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1 • Open Source 3D acceleration (by Anonymous on 2006-02-13 11:19:29 GMT from United States)
If you want 3D acceleration, which many of us will with the recent developments, you may think you have to go with Nvidia. Sure, they're non-free but at least 3D is supported.
Good news. Cards based on the Radeon 9250, which can be had new starting just under $40, are supported by open source drivers in x.org. These cards aren't as good for gaming as Nvidia, but for 3D eye candy effects. they're quite good.
Of course, for 2D, I'll stick with the Matrox G450. Cheap and open source drivers there as well.
2 • Great DWN but, news where a bit slow I think. (by Kensai on 2006-02-13 11:51:09 GMT from Puerto Rico)
It was great to read DWN but news were bit slow this week maybe, since there is not much to look for. I found Mockup an interesting thing and good looking though. Is good seeing how the Linux community takes one step further every day. Yet I'm not convinced to leave my beloved freebsd.
3 • Is Mepis still viable? (by Superman on 2006-02-13 12:04:47 GMT from Australia)
if mepis does change to ubuntu what will the difference be between it an kubuntu? especialy since ubuntu dapper is supposed to have a live cd install system.
While i love Mepis as it was my into to linux as a serious desktop OS i kinda have to question the purpose of a distro that is released with a outdated desktop environment (kde 3.4)
4 • Open Source 3D acceleration (by Safari Bans at 2006-02-13 12:06:29 GMT from United States)
"Cards based on the Radeon 9250, which can be had new starting just under $40, are supported by open source drivers in x.org. These cards aren't as good for gaming as Nvidia, but for 3D eye candy effects. they're quite good."
I have a 9250 based myself. I'm happy to report that the drivers for r300 based cards (although a bit on the experimental side) are available in xorg7 (http://cvs.freedesktop.org/mesa/Mesa/src/mesa/drivers/dri/r300/). These open source drivers, support r300 and newer and some r4** cards. (http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon)
5 • Mockup (by Misty on 2006-02-13 12:19:56 GMT from United States)
I haven't tried this one myself, but I'd say it's way too early to see if it's going to be a good, innovative distro. It's kind of like passing judgment on a house when you don't even have a complete foundation built yet and no walls.
6 • RE: 2 Why switch? (some anti-advocacy) (by Anonymous on 2006-02-13 12:46:29 GMT from United States)
I can imagine a few reasons why someone could conceivably want to switch from FreeBSD to GNU/Linux:
1. Preference for the GPL. This is a question of personal philosophy and politics.
2. Preference for GNU userland. This really comes down to individual habits and preferences.
3. Hardware that FreeBSD doesn't support but Linux does. This depends on individual circumstances really.
4. An application is needed that is unavailable on FreeBSD. This is pretty rare considering the size of ports, but it's possible.
5. A desire to learn something new, for professional reasons or just personal curiosity. Again: individual circumstances.
6. Some particular feature that is available in the Linux kernel that FreeBSD lacks. If you have such specialized needs, that's not something anyone else needs to tell you.
basically, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you're using a free, relatively stable, relatively secure OS, and you're happy with it, there's no need to switch.
7 • SUSE 10.1 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-13 13:04:46 GMT from Italy)
I have mixed feelings about the latest SUSE news.
While it is great to have such nice features (and it was about time, for instance, that somebody admitted that the YaST package manager is badly in need of an overhaul), I wonder about the wisdom of introducing the new features in these late stages of development: basically it means that 10.1 is entering alpha stage again. The end result? We can only hope for the best.
8 • RE: Is Mepis still viable? (by SFN on 2006-02-13 13:35:14 GMT from United States)
"if mepis does change to ubuntu what will the difference be between it an kubuntu?"
Not being a fan of KDE I've only toyed momentarily with both Kubuntu and Mepis but if you follow comments on both from users, Mepis users seem to have a better experience than Kubuntu users. I've heard it posited that Mark Shuttleworth should consider buying Mepis and making it Kubuntu with Warren heading that project.
Certainly an interesting idea.
9 • Slackware Changelog (by Ariszló on 2006-02-13 13:58:46 GMT from Hungary)
It also contains this line:
kde/k*.tgz: Upgraded to KDE 3.5.1.
8-)
10 • Great issue as always. (by Rohan Dhruva on 2006-02-13 14:01:16 GMT from India)
Thanks ladislav once again, for a great issue of DW Weekly.
Superman : Mepis tracks debian -testing 'etch' which currently has only kde 3.4.3. Hence mepis cannot include kde 3.5.x . Now if they'd track debian sid or ubuntu, its a different story altogether.
Rohan.
11 • MEPIS still has its own feature.... (by Charlie on 2006-02-13 14:13:01 GMT from Hong Kong)
since Ubuntu/Kubuntu don't have a GUI installer.....I think MEPIS is still a good way for newbies to jump into Debian-based distros because MEPIS is freely available when Xandros has the OCE edition only and Linspire only provides its LiveCD for download
12 • Bancilhon's comments (by Joeb on 2006-02-13 14:14:11 GMT from United States)
It's interesting that Bancilhon (Mandriva's CEO) still considers Mandriva a community based distro. In most businesses, when you charge members to belong, they aren't a community, they are customers.
If Ubuntu does Mandriva in, it won't be from Shuttleworth throwing money against the community based distros. It will be from Mandriva's continued misunderstanding of what market they are actually in.
Even Banchilhon's quote "One possible worse case scenario is that Ubuntu's plan is to use money to put all other community-based distros out of business and then start monetizing the installed base." Is nothing but FUD! There is no indication that Ubuntu is doing anything like that. The interviewer should have challenged that statement. Where is there any proof or indication that Ubuntu has a plan to use money to put all other community-based distros out of business? If anything, they are pouring money into various open source projects which benefit other distros and offer their code changes freely, just as the GPL states.
Mandrake was a good distro and then Bancilhon made some bad business decisions. It wasn't anybody's fault but his own. He should own up to that and quit gouging his customers, I mean community.
I can't wait until next year to see which distro he flames for being the bane of all of Linux.
13 • RE: Is Mepis still viable? (by Joeb on 2006-02-13 14:19:38 GMT from United States)
"if mepis does change to ubuntu what will the difference be between it an kubuntu? "
Mepis is based on debian, but nobody poses the question of whether it is viable or not because of that. I believe that Mepis based on Ubuntu would simply mean it would use Ubuntu's updated and tested packages instead of debian's somewhate outdated ones (that's not meant to slam debian, btw).
It would still look like Mepis, smell like Mepis and taste like Mepis. The only difference would be that it would have more current packages.
14 • SuSe 10.1 (by Anonymous on 2006-02-13 14:23:19 GMT from Germany)
I think SuSe 10.1 will be very stylish with Xgl....
15 • XGL (by gasper on 2006-02-13 14:34:23 GMT from Slovenia)
I think this stuff is so good....
Any news regarding SUN's Java 3D destkop?
16 • RE: Is Mepis still viable? (by NewBee on 2006-02-13 15:04:29 GMT from Finland)
#3:
"While i love Mepis as it was my into to linux as a serious desktop OS i kinda have to question the purpose of a distro that is released with a outdated desktop environment (kde 3.4)"
#13:
"I believe that Mepis based on Ubuntu would simply mean it would use Ubuntu's updated and tested packages instead of debian's somewhate outdated ones (that's not meant to slam debian, btw)."
The current release of SimplyMepis is based on Debian Testing (Etch). Just after SimplyMepis' release Debian Testing upgraded KDE to 3.5 and it will be easy to upgrade KDE in SimplyMepis after hard drive installation.
Unlike Debian Testing, Ubuntu doesn't upgrade packages between its releases. This means that Ubuntu starts its release cycle with newer versions of software but then Debian Testing starts to catch up and currently Debian Testing has newer versions of most packages than the current Ubuntu release.
Also, the packages in Debian Testing have gone through more real world testing than the Ubuntu packages, which generally makes Debian Testing less buggy when compared to Ubuntu.
17 • RE: #12 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-13 15:07:03 GMT from Italy)
"Mandrake was a good distro and then Bancilhon made some bad business decisions. It wasn't anybody's fault but his own. He should own up to that and quit gouging his customers, I mean community."
I couldn't agree more.
Quoting myself from OSNews, replying to AdamW:
"Why don't you run a poll among club members and ask if they would rather have a *reasonably* stable KDE 3.5, Firefox 1.5, a new kernel...or would rather see their distro become obsolete by the time the next one is released?
After all the upgrades offered by SUSE, Fedora... are quite stable, in my opinion and in that of many others.
At the moment Mandriva is still doing reasonably well, but wait until your competitors (SUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu) release: I am afraid by then you are going to see a hemorrhage of users as never before.
With other words, Ubuntu is NOT to blame: Mandriva's wrong policies are."
18 • Mepuntu (by William Johnson on 2006-02-13 15:09:42 GMT from United States)
I have zero interest in Mepuntu. I love Mepis 3.3.1 which
looks like the distro that will end up being the apex of
that program. Mepis 3.4 is a step down ,a case in point is
that there are several radio stations that can be streamed
with 3.3.1 that CANNOT be streamed by 3.4.
It appears to me that it is hard for one person(Warren) to maintain a distro and keep up with well financed teams. i
think in a couple of years there will be less than 10
worthwhile Linux distros, heck there is probably only
about 30 now.
19 • RE: #16 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-13 15:21:06 GMT from Italy)
I absolutely agree with you. Personally I use Sid (Kanotix) which at the moment is as bleeding edge as possible and amazingly stable, contrary to its name.
So which Debian is "somewhat outdated"?
Debian Stable is, but most people don't use it for desktops.
20 • RE: #18 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-13 15:23:24 GMT from Italy)
Mepuntu? LOL, thanks for a good laugh.
21 • Debian testing vs Ubuntu packages (by Joeb on 2006-02-13 15:33:00 GMT from United States)
"Unlike Debian Testing, Ubuntu doesn't upgrade packages between its releases. This means that Ubuntu starts its release cycle with newer versions of software but then Debian Testing starts to catch up and currently Debian Testing has newer versions of most packages than the current Ubuntu release.
Also, the packages in Debian Testing have gone through more real world testing than the Ubuntu packages, which generally makes Debian Testing less buggy when compared to Ubuntu."
Ubuntu packages are just as free of bugs (or not) as Debian Testing, since that is what Ubuntu uses to create it's packages.
As for upgrading packages between releases, well, for major packages, there are the backports which are available in short order after release. And with a six month release cycle on the distribution, every six months, there is the latest snapshot.
I'm pretty sure that Debian Testing isn't much more up to date overall than Ubuntu (sure package "a" may be, but not all packages). If it is, then where is all of the extra testing being done before something makes it into Debian Testing? Surely, a new version can't come out today and be in Debian Testing next week and have all of that real world testing done (and fixes applied and re-tested).
Debian is a great distribution. Ubuntu built upon it's strengths and is attempting to minimize it's weaknesses.
22 • Mepuntu and Elive (by lefty.crupps on 2006-02-13 15:51:32 GMT from United States)
I too am quite happy with Mepis 3.3.1, as everything since it has been missing programs that I need and adding them borks my system - the Sarge Stable really has proven itself as just that (especially with Xara backports). KDE 3.4 and 3.5, well I've seen them and they're beautiful, but its not worth the work, for me.
I see no mention of the new Elive 0.4_pre release in this weeks DWW. For those interested, it's e16 environment is rocksolid stable and very light on the resources, and its e17 is also very good (although some modules, like the Weather, may cause e17 to segfault -- which is easily fixed but gets annoying. Avoid the Weather if you live in the US, there are just too many menus to dig through).
The LiveCD can be installed* and it comes with many decent programs. Running it on a 266mh P2 / 64MB RAM compaq armada 1750 laptop isn't out of the question, and so far my added Etch packages haven't killed it yet... I am amazed.
*per Elive people, do an
# apt-get install eliveinstaller
before running the command-line based eliveinstaller. Worked for me! But be aware, the 1-cd installation takes HOURS
23 • Stuck with Ubuntu (by Douglas on 2006-02-13 16:10:34 GMT from United States)
"Even Banchilhon's quote "One possible worse case scenario is that Ubuntu's plan is to use money to put all other community-based distros out of business and then start monetizing the installed base.""
If they tried this then all we would do is move to the next distro. When it all comes out many distro's are the same after install and custom programs are added by the user. Yes, there are reasons to have a favorate but they are not stong enough to Force us to stay and pay. Linux is not MS. Making linux users stay and pay would be hearding cats.
24 • RE: Suse 10.1 (by Glenn (Old Man, Retired) on 2006-02-13 18:50:29 GMT from United States)
Another excellent issue of DW. IMHO its the best site on the entire internet for keeping up with Linux distros, development, and general trends. I've been using Suse off and on since release 6.4. I've tried a number of other distros along the way, but I always return to Suse. The post #7 person may be right in the short term, but in the long run I'm convinced that Novell/Suse will get things right at the end of the day. I'm just an average home desktop user with no programming knowledge.
1. I used and kind of liked Libranet for awhlle, but its gone away.
2. Besides Suse, I probably used Mephis the most; but its a 1-man operation so its only a matter of time til it goes the same way as Libranet.
3. I recently gave Damn Small Linux a try, and its okay, but the next release will not have mc, so I've had to abandon it since I will NOT use a distro that doesn't include mc. (I'm an old man, born in 1937, and I have fond memories of Xtree pro and DOS). Besides, just as the family unit is the basic building block of society, so is the file the building block of computer programs. Hence, one must have access to a top notch file manager in order to "get the most" out of one's pc.
4. I currently have Kubuntu 5.10 installed also, and I'm still evaluating it.
5. Never could get PCLinuxOS to install. It starts out okay, then for no reason it just stops (hangs up) at 20% of the way through the base install procedure.
6. Plus other distros...Buffalo Linux, Mandriva 2005, Yoper 2.1.0, Debian Pure, Linaire.
I'm not trying to make any particular point here.. I guess its just a long way of saying that personal preferences have a lot to do with which distro a person may choose to use. What are your choices with M$?
25 • RE:Douglas (by |TG|Mateo on 2006-02-13 19:06:22 GMT from United States)
I just purchased Vector SOHO Deluxe.
Why? To support the Vector team, to get the extra disk, to have the nice packaging....I could just download it, update manually, and be on my way.
I bet that's how Mandriva/Xandros/Linspire/SUSE Pro/Mepis Club users feel. Lots of users for each of those, even though free alternatives exist.
26 • Gentoo/RR4/RR64 Live DVD (by Harold on 2006-02-13 19:48:16 GMT from United States)
This is one great Distro.Just wondering if anyone else has tried it.
I only wish it was easier to install to HD. Not everone is a dev. It has it ALL.
27 • Thank you (by Mathias-K at 2006-02-13 20:03:25 GMT from Denmark)
Thank you for yet another enjoyable read. I miss the audio version, but it is very nice notheless :)
28 • RE: Debian testing vs Ubuntu packages (by NewBee on 2006-02-13 20:39:17 GMT from Finland)
"Ubuntu packages are just as free of bugs (or not) as Debian Testing, since that is what Ubuntu uses to create it's packages."
Actually, Debian has TWO development branches -- Unstable and Testing (plus an Experimental repository for packages that haven't yet been accepted to Unstable). In general, packages are first uploaded to Unstable and after ten days or so, if no serious bugs have been found and if all dependencies are met, they can be moved to Testing. The stable Debian releases are made from the Testing branch after all known release critical bugs have been fixed. Ubuntu, on the other hand, takes a snapshot from Debian Unstable (not from Testing) and then they start building their release from there. Ubuntu has its own efficient bugfixing process but only a small subset of the packages that Ubuntu takes are officially supported by the Ubuntu devs. Also Ubuntu's commitment to time-based releases potentially increases the number of unfixed release critical bugs.
"As for upgrading packages between releases, well, for major packages, there are the backports which are available in short order after release. And with a six month release cycle on the distribution, every six months, there is the latest snapshot."
Also Debian's stable release has newer software versions available as backports but backports are not officially supported in Ubuntu or in Debian. You don't get security updates for backports and chances are that developers refuse to accept bug reports against backports. So with backports you're generally on your own in the wild, without any support.
"I'm pretty sure that Debian Testing isn't much more up to date overall than Ubuntu (sure package "a" may be, but not all packages)."
I was responding to some claims in earlier posts that Ubuntu would always have newer versions of software than Debian. With Debian Testing this isn't automatically true because the Testing branch gets updated packages practically every day while the Ubuntu releases only get security updates (just like Debian's stable releases).
"Debian is a great distribution. Ubuntu built upon it's strengths and is attempting to minimize it's weaknesses."
Agreed, although I think some Ubuntu users may overestimate Debian's weaknesses and underestimate Ubuntu's. Debian's large number of developers and its multi-phased development model ensure a superior quality assurance for packages in comparison to Ubuntu's "quick'n'dirty" model. I also think that Ubuntu has given Debian a healthy boost as a desktop system and I expect that this positive influence will continue in the future. If Mepis switches from Debian to Ubuntu, then Mepis users may not gain as much as some of them hope but they may lose more than they realize at the moment.
29 • Mepis, Kubuntu & Xandros (by Misty on 2006-02-13 21:05:42 GMT from United States)
"Mepis users seem to have a better experience than Kubuntu users."
Not me. Kubuntu just works for me, whereas Mepis was buggy over a year ago when I tried and was still buggy when I tried the newest version more recently (about 3 months ago).
"I've heard it posited that Mark Shuttleworth should consider buying Mepis and making it Kubuntu with Warren heading that project."
Incompatible philosophies. The K/Ubuntu folks have pledged to keep their distro completley free and never make a "pro" or "deluve" version whereas Warren did that pretty quick after Mepis gained a little propularity.
"I think MEPIS is still a good way for newbies to jump into Debian-based distros because MEPIS is freely available when Xandros has the OCE edition only"
Uh, there's SimplyMepis (free) and Mepis retail (not free) - how is that any different from Xandros having an OCE and a deluxe version?
30 • adding mc to your distro (by Gnobuddy on 2006-02-13 21:16:46 GMT from United States)
"I recently gave Damn Small Linux a try, and its okay, but the next release will not have mc, so I've had to abandon it since I will NOT use a distro that doesn't include mc."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you like a distro, it would be a shame to let the absence of mc in a default install keep you from using it. Damn Small Linux has "extensions" (software packages) that can be downloaded and installed on your hard drive, and the live CD will pick them up on boot, AFAIK. It's likely mc is available as an extension.
31 • Re: Bancilhon's comments (by Misty on 2006-02-13 21:26:07 GMT from United States)
"It's interesting that Bancilhon (Mandriva's CEO) still considers Mandriva a community based distro. In most businesses, when you charge members to belong, they aren't a community, they are customers."
Exactly!
"Even Banchilhon's quote "One possible worse case scenario is that Ubuntu's plan is to use money to put all other community-based distros out of business and then start monetizing the installed base."
This strikes me as funny in a Gates-ish anti-free software way. How would one go about doing that in the *nix world? It's not like they could monopolize the code or applications. And how would they use money to do so? Actually bribe people to use their distro? Maybe instead of being afraid such a popular and free distro is going to take away all of your "community" you should be working on making yours better.
32 • Elive .04 (by Moe on 2006-02-13 22:01:02 GMT from United States)
Left wrote: "I see no mention of the new Elive 0.4_pre release in this weeks DWW."
I took a shot at Elive .04 and was blown away! The distro has a future!!! As Lefty mentioned e16 is rock solid and e17 is going to change the landscape of future Linux. It might even make a Mac user jealous. I also installed it onto a spare laptop and though it took some time it may have found a home for sometime to come. It's nice to know it is built on Debian.
One more thing. The HD install needed a fix before I could go forward.
33 • Debian Sid and Ubuntu (by jdong on 2006-02-13 22:02:29 GMT from United States)
(1) Debian Sid, "unstable" doesn't exactly mean the packages are unstable or the software is crashing left and right, but it more emphasizes that the distribution is unstable. For example, huge changes to the underpinning libraries or configuration files may change overnight. I've found that Debian Sid is actually more usable than several big-name distros.
(2) I like Mepis being based off KUbuntu's work. It doesn't mean that Mepis will turn into a KUbuntu clone like Gnoppix, but having a solid foundation distribution will make Mepis's job a LOT easier.
(3) Ubuntu vs Debian Testing? It's more about having a stable platform and attention to details (i.e. the main repository) than just sheer up-to-dateness. Both distributions are great, but Ubuntu puts more attention to their desktop packages than Debian (or I get that impression at least).
34 • suse (by imr3o on 2006-02-13 22:03:23 GMT from Austria)
after long months without linux (without a computer), i got a laptop and threw (open)suse 10 on it. i don't feel like tweaking when suse gives me all i need for my fujitsu siemens amilo.
and with suse being a truly free distro.... :)
35 • re #34 (by pp on 2006-02-13 22:19:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
"34 • suse (by imr3o on 2006-02-13 22:03:23 GMT from Austria)
after long months without linux (without a computer), i got a laptop and threw (open)suse 10 on it. i don't feel like tweaking when suse gives me all i need for my fujitsu siemens amilo."
Hey, I have the same laptop. Did the Wireless work out of the box??
36 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-02-13 22:37:21 GMT from United States)
good thing they want to use ubuntu and not kubuntu.....kubuntu is extremely glitchy. Does anybody know when freebsd will update there website to the new theme with the new logo?
37 • Kanotix!!!! (by Artis_Gilmore on 2006-02-13 22:43:51 GMT from Italy)
I just move from ubuntu to kanotix.........................
It installs a Debian Sid that's rocksolid...
;-)
38 • Mepis, Debian and so on. (by uuii at 2006-02-13 22:46:53 GMT from Korea, Republic of)
I really liked Mepis from the day it appeared on Distrowatch. I was waiting for the final release since September, but it came out just several days ago. That time i couldn't wait anymore, so in October i installed Sarge (as a temporary solution), next month i installed Eatch. And i tell you what. Debian Eatch is the greatest distro - simple, very much stable, flexible. It really helped me to learn a lot about Linux, and understand how it works.
As long as Debian will be around i won't need Mepis, Ubuntu or whatsoever.
39 • Vector Linux (by Lyn David Thomas on 2006-02-13 23:10:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Another excellent review of Vector, would like to recommend that people try this distro, an excellent way to speed up machines :-) I can honestly say this is the fastest distro I have yet tried.
40 • 1 • Open Source 3D acceleration (by -None- on 2006-02-14 00:42:02 GMT from Russian Federation)
"Good news... ...These cards aren't as good for gaming as Nvidia.."
I have X800XT PE & Perfect 3D on linux ;)
Just setup a drivers! f#ck the nVidia!
41 • re 35 (by imr3o on 2006-02-14 01:24:09 GMT from Austria)
there are several laptops of the amio series... mine doesnt have a wlan card
42 • Too many Linux distributions (by Slim Joe on 2006-02-14 02:43:01 GMT from United States)
When will someone or some company finally create an outstanding Linux distribution that works without umpteen patches and updates. Why so many Linux distros? I just need a distro thats really good at multimedia and has a vpn client. I just want a replacement for Windoze.
43 • RE: #42 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-14 04:49:23 GMT from Italy)
Multimedia and games are alas known weaknesses of linux.
The reasons are obvious. There is a native linux RealPlayer but not a native QuickTime and *of course* not a native WMP!!! (and clearly quicktime and WMP codecs can't be legally included in any distribution)
There isn't a commercial DVD player that you can buy either.
Having said that, in Debian and derivatives all you have to do is to add one line to your sources.list, and multimedia support will be an apt-get away (of course the quality won't always be the same as a native, commercial app).
As to games the linux community didn't give, at least in the past, much (financial) support to attempts to porting games.
There are a few good games, both free and commercial.
For instance Armagetron Advanced is evolving into something really nice.
But I miss very much my Chessmaster 9 or 10 or Fritz 9. In linux you can use Crafty with your board of choice (Eboard is my favorite), but they aren't very funny, they "just" play chess.
44 • Think Free (by Mike on 2006-02-14 08:29:15 GMT from Kenya)
I know that this is a little off topic, but there’s a 30 day trial version of an MS Office clone called Think Free here: http://www.thinkfree.com/download/dl_download_arch.jsp. I believe HP will be shipping laptops in S. Africa with Think Free installed. It would be good to hear people’s opinions regarding Think Free, especially regarding how it compares to OpenOffice.
Cheers
P.S. By the way, regarding Comment #19, I happen to be one of those weird guys who use Debian stable as their desktop. In my experience, nothing is more reliable. Just install and forget!
45 • Re:44 debian stable desktop (by Anonymous on 2006-02-14 09:50:33 GMT from United States)
I don't consider that weird at all. For personal desktops where you want to focus on things other than administration and especially for workstations where you want to use the system for... working, Debian stable is really ideal. Whatever of any of thousands of apps you may need - and depending on the nature of your work, some apps may be obscure, you can rely upon it behaving properly in Sarge. And do work with your machine instead of working on it.
Of course, unstable isn't always unstable in terms of application crashes and the like, but it does change constantly and when you have other things to do, that's a distraction. And of course, there is breakage from time to time. Still, it's great that there are people who enjoy the bleeding edge because it helps make Debian stable the well-tested system it is.
46 • I prefer Debian 3.1 to Ubuntu/Kubuntu (by hobbitland on 2006-02-14 10:13:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, I actually started off on Linux usign Mandrake 9.2 which was
quiet popular. Mandrake 10.0 was just okay but from Mandrake 10.1
onwards it was getting more buggy and unstable. Furthermore,
charging for "community" was the last straw.
Then I settled with Knoppix 3.3 as I liked the use of "autofs" to
auto-magically mount floppy, zippy and usbs. Why do we need
issue moutn and eject when this can be safely handled with
"autofs".
I tried Ubuntu 5.04 but didn't like the Gnome desktop. The complete
failure of "autofs" drove me off. Then I tried Kubuntu 5.04 which
had "autofs" working except for mounting CD-ROMs. I tried
Ubuntu 5.10 and "autofs" still fails. Worse is "xine" now seg faults
while playing any MPEG.
Trying Knoppix and Ubuntu/Kubuntu actually introduces me to
Debian. I tried Debian 3.1 when it was released. Yes, its difficult
to install and its rock stable unlike Ubuntu/Kubuntu. You can get
a Gnome/KDE environments using just disk 1. Then download
whatever you want.
The problem with Ubuntu/Kubuntu is that they take Debian
Unstable and add their chanegs and bugs which leads to a
less stable product. Worse is that the are commited to a fixed
date release.
I am happy with Debian 3.1 as its very stable. You can selectedly
upgrade packages to Debian "testing" for software that you
need newer versions.
I think Ubuntu/Kubuntu is were over-hyped. They need to increase
quality rather make new releases every six months.
47 • Comment - Mandriva CEO disses Ubuntu (by incinerator on 2006-02-14 11:27:25 GMT from United States)
Here are my comments to Mr. Bancilhon's interview, particulary regarding what he said about Ubuntu:
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/incinerator/weblog/comment_mandriva_ceo_disses_ubuntu
Regards,
Dominik
48 • Mandriva (by Anonymous on 2006-02-14 12:27:22 GMT from France)
Great interview from Mr. Bancilhon.
I fully agree with everything that he says; it is a pity that most websites focused on the Ubuntu part. Ubuntu lovers are not even trying to understand what he's saying.
49 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-02-14 12:44:03 GMT from United States)
I'm no fan of Ubuntu - though my roommate uses it and seems pleased enough - but one needn't be an Ubuntu lover to see the nonsense in what Bancilhon is spewing. I read the whole thing and the interview provides no conceivable context to make his remarks on Ubuntu anything but FUD.
50 • Response to #48 (by Joeb on 2006-02-14 12:57:55 GMT from United States)
"Great interview from Mr. Bancilhon.
I fully agree with everything that he says; it is a pity that most websites focused on the Ubuntu part. Ubuntu lovers are not even trying to understand what he's saying."
Do you think that it could be a) in journalism, your lead question is your most important one, b) he didn't answer the question and c) used the question as an opportunity to slam some one else?
People, not just Ubuntu users, have a right to be upset. The head of a company sets the direction and attitude of that company. When he or she comes out publicly spreading FUD and slamming others, it doesn't bode well for their product or public support. You have to remember that this was a piece put out as an interview on Mandriva's own website, so they had control of the content.
A much better answer would have been "You know, that Ubuntu crowd has down a lot of interesting things, particularly with Gnome. As you know, we are predominantly a KDE based distribution, but welcome their contributions to the Linux community. As for any threat, I encourage people to try Mandriva and Ubuntu. I'm confident, that they will like what we are doing."
A response like that would have told current users, not to worry and maybe even enticed prospective new users to try it (Mandriva) out. Again, this isn't an issue about Ubuntu, but about Mandiva against any popular distro. Each year, they take their shot at someone. This year it was Ubuntu, in years past, it was Gentoo and Knoppix. Next year, who knows? All I know, is that if he doesn't start telling people why his distro is the one people should choose, people aren't going to choose it.
51 • ReactOS? (by Astaroth on 2006-02-14 15:39:47 GMT from El Salvador)
Heeh... guys
I found a new(?) gpl OS that is named ReactOS.
Here is the link:
http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/index.html
Smobody already use it?
I don't know, but can be this proyect a candidate to the DW list?
A.
52 • Slim Joe, take yer pick (by lefty.crupps on 2006-02-14 15:42:07 GMT from United States)
Slim Joe (#42) said:
When will someone or some company finally create an outstanding Linux distribution that works without umpteen patches and updates. Why so many Linux distros? I just need a distro thats really good at multimedia and has a vpn client. I just want a replacement for Windoze.
========
Slim, does it look here like any one of us would be happy with just one distro? The point of creating open software is so that people can use what they like, for free. Any distro can be a great multimedia distro, just by adding the right parts together. For Debian-based, add one of these repositories:
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat stable main
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat unstable main
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat testing main
and find/install the w32 codecs package. Try SimplyMEPIS, its booted as a live CD, its easy and quick to install, and might give you what you need.
53 • (k)ubuntu and elive (by ray carter at 2006-02-14 16:54:31 GMT from United States)
I've found that the way I like to proceed with (k)ubuntu is to install ubuntu and then install the kubuntu desktop. I don't see any bugs or problems, and gdm is then my default login manager - I prefer this because of the ease of enabling xdmcp if I so wish.
I've got the second the applause for Elive - I think it's really cool. It is now my second choice. I've had occassion to install it on a couple of old computers - P2 - about 200mhz with 64 to 192 mb memory - it is very useable in that application. I also boot it from time to time just for a change of pace - seems I've had trouble setting up enlightenment properly when I add it to other distros, and I've not had time to figure out what the problem is.
54 • elive 0.4 (by sketch on 2006-02-14 16:55:53 GMT from United States)
After trying elive I was quickly converted. I suggest downloading and trying the live cd if you want a beautiful destop that still runs on older computers. Elive and the e17 desktop look like the future of linux to me. KDE and Gnome will have a lot of catch up to do when e17 is 100%. I suggest anyone who is curious about elive should try the 0.4 release that will come out in a week or so after the last few bugs are eliminated from 0.4pre.
55 • Mandriva/Debian and the likes (by Robzilla on 2006-02-14 17:29:18 GMT from United States)
I have been using Mandriva now for a while and as a Laptop user it is the only distro that I could get my wireless atheros mini-pci card working. Also it is one of the few where my synaptic touchpad mouse worked properly with the scrolling feature. I have used various filesystems in Mandriva and my month of Mandriva club access is about to end. I have to say I agree with what others have said in this forum. While I like the pre-configured working aspect of the distro I have also found various bugs. I do find that it is completely out of date. Firefox is 1.0.6!! I try and install a Firefox 1.5 rpm package and it will not work! I have used just about all of the distro's out there and have found strenths and weaknesses of each. I had difficulties with Debian Sarge a while ago but I think it was my own ineptness that caused problems. Still I could not get my screen size set properly, I could not get my wireless working, I could not get my touchpad mouse working, etc. If anyone has any ideas or knows of such a guide for Debian or Kannotix I would be interested. I will probably be installing them soon and ditching Mandrible.
For me I would really enjoy having a distro that was current and most things would work. I do not mind getting codecs from here or there as long as they are available and I can find and install them. I do not mind a little configuring or command line work as long as I do not have to go through hours of forums and Wiki's and get no where! When I did get Debian on my box for a little while before I tried to configure x and broke it, I was impressed. Stable, fast, And every package you could want. I just wish there was a condensed guide that would hit the key configuration blocks for those of us who are not experts, for those who need a step by step guide for wireless, multimedia, x-support, small driver issues(mouse pad), etc for Debian, Slackware, and a Gentoo installer that was a little easier for idiots like myself that will never be able to compile a kernel!! Until then Mandriva will have a steady base of users and so will Linspire and all of the Distros that pre-configure and make it a little easier. With that said I have to agree that the Mandriva club is a complete rip off!! I like to support Linux monetarily just as much as the next person. Lets get real though there is support and then there is bleeding your users dry! Over a hundred bucks for the silver membership which is the lowest level worht having or $12 a month for a year! No you can't pay $12 a month for a month and then decide to stop.
Mandriva as a user I like your product but fundamental changes must be made as those on this forum have suggested. I do not mind to pay but I think the cost is too high. The packages and kernel are to out of date and there is really no support unless you pay for it. The ways you will stay a viable business. Charge a smaller fee for club membership. Give it away for free for a couple of months so people can try it first. Then a month to month pay as you go option should be made available at no more than $10 a month! Even that is too high! Get rid of standard, silver, gold, paltinum, etc. Just have one level of membership for everyone. Base a yearly fee at a lower cost than the month to month option. Since we pay so much get your developers working on more up to date system that is less buggy. Get Reiser4!! I think with these changes you will not have to dis-respect any other Linux distro out there. It is really sad to see the top exec at Mandriva complain about a free distro that says their mission is to promote free software. They sell support as do you! They will send you free cd's!!
I was happy to finally find a distro where most everything worked but now as I have used it for a while I want newer packages and more stability. I am really disgusted by the comments made by the top dog at Mandriva. I am no fan of Ubuntu but I can see B.S. when I see it and that is a stinking load of ...... It is funny that Mandriva says that Ubuntu is trying to build a user base and then once they have enough users start to charge. When you use there free version of Mandriva you quickly want the version that costs money??? Kind of the same thing!
56 • "Just Works" (by Tim on 2006-02-14 17:53:41 GMT from United States)
I keep seeing comments from people like me who just want a current, serviceable desktop Linux without having to learn all the internal details.
Try PCLinuxOS (currently v. P.92). It's fast. it's current. It just works. Hardware detection is good. There are pre-setup ISO's for both Nvidia and ATI video boards. Software selection is excellent and their repository is huge. And it's free (unless you choose to help support their (Texstar's) efforts.)
Try it, you'll like it.
57 • Podcast (by Andrew Betts on 2006-02-14 18:30:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
Love podcasts.... just keep on doing it man!
58 • Debian, Ubuntu & Mandriva (by kilgoretrout on 2006-02-14 19:28:43 GMT from United States)
I've read with interest and bemusement the various posts relating to the improvident comments made by mandriva's CEO regarding possible future courses that ubuntu may take. However, I'd like to rebut some apparently erroneous assumptions that many seem to be laboring under regarding ubuntu's underlying corporate structure.
Ubuntu is the main product of the Ubuntu Foundation, an entity set up by Canonical, Ltd with an initial funding of 10 million dollars. Canonical is owned and controlled by Mark Shuttleworth, a dotcom multimillionare. You can see what Canonical has to say about this relationship here:
http://www.canonical.com/UbuntuFoundation
The Ubuntu foundation is not now, and has never claimed to be, a not for profit organization. They do not enjoy nonprofit status under anybody's tax laws as is openly acknowledged on their community forum here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/donations
However, this doesn't stop them from soliciting donations at the above link. Potential donors are advised that contributions are not tax deductible and that "we" may set up a nonprofit in the FUTURE. Of course, they may not as well and none has been set up yet.
The Ubuntu Foundation does not have a democratically elected Board but is instead governed by what it refers to as a "meritocracy" with Mr. Shuttleworth being the self appointed benevolent dictator for life(SABDL) who apparently makes the determinations of merit or at least has the power to make such determinations:
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/governance
Also, reading the Canonical link above, it is clear that Mr. Shuttleworth did not fund ubuntu out of the goodness of his heart. As stated there:
The establishment of the Ubuntu Foundation enhances the commercial commitment already made to the Ubuntu project by Canonical, Ltd. "Demand for the commercial services offered by Canonical to users of Ubuntu continues to grow. We welcome the very large number of companies that have announced support for Ubuntu both regionally and globally, and expect to continue to create additional partnership, certification and support programs in coming months," stated Jane Silber, head of marketing at Canonical.
In short, they are backing ubuntu in order to enhance the demand for commercial(i.e. for pay) services from Canonical. No big deal here - giving away the software and selling the services is a tried and true method of making money with open source. RH, novel, IBM and , yes, even mandriva, have been doing variations of this business model for some time. What is unusual here, is that everyone seems to think that ubuntu is doing something different. They're not. Ubuntu is Mr. Shuttleworth's way of gaining entry to open source market, i.e. build a large user base and have Canonical service that market for a fee. What I find distasteful is a commercial enterprise like Canonical/Ubuntu cloaking itself in the garments of unity, brotherhood and community while their users chide others for being commercial sellouts.
By the way, I was unable to find any of the legal formation papers, as opposed to press releases, setting up the Ubuntu Foundation. Without that, it is impossible to determine the precise relationship between Canonical and Ubuntu, the nature of the funding commitment and/or whatever rights Canonical may have to withdraw or terminate that funding. Similarly, there is no financial information on the Ubuntu Foundation that I could find. Of course, if the Ubuntu Foundation was a true nonprofit organization, all of the above info would have to be publically available.
People often seem to equate debian and ubuntu, both technically and philosophically. That attitude is not warranted by the facts. Debian is not a commercial enterprise; ubuntu is, by Canonical's own description, there to enhance Canonical's commercial enterprise and is funded by Canonical for this very reason. Debian does not accept donations except through its true(as in 501(c)(3) certified) nonprofit organization, Software in the Public Interest, and their charter and finances are publically available.
Enough with this ubuntu fanboyism; they are just another company trying to make a buck off of open source, not that there's anything wrong with that. Just stop pretending that they are something radically different than suse, mandriva, novel , RH, et al. If you want to support a distro that is not a commercail enterprise, give your money, time and support to the good people at debian.
59 • Too Many Distros (by Anonymous on 2006-02-14 20:20:44 GMT from United States)
"When will someone or some company finally create an outstanding Linux distribution that works without umpteen patches and updates. Why so many Linux distros? I just need a distro thats really good at multimedia and has a vpn client. I just want a replacement for Windoze."
PCLinuxOS 0.92. The only thing it's missing out of the box is the libdvdcss2 package. Just a reminder, Windows doesn't play DVDs out of the box either. The libdvdcss2 is available in Texstar's repository. Just load Synaptic or Kpackage and voila! Or you could try the Gnome remaster of PCLinuxOS on the GenieOS site which includes the package.
60 • Just Works and Too Many Distros (by Anonymous on 2006-02-14 20:34:41 GMT from United States)
I've been a Linux user now for about 5 years and have tried virtually every distro there is. My favorite is Debian with SuSE as a close second. But after years of aggravation and distro hopping, I've settled on Apple OsX. Gives me everything I need and it works. Granted, you have to pay a price for the software not to mention the hardware, but shelling out $500 for a mac mini doesn't seem too high a price to pay. Of course I'm only referring to Desktop use as I wouldn't use OsX as a server. I'd probably go Red Hat, Debian Stable, or straight FreeBSD for a server.
I still have a box which I load Linux distros on as they come out, and Kde 4 looks interesting and Gnome keeps getting better; but on the desktop, OsX is hard to beat. I mean Kde and Gnome are just getting into translucency, shadows, expose-style task managers and other things whereas Apple had this stuff for some time now. Granted, many of Apple's ideas come from open-source projects, but some don't. Linux stands no real chance on the desktop unless a major company chooses a distro and seriously backs it. It seems Google may take a step in that direction with "Goobuntu" which in my opinion already beats Windows out since it's based on Ubuntu, but OsX still mops the floor with it.
61 • #60 (by Joey on 2006-02-14 20:46:59 GMT from United States)
Here's a copy of the information on Home Distro as to what a perfect distro would be. This is obviously skewed in the direction of desktop use. Lets see how OsX stacks up.
1. Try to put the distribution on a maximum of two 700mb disk; one would be better. I am looking for speed! I want this distro to fly on a 800mhz PIII with 256mb of ram. Use 2.6.xx kernel so most of the hardware will be detected. Keep the install simple. Text mode is ok if it is easy (like Ubuntu). The installer used on Mepis and Kanotix is awesome. Anaconda is slick if you have room for it. It does not need to be a live CD. However a live CD would be good for demo and recovery purposes . Make the primary language English.
OsX comes on one DVD. If you don't have a DVD drive, you're behind on the times. OsX does require power to run, so once again, get with the times. A livecd option would be nice if Apple offered it.
2. KDE or Gnome Desktop. Hey! I like Fluxbox too. KDE or Gnome would be the best migration for MSW home PC users. It would be good to include EDE (Equinox), or JWM, or FVWM95, or XFCE-4 as an option for computers with less memory. XFCE-4 is lightning fast and very easy to use when set up properly. The EDE desktop reminds me of Win95 (screenshots). It is fast, light weight, and you can add icons to the desktop. See it in action on the STX-Debian live CD.
OsX's Aqua is a great desktop. Beats Kde and Gnome in pretty much every category.
3. Package manager: Synaptic is king! GSlapt, Slack-get, Yumgui, and portage w/GUI interface is good too. It would be nice to include the repositories and instructions for needed video codecs, flash, and java, if not included in the distro.
OsX can be rigged to use ports and the sort, but no official repository for software exists except for updates. However, lots of software does exists for Apple, but must be installed the old-fashion way. And of course, being based on Unix, you can always build packages from source.
4. System configuration. A control panel is a big plus. Have a link for it in the Kmenu or on the panel. The biggest problem for non-linux users is doing post install configuration. Put everything to do with configuration and the system in it. All drives, networking, partition tools, boot, login, users, pppoe, ppp, dhcp, KDE control center, packaging, hardware, etc. It does not need to be pretty. If you want to see good ones, look at the Yoper control panel, Dam Small DSLpanel, and Mandrake control center. If you don't have a control panel, make sure links to all configuration applications are under "System" in the Kmenu.
Many distros still lack this. For Pete's sake, lets get with the program!
5. Don't try to make the distribution look like MSW. Slynux, Linspire, ELX, and others have already tried this. You can make it pretty if you want to. Linux is different. This is a strong point not a negative. When I see a Linux disro dressed up to look like MSW, it makes me sick. Why try to copy a troublesome operating system?
If you're dressing Linux up to look like Windows, then you have no taste. Plenty of great themes, icons, backgrounds, etc exist for Linux. And if you dress your Linux to look like OsX, why not just get the real thing?
6. Make sure everything works and most of the hardware is found including ATI and Nvida video cards. Post install configuration for printer, scanner, and network is considered normal. You want a 99.9% bug free distro.
Apple makes their own hardware so this is non-issue. However, you do pay for it! But, a mac mini won't break the bank.
# 7. Keep it simple and clean looking.
OsX is a simple and clean as it gets.
62 • Ubuntu review (by Diego on 2006-02-14 21:38:30 GMT from United States)
What would I do without you guys? I mean, had I installed Ubuntu as it came I would be blissfully unaware of its lack of a firewall, would continue running with superuser priviledges and many other bugs that I, unsophisticated user, would have not discovered...
Overall, I like Ubuntu but after reading your review I know that I must do a reinstall to make it more secure and to apply what I learned during my first couple of tentative installs...
Loved your review... Thanks!
-D-
63 • #62 (by ray carter at 2006-02-15 16:26:37 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu does not 'run with superuser priviledges'. In fact there is no password for root, so you can't even be superuser (unless you take action to change that). Administration is done via 'sudo', which I've been using on Unix and Linux for 15 years.
64 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-02-15 17:02:23 GMT from United States)
To add to the previous poster, Ubuntu does come with a firewall. All GNU/Linux distributions have one built in. What Ubuntu lacks is a tool to easily configure the firewall. But by default, Ubuntu has no services listening to ports, so it doesn't need any special firewall rules.
65 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-02-15 17:03:19 GMT from United States)
I should say all GNU/Linux distributions running a modern kernel have a firewall.
66 • RE: #63-65 (by stinkhorn on 2006-02-15 20:49:23 GMT from Germany)
Ubuntu's sudo policy is basically a good thing because it makes a little bit more difficult for new users to adopt the habit of always logging in as root. I expect that a large number of new desktop Linux users will eventually learn to log in as root and in time this will make Linux just as attractive target for virus writers as MS Windows currently is.
But personally I like to keep an extra barrier between my normal user and "super user's" privileges. So I prefer to use "su" instead of "sudo" whenever I need to do system administration tasks. Even if some malicious person succeeds in hacking into my user account while I'm surfing the Net as a normal user, that outsider cannot damage any data outside my home directory. And, yes, I do run as a cronjob a program that automatically backups my home directory every day and stores the backup to a directory that only root can access.
As for the need of a simple firewall configuration that would by default hide all communication ports from outsiders -- yes, I think that would be a very useful thing to have. Normal desktop Linux users often run several services (like Samba, CUPS, and dictd) that actively listen to communication ports and give attackers an easy target if the firewall hasn't been specifically configured to hide those ports.
You can check the services on your own computer with "netstat -l". If that shows some listening services that aren't binded to localhost, then you'd better configure your firewall ASAP.
67 • Ubuntu Taking Donations (by KrazyPenguin on 2006-02-15 20:49:32 GMT from Canada)
I don't see anything wrong with Ubuntu taking donations.
It is free to use and they have never asked me for money.
If somebody enjoys the product, and feel that they would like to contribute, but lack the time to test or knowledge to program, then making a financial donation but be the only way they feel they can help.
Many distributions take donations, as well as open-source projects.
I don't see anything wrong with that.
And the post saying that they are out to make a buck.
At this point in time there is no proof that they are, so why say these things without proof.
If they decided to make a Enterprise Version with support etc, then I would assume that this would cost something.
Would just like to add how stable and fast Dapper is at this moment. It is a big improvement over Breezy and it is only in Alpha stage. Let the reviews begin to fly!!! ;-)
68 • Mepis 3.4 (by Robzilla on 2006-02-16 03:53:57 GMT from United States)
O.K I was wrong! I had my doubts about Mepis after some bad experiences with the release candidates but now I am writing this in the live cd in wireless! I have a Sony Vaio Laptop and getting the wireless working with my atheros card is tricky business and Mandrible was the only one it worked with in the past and now it is in Mepis. In Mandriva I had to configure it and in Mepis I just got online!! My hats off to Warren. A one man wonder. As I have said in the past to the doubters who said he is going in a bad direction with lisence keys etc. Well I don't agree. He said that for personal private use it will always be free and I believe him and if he wants to charge businesses to use his O.S then by all means! I would not like to see Mepis use Ubuntu but that is not up to me. In any regards I am highly impressed with the latest Mepis and maybe we all need to give it another chance!
R
69 • Re: 58 • Debian, Ubuntu & Mandriva, Bancilhon & Aqua (by Misty on 2006-02-16 14:43:48 GMT from United States)
From the front page of the Ubuntu website: "Ubuntu will always be free of charge, and there is no extra fee for the "enterprise edition", we make our very best work available to everyone on the same Free terms."
If they start making an enterprise or pro edition, they could actually be sued for false advertising. I'm sure a successful businessman like Shuttleworth is aware of that fact.
If you don't like Ubuntu, fine. No one here claimed they were non-profit, but putting it in the same category as Mandriva, Mepis and other distros that make free editions and editions that aren't free is simply untrue.
Btw, I like Kubuntu, but I used Genie OS to install Debian testing, so I'm not really a Ubuntu fangirl myself either. But I do recommend it for others who don't want to go full-out Debian and are looking for a fairly easy-to-use distro.
And Bancilhon's comments are still funny. If he's afraid that his paying "community" are going to ditch him for K/Ubuntu he should just, like I said, make his distro better. I think it shows that he knows himself that they can't make a better distro than K/Ubuntu. As someone else said, he's fired off at other distros before, so who will it be next?
Oh, and I have tried OSX recently. I didn't like Aqua. Eye candy is cool but it's not enough. And frankly it was too cluttered - with KDE I can choose what icons are on the desktop and put the taskbar on auto-hide if I want to, and that's important to me when I'm multi-tasking, which I do often. KDE lets me have far more choice as to what I want it to be rather than what Apple's developers choose for me. I think the comment that KDE is just now incorporating some of the eye candy effects that Aqua has had for some time shows only that the priorities of the users and developers are different. Apple's is on the coolness factor and marketing, KDE's is on usability and customizability.
70 • Impressive video from Novell (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-16 15:23:45 GMT from Italy)
http://www.freedesktop.org/~davidr/xgl-demo1.xvid.avi
71 • Re: Msg 58 (by Anonymous on 2006-02-16 17:27:45 GMT from United States)
In response to kilgoretrout in message 58, you shouldn't be able to make charitable contributions to Ubuntu's foundation nor would you find any incorporation papers indicating it is a 501c3 not for profit corporation because it isn't a US corporation. You can only make tax deductible charitable contributions charities that have registered in the US as such. Ubuntu hasn't. Neither have most foundations in the world.
In regards to your comments about Mr. Shuttleworth's role in the foundation, that is the role for anybody who sets up their own foundation. If I create the John Doe Foundation for Unemployed Programmers, I as the creator of it take on the role of self appointed benevolent dictator. That's how it's done. Mr. Shuttleworth just interjected some humor in creating that title.
In all that you type, I think it is important what you ommitted. And it is the following from the page explaining why he created the foundation:
"It's important for us to distinguish the philanthropic and non-commercial work that is at the heart of the Ubuntu project, from the commercial support and certification programs that are the focus of Canonical Ltd."
The Ubuntu Project is, truly a philanthropic and non-commercial endeavor. The Foundation was created to keep it totally seperate from his other business interests. There is no alterior motive here. Canonical was selling Linux services before the Foundation was created. The creation of the Foundation only cleared up the ambiguity over what was Ubuntu and what was Canonical. It also provided the resources to demonstrate that Ubuntu was here for the long haul. Mr. Shuttleworth is wanting Ubuntu to succeed on the business desktop and that won't happen if there is concern about whether Ubuntu will be here tomorrow or not. The Foundation provides that it will, even if Mr. Shuttleworth is not.
So, to sum up your complaints: No, you cannot take a tax deduction for contributions, because the Ubuntu Foundation is not registered in the United States as a 501c3 corporation. You are correct in stating that you can't find any incorporation papers for the foundation, because, they do not exist, because, they are not a US corporation. Mr. Shuttleworth's "supreme" direction of the Foundation's operations is no different than that of any other founder of a personal foundation. Canonical made money from Linux before the foundation and will continue to do so -- the foundation just defines what is Ubuntu and what is Canonical.
If you are going to bash Ubuntu, do so for it's technical merits or lack thereof, but not because it's backer just happen to make a lot of money.
72 • KDE/OSX (by Robzilla on 2006-02-16 17:30:31 GMT from United States)
I have to agree with the comments by 69. Kde is the most customizable desktop window manager I have ever used. As for eyecandy KDE is also one of the best. Yeah OS X is probably the best just for looks but KDE is pretty close and the ability to customize the desktop as much as you can sets KDE apart. I also agree that functionality of KDE is superior to Apple. It is a fast window manager and I can multitask very easy with multiple windows doing different things in each and going back and forth.
I am a big fan of Apple but I have to seriously disagree with the comment made that OS 10 is affordable. Sure Mac mini is way to break in to the Apple world but if you look at it comparably to what is available in the PC world for the money Mac is way more expensive. I am partial to Laptops and unless you spend $2000 you will not have an impressive machine. For half as much you can get a PC Laptop that is comparable to the $2000 mac. Then of course there is the issue of Software. In Linux thanks to the Gnu movement that is not a cost in Linux. KDE has some exceptional programs and even an office suite that MAC does not offer. So if compare the OS and available software and the cost with both a PC running Linux will Cost $1000 or so and a Mac will cost around $2000 and then add Office $3-400. Then if want Adobe how much is that? Free in Linux-Gimp! I will say on the side for Apple if you got the money it is the way to go. I mean if you $3000 to spend then you have got a nice array of software and the hardware designed by mac is designed very well. The whole Mac package for those who can afford it is the best. Stable, now with the Intel chip faster, great to look at and designed to last. The problem is most of us can't afford it. Then the other problem is that Apple gets outdated pretty fast. In a couple of years you will need to buy another version of the OS if you want to be current. In Linux the development is fast and that can be a deterent for some. For me I never get tired of my system. I always have the most current system and I don't have to pay $130 every time I want to get a new system. I did not even enter Windows here because I think the only commercial OS that is competitive to Linux is Apple. Apple, I will concede is better than Linux in some ways and Linux is better than Apple in some ways. It depends how you use it. As far as hardware compatibility it can be an issue in Linux and of course Apple sells the hardware and software so compatibility is a non-issue. However you can build a system yourself that will work and even be optimized for Linux so then compatibility in that system would be a non-issue.
Linux is more than just an O.S. it is a hobby, a work in progress, a community and as such makes it much more than any proprietary OS will ever be able to offer. I have my Laptop for primary use and an Old PC Desktop for testing. If I won the Lottery and bought my dream Apple laptop I would still keep my test machine! I run into problems, hassles and set backs but then each time there is a set back I learn. Then I know what to do when that happens. I have learned more in a year about computers than I ever have in all of the years previous to that with other O.S. Sometimes the learning process is frustrating and then when you get it just right the way you want it-There is nothing else like that feeling. Then after you enjoy perfection for a while you get the itch to try something new and start all over again. You can't do that with a Mac! For those of us who can't afford Apple and don't want all of the headaches in Windows Linux is it. While I like it easy and want a system that just works. I also like the freedom in Linux. I see Linux as a cross between Apple and Windows. It is not as pretty as Apple but KDE blows XP GUI away! And on its own KDE looks great. As development continues in Linux and BSD the just works arguement will be less of an issue. It is funny how Apple supports Windows for iTunes but not Linux. Maybe they are afraid of the competition. They make it work in Windows for market penetration. Since Linux is a small market segment they don't care even though they say they give back to the open source community from there use of Darwin.
I think it boils down to how you use it and what you want. Linux can just work easily and look just as good as Apple. It is not Apple and should not try to be Apple. I like Linux and KDE and think it looks great. It is more a hardware issue in terms of everything working and that is not the fault of Linux but manufacturers who have made deals with Microsoft and will not support open source. If you built your own system like apple does then compatibility would be a non-issue in Linux. But saying MAC is better than Linux I would have to dis-agree. It is different and has some strenths where Linux os weak but at the same time has weaknesses where Linux is strong.
Anything not running an NT kernel is better to me!
R
73 • Thanks for the feedback! (by ShawnMilo at 2006-02-17 16:55:46 GMT from United States)
Andrew, thanks for the message. I always love hearing from listeners, because it validates the time and effort I put into the podcast.
Shawn
74 • Funny thing from the past (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-17 22:51:02 GMT from Italy)
From DistroWatch Weekly , Issue 40, 15 March 2004:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20040315
butters (#11 • Rubyx v. Gentoo) wrote:
"On a seperate note, anyone check out SkyOS and its very impressive progress? Maybe its about time distrowatch starts promoting more revolutionary products instead of endless chains of Linux-based spinoffs. These projects need our support perhaps more than anyone in the Linux arena."
Almost 2 years later SkyOS is still making "very impressive progress" but it is very far from, let alone a final release, but from being of any use to anybody! (except of course for the huge ego of its developer)
Thanks goodness Ladislav is wise enough and wouldn't touch such closed source rubbish with a ten yards barge pole.
75 • GOTO 58 : about ubuntu/cannonical business model (by linuxer on 2006-02-18 11:16:12 GMT from Brazil)
If yoy have not read the comment 58 and you
are interested in business model, please read it :)
I could not agree more with it.
Note: I was part of linux business history
in some part of this planet ;)
76 • RE: #7 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-02-18 12:20:19 GMT from Italy)
I am replying to myself :)
It seems now that my worst fears have come true. There is a pretty scary list of known bugs for SUSE 10.1 beta4:
http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs#SUSE_Linux_10.1_Beta4
One would normally expect such a list of bugs from an early alpha.
Now what happens to SUSE 10.1 roadmap? That is imho the most interesting question at the moment.
77 • bittorrent (by ray carter at 2006-02-18 18:39:54 GMT from United States)
IMHO 'bittorrent' is really misnamed - should be 'bittrickle'. I've started an Elive torrent download, and on my 1.5MB DSL connection, after twelve minutes, the estimated download time is: three days!! Come on folks, I can download a 700mb iso in under 1.5 hours. Does anyone know where I can just download the ISO. I have NEVER had a good experience with bittrickle.
78 • 77 (by Tim on 2006-02-19 06:54:04 GMT from United States)
Ktorrent is a dog and often crashes. I have had best luck with Azureus. But to get max speed, I have to bypass my router as I have not been able to solve the "NAT Error" problem otherwise. Once I bypass the router, Azureus last night DL'd Elive in about 2 hours with speeds of about 90Kb/s. Not as fast as I usually get when DL'ing an ISO from a mirror, but reasonable, as the DL can easily be stopped and restarted if I need my bandwidth for something else.
79 • bittrickle (by Andy Axnot on 2006-02-20 03:55:22 GMT from United States)
"Bittrickle," yeah, that about describes it. I've given up on it. I like the idea of sharing the bandwidth burden, but it doesn't seem to work in practice.
A pity.
Andy
Number of Comments: 79
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