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1 • Gentoo installation (by beeper on 2005-05-09 10:36:17 GMT from Switzerland)
I tried Gentoo at least 4 times and I always gave up due to the Installation.
Great distro (they say) but you need loooots of patiencea and time
2 • Gentoo (by Reuben Perelman on 2005-05-09 10:44:58 GMT from United States)
I've done stage1, stage2, and stage3, installes, and it has never takes me 3 days to install.
"Before I leave the topic of installation, I should add that I had a few issues. First off, the user-friendly cfdisk program is available, so you needn't mess with user-hostile fdisk that the Gentoo Handbook recommends."
That's Gentoo's flexibilty, you can use the tools you want to.
"Let it also be said that you really don't need to mess with USE flags - the operating system will work fine if you just accept its defaults. However, defaults are for sissies - real men customize their OS to the Nth degree."
USE flags can add features that might be curcial to you. When I first used gentoo on my dual monitor setup, KDE and Fluxbox would maximize windows to both monitors. It turned out that this was because xinerama wasn't in my use flags.
3 • Ubuntu and Kubuntu merge (by Roman on 2005-05-09 10:54:25 GMT from Canada)
What is the purpose of having both Ubuntu and Kubuntu in distro list? They are definitely not separate distros, as Kubuntu is just the same old Ubuntu with standard KDE packages included. They even get released together at the same time.
Quote from kubuntu site: "Kubuntu is the result of several months effort to get KDE 3.4 into Ubuntu's main repository and create the first major derived Ubuntu distribution. It is not a fork of Ubuntu but an official project of it, sharing the same package archive and infrastructure. It is possible to convert an Ubuntu system to Kubuntu or vice versa."
So, if they got the same package list, why don't we merge them into single distro entry?
4 • Ubuntu and Kubuntu merge (by ladislav on 2005-05-09 11:03:18 GMT from Taiwan)
What is the purpose of having both Ubuntu and Kubuntu in distro list?
What is the purpose of each of the two projects having separate web sites? Initially I was not planning to list Kubuntu separately, but since Kubuntu launched its own web site, it gave an impression that it is a separate project, or at least, different enough to warrant its own web site (and its own page on DistroWatch).
5 • Ubuntu and Kubuntu merge (by Roman on 2005-05-09 11:20:09 GMT from Canada)
This is wiki page, so I am not sure about how authoritive it is, but the tone is quite clear-cut IMO.
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/Kubuntu
"The Kubuntu project aims to be to KDE what Ubuntu is to GNOME: a great integrated distro with all the great features of Ubuntu, but based on the KDE desktop.
Kubuntu and Ubuntu are not meant to be seen as distinct projects; Kubuntu is part of the Ubuntu project, and they are both part of one development team that contributes to the whole. Kubuntu is Ubuntu with a different default setup; where Ubuntu stresses (but is not limited to) the use of the GNOME desktop environment, Kubuntu is a KDE-based release.
The Ubuntu CD will contain only GNOME as a desktop environment; the Kubuntu CD will contain only KDE, and this is the primary difference."
6 • Gentoo way (by catalinuxro on 2005-05-09 11:23:11 GMT from Romania)
sorry but :
1.if you want install Gentoo in RH way is Vidalinux, a gentoo
version with Anaconda point-and-click installer (for aunt Tilly -btw )
2.if you don't want use USE flags , don't use them
3.Open source sofware(including Linux Distros) is a mather of choice.
4.read Cathedral and Bazaar by Eric S Raymond and you'll know why
5. all day for a stage 3 install? no way. P3/500-256M and 1-st time with a novice(english speakers or not)=3-4 hours-not more
7 • Frugalware (by Dima on 2005-05-09 11:27:27 GMT from Israel)
Funny, Frugalware chose KDE as the default desktop, but two of their main homebrew apps are GTK-based (as seen on the screenshot).
Make up your mind, guys! :)
8 • Gentoo Mini-review (by fdavid on 2005-05-09 11:44:54 GMT from Austria)
Hi Robert,
I don't doubt that you installed and used Gentoo, but the whole review could be written without it. The problem is that your review lists the points that are generally thoght by people never used Gentoo, and hardly list any points mentioned by people who use it.
Time:
* installation: not an issue, one can do a stage3 install within an hour. Real configuration and custumisation won't be ever done by any installer of any distro, so this must be always done manually, and always takes time.
* compilation: once you have a running system you can always work beside installing (compiling) new programs without even knowing that there are performance hungry applications running in the background. The system remains responsive, due to the niceness of processes.
Tweaking:
* speed: not an issue, this is not what gentoo is used/liked for
* USE flags: as the name suggests they are really for customising the usage of your system. They provide a general configuration possiblity, with which you can avoid messing up your system with applications and features you don't ever need, but you can always have that ones, which are essential for your work. Setting USE flags basically influences tha package dependencies.
Not for Aunt Tilly:
* Yes, unless Aunt Tilly is a system administrator, which I presume not the case. Not surprisingly, neither my wife is a system administrator. But she still uses the system with pleasure. That's not even a question of what distro or what OS she uses, but how it is prepared for her use.
Missed points, what makes most of us using Gentoo:
* system concept (init scripts, installation (emerge), etc-update, USE flags, and so on...)
* easy update (install once for a lifetime)
* up-to-date repostiories with a plethora of software
* open and helpful community
The point you mentioned, and I fully agree:
* educational value: there's no way not to know your system. But which system administrator doesn't need to know _everything_ about the system he maintains?
Anyway, thank you for taking the time for the review, but you might have needed some more time to reveal the real values hidden behind a fearing intallation process.
-- fdavid
9 • Gentoo (by Beavis on 2005-05-09 11:57:03 GMT from United States)
What a _poor_ reviw of Gentoo that only helps to further the myth that Gentoo is for uber geeks.
It _is_ a challange to make Gentoo into a decent desktop system, but Gentoo is a fantastic server. Especially if you don't install X and a window manager.
I can do a stage 3 install in about an hour. Once I'm done I have the most robust server platform available in the linux arena.
10 • RE: Beavis (by Jamster on 2005-05-09 12:12:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
>What a _poor_ reviw of Gentoo that only helps to further the myth that Gentoo is for uber geeks.
Well, please enlighten me by explaining which Linux Distribution, aside of Linux From Scratch, is harder to install than Gentoo. And yes, I have used both before.
In my opinion, none. Now, if the second-hardest to install Linux Distribution is not for Geeks, then there's something seriously wrong with the perception of what the average user looks like :>
11 • whitebox linux (by anonymous coward on 2005-05-09 12:12:50 GMT from United States)
Seems the owner of the http://whiteboxlinux.net and http://whiteboxlinux.com domains has decided to offer them on ebay as a peace offering between wbel and himself.This is really great news so lets hope someone with WBEL enthusiasm steps up to build a respectable community site.
12 • Frugalware (by distro_hopper on 2005-05-09 12:26:53 GMT from Germany)
Frugalware sounds very interesting, I'll probably give it a shot later during this week. Thanks for introducing this distro I didn't know about until I read your feature. DistroWatch Weekly is cool!
13 • Bla Bla (by Marauder on 2005-05-09 12:44:58 GMT from Canada)
- Yes Gentoo is hard and long to install but, if you can read you can
install it easy.
- Kubuntu and Ubuntu are better off split. Even if they share the
same base, Ubuntu is more refined.
- Thanks Ladislav for the language support criteria in you search
page, it will be used a lot.
Thanks again Robert and Ladislav for DWW.
14 • RE: fdavid (by IMQ on 2005-05-09 13:06:04 GMT from United States)
I don't doubt that you installed and used Gentoo, but the whole review could be written without it. The problem is that your review lists the points that are generally thoght by people never used Gentoo, and hardly list any points mentioned by people who use it.
He clearly stated that this is the first time he tried Gentoo. It would be impossible for him to list the points by veteran Gentoo users, wouldn't it?
one a side note, I had tried Gentoo a couple years ago, before it was released as 1.0. I learned a fews things about installing Gentoo the...Gentoo way:
1. Time
2. Patience
3. Fast connection
4. Decent hardware
5. Of course know-how
If one is not in a hurry (well, one can't), one can get it set up over the week-end the basic system. Now add X windows and KDE and GNOME and OpenOffice.org, the week-end project will likely turn into a week-long project easily.
15 • Gentoo (by Robert Storey on 2005-05-09 13:22:49 GMT from Taiwan)
> What a _poor_ reviw of Gentoo that only helps to further the myth that Gentoo is for uber geeks.
Guilty as charged, but please remember this was a mini-review. If I was doing a full-review, I would have contacted some members of the Gentoo community and had them "review the review" before publishing (I always do that with full reviews).
And let me add that I didn't dislike Gentoo. I still have it installed, and intend to play with it some more. It's a fine learning distro. But it really does consume a lot of time.
> It _is_ a challange to make Gentoo into a decent desktop system, but Gentoo is a fantastic server. Especially if you don't install X and a window manager.
Yes, and I had some additional challenges that I didn't mention in mini-review. Some packages wouldn't compile (Sylpheed, for example). Two other people I know managed to crash their Gentoo systems irrevocably after installing some packages, though that didn't happen to me.
> I can do a stage 3 install in about an hour. Once I'm done I have the most robust server platform available in the linux arena.
I can believe it. If you go minimalist (no X, since it's not appropriate for a server), Gentoo would be a nice little system. However, if you were rolling out a whole bunch of servers (as you would at a web hosting service, for example) it would be quite a challenge without an installation program.
But Gentoo is great for learning. You'll be a better system administrator for using it. And I can see why developers like it too.
regards,
Robert
16 • Re: Gentoo Mini-review (by DiegoG on 2005-05-09 13:23:18 GMT from Argentina)
Hi, fdavid.
I think Robert's review was correct, since Gentoo users will probably be reading Gentoo specific resources, instead of an article in a general distro site such as this.
I've not used Gentoo, but I found Linux From Scratch highly educative. And I agree with Robert: it's for geeks. I can't give such a distribution to a final user unless I was prepared to be the system administrator if any problems should arise.
DiegoG
17 • Gentoo (by vic on 2005-05-09 13:28:40 GMT from Luxembourg)
Gentoo surely is a nice distro, but I think that most people (those who want to have a tidy X workstation) will not need to try it (though the installation is very interesting!). It's a matter of taste, I don't like Gentoo since every other distro can give me the same at a lower "price", which is time & patience. And yes, as a newbie you will definitely need a LOT of time to install and configure a system with X, alsa, oo.org, etc.. of course you can stick to the non-graphical terminal if you want. Arch Linux is a bit "better", since packages are precompiled.
18 • Very Punny (by SFN on 2005-05-09 13:34:11 GMT from United States)
"Having no mouse was a definite drag"
So, you're saying it just didn't click with you?
19 • Gentoo (by Cory G on 2005-05-09 14:10:16 GMT from United States)
I used Gentoo for 6 months and loved it, I decided to give Arch Linux a try on a slower Laptop, it actually ran faster and rocked more stable than Gentoo. In my opinion, Arch Linux would make a healthy choice for those who think Gentoo is too time consuming.
20 • Frugalware (by |TG| Mateo on 2005-05-09 14:30:40 GMT from United States)
Nice to see Frugalware get some press for a change. This is my favorite "stealth" distro. Does everything right, noone notices. Too bad too. Well worth the DVD download.
21 • For the upwardly mobile (by William Roddy on 2005-05-09 14:55:13 GMT from United States)
For those of you who like to live on the edge, Ubuntu now has the Breezy Badger repositories available. This is the early part of the development tree and, as such, we are warned that things might break from time to time. But if you have a partition upon which you'd like to follow the Breezy tree for the next five or six months, simply install Hoary, then search-and-replace "hoary" with "breezy" (lower case is important, he blushed) in the apt repository list and do a dist-upgrade.
Several hundred new packages are already upgradeable and, so far, except for small glitches in the KDE arena, which can be jointly install, even though it's a separate project, nothing's broken on me yet.
We are cautioned that Ubuntu Breezy Badger is a work early in progress, so I'd like to offer the suggestion that we don't criticize the cooks before the soup's done. Let's wait till the final meal, when the distro's released (on schedule, if the past is any indication) six month from the time Hoary Hedgehog came out.
I'm still keeping Scientific Linux as the stable distribution on my computer and laptop, I still like it a lot, and highly recommend folks try it, if you need stability, security and/or enterprise Linux. There's a wonderful throng of very detail-oriented geniuses using SL as their primary operating system.
Thank you, Robert, for your mini-review of Gentoo.
Thank you, Ladislav, for another great start to Monday.
William Roddy
22 • Notes from a resident Gentoo bigot (by Ed Borasky on 2005-05-09 15:06:26 GMT from United States)
1. Once you get the habits down and write a few bash scripts, administration of a Gentoo system is very easy. The one caution I would make is that "things are in different places" on Gentoo from where they are in Red Hat or Debian. This would be a concern if you "learned Linux system administration" with Gentoo, then had to un-learn/re-learn a bunch of stuff for the RHCE exam. That's the case with me, and CentOS 3.4 (RHEL 3 clone I'm using to study for RHCE) seems clunky to me after a year with Gentoo.
2. I've told the Gentoo developers that I don't really see the need for anything other than a stage3 plus GRP (precompiled packages) install, even on my Athlon T-bird, where the best pre-compiled packages are for i686. I did a couple of stage1 installs just to see what happens, but I didn't need to. A stage3 install with everything I use from the GRP is about the same time as a complete CentOS install -- two or three hours. It takes another half-day or so to install all the other packages I use -- science/math and audio mostly. The one gotcha is that I do have to rebuild GCC because it defaults without FORTRAN. :(
3. The slowest box I run Gentoo on is a 933 MHz P3, so I'm not sure if I'm a good one to talk about compile times. There are some packages that do take a long time to compile. xorg is a couple of hours, and KDE is, or at least used to be, overnight or longer. But most of them don't take all that long.
4. One point about Gentoo that seldom gets made is the size of the package repository that's part of the distro. They are somewhere around 9400 packages as I write this, more than Woody and about 2/3 of Sarge. Gentoo has way more than what's in CentOS. As far as I can tell, the ones marked "stable" are as solid and stable as those in Woody or CentOS. As far as I can tell, Gentoo does as good a job on security alerts as Woody or CentOS. So ... that makes Gentoo the biggest major stable secure distro in my book (Ubuntu bigots -- please feel free to contradict me).
5. Gentoo and Debian seem to be the only major distros left that still support Alpha, PowerPC, and Sparc as well as the ubiquitous x86 and its descendants. Is this good or bad? I have no idea. As long as the Linux kernel and GNU support them, distros should in my opinion.
6. Deploying identical Gentoo installs to identical machines probably isn't much more difficult than it is for other distros. A couple of simple bash scripts will do a stage3 install plus installing all packages if you have an NFS-mountable pre-compiled package repository.
23 • Aha! Spotted something re Buffalo... (by Steve on 2005-05-09 15:07:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi all.
Buffalo, my choice of sensible distro for older machines with:
* pre-built procesor specific kernels,
* ready for either general server or desktop plus
* IceWM - very nice lightweight desktop
... has gone to liveCD! See
http://buffalolinux.dyndns.org/ and http://buffalolinux.dyndns.org/download.html
plus they've got a new, faster server.
Sounds good. Am d/l Buffalo-Live-1.7.3-4.iso right now; will report back in a day how BuffLive gets on with my machines.
Steve
24 • (K)Ubuntu LiveCD vs. Knoppix?? (by Ed Borasky on 2005-05-09 15:14:12 GMT from United States)
What would be more interesting is the differences between the Kubuntu LiveCD and Knoppix, given that the (Gnome) Ubuntu LiveCD absorbed the Gnoppix LiveCD project. Comments, anyone? I think we did Knoppix vs. Kanotix already :).
Speaking of Knoppix, I've had some problems booting Knoppix 3.8.1 on machines that did just fine with 3.7, but haven't had time to dig into what's happening. Anyone else seeing stuff like this?
25 • Gentoo (by ray carter at 2005-05-09 15:16:40 GMT from United States)
I've been doing computer software support and development for 30 years. I've also been working with Unix since 1992 (sys admin, etc) and Linux for about five years. I have several comments concerning Gentoo:
1) I have no idea exactly how much linear time is required for an install, but when I installed on my mini-itx, I did a stage one install. Total time from starting until I had the total system set up pretty much the way I wanted it was about a week. You also have to realize that I have a life outside compters, and a family which requests attention from time to time.
2) having installed Gentoo on my mini-itx box, I plan to NEVER go back to another distro. It is much more efficient, faster, etc. than anything else I ever tried.
26 • My gentoo mini-review (by EEDOK on 2005-05-09 15:19:06 GMT from Canada)
my experience with gentoo:
Day 1: Install, wait for it to compile and finish, takes all day
Day 2: Install, all graphical components, takes all day once again
Day 3: In the time the rest of the system was compiling, updates were made available, and it takes all day to compile
Day 4: Getting annoyed by the fact that I'm spending my day compiling other people's programs and am now 3 days behind with the things on my computer due to it being tied up due to compiling, I install arch linux, it takes 20 minutes to get an optimized up to date system running.
Nice to see some arch based distros making a foothold out there.
27 • sarge (by im_ka on 2005-05-09 15:20:38 GMT from Sweden)
yesterday i gave up and realized that if i want my system the way i wanna have it, i have two real options: debian and gentoo. gentoo (if done right) is faster but of course takes time to get up and running.
i installed a base sarge system on my thinkpad t23, installed x, added the xfce extra sources, installed xfce and the apps i need, compiled the driver for my wlan card (it was really easy), did some minor tweaking... now i have a beautiful, fast, up2date desktop on a rock solid system. and apt power of course. xfce should really get more attention. it's like gnome but a lot faster.
when sarge goes stable, i'll stick to stable, i don't care if it takes 1-2 years til the next release. i have a solid base, the xfce packages are being kept up to date (http://www.os-works.com/view/debian/).
peace
28 • RE: sarge (by IMQ on 2005-05-09 15:40:23 GMT from United States)
I also have 'Sarge' installed on one of the partitions, using the Official CD images of the "testing" distribution. And it's nice. Much better than the experience I had with Woody. I added a couple repositories to sources.list to give DVD playback capability and using XFCE from os-cillation (http://www.os-works.com/view/debian/).
So far so good. I plan to keep this baby til 'Sid' arrives (wheever that will be. Probably the same time as Scientific Linux based on RHEL5 is released). A rock solid Debian desktop. Slightly outdated but who cares!
29 • No subject (by mcg on 2005-05-09 15:49:03 GMT from Netherlands)
I love you Dostrowatch.com!How nice to read fresh news about Linux and Unix!Thanks a lot Ladislav!
***************************************************************
Gentoo is excellent distro as desktop,game server,web server or home use.I love Gentoo Linux and community!In Gentoo Linux everything works whats more it is secure,Portage does everything for you!Great handbook!yes it is for advanced users,but you can try Vida Linux,it is really nice!
regards
30 • DW page format (by Anonymous on 2005-05-09 16:04:00 GMT from United States)
Please rearrange the left column by frequency of changes and usefulness, my suggestions being:
Packages, Distributions, Reviews, Newsletters
31 • Missed a few points (by shd on 2005-05-09 16:44:56 GMT from United States)
I applaud you for at least attempting to take the Gentoo plunge. I agree that it is not for everyone except the hardest of hard core geek (myself included).
A couple things worth mentioning:
Kernel compile - Gentoo's tool 'genkernel' I have found to be an excellent tool for allowing a user to tweak their kernel to their heart's content while automating the boring stuff like copying to /boot and generating the initrd image, etc.
Installing X: Gentoo's Desktop Documentation Resources (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml?catid=desktop) contains tons of info for setting up your Gentoo desktop, including installing and setting up Xorg. The main installation guide does not cover X because it's main purpose is to guide the user to a working base system. From there it is up to the user whether to proceed to a desktop system or some other customized setup.
One trick I have used regarding X has been to boot into Knoppix on the machine I intend to install Gentoo and save the X config file to a USB stick. I then use this as a reference for the X config file I generate when installing Gentoo.
My personal Gentoo setup at home is a PII 300Mhz and a P4 1.7Ghz identically configured and sharing /home over NFS on our router so either computer can be used by either myself or my wife (though of course the P4 is preferred for speed) with sync'd e-mail, pictures, music, etc. I never have to consider another distro, because Gentoo fills my needs, and should for the forseeable future, as long as it continues to be so actively and capably maintained.
32 • Debian as fast as Gentoo??? (by Ariszló on 2005-05-09 16:52:21 GMT from Hungary)
Robert Storey wrote: The Gentoo faithful claim that they can enhance performance this way, but comparing the results side-by-side with another fast distro like Slackware or Debian, I must say that it's hard to see the difference.
How could you make your Debian box fast? Even a kernel optimized for your machine does not help much to speed up the 486-pessimized binaries of Debian. All I can guess is that your machine must have so much RAM that no distro can be slow on it.
33 • Gentoo.....Not bad (by R on 2005-05-09 17:03:32 GMT from United States)
I tried Gentoo last year, it took me about a week to get it done. That was building it an hour here two hours there, I don't have the time to spend all day building a system. After a week of building, I ended up with a system not any better then my Slackware. I think Gentoo is a great Distro, Any brave sole willing to try it, will learn a lot. However you don't need to spend all that time building something that someone already has built. I believe it's best to find a Distro that would provide a good base for you to build on, like Slackware, and build it up from there.
34 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2005-05-09 17:27:42 GMT from Norway)
The review got it dead right, the performance in Gentoo is disapointing considering all the time and effort spent on compiling the thing. (This does not mean that Gentoo isnt a fast distro!) I went for a Stage 1 install the first time I tried it, coming from Mandrake it seemed superfast, but when I decided to install Slackware a couple of months later I found this to be slightly *faster* then Gentoo. A so heavily customized and tweaked system as Gentoo should be faster than any generic distro with a stock kernel!
I dont really agree with you on wether this is a necessity for developers though, unless you work specifically on developing the system itself. I am a developer, and altough I certainly learned a lot from Gentoo, but I found it a bit unstable to operate properly as a development platform. By all means, it is more than stable enough for most purposes, but the bleeding edge package selection brings unstabilities wich I find unsuitable for development and server usage.
PS! I think I was using 2004.0 when I tried it
35 • Retro (by William Roddy on 2005-05-09 17:32:40 GMT from United States)
You know what's kind of cool here? For the first time, I'm beginning to read posts that indicate people are satisfied with stable systems that they are quite good enough and that there's not reason be be out there, leaking blood over the cutting edge, just to use the open-source software you want or need.
Maybe it's a sign that Linux has already matured, without us even noticing
It's just too bad that more people aren't able to enjoy what we're enjoying because they're trapped by some non-free, non-open-source software monopoly. I mean, if physicists at Fermilabs, Stanford, Cambridge, and CERN are using the equivalent of RHEL4, and a major city in Germany chose Debian, they're getting a lot of bang for their buck and they're not having to risk cutting themselves while they shave their budgets with bleeding edge software.
Not enough people read DistroWatch. If they did, there wouldn't be as many blogs, and Web sites proclaiming that Linux is substandard because the author had just tried Fedora Core 2, or SuSE 8, or some ancient Debian version.
There may never be an end to Windows, just like there may never be an end to war. But, imagine a world where everyone lived in peace AND used open source.
Outstanding!
36 • Gentoo (by Jack on 2005-05-09 19:00:54 GMT from United States)
If you don't have a family or social life by all means use Gentoo. Wow I've done a stage 1 and stage 3 install. Did I learn anything? Not really. I installed slackware in 1998 and at that time I learned quite a bit. Been there done that.
Wish to optimize your system to make it fast? Prelink Openoffice, use XFCE 4.2.1, get more RAM, then spend some quality time with the family, done.
37 • Re: Ubuntu and Kubuntu merge (by Anonymous on 2005-05-09 19:13:17 GMT from Germany)
> They even get released together at the same time.
That was once the time but may not be always the case. If KDE's next release will be after 7 or 8 months development time it will "out of sync" with GNOME's release cycle. Kubuntu would then to my understanding release (or have an extra release additional to the one in sync with Ubuntu base) when KDE got released.
38 • (K)Ubuntu LiveCD vs. Knoppix?? (by Scott on 2005-05-09 19:14:29 GMT from United States)
Ed Borasky said...
Speaking of Knoppix, I've had some problems booting Knoppix 3.8.1 on machines that did just fine with 3.7, but haven't had time to dig into what's happening. Anyone else seeing stuff like this?
Yes, and I fussed at Distro talk 2 months ago and noone has said anything. I have no issues with Debian based distros but I get boot loops and sometimes freezes right after you enter the parameters with Knoppix remasters. They work fine with a Athlon XP's it seems but older K-6-2's have a issue. Onece in a while they will boot up with no or scrambled video and/or no sound if you fool around in the options and try and set it to a lower video resolution (xres or screen parm) on a live cd. On a HD install I always got a kernal panic or boot loop.
Scott
39 • Re: Gentoo (by Jackstraw on 2005-05-09 19:30:05 GMT from United States)
The overall Gentoo experience pays off after the install, when you never have to re-install to stay up-to-date. But agreed, you need to make the up-front investment. That said, I used Gentoo for awhile, but moved to Arch for any workstation box or slow system. Frankly, I also had fewer problems with Arch pacman than Gentoo emerge, it is also much faster to sync, albeit with fewer packages in the repository.
40 • The increasing popularity of linux, Gentoo and... (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-05-09 21:08:50 GMT from Italy)
There is very little doubt that Linux is getting much more popular, especially among young people, at an incredible fast speed.
The downside of it is that many of them *don't have a clue* not just about linux, but about computers in general.
I try to help as much as I can in a couple of forums, one in particular.
You would be absolutely astonished which kind of questions they ask: Aunt Tillie is a geek by comparison.
Don't take me wrong: I was also pretty cluless when I bought my first computer, so I don't blame them.
My point? Gentoo is not for geeks? No problem installing it if you read the manual? Do me a favour: get real! Go out of your little Gentoo world and help newbies in newbie-friendly distro forums: that will give you a better perspective of reality.
41 • Love linux geek comments... (by Lance Lucas on 2005-05-09 21:18:36 GMT from United States)
I love Linux geek comments, especially ones such as "Once I'm done I have the most robust server platform available in the linux arena." However, I dont know too many sysadmins who would love the idea of staying at work overnight to recompile their systems to incorporate security updates. For many many many many servers, downtimes of more than a minute or two are unacceptable, and that would be impossible on a Gentoo server. "Sorry (dhcp/ftp/samba/ssh/mail) users, a critical bug has been found and I must down (insert here) services to keep us safe. I'll be recompiling the new versions while you wait and lose productivity". In this sense, RedHat/Yum and Debian/Apt provide a better platform for any type of mission-critical server. Recompiling is for the clone test server, binary upgrades are for the production server. But I love that a linux geek would use a Gentoo server anyways :).
"How could you make your Debian box fast? Even a kernel optimized for your machine does not help much to speed up the 486-pessimized binaries of Debian. All I can guess is that your machine must have so much RAM that no distro can be slow on it."
Please post some type of technical information that can back this up. From what I can tell, there seems to be very little performance difference running i386-code-on-a-i686 compared to i686-code-on-i686. This is a bit of a petty optimization....a much better optimization is called AMD64 :). If you want binaries that are *really* optimized for your arch, buy an AMD64.
42 • SymphonyOS (by Dark Leth on 2005-05-09 21:52:27 GMT from United States)
Hey, it's Leth checking in..
A couple of months ago, SymphonyOS began testing. However, due to limited bandwidth, we could not get the release out beyond our testers. Recently, we re-submitted our application to several hosting sites, and I come to you asking for your help.
If you have additional server space for mirrors of this new OS, drop by our forum at www.symphonyos.com and tell us. It would be greatly appreciated.
Alex
43 • RE: SymphonyOS (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-05-09 22:02:52 GMT from Italy)
Why not a torrent? It is insanely easy to start one, and once it is up and running all you need is a tracker (just one machine) and a few seeders.
44 • Re: Love linux geek comments... (by Ariszló on 2005-05-09 22:21:21 GMT from Hungary)
Most of the machines I use are Pentium 4's with 128 or 256 MB of RAM. I do appreciate petty optimization for petty economies...
45 • remember this is linux (by bigmatt on 2005-05-09 22:24:07 GMT from United States)
Guys dont forget we're linux users and remember linux is all about choices so dont bash other people for them liking things from source or somebody liking things binary in the end it really matters what your personal preference is. Just reminding :).
46 • gentoo (by im-ka on 2005-05-09 22:50:31 GMT from Sweden)
gentoo would be my second choice after debian. it's an excellent distribution (but takes time to install it and keep it up2date), and you can install if you can read (not only english)
ps: dw keeps saying i'm from sweden. maybe it's my router. anyways, i'm in austria (where i study) most of the time, sometimes posting from hungary (where my heart belongs).
47 • Frugalware (by andrew on 2005-05-09 22:56:05 GMT from Australia)
I find Frugalware excellent in every way but one: I had serious problems with their installer, in fact this was the first time in a long while I was not able to install the system! The problem has something to do with the way it handles selection of packages - any change in installed set resulted in errors. Just accepting defaults didn't work either... Determined to succeed, I used network install instead and that finally did the trick. Once up and running, Frugalware is very pleasant to work with, so I'd recommend giving it a try and persisting if you encounter installation glitches. In any case I was using rc2 version, perhaps the final release got better...
48 • Knoppix 3.8.1 vs Kubuntu Live (by clicktician on 2005-05-09 23:54:37 GMT from United States)
Last week I bought myself a new laptop when my Sony coughed and died. I trolled the aisles armed with my Knoppix 3.8.1, Kubuntu Live 5.04, SuSe Live 9.2, Sun Java Desktop R2, and MandrakeMove disks to see what ran where, while a flock of sales-help looked on. I felt like some kind of gladiator promising a kill.
I bought an HP zd8110 because both SuSe and Kubuntu worked flawlessly. MandrakeMove booted but couldn't negotiate the network. Knoppix 3.8.1 finished dead last when it hung on the network DHCP and refused to boot up on the HP (and others).
Kubuntu was the only LiveCD that detected the native 1440x900 res on the HPs ATI Mobility, but I bought a copy of SuSe 9.3 Pro with the laptop cause I'm a wool-dyed SuSe bigot and the LiveCd worked ok. To my surprise, 9.3 refused to install even in safe mode.
So, I installed Kubuntu, of course. Sometimes progress just isn't progress.
49 • Re: Gentoo (by Jackstraw on 2005-05-10 00:05:45 GMT from United States)
The overall Gentoo experience pays off after the install, when you never have to re-install to stay up-to-date. But agreed, you need to make the up-front investment. That said, I used Gentoo for awhile, but moved to Arch for any workstation box or slow system. Frankly, I also had fewer problems with Arch pacman than Gentoo emerge, it is also much faster to sync, albeit with fewer packages in the repository.
50 • RE: Knoppix 3.8.1 vs Kubuntu Live (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-05-10 00:07:50 GMT from Italy)
A better comparison would be, IMHO, Kanotix vs Kubuntu Live.
I have seen Knoppix staying very much the same release after release, while Kanotix gets better all the time and now has one of the best hardware detections of any LiveCD.
51 • FREEBSD vs GENTOO (by Alex on 2005-05-10 00:51:07 GMT from United States)
Which is easier to install and which makes a better desktop OS?
52 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2005-05-10 01:10:20 GMT from United States)
"Most of the machines I use are Pentium 4's with 128 or 256 MB of RAM. I do appreciate petty optimization for petty economies..."
Find some proof that your machine runs more than 3% faster with i686 code than i386 code, and post it. And with 128mb ram, if you really think its the optimizations that are hurting you, then by all means go ahead and do an entire Gentoo compile on it. See you in three days. Or, you could install binary with less than a 3% performance hit within an hour. I guess it's your choice. In fact, please post all of the actual optimizations you're missing out on with Debian i386-compatible binarys on i686. I am becomming increasing interested in this topic and would like some proof that binary optimization outside of the kernel on i386-compatible hardware leads to measurable increases in performance.
53 • RE: im-ka (by ladislav on 2005-05-10 02:14:42 GMT from Taiwan)
dw keeps saying i'm from sweden. maybe it's my router. anyways, i'm in austria
We use a GeoIP database for translating IP addresses into countries.They claim 98% accuracy, so it looks like you fall into those 2% of people whom GeoIP misplaces.
54 • CPU Optimizations (by Benjamin Vander Jagt on 2005-05-10 02:25:35 GMT from United States)
While I was on the Red Hat mailing list, during Phoebe (Red Hat 8.0.9x), I made a little bit of a stink by complaining about the performance of a system compiled with a simple --target=athlon compared to the stock i386 packages that Red Hat always released. I recompiled everything, simply telling the compiler to build for athlon, and I saw an 11% drop in RAM usage, about 10 seconds shaved off of startup time (no, no broken packages), and a marginal (about 1/2 second) improvement in most application launches. Run-time performance wasn't really easy to measure, so I didn't.
Is an improvement like this worth spending a week to compile packages yourself? Most likely not. However, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that a distributor could make a bunch of different pre-optimized versions of his distribution, costing him extra time to compile, but not costing the thousands or millions of users any extra compile time.
These are just my thoughts, and since my company installs a LOT of desktop Linux's, I'll be recompiling SuSE 9.3 for K6-2, Athlon, and P4 for FTP install. (-:
55 • Gentoo install (by MrCorey on 2005-05-10 02:53:32 GMT from Canada)
I am beginning to think that I am the only one who reads the Gentoo manual as I install in one of the terminals. I don't ever print off the manual, as its both on the CD and online. I usually start first with ner-setup and get my network running. Then, I use Links to read the manual from the gentoo website, while doing the work in VT2 and 3. Just another way (saves a tree, too).
There are some neat config tools that Gentoo has that make life so much easier. I can think of etc-update as one
56 • RE: FREEBSD vs GENTOO (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-05-10 03:12:58 GMT from Italy)
I definitely feel that Freebsd is a lot easier to install, especially since PC-BSD (beta)
However Gentoo makes for a better desktop OS, IMO.
Consider VidaLinux or NavynOS
57 • Re: No Subject [Was: Love linux geek comments...] (by Anonymous on 2005-05-10 06:44:34 GMT from Hungary)
I last ran Debian on my machine with 128 MB of RAM two years ago and then decided to never do so again. (Nevertheless, I did.) Slacware was much faster and distributions like Yoper, Arch Linux, Buffalo or Onebase were very much faster. I did not measure the percentages but they were not tiny. The only major distribution that was slower than Debian is Fedora. Perhaps, the fact that there is at least one slower distribution entitles Debianites to claim that they have a fast distro? Hmmm...
As for compiling Gentoo on a machine with 128 MB of RAM, no way! Even with 256 MB, it takes days.
To sum up, I did not say that Debian was a bad distro. In fact, it has a lot of merits but speed is not among them.
58 • Correction (by Ariszló on 2005-05-10 06:47:09 GMT from Hungary)
I mean I first ran.
59 • Optimisation and Gentoo (by fdavid on 2005-05-10 07:41:11 GMT from Austria)
It's sad that people often talk about "speed gain" and "compilation time", when they think that they talk about "Gentoo". This is just not what Gentoo is about. This is simply the fact, that these people are not able to make difference between gcc (or any compiler) and Gentoo (or any distro). And, unfortunately, it is also true for certain Gentoo users.
Let's make it clear:
A source based distibution is not about optimaisation. Yes it's also possible as a side-effect, but the real gain is that
* the distibution can support a plenty of architectures without storing and maintaining too many binaries in the repository
* the configuration of packages can happen depending on user needs
All the thing about speed and compilation time is - surprisingly - a compiler issue and has nothing to do with the quality, stability, robustness, design, etc. of a distro.
You may say that the installation and updates still take too much time. Since I've already addressed these questions in my first post, I won't write it down again. Shortly: it's simply not a problem.
60 • Buffalo Live (by Steve on 2005-05-10 10:25:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi Guys...
Getting back to you about Buffalo Live.
This is writ and posted on that!
On the first box I tried – boot went OK but could not talk to the LAN (nForce2 LAN chipset drivers ??). The second box (this one) has a SiS chipset & everything just works fine. I'm writing this in Open Office 1.1.4 – which had to have a minimal (“network”) install to get going.
A nice feature of BuffLive is that you can specify a local SMB share and connect to that on boot for persistent storage. That worked fine.
A few little grumbles – keyboard language mapping; always a struggle in Buffalo, I now pronounce dead. It's US keyboards only... well there is the usual dodgy route to change it.
Let's attempt this. Saving this to SMB share... worked. Going into keyboard mapping tool System >> System Admin >> Buffalo Linux System 1.1. Select “Keymap” Warning – do I want to change Keymap? Yes. Get an option list – UK is 3rd from bottom. Now comes a “try it out window” – press Shift-2 which is double-quote on UK keyboards. Hey, it says @ That didn't work. Try another 2 times – it never works. Let me see – perhaps rebooting would help? :) Trying through text-mode admin screen – also does not work; still get @. As root in text mode? Nope. This needs sorting - once and for all.
But Buffalo Live is Mcalister's first attempt at a live CD. This is a lightweight and nippy distro, full of the latest and greatest – yet it still has some rough edges and the occasional oddity. An interesting alternative showing some originality!
The vast majority works, it looks good and you can live with it. Makes a great server platform (watch out for unstarted services). The desktop, IceWM, is impressive and perhaps a little more intuitive then KDE or Gnome – and without question is the fastest of the three.
What else? Quite intrigued by the backup your existing partition into a liveCD option ... what, take whatever is already there and turn it into a booting CD?? Really? Will try that later – I can't be reading this right.
Another nice distro in the GNU/Linux world! Well done Mcalister!
(Again, if you are using old kit, THIS is the distro with a K6 optimised kernel with the flags set right – others do not.)
61 • Memory (by zilla1126 on 2005-05-10 13:32:20 GMT from United States)
I know not everyone has money to burn; but what is up with all these people trying to get by with 128mb of RAM? I know it is *possible* to install a desktop system with this amount of memory - and that you can use a "lighter" window manager and try to run as light as possible... But why? Memory is extremely cheap right now. If you can afford a P4 system then it is crazy to have less than 256mb on it. Even for a server. It is like have a Ferrari with Yugo tires on it. Shit, if you are in the US I will mail you a stick; I bags of SDRAM here... :)
62 • RE: Ariszló (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-05-10 15:07:22 GMT from Italy)
"The only major distribution that was slower than Debian is Fedora. "
Probably you have never tried SUSE: *every* other distro is a Ferrari by comparison.
That is maybe why Debian feels very fast to me.
As to other distros they are simply not my cup of tea, even if I keep trying almost all of them.
63 • another gentoo user (by gnobuddy on 2005-05-10 17:07:01 GMT from United States)
After using Mandrake and Mepis, and trying out a host of other distros, I've been using Gentoo at home for the past year or two.
I agree entirely that it is a time-consuming pain in the behind to install and configure. For me a week is about what it takes to go from bare hardware to a full-blown KDE based desktop system that knows about all my hardware (including things like networked printers and a USB scanner).
Despite the suffering needed to install Gentoo, I continue to use it for one big reason - the *huge* amount of software available in the Gentoo repositories, and the extreme ease of installing it. The very small download sizes of typical (source code) packages is the icing on the cake. No more downloading 450 MB of precompiled software because you want to update KDE, as happened to me with Mandrake once.
Gentoo's definitely not perfect, and I look forward to the day when a more sane Linux distro incorporates Gentoo's excellent source-based package installation. For now, I suffer through the install for the benefits that follow.
-Gnobuddy
64 • Great Review (by henriquemaia on 2005-05-10 17:55:05 GMT from Portugal)
Great review, Robert. I sure like to read your texts!
65 • Affording Windows (by William Roddy on 2005-05-10 18:33:13 GMT from United States)
I submit that the people in these two articles would be good examples of why the world needs Linux. Do they look as though they can afford to purchase Windows?
http://ct.news.com.com/clicks?c=166063-37828083&brand=news&ds=5
An accompanying CNET article on this village reveals even more of the problem.
66 • Re: Memory & SUSE (by Ariszló on 2005-05-10 20:30:37 GMT from Hungary)
The machine with 128 MB or RAM is not mine. It's one of the machines I am using at work and I find it a very good machine to test optimization-related speed.
As for SuSE, it ran faster than Fedora on that infamous test machine, though to be honest, not really faster than Debian. Not slower, either. The only app that was a bit slow at SuSE was YaST.
67 • Re: Affording Windows (by Ariszló on 2005-05-10 20:35:02 GMT from Hungary)
No, most people do not buy Windows in my country, nevertheless they have it. Teachers get it "free" from the government, which pays about one billion Forints a year for the license.
68 • Microsoft meets with Red Hat (by William Roddy on 2005-05-10 22:53:16 GMT from United States)
This is a quote from a CNET news bullitin I just received:
"Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Red Hat's Matthew Szulik met for more than an hour at a McCormick & Schmick's restaurant in New York in late March, sources familiar with the situation said. Microsoft initiated the meeting, one source indicated."
In another article, Bill Gates is reported to have said that Microsoft plans to meet with several open source leaders.
What's going on? Is it a way to FUD the *nix community? Or are they feeling that their control of the Known Universe is slipping?
Ballmer is such a repulsive character, how could Szulik stand to spend an hour with him?
I suppose we shall see what we shall see.
William Roddy
69 • Question for Ariszlo (by William Roddy on 2005-05-10 22:56:49 GMT from United States)
Ariszlo, in Hungary, how much is one billion Forints, in US dollars? Sorry to be so ignorant about a country I admire. Thank you for the information.
70 • • RE: Knoppix 3.8.1 vs Kubuntu Live (by clicktician on 2005-05-11 00:34:35 GMT from United States)
Kanotix vs Kubuntu Live...
Kanotix turned me off early on, and sometimes I don't take second looks. But I should know better because you guys have taught me that Linux distros on this watch are anything but static.
I use Knoppix everyday, and am kinda grateful it doesn't change a lot, except that 3.8.1 comes with a seriously garish wallpaper that's hard to use at the office. I'm not a cosmetic worry-wort, but I live in a corporate windows world. The nail that sticks up, is quickly pounded back down.
71 • RE: Microsoft meets with Red Hat (by Anonymous Penguin on 2005-05-11 04:57:19 GMT from Italy)
"Ballmer is such a repulsive character, how could Szulik stand to spend an hour with him?"
LOL!
72 • Re: Question for Ariszlo (by fdavid on 2005-05-11 06:20:09 GMT from Austria)
The exchange rate between HUF and USD is currently about 195:1. This means that 1 billion Ft is approximately 5,13 million US dollars.
73 • Time for Comments!!! Please! (by john on 2005-05-11 08:09:04 GMT from United States)
I was looking at your page average per visitor and I see that you are average very little over one page per visitor. This is not good at all.
May I suggest that now is the time to add a 'comments' section to each bit of news. This can be used by people to discuss the distro that is the topic of that news. For instance, I would love to be able to click on the Fedora Test3 Release news 'comments' and read the comments of 10 or 20 people that have installed the distro and give reviews and tips.
This should be your next priority. Please, please Ladislav!!!
74 • Re: Question for Ariszlo (by Ariszló on 2005-05-11 10:54:29 GMT from Hungary)
And those 5.13 million US dollars are paid in a country of 10 million people where the average net wage is 475 dollars a month.
75 • Thank you, Ariszlo (by William Roddy on 2005-05-11 12:56:08 GMT from United States)
So what is happening then is that Microsoft, who is not a member of the government of Hungary, is still able to tax every one of its people 51 cents each, from their $475 per month income, whether they use Windows or not? Ludicrous.
In the U.S., we call that taxation without representation. Perhaps it's time for independence-loving Magyars to have a "Budapest Tea Party," but instad of throwing tea into the Danube, throw Windows computers. Or better yet, Steve Ballmer.
76 • Budapest Tea Party (by im-ka (from hungary) on 2005-05-11 17:11:12 GMT from Sweden)
LOL William that would be great :) i think we should organize that.
77 • Re:- Budapest Tea Party > merges with Gentoo blah (by Will Doors on 2005-05-12 01:52:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
<"have a "Budapest Tea Party," but instad of throwing tea into the Danube, throw Windows computers.">
noooo.!!! ever heard of LTSP? "32MB is more than enough for anyone" (or is that anykernel+X).
Heck, I amaze people every day running Windoze2003 Server from a 32MBPentium1/166/noHdd with LTSP and VNC ;-)
More fun than any maritime-tea-tossing.
Of course, the Windoze 2003 Svr isn't online (it's a trial) that's what Gentoo's for. Installed 3 years back and still bang uptodate (nightly) never even rebooted it yet. -Not many users though, under 100 SMBs and 20 LTSP-ers, but streams lots of audio as well. I got the 10percent of the 1st year MS per-seat licencing saving as a bonus on the 2nd anniversary !
Will
78 • Bobbing for Ballmer (by William Roddy on 2005-05-12 05:41:07 GMT from United States)
I still can't erase from my imagination the sounds of a Strauss waltz, as Ballmer bobs in the Blue Danube. The way he sweats, he could probably use a bath.
In any case, I am proud to have communicated with some of the proud people of Hungary who, at times, have been captive, but have never been defeated.
And who give us
blackPanther OS • Frugalware Linux • SULIX • UHU-Linux
79 • metadistribution (by butters on 2005-05-12 11:29:10 GMT from United States)
Gentoo is a metadistribution, and merely provides the tools you need to build your system. I've been using Gentoo since before the 1.0 rc series, so I have seen things progress from before devfs was added, when the 2.4 kernels had serious bugs with ReiserFS, to a fully mature and massive community project.
I disagree with Gentoo being the hardest "distribution" to install. The only distribution I've ever failed to get running was Debian, a couple years ago before the new installer was developed. In my experience, every distribution has aspects that piss me off. You know, the little things that just don't work the way they're supposed to. With most distributions, these problems are inevitable and unfixable. With Gentoo, I find that if there is anything I don't like about the way the system is setup, or the way an application is configured, I can fix it with ease. Portage doesn't have problems with software from different repositories coexisting like APT seems to. There's one repository, and for the most part, everything in the portage tree works fine with everything else. Stuff that won't work with versions of software on your system are identified as blockers, and it is easy to unmerge the offending package to allow the installation of a new version.
Regarding server availability, updating packages (for security updates, for example) doesn't cause any downtime. Packages will compile in the background with the lowest possible scheduler priority, and of course there is no need to reboot unless you're updating the kernel. Gentoo also has full support for using distcc to shift the compiling load to offline servers and to spread the load over a farm of servers. You can also use portage to cross-compile for different architectures.
Gentoo is Linux without limits. If the software is out there, you can use it, and you can set it up however you see fit. It is the perfect development platform for new Linux technologies, and the Gentoo community is (in)famous for finding bugs in software that traditional distributions don't uncover. Finally, there is no better community of knowledgeable and enthusiastic users than the Gentoo Forums. Every Linux forums has its share of trolls and RTFM-types, but the trifecta of good tools, best-of-breed documentation, and the best forums on the 'net make Gentoo and excellent choice for a wider audience than you might expect. If you have enough patience to be reading upwards of 100 posts on Distrowatch, then you are most certainly a candidate for Gentoo.
80 • Cool Site & PHP translations (by Benton Middleton on 2005-05-12 20:19:34 GMT from United States)
First of all ....Coool Site. New to linux (6 months or so) and still learning the command-line, but I love Linux AND the Open-Source movement and I Tell everyone I know about it at every chance I get.
Second, about translations: -- Java has a ".lang" library that accomplishes this easier than anything out there. Yeah, I know they are not open-source...."YET". Heard the news from SUN??? They just announced that they are going to allow and actually contribute to an open-source version of Java for non-proprietary developers. So you may want to check this out before you commit to a PHP implementation.
And third...Keep up the good work. Also would like to know if you have the discontinued versions in a separate list so we can look at them individually and download if we want?!
Later...!! -- The Benster!
81 • @Benster (by Anonymous on 2005-05-12 21:02:03 GMT from Germany)
Look in the 'Search'-Section for discontinued distributions.
82 • Nominations for the next Distrowatch award (by Ed Borasky on 2005-05-15 03:40:36 GMT from United States)
Here we go again:
1. FreeDuc: http://www.ofset.org/freeduc-cd
2. Quantian: http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian
3. The R Project: http://www.r-project.org/
4. Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org
83 • the bitching (by someone on 2005-05-15 08:38:07 GMT from South Africa)
do people always have to bitch and flame others here?
84 • Nomination (by fdavid on 2005-05-16 09:06:55 GMT from Austria)
I would like to nominate the Krusader file manager for the Distrowatch Donation Programme.
http://krusader.sourceforge.net/
A good file manager is essential for daily work, and this file manager is a really successful replacement of Total Commander, which bears a famous name in the Windows world.
Number of Comments: 84
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| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Soyombo Mongolian Linux
Soyombo was a Mongolian live CD distribution based on Morphix and built by the OpenNM project.
Status: Discontinued
|
| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Tips and tricks: What being free, stable and light-weight mean |
| Questions and answers: What to do when the disk acts full |
| Tips and tricks: Keep terminal programs running, using the at command, reverse OpenSSH connections |
| Tips and tricks: Malware warnings about Linux ISO files |
| Questions and answers: Talking about how the BSDs do things |
| Questions and answers: Distribution members, donations, and governance structure |
| Tips and tricks: Digital cameras, mobile phones and music players under Linux |
| Questions and answers: Why is Debian "out-of-date"? |
| Tips and tricks: Basename, for loop, dirname, aliases, bash history, xsel clipboard |
| Questions and answers: Checking on which applications depend on a low-level package |
| More Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers |
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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