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1 • No subject (by Gnobian_Ken00bie on 2005-04-18 05:55:37 GMT from United States)
This is one of the most interesting and informative weeklies in some time. Great job, Robert. I hope the flu passes quickly.
2 • via (by paul h at 2005-04-18 09:42:22 GMT from United States)
i have one of those via mmain boards and the small fan for the c3 are unaudable unless you put your ear next to it. What i plan to do to it is to have a built mini-itx case and make it noisless or without hdd or spinning.
3 • top job (by dukeinlondon on 2005-04-18 10:07:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
This is by far the best newsletter on linux available right now. Well done for a great review.
4 • ssh Tip Re: FreeBSD 5.3 - Not So Gaga (by Claudio Nieder on 2005-04-18 10:14:56 GMT from Switzerland)
Hi,
run two sshd on different port. That's what I started to do after I once locked
myself out by my own stupidity. With two sshd on different ports, when one
instance dies, I can still log in trough the other.
claudio
5 • great! (by david m. c. on 2005-04-18 10:45:21 GMT from Venezuela)
great newsletter
less is more!
About Linux,hope some country started using it so that Domino Effects clearly begins to happen. I think if Brazil begins that attitude, probably nearby countries will also do that.
6 • A few thoughts (by Andrew on 2005-04-18 11:16:55 GMT from Canada)
The adoption of free software in Brazil is hampered by a simple thing : the lack of a decent power grid. Those who would benefit from the PC Conectado project live in areas where electricity is elusive, to say the least. Therefore, why would anybody pay $20 per month for a computer that will never be powered on ? ... unless of course the said computer could use Duracell. As for the domino theory, enough people have already died in destitute places all over the world because of that nonsense.
The ssh problem should be fixed by the OpenSSH team, not the FreeBSD developers. If there is indeed a worm attacking ssh ports, maybe that would explain why my Coyote Linux router is sluggish. It's as if it can't process the simplest DNS request at certain times. The only port that's opened is ssh for remote administration. I'll have to close it and see what happens.
When Robert is amazed by the way Kanotix gets installed on a hard drive, it means that something is rotten in Debian land. Branden Robinson said in an interview that Sarge wouldn't be released until the installer got fixed. That's a bummer : how can they stumble on such a trivial task when smaller crews (Mepis, Knoppix, Kanotix, etc.) shine in that department ? Also, if the number of supported architecture was really an issue, there would be one NetBSD release every 5 years. Well, I guess I'm venting too much frustation ... it's time to stop.
7 • Debian and the popularity of Ubuntu. (by Eric on 2005-04-18 11:30:43 GMT from Netherlands)
Facts are that Ubuntu is way easier to install for newbies. Facts are that the Ubuntu packages are more up-to-date than Debian. Facts are that Ubuntu comes on one single CD, instead of 8+. Facts are that the ubuntu user fora are full with very kind and helpfull people. Ian might consider these facts while evalutating where Debian has been moving to. Debian is a beautiful and secure distro, but lacks accessibility for the general public.
8 • Brazil (by Lindsay on 2005-04-18 12:00:28 GMT from United States)
i hope Brazil uses Linux exclusivly and tells Billy borg Gates to stick his MS-Kludgeware where the sun don't shine,,,
great weekly news Robert Storey, thanks :)
9 • Kanotix (by Graham on 2005-04-18 12:02:03 GMT from Australia)
I'd like to know how you get so much info about Kanotix. ie. that there'll be a bug fix for 2005-02, etc. Kano doesn't reveal much in the forums, so where do you get your info? Great job with this week's newsletter.
10 • Debian and the popularity of Ubuntu. (by Eric on 2005-04-18 12:22:38 GMT from Netherlands)
Facts are that Ubuntu is way easier to install for newbies. Facts are that the Ubuntu packages are more up-to-date than Debian. Facts are that Ubuntu comes on one single CD, instead of 8+. Facts are that the ubuntu user fora are full with very kind and helpfull people. Ian might consider these facts while evalutating where Debian has been moving to. Debian is a beautiful and secure distro, but lacks accessibility for the general public.
11 • No sympathy for Debian… (by pr0c on 2005-04-18 12:58:58 GMT from United States)
Debian’s politics hurt it.
Debian’s [insane amount of] multiple architectures hurt it.
Debian’s extremely slow release schedule hurt it.
Debian’s support hurts it. [See note 1]
Debian’s lack of management hurts it.
Debian’s “obsession” with “stability” hurts it VERY much. [See note 2]
Debian’s own policies are hurting it; not Ubuntu or any other reasons... They have made their bed and now its time to sleep in it. They either need to change what their doing, die, or stop whining. If they aren’t careful Ubuntu could end up as a fork of the Debian project.
The cure for Debian (IMHO) is to split into two types; one focused on the desktop (like Ubuntu) where they can push packages through at a much faster rate. The desktop version should be on 3 architectures, i386 (686 optimized), athlon64 and PowerPC. The other type is the stable sever (web, applications, etc), that one should have a lot fewer packages and focus on all the different architectures. The server version should move still at a faster pace than the current release pattern.
FYI, I used Debian for 3-4 years.
[1] I have never seen such an unfriendly bunch on IRC. No support would be better than what they provide. Watch how they treat newbies.
[2] 3-4 years ago it seamed to be more stable than any other linux distro. Now it seams most all distros are even when they spend 1/100th (literally) of the time on stability.
Flame me here http://nate.comdel.net/archive/2005/04/18/201.aspx
12 • Good stuff (by AQ on 2005-04-18 13:11:24 GMT from United States)
Good show Robert!
I think you missed some high profile news though. The city of Munich chose Debian after months of courting from Novell Suse and IBM. They even weathered the threats and gameplay of the beast (MS).
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39195204,00.htm
Also, I had never heard of those low wattage mini boards. Are those boards on the open market, or are they only sold by that axiomtech company?
13 • About HTTP (by Kim on 2005-04-18 13:18:54 GMT from Germany)
> As you no doubt know, HTTP can also transfer files, but only in one direction (download) - FTP lets you upload as well.
This is a common misconception. HTTP includes a request method called "PUT" that enables you to upload files.
14 • speaking of Mini-ITX (by crawancon on 2005-04-18 13:27:02 GMT from United States)
damnsmalllinux.org has a nifty little m-ITX store... they even sell the motherboard, etc, with a damnsmalllinux iso on a smartcard already attached. (yes you can use any other iso you wish..)
as a side note, most of the distro's that are "geared towards older equipment" work extremely well under the mini-itx circumstances.
vectorlinux, feather/featherweight linux, devillinux, puppy, etc etc.. all work extremely well (BLAZING when loaded into ram...). with nano-ITX coming in and now the dual core VIA, some amazing things are crawling out of cracks in the linux house. :-)
15 • RE: Debian and the popularity of Ubuntu. (by Captain Carrot on 2005-04-18 14:03:30 GMT from Germany)
In general I agree with your view: Ubuntu is good for newbies, better than Debian. But I think that Debian is better for "intermediate" and "experienced" users, who have used GNU/Linux for some years.
Ubuntu has quickly become an important part of the Debian family and it has attracted lots of new users. Still, Ubuntu is just a Debian derivative and there are also other very good newbie-friendly Debian derivatives available. I'd recommend Ubuntu if you are a newbie and want the Gnome desktop. If you are a newbie and want the KDE desktop or a good live-CD, consider Mepis or Kanotix. IMO, they are better than Kubuntu. Other good live-CD's are Knoppix and Damn Small Linux but these are not that good for hd-installation.
But if you've used GNU/Linux for some years and are familiar with the command line, Debian Testing/Sarge can offer a better and more stable desktop than any Debian derivative, IMO.
BTW, the new Debian-Installer (for Sarge) is really good. If you've got a fast net connection, download the "netinst CD image" (just 104 MB) from this page: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ Burn the image to a CD and boot it with "linux26" to install Debian with the 2.6 kernel. Before installation read the documentation that is available at the installer page. Also watch these screenshots that show how the installation will proceed: http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=184&slide=1
Whichever of these options you choose, you'll become a member of the Debian community. And that's something to be proud of.
16 • good stuff (by Mark on 2005-04-18 14:05:56 GMT from United States)
Really enjoyed the news this week, when Ladi gets back in town maybe
you could do a wedsday(?) techletter. Two on monday would be too
much and I want both. Been interested in ftp for awhile without finding
something that fit my low IQ and picked up most of what I wanted to
know. Again good work
17 • ViVA la ViA (by Gimp Addict on 2005-04-18 14:29:12 GMT from Germany)
The "Viva VIA" part is excellent.
At this point of time ViA-CPU-Systems can be used confidently as working-PC's, as long as you don't need 3D or so.
I have been operating a ViA-System for more than a year now and I highly appreciate it for it's friendship with silence and our enviroment.
Count me in for the 64-bit-Eden-Dual-Wishlist.
18 • Ubuntu-vs.-Debian (by titiv on 2005-04-18 14:37:10 GMT from France)
How can Debian people be so blindminded !!!
Linspire = no problem
Xandros = no problem
Ubuntu = discussions, polemics ...?/!
I perso don't like linspire and Xandros as they made a pay-distro out freesoftware (nothing wrong up to now) but not giving back as much as they take.
I never could go to a full debian install even with the "new (lol)" fedora installer, and more getting some new stuffs unless you wait for ages.
With Ubuntu I can use an easy install distro, configuring my own desk, use the best of free softs (at least for me), without headake or going into endless config files or howto made by an alien..
That's maybe the reason why some "debianists geeks" are so furious about!
19 • Libranet 3.0 released (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-04-18 15:05:22 GMT from Italy)
That is correct. It has been released today.
It looks like a mighty release: 5 CDs or one DVD, a la SUSE or a la Mandrake (Mandriva)
It doesn't come cheap either: $89.95 new users. $ 64.95 existing users and students (download edition)
I'll probably buy it because Libranet was one of my first distros and because I simply can't resist.
However I am a (very) happy Kanotix user, which costs nothing except for voluntary donations.
How easy will be convincing Ubuntu/Kanotix/Mepis/Sarge users that they should pay $89.95 for yet another Debian derivative?
When I started using linux Libranet was the only easier Debian installer.
But in April 2005?
20 • Brazil against MS (by Flavio on 2005-04-18 15:10:09 GMT from Brazil)
Hi, I'm from Brasil, and as a linux user and developer, I really like to see if the government will create a PC Connect using Linux as only possible operating systems... MS is increasing pressure to PC Connect be released using also Windows XP Cheap Version made for Brazil...
The project is called Popular PC here and still not yet done because of many pressures...
Here in Brazil we have many great distros like Conectiva, GoblinX, Kurumin, Kalango, Dizinha, FeniX... and more...
21 • Kanotix (by hotdogdan on 2005-04-18 15:15:29 GMT from United States)
Great review. I have been using Kanotix for 2 weeks and dual boot Kanotix and Linspire. Kanotix has all that I need,. Kano has done a great job with this distro. I have tested 22 distros and Kanotix is the best IMO.
I keep Linspire because of its stability and I like giving to a company that dows so much for the open source community. Linspire sponsers NVU, KDE-Look, MP3, LSongs, Lplayer, Mozilla-Firefox and a host of others. Glad to see they are backing the open source community.
22 • VIA (by mike on 2005-04-18 15:15:35 GMT from United States)
I run Ubuntu on a VIA mini-itx board. It's not my primary computer, but it works very well. Mine has a fan, which is rather noisy. The devices are very well supported in the 2.6.x kernel.
I use the system for basic home office stuff and some audio editing. Like all of my linux systems, I use XFCE for the desktop. Gnome tends to feel just a little bit sluggish.
23 • Great job, Robert! (by DaveW on 2005-04-18 15:42:25 GMT from United States)
The Via article was an interesting take on one direction Linux might take to conquer yet another niche.
The FTP article made me realize there was lots to explore re a topic I'd never paid much attention to. As in previous articles, you managed to hit just the right level between too tech and too condescending. You explain the basics and point to ways the reader can play around to REALLY learn the basics.
You're good at this stuff. Your articles are too good to just let them scroll by. Maybe Ladislav can be persuaded to provide a space on DW for an archive of your tip articles. It would be great if that space could include discussion space for each one.
Anyway, thanks for the good work, and here's hoping the mystery pills do their magic.
24 • Mandriva 10.2 official ? (by Leo on 2005-04-18 15:45:28 GMT from United States)
Guys, my upgrade to Mandriva 10.2 went smooth, and now I wonder. Is there going to be a 10.2 "official" release? (this one is in the devel ftp branch, corresponding to "community" edtions ) Where are the updates going to be placed ? In the devel branch ? It's all very confusing at this point, at least to me ...
thanks !
25 • RE: Mandriva 10.2 official ? (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-04-18 15:53:17 GMT from Italy)
Leo,
This *is* the official 10.2 release.
As to updates I suppose you are going to get them as usual, as for any previous release.
26 • Excellent choices of Software (by Kanotix on 2005-04-18 16:08:48 GMT from Singapore)
Among all distributions, nothing can beat Kanotix software collection.
Most other distro, leave lyx (an excellent documentation program), and gnucash ( good finance management program - if you don't manage atleast it helps students to practise their accounting skills).
But Kanotix, choose both of them in the distro.
Go ahead Kano!
27 • Brazil and VIA (by ray carter at 2005-04-18 16:10:35 GMT from United States)
I suggest that the ultimate answer for Brazil might be found in another part of this week's news - mini-itx. If the power grid is as unstable as another poster mentioned, maybe the ultimate solution is a mini-itx running linux with an inexpensive UPS box. BTW - I run Gentoo on my mini-itx (VIA EPIA M10k-Nehemiah - a 1 ghz small form factor box. It's about 1/3 as tall as my midi-tower, about 1/2 as deep, and same width. I have a DVD+-RW, 80gb hard disk, and use a USB floppy when I need it. I have five or six Linux distros installed, but the customized Gentoo is tops.
28 • EPIA 5000 (by ke4nt on 2005-04-18 16:20:33 GMT from United States)
I run a headless, fanless EPIA 5000 in my car with damnsmalllinux
booting off of a Compact Flash card. Absolutely no noise at all...
I use it to randomly serve up a playlist for my car audio system,
which I change up by revising my USBflash key contents...
I recently added a netgear USBwireless key, as I hope to do
some admin from the la-z-boy while the car sits in the driveway..
Linux runs great on the EPIA boards, and everything is detected
at boottime without needing any drivers or modules added...
Before installing it into my jeep, the performance was actually
pretty spiffy with damnsmalllinux, but not so with other distros..
Loading the entire OS into ram really helps a great deal.
73
29 • EPIA 5000 (VIA) (by ke4nt on 2005-04-18 16:25:38 GMT from United States)
One other thing..
The board will actually run off of a gel-cell , and a solar panel.
Connected to a low-power FM transmitter, it could truly be
a self-contained, no moving parts radio station, remotely admin'd.
73
30 • Very nice article (by RunLevelZero on 2005-04-18 16:35:49 GMT from United States)
Just wanted to add my compliment.
31 • Kannotix! (by Robzilla-L.A. on 2005-04-18 17:02:12 GMT from United States)
I recently installed Kanotix and it is a great distro. It is the only Distro that my scrolling touchpad on my laptop worked! My only complaint was that I could not get updates??? I could not apt-get or anything. The repositories were not valid?? I went to the website and forum but could not find a list of up to date source lists? Maybe that was a bug and has since been fixed. I downloaded and installed the new iso as soon as it came out. The new version is not stable. Does anyone know when they plan to release it stable? And does anyone know where to get current apt repository info?
My final problem is Wireless. I have said this before and I do not know why it does not work. Every single new and old Linux distro I have tryed will not recognize the signal. Am I doomed to be hardwired and stuck to Windows for Wireless!?? I really would like to use the full capacity of my computer. I have tryed ndiswrapper. I have tryed to remove ndiswrapper. I have had one person try and help me and I have had no results? I am truly puzzled and at my wits end. I am thinking I am just stuck with Windows? I am told it should work but it doesn't? I have a pretty common computer set-up. It is a new Laptop but has been on the market since October of last year?? Someone have any thoughts or had similar problems? I would like to know what they did or if they have any ideas where I might start or steps to resolve the problem!
Robzilla
32 • best DWW (by 2PM on 2005-04-18 17:18:15 GMT from Japan)
deserves the praises...
33 • RE: Robzilla-L.A. (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-04-18 17:42:04 GMT from Italy)
Apt and synaptyc work fine here. Are you root? Are you connected to the internet?
34 • aw poor ian (by speel at 2005-04-18 17:48:22 GMT from United States)
poor ian crying about ubuntu ... get over it thats what happens when you dont release a stable os IN 3 YEARS rofl any way i hope ubuntu keeps on pissing off ian =]
35 • Robert Storey (by Andrea on 2005-04-18 17:49:15 GMT from Italy)
I think i like dww by Robert Storey more than dww by Ladislav Bodnar.
36 • Kanotix-Apt (by Robzilla-L.A. on 2005-04-18 18:06:30 GMT from United States)
Anonymous Penguin,
Apt and synaptyc work fine here. Are you root? Are you connected to the internet?
Yes and Yes???
It is puzzling to me too??
Rob
37 • What's new with Libranet 3.0? (by Anonymous on 2005-04-18 18:46:45 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know what's new with the new release? I went to their site and no posting of the upgrades are. What would be the compelling reasons to pick Libranet new release over other popular distro out there?
In the past, it were the 'Adminmenu' and ease of getting a Debian desktop but these day, there are plenty of Debian flavors that are just easy to set up. MEPIS, Ubuntu, etc.
Just curious.
38 • Debian bashing. (by Mike on 2005-04-18 18:58:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
A lot of people have been attacking Debian since Ubuntu came out, without knowing much about it. The most common misconception is stability. Ubuntu is an unstable distribution by Debian standards. Debian has it's own unstable branch, which is always very up-to-date.
What Debian releases once every few years is rock solid. It's exactly what Microsoft do - a single release every few years, with security updates. Compared to what MS produce, it's fantastic and extremely secure.
Linux news sites love a good flame war and Ubuntu vs. Debian is the latest and juiciest. But for all the smoke, there is very little fire to it. I'm sure these two organisations can comfortably co-exist and this story shows that this aim is something they are both willing to work towards.
39 • Very good indeed (by Henrique Maia on 2005-04-18 19:07:56 GMT from Portugal)
I really, really enjoyed this DWW. Very good work, Robert!
40 • A great DWW (by William Roddy on 2005-04-18 19:18:27 GMT from United States)
Mr. Storey,
I do not say this to detract any any way from the Herculean efforts of Ladislav, because his is not an easy task and he does his work with consistent excellence, while avoiding many of the pitfalls that lay ahead any journalist these days.
Having said this, I would like to compliment you for your excellent coverage this week. It elicited a lot of upbeat, inspired, and inspiring posts.
As for Debian and it's offspring, Debian has been an extraordinary parent and has taught all of us many things. However, I have learned the disquieting lesson, as a grandfather, that the next generation always tends to forge ahead of its parents, though in no way intending to demean, belittle, or harm them.
And good children tend to pay back their parents' love and attention by seeing to their well-being. This would best be viewed by the parent as a family effort, rather than tribal conflict.
Some people call it progress. Others, evolution. Whatever the case, all this is a natural phenomenon. The sign of an excellent parent, though, is not to be embittered by its children's' successes, but to count the achievements of its children as measures of its own success.
Thank you.
William Roddy
41 • RE: Debian bashing. (by Mike ) (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-04-18 19:18:58 GMT from Italy)
Very well said, Mike. Attacking Debian (mostly by Ubuntu n00bs) is very much like calling your own mother a whore.
This, plus the Debian incompatibilty of many Ubuntu packages is what annoys many long time Debian users.
At least the Gentoo or Arch fanboys of the past were annoying, but they weren't antagonizing any distro in particular.
42 • Debian by Mike and more... (by Lance Lucas on 2005-04-18 19:39:32 GMT from United States)
I love the Debian project, but I have to disagree with you slightly Mike. Debian unstable has not been "up to date" as of recent. GCC is at 3.3.x and Xfree86 is still the only xserver available. KDE is still listed at 3.3.x and GNOME at 2.8.x. From a home user's perspective, it would seem as though DD's have accepted sid as their production machines, and thus, aren't as willing as they used to be to accept newer upstream versions. Does anyone at Debian actually care if Sarge goes stable? I'll bet they don't use it. Hopefully politics and lack of direction don't doom the messiah of Linux....Debian. I just wish that unstable really was bleeding-edge unstable (Xfree86?? come on); that testing released on a schedule; and that version bumps on basic user apps (such as web browser, e-mail client, IM client) were offered as an optional repository for stable. But I'm like every other Linuxer, I have opinions....whatever the case, I'm a huge supporter of Debian and will be for a long time.
43 • FreeBSD 5.x (by RaVen at 2005-04-18 20:38:38 GMT from United States)
5.4 is the first release I would even consider running on a colocated server. Running two sshd's is a solution to _that_ problem, but there were others with 5.3. MP runs on 4.11 for a reason :)
Note: I am a big FreeBSD supporter, everyone has bad releases..just pointing out that 5.3 was one.
44 • What's new with Libranet 3.0? (by Anonymous on 2005-04-18 20:46:57 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know what's new with the new release? I went to their site and no posting of the upgrades are. What would be the compelling reasons to pick Libranet new release over other popular distro out there?
In the past, it were the 'Adminmenu' and ease of getting a Debian desktop but these day, there are plenty of Debian flavors that are just easy to set up. MEPIS, Ubuntu, etc.
Just curious.
45 • FreeBSD 5.x (by RaVen at 2005-04-18 20:48:21 GMT from United States)
5.4 is the first release I would even consider running on a colocated server. Running two sshd's is a solution to _that_ problem, but there were others with 5.3. MP runs on 4.11 for a reason :)
Note: I am a big FreeBSD supporter, everyone has bad releases..just pointing out that 5.3 was one.
46 • RE: Debian by Mike and more... (by Captain Carrot on 2005-04-18 21:15:39 GMT from Germany)
From what I've understood, the X11 in Debian Unstable/Sid hasn't been upgraded to X.org because it's a big change that affects most of the other packages and makes it impossible to pull packages from Unstable/Sid to Testing/Sarge. So problems with releasing Sarge have held Unstable/Sid back, but X.org hits Unstable as soon as Sarge has been released. Besides, Debian's XFree86 4.3 contains lots of patches pulled from XFree86 4.4 and X.org sources, so it's not quite as obsolete as it appears. And the problems with Sarge's release are currently generating radical changes in Debian's release policy, so things will improve after they get Sarge out.
AFAIK, KDE 3.4 and Gnome 2.10 should be available on experimental repositories:
deb http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/kde-3.4.0/ ./
deb http://pkg-gnome.alioth.debian.org/debian experimental main
47 • re: EPIA 5000 (by ke4nt (by im_ka on 2005-04-18 21:49:26 GMT from Sweden)
wow... any pictures? website? it sounds like "tux my ride" ;)
48 • Excellent points Captain Carrot (by Lance Lucas on 2005-04-18 22:27:16 GMT from United States)
I do see many of the problems with switching from Xfree86 to x.org while maintaining cross-branch compatibility. However, for as long as Xfree86 has been on the way out, it seems like Xorg could have been adopted and stable by the time Sarge is actually released. It's in RedHat and SuSE's enterprise products and has been on desktops for a year now. I believe the bigger problem for Debian would be the "year lost", as they have patched+developed a deprecated product, knowing that the Xorg switch would be inevitable. Xfree86 may belong in Sarge, but I think that would also hurt Xorg's development for Sid and Etch.
And aren't packages rebuilt/recompiled when they hit Sarge? If so, why would it matter if the two are using different X servers? Just trying to understand the problem...because it seems nearly impossible to maintain binary compatibility across an unstable, testing and stable distribution scheme (if sarge packages wont run/build on woody, why does sid need to run/build on sarge). Especially as testing nears release, like it is.
And I dont see any packages in the gnome repo...did you mistype the URL, or is it me again...
Once again, just my opinions...go debian! happy linuxing to all and from the world poker tour, may your cards be live and your pots be monster!!
49 • RE: Debian (by Richard White on 2005-04-18 22:47:18 GMT from Canada)
I simply cannot fathom why people blatantly bash Debian when there is so much choice otherwise -- if you don't like it, do something about it or use something else. I don't mean to sound elistist, but there's been some trolling here that must be countered.
Debian is a huge effort with hundreds upon hundreds of developers and contributors supporting almost a dozen architectures. I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't assume to have knowledge above the collective wisdom of all these great minds, so I'm pretty comfortable trusting in their decisions. Continued growth speaks highly of Debian's popularity and success.
Sarge hasn't been released simply because it is not ready. The Debian project has goals to meet before such an event can occur and it would do a disservice to its many users providing a hasty release. Again, if you can't live by these terms, move along. But I doubt you will find a better distro.
Ubuntu is yet another spin-off aimed at the impatient desktop user. I find it innovative and interesting, but not entirely trustworthy due to some, by Debian standards, experimental packaging. Some may not mind this and that is their choice, which I respect, but it would be in Ubuntu's best interest to work more closely with Debian on compatibility.
Debian's policies are in place to ensure strict compliance and foster trust amongst its developers and users. I wouldn't want the project to change direction on a developer's whim or be pressured to conform by commercial or other special interests.
How can supporting more architectures (reaching out to more users) possibly hurt a project? However, syncing eleven architectures is becoming difficult, and this issue is being debated with perhaps some of the more obscure being demoted to second-class. An 18 months release cycle for Etch has also been discussed.
Debian, at heart, is a server distro, so its obsession with stability and lengthy release cycles reflects that. It is not unheard of to have servers running for years without OS upgrades, so Woody is very relative here. I cannot imagine running a mission-critical server on anything else but maybe BSD or Solaris. Why, even the mighty Microsoft has been known to drag out releases.
If your cup of tea is the desktop, then testing makes a wonderful platform, perhaps not bleeding-edge but, none-the-less, rock stable (my brew.) And if you can't handle the new debian installer, try an easy derivative like Kanotix, which is more in sync with SID. You will have unfettered access to Debian repositories, less trouble upgrading, and resonable stability. And at the bleeding-edge, there is the experimental branch with all the latest packages you could possibly want. But I wouldn't use it for anything but bug reporting.
Sorry for the rhetoric, but some of the bashing just irks me.
50 • RE: Excellent points (by Captain Carrot on 2005-04-18 22:58:36 GMT from Germany)
Had they known beforehand that making the release would take so long, the Debian developers might have made different choices...
The Gnome addition was announced just today, so give them a little time to upload the packages. ;)
They should become available also on the project experimental's ftp repository:
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian ../project/experimental main
51 • An "Ubuntu n00b" defending Debian - NetBSD comparison (by gnobian_ken00bie on 2005-04-18 23:00:53 GMT from United States)
First, let me say that I don't think that those knocking Debian are representative of Ubuntu's community. And I certainly don't think they are representative of Ubuntu's developers. Ubuntu makes clear its respect for and debt to Debian many places on its sites.
Second, I wanted to respond to Andrew in Canada who seems to poo-poo the argument that supporting so many architectures is an issue, pointing out the example of NetBSD.
NetBSD does not actually support that many more architectures than Debian GNU/Linux. For one example. The 55 vs. 11 is misleading - though there's nothing deceptive involved, I'm sure - because, for example, what Debian counts as a single port, NetBSD will count as several. Debian counts CPU types and NetBSD counts whole platforms. For example, the Motorola 68k processor is represented as a single architecture in Debian, but it is counted separately in NetBSD depending on whether the port is for an Commodore Amiga or Macrosystem DraCo , an Atari TT030, Falcon, or Hades, an HP 9000 300 or 400, a 68k Macintosh, a NeXT "black" box, a Sun 2, a Sun 3, et al.
NetBSD also has a far smaller set of packages. The remainder are in NetBSD's packages collection and these are third party, not supported by NetBSD. What NetBSD maintains is a tiny fraction of what Debian maintains, though pkgsrc makes a vast range of additional software available.
Please let this in no way be taken as a flame against NetBSD, an OS for which I have nothing but the highest regard. But be careful in making uninformed and unfair comparisons. NetBSD's developers will agree with what I am saying:
"Just what defines a "complete" system? NetBSD provides a relatively lean standard system, with all the base functionality expected of a BSD system: the network protocols, the ability to recompile itself, and so on. Extra facilities are provided by a package system, which allows third party applications to be easily installed, either from source or prebuilt binaries. This allows the NetBSD developers to concentrate their efforts on the core system.
"
52 • Ubuntu n00b continues (by gnobian_ken00bie on 2005-04-18 23:15:24 GMT from United States)
With all due respect to Debian' founder - and he certainly is due quite a lot - I would consider Ubuntu a net plus for Debian. And a lot of Debian's developers feel the same, though there is downside too. It's not a coincidence that GNOME 2.8 made it into Debian testing in record time and we can expect the same with GNOME 2.10 because of the close collaboration between GNOME and Debian developers on Ubuntu. (Ask Paul Volkerding about the work involved in that.) The same will no doubt be true with X.org and I'm sure amd64 support will be dramatically helped by Ubuntu's work.
Ubuntu is the new kid and is taking press away from Debian currently (and I'll add, from projects like UserLinux and Ian's own Progeny). That will certainly pass, but the way that Ubuntu is contributing back will hopefully continue.
53 • NOTICE: Correction to the Gnome 2.10 on Debian info (by Captain Carrot on 2005-04-18 23:23:38 GMT from Germany)
Eh, now I notice that I've been spreading misinformation. You need to have BOTH pkg-gnome's repository and the experimental ftp repository. I didn't read the announcement carefully enough. My sincerest apologies.
This is what Jordi Mallach actuallly wrote in the announcement:
"The biggest problem right now is the lack of a newer libxklavier version than gnome-control-center requires, and gnome-applets which requires gst-backends (maintainer working on it) so we've had to put those packages in pkg-gnome's temporary repository while this gets sorted out in experimental. Remember, the apt lines you currently need should look like this:"
# Debian experimental
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian ../project/experimental main
# GNOME 2.10 pending packages
deb http://pkg-gnome.alioth.debian.org/debian experimental main
54 • Domino ... (by anonymous on 2005-04-19 00:59:16 GMT from Peru)
in Peru we have the "Mi computadora" project with the same goals as in Brazil.
Technically, The only alternative is Linux, because with any Linux distro you get not only the OS but many, many apps, and Microsoft can't offer anything better.
The only problems are the politicians who could "take" the wrong deci$ion.
55 • Debian (by Gunksta at 2005-04-19 02:19:32 GMT from United States)
As always, this was one of the highlights of the Linux Press. My comment though is really about Debian. Ian Murdoch should be jumping up and down to thank Knoppix, Kanotix, Ubuntu, Linspire, Xandros, etc. As everyone has noted it's been far too long since Debian Stable got an upgrade. The only reason Debian is even relevant anymore is because of A) it's developer base and B) it's the groundwork for so many of these cutting edge distributions. Without these, Debian news would be hard to find outside of Debian Weekly and the monthly announcement delaying Sid. These spin-off distributions that carefully keep contact open with Debian and the ONLY reason Debian really matters now to people starting in with Linux. What I find really odd is that more of the work that Mepis, Ubuntu, etc. have done in terms of an installer hasn't been adotped by Debian more openly. I know Debian has a few more architectures to deal with, but it seems like it would be a good starting point, and these distributions are obviously doing something right, there installers don't get much less praise than the installers from the "Big Boys" like Fedora or SUSE.
--andy
56 • Debian vs. Ubuntu or why I am a Gentoo bigot :) (by Ed Borasky on 2005-04-19 02:59:43 GMT from United States)
I haven't followed the progress of "sarge" at all; I've loaded it on a few desktops/laptops and it seems to be OK, although the only machine where I currently have it loaded is a laptop with a hard drive too small for Gentoo.
I've never tried Ubuntu because I despise the Gnome desktop. Maybe Kubuntu is better, but if I wanted a Debian-based distro for a desktop, I'd just load "sarge" and not mess with anything else. I'll stick with Gentoo on the desktop.
So ... if Debian (woody??) is a server distro, who's their competition? Well, how about CentOS? I've been fooling with the RHEL rebuilds lately. The "big three" -- CentOS, Tao and White Box -- all seem pretty much alike to me, but CentOS has a "server" CD that might just give Woody a run for ... well, given that they're both free, a run for what? :)
57 • Libranet 3.0 (by qibhom on 2005-04-19 03:14:55 GMT from United States)
There are lots of reasons to get it. Adminmenu has been completely redone, and administers a lot more things now. The installation has also been completely redone, recognizes wireless cards that other Debian derivatives (including Ubuntu and Kanotix) have issues with and is both easy for beginners and for those who want more advanced configuration options. Painless gnome 2.8. 2.6.11 kernel by default. Support is excellent, from either the developers or the community.
I'm sure that once Jon, Tal and Daniel wake up (the last week or so has been absolutely frantic, stomping last minute bugs) that they'll get all the details up. But, it is really quite snazzy as well as very functional.
58 • Scientific Linux 4.0 Release Candidtate 2.5 (by William Roddy on 2005-04-19 04:36:56 GMT from United States)
The following announcement just arrived in my e-mail.
===================
Scientific Linux 4.0 for i386/x86 Release Candidate 2.5 April 18, 2005
See comments/issues/test reports to scientific-linux-devel@fnal.gov
Available from
ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/40/i386/
Changes since last 40rolling.
Expect to release as 40 on Wednesday April 20, 2005
------------------------------------------------------------------
SL_disable_print_notification-1.0-4.noarch.rpm ADDED
Removes eggcups notification. Not installed by default.
gaim-1.2.1-4.el4.i386.rpm ERRATA
/contrib/RPMS/xfs/
XFS enabled kernel
Misc images and logos were updated.
-Connie Sieh
-Troy Dawson
====
The following are not the worlds of Scientific Linux, but my own.
SL is Red Hat Enterprise 4, stripped of vendor ID and anything non-open-source. It is recompiled from the source. Anything that might have been troublesome "out of the box" has been removed.
This is the Linux distribution that is being used by Fermilabs, CERN in Switzerland, Cambridge University Physics department, and many , if not most, of the top facilities that research high-energy physics. It receives scrutiny by the finest programmers in the world, and is used by finest scientists. A growing list of universities are using it in their science departments.
I've been following it for a while, and do so with enormous pride and satisfaction.
If you want stability, security, and thoroughness, without the asides, you can do no better. It can come no more highly recommended than to be used by scientists who are on the cutting edge of researce into time and space.
For those of you who, like myself, have no significan scientific backgrounds, it is still a wonderful personal system. The additions of xine allows DVD viewing. I've also had no difficulty installing OpenOffice2, AcrobatReader 7, RealPlayer10, and many other things, of use to me.
If all things are possible, this is, then, solid silk. I'd venture to say you will not regret the experience.
Thank you.
William Roddy
59 • ERRATA (by William Roddy on 2005-04-19 04:39:16 GMT from United States)
When I said, in the last post, "Anything that might have been troublesome "out of the box" has been removed," I was misleadingly incomplete. "Fixed" might have been a better choice of words than "removed."
Sorry.
60 • KANOTIX (by DimGR on 2005-04-19 10:12:19 GMT from United States)
It is the best LInux distro i have ever used.
61 • Red Hat Enterprise 4 based distro (by IMQ on 2005-04-19 12:29:45 GMT from United States)
There are at least 4 distros based on RHLE4, either already released or about to. What set them apart from RHLE4 and from each other: Scientic Linux, White Box, Tao, CentOS, etc.? What features are unique to each?
Inquiring mind wants to know. :)))
62 • Reply to IMQ (by William Roddy on 2005-04-19 16:17:23 GMT from United States)
The first thing any derivative distribution must do is remove all vendor identification or anything the vendor constrains. These items, usually cosmetic, are replaced, to the extent they need by.
I have no experience with Tao, or White Box, but both Scientific Linux and CentOS install with anaconda in almost the identical way as does Red Hat EL.
Absence of vendor support is another difference in the proprietary v. open-source versions.
Scientific Linux is unique, in that the programmers from Fermilabs, CERN, and other major research facilities and universities, constituting literally thousands of high-use servers and work stations, completely rewrite the Red Hat distribution from its source and check the code for errors or superfluousness.
This is by no means a one-person operation. For example, at CERN in Switzerland, where the some of the world's leading scientists engage in the unraveling the mysteries of the Universe, somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand machines run Scientific Linux in the x64 version. As far as I know, all the machines there, in the thousands, x86 and 64, use it.
Cambridge University, where the amazing Stephen Hawking works, is another participant.
What better oversight could you have, in a Linux that is free to you, to use as you please.
Reading the mail that flies back and forth between prestigious labs and universities throughout the world is, in itself, a treat. At Fermilabs, the particle accelerator, neither of the lead people in charge of Scientific Linux there are able to vacation at the same time. And if Red Hat sends out an ERRATA, either Fermi or CERN check it again, before it is put into play. Any security issue that is addressed by Red Hat is addressed by Scientific Linux. SL also has "sites," or further customized versions that are maintained by some of the specific facilities. But the base version has most everything you need and, though not bleeding edge, it is a sharp as you want a fine tool to be.
Because this is open-source (allowing all these huge, diverse labs throughout the world to run Linux absolutely free -- much to the chagrin of, for example, the SuSE salesman who visited Fermi and saw banks and bans of machines, all running happily and not costing a cent).
I confess an admiration for scientific method and that is applied to this particular Linux. It is astonishing how quickly and how thoroughly problems (infrequent, small, and often facility-specific) are solved and the precision of the discussions that go into the solution process.
But for us, even absent Ph.d's and genius IQ's, the nature of open source makes this project ours, too. It's been running in the background for quite a while and I stumbled across Fermi Linux (now Scientific Linux) a few years ago and have really enjoyed following its progress. The new 40 Scientific Linux, final version to appear Wednesday, will, is superb, even if I use it for far less than string theory, particle collision, and time/space exploration.
I'm sorry I can't address distributions you mention. Perhaps someone else can.
William Roddy
63 • Yikes! (by William Roddy on 2005-04-19 16:32:16 GMT from United States)
Sorry about the typos in the last post ('by' should be 'be; the sentence about the SuSE salesman is incomplete and should have ended ". . . it also belongs to us.") Perhaps there are more. Tried to do it quickly.
Perhaps you now see why I admire scientists but ain't one.
64 • The Best Fast Distro!!!!!!! (by Robzilla-L.A. on 2005-04-19 16:35:30 GMT from United States)
I see a lot of talk about Debian based distros right now. I do not share the debate between Debian and the derivitives. If Debian wants to release slow then it is their decision. I have tryed Debian and it has never really gelled for me. The derivitives from Debian are impressive. I really enjoy all of them. The thing that sparkles in Debian and the derivitives id apt. You can't beat it. So what is all the fuss about all of the Debian derivitives are great and Debian is great. Without Debian there would be no Derivitives. I think it is simply a matter of choice. One is not better than another since they are all from the same source!!
Now if you are tired of Debian and the derivitives there is a choice that is really not given enough press!! Everyone knows Gentoo and Slackware are about the fastest most stable distros out there. Setting them up however is anything but fast and for a newbie close to impossible(speaking from my own experience!!)
There is a solution and it is called Vector Linux!! How about a ten to fifteen minute install. Forget hours compiling the kernel!!Speed you got it! Now I have not optimized my system with a custom slackware or Gentoo install but from the systems I have used including xp and apple os x Vector is the fastest system out there!! I am not exagerating at all I have sat with a stop watch and timed the systems at boot up. Windows might be really close but then you get windows!!
Have a problem, want a program, you got it! First off if you want a program you can start VLAPT and ussually you will find what you are looking for. All of the good programs are there!! Now you don't get 500 choices and multiple programs that do the same thing. Just the most popular and in my opinion the best of open source programs. O.K. you've got the programs you want but now you have a problem, you go to the forums. Now all of the Distro forums I have been to have been helpful, although some much more than others and here again is where Vector Linux shines again! The people who are on the forums really help. They do not just tell you what they have doen and wouldn't it be nice if you could do it too?! No, they help you and eventually most of your problems will be solved.
I have tryed many Linux systems and I think all of them have strenths and weaknesses even Vector. It is all a matter of personal preference. That is where Linux stands out among the other Operating Systems is choice so lets not bash one or another for they are all great!! And we as Linux users have the choice to decide what is best for us and not be forced into the one-size fits all category!!
I think if you haven't tryed Vector Linux you should give it a shot. At least the install will be done fatser than an episode of the Simpsons! Includings updates!! It really is fast, solid and complete without being overkill! If you can pull away from apt, Vlapt is pretty good. As they say Vector at the speed of light!!
Robzilla
65 • Re: The Best Fast Distro!!!!!!! (by Ariszló on 2005-04-19 18:56:20 GMT from Hungary)
Buffalo is like Vector Linux but it's even faster. At install time you can choose from kernels optimized for i686, ipent4, etc.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=buffalo
http://buffalolinux.dyndns.org/
66 • RE: Re: The Best Fast Distro!!!!!!! (by Ariszló) (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-04-19 21:08:02 GMT from Italy)
"Buffalo is like Vector Linux but it's even faster. At install time you can choose from kernels optimized for i686, ipent4, etc."
What about the zillion bugs it used to have? Have they been ironed out yet? I used to download almost every release. hoping it would get better, but if anything it kept getting worse.
The developer is a very nice guy, but maybe Buffalo is too big a project for one man? Or maybe he should focus on bugs rather than bleeding edgeness?
67 • Vector is still the Best Fast Distro! (by Robzilla-L.A. on 2005-04-20 01:19:16 GMT from United States)
I have tryed Buffalo Linux and it is based on Vector Linux but it is not the same. I installed it on my computer and it seemed fast but I could not see a noticible difference between Vector and Buffalo in terms of speed but I did see a big difference in terms of use.
Now first Buffalo has an XFCE or ICE desktop which I am not familiar with and do not care for. Maybe because Vector runs with KDE there is some sacrificing speed but the functionality more than makes up for it. Not only that but the Buffalo default desktop is just plain ugly. I tried to install KDE via disc two in Buffalo but I could not. Maybe it was a bug that other people did not experience but I was not happy. The installer was confusing to me in Buffalo and I hate the default Opera browser. What a pain in the *ss!
My overall impression with Bufalo is that there is potential but it is not close to Vector Linux. The desktop, the community, and the speed are the best I have tryed. As I stated before it is all about choice and personal preference and I just did not have a good experience with Bufalo maybe the next release will be different. As far as bugs I had a few in Bufalo and there are probably a few in Vector but I feel the support behind Vector will mitigate any problems you might encounter. Try em both and you tell me!
Robzilla
68 • Go Frugal! (by less_is_more on 2005-04-20 12:12:29 GMT from Germany)
Hey!
Frugalware 0.2 RC2 is out. Frugalware is possibly the most up-to-date distro around. It's got the latest KDE, the latest Gnome, the latest XFCE4.
Frugalware combines the best features of Slackware and Arch Linux. Frugalware is fast -- it is i686 optimized.
Frugalware takes scripts and the KISS philosophy from Slackware. Patrick Volkerding's scripts are always easy to understand and editing Pat's scripts is one of the best ways to learn how Linux works "under the hood".
Frugalware takes the pacman package manager from Arch Linux. Pacman is blazingly fast and can handle dependencies.
I really like this distro!
69 • VIA - Big deal, but what about Mac Mini (by Geert on 2005-04-20 17:19:20 GMT from Belgium)
For Linux and UNIX, Mac Mini contains a small motherbord, without the need for a fan, and the whole computer ships for 499. Try to build, with a VIA board, a comparable machine for the same price ....
70 • VIA (or Mac Mini?) based TiVO? (by Anonymous on 2005-04-20 20:13:23 GMT from United States)
I've been interested in building a mythTV (or possibly other Open Source) for a while (not enough to actually spend the money!). The idea of building a fan-less *(and low power) version sounds perfect - I could have it running full-time, just like my VCR.
But, could I reasonably run something like mythTV on a VIA, or a Mac Mini?
71 • 3 things I'm liking better about the past 2 dww's than most of them (by EEDOK on 2005-04-20 20:20:06 GMT from Canada)
1. They don't end at Upcoming Releases and Announcements
2. The Tips, Tricks and Hints section rocks
3. The mini-reviews are awesome
This is just for this one that I like
4. A blurb on hardware :D
keep up the good work
72 • VIA (or Mac Mini?) based TiVO? (by Anonymous on 2005-04-20 20:39:35 GMT from United States)
I've been interested in building a mythTV (or possibly other Open Source) for a while (not enough to actually spend the money!). The idea of building a fan-less *(and low power) version sounds perfect - I could have it running full-time, just like my VCR.
But, could I reasonably run something like mythTV on a VIA, or a Mac Mini?
73 • Kanotix and Buffalo (by brodders on 2005-04-21 00:28:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi...
my 20 cents:
If I need a solid, adaptable, fun & rewarding-to-use modern suite with KDE - I install Kanotix. It's a gold standard distro & ready now.
If I want a decent server suite to use on older hardware ...plus the option of a good lightweight GUI (IceWM) for when I need do maintenance... I install Buffalo.
The latest Buf (1.7.1) seems free to date of show-stoppers; it has the everyday server-needed packages, it's optimised for YOUR cpu (just select from a long list) and as a plus it has a mad and exciting selection of eye-popping screen-savers. I tend to drop in Webmin too & that works fine.
Buffalo install um shows it's unconventional roots - but is pretty easy really. My only gripe is that as I'm in the UK, I must convince it to use a non-US keyboard & sometimes that's a struggle; well get over that! :)
Back to "optimised". A rig from 1999 with Soyo MB + 128M ram + K6-3 at 400MHz + cheap RAID card (used just for 100ATA EIDE to modern disks) plus a Buffalo K6 optimised 2.6 series kernel serves large files TWICE (I timed it) as fast as a 2004 AMD Athlon 2400MHz + 512M ram Win98 box across a 100MBit/sec LAN. Now I know Win98 is not wonderful, but it had a big cpu & ram advantage there.
Can't be bad...
Plus Buffalo powers down OK too! (a minor miracle for those using the old Soyo cards - 9 of 10 distros have inappropriate power-down flags & panic / hang on shutdown for mb's with older VIA chipsets).
Good work on DW, one and all - even the Comments section is blooming too!
74 • RE: VIA - Big deal, but what about Mac Mini (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-04-21 01:25:26 GMT from Italy)
$499, yes, if you live in the US and if you are happy with the bare minimun.
Here in the EU too often they assume: $1=Eur1, which of course is not true.
And then, if I buy something, I am not happy with the bare minimum.
The (slightly) faster model with 512 MB RAM (I am not happy with less than that) and a DVD writer is Eur 779. That equals today: $1020
God forbid I might want 1 GB RAM and the Wireless package: that would be Eur 1129=$1479
We are very far from the original $499, aren't we?
For less than that, at local shops I have seen AMD 64 boxes with all the niceties your heart might desire.
75 • Scientific Linux 40 final is out (by William Roddy on 2005-04-21 02:23:41 GMT from United States)
Scientific Linux (from Fermi, CERN, Los Alamos, Cambridge, etc) has been released today.
It's terrific.
ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/40/iso/i386/
If you need a throughly-check, enterprise-level Linux, this is it.
76 • RE: William Roddy (by IMQ on 2005-04-21 04:42:45 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the response to my curiousity. :)
I have tried in the past all of these distros just out of curiousity :)
I am glad that some members of the Linux community with knowledge and experience to put together these RHEL clones for the masses where support from the big RH could be cost prohibitive. It sure makes a learning experience for those one day finding themselves in the job managing and supporting RHEL.
I am downloading the SL4 now as I type. Part of me wants to test the 5-year upgrade cycle. I am just sure if I can stick to it. Too much temptation with other distro flavors. And five years is a long, long time in Linux world.
77 • re: MythTV on a VIA (by pfpearson on 2005-04-21 13:24:28 GMT from United States)
Following up on my question (in case others are interested).
A better Google search turned up this helpful-looking page:
http://www.pvrguide.no-ip.com/bbs/index.php?showtopic=4658
Hope this helps folks.
Y'all keep up the good work!
78 • Mini-ITX Router (by Josh Bowers on 2005-04-21 17:39:41 GMT from United States)
I have a VIA EPIA MII 1200Mhz C3 with on board LAN and a PCMCIA Wi-Fi card, 128MB of DDR, a old 10GB IBM laptop hard drive, a slim 16X CD-ROM Drive and a USB Floppy Drive in a hand made case. I uses BBI Agent Router with a old verson of Windows 95 preinstall on the hard drive. aftre BBI is install it is a Linux Router. it has run nonstop for 7 weeks. VIA and TUX a great team.
79 • To IMQ (by William Roddy on 2005-04-22 00:26:57 GMT from United States)
I, like you, love to walk around the banquet table of Linux distributions and sample every last one of them. It used to be pretty easy to pick out the one that was "best" (whatever that means) for me, personally.
But lately, there have been so MANY excellent distributions, it would be hard to go wrong with most of them. However, the quest just to keep up with the curve has taken on epic proportion and takes so much of the day, I have little left to do with the computer what the excellent distributions are meant to allow me to do.
So I've left one drive open for experiments, but have settled on Scientific Linux as a operating system to leave in place, for a couple of reasons. The sheer strength of the oversight of the distribution is astonishing. It is a finely-tuned mix on the best stable rpms, rewritten from the source by some of the brightest minds in science, used and tested on thousands of critical machines, and scrutinized like a favorite child by the ITs at all these facilities: CERN, Los Alamos, Fermilabs, Cambridge, on and on and on.
Astonishing scrutiny, by many experts means exceptional cleanliness of code.
It's not their central desire to become a leading redistributions. I anything, my having blathered so much about them may be somewhat distracting from their central purpose: to always have a stable, modern, secure operating system for their facilities. The proselytism is all mine. I was met with such humble self-effacement when I once contacted a department head there, I felt guilty for causing him discomfort.
No, this may not be the distribution for everyone (though it certainly could be, with Xorg, SELinux, RHEL compatibility, and other components, such as APT as part of the mix, for those who prefer it to YUM.
But this is an enterprise Linux and it is in a class all its own, so if you need a stable system upon which to hang all the bells and whistle you'd like, give it a try. This is not your granddad's Red Hat. This, in the final analysis, isn't even Red Hat, though it retains the compatibility. It's quantum-stoked, linear-accelerated, time-and-space travel, astronomical, subatomic, nuclear Linux. Because those are the folks who have been using it now, for several years.
This is not to persuade anyone of anything, but to share my excitement, nor is it to say that any distro is better or worse than any other, but to state my choice of this one. I do have work to get done on a computer and this one looks like its one I can use to always get that work done.
Hope you enjoy your experience. Sure hate to have someone nice like you mad at me.
And I do apologize for having posted so many times. Please accept my apologies, if you would be so kind, everyone.
William
80 • Scientific Linux (to William Roddy) (by Gnobian Ken00bie on 2005-04-22 01:16:13 GMT from United States)
I for one want to thank you for your enthusiastic and informative posts on this topic. I've had my curiosity more than piqued. This sounds like a superb distro. I've always used Debian-based distros, since starting with Knoppix to rescue Windows boxes and while I've always intended to give Slackware and Gentoo a go when I feel I've learned enough about using Debian's tools effectively (I'm currently exploring debootstrap and dchroot), I've been leery of rpm-based distros, both for their commerciality and because of things I'd heard about "rpm Hell".
But you've definitely convined me to put Scientific Linux on my list.
81 • To William Roddy (by IMQ on 2005-04-22 11:08:24 GMT from United States)
No need to apologize for your enthusiasm. After all, wouldn't that be the spirit of Linux! And I do enjoy reading your comments.
I agree with you 100% that it's getting more and more difficult to pick just one. So my hard drives are full of partitions to house several flavors of distro. :)
82 • Tool tips (Hints) on the package names. (by tux on 2005-04-22 15:31:12 GMT from United States)
Its probably been there for ages but I just noticed that you have hints on the package names. For example the package "ppp" shows the hint "ppp: provides a server/client for for point to point protocol". (NO that's not my typo. It really says "for for").
That is a very cool feature.
Thanks
83 • Does Microsoft steal Open Source code? (by ROBERT HUNTER on 2005-04-23 09:22:54 GMT from Australia)
I wondering if anyone knows the answer to this question. I suppose the answer is NO, because if they did, then maybe they would have a half-decent operating system! Nevertheless, it does seem that at least some ideas from the Open Source world tend to end up in proprietry code. But how could we tell? Since Microsoft have a "Closed Code Model", then we have no way of knowing for sure. Does the USA government have the right to inspect Microsoft's code to insure that they are not stealing GPL code? Well, it's not exactly stealing, more like a breach of the GPL anti-trust conditions. Presumably Microsoft would not release any OSS code they modified, so they would be in breach of the GPL. If M$ did breach the GPL, would the US government prosecute a case to uphold the GPL? Any Open Source Lawyers out there that would like to comment?
84 • To Robert Hunter (by William Roddy on 2005-04-23 19:41:48 GMT from United States)
I recently read an article that explained the efforts of one programmer to seriously look into this. You ask an excellent question, to my mind. Having had our feet flame-broiled so often by critics, it would be good to know that someone would hold Microsoft's feet to the flame as well.
I hope that you will resubmit your question when the new issue comes out on Monday. Saturday seems to be near the end of the participation cycle in this collection of posts.
I'll be looking forward to hearing responses from people who know the answer.
Thank you.
85 • M$ open source (by gnobian_ken00bie on 2005-04-23 20:22:33 GMT from United States)
IANAL, but I can share what I've read on the subject. First, you ask initially about Open Source then specifically refer to GPL. The two questions may very well have different answers. M$ definitely uses open source code. The TCP/IP stack most famously, which is copyright University of California Berkeley. There's other BSD licensed stuff they've used too.
GPL is another matter. Between the academic licenses they've granted - accompanied by NDAs - the "shared source" program, and the access to source code they've granted the US gov as part of their settlement, I suspect they would get caught. But then hubris is a M$ forte.
From what I understand M$ programmers aren't allowed to go near GPL stuff for fear of contamination.
But M$ has gotten into a lot of trouble for stealing in the past and no doubt will again. This page has some interesting history on just how much theft, proven and unproven, is intertwined with M$ development:
http://www.euronet.nl/users/frankvw/rants/microsoft/IhateMS_1.html
86 • To Robert Storey (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-04-24 02:57:09 GMT from Italy)
I have really enjoyed the last 2 DistroWatch Weekly. Well done! Very good job.
87 • Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo......Who cares? (by Robert Dunseith at 2005-04-24 17:08:51 GMT from United States)
I've really got to say something here! Who cares what distro works for you and what doesn't! What you have to pay for and what you don't! You should just be glad that there are so many choices to choose from. Yes, I went through the process of downloading many linux distros to run on a Dell laptop I bought with no operating system. That's when I realized how great Linux really is. I had so many choices!
I recently purchased a new computer and couldn't wait to get it home to wipe out W$ Media center 2005. Like that good ole' saying " Be happy with what you have, because someday you may not have it!" Also the linux community and the numerous forums that they have AWESOME. Long live any linux distro!!!!
Number of Comments: 87
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| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
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| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
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| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
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