouter on 2004-11-22 18:08:34 GMT)
Microsoft should shut the fuck up and fix the security bugs in their Swiss cheese operating system. They can't keep on shouting long and hard enough to distract the public from the glaring security problems in their own products. What kind of business plan is that, for every Windows/IE vulnerability launch an attack on Linux instead of fixing the problems in their own 'software'? And not just for XP only. Microsoft should finally start spending some more time and effort into software instead of piling marketing lies on top of marketing lies while their overpaying users rot away in bugs, virusses, worms, trojans and direct exploits.
maceto: What does it matter if it's linux or bsd? They're both free and open, and extremely similar both filosophy-wise and quality-wise (stability). Let's not get into stupid discussions about picking x, y or z. And paying up $200 for a license is much more against the spirit of both operating systems, if you ask me. An opensource promotion site should run the thing that's most grassroots to opensource development, be it a free Linux OS such as Debian or FreeBSD, and not an almost proprietary variant with a pretty closed development model. It's detrimental to some of the values opensource is about; current RedHat is very unlinuxy and meant to compete with other expensive commercial 'solutions', for companies who believe in such a thing.
Finally, my best wishes to Patrick Volkerding. I've only really started using Linux with slackware, years ago when there weren't many distributions yet, and I've learned almost everything I know from/on it. I respect him a great deal, and I hope he gets well.
25 • RE: Brazil (by JoeNiner at 2004-11-22 18:11:37 GMT)
When I read the comment in the article, I took it to mean the Distro developers having to deal with the meddling BY "some far away country". Hope that perspective helps :)
26 • MS bastards know what they are doing... (by EdCrypt at 2004-11-22 18:36:31 GMT)
Brazil has a great free software (software liVre in portuguese, not 'libre') community , and a govermment that is going to migrate various ministrys to gnou/linux. MS know that.
27 • re : Microsoft should talk less and fix more (by Marauder1 on 2004-11-22 18:57:43 GMT)
M$ has no plan to improve their security. If they do it,
a lot of companies would go broke and die.
All Gates friends running anti-virus, firewall and other
security software are holding him back so THEY can make
profits as well.
I want to wish all the best to Patrick. Slackware has been
my intro to linux a while ago and since then, i never stoped
using it. Get well Pat !!!
28 • Why I'll probably never buy MS software again (by Pro clean competition on 2004-11-22 19:59:30 GMT)
The unfounded FUD-like claims by MS CEO Steve Ballmer about Linux violating more than 228 patents have been refuted by the very author of the article that Balmer was citing when trying to find some proof for his claims:
"Author of Linux Patent Study Says Ballmer Got It Wrong"
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1729908,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
As that article has been sited elsewhere too in similar anti-Linux manner, the actually pro-open source opinions of the original author himself are definitely worth reading. He says, for example,:
"Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software. The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does."
"The bottom line is there's no reason to believe that Windows, Solaris, AIX or any other functionally similar operating system has any less risk of infringing patents than Linux does."
"The point of the study was actually to eliminate the FUD about Linux's alleged legal problems by attaching a quantifiable measure versus the speculation," he said. "And the number we found, to anyone familiar with this issue, is so average as to be boring; almost any piece of software potentially infringes at least that many patents."
"Consider this—not a single open-source software program has ever been sued for patent infringement, much less been found to infringe. On the contrary, proprietary software, like Windows, is sued and found guilty of patent infringement quite frequently."
So much for MS FUD against Linux... I really hope that MS would start to concentrate on their own software development more, like fixing the problem of continuous security holes in their software, and less on FUD, and that they would just keep their own playground clean instead of mocking and attacking others (who often play the software game much cleaner than MS itself does).
29 • MS vs Linux (by Latch on 2004-11-22 20:33:03 GMT)
First they ignore you
Then they ridicule you
Then they fight you
Then you win
30 • A Good Title for Distrowatch! (by Big Moron on 2004-11-22 20:42:27 GMT)
Put the fun back into computing, Use Open source, don't use monopoly sowfware OS's.
or
Help with the making of bill gates tumb,
RIP, rest in pain billy...
19something to 2006
creator of a buggy OS
utimatily killed by it
We won't miss you bill!
31 • Patrick Volkerding (by manchine on 2004-11-22 20:49:35 GMT)
My best thoughts, wishes and hopes go to Pat, the Slackware founder. His distro is still a milestone in my journey across Linux.
As to M$ recent slandering, for those of you who are ableto understand castilian, just read Gates interview to a mainstream spanish newspaper.
Teneis mi palabra en como no os defraudara su faceta de humorista ;)
http://www.elmundo.es/especiales/2004/11/foro/billgates/index.html
Manchine.
32 • Solaris (by Leth at 2004-11-22 21:11:31 GMT)
Thanks for paying interest to my comments posted under Anonymous last issue - I know it can be hot-button, but from the chat I had it seems Sun is sincere this time.
Though some may doubt me - I have 2 Sun Workstations, and only hope the best for them. After all, they are just a company trying to compete - They havn't been running much, if any FUD in a long time. A microsoft, they aren't.
Also, on a side note - I really think that Microsoft is really trying to improve with Longhorn. If some of you wouldn't be so negative and just tried to give them some thought, they may retract. The company is not all FUD, there are some nice folks working there as well.
33 • solaris (by speel at 2004-11-22 21:45:49 GMT)
hey i think it would be pretty cool to add solaris to the site :)
34 • Let's talk less about Microsoft and more about Linux. (by Aanomymous. on 2004-11-22 22:11:10 GMT)
I my view, there is too much fuzzy(unsubstantiated) talk from Microsoft about Linux, and from Linux communauty, about Microsoft.
I would suggest to start a Weblob (may already exist), on this interesting topic, and focus Distrowatch, on Linux, and also other Unix, including but not limited to Solaris.
About Linux, I would like (and trying on my own), to read very specific, on what are the differences between distros.
Examples:
* KERNELS: why should one prefer 2.6 etc...
* EMAILERS: I am happy with none of them, there are too many limitations, but I use kmail as an acceptable compromise, but would eventually favor one which is the same (user's view) on most available OS'es: Thunderbird... that I do not like yet.
* FTP clients,: command line and GUI.
* INSTALLERS-UPDATERS: So far MAndrake and SUSE are my favorites. I believe that Linux will be more present on the desktops, when the install for non "techies", will be a breeze (Like commercial OS'es), we are not thre yet.
* WEB tools: Quanta (I dislike the new name), is good, compare to others.
* STABILITY: the strengh of Linux, always an issue.
* And many more issues which are either distro, or applications related. The more specific, detailed the best.
And remember: a good journalist separate facts from opinions.
And both are valuable.
This was my 2 c.
35 • Microsoft publicity for Linux (by Andrew Yeomans on 2004-11-22 22:21:00 GMT)
I'm still bemused by how much publicity Microsoft is giving Linux. The advertising screams out "short-list Linux, it's an obvious competitor" when making purchase comparisons. Perhaps there's a Linux sympathiser in the Microsoft marketing department, or perhaps they want purchasers to forget all the other systems such as Unix.
Once upon a time, Linux could be dismissed as a geek toy. But this Microsoft campaign legitimises it as a true competitor.
36 • RE: Marconi & far-away country (by ladislav at 2004-11-22 23:10:10 GMT)
I'm a little bit disapointed by seeing Brazil being refered to as a "some far-away country"
I think you've misunderstood the meaning of the sentence. The term "far-away country" refers to the USA, not Brazil!
37 • Solaris (by jmings at 2004-11-22 23:32:17 GMT)
If you include Solaris which is neither free (gratis-updates will cost) nor free (libere-licence restrictions) you might as well include Micro$oft and $CO.
38 • @ jimings (by GW on 2004-11-23 00:01:10 GMT)
The reason they are talking about Solaris is that it apparently will be free (libere-licence restrictions) soon. RTFA.
39 • huh (by escapenguin at 2004-11-23 00:01:58 GMT)
You can basically make Mutt do everything but brush your teeth. Limitations? Get ready for a tedious read though.
Eh, the last time I used the Xandros installer, it was easier than installing XP. Suse was nice in that you could keep it simple and let it do everything for you, or even configure everything down to what encryption you'd like to use for login passwords. Most of the people who seem to have problems installing GNU/Linux, at least with the easy distros, have trouble with computers, period.
Xandros install continued: And I didn't have to use a product code.
The biggest limitation for GNU/Linux and the BSDs' success and implementation is how intuitive the applications are to use. I'm willing to guess 85% at least of the computer using population just doesn't have the patience required, or a do-it-for-me attitude, or both.
I'm mostly happy with the way things are.
40 • SUN Doco (by Gordon at 2004-11-23 00:17:01 GMT)
While Solaris is certainly not perfect., No one should complain about the amount of documentation. Check out:
www.sun.com/documentation
www.sun.com/bigadmin
If anything there is too much doco...
41 • More Linux sites sponsered by Microsoft (by Capnkirby at 2004-11-23 00:38:56 GMT)
Found a great big MS add in the forums at www.justlinux.com,
Hmmm, sounds like a contradiction to me.....
Capn
42 • distrowatch + solaris (by Anonymous at 2004-11-23 01:05:04 GMT)
How about-
Put the fun back into computing- don't do windows =) he he he
43 • No subject (by Max on 2004-11-23 01:50:12 GMT)
Apparently Bill Gates named his company after his penis....
44 • RE: Linux market fragmentation (by Karl at 2004-11-23 01:53:01 GMT)
>> Hikarunix - great, just what the world of Linux needed: a
>> distro specifically geared for a single game. So what, I'm
>> supposed to download yet another huge ISO file, burn and
>> boot a whole other OS, just to play GO?!
not so huge. ~190MB, but ...uhhhh.... yeah.
>> When people talk about the fragmentation of Linux, this is a
>> perfect example. No good can come of projects like this, IMO.
>> But this - this is not good at all. This kind of fragmentation can
>> only weaken Linux, which is a shame.
As the maintainer of the Hikarunix distro I get these comments a lot. I find it a bit odd. When I think of the fragmentation of Linux I think of the X number of different "general purpose" desktop distros splintering users in different directions. I think of the duplication of effort in various projects with the exact same software goals. Is Hikarunix extremely specialized? Sure. Is it overly specialized? I guess it depends on your expectations of a distro.
Most people have some wrong assumptions about Hikarunix. Hikarunix is not meant to be your permanent OS. It is a portable OS. It fits on a 210MB 3" miniCD so you can take it with you. One of its functions is to teach people how to play. Having a portable OS lets you take it to a friend's house and boot their machine to Hikarunix and teach them without installing anything. It's a small easy hand out for those trying to teach others how to play Go (there's a self guided tutorial on the CD). It's also a one-stop-shop for everything Go for those addicted to this fantastic game. That combined with its portability gives you the entire world of Go from your back pocket to any free machine you can find.
Like specialized embedded Linux devices, I feel this distro shows the flexibility of Linux. The more you think of it as a portable Go "gadget" rather than a desktop or server distro the better a perspective you'll have.
45 • Microsoft FUD (by Anonymous on 2004-11-23 01:56:21 GMT)
Steve Ballmer took ASIA as test bed for M$ FUD. He thinks he can kill businesses, even blackmail Asian Government with US mighty look. Thanks for bringing more attention to Linux. Like Linux clashing with M$ patents, M$ too clash with Linux patens ( I means GPL). This is going to be clear to all people. And All countries going to see this in clear light. Sooner or Later stupid software patents going to be checked and revised and dropped. The results are not going to be like Music industry affected by Piracy, but the opposite. Are guys with me ?
- Dishk
46 • GIMP release 2.2.0 is coming closer (by Anonymous on 2004-11-23 01:59:32 GMT)
Gimp team released 2.2.0pre2. According to GIMP one more release is expected from GTK+ library for a bug fix which shows delay when creating image. After that the stable release 2.2.0 will be released.
47 • No more Mr. Nice Guy... (by Mark Tomlinson at 2004-11-23 02:02:25 GMT)
Following is the text of the email I just sent to Microsoft:
I have used Microsoft products since before MS-DOS 1.0 (anybody remember BASIC?). I have been a beta-tester for Windows 95 and NT. I have attempted to "pour oil upon the troubled waters" (see my article "Stop the Jihad!" at www.madpenguin.org) in the sometimes ugly Linux-vs-Microsoft public discussion. I have maintained a Windows 2000 partition on my home computer (even though I use Linux for everything but compatability issues with documents generated at work).
This stops NOW.
I am removing ALL Microsft products from my computer. My only use of Microsoft products will be (grudgingly) at work - and if I can convince our IT people to switch, I will. I will no longer promote, recommend or sanction the use of Microsoft products.
Please understand me - healthy competition is fine, it's very much a part of our ecomomic culture. But the competition should be based a a product's merits and on fact. Mr. Ballmer's recent comments regarding the threat of litigation against users of Linux (and, by extrapolation, any open source software) are based on neither. These statements are particularly egregious since Dan Ravicher, the author of the OSRM study cited, has publicly stated that, "The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does."
Until Microsoft abandons such bullying and monopolistic marketing practices and proves that they are producing high-quality software at a fair price, my computers will be Microsoft-free - and I will attempt to convince anyone else that I can to do the same.
Sincerely,
Mark W. Tomlinson
Santa Monica, CA, USA
48 • Check this out.... (by Max on 2004-11-23 02:05:32 GMT)
http://www.windowsrefund.net/
49 • About Go. (by woodie on 2004-11-23 02:06:13 GMT)
Ladislav, I think you made a mistake. Go is definintely *not* a Japanese Game. It appeared in ancient china more than 3000 years ago. The Japanese learnt the game (and many many other things) from Tang dynasty, which is a chinese dynasty founded more than 1000 years ago.
Anyway, thank yuo for this nice site. And the weekly is the part I like best. Well done!
50 • RE: Linux market fragmentation (by Nameles on 2004-11-23 03:11:11 GMT)
I feel compelled to defend Hikarunix. I am not a Go player but have always had an interest to try it out. However the information and software is scattered all over the place and it's a lot of work to research, download, install, and configure all the required software. Here, with one short download, burn a CD, boot... and I have all I'll ever need to learn and play Go both against the computer and against other people online. Not to mention Firefox populated with all the bookmarks to all the best Go sites. It's great to have everything in one neat package like this. Who knows, it might even convert some non-Linux Go players over to Linux. I see it as very positive for both Go and Linux. (I'm actually writing this using Hikarunix).
51 • About Go. (by woodie on 2004-11-23 03:33:43 GMT)
Ladislav, I think you made a mistake. Go is definintely *not* a Japanese Game. It appeared in ancient china more than 3000 years ago. The Japanese learnt the game (and many many other things) from Tang dynasty, which is a chinese dynasty founded more than 1000 years ago.
Anyway, thank yuo for this nice site. And the weekly is the part I like best. Well done!
52 • A second thought (by William Roddy at 2004-11-23 04:00:44 GMT)
Ladislav was justified in allowing encouraging the discussion of Steve Ballmer's Asian comments. And Mr. Tomlinson said much more eloquently and with much more authority what I tried to say earlier this morning. Thank you, sir.
I believe that Mr. Ballmer's comments in Asia are not, in the least, off-handed, but the opening salvo of a much larger, more public strategy to defame the open-source community and to make those who use Linux appear to be fanatic, uninformed thieves.
Do you like the idea of being called a thief? I don't. And soon he could be comparing Linux/BSD users to the pirate cartels of Asia who steal intellectual property and have no respect for any law or right.
I sincerely believe we witnesses to a new Microsoft beginning.
For those of us who find Mr. Ballmer's words deplorable, it would seem prudent not only to remove the products from our own use patterns, but to also install Linux on as many machines as owners will let us.
I believe MANY Linux distributions are FAR easier to install and far more complete "out-of-the-box" experience than Windows, but that's hardly the point. Most people have NEVER installed Windows on a computer themselves, so the issue of ease of installation is a red herring we all tend to spread ourselves. You don't ask someone, "Have you ever tried to install Linux?" You ask them, "Have you ever tried to install Windows?"
The position I'm taking now is exactly opposite of the one I took just one week ago, and it is because of the blatant nature of Mr. Ballmer's comments during that time.
I am convinced that now is not the time to be lulled into a sense of complacency, based on our past experience of Linux having thrived, while Microsoft watched. Those days are gone. They have joined the battle. The first shots of a new war have been fired. And the oppressor will triumph only if the oppressed do nothing.
The burden of proof lays with Mr. Ballmer. I am 63 years old and disable and if Mr. Ballmer wants to come by and punch me out, I'll send him my address. But I will also end every communications, from this point forward, with this challenge:
Prove it, Mr. Ballmer. Prove it or shut the hell up.
53 • Re: William Roddy (by Anonymous on 2004-11-23 05:05:06 GMT)
Welcome back William!
54 • Re:Check this out.... (by EEDOK at 2004-11-23 05:10:39 GMT)
http://www.windowsrefund.net/
A dead project?
55 • Ballmer's Folly (by Mick Webb at 2004-11-23 07:00:28 GMT)
Well, Steve Ballmer has played his hand, and stuck his 'size thirteen' exactly where we all might have guessed he would...
So, I have to say that I'm glad others (Mark Tomlinson, for one) have decided that enough is enough, and have deleted the Microsoft partitions from their machines. Getting rid of Windows is sorta like quitting smoking; once you get past the cravings everything tastes and smells better.
Microsoft? Or Linux?
Big business? Or community?
On-size-fits-all? Or flexability?
Worry? Or security?
There comes a time when you have to make a stand for something - or you'll fall for anything...
56 • RE: Linux market fragmentation (by Richard van Loenen at 2004-11-23 10:55:02 GMT)
Ms-windows is like a big dinosaur, dangerous because it's huge. But it's species knows little variation. Linux can be compared to the little mammals living in the age of the dinosaurs, they were numerous and divers. I think that the market fragmentation (read: biodiversity) of linux will result in the eventual supremacy of linux. Linux can fill almost every niche through it's diversity, is highly adaptable and therefore will survive no matter what. I'm just patiently waiting for a meteor to hit, ignoring the growling and howling of the ms-dino in the meantime.
57 • linux isn't ready to replace (by Geert Braekmans on 2004-11-23 11:39:49 GMT)
Microsoft is a buggy os.
I agree.
But Linux just isn't ready to replace it.
Linux lacks device drivers.
However, I do think that in a couple of years the situation will change, once more and more linux users start posting on the manufactor's forums requesting for linux drivers.
The linux, no games-problem seems to be solving too.
Geert
58 • Solaris (by Lord-Storm on 2004-11-23 14:04:38 GMT)
Solaris would be nice to put under unix section with BSD's. And also I like to come to distrowatch for all my OSneeds lol.
Top 5 sites for me:
1: Neworder
2: AtomicMPC
3: Distrowatch
4: OSnews
5: Julex Linux
Distrowatch has replaced linux.org and linuxiso for me :)
59 • Strategy (by Brent Wood at 2004-11-23 14:17:54 GMT)
I personally believe that M$ is running scared ( or should be ) as the same tactic used by them in the "browser war" is now being used against them to great success. Flooding the market with a strong product will turn the tide in the same way. And when users begin to see the light, the flood gates will open in much the same way IE poured over Netscape. Looks like evolution to me.... starting with this "revolution" called Linux.
My boat is ready for the flood...
60 • One problem will solaris (by Lord-Storm on 2004-11-23 14:18:50 GMT)
No Kitty Wallpaper.. oh no thats not it.
The HCL sucks (hardware compatability list) 4 or so M/b's on it well sun hardware would work. But their is not enough HCL items on the site. I will be testing the latest 4iso's and puting my board up there.
61 • Patrick Volkerding (by Benjamin Vander Jagt at 2004-11-23 16:13:38 GMT)
We keep Patrick Volkerding in our prayers. May the Lord bless you and keep you, Pat.
62 • ubuntu (by ray carter at 2004-11-23 16:17:00 GMT)
I've been happy with what I've seen from Ubuntu - it seems very clean and professional. I also did an ftp install of Mandrake 10.1OE last week - I've been running 9.0 and 9.1 on my computers at home. I did have an interesting experience over the last couple of days - I decided to look for open source linux software for doing 'panorama photos' i.e. stitching together several digital images to make one long panoramic view. I discovered three programs which work together to facilitate the process: autopano, hugin, and enblend. Unfortunately, I could not find them in the software repositories of Gentoo or Ubuntu, and when I attempted to install from source, I ran into dependancy problems on both platforms. I did, however, find Mandrake 10.1 rpm's which installed with no bother, and ran fine, out of the box. That's clearly a point for Mandrake.
63 • Microsoft (by sam piale at 2004-11-23 17:00:09 GMT)
Maybe Microsoft should try to make its programs work on linux to secure it survival since it won't belong before it starts dying from its own anti-fud campaigns.
64 • congratulations ladislav! (by anonymous on 2004-11-23 17:05:35 GMT)
You made a great decision. I think that the FreeBSD OS is a much better choice than the aging Debian Linux distribution.
65 • FreeBSD vs Linux (by Anthony at 2004-11-23 17:42:05 GMT)
I was dissapointed that ladisav would switch his server to BSD.
Here's why
1) Licensing issues. More free - but easier to rip off and resell.
One of the original problems with Unix has been licensing. BSD has been frequently ripped of by companies such as Microsoft, Sun, and Apple. These companies have a tendency of not giving back to the project.
2) Recently not as innovative
From what I know BSD these days is primarly Linux with a BSD kernel. That is all the linux/gnu libraries with a bsd kernel. With the effort put in by IBM, SGI, Redhat, and others such as NUMA, Block I/O Layer improvements, Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL) etc.. linux seems to be the OS with momentum.
66 • FreeBSD's is not up to date since 14.11.2004 (by sergio at 2004-11-23 21:31:50 GMT)
oops check it here, by yourself
http://distrowatch.com/freebsd
it says 14 november
6 CURRENT 5 STABLE
2004/11/14 2004/11/14
link is up to date at http://distrowatch.cz/freebsd
weird ...
nice site though
have a good day
67 • RE: All, I guess (by Anon E. Mouse on 2004-11-23 23:00:03 GMT)
It's ironic that this page contains both a criticism of the "fragmentation" of Linux and attacks on Microsoft, the "MONOPOLY."
The moment I saw the announcement of Hikarunix, my heart picked up pace. Why? Because I spent hours trying to round up suitable Go software for my mother-in-law, and was faced with the burden of explaining how to install my selections on her Windows machine. But here's a distro that I can burn onto a CD and give to her the next time we meet for dinner. "Put in your computer as soon as you turn it on." I'll say. "Thanks!" she'll say. The most unlikely candidate in the world will suddenly be using Linux.
Maybe fragmentation isn't such a bad thing. Maybe she or someone else will be inspired enough to develop a distribution that rivals Slackware (get well, Pat!). Could this even be a possibility with Windows or Solaris? Even the BSDs don't offer this much choice.
Diversity is strength. Monocultures are prone to failure. The "fragmentation" of Linux is simply proof that it is a tool that offers solutions to an enormous number of problems in an increasing number of fields. Just take a look at all of the special purpose Knoppix distros for evidence of this.
68 • re: FreeBSD vs Linux (by jk on 2004-11-23 23:13:15 GMT)
1) that's subjective. For one I prefer the BSD license as you say it's more free. Some other people like the GPL. Some other people like this, ...
2) 'From what I know' -> what you think you know is incorrect.
69 • Response to Anthony RE: FreeBSD vs. Linux (by Anonymous on 2004-11-23 23:18:52 GMT)
1) The licensing issues have been and will always be a matter of contention in this community. Personally, I like the GPL and use Linux for most everything I do. But licensing shouldn't be your only concern when it is time to get a job done.
2) There's an argument to be made about FreeBSD being nothing more than a Linux distro with a BSD kernel as well but I won't argue it because, for the most part, I agree. In saying that, it's all a matter of choice that thankfully, we can all make and have the ability to make.
That's enough ranting for now. :)
70 • NO to Solaris (by sanitys3j at 2004-11-24 03:54:13 GMT)
@ least untill it's actually official that it's open source. What Sun's doing now w/ Solaris 10 seems an awful lot like what they did w/ Java in the recent past. "Oh yeah, we're gonna open it up..........errr, uh.......not really.......gotcha!"
71 • BeatrIX (by William Roddy at 2004-11-24 04:55:06 GMT)
Just downloaded BeatrIX. It's fun, the Web site, if funny and helpful, and you just might enjoy it.
72 • Solaris (by jimveta on 2004-11-24 07:41:12 GMT)
Just wanted to clear something up: Solaris is free as in free-beer. Updates/patches are and will *remain* free as in free-beer (despite some misleading news to the contrary). However, free-beer means no official support. And it will, I believe, will be free as in free-speech (but not GPL of course) soon with an OSI approved license.
Solaris probably has the most documentation out of all the OSs: http://docs.sun.com -- and man pages as well. In fact, much like and more so than the BSDs, Solaris comes with man pages for *everything* that's produced by Sun, including obscure programming interfaces, drivers, ALL public config files, etc. (do a "man -s1 intro" as a starting point).
As for utilites, it comes with tons. Hunt around in /usr and /usr/sfw and try doing a "man -a" and whatever program you find. If you spend a long enough time going through all the books on docs.sun.com, you'll eventually play around with most of them though.
In regards to the BSDs, as far as I know, BSD's user land *system level* utilities and libraries are NOT GPL, rather they're still native BSD, which is good for them. In fact, Theo as far as I can tell is pushing for more BSDL permeation. .. Now this is always a contentious subject but I believe If the GPL is called "free-speech", then the BSDL deserves to be called "free-will".
73 • Berry Linux 0.50 Splash Logo (by Zipslack on 2004-11-24 17:52:40 GMT)
Is it just me, or is that a marijuna plant in the latest Berry release? Maybe it's some Asian plant I'm not familiar with, but I can't use it in my lab because all my students were convinced it was marijuana. Anybody want to shed some light on this?
74 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2004-11-24 22:09:40 GMT)
I just crashed Mepis using mouse only. So much for "linux is rock-stable"
75 • Microsoft's attack of Linux (by FlyFish at 2004-11-25 02:17:06 GMT)
It is wrong to say that Linux is having a small impact on Microsoft's profits. The US Air Force recently used the Linux threat to negotiate a better deal for them (http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/1119airforce.html). The title of the article sounds like Microsoft won a big new contract but if you read through it, it is clear that the threat of using Linux forced Microsoft into promising the special Windows configuration and a much lower price. This is just the latest example of governments and corporations using Linux to beat Microsoft up at the negotiating table.
Yea ... it would be better if these organizations had the guts and foresight to actually switch now, but believe me when I say that Microsoft is feeling the impact right now. And it is only going to get worse as Linux/BSD gets better. Welcome to the world of real competition Microsoft! And what is worse for them, they cannot use their normal tactics of buying out, suing or otherwise squashing the competition since their opponent is a diverse group of people spread out over the world as opposed to a centrally located for-profit corporation. The only tool they have against it is FUD, and anyone in IT with a few brain cells still working can see through that. It's kind of fun to watch the wheels starting to come off!
76 • Re: Solaris (by jimveta on 2004-11-24 07:41:12 GMT) (by Lord-Storm on 2004-11-25 05:12:43 GMT)
I agree sometimes free as in beer is good enough. And once the licence is approved it will be free as in sqweeky voice in the croud. I currently do not want 5billion solaris editions. Though Sun in the news is starting to let way what type of licence turns up.
From the Solaris users I have spoken to they have not yet talked about one bad thing in what is happening to 10. Though HCL isnt that good and I hope people will at least embrace that adding their systems is part of the free as in speach. HCL are important in choosing a system that is right for you. As the community has not grown their is very few people willing to help you at the moment and Sun needs to guide the community carfully. And not end up like mainstream Linux RTFM. Noob's are just that I respect them but with a limited amount of guiding they can improve.
77 • Tux Magazine (by ChiJoan at 2004-11-25 09:51:13 GMT)
Thanks for the news regarding this addition to available Linux periodicals. In a way, I hope it is as well conceived and displayed as England's LinuxFormat magazine, which I so often find missing at bookstores; it is that popular here, but too costly to subscribe to here in the states without a credit card.
My prayers go out to Slackware's author. I hope he will recover and continue in his pursuits and desires. He has already done much to provide a great Linux learning distribution for teachers and students. I just wish more teachers used it instead of Red Hat when teaching Linux or Unix install and config classes.
Is there anyway to by-pass the BIOS password to use a Linux live CD on a college campus? If not anyone have other suggestions to promote Linux? There are so few in the Linux classes, I'm afraid they may cancel them at the community college. I wish I had a laptop to take to school and show Linux that way.
Thanks for a great Web site,
ChiJoan
78 • Berry Linux leaf (by William Roddy at 2004-11-25 20:15:31 GMT)
I believe the leaf is that of a variety of Japanese Maple. There are several photos of similar leaves on the Internet. One of them, it its fall colors, is located at
http://www.washington.edu/home/treetour/jmaple.html
Through e-mails, I have found Yuichiro Nakada, maintainer of the distribution, to be a kind and gentle person who is passionate about Linux and who loves beauty.
His distribution is unique, for an RPM-based Linux, in its small size, simplicity, and frequent upgrades. It is a distribution that I would be proud to share with any of my 15 grandchildren.
79 • That ain't dope (by Anonymous on 2004-11-25 20:44:45 GMT)
The Berry Linux leaf isn't dope. Believe me. I lived in Humboldt County for years and I know.
Be nice to share what it really is with your students, so they won't be so culturally deprived and wishful in their thinking.
In other words, don't be rollin no blunt from that shake 'cause high it ain't gonna you make.
80 • Re: Berry Linux leaf (by Anonymous on 2004-11-26 08:23:22 GMT)
Knowing this might come in handy one day.
"No, no, it's my... um... oh yeah, it's my bonsai Japanese Maple, dude." :D
Sorry for the /. quality joke. The distro looks good. Maybe I'll give it a go.
81 • Personal choice (by William Roddy at 2004-11-26 08:55:25 GMT)
I would like to repudiate an earlier small recommendation of BeatrIX I wrote here.
82 • Re Personal Choice (by Tux5 at 2004-11-26 15:24:10 GMT)
William, would you care to share any of your experiences with Beatrix?
83 • http://www.dropline.net (by McMuffin at 2004-11-26 18:18:35 GMT)
Huh... Seems that somebody just defaced http://www.dropline.net
Check it out...
84 • re: Tux5 question (by William Roddy at 2004-11-26 19:34:25 GMT)
Sir or Ma'am,
It is difficult to fill your question, in a public forum. It would be easier to answer more fully if I knew who was actually making the request. I have great respect for your choice of anonymity. My choice to include my real name has sometimes costly to my time and emotions. Yet, I, too, have chosen to sometimes allow a less formal alter-ego of mine, Staggerforth, to chose less formal words for me, a habit I otherwise can't escape.
BeatrIX Linux is a nice, minimalist distribution that uses the Ubuntu Multiverse repository as its only Debian sourced, and is being maintained in the Czech Republic, a country where several fine software products are being maintained. The site maintainer here is an American who has chosen to leave the U.S. permanently because of differences he has with policies with our government. During the course of it, I shared some rather personal experiences, all the while knowing that they were now public.
None of that has caused my decision. It is, rather, that I made several posts on their Web site, as one of the relatively few new users, first, to compliment, as I always try to do, and second, when the maintainer and I truck up an exchange on their forum.
I respect the fact that people have differences of opinion and the differences in our opinions, based on our exchanges, would not have caused me to repudiate my recommendation. But I found it difficult to accept a general post in which the maintainer appeared quite angry about people who chose to offer suggestions for additions to his distribution, and who chose to differ, as well, with clearly-stated anti-U.S points of view that are posted on a Web site of his that is linked from his BeatrIX home page.
The new post indicated that he was tracking the IP addresses of those who wrote in and that the people who were generally causing him the most grief were from the U.S. I felt this was not useful to Linux's world fellowship, nor to Ubuntu, a live-and-let-live based philosophy, nor to the issue of concern for personal privacy.
Having expressed my discomfort with confrontational threads here on DistroWatch, a site I admire and use a lot, and having taken a hiatus from the site because of that reasoning, I did not want to be involved in what appeared might become an escalation of controversy at the BeatrIX site.
Because their site was new, with new people coming to visit, I had, as well, taken time to write some very basic Linux-oriented posts that might be useful to the new user, to pass on what had been passed on to me. Part of the maintainer's complaint in his most recent post was about "suggestions" that were coming from the U.S. I was quite concerned that he might be referring to something I might have written that unintentionally offended him. That was another reason I chose to distance myself.
I am an older person, disabled during service to my country, and it is difficult for me to reconcile the criticisms that are being made against the U.S. with the sacrifices, far more severe than mine, that other veterans have made for this country. So I admit to being sensitive to anti-U.S. rhetoric. However, I try to listen, discuss, and learn other points of view.
But the reason I made my choice was based on the IP address categorizing and anything else that might follow it, the disapproval of suggestions, when they were clearly asked for, and the negative impact this may or may not have on Ubuntu Linux and on the world Linux community.
In my age and illness, what has thrilled me most has been the helpfulness and kindness of so many people in the open-source community who were willing to be so patient with me while I learned and asked question. It is a community of peaceful people with useful goals.
This post has been long, and to all, I apologize for that, and I apologize again to Ladislav. Even with its length, it is not complete. But please, let's leave it at that. Everywhere I turn these day, I seem to be traps to take me away from a peaceful completion of my life, after so much war.
Peacefulness and possibilities,
Wil
P.S. The alter ego, Staggerforth, is no longer with us.
85 • Berry Linux (by Soloact at 2004-11-26 20:29:14 GMT)
Berry Linux has been my personal favorite "Live" distro for quite awhile now. It has also been extremely useful in recovering data from friends' PCs with MSWindows that won't boot into that OS. Even though I'm still on a dialup connection, I still download every new version of Berry LInux when it becomes available.
Number of Comments: 85
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