 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 137, 6 February 2006 |
Welcome to this year's sixth issue of DistroWatch Weekly! With all eyes on the final stages of development of Fedora Core 5 and SUSE Linux 10.1, other distributions are not resting either; we bring you interesting information about the upcoming releases of Novell Linux Desktop 10 and Kubuntu 6.04. Interested in network security and penetration testing? The brand new BackTrack live CD provides an amazing collection of tools just for this purpose; we'll take a quick look at the first beta released over the weekend. Also in this issue: try the new smart-urpmi for Mandriva and read how a vice president of a large financial firm fell in love with Gentoo. Finally, our January donation, the largest DistroWatch.com has ever made, goes to Gambas and Krusader. Happy reading!
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (5.93MB) or mp3 (7.15MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
Content:
Miscellaneous news: NLD 10 preview, Kubuntu distro sprint, smart-urpmi, Gentoo at E-Trade, FC5 slips
 Novell has launched a media campaign ahead of the upcoming release of its desktop Linux product - Novell Linux Desktop (NLD) 10. Although the release date has not been announced, the company presented a demonstration video of the new product at a Linux conference in Paris last week. Some of the participants have recorded the presentation and released their videos on the Internet - you can find them on Linux Edge. From the videos it looks like the developers of the new NLD have been focusing on the consumer desktop as the product features much eye candy, 3D window manipulation and other effects, which will almost certainly require a powerful processor and heaps of RAM. Nevertheless, the videos provide an interesting preview of what we can expect from Novell (and SUSE) on the desktop Linux front in 2006 and beyond.
 Besides Novell, the developers of Kubuntu have also published a handful of preview screenshots from the upcoming Kubuntu 6.04. Most interesting among them is a new graphical installer that will make it possible to transfer the Kubuntu live CD to one's hard disk. Also included are screenshots of Konqueror showing the /media folder, NetworkManager, and a simplified application installer. These were presented during last week's Ubuntu distro sprint, a developer meeting in a London hotel. See Jonathan Riddell's blog for details and screenshots.
 With no public release expected until the second half of this year, Mandriva hasn't been featured much in the news lately, but that doesn't mean that the popular distribution's user community is inactive. In fact, the German Mandriva user group has just released a useful improvement to the urpmi package management tool. Called smart-urpmi, the main purpose of this web-based application, released under the GPL, is to end headaches associated with updating Mandriva software packages from outdated mirrors. Just visit the smart-urpmi web site and select your version of Mandriva to get a neat list of available mirrors (inclusive of "contrib", Java and PLF mirrors), with the most recently updated mirror on top. The script then generates a list of urpmi.addmedia commands which you can execute in the terminal and which will update your /etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg file. For more information please see this introductory announcement.
 Is Gentoo Linux only for people who have too much time on their hands? Not so. In an interesting article describing a move to Linux at E-Trade, one of the world's largest online securities trading firms, the company's Vice President Lee Thompson reveals his distribution preference: "I did a deep dive on open source at this particular time. I started running lots of different distros. I ended up running Gentoo. Personally, I run the Gentoo distro." That was a few years ago when the "geeky" vice president experimented with Gentoo on the company's servers, but due to several "issues", they are now powered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux: "So, here I am, the guy who's trying to push change. I work on a Gentoo box, while our production system is Red Hat AS 3.4, which is very stable. And so that's kind of a good way of balancing aggressive change and stability, in our mind." It's a long and fascinating story showing how Linux can be deployed in a high-security, high-volume server environment to reduce costs.
 According to this post by Jeremy Katz, the third test release of Fedora Core 5 is set to be delayed by a week: "Although I hate to do it, it looks like we're going to have to slip Fedora Core 5 test3 by a week. There is an ABI change in the gcc/glibc stack that requires a rebuild of the entire distribution. Given that, there is no way that we'll be able to make a freeze date of Monday. So, test3 will now freeze on Monday, 13 February with a release date of Monday, 20 February. We'll adjust the final schedule sometime next week based on the progress of the rebuilding efforts." There is no word about how this delay will affect the release date of Fedora Core 5 final which is set to March 15th.
* * * * *
Commentary: Don't believe the "goomours"
Have you noticed the astonishingly high number of Google rumours (or should we say "goomours") that have been dominating the headlines of various media on the Internet? First it was a Google browser, then a Google office suite, now a Google operating system, all interspersed with further "news" about Google buying Opera, Google acquiring Napster, Google purchasing AOL... The never ending "goomour" mill has now gone as far as saying that Google is planning to launch its own Internet, version 3.0(!) separate from the one we know! What's next? Google buying Microsoft? Or the moon?
So who is fuelling these rumours? There has to be a sophisticated individual, or maybe a small group that has a keen interest in seeing Google in the headlines with most unlikely claims, circulating widely in the media. Perhaps a group with a stake in Google? Somebody who can benefit financially from the increased publicity and a share price that has already grown way out of proportion? Because if not, how else do you explain the reasons behind all these Google claims that are turning more and more outrageous by the week?
Of course, the many tech sites, gullible and always looking for sensationalist headlines to draw traffic, are partly to blame. A "goomour" normally starts on one big web site, but it doesn't take long before it propagates to hundreds of small and regional sites where the original rumour is often presented as a fact. Sure, the professionalism of many of these publications is questionable, but that's easy to understand, since the Internet made it possible for many of us to become "journalists" without any professional training. Still, it is amazing to see how easily they manipulate the public; last week, a reader sent us an email asking, in an angry tone, why DistroWatch hadn't published the news about Goobuntu? After all, isn't DistroWatch here to inform readers about such important developments on the Linux distribution market?
Yes, it is. And we can assure you that as soon as Goobuntu is released and publicly available, we'll be one of the first sites you'll hear it from. But until then, don't hold your breath. Goobuntu, if it exists at all, is probably just a figment of imagination of a few unscrupulous individuals with vested interests in the big Internet company, just as all the other daring "goomours" you are going to hear for the rest of this year. Don't believe any of it.
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| First Look: BackTrack 3.0 |
First Look: BackTrack 3.0
Among the distributions specialising in security and penetration testing, the SLAX-based WHAX (previously Whoppix) has always been one of the most in-demand live CDs. In recent months, however, its developers combined their knowledge and resources with those of Auditor Security Linux to produce a new live CD, called BackTrack. After a brief period of testing, the first beta of the new distribution was released last week. So what is BackTrack like?
Like SLAX, the BackTrack live CD boots into a command line prompt with instructions to log in as root. Although most security tools are accessible from the terminal, the real power of BackTrack comes in after starting the graphical interface. This is done by typing "startx", a command that will launch the KDE desktop (you might want to update the /etx/X11/xorg.conf file to replace the default "vesa" driver with the proper driver for your video card, and change the screen resolution, if necessary). Networking is not enabled by default, but if your network card has been detected correctly and you use DHCP, you can activate it by typing "dhcpcd" in a terminal window. Wireless networking is also supported.
Once on the desktop, you will immediately notice the "BackTrack" submenu on the KDE panel. This is the most exciting part of this distribution, a place were all the specialist utilities can be accessed from. It is pointless to list them all here, but let me assure you that the collection is truly astonishing and includes tools for sniffing remote router traffic, cracking Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), "bluesnarfing" (a method of hacking into Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones), scanning networks for vulnerabilities, uncovering weaknesses in the Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol (PPTP), decrypting SSL traffic and recovering passwords. The usual forensic analysis tools, such as Autopsy and Sleuthkit are further complimented by more exotic utilities, such as "fuzzers" (scripts that attempt to find buffer overflows and other program vulnerabilities) or "stripe-snoopers" (to capture data from magnetic stripe cards). A comprehensive database of known exploits in software (both open source and proprietary) is also included.
If you are not familiar with the available utilities, there is no need to panic. The project's web site provides a selection of tutorials, some in Flash videos, together with links to relevant documentation on each tool's home page. Many "readme" files can be found on the CD and accessed from the BackTrack submenu.
As you can see from this brief description, BackTrack is not just an innocent tool designed to uncover vulnerabilities in networks and software, it can just as easily be used by crackers and other unsavoury individuals intending to commit fraud or launch attacks on the Internet. In fact, Remote-Exploit.org, the web site behind Auditor and BackTrack, has recently been suspended from the Google AdSense programme, after the search engine giant determined that the product offered on its web site was a cracking tool! At DistroWatch.com, we periodically receive emails requesting to remove these kinds of distributions from our list.
However, while we certainly don't condone the use of BackTrack for malice, we don't believe that hiding information is a valid solution to the problem either. It is important to realise that these tools are freely available elsewhere - all that BackTrack does is that it combines them into one compact live CD. Besides, although BackTrack may indeed be used by crackers with malicious intentions, it can also aid security professionals to research current cracking tools and provide better security products for the rest of us.
For more information about BackTrack and the included utilities please visit Remote-Exploit.org.
BackTrack - a SLAX-based live CD with a comprehensive collection of security and penetration testing tools.
(full image size: 397kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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| Released Last Week |
SystemRescueCD 0.2.16
Nearly 18 months since the previous release, a new version of SystemRescueCD is now available for download. What's new? "Updated the kernel to Linux-2.6.15.1; updated the system (udev 080, hotplug, coldplug); updated LVM tools (evms, device-mapper); added Reiser4 support (support in the kernel and reiser4progs); updated NTFS support (improved support in the kernel, and ntfsprogs); updated Parted to 1.6.23; updated bootloader support; updated file systems tools; updated bootdisks (memtest+ and 'Offline NT Password and registry editor'); updated ClamAV virus definitions." See the changelog for further details.
Mini-Pentoo 2006.0
Pentoo is a Gentoo-based live CD with a collection of tools designed for penetration testing. A new "mini" edition, fitting on a 256 MB USB storage device and featuring the Enlightenment 17 window manager, has been released: "I'm pleased to announce the immediate availability of Mini-Pentoo 2006.0 final version. This version is only 186 MB fat and fits on mini CD or a 256 MB USB pen drive. It features the bare minimum tools for penetration testing and supports module addition ala SLAX, allowing you to add some more stuff as you see fit. You can also save your /etc, /root, ExploitTree and Nessus on a USB pen drive." Find more information in the release announcement and download page.
Mini-Pentoo - a Gentoo-based live CD with the latest Enlightenment 17
(full image size: 644kB, resolution: 1154x864 pixels)
BLAG Linux and GNU 30002
The Fedora-based BLAG Linux and GNU distribution has been updated to version 30002: "BLAG 30002 (Johannesburg) has been released. BLAG is a single CD distro with everything desktop users 'expect' from a desktop, plus a collection of nice server applications. BLAG 30002 is based on Fedora Core 3 plus updates, adds applications from Dag, Freshrpms, NewRPMS, and includes custom packages. BLAG 30002 is the latest update to the BLAG 30k series, using the last updates from Fedora before moving to the Fedora Legacy project. New CD packages include kiax (VoIP softphone), netcat and xvid4conf." Read the full release announcement for further information.
Underground Desktop 022
A new version of Underground Desktop is out: "I'm seeding a torrent of Underground Desktop 022. The new ISO contains updates to most software, including the just released KDE 3.5.1, and X.Org 7.0. Apart from this, the file system is now ReiserFS v3 instead of Reiser4 - which seems not stable and fast enough - and the bootloader is GRUB instead of LILO. Also included in the ISO are wireless drivers for Ndiswrapper supported and prism2-based cards. This release is still experimental and not much tested, so don't expect everything to work out of the box - use at your own risk." Here is the full release announcement.
Bluewall GNU/Linux 1.2
Bluewall GNU/Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution with a twist - instead of apt, it uses NetBSD's pkgsrc as its preferred package management software. Version 1.2 was released: "After a long time, a new Bluewall has been released. This is a transient release - after the maintainer change, this version tries to be a testing release, but feel free to report bugs! This new version updates the base debian to Debian unstable and also integrates the current CVS tree and some 541 i386-binary pkgsrc packages like GNOME 2.12.2, GIMP 2.2.10, X.Org 6.8.1...." Find more details on the distribution's home page.
* * * * *
Development and unannounced releases
- Nexenta Alpha2, the download page
- SimplyMEPIS 3.4-3-rc4, the release announcement
- Grafpup Linux 1.0.2-rc1 and 1.0.2-rc2, the release announcement
- Frugalware Linux 0.4-pre2, the release announcement
- SUSE Linux 10.1-beta3, the release announcement
- rPath Linux 0.99.4, the release announcement and 0.99.5, the release announcement
- Pingwinek 1.0-pre3, the release announcement
- RR4 Linux 3.0-beta0, the release announcement
- BackTrack 3.0-beta, the release announcement
- eduKnoppix 2.1.6
- Asterisk@Home 2.5
- Kurumin Linux 6.0-alpha5
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
January 2006 donations: Gambas and Krusader
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is our pleasure to announce that we have just broken our all-time donation record. Thanks to the increasing number of visitors and a growing demand for advertising on this site, we have been able to set aside a total of US$500 for donations in January! Furthermore, we would like to welcome our newest contributing member - BuyLinuxDVD.com, an India-based Linux disc vendor which has joined our donation programme by contributing US$50.00 towards the January donation.
With US$500 at our disposal and the ever-growing list of projects nominated for financial assistance, we have decided to give not one, but two equal donations - to Gambas and Krusader.
Gambas is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) similar to MS Visual Basic: "Gambas is a free development environment based on a Basic interpreter with object extensions like Visual Basic (but it is NOT a clone!). With Gambas, you can quickly design your program GUI, access MySQL or PostgreSQL databases, pilot KDE applications with DCOP, translate your program into many languages, create network applications easily, and so on...." Developed by Benoît Minisini, Gambas is released under the GPL and available for free download from the project's web site. The latest stable version is 1.0.14, but version 2 is currently under intensive development.
The Gambas Integrated Development Environment
(full image size: 132kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Krusader is a fast and light-weight file manager for KDE: "Krusader is an advanced twin panel file manager for KDE and other desktops in the *nix world, similar to Midnight or Total Commander. It provides all the file management features you could possibly want. Plus: extensive archive handling, mounted file system support, FTP, advanced search module, an internal viewer/editor, directory synchronisation, file content comparisons, powerful batch renaming and much much more." The increasingly popular application is developed by the Krusader Krew (led by Shie Erlich and Rafi Yanai) and released under the GNU General Public License.
The Krusader file manager
(full image size: 218kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Our monthly donations programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch, which contributes 10% of its advertising revenue, and two online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software - BuyLinuxDVD.com and LinuxCD.org, each of which contributed US$50 towards this month's donation. Both stores have an excellent selection and latest releases at very reasonable prices. Next time you need to order your favourite Linux or BSD CDs, get them from LinuxCD.org or, if you are in India, from BuyLinuxDVD.com.
These are the PayPal receipt for the donations to Gambas and Krusader:
Dear DistroWatch.com,
This email confirms that you have paid gambas -at- users.sourceforge.net 200.00 EUR using PayPal.
------------------------------
Payment Details:
------------------------------
Transaction ID: 20W44797E74816547
Total: €200.00 EUR
Item/Product Name: Donation by DistroWatch.com
Buyer: DistroWatch.com
Dear DistroWatch.com,
This email confirms that you have paid OSDN / VA Software $250.00 USD using PayPal.
------------------------------
Payment Details:
------------------------------
Transaction ID: 8JP022936E678894C
Total: $250.00 USD
Item/Product Name: Donation to Krusader
Buyer: DistroWatch.com
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme:
Since the launch of the DistroWatch Donations Programme in March 2004, we have donated a total of US$6,730 to various open source software projects.
* * * * *
New distribution additions
* * * * *
New distributions added to the waiting list
- Slak. Slak is a new Russian live CD based on Slackware Linux and Linux-Live scripts.
- Sork Linux Music Studio. Sork is a live CD based on Debian GNU/Linux and Morphix. It is usefull for recording music either as a complete software studio or as a part in a more complex setup.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 13 February 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Linux Foundation Training |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • great (by klhrevolutionist at 2006-02-06 10:46:20 GMT from United States)
Though I am not a developer. I see the great benefit of gambas. We need more active develoeprs to take an interest in linux. Great job ladislav
2 • Underground (by d00m3d on 2006-02-06 10:57:31 GMT from Hong Kong)
Just discover that the torrent for download Underground is not available. Underground's download page suggests to provide http download later. No ideas on available date.
3 • Modular System (by Flavio de Oliveira on 2006-02-06 11:09:39 GMT from Brazil)
It's incredible how the modular system is getting its placa ath the top of most usable script to create a livecd. Tomas created a very good set of scripts anda each week we can discover another distro built by using linux live scripts...
4 • 403 Forbidden (by frontline3k on 2006-02-06 11:48:07 GMT from Romania)
Hi.
The screenshots are still inaccesible (to me, at least). And this problems occurs at every screenshots for a few months.
Tried from Firefox / IE in WinXP, Suse 10, Ubuntu ... etc.
Still the same problem.
Btw, keep up the good work.
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /images/screenshots/wazobia.png on this server.
5 • RE: 4 • 403 Forbidden (by ladislav on 2006-02-06 11:59:27 GMT from Taiwan)
I checked the web log and noted that your browser does not provide a referrer when accessing the images (although it does provide one while accessing other pages). To prevent hotlinking of images and generating useless traffic, all browsers that don't include the referrer string of "distrowatch.com" get the 403 error. If you don't like this policy, please visit one of the mirrors as listed at the bottom of the page.
6 • RE: 4 • 403 Forbidden (by frontline3k on 2006-02-06 12:05:47 GMT from Romania)
Thanks for the quick answer.
I'm using "Open Link in a new tab" for looking at images, because going Forward and Back in Firefox makes an unnecessary refresh to the page and ... it takes time :)
Got the ideea, anyway.
Thanks
7 • RE: 6 • 403 Forbidden (by ladislav on 2006-02-06 12:11:02 GMT from Taiwan)
I am not sure why this happens. If I "Open Link in a new tab" in my Firefox, the image displays just fine.
8 • file managers (by brodders on 2006-02-06 12:16:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi,
read with interest about Krusader... yet wonder if the feature I've always wanted can be configured in this fm.
I've always appreciated the the 98 / 98SE explorer image frame, to the left of file listings.
OK, icon views are possible - but I don't want to wait 30 secs whilst (say) Konqueror renders images for pics I'm not interested in. It's slow and irritating. I can tell by filename and date what I want... just need to make sure I've got it right.
OK #2 - the pop-up info window. Hm, it's telling me lots - and obliterating the desktop where I click to move on (my first guess was wrong). Nicer.
But I wonder. Is there something like "look and feel" copyright stoping the development of a complete Win 98 Explorer clone, with the same image preview method?
M$ got that one right for 98 - XP's explorer took a step backwards; even so I know of nothing with such a simple, effective and useful image view which duplicates the same look and feel for Linux.
Perhaps I'm using it wrong, but I could never get Konq to 100% duplicate the ease of use.
And, as I use file explorers a lot, that has a big impact on my work experience - hence I'm happy to write such a long post. It's important, and I'm irritated that the various desktops can't offer one of M$'s good features!
brodders
9 • "Goomours" (by SpringBoy on 2006-02-06 12:24:34 GMT from Australia)
I think the real problem that causes many of these "goomours" is the Google tends to work/dabble with a lot of different things and is usually seen as something of a secretive thinktank. "Get that many smart engineers together and they must be working on SOMETHING!"
As far as Goobuntu goes, this was just blown way out of proportion. As I understand it, Google has started using a customised version of Ubuntu on their internal machines. So they're not developing an OS for consumer use, merely for themselves. Very similar to how they took a customised version of Red Hat to use on their clusters.
Of course, it's always great to hear more news of Linux being adopted!
10 • Back to Ubuntu... (by Caraibes on 2006-02-06 12:26:56 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Ok, I know it has nothing to do with the DW weekly of this morning, but I just wanted to share with you guys...
After staying a long time between PCLinuxOS and GenieOS, with some escapade in Puppy when needed, I finally came back to Ubuntu 5.10, read the very good explanations, and had everything working properly... It just took following the wiki's steps, and now I feel good.
I also installed Kubuntu on another machine, and had everything up and running, but I can't explain why, I like better Ununtu than Kubuntu (and usually I was more of a kde guy... strange...)
Maybe it is these brownish african colors that people were complaining about a couple of months ago...
Anyway, all the best to the DW crew !
11 • krusader (by Psionides on 2006-02-06 12:36:59 GMT from Poland)
Hey Ladislav, thanks for donating for Krusader! It's really a great tool, I use it almost all the time (I'm addicted to NortonCmd/MidnightCmd/TotalCmd style managers :), and I don't know what would I do without it... I hope the money will help them make their app even better :)
12 • image preview in Krusader (by Anonymous on 2006-02-06 12:39:49 GMT from Hungary)
> image frame, to the left of file listings
You can do this in Krusader, just enable the preview panel below the file list (on the popup panel).
13 • Most Important Article (by gabbman on 2006-02-06 12:51:09 GMT from Canada)
[quote]Since the launch of the DistroWatch Donations Programme in March 2004, we have donated a total of US$6,730 to various open source software projects.[/quote]
The most important article this week, on top of all the links and newsworthy notes of the distributions and their progress, this one sentence sums up the importance of Distrowatch.com.
Keep up the excellent work.
14 • Re: 2 -- Underground (by Ciccio.A on 2006-02-06 14:06:07 GMT from Italy)
I'm having problems with the network, I hope to finish uploading the ISO of Underground Desktop 022 to the server today.
15 • Re: 2 -- Underground 022 (by Ciccio.A on 2006-02-06 14:34:34 GMT from Italy)
The torrent download should be ok now, check the download page. An HTTP download will be available too.
16 • Gambas (by Jesse on 2006-02-06 15:09:55 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for the quick mention of Gambas. I've
been looking for a tool just like this.
17 • Re:"Goomours" (by SpringBoy on 2006-02-06 12:24:34 GMT from Australia) (by Anonymous on 2006-02-06 15:41:28 GMT from United States)
"Very similar to how they took a customised version of Red Hat to use on their clusters."
You are actually the first person (from what I see) that actually got it right; about what google runs on their clusters. Side note; they are upgrading to 400G WD drives.
18 • BackTrack (by MightyMidget on 2006-02-06 16:02:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
This looks really interesting. I recommend that everyone should vist their website and try some of the links to view some neat demo's of hackers at work. Certainly opened my eyes to recheck my system to ensure it's secure.
19 • help (by Recep on 2006-02-06 16:55:59 GMT from Turkey)
fake mail help
20 • file managers (by brodders on 2006-02-06 17:15:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi Anonymous!
Hm, tried Krusader just now. I get:
Click (to select)
Right-click (properties)
Move mouse to select from menu - image pops up over desktop! :)
vs. win98 explorer in "Detail" mode:
click (to select) - image pops up in reserved white space!
.. it's the amount of work; if you work with many many images the effort & time saving with the win98 way is, well, vastly superior (not just better).
21 • Goobuntu could be made (by Cheetahman on 2006-02-06 17:19:05 GMT from United States)
Wouldn't you just have to change the artwork on Ubuntu to Google and call it Goobuntu.
22 • RE: Goobuntu could be made (by JS on 2006-02-06 18:09:59 GMT from United States)
"Wouldn't you just have to change the artwork on Ubuntu to Google and call it Goobuntu."
I'm really surprised somebody hasn't already done exactly that and tried to pass it off as a "early release" of a Google OS.
Great Distrowatch weekly as usual. Thanks Ladislav!
23 • bluewall (by frustrated on 2006-02-06 18:13:58 GMT from United States)
why cant I download bluewall :|
24 • goomers (by x on 2006-02-06 18:17:14 GMT from United States)
I am in agreement with you on this issue. So many rumors on the web concerning publicly traded companies are nothing more than attempts to manipulate stock prices, up or down, for the benefit of a few. The internet has made it possible to rapidly spread information, whether it is factual or fictious. The need to get the scoop combined with editorial perspective has put many journalists that investigate rumors at a disadvantage. By the time the truth is revealed, the public's interest has focused elsewhere.
By the way, do you have any comments concerning the pending merger between Distrowatch and Google. Will the new entity be referred to as Distrooogle or Goowatch. I understand it involves only a stock swap, share for share.
By the way, thanks for the comment link, it works like a champ.
x
25 • quick view in Krusader (by Anonymous on 2006-02-06 18:34:10 GMT from Hungary)
> Click (to select)
> Right-click (properties)
> Move mouse to select from menu - image pops up over desktop! :)
What I meant was: click the "up arrow" button that's just below the file list. It opens the popup panel. Then click the "View Panel" button on that panel.
26 • Thank you! (by 1c3d0g on 2006-02-06 18:43:20 GMT from Aruba)
A project like Krusader is truly worth its weight in gold. Thank you, Ladislav, for donating to that project. It means a lot to its users. :-)
27 • Concur (by Krusader Fan on 2006-02-06 20:08:38 GMT from United States)
Krusader rocks! I especially like the kde network integration which allows remote file management with zero pain. The bookmarks of remote sites is also great. I use this app all the time.
28 • Broken download link in "Slak" (by Boris Kazak on 2006-02-06 20:15:01 GMT from Russian Federation)
Added to the waiting list "Slak 1.0" from Russia has a broken download link. Clicking "Download" from its home page http://mstyleabc.ru/slak/ produces 404 error.
29 • BackTrack Correction! (by welkiner on 2006-02-06 20:31:52 GMT from United States)
" you can activate it by typing "dhcpd" in a terminal window"
Sould read "dhcpcd"
Great writeup though, thanks for all you do!
wb
30 • Donation (by Helge on 2006-02-06 21:01:26 GMT from Germany)
Hey, I think there are 50 USD missing... where have they gone?
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Payment Details:
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Total: €200.00 EUR -->only 200?
Item/Product Name: Donation by DistroWatch.com
[...]
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Payment Details:
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Total: $250.00 USD
Item/Product Name: Donation to Krusader
[...]
31 • at # 30 (by Kensai on 2006-02-06 21:11:39 GMT from Puerto Rico)
please notice that it is 200 EUR and not USD so EUR worth more than USD. Research a bit more on google.
32 • Gentoo GNU/kFreeBSD Gets Installer (by Anonymous on 2006-02-06 22:43:41 GMT from Canada)
An update of the Gentoo GNU/kFreeBSD proof-of-concept tarball has been rolled out. Improvements include an up-to-date toolchain (gcc 4.0, glibc 2.3.5, etc.), and the system being bootable and usable as a standalone system. It is now provided as a CD installer for anyone with minimal Gentoo experience to try it out.
It should be interesting to follow this work on distrowatch.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13578
33 • I applaud the donations program... (by nix_os_fan on 2006-02-06 23:12:48 GMT from Canada)
I just wish I had some money to throw around to my favourite open-source softwares. >:-[
34 • Donation to Krusader (by Shi Yali on 2006-02-07 00:18:52 GMT from Taiwan)
Thank you for supporting Krusader. Coming from Norton Commander via Windows Commander to Linux, Krusader has been a life saver and the first thing that I install and start up every time I use Linux. An absolutely outstanding application that should be a standard feature of every Linux distro. Thanks!
35 • Donation nominees: Scribus, Inkscape, Octave (by Gnobuddy on 2006-02-07 04:01:59 GMT from United States)
It's great that Distrowatch (or rather Ladislav) has put his money where his mouth is, and donated generously to so many Free/Open Source projects. Here is a man who really does "talk the talk, and waddle the waddle", to paraphrase MadPenguin.org.
I would like to mention Scribus and Inkscape as possible candidates for donations. Scribus has made DTP (desktop publication) on Linux a reality, at least for small projects, and Inkscape has done the same for vector drawings. Both projects have become leading lights in their categories on Linux, after many false starts at DTP and vector illustration by other previous software projects that somehow never got far off the ground. As such, both Scribus and Inkscape projects have enabled people to do what could not previously be done with Linux.
Another greatly overlooked but wonderful piece of software is Octave, virtually a free replacement for the (very expensive) proprietory Matlab. While not part of most folks everyday toolkit, Octave has the potential to bring many college students in technical fields of study to Linux. Many of us (myself included) feel that Free Software and education belong together, like peanut butter and jelly or sunshine and shadow, since the ideals of the two fields are so closely allied: freely give people information, and the tools to learn from it and improve their lives with it.
-Gnobuddy
36 • a qustion about GamBas (by ysback on 2006-02-07 06:52:37 GMT from Philippines)
Does GamBas suppports VBasic projects (*.vbp)? can i open my vb projects on gambas?
37 • Filesystems (by Robzilla on 2006-02-07 20:49:21 GMT from United States)
O.K. I am going to ask probably a stupid question again but I am curious and have not heard a good answer.
What is the difference between Linux filesystems? Ext2,3, Reiser, Reiser4, JFS, XFS? If there is no difference then why do they exist. I have heard some say that Rieser4 is the fastest and that IBM's JFS is the most stable? Does anyone know the strenths and weaknesses of each filesystem? Since Linux is just a kernel I would imagine that the filesytems would have a major impact on the stability and performance of the whole OS?
What do you use and why?
Robzilla
38 • Filesystems (by Anonymous on 2006-02-07 22:00:44 GMT from United States)
"What is the difference between Linux filesystems? Ext2,3, Reiser, Reiser4, JFS, XFS? If there is no difference then why do they exist."
They are all different. Here's a quick summary.
ext2 - The old standard for Linux filesystems.
ext3 - Basically ext2 with journalling added.
ReiserFS - The new standard that most Linux distros seem to use. It's a journalling filesystem originally designed for the military.
JFS - A relatively new filesystem. Not the stablest IMO.
XFS - I find this to be the fastest filesystem with the exception of deleting files where it lags a bit. XFS was built fresh from the ground up.
I personally use XFS because it's quick and stable. If stability is your goal, I'd probably go ext3. If I want just an all-round good filesystem, I'd probably go ReiserFS. There are some good articles that compare these in detail. Google is your friend.
39 • africa on the rise? (by anon on 2006-02-07 23:14:55 GMT from Germany)
Now there is also a Nigerian Linux distro? Great news. I hope that more countries in Africa and on other continents join the bandwaggon. :)
40 • Donation to Krusader (by Frank Schoolmeesters on 2006-02-09 04:58:33 GMT from Belgium)
Thank you for supporting Krusader!
http://krusader.sourceforge.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1459
Donations will be used for further development of Krusader.
I hope that a lot more Linux users will discover Krusader and
hopefully, there will be a much bigger adoption of Krusader by the leading distros.
kind regards,
Frank Schoolmeesters
Krusader Krew
http://www.krusader.org
btw. krusader-1.70.0 stable will be released soon
http://krusader.sourceforge.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1458
Please test latest cvs. Thanks!
41 • Krusader (by wayne040576 on 2006-02-09 08:47:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
I like Krusader. I has a nice layout to it. But I'm finding that it crashes quite a lot (using latest kanotix). I can't get it to go to my home directory at all without crashing. I read on the Krusader forums that this is related to qt libs (I'm getting the same stack trace) and that building the app from source fixes it, but so far it hasn't worked for me.
So it's functionality is limited on my system at the moment,
42 • Re: Krusader QT crashes (by Frank Schoolmeesters on 2006-02-09 22:18:09 GMT from Belgium)
Hi wayne040576,
As mentioned on the Krusader website http://krusader.sourceforge.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1407
"... These crashes are related to Qt 3.3.5 and NOT Krusader. Seems that Qt 3.3.5 introduced a serious bug which is now causing random crashes in many KDE applications including Konqueror. ..."
wayne040576 wrote:
>building the app from source fixes it
This will not resolve the QT bug, to fix it, you need to upgrade QT.
Since you are using Kanotix, you can get Krusader with a single mouseklik http://klik.atekon.de/
http://krusader.sourceforge.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1352
Current klik status:
* klik://krusader -> the krusader release in Debian Stable (krusader-1.51)
* klik://krusader-latest -> latest available krusader-stable (krusader-1.60.1)
* klik://krusader-cvs -> snapshot of krusader-cvs (krusader-1.70.0-beta2 + updates from cvs20060104)
btw. I have no crashes at all on Debian Sarge (KDE: 3.3.2 / Qt: 3.3.4)
kind regards,
Frank Schoolmeesters
Krusader Krew
http://www.krusader.org
43 • MEPIS may be going Ubuntu? (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-10 00:35:42 GMT from Italy)
http://os.newsforge.com/os/06/02/09/159207.shtml?tid=2
Personally I use Kanotix and Sid and I find it only a blessing that Debian is changing a lot and fast.
For the first time that I can remember, Debian Sid is as bleeding edge as any other distro and remarkably stable.
44 • SUSE Linux 10.1 beta4 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-11 07:30:46 GMT from Italy)
SUSE Linux 10.1 beta4 is 2 days later than scheduled.
I take this as a positive sign: beta1 was buggy as hell, beta2 had hardly seen any improvements, beta3 was released without a changelog...
Being beta4 the last but one development release we should now see some serious bug squashing (hopefully)
45 • Mini-Pentoo 2006.0 (by Anon on 2006-02-12 13:06:09 GMT from Germany)
I tried the new Mini-Pentoo 2006.0 announced above - what a great disappointment.
On a fully Linux-capable laptop it doesn't even reaches the basic boot screen - no comment.
When testing it on a desktop, it runs quite well like Windows does - you got an OS without anything else useful.
The Enlightenment desktop produces a quite blurred and too small screen - although the sound works - and from the three Bluetooth "hacking" tools e.g., only one runs satisfactorily, while only showing Bluetooth devices without a practical chance to do anything further.
The Windows tools seems to be made for older versions of that OS, and so on.
Altogether, I would called it a hoax, and no good promotion for Gentoo, either.
46 • Sork Linux Music Studio (new distribution) (by Anon on 2006-02-12 13:13:04 GMT from Germany)
The new distribution announced above isn't reachable under http://linux.itismusic.org/ (connection timed out).
A new Linux starting not untrustworthy like this should be canceled right now before bursting the already overcrowded database.
47 • Mini-Pentoo - see Elive .04 (by Anon on 2006-02-12 13:26:35 GMT from United States)
You've got to see the new Enlightenment desktop under Elive .04. This new release rocks!
48 • SUSE Linux 10.1 beta4 ... (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-13 06:19:10 GMT from Italy)
...is now 4 days late. Unusual. I hope it means a stable final.
Number of Comments: 48
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