 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 136, 30 January 2006 |
Welcome to this year's fifth issue of DistroWatch Weekly and happy New Year to all our Chinese readers! We'll start with news about rPath, a Linux distribution and company, formally launched last week after concluding a round of venture capital financing. Which Windows applications would you most like to see running under Linux? That's what Novell wants to know -- with some preliminary results of the survey already available -- in order to help with porting them to our favourite operating system. This will be followed by more news about Xandros, Morphix, and SUSE, as well as a link to a mouthwatering bunch of KDE 4 screenshots. In our First Look series, we'll check out the progress the developers of Symphony OS have made during the last three months. Happy reading!
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (4.25MB) or mp3 (5.06MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
Content:
Miscellaneous news: rPath launch, Novell survey, SUSE CD layout changes, Morphix development, Xandros Education edition, KDE 4 screenshots
 rPath, a company established by several prominent ex-Red Hat employees and a Linux distribution of the same name, was formally launched last week. Closing a venture financing to the value of US$6.4 million, the North Carolina-based Linux company is expected to release the first stable version of its distribution next month. rPath's business model is not quite clear yet, but the new product is built on top of a unique package management system, called "Conary", that promises to simplify long-term maintenance of Linux-based operating system. rPath was established by Eric Troan, formerly a Vice President of Engineering at Red Hat, and Billy Marshall who previously served as Red Hat's Vice President of North American Sales. Read more in the company's first official press release.
 Which Windows applications would you most like to see ported to Linux? To find out the answer, Novell is conducting a public survey, which, when completed, will be used as a basis for contacting the vendors of the most often requested applications and ask them to partner with Novell to port it to Linux. If this sounds like a worthwhile task, consider completing the survey. Although still ongoing, Novell has already published preliminary results based on the answers during the past few weeks. The top three most requested applications are QuickBooks, AutoCAD and Photoshop.
 Those readers who are waiting impatiently for the new SUSE Linux 10.1, due for release in March, might be interested to learn about some modifications in the layout of SUSE 10.1 DVDs and CDs. The major change concerns the differences between the retail and download editions. The first 5 CDs of both will be identical, with the retail edition containing a 6th CD containing closed-source and third-party applications. The "OSS" label will be dropped. As always, the retail edition will also include a double-layered DVD with RPM packages for both the x86 and x86_64 architectures. More information about the changes in the upcoming SUSE 10.1 can be found in this mailing list post.
 Xandros Corporation has launched an education edition of its flagship product - Xandros Desktop. Aimed at academic institutions, students and teachers, the new product features support for Windows Active Directory authentication, remote connection to school VPN, wireless network access point finder, and support for Microsoft Office via Codeweavers Crossover Office. Individual students and teachers can purchase the product for just under US$50, while large academic institutions can deploy the Xandros Education edition for as little as US$10 per seat. For more information please read the company's press release.
 Remember Morphix? Based on Knoppix, the Morphix live CD became a very popular distribution for developers due to its modularised nature that allowed users to easily add or remove software modules based on their needs. Unfortunately, the days when the project made frequent releases of several Morphix editions are seemingly gone and these days the developers are content to hack on some of their under-the-hood utilities. But here is some good news: "Despite relative dormancy, Morphix has had an interesting year thanks to a few interesting derivatives and Morphest 2005 last November. ... Given that the autobuilding has made new releases a lot easier there have been ideas on making mmaker GUI interfaces or even a mmaker-replacement. A new base ISO release has been imminent for some time now, but there still are minor issues to deal with." More details on the distribution's home page. Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long for a new set of Morphix ISO images....
Finally, some mouthwatering eye candy of the much awaited KDE 4. The maintainer of the Planet Diaz web site has been collecting screenshots and mock-ups of the current development of KDE 4 and posting them in the site's forums to give us an early idea about the major new update of the popular open source desktop. From what we can see here and here, KDE 4 is going to be a radically different beast, with many interesting ideas being implemented as we speak. Although no firm release date is given, KDE 4.0 is expected to be out before the end of 2006.
* * * * *
Feedback: Linux in Iran
Last week's interview with Alan Baghumian, the developer of Parsix GNU/Linux, has attracted some interesting feedback. To say the truth, it was an experimental feature, as we weren't sure how well it would be received. After all, most interviews in the Linux world are conducted with well-known personalities - developers who could claim wide-spread usage of their applications or distributions. With Alan, however, the interview was with a rather ordinary young man, a person barely known in his native Iran, let alone behind his country's borders.
Luckily, indications are that most of our visitors appreciated the interview. Here is an interesting email sent to us by a reader located in the USA:
"I especially enjoyed reading Alan Baghumian's interview this week; that was the best interview so far, and he's a really cool person. It is a very generous act when someone with so much skill, and without Mark Shuttleworth's money, creates a technically excellent polished distro and promises to give it away for free forever. ... And at a time when Iran and the US are not on good terms, regular folks like Alan can bridge the divide, and we certainly welcome him."
We have also received a few emails from Iran. One of them, by Mohammad Tashackori, informed us about another Iranian distribution called Karamad Linux:
"Karamad, with Support from DPI (Data Processing of Iran), the first ranked company in Iran, is a live and installation Linux CD based on SLAX, with many more applications added to it. Karamad was created for Iranians, depicting elements of Iran's culture. For more description and screenshots see Karamad.com.
We downloaded the latest release and were pleasantly surprised by the polish and lovely background pictures with motifs from ancient Persia. Although designed predominantly for Persian speakers, this would be a perfect distribution for somebody interested in the language, culture and history of one of the greatest empires in history. Besides KDE internationalisation, Karamad Linux also includes an English to Persian dictionary.
Karamad Linux - a distribution designed for Persian speakers and those interested in the language, history and culture of ancient Persia
(full image size: 1,339kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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| First Look: Symphony OS Build 122 |
First Look: Symphony OS Build 122
 It has been a while since the pre-beta release of Symphony OS, a user-friendly distribution with a rather unusual desktop called Mezzo. Back then, the project attracted quite some attention in the media for fearlessly developing a unique approach to performing general computing tasks. Although Symphony OS was still a prototype, rather than a usable distribution, it showed much promise and many users have been eagerly awaiting for further news about its development.
Replying to impatient queries about a new release, the developers finally produced a new downloadable ISO some two weeks ago. Labelled as "build 122", I downloaded the new release to check out the progress the developers have made over the past few months. While this is essentially just another alpha release with many programs and features not working properly, the developers have now announced that a real beta will be released by the end of January, or soon afterwards.
What's new in Symphony OS, build 122? On the surface, some cosmetic improvements have been added to the desktop - for example, there is now a Google search "desklet" prominently displayed on the right side of the desktop, together with RSS feeds for NewsForge and Yahoo! news. There is also a Desktop Manager which looked like the right place for customising the appearance of the desktop, adding and removing desklets and other related tasks. Unfortunately, it is still work in progress and many of its functions have yet to be implemented. Nevertheless, I liked the idea and once the application works and the desklets are customisable, the desktop will become a very usable tool - not only for accessing applications, but also for monitoring news, performing web searches, and other related tasks.
Compared to the previous release (build 108 from October 2005), the base of the system remained largely unchanged. The only exception was Perl, which was upgraded to 5.8.7. Among the core applications, Firefox was upgraded to version 1.5 and Thunderbird to 1.0.7. Both turned out to be somewhat troublesome, with Firefox only launching after killing all existing instances from the terminal window, while Thunderbird seemed even more capricious as it crashed every time I pressed the "send" button.
An interesting new addition to Symphony OS is "OneClick", a good-looking application for installing packages with "Apt-Plus". As these names suggest, the two tools should take all headaches out of managing software packages by providing an intuitive one-click method for installing applications. Knowing that these are early alpha products, I didn't really expect them to work and my attempt at installing Inkscape proved me right. Nevertheless, this is yet another nice idea by the project's developers and certainly something that should add an extra value to the distribution.
Having browsed the Mezzo desktop for an hour or so, it seems that this project is still in an alpha stage, with plenty of unique, but not yet implemented ideas. I doubt that the promised beta will be released soon. In my opinion, the developers should stop worrying about any beta release pressures and keep working on the features, perhaps releasing regular alpha builds as they go. This would be a more sensible approach than rushing out another feature-incomplete release and calling it a "beta".
That said, Symphony OS is one of the most exciting distributions for some time. If all the promised features are implemented and are reasonably bug-free, then we have a real winner on our hands. However, based on the current speed of development, don't expect this to happen overnight. If you have some spare time and wish to help out, here is your chance to become involved in one of the most exciting Linux distributions in development today.
Symphony OS - the distribution with the most unusual desktop is still under intensive development
(full image size: 1,358kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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| Released Last Week |
Linux Caixa Mágica 10 Live CD
The developers of Linux Caixa Mágica, a Portuguese desktop and server distribution based on SUSE Linux, have released a live CD edition of Caixa Mágica 10 Desktop. Designed as a bootable CD without the need to install it to a hard disk, this product is an excellent way to test the distribution and may also be given freely to friends and colleagues who might be interested in experimenting with Linux. The live CD boots into a KDE desktop localised into Portuguese. More information about the product is available in the release announcement (in Portuguese).
Caixa Mágica - a SUSE-base distribution from Portugal with the xLucas configuration panel
(full image size: 479kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
VectorLinux 5.1.2 SOHO Live
A new live CD edition of VectorLinux has been released: "The VectorLinux development team is proud to announce SOHO 5.1.2-live. We started with SOHO 5.1, added all the recent bugfix patches, and rolled it into a live CD. This is what I believe to be the most feature packed live CD available. It comes with two complete desktops: KDE 3.4.2 and XFce 4. Built upon the great heritage that is Slackware, this release features the 2.6.15.1 kernel, OpenOffice.org 2.0, Firefox 1.5, Scribus, GIMP, MPlayer, multimedia plugins, printer and scanner support and everything a complete desktop or workstation should have. If you've ever wanted to try VectorLinux, or just wanted to show your friends without having to partition hard drives, then here is your chance." The release announcement.
Ultima Linux 8
Ultima Linux 8 has been released: "Ultima Linux 8 is the latest and greatest version yet, packing in everything you could possibly need - be it a home desktop or an industrial-strength server. It packs in over 350 unique packages, including the famous KDE desktop, Enlightenment window manager, Firefox and Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, The GIMP, and all your other favorite programs - all in a convenient two-disc set." Visit the distribution's product page to learn about the changes in the new release.
SLAX 5.0.7
SLAX, the popular Slackware-based live CD, has been updated to version 5.0.7. What's new? "Using 2.6 Linux kernel with support for many SCSI devices; added KDE 3.5 and X.Org 7; added Squashfs 3.0 support, should be backwards compatible with 2.2; added newest Unionfs 1.1.2 which fixes many bugs but cause the following: 'uselivemod' doesn't work well and 'configrestore' is untested but should work; hard disk installer has been removed in this version." A more detailed list of changes can be found in the changelog.
* * * * *
Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
BackTrack 1.0 Beta
The developers of BackTrack, a new distribution created after the merge of Auditor Security Linux and WHAX, have announced that their first public release will be made available on February 5th: "BackTrack is the result of the merging of two innovative penetration testing live Linux distributions - WHAX and Auditor. Based on SLAX (Slackware), BackTrack provides user modularity. This means the distribution can be easily customised by the user to include personal scripts, additional tools, customised kernels, etc. The current version (v.1.0?) boasts a huge variety of updated security and forensics tools, and a rich development environment. Beta to be released on 5 Feb 2006." Visit the project's home page and forums to learn more.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distribution additions
* * * * *
New distributions added to the waiting list
- FreeNAS. FreeNAS is a free NAS (Network-Attached Storage) server supporting: CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS protocols, Software RAID (0,1,5) with a full web configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 16 MB once installed on Compact Flash, hard drive or USB key. The minimal FreeBSD distribution, web interface, PHP scripts and documentation are based on m0n0wall.
- PerSeO Linux. PerSeO (Personal Security Operating System) Linux is a security-oriented Italian distributions based on Knoppix.
- Wikix. Wikix is a new Mandriva-based live CD made in Hawaii.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 6 February 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • No subject (by Mark South on 2006-01-30 06:37:39 GMT from Switzerland)
Great news that the Symphony project is making tangible progress. In a world where many Linux distros are converging on a uniform mode of operation, it's a good thing that there are some pushing the boundaries and making things work differently. All power to the Symphony team.
And thanks as ever for Distrowatch and especially Distrowatch Weekly!
2 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-01-30 06:41:35 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the news about Morphix. I'd add there are actually several new modules available for building your own ISOs.
Some news I posted this weekend, for those who missed:
http://debcentral.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=221
Cool news for anyone interested in the trials and tribulations of GNU/Linux installation.
3 • Nice!&Happy Spring Festvial! (by Tang Cong on 2006-01-30 06:45:46 GMT from China)
Opensuse is a really nice distro.
And it works fine with my T43,now I have already dropped the MS Win.
I'm a Chinese middle school student,we Chinese seldom use Linux,but I love free,really.
Now,it is the Spring Festvial.
Happy Spring Festvial,春节快乐!
Tang Cong
magictux@gmail.com
4 • Great Issue (by Rajiv Battula on 2006-01-30 07:18:50 GMT from United States)
Hey Ladislav, GREAT issue like always. Good to hear something from Symphony after it being a little quiet. Also its nice distrowatch.com giving some recognition to international distributions. Thanks again for your effort.
5 • Demise of rPath? (by Tuxfan on 2006-01-30 07:45:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Tragic news about rPath. Shame that they sold out to venture capital. Their business model is intrinsically wrong. Klaus Knopper showed everyone how to do it. Not too late to give back funds?
6 • VLOS (by RobNyc on 2006-01-30 07:45:40 GMT from United States)
They didnt mention VLOS thats sad
7 • Symphony's Messo should be focused (by John Gallias on 2006-01-30 07:49:23 GMT from United States)
I like what I see from Symphony, but I feel like it would accomplish a lot more by focusing on Messo ALONE. Developing an Entire OS seems like more work than nessesary in order to push the ideas that Symphony is attempting.
Messo on Ubuntu anyone?!
8 • I like your reportage on distributions, keep it up (by Ken Yap on 2006-01-30 08:11:41 GMT from Australia)
I'm happy to see that Linux is making a difference in places like Iran where precious funds should be conserved for the benefit of the people and to employing locals.
At a Linux.conf.au keynote, Mark Shuttleworth talked about taking tools for distributed version control to the next level where change sets could be freely mapped between distributions instead of requiring manual effort to port between distributions. This would take cooperation between distributions further and address issues of distro differences. We have so much more in common than we differ. When people work together, there will be a way forward.
9 • VLOS (by 1c3d0g on 2006-01-30 09:49:10 GMT from Aruba)
"They didnt mention VLOS thats sad"
Why is it sad? Ladislav can't be on top of everything...what's your problem? Gheeez. :-/
10 • dw (by terry lynch on 2006-01-30 10:06:02 GMT from Ireland)
thanks again ladislav! , very interesting as always. symphony looks like it could be a great distro best of luck to the devolopers, best wishes, terry.
11 • SLAX (by Tom on 2006-01-30 10:15:10 GMT from Belgium)
SLAX "Download" link point to ultima linux (it's the same for the announcement some days ago)
12 • SLAX Link (by Andy on 2006-01-30 10:48:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Noticed that too. Here's the correct link:
http://slax.linux-live.org/download.php
13 • KDE 4.0 (by Fut21 on 2006-01-30 11:32:53 GMT from Denmark)
Wow nice mockups/screenshots, i can`t wait for KDE 4.0
http://www.linuxin.dk/
14 • Symphony / Mezzo on Ubuntu (by amd-linux on 2006-01-30 11:34:57 GMT from Germany)
John,
I agree with you - I have no idea why every developer needs to re-invent the wheel for the 500st time.... Mezzo looks very promising but there is absolutely no need to base that on top of a new distro.
That is one of the few remaining issues beginners have with Linux - hundreds of flavours, hundreds of maintainers and no overview - even with useful sites as Distrowatch.
If we could only join forces of all developers for 1 year and focus on the Top 5 distros, Linux as a whole would be light years ahead of MS or Mac OS X.
So I also support Mezzo being developed on top of Ubuntu or another very popular distro and being marketed as a new desktop instead of a whole distro.
15 • Symphony OS (by Flavio de Oliveira on 2006-01-30 11:41:29 GMT from Brazil)
I must say Symphony OS is one of the most innovative distro around the world and the development team has no fear to make a distro not usual... It's the same idea we do on GoblinX.. a different desktop because Linux is different...
I hope new Slax goes on make success because Tomas is a friend and I try help him the most I can... also I'll try test later another Slackware based interesting distro, Vector Linux... two Slackware based distro in the same week, very nice...
16 • 14 (by Anonymous on 2006-01-30 12:25:48 GMT from United States)
zzzzzzzzzzz. sigh. The greatest forces holding back GNU/Linux are hardware, protocols, and formats that are proprietary and system integrators who won't ship boxes with GNU/Linux installed because that would lead to the monopoly software vendor in Redmond taking away the good deals they get on OEM versions. GNU/Linux would not make dramatically greater progress if there were fewer distros. That suggestion assumes that 1. the skills and interests of developers translate readily from one set of activities to another, 2. that the disagreements that led to forks in the first place wouldn't actually lead to counter-productive quarreling rather than increased productivity from working together, and 3. that the big obstacles to GNU/Linux in terms of technological and market success are a simple matter of man-hours. I don't see any basis for any of those assumptions.
I tend to agree that there's little point in developing an entirely new distribution in order to develop a desktop encironment. But I hesitate to even agree with that entirely. For example, the ROX desktop and related technologies are claimed by their developers to work best using directory structures that disagree with the FHS and therefore with the established policies of many distros. So maybe for their ideas to really shine, they need a distro of their own. I don't follow it closely enough to say. And I know even less about the specifics of Mezzo. But I wouldn't rule it out.
17 • As a Developer... (by Dark Leth at 2006-01-30 12:39:03 GMT from United States)
For Symphony OS, I suggest you read our forums to see why we believe in having a whole operating system, not just a desktop enviroment. We want anything branded Symphony OS or Mezzo to just work, plain and simple. This amount of intertwined functionality would not be apparent if we made Mezzo YADE.
If you don't understand what I am saying, head over to our forums. Plenty of posts (around 15 topics at lest check) about this particular subject.
18 • KDE 4.0, Symphony (by Mark W. Tomlinson on 2006-01-30 12:51:45 GMT from United States)
Err - sorry, but some of the screenshots from the second "here" link in the KDE 4.0 bit seem to be GNOME (i.e., the GIMP screenshots). Unless someone has an interesting sense of humor...
I love some of the concepts found in the Symphony/Mezzo project - any new ways of looking at the UI (successful or not) are exciting. I must agree with other posters, though - wouldn't it make more sense and be quicker in development to bas the UI work on an existing distro?
Thanks again for the good work, Ladislav!
19 • Speed of Development (by pp on 2006-01-30 13:50:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
Having had a look at the new KDE4 screenshots again reminds me:
The speed of development in the linux world is astonishing! Every single year brings major innovations, improvements in design and leaps in vendor support. To be honest, I think every quarter brings big positive surprises.
This is why I just love using Linux and checking out Distrowatch every week.
Linux is simply the arena where things are happening now. That's all I wanted to say, thanks. Let's keep it rolling!
20 • Morphix (by debfan on 2006-01-30 14:17:35 GMT from Finland)
It's very good news indeed that Morphix is still alive and what's even better is that they're now planning to release a Window Maker GUI module. Window Maker is a cool light-weight windowmanager with an in-built graphical config utility and I've often wondered why there are so few live-cd's using Window Maker. Morphix is based on my favourite distro, Debian, and now that it also uses my favourite windowmanager I'm certainly going to give it a test drive as soon as they'll get the new release out. : )
21 • TO EVERYBODY! (by XuCanHao on 2006-01-30 14:19:32 GMT from China)
Happy New DOG's year!
狗年快乐!
22 • Varied topics (by William Johnson on 2006-01-30 14:43:24 GMT from United States)
Excuse me, but recent statements by the president of Iran
have engendered in me a feeling of disgust with anything
Iranian, so i have absolutely zero interest in that distro.
Next, yes there are too many linux distros out there. I say that because, having an intermediate level of linux knowledge
as i do, i am unable to install many of them. Still others are
so shoddy and bug ridden that i have often said to myself
"i would have more pride than to put something that bad out
there with my name on it". So a newbie picking the wrong
distro by happenstance would be turned off to linux forever.
The latest figures i read recently had linux desktop usage
at 3.3%. It is destined to stay in single digits in the present
climate.
On the other side of the coin, it is a wonderful feeling finding
a trully stellar distro like PCLinuxOS .92 which you can use
easily everyday, totally subplanting Windows on my PC.
Keep it up Tex.
23 • Symphony and Focus (by Ed Borasky on 2006-01-30 14:47:11 GMT from United States)
Well, I have to honor the developers of Symphony in their choice to "market" a full distro rather than just the Mezzo desktop. Like many open-source "volunteer" projects, the pace seems agonizingly slow and focusing on just Mezzo would have been my choice if it were my project.
But it isn't. My projects are smaller and about other things than the desktop. Like most of us, I have my preferences, likes and dislikes, some of which you can find at
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/2005/12/top-five-open-source-projects-of-2005.html
And I'm glad to hear Morphix is still alive.
Perhaps the list for 2006 will include SymphonyOS, although their dependence on Firefox might be a disadvantage. :)
24 • TO EVERYBODY! (by XuCanHao on 2006-01-30 15:09:01 GMT from China)
Happy New DOG's year!
狗年快乐!
25 • Re 22 • Varied topics (by x on 2006-01-30 15:54:33 GMT from United States)
I am sure that many Iranians are not in total agreement with what their president has to say. Are you 100% in agreement with President Bush? Did the US prevent many potential candidates from campaigning? You are not aware of internal issues and yet pass judgement on an entire group of millions of people based on the words of one man, whose small miniority rules an entire nation. Your opinion is not representative of the population of the US, yet there are some who could use this as an example of hatred and racism prevelant in America.
Not every Linux distribution is aiming at controlling the market or humbling the big M. Yes, there are a lot of choices, but most experianced users and reviewers will direct new users to a few options. Those seeking specific uses have options that are unavailable to them under other operating systems.
Since no one has the perfect answer to a desktop distribution, then let there be more development. The code is available to perfect under the terms of the GPL. If everyone only wanted one car, then there would only be one style, in one color from one company. Kind of like a certain proprietary software company in the northwest US.
26 • Tex, Iran, and bad things said (by lefty.crupps on 2006-01-30 16:20:14 GMT from United States)
Tex, just because the "President" of Iran made some very dumb, inaccurate, insensitive, insulting, and uneducated comments doesn't mean that we should cut out the nation and its population from our thoughts, our news, or our list-of-innovators. The current US President has said plenty of things with which I disagree (and I find uneducated and insulting), but that doesn't mean I'll stop following what Novell or SimplyMEPIS does, for example. Isolationist ideas like the one you posted lead to less understanding and increased radiacalism on all sides. FLOSS hopes to overcome a lot of software barriers for people worldwide, but we need to be open ourselves for this to progress.
27 • p.s. (by lefty.crupps on 2006-01-30 16:21:41 GMT from United States)
well done DDW, yet again.
28 • Re: 25 & 26 (by Andy Axnot on 2006-01-30 16:29:16 GMT from United States)
Agreed and thanks.
I think we want to avoid getting bogged down in political rants here.
Incidentally, I believe the "Tex" mentioned was a reference to Texstar of PCLinuxOS, who is doing a great job with his distro, but is not otherwise involved in this discussion, AFAIK. :-)
Andy
29 • Symphony OS, SLAX, etc. (by |TG| Mateo on 2006-01-30 17:52:55 GMT from United States)
Great writeup as always!
Symphony: the idea behind it is to have a completely new interface which makes using Linux easy. That means not only significant work on the firefox based interface, but the underlying system. SymphonyOS is not just Mezzo, but a host of other applications that eventually tie into...well, everything.
That said, the project is GPLed, and people have had success installing Mezzo/Orchestra on Ubuntu, Mepis, Gentoo and others. Knock yourself out.
Slax: Thomas rocks. The distro rocks. I just people would read the release notes. Not 5 minutes since the announcement, and the SLAX forums already had "where is the installer?" threads.
How about a SLAX based Mezzo distro?
Good to hear about Morphix. I hope they keep going! The one thing that keeps me from usingit for my own distro is that I can start with Knoppix or Kanotix and get to the same place without having to update the kernel, the Xorg server, the gcc chain, etc.....before remastering.
But that modularity is dead sexy!
30 • Iran Interview (by Anonymous on 2006-01-30 18:15:42 GMT from United States)
Would it not be grate if it was Linux that would bring nations together. Going beyond artificial borders and letting people realize that we are all just people. I think the great thing about Linux is the international effort that links all of us together. I think the Iranian interview was great! It is great to see the use of Linux all over the world. Do not get fooled by the politrics of the world. Leaders of most nations are idiots and at the very least are not in accord with the people. If we can build more bridges with Linux, who knows maybe we can stop some of the ridiculous tensions that are going on!
31 • To every Linux Lover (by Thomas Wang on 2006-01-30 19:24:37 GMT from Taiwan)
Happy chinese lunar new year from chinese Taiwan
32 • The Problem with VLOS (by Robzilla on 2006-01-30 19:56:05 GMT from United States)
I tried VLOS a couple of times and was impressed by the polish and performance of the distro but it had no programs. If I wanted anything useful I had to pay for the cd version. I have said many times that I do not mind supporting Linux software but I do like to try before I buy. Now you can emerge apps that you want and that is cool but I don't have a week to download the programs I want. Then there is Gnome. I di not see an option for KDE unless again I bought the version that had it. I could again emerge it but I don't have a month for that. So until VLOS offers a free version thatactually contains some useful programs and desktop chioces I think it will never be recognized at how good it may be. So I ask the VLOS team please give us a reason to buy your distro by offering a good free version.
My 6 pence
R
33 • PCLinuxOS? (by Gnobuddy on 2006-01-30 20:31:49 GMT from United States)
On the other side of the coin, it is a wonderful feeling finding
a trully stellar distro like PCLinuxOS .92 which you can use
easily everyday, totally subplanting Windows on my PC.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oddly enough, PCLinuxOS 0.92 will not boot on the PC I tried it on - it freezes partway through the boot process, with no errors displayed. This happened with both nvidia7174 and generic versions (there's an Nvidia 5200 video card in the machine, along with an ECS motherboard with nforce3 chipset and a Sempron 3100 CPU). Knoppix, Mepis, and an Edubuntu install CD I tried on the same PC all boot up just fine.
Not to take anything away from Tex, I've used his RPM's for Mandrake Linux back in the day, but: one Linux distro isn't best for everyone, not even the PCLinuxOS you like so much.
It seems to be the nature of politics that ignorant racist boors often end up as "leaders", whether in the USA or Iran or anywhere else. It's not for nothing that the phrase "politics is the last resort of the scoundrel" was coined. We are best off ignoring these people and their ugly beliefs.
Thank goodness that Free and Open Source software is a meritocracy, where good code is more important than which country you come from.
-Gnobuddy
34 • PClinuxOS (by postaldave on 2006-01-30 21:07:51 GMT from United States)
sorry to here it didn't boot for you but this is the first distro that worked for me. i've tried over half of the distros on distrowatch and every one of them failed in some way or another doing very basic tasks.
pclinuxos just plain works.
pclinuxos is beta and is way better then others i've tried claiming 4.0 or 10.2 release. someone wrote " i can't believe they put their name to some of the distros out there" i for one would be proud to have my name on this distro.
TEX is the MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
35 • Symphony OS (by Ryan Quinn on 2006-01-30 21:37:51 GMT from United States)
The Symphony article took me a bit by suprise. Build 122 that was reviewed had a few new features but was unstable as all hell. It was released without a release announcement primarially just for developers to get a look and help out.
As for Mezzo as a desktop environment rather than Symphony as a distro... Despite what many people think, it is actually less work the way we are currently doing things. We are building on top of KNOPPIX, an established distro and we do not have to support the quirks of multiple distros. That being said, we do currently release deb packages of Mezzo (which are in line with the latest official release; Beta 1 PR1 at this point) which work on any debian derivative (as far as i know) and will hopefully be releasing installable tarballs along with our next official release.
On another note, our Beta 1 release, which I still hope will be within a couple of weeks at most (We are currently on build 138 internally), will still include some tools and apps which will be in alpha (Desk Manager and Apt-Plus to name a couple) However I am confident that it will show a stability that has not been present in previous releases.
Great to hear everyone's comments, and once again a great week of DWW Ladislav, keep up the good work!
36 • Sayings... (by smartjak on 2006-01-30 23:54:06 GMT from United States)
Off topic but can't help myself.
The saying is "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel".
But with certain 'leaders' both would apply.
37 • Re: 33 • PCLinuxOS? by Gnobuddy (by nix_os_fan on 2006-01-31 00:14:50 GMT from Canada)
I have a Geforce FX 5200/128MB card and I used the nvidia7676 version. I get smokin' 85Hz (that's the highest my monitor can handle @ 1024x768). My guess is, freezing usually is a motherboard issue. I am on a P!!! 733 with an Apollo Pro chipset. No problems here. On the "other side of the coin", the beauty of open source is, you can keep trying a zillion distro's 'till you find one that works good. >:-]
38 • Re:33 and 37 (by Marc on 2006-01-31 00:37:34 GMT from Canada)
You read my mind, i don't think there is too much distro but
on the other hand can we say that there is too much different
hardware ?
Nah the more choice you have in distros, the more chances
something will fit your computer.
And if Ubuntu has been the leader right now, it's because
their hardware detection has surpased the others.
39 • SUPER (by George Bennett on 2006-01-31 02:41:32 GMT from United States)
hi. why don't yu cover anything about SUPER? Also, it would be cool if you covered HOWto's for the distros
40 • onomastics (by Nuno Zimas on 2006-01-31 03:10:08 GMT from Spain)
If my guess is accurate, the guy interviewed last week on DWW is evidently an ethinical armenian, though of iranian citizenship. There's a significant armenian minority living there for ages.
As to some of the political objections posted here on the iranian issue, pure rubbish. If we were to apply such "moral" criteria strictly, perhaps the US would be the 1st country to exclude, no matter how goodwilling its developers are.
Dunno honestly if to slander Zionism is worse than lauching white phosphorus on civilian populations and keep on feeding us with lies the size of the universe ... But wait, what has this to do with our coomon passion for unices?
About Texstar, his misfortuned positioning won't prevent me from keeping on spreading PCLOS, undoubtfully THE OS for linux noobs/newbies.
Cheers,
Nuno.
41 • Canine Capers (by JAG on 2006-01-31 03:24:26 GMT from United States)
Hey guys! Check out the progress Barry has been making lately...(specifically for Jan 30)...this stuff looks pretty cool!!
http://pupweb.org/puppy/news.htm
42 • RE: #32 • VLOS (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-01-31 03:33:27 GMT from Italy)
I am not a great fan of VLOS, or Gentoo for that matter (why compile when Debian gives me about 20,000 binaries?)
But VLOS has a great merit: it makes installing Gentoo dead-easy, complete with the most important apps to get you started (so you can emerge everything else in the background)
And please don't tell me that Gentoo has an (experimental) installer, because that is the worst piece of shit I have ever seen: it destroyed my main linux partition. And I am by no means the only one, I know at least another person who had the same identical experience: he is certainly not a newbie, with decades of experience with *nix
At least VLOS didn't try to reinvent the wheel, they use one of the best installers out there, Anaconda.
43 • Iran, & building a wall on the US/Mexico border (by Anonymous on 2006-01-31 04:21:45 GMT from United States)
Just because a person is from another country does not mean that they are no good. I had a professor at college that was from Iran and was one of the best professors that I ever had. He was an excellent instructor and many people did not want to take the class with him. We need to respect people from other parts of the world and join together. Linux is something that bonds many peoples together.
The US congress and the President want to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. Is this what they were against when they critized the Berlin Wall which divided the German people into East and West and were very happy to see it fall. What the hell is wrong with them?
Is there any KLAX beta release to check out KDE 4.0 before it comes out?
A salute to all the readers of Distrowatch.com and all countries around the world. Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris have a special place in our hearts.
I now see why many people from other countries are Anti-American. It is not fair. Not everyone is like that.
44 • RE: #22 Varied Topics. Tex taken out of conTex.... (by M'enfin!?! on 2006-01-31 04:27:16 GMT from Canada)
Hi, I have to correct what seems to be a misunderstanding (#26,#40), perhaps some people may have read a bit too quickly and misunderstood the last line from #22. The line reads : "Keep it up Tex." and NOT "Keep it up. Tex." Very different!! The period, or lack thereoff makes all the difference in the world. It is an obvious encouragement from a fan of the Distro, NOT a sign off, it was written by William Jonhson not Texstar of the PCLinuxOS fame.
On a different note, I was just looking at the FreeNAS webpage, looks interesting, will have to dig up an old machine to see what it can do...
Thank you Ladislav for another great read, I really like the 'New Distributions added to the waiting list', nice to see what's brewing out there.
M'enfin!?!
45 • Firefox (by towsonu2003 on 2006-01-31 05:25:59 GMT from United States)
This is my first ever post, so be nice ;)
I am wondering whether we could have an interview with a developer of firefox about the differences between firefox in windows (fast and smooth for most) and firefox in linux (slower and buggy)...
Firefox is now used by so many distros, it could be considered as a package that is a dependency for those distros. In Ubuntu, for instance, almost everything depends on firefox. You just cannot "get rid" of it (as in IE in Windows).
So, hearing from the developers about how they perceive linux vs. windows would be interesting as that will relate to many distros which use firefox.
Thanks.
46 • too many distros argument again (by Misty on 2006-01-31 05:56:25 GMT from United States)
"Not every Linux distribution is aiming at controlling the market or humbling the big M. Yes, there are a lot of choices, but most experianced users and reviewers will direct new users to a few options. Those seeking specific uses have options that are unavailable to them under other operating systems.
Since no one has the perfect answer to a desktop distribution, then let there be more development. The code is available to perfect under the terms of the GPL. If everyone only wanted one car, then there would only be one style, in one color from one company. Kind of like a certain proprietary software company in the northwest US."
You beat me to it, x. I don't want to start a flame, but this "there are too many distros" argument.... with that attitude there would be no Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS, among a number of other good distros. Not to mention specialist distros. Linux uses the GPL to allow freedom of choice, and that choice includes coming up with your own distro if you want to. I know the amount of choice seems a bit overwhelming to someone coming to the *nix world from OSX or Windows where the developers specifically tried to give you little choice, but this is part of what the GPL is all about.
47 • RE: #45 • Firefox (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-01-31 07:23:25 GMT from Italy)
Dear friend,
Actually my experience is quite the opposite,
For me it works a lot better in linux than in Windows.
As you probably are new to linux, you don't know that very much depends on the distribution.
In Debian Sid it works fine.
Which distro do you use? And which version of Firefox?
48 • Does anybody know Luminux Linux? (by huyichen on 2006-01-31 11:30:31 GMT from China)
Does anybody know Luminux Linux?
49 • DistroWatch Search Failure (by Ariszlo on 2006-01-31 14:58:41 GMT from Hungary)
This search doesn't find Onebase or Fox Desktop:
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?architecture=i686
50 • Linux PLease (by Scott Wilson on 2006-01-31 15:22:04 GMT from United States)
I do find it interesting that one operating system based upon a kernel that will work across platforms, works across many racial, political, and religious, financial lines. Every Country has a past to be proud of and ashamed of, but enough of the political discussions.
Linux,
Novell's poll is interesting, we can kind of get an idea on what is missing from Linux to cause people to forsake MS. Sure we have open source look-a-like or copied versions of certain applications. In the Phoenix area, many small business seem to use Quickbooks, I can move a few of my customers to Linux in a heart beat, but they have used Quicken or Quickbooks for years. How about for the USA tax software, like Turbo Tax or Tax Cut. I don't remember seeing Office listed, but the site seems to be down this morning, A plot! perhaps. ;-)
Which bring me to a point where I think the distros are missing it, Yes many people in the US have a broadband connection, but almost all of the people I service ( I work for A Computer Services company) people will go to a retail store and buy any software OS or Application that they need. Something about purchasing software and having to download it, I find many people don't trust this process or really want to have a Disk laying around just in case something happens.
By the way Happy 2006 the year of the Dog for our Chinese friends!
Scott
51 • Firefox in Linux (by Zilla on 2006-01-31 18:26:47 GMT from United States)
I would have to say that in my experience Firefox is much faster in Linux. In Windows it is fast too but like lightning in Linux. If you are using a Debian clone like Mepis you might want to type about:config in the browser and then return. It will give you a long list. See if the turbo function is on. If it isn't double click it and it will turn on. Then download the fasterfox extention. Go to extensions then click get more extensions then install fasterfox. If you are using a non-debian Linux distro I do not know what to say.
Firefox in Linux rocks! Simply the best and fastest browser out there! There are a few others like dillo and Opera you may want to check out.
Zillaster
52 • Waiting list (by Dimitri on 2006-01-31 18:56:13 GMT from United States)
Forgive my ignorance (and laziness, if this info is somewhere on the site), but does a distro qualify to come off of the Waiting List?
53 • Waiting List redux (by Dimitri on 2006-01-31 18:57:39 GMT from United States)
That is, how does a distro qualify to come off of the Waiting List?
54 • Firefox in Linux (by Steve Tose on 2006-01-31 21:16:16 GMT from United States)
I use Firefox and Opera in Fedora Core 4 and have also had speed issues with FF. I will try #51's suggestions, but Opera 8.51 and FC4 are blindingly fast for me.
55 • general comment (by Brian on 2006-01-31 22:39:09 GMT from Australia)
Thanks for your service, I check out your publication almost daily, even if to get a brief on yet another distro.
I am currently a fedora fanatic, as they were the first I found to support amd64 mobile cpu. I am waiting for core5 hoping that it will resolve SD card reader access & some other minor likes but not needs.
My hobby is digital photography, and work - Community Facilitator/Relations Management in remote regions of Papua New Guinea so portability and versatility are important, like the ability to play DVD's from all regions. also to play *.mov files (apply variety) from my panasonic dmc-fz10
It would be nice if distro's said we are targeting notebooks, pcmcia, x graphic controllers, y sound chipsets etc, sd and other mem card readers, core logic chipsets, 802.11g chipsets, mp3 audio, raw data (photography - camera make) and so on. At least a link for each distro where one can scan the thousands of brands/model numbers/chipsets that someone has tried and reported. If such exists please let me know nicely as often I look but dont see.
Thanks
Brian
56 • More about 45 • Firefox (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-01-31 22:50:17 GMT from Italy)
The following might also help: go to /etc and look for a file called: "profile"
Add the following line to the bottom:
export KDE_NO_IPV6=true
Save your change and exit.
This is taken from here:
http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdebase/faq/webbrowser.html
(Chapter 9.8)
And it works for me, not just with Konqueror.
57 • M$ takes over Portugal (by Nuno Zimas on 2006-02-01 00:24:46 GMT from Spain)
Firtst off, my public apologies for having misread and wrongly attributed one of the messages posted here on the "iranian affair".
Today is a sad day in my native witsy-bitsy country.
The Portuguese State has signed several monpolist-like agreements with Bill Gates, who went to Lisbon specifically for the purpose of sealing the tech slavery act, under the excuse of participating in an M$ sponsored conference.
While most european countries flirt with FLOSS, Portugal, mislead by a bunch of greedy idiots, takes on the opposite path.
The consequences of this pact will imply a practical ban on any other alternatives regarding software solutions in the public administration. It'll ALL stay under M$ control.
In the next 5 years, M$ will "bring" 1 million portuguese into THEIR conception of ICT's, meaning that most folks won't be given the slightest chance to know about anything else but Windowze/Vista.
Tough times await our local *nix community.
Nuno.
58 • RE: #58 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-01 00:54:09 GMT from Italy)
Sad for such a beautiful country and extremely nice people that I love so much.
59 • Mandriva (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-01 12:58:29 GMT from Italy)
http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/Main/launchdec2005specreleaseclub
[quote] The special release, named "Mandriva-2006-december-club" is now available via Bittorrent, with HTTP/FTP mirrors on request. The initial release is 32-bit and contains 6 CDs.
This new "Mandriva-2006-december-club" version is based on the 2006 version which turned out to be a great success, with several positive reviews. This special version is only available for Club members, you will not find it on the Mandriva Store or in other channel.
All the 2006 security updates and the bug fixes are included, no need to reinstall them afterwards. The updated Xorg graphic server corrects most of the known 2006 problems. [/quote]
Huh? What? I have just found out this and I am absolutely disgusted.
So while everybody else, both those who bought Mandriva 2006 and those who downloaded it for free are dealing with a buggy release which is getting outdated vey fast, Mandriva *quietly* releases an updated version with all the bugfixes and bleeding edge packages, for club members only, an elite of people with money.
Does anybody think this behaviour is in the true spirit of open source?
No wonder Mandriva is sinking faster than the Titanic while Ubuntu and SUSE are firmly established in the 1st and second place of Distrowatch H.P.D.
60 • More about #60 • Mandriva (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-01 13:21:08 GMT from Italy)
I want to quote some more from the same article:
[quote]You will enjoy a new Mandriva Club special December theme, as well as the latest gnome 2.12 release, and OpenOffice.org 2.0!
The 6 CDs regroup more than 4300 packages and all the proprietary drivers and plugins.
To get this "Mandriva-2006-december-club" - among other benefits - you need to be a member of the Mandriva Club. Mandriva Club accounts start at 11 euros / 12 USD per month.[/quote]
Now please notice that SUSE gives everybody all the bugfixes *and* new packages (new KDE and Gnome releases, OpenOffice, Firefox...) for free.
61 • RE: 54 • Waiting List redux (by ladislav on 2006-02-02 02:03:19 GMT from Taiwan)
how does a distro qualify to come off of the Waiting List?
There are no firm guidelines at the moment. When a distro is in demand (i.e. many people email me about it or it hits the headlines on other Linux sites), I'll add it to the database. Also, it helps if it has a professional looking web site, logo, interactive pages (mailing lists, wikis, forums...). In other words, if a distro looks like it's not going to disappear next week, it will be listed. The only limitation is my time, of which I never seem to have enough :-(
62 • Next Knoppix Release (by Jason Young on 2006-02-02 02:29:31 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know when the next release of Knoppix will be? I like to use it to see what is happening in the world of desktop linux. Currently my university has a deal with Microsoft called the MS Campus Agreement which is paid through a technology fee so my whole campus uses nothing but Microsoft because you can get copies of Windows and Office for "free" from the campus library. Personnally I could do without Windows except for Civ 4 (game), but I figure I've already paid for Microsoft software so I might as well use it.
Although my campus is currently changing their campus backend to run on Red Hat Linux clusters to replace our 1980's Unix mainframes. So hopefully they will implement Linux in other areas of campus such as a real e-mail system to replace Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access. I despise this system because it has horrible spam blocking and it doesn't work properly with anything other than IE.
Also does anyone know of any OSS solutions to replace Microsoft Active Directory. I think that AD is the main reason my campus is sticking with Microsoft cause all the IT people I know would like to switch to OSS cause it is less expensive.
63 • RR4 Linux 3.0b0 Unofficially Released (by Robert on 2006-02-02 06:22:45 GMT from United States)
RR4 Linux 3.0b0 hits BitTorrent network thanks to LinuxTracker.org . The official announcement will be made in the next hours.
64 • 63 (by Anonymous on 2006-02-02 07:15:51 GMT from United States)
http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid39_gci1066500,00.html?bucket=ETA
Documents some of the issues surrounding Active Directory and Linux migration. It's a tricky situation and your colleagues are not alone.
Personally, you'd have to pay me to use Redmond's products. I don't care if they're free as in beer. I don't trust their security, their respect for my privacy and my fair use rights on copyrighted material, and of course, my right, if I own software, to be able to examine it and modify it and share it. Free as in beer is nice, so I can understand the "It's free, so I might as well use it", but think about Free Speech, not Free Beer. Read some of those EULAs, even if tthey are more tedious than any Unix man page. The terms are positively despicable.
I happen to use a distribution that is free in both senses, but if I had a choice between free Windows and RHEL at their rather exorbitant prices, I'd choose RHEL.
65 • PS to 63 (by Anonymous on 2006-02-02 07:19:25 GMT from United States)
Short answer is that Samba and OpenLDAP in conjunction are a viable replacement in most, if not all cases. But sorting out the details can be tricky.
66 • Karamad and GPL violation (by Anonymous Iranian Coward on 2006-02-02 17:33:07 GMT from Iran, Islamic Republic of)
It may be noteworthy that Karamad is not releasing the source code to the distribution, several parts of which are released under GPL, and Mr Mohammad Tashackori has stated that in person. It does not either follow the license of several other things, like images it has used for its desktop backgrounds.
As an easy example to confirm, the screenshot you have published at http://distrowatch.com/images/screenshots/karamad-1.4.2a.png
includes an image copyrighted by Wikipedia's Morwen, and release under GNU GFDL. But Karamad is not following the license and is not provided the derivative work under GFDL. It does not credit the original author either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IranBlank.png
Another way to confirm this would be asking them for the source code to their work and not receiving it.
In short, Karamad is a huge copyright violation and a shame to me as an Iranian free software contributor.
67 • not KDE 4 screenshots (by truth machine on 2006-02-03 00:36:35 GMT from United States)
You wrote: "Finally, some mouthwatering eye candy of the much awaited KDE 4. The maintainer of the Planet Diaz web site has been collecting screenshots and mock-ups of the current development of KDE 4 and posting them in the site's forums to give us an early idea about the major new update of the popular open source desktop. From what we can see here and here, KDE 4 is going to be a radically different beast, with many interesting ideas being implemented as we speak."
Sigh. Just because some random yokel puts a bunch of images on his site and calls them KDE 4 screenshots doesn't mean that they are KDE 4 screenshots. It's sad to see a high quality reference site like distrowatch propagating such irresponsible misinformation.
P.S. "lovely background pictures with motives from ancient Persia" -- you mean "motifs".
68 • No subject (by truth machine on 2006-02-03 01:00:09 GMT from United States)
"Having had a look at the new KDE4 screenshots again reminds me:
The speed of development in the linux world is astonishing! "
Yeah, the speed of developing mockups with no software behind them is "astonishing". What's really astonishing is how readily people believe absolute nonsense -- like that these are KDE 4 screenshots, or anything that has ever come out of George Bush's mouth.
Even if we had real KDE 4 screenshots,they would tell us nothing about the speed of development, because the majority of the work is not evident in screenshots.
69 • PC-BSD (by Robzilla on 2006-02-03 16:17:12 GMT from United States)
Tried PC-BSD and I really like the project and development. There latest release candidate will now install on my laptop. My only problem is configuring X. It auto-configs x and it is an incorrect setting so I have a small screen in side my larger screen. I can configure x easily in Debian or Slackware or ussually most other Linux distros seem to auto-configure pretty well. Does anyone have any tips on configuring x on PC-BSD?? I have a Sony Laptop with an ati 8500 chipset, a wide screen laptop flatpanel at 15.4". I want to use PC-BSD! Also it seems to boot up slow. I know the BSD's are suppossed to boot pretty fast. Any tips, ideas would be appreciated!
Zilla
70 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-02-04 03:09:24 GMT from United States)
I have used several Linux file systems and would like to know what people like the best? What do you use in your Linux OS and why. Ext.3,XFS,JFS, Reiser?
71 • RE: #70 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-04 09:32:17 GMT from Italy)
I use mainly Reiserfs, but I don't have many technical reasons.
Simply I have always used it and it does its job pretty well.
Some people say that the choice of a file system is more "political" than technical.
If you have a look at the history of Kernel support for Reiser4 it sounds indeed more political than anything else.
72 • Iran, & building a wall on the US/Mexico border (by Anonymous on 2006-02-04 13:57:55 GMT from United States)
Not everyone in the US sprouts from the same jelly pot. I'm an isolationalist myself and a bit of a pacifist so I would never lend my support to helping other nations beat off the monsters within and without.
The bottom line is this: Politics and Distros do not mix.
Long live Free Distros!
Now I'm going back to minding my own business.
73 • JASP (by Peter Blackburn at 2006-02-04 23:09:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
What is the point of an advert at the top of your page that when you click on any part of it says that you do not have the permissions to view this site. Dumb at the least
74 • Ref#73 (by welkiner on 2006-02-04 23:21:49 GMT from United States)
What is the point of an advert at the top of your page that when you click on any part of it says that you do not have the permissions to view this site. Dumb at the least
Your Client is blocking the add. As you said "Dumb at the least"
75 • RE: 73 • JASP (by ladislav on 2006-02-05 00:00:24 GMT from Taiwan)
It looks like the JASP web site is misconfigured. I've taken the banner out of circulation until it gets fixed.
76 • Pingwinek (by tonio on 2006-02-05 02:02:10 GMT from United States)
Pingwinek is an excellent linux distro. It is kind of hard to believe it is not one of the top 100 distros. It contains a full desktop and runs fast as a live cd. It detects most of the hardware and one of my only gripes is that it runs Mplayer1.06 intead of the latest try2 release. It contains OpenOffice, games and the gnome implementation in it is excellent. In the webpage, it says that pingwinek is not based on any one distro, so is a LFS kind of project?
Thanks
77 • dead distros (by Anonymous on 2006-02-05 04:26:22 GMT from Italy)
ares and jamd distros seem non-existing.
78 • RE: #77 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-05 09:54:37 GMT from Italy)
J.A.M.D. was discontinued, sadly.
Ares never went beyond early development stages.
FoX Desktop is one of the the most credible J.A.M.D. successors, IMO.
79 • No subject (by Rendrex on 2006-02-05 15:21:41 GMT from Canada)
I am from canada and I like linux because it runs smother than Ms.
This is very Great site, and is looked at every day.
My favorite is Mepis.. I like this distro because everything is set up
already, and is small. .deb seems best :)
.................................................. my linux kicks ass!!!
Number of Comments: 79
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| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Linux Mangaka
Linux Mangaka was a desktop Linux distribution originally designed primarily for the fans of Japanese Manga and Anime, but eventually evolving into a complete, beginner-friendly operating system with complete multimedia support. Based on Ubuntu with GNOME and Google desktop, the distribution includes a large variety of programs for graphics design, many freely available Google applications, a number of games, and an innovative set of desktop themes.
Status: Discontinued
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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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