 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 142, 13 March 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 11th issue of DistroWatch Weekly. "I've tried about 100 different distros over the past two years and can honestly say I've never seen anything as spectacular as Kororaa Xgl," mused one excited user in an online forum. Yes, Kororaa, a little-known Gentoo-based distribution, stole the spotlight last week after the release of a live CD featuring Novell's amazing Xgl technology; we asked one of the distribution's developers to tell us more about the project. In other news, Fedora and Ubuntu delay releases, CeBIT visitors share KNOPPIX 5.0 torrents, a project builds a live DVD that boots several Linux distributions, and two articles teach the basics of Solaris. Also in this issue: a special report that looks at the growing acceptance of Linux in schools. Happy reading!
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (10.9MB) or mp3 (13.3MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
Content:
- News: Fedora and Ubuntu delays, KNOPPIX 5.0 torrents, a custom DVD that boots several distributions, an introduction to Solaris
- Special report: Linux in education
- Interview: Chris Smart, Kororaa Project
- Released last week
- Upcoming releases: Xandros Desktop 4, OpenBSD 3.9, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
- New additions: AliXe, FreeNAS, nUbuntu, OliveBSD, Tuquito, VideoLinux
- New distributions: A.M.I.C.U.S., Genesis Server, Kwort Linux, Myrinix, RemoLiveCD, Tomahawk Desktop, Trisquel GNU/Linux
- Reader comments
Miscellaneous news: Fedora and Ubuntu delays, KNOPPIX 5.0 torrents, a custom DVD that boots several distributions, an introduction to Solaris
 Let's start with news that won't please those Linux users who are impatiently waiting for the upcoming round of distribution releases. As reported on the Fedora announce mailing list, the highly anticipated release of Fedora Core 5 has been delayed by several days and is now expected on Monday, 20 March: "Due to circumstances outside of our control, we're going to be unable to keep to the scheduled date of March 15th for the release of FC5 and instead are going to have to make the release date Monday, March 20th." In related news, Mark Shuttleworth has proposed that Ubuntu Linux 6.04, scheduled for release on April 20th, be postponed by six weeks. With SUSE Linux already experiencing considerable delays, it seems that none of the big three distributions are able to adhere to their original release plans!
 It's not all bad news though, especially if you are a KNOPPIX user. The project's special edition of its brand new version 5.0, designed for the ongoing CeBIT exhibition (9 - 15 March) in Hannover, is now available for download via BitTorrent. The English version of the live DVD can be obtained from LinuxTracker.org, while the German edition is ready for download from Kurz.net. The 3.88 GB KNOPPIX 5.0 DVD is based on kernel 2.6.15.4, with X.Org 6.9.0, KDE 3.5.1, GNOME 2.12, OpenOffice.org 2.0.1 and many up-to-date applications. A public release of KNOPPIX 5.0 is not expected to be available for at least two weeks after the end of CeBIT.
Have you ever thought about designing a custom live DVD that could boot a number of live Linux distributions? If so, here is more great news: the good folks at Nautopia.net have devised a script that can do just that. Although the accompanying article explaining the process is in Spanish, the included screenshots make it fairly self-explanatory even if you don't understand the language. All you need to do is to download the ISO images of those distributions that you'd like to have on the live DVD, place them into correct directories, set up GRUB's menu.lst, and execute a script. If done correctly, you should end up with a highly useful DVD that can boot a good number of popular Linux distributions. Among the many supported live CDs are ADIOS, Basilisk, Gnoppix, INSERT, KNOPPIX, LiVux, SimplyMEPIS, ProMEPIS, SLAX, Aurox, Berry, KANOTIX, Kurumin, Mandrake Move, PCLinuxOS, R.I.P. and SystemRescueCd.
 The latest version of Yellow Dog Linux, a specialist distribution for the PowerPC processors, has been released to public mirrors. Version 4.1 was originally announced on 5 January 2006 and was made available to members of YDL.net Enhanced and later also for online purchase (from US$59.95). After the usual delay, the new version has now been released for free download. Yellow Dog Linux 4.1 is built on top of kernel 2.6.15 and contains 4 CDs worth of software, including X.Org 6.8.2, KDE 3.4.2, GNOME 2.12, Firefox 1.5 and OpenOffice.org 1.1.2. Read the original release announcement for more information.
 Finally, a couple of valuable links for those of you who would like to expand your horizons and learn more about Solaris. With Sun Microsystem's famous operating system now essentially free in both senses of the word, and with a community of users and developers starting to build around the project, this should be a perfect time to become more fluent in this powerful UNIX. The Accelerated Introduction to Solaris Part 1 and Part 2 will give you a decent overview on the operating system's file system layout, automounter, sudo, disk and device management, networking, software RAID and other essential topics. Well worth spending a few hours getting familiar with Solaris - you never know when you will need it!
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Special report: Linux in education
 Recently, I was invited to visit an elementary school. Under normal circumstances I doubt that I would be very excited to go to one of those large grey buildings that provide daily refuge for hundreds of noisy children. But after climbing up to the 4th floor of Da Feng, an elementary school on the outskirts of Taipei, I found that the view from up there was different. In one of the computer labs tucked away at the end of the long corridor, I stared with amazement at a class of 10-year old girls and boys who were in the process of configuring the Thunderbird mail client. The operating system? Fedora Core 3.
Disturbed by the sudden presence of a "tall foreigner", the kids momentarily lost concentration. Luckily, the experienced teacher seemed unfased by the ensuing hubbub, quickly restoring order and diverting the children's attention back to their monitors. It was then that I found myself examining the setup of the classroom equipped with some 40 diskless clients, then watched the pupils perform basic computer tasks. Without realising that their computers had no hard disks, the children were seamlessly accessing applications and files on the central server. Besides configuring Thunderbird, the curriculum also included other essential computer tasks, such as using Firefox to find information on the Internet or writing simple documents in OpenOffice.org.
Da Feng was the first school in Taipei County to switch their computer labs to Linux. The reasons were rather pragmatic - the teachers were growing tired of having to waste so much of their valuable time maintaining virus and malware ridden Windows boxes. This, combined with their enthusiasm for open source software, gave them the idea to try and teach computer classes on Linux. After all, the tasks which the 9 - 12 year old children were to learn could easily be accomplished on any modern Linux distribution.
The experiment started in late 2001. The teachers faced several obstacles, such as lack of textbooks, opposition of parents (why would the school want to teach an operating system that "nobody uses"?), and staff retraining. But the teachers persisted. Instead of books, they wrote their own teaching material, which they printed out and distributed among the pupils. The parents soon accepted the decision too - that's after the teachers explained the value of software that is free of licensing costs. Yes, most of the kids continue to use their Windows computers at home, but by having been exposed to Linux, they have at least become aware of a real alternative.
The teachers did not stop at passing on their knowledge to students. Soon after they set up a successful teaching routine, they began inviting computer teachers from neighbouring schools with whom they shared their experiences. They demonstrated that maintaining 100+ computers could be as simple as maintaining three or four - if something goes wrong, all they need to do is to fix the server! As a result of sharing ideas, Taipei county now has not one, but five Linux schools - three elementary schools and two middle schools. In fact, according to one of the teachers I spoke to, Microsoft has since reduced their licensing fees for primary schools to a symbolic sum of about US$3 per seat - that's for a software bundle consisting of Windows XP and Office XP! Unluckily for them, not even this huge concession was able to save the fate of Windows at Da Feng and four other schools!
The brief visit gave me renewed hope that things are moving in the right direction, after all. Although schools like Da Feng are still rare on this island, they do exist. Perhaps more amazingly, they exist not because of central legislation or some cost reduction exercise - they exist because of enthusiasm and knowledge of ordinary teachers who have set out to prove that Linux and other open source software are a legitimate way to empower their students and provide them with a better, safer alternative. Let's hope that the few early seeds that exist today will eventually grow into a large tree bearing the fruit of software freedom in every single school, in every single country.
Planting a seed at a young age: a 10-year old pupil at Da Feng configures email client on Fedora Core.
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| Interview with Chris Smart, Kororaa Project |
Interview with Chris Smart, Kororaa Project
 Few Linux live CDs have disturbed the Linux distribution scene as much the new Kororaa Xgl. Just to illustrate the awesome effect it had on some of the users who tried it, here is a quote as published by Groklaw.net: "I've tried about 100 different distros over the past 2 years and can honestly say I've never seen anything on a PC as spectacular as Kororaa Xgl. It makes the hair on my neck stand up. It's that good. I'm like a kid who's found the keys to the local sweet shop, I just can't leave it alone."
Up until last week, Kororaa was a little-known distribution - a decent alternative of installing Gentoo Linux on one's hard disk, but otherwise nothing too exciting to write home about. Then all of a sudden, Kororaa shot to fame. Chris Smart (on the right) and Matthew Oliver, the two developers of the project, have released a live CD that integrates Xgl and Compiz with the proprietary NVIDIA and ATI graphics driver to create what is possibly the world's most spectacular Linux live CD. The stunning 3D effects combined with the fact that Kororaa Xgl has been pre-configured to work without any user intervention was an instant success.
We have asked Chris Smart a few questions about the project.
DW: Chris, thank you very much for your time. Let's start with the usual: can you tell us about yourself? How old are you, where do you live, what do you do for living?
CS: It's a real pleasure since I'm a big fan of DistroWatch! Well, my name is Chris Smart and I am 25 years old. I live in Canberra (the capital of Australia, not Sydney!). I am an IT manager running a small computer firm here in the capital.
DW: When did you start using Linux and why?
CS: The two most influential "Linux" people in my life were Alfred Reynolds (writer of 'adminmod' for Half-Life) whom I worked with, and the great Andrew Tridgell (does he need an introduction?) who was working in the same building as me. Alfred used Linux on his desktop and I was sucked in by the "cool" factor. Tridge got me setup with Red Hat 5.1 and fixed my XFree86 config for me. What else can I say? I simply fell in love with Linux.
DW: Since Kororaa is based on Gentoo, you are probably a big fan of the most popular source-based distribution. What attracted you to Gentoo? Have you thought about switching to another distribution? Have you tried other distributions?
CS: Oh boy! Gentoo is truly one of the great loves of my life (after Jesus, my family, and then Linux itself). I tried each and every distro out there I could find. You will probably remember the joys of binary distros back in the day, a little thing called RPM hell? Gentoo intrigued me and I tried version 1.1 which installed perfectly first time (are you shocked?). I learned more about Linux from Gentoo in 3 months than I ever did with other distros. I never looked back. Now that I have Kororaa I never need to look elsewhere (except to get great ideas :)!
DW: Imagine for a moment that you are in charge of the development of Gentoo. What would you change or improve and why?
CS: Gentoo has so many brilliant things about it, this is a tough one. Gentoo is all about choice and as such the only way I see that to continue is to maintain its current philosophies. I believe Gentoo just needs to keep making great tools and improving on the great things it already offers. Gentoo is amazingly flexible and I think that is its strength.
DW: Please tell us about the beginnings of Kororaa? How did it come about?
CS: I have long evangelised about Gentoo and Linux but I found that people just weren't ready to put the effort into trying something they weren't already convinced of. Especially when it's something like Gentoo that can throw lots of curve balls at you! I wanted my friends and others to experience my favourite operating system without the "stress" of it all causing them to give up. I've had the idea for Kororaa for a few years, and one day I talked to my best mate Matthew Oliver and we got started. I wanted a way I could share my love of Gentoo with others to "suck them in", if you will. I hope it's working :)
DW: Kororaa, together with other distributions, such as VLOS or RR4, have been trying to provide an easy way to install Gentoo Linux. But the latest release of Gentoo (2006.0) is, in fact, a much improved operating system - it functions as a live CD and it also has a powerful and intuitive graphical installer. Do you think there is still a reason for Kororaa and others to exist?
CS: Sure, why not! Gentoo is about choice and these other variants (shall we say) all offer something unique which may suit a particular group of people. When I first started developing Kororaa there was no "installer" for Gentoo, and I didn't realise VLOS existed. I think Kororaa is something special. We have written the installer ourselves entirely from scratch along with a useful set of tools. I'm using my Gentoo experience to make what I believe is a good Gentoo system easily accessible and take a lot of the guess work out for new users. I think the Gentoo Installer still requires a lot of Gentoo knowledge to get your system up and running, whereas you need none for Kororaa. All the best to the Gentoo devs though, I hope it really works well for them.
DW: What does the word "kororaa" mean?
CS: Glad you asked! Pronounced "Core-ror-ah", the name is actually a native word for the "Fairy Penguin" which is just the cutest little penguin and happens to be native to Australia and New Zealand. It was perfect for our project. Actually the name is a Maori word, but we Aussies like to claim anything good from New Zealand as our own. Pavlova dessert for instance, and Russell Crowe. Well, we're not too sure about Russell!
DW: What sort of feedback have you had about Kororaa so far?
CS: A few Gentoo users have said "what would I want that for?", but overall the response has been great! People who have tried Kororaa seem to have really enjoyed using it. I think the whole install experience is the best thing. I mean, Gentoo up and running in 45 min? Awesome! I really take the time to help anyone I can and to help make Kororaa better. We are building up a nice little community over at the forums :)
DW: My main complaint about Kororaa (the proper Kororaa, not the live CD) is the fact that it forces me to download two CDs. Wouldn't it be more elegant to provide just one CD with a basic system, then let the user install extra applications over the Internet?
CS: Ahh, yes. Beta1 was a single CD and it was a nice neat little package. Then users wanted package selection, then AMD64 support, then GNOME! And so I went from maintaining only one version to four! In all honesty, it just didn't fit on a single CD anymore. It seemed neat to have one universal installer, and then you just pick your architecture and GUI package CD and away you go! As for an Internet install, I wanted Kororaa to be fully installable without the Internet. We are working on an Internet install for the next release however, so stay tuned ;)
DW: Kororaa Xgl is one of the first live CDs showcasing Novell's Xgl + Compiz technology (as far as I know TrisGuel GNU/Linux, a Spanish Debian-based live CD was the first, beating you by just one day). How did you come up with the idea? How difficult was it to build the live CD?
CS: Darn! I'm in Australia so we're a day ahead of most of the world, does that help at all!?? Seriously though, that's great! The more the merrier, that's what I love about Linux. Like everyone, I had heard about this revolutionary new technology called Xgl. I looked it up and was impressed, but put it on the back burner. Then one day I was looking something to do, so I thought I'd see if I could get it working on a Gentoo box, and I did. Then I heard a voice say "make a live CD" and so I did. Gentoo is so great you can turn it into anything. Soon I had the Xgl live CD working on my NVIDIA card. I then spent a few days trying to get ATI drivers to work, but I didn't give up! Finally I was able to release it to the world. Yay! :)
Kororaa Xgl live CD provides an easy way to taste the new 3D effects.
(full image size: 385kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
DW: What is your personal opinion about Xgl? Is it just eye candy or is it genuinely useful? Are you using it on a daily basis? How stable do you think it is?
CS: Personally I think Xgl is awesome. The great thing about it is not only is it pure eye candy (common, we all love eye candy!) but it's also -- wait for it -- useful! It actually DOES make your life easier. My Mac loving friends (Andrew Goodall and Sam McKeon) would say Linux is just catching up to OSX, but in this regard I think it's starting to surpass it. Of course, being open source we might start seeing some Xgl action in OSX 10.5 ;) I am a KDE person myself, so I can't wait to have KDE working in full Xgl glory. Oh boy, that will be insane!
As for stability, there appears to be a number of bugs in Xgl when used with particular cards. I'm not sure if this is an Xgl compatibility issue or a driver issue. I haven't had any issues with my NVIDIA-based card, but decent ATI support seems to be lacking somewhat. Having said that, I believe Xgl is quite stable enough for everyday use, so long as you're willing to put up with a few glitches here and there and perhaps update from CVS from time to time.
DW: How many developers work on Kororaa?
CS: Well, it's just Matt and I. (That was an easy question!)
DW: What are the future plans for your project?
CS: Well, now that I've spent a week of development time building an Xgl live CD (opps!), it's back to the improvements for the next release. I have a list of about 50 that we're working on at the moment. Long term I would love for Kororaa to become the first choice when wanting to install a binary Gentoo distribution, but we'll just have to wait and see. And of course, last but not least, to make it to the top 10 "average hits per day" on DistroWatch.com :)
DW: Chris, thank you very much and good luck with your project!
CS: No, thank you! The pleasure is all mine.
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| Released Last Week |
ASP Linux 11
ASP Linux 11 has been released. Some of the more prominent features of the new version include: simplicity - all the necessary applications are included and ready for use without any further configuration, irrespective of the purpose of the system; convenience - the presence of graphical configuration tools makes it easy to modify system settings, install and remove software, etc.; broad multimedia support, including out-of-the box support for all popular video formats and availability of proprietary video drivers. ASP Linux ships with kernel 2.6.14, KDE 3.5.0, GNOME 2.12, Firefox 1.5 and Evolution 2.4.1. For more information please read the release announcement (in Russian).
Helix 1.7 (03-07-2006)
An updated release of Helix 1.7, a KNOPPIX-based live CD dedicated to incident response and forensics is available: "A new version of Helix has been released to the mirrors for your testing and use." From the changelog: "Updated 2.6.14 kernel; updated Firefox to 1.5.0.1, dcfldd to 1.3.4, md5deep suite to 1.10, ClamAV to 0.88.1, PyFlag to 0.80, EnCase Linen to 5.04; updated and fixed boot time help code and GRUB options...." Visit the project's home page to read the release announcement and to learn more about the distribution.
Kororaa Xgl Live CD 0.1
The Kororaa project has released a live CD demonstrating the new Xgl technology for 3D window manipulation and other unusual effects: "Today I am happy to release a Kororaa live CD showcasing Xgl technology. If you would like to find out what it's all about, then download the CD and boot up your PC! The Live CD comes with X.Org 7.0, GNOME 2.12.2, 3D support and of course Xgl. Supported drivers are 'nvidia' (NVIDIA) and 'fglrx' (ATI). Minimum recommended configuration is Pentium 3 with NVIDIA GeForce video card." Find more details on the project's home and download pages.
Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 Update 3
The third update of Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 has been released: "Update 3 of Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 was made available today. This update includes the following enhancements: enhanced security including execshield updates, use of GCC FORTIFY_SOURCE build option in some package updates, SELinux policy updates, updated kernel key management support; enhanced system tools including SystemTap dynamic system instrumentation tool...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details.
EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.5
EnGarde Secure Linux has been updated to version 3.0.5: "Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.5. This release includes several bug fixes and feature enhancements to the Guardian Digital WebTool and the SELinux policy, several updated packages, and a couple of new packages available for installation. New features include: support for the 64bit Intel EM64T architecture,users with these machines can now use the x86_64 ISO image in full 64bit mode; the latest stable versions of Aide (0.11), GnuPG (1.4.2.2), Postfix (2.2.9), Samba (3.0.21c), and xinetd (2.3.14)...." Here is the full release announcement.
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Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Xandros 4
According to this report at DesktopLinux.com, a new version of Xandros Desktop, a commercial Debian-based distribution for novice Linux users, is expected to be announced next month: "The Xandros spokeswoman also said the company is planning to announce an entirely new line of desktop Linux products designed for both home and business use. The announcement will be made at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Boston next month, she said." The new release is currently undergoing intensive testing among a selected group of Linux users.
OpenBSD 3.9
The OpenBSD project has announced that version 3.9 of the security-oriented operating system will be released on May 1st, 2006. The long list of new features include extensive support for new audio cards, network cards and SATA controllers, several new tools (a re-written ftp-proxy, sdiff - a side-by-side file comparison tool, getent - a tool to get entries from the administrative databases), new functionality in ancontrol, apmd, nc, ppp, trunk and ipsecctl, and a large number of package updates. For a more detailed list of changes please see the OpenBSD 3.9 page. Pre-orders are now accepted in the project's online store (US$45.00).
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
As widely reported in the media, Novell has announced the upcoming release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10: "At CeBIT 2006 in Hannover, Germany, Novell today unveiled its next-generation enterprise Linux desktop, delivering technology and design improvements that establish the Linux desktop as a benchmark for basic office productivity and usability." The product is a logical continuation of Novell Linux Desktop 9 released in November 2004 and rumoured to be a product that intended to kick-start the company's in-house migration from Windows desktops to Linux. For more information please read the press release and visit the product's preview pages. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is scheduled to be released in the third quarter of 2006.
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to the database
- AliXe. AliXe is a SLAX-based, desktop-oriented live CD with the goal of promoting Linux among the French-speaking public of the Quebec province in Canada.
AliXe - a SLAX-based live CD for the "Québecois".
(full image size: 805kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- FreeNAS. FreeNAS is a tiny FreeBSD-based operating system which provides free Network-Attached Storage (NAS) services (CIFS, FTP and NFS).
- nUbuntu. nUbuntu is a collection of network and server security testing tools, piled on top of the existing Ubuntu system. While aimed to be mainly a security testing platform, nUbuntu also operates as a desktop environment for the advanced Linux user.
nUbuntu - a new distribution for network administrators and penetration testers.
(full image size: 539kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
- OliveBSD. OliveBSD is a live CD based on OpenBSD with graphical environment (IceWM) and various software packages.
- Tuquito. Tuquito is a Debian-based live CD made in Argentina. It features automatic hardware detection, excellent support for scanners, web cams and digital cameras, and compatibility with MS Office file formats. It is designed for beginners and intermediate Linux users.
- VideoLinux. VideoLinux is a new PCLinuxOS-based distribution with focus on DVD backups, video encoding and transcoding, DVD authoring, format conversion and pretty much anything else you want to do with video.
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New distributions added to the waiting list
- A.M.I.C.U.S.. A.M.I.C.U.S. (Automatic Multimedia Installation Configuration Utility System) is a Debian-based distribution whose purpose is to help users quickly and easily install and configure MythTV on generic PC hardware. It is an installation and configuration script based on publicly available information in MythTV on Debian guides.
- Genesis Server. Genesis Server is an operating system built from the ground up and designed for schools. Its main features are user friendliness for both teachers and pupils, reliability and security.
- Kwort Linux. Kwort Linux is a Slackware-based distribution with its desktop and applications based on the GTK+ toolkit. Kwort's most interesting feature is 'kpkg' - a tool for retrieving software packages from download mirrors.
- Myrinix. Myrinix is smart and centralised operating system for the home. Its main feature is the ability to connect a plasma TV or large LCD screen to a central server that can record and play DVD or surf the Internet on the big screen.
- RemoLiveCD. REMO LiveCD is an open source REmote MOnitoring security system packaged as a LiveCD (a bootable Fedora-based CD that can be copied to a dedicated hard drive).
- Tomahawk Desktop. Tomahawk Desktop is a Linux distribution that comes with a complete set of software for home and office use. You can edit documents, create PDF files, create artworks, listen to music, play videos, create MP3 files from CDs, access your phone using Bluetooth, access your digital camera, etc.
- Trisquel GNU/Linux. Trisquel GNU/Linux is a Debian-based distribution developed at Universidade de Vigo in Spain. It supports Galician and Spanish languages. While Trisquel uses the KDE desktop environment, a GNOME variant, inclusive of Xgl and Compiz, is also available under the name of "TrisGuel".
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DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 20 March 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Kororaa Xgl (by Lobster on 2006-03-13 16:43:17 GMT from Rochdale, United Kingdom)
I tried Kororaa this morning and it booted but was too slow to use (I think that over 300 meg ram is needed) I had Nvidia. I will give it another go because these guys who innovate need our interest and support. Good luck to them and well done on the interview
2 • Hi ! (by Rohan Dhruva on 2006-03-13 16:45:11 GMT from , India)
Great distro. Happy to see kororaa getting so great :) And specially the linux education things .. keep it up !!
Rohan.
3 • glad it's here (by ray carter at 2006-03-13 16:46:45 GMT from Meridian, United States)
I was worried when the latest edition did not appear at the usual time - glad to see it's here. Thanks for the great articles on public school use in Taiwan - so much for the FUD that Linux requires a geek degree to set up! I'll be looking at kororaa later - have to replace the power supply in my mini-itx box today.
thanks for another great issue!
4 • first one (by AD on 2006-03-13 16:51:39 GMT from Menominee, United States)
first one to comment. perfect start of the week.
5 • never mind (by AD on 2006-03-13 16:52:45 GMT from Menominee, United States)
a little late
6 • Kororaa XGL (by Andy on 2006-03-13 16:54:23 GMT from Stevenage, United Kingdom)
It seems you need about 512mb to get full smooth operation.
Still, this is one hell of a demo. IMHO xgl is one of the most creative visual idea's to hit linux in the past decade. Inventive projects such as this will put Linux into the limelight and bring thousands of curious users to the party.
Well done Kororaa for being the first live CD to feature xgl.
7 • Ubuntu root bug ? (by Marc on 2006-03-13 17:12:37 GMT from Montral, Canada)
Anybody heard about that Breezy Bug.
Check it out , it was on OSNEWS and in this link.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=143334
8 • Kororaa LiveCD - XGL is Great! eye candy (by brodders on 2006-03-13 17:16:08 GMT from Horley, United Kingdom)
Well.
It worked 1st time, always a plus! The effects where impressive!
But... no extra features apart from candy :) - it's all eye candy. You can spin the windows and make things wobble as you drag them about; BUT you can't flip a window over and write on the back of it. Or define a range of cubic windows, to sit grouped into a corner. Or .. or, well, do anything more then you ever did.
Yes, I'd download and use an XGL desktop - if that desktop had all the features to do my work.
Tried to get klik to work (to use a system I need WP like OOo, and klik is a great for installing onto Live CD's) - nope, no-can-do.
But one day! Kororaa is only at 0.1 - shows true promise; definately one to watch.
brodders
PS
how many more Live CD's gonna add in XGL? It's croud-pleaser city. Who'll be next to draw those crouds?
9 • ubuntu dapper (by mark on 2006-03-13 17:16:46 GMT from Evanston, United States)
off topic but just had to say the new ubuntu dapper
is really a huge step forword in speed. Everybody says new distros
are faster but this one is!
10 • Kororaa (by Jordi on 2006-03-13 17:30:43 GMT from Barcelona, Spain)
I've already tried Kororaa on 3 different setups with mixed results. First i tried on my PC (Athlon64 3400+, 1GByte RAM, Radeon X800XT), and it was a success, and it was stunning, fast, and smooth.
Then i tried on a computer with a p4 prescott 3.2 GHz 1GByte and an ATi Radeon X600 PCI-e, and it crashed when it reached desktop.
Last I have tried on a AthlonXP2600+, 512MBytes of RAM and a Radeon 9250 with 128MB's and it also has crashed when reaching X, it didn't seem to load accelerated graphics, as the login screen redraw was extremely slow.
I'll keep on testing it.
11 • Still waiting (by Shadow on 2006-03-13 17:31:45 GMT from Mount Vernon, United States)
I am still waiting to try out Kororaa. about half of their mirrors were down.... :-(
but DW weekly is great! makes it easy to catch up on all the distros that I might have missed over the week :-) thank for maintaining such a great site!
12 • Kororaa (one mused excited user) (by Andy - England. on 2006-03-13 17:38:11 GMT from Stevenage, United Kingdom)
QUOTE' We are building up a nice little community over at the forums'.
This is all thanks to Chris. He's one of the nicest and polite moderators of any forum I've visited. Just take a look at his responces and you'll see why.
I can see a lot of frustrated Gentoo users migrating to Kororaa simply because the forum moderators treat you with respect. Unlike Gentoo where the normal reply to new users is 'RTFM' (that's Read the F****** Manual to those who dont know).
Kurdos Chris. Glad you guy's are finally getting the credit you deserve.
13 • RE: Ubuntu root bug (by SFN on 2006-03-13 17:39:29 GMT from Rochester, United States)
The fix for that was posted within a few hours.
14 • XGL, 3D desktops (by tomcat on 2006-03-13 17:44:38 GMT from Graft, Germany)
Umm... did I miss something? Why do we need three dimensional desktops? Can somebody please explain that to me? I honestly don't understand what all this exitement is all about and I don't understand where 3D desktops will facilitate things. It is only some extra eye-candy without real use for the business-desktop end-user, only some new development thingy, right?
15 • too bad you missed it (by towsonu2003 on 2006-03-13 17:45:09 GMT from Baltimore, United States)
too bad you missed that bug...
16 • am i sleeping ^ (by towsonu2003 on 2006-03-13 17:46:00 GMT from Baltimore, United States)
^ meant ubuntu bug... i guess it's not even to name the bug of the year? :P
17 • RE: Ubuntu Dapper (by tomcat on 2006-03-13 17:48:10 GMT from Graft, Germany)
Sorry, man. I have Fedora 4 and Dapper (with all the latest patches) on the same machine running and Ubuntus Dapper is slower than a slug with brakes pulled on compared to my Fedora Core 4. :P
18 • RE: XGL, 3D desktops (by wayne040576 on 2006-03-13 18:01:31 GMT from Grays, United Kingdom)
"Why do we need three dimensional desktops? Can somebody please explain that to me? I honestly don't understand what all this exitement is all about and I don't understand where 3D desktops will facilitate things."
They won't make any improvements to the use model. In fact, I find things such as transparent windows and menus actually get in the way of my work. It makes it very difficult to read text. I usually end up turning it off. 3d desktop switchers have been done before. If you are really busy, the last thing you want is to have to wait that extra few seconds to see a fancy desktop switch.The only thing there I could maybe see myself using is the tiled application viewer. The rest are just gimmicks that chew up cpu time.
19 • RE: Ubuntu Dapper (by yanik on 2006-03-13 18:02:19 GMT from Etobicoke, Canada)
you're comparing an alpha release with a stable release...
20 • #14 - why do we need XGL (by ray carter at 2006-03-13 18:03:51 GMT from Meridian, United States)
At this point, it's hard to say. I remember a time, not too long ago, when the mantra was "why do we need a graphical user interface"? We were quite happy working with the command line - only. I recall the first time I used one - I found the 'pointing device' to be less than totally intuitive. I still maintain that picture icons are better for describing nouns than actions - but you learn to adjust, and then wonder - 'how did we get along without it'. I can't really say why we 'need' 3D desktops. They are really not mature and useable at this point, but I suspect the day will come . . .
21 • We have school clusters, too! (by benplaut on 2006-03-13 18:11:23 GMT from Honolulu, United States)
At West Hawaii Explorations Academy, we have 3 servers dishing out to 5 thin clients apeice. All three are running edubuntu.
We get no press, though =/
-The student who set it up
22 • We have school clusters, too! (by SFN on 2006-03-13 19:19:13 GMT from Rochester, United States)
"We get no press, though =/"
I'm sure lxer.com would love to post a story about you guys. Have you checked with them?
23 • No subject (by William Johnson on 2006-03-13 19:32:33 GMT from Wilmington, United States)
I'm anxiuosly waiting for all those distros that i'm unable to
install to add this 3D desktop.
24 • Kororaa (by warpengi on 2006-03-13 19:46:03 GMT from Calgary, Canada)
A lot of the mirrors are down for this new distro. A lot of buzz is being created, obviously.
I don't know either what the use for Xgl is BUT at least this is at the forefront of innovation. With the ever increasing level of computing power in the home and the constant need to find new and flashy things to sell this computing power I have little doubt that the idea of 3D will be used for something.
I couldn't believe that shitty cameras in cellular phones would be a big selling point but people seem to like and use them. On my latest trip I saw tourists everywhere taking pictures with their cameras and (presumably) sending them back to friends and family. With such a practical use I think celphone cameras are here to stay.
Who knows what will come out of Xgl. Not me!
25 • Asp and Aurox Linux (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-13 20:38:33 GMT from Brescia, Italy)
It is a pity that Asp linux is only available as a 4 CDs download. I prefer DVD iso images. But it is even more of a shame that the Deluxe edition (10 CDs and 2 DVDs!!!) is only available if you are Russian.
Aurox Linux, on the other hand, is available also as a free DVD download. However after the first attempt to install it I got kernel panic when trying to boot.
26 • Custom Live DVD - Has anyone got this working?? (by Andy on 2006-03-13 20:47:11 GMT from Stevenage, United Kingdom)
This look really good. Has anyone got it working? Don't understand a word of spanish but I've got all the iso's in my libarary. Be grateful if someone could elaborate on how to build a Custom bootable DVD in english, please.
27 • Knoppix 5.0 DVD CeBIT (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-13 20:51:29 GMT from Brescia, Italy)
My understanding is that the English version is a remaster by a user.
The original by Klaus Knopper defaults to German.
However all you have to do is to type: knoppix lang=us (or whatever is your language among the supported ones)
Please remember also that "=" in a German keyboard is above the 0 (zero).
28 • dapper (by mark on 2006-03-13 20:53:11 GMT from Hines, United States)
I tried fedora 4 found it very slow but it wasnt the final release
but I had been running breezy which was nice but I wanted to try
the new gnome compared to that very much improved
run fedora 3 for 6 months (long time for me) liked it (didnt like
the upgrade process) just my 2 cents
29 • And BTW... (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-13 20:57:16 GMT from Brescia, Italy)
Apparently these days I am very mobile. Now I live up north, In Brescia :)
30 • Sad news from Mandriva (by Anonymous on 2006-03-13 21:12:27 GMT from Ivry-sur-Seine, France)
Gael Duval was fired from Mandriva http://www.indidea.org/gael/en/
I guess that's the *buntu effect :(
31 • RE : 30 (by Marc on 2006-03-13 21:42:22 GMT from Beloeil Village, Canada)
That's BIG NEWS, on is blog more details will be comming up !!
32 • The next Xandros (by Anonymous on 2006-03-13 21:42:53 GMT from Winston Salem, United States)
Does anyone know what the next version of Xandros will be like and when the possible release date will be?
33 • As falls Gael Duval so falls Mandr(ake)iva (by warpengi on 2006-03-13 21:44:52 GMT from Calgary, Canada)
Unbelievable. Unfortunately M. Duval has not posted anything regarding this yet, except to acknowledge that it is done.
I can't help but think this does not bode well. Especially as I have used Mandrake for my principal desktop OS for 6 years now. Might be time to follow my server installs and go 100% Debian.
34 • RE: #30 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-13 22:09:39 GMT from Brescia, Italy)
"I guess that's the *buntu effect :( "
I don't think so. Fedora and SUSE are also fully free (as beer) and open.
I believe it is the result of a long series of wrong decisions.
I have been writing in this very forum for a while now that Mandriva is going downhill.
You might want to read:
http://forum.mandrivaclub.com/viewtopic.php?t=47157
35 • M. Gael Duval (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-13 22:18:04 GMT from Brescia, Italy)
I hope M. Gael Duval starts supporting another distro now. PCLinuxOS maybe? It would be like going back to the roots of Mandrake, IMHO (no pun intended)
36 • Your pages just got easier to read (by TJ Hoye on 2006-03-13 22:46:51 GMT from Baltimore, United States)
Distrowatch just got easier to read on my 800x600 display.
37 • ASP Linux (by Glenn on 2006-03-13 23:25:17 GMT from Gainesville, United States)
I agree with Post #25. Unless one is fluent in Russian, I guess there's no way to find out if the Deluxe Edition will ever be made in English, and/or made available outside of Russia??? Maybe it has to do with proprietary rules or something. Too bad. It sounds like just the kind of distro I've been looking for. Oh well..... I'll have to stick with Novell/Suse a while longer, it seems.
just my 2 cents worth of rambling..
38 • Gael Duval (by Johannes Eva on 2006-03-13 23:29:25 GMT from Dreieich, Germany)
Fired! I didn't know. Very sad for Mandriva. Maybe i should change to another distro...
39 • #26 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-13 23:43:56 GMT from Braslia, Brazil)
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
40 • Special report: Linux in education (by Robert Pogson on 2006-03-13 23:47:45 GMT from Winnipeg, Canada)
Thank you! This brought tears of joy to my eyes. I have been struggling for years to get teachers and students in Canada switched onto Linux using thin clients and servers. The cost is so low and the benefits so high... I love to be able to pour money, time and files into a server or two and have hundreds benefit. With the new 64 bit cpus, ram, and drives so cheap, using the latest software a school can have state of the art computing for a very small cost. Only last week, I found a school in Canada with a stated goal of replacing all hardware and software every two or three years to remain current! With LTSP, a school can remain current by upgrading a single machine or a few for redundancy.
We must be patient. see http://www.skyweb.ca/~alicia/LTSP.pdf for a list of the benefits.
41 • #33 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-13 23:47:59 GMT from Braslia, Brazil)
I dont like mandrake/mandriva
I switched from Conectiva Linux 10 to Debian 3.1 Sarge.
Its a nice distro!
42 • RE: #26 (by Wes on 2006-03-14 00:01:54 GMT from San Ramon, United States)
http://www.google.com/language_tools
43 • Linux in my classroom (by Gnobuddy on 2006-03-14 00:30:04 GMT from Pasadena, United States)
There's lots of "under the radar" Linux in educational institutions. I work at a two-year college where Windows is the only thing the school knows or will use on the official computers. So I simply asked for permission to make my own classroom LAN using old cast-off PC's, and those computers are not subject to the official school policies - so I run Linux on them. I built myself a PC to use as a Linux server, wrote a double handful of Perl scripts that automate tedious tasks like taking student attendance, grading examinations, and updating the class gradebook, and have been using Linux in my classroom since roughly 2001 or thereabouts.
By the way, I learned Perl and CGI programming from books and the Internet, using my Linux box at home. I cannot express my gratitude to the developers of all this wonderful software, who gave me the tools to learn so much.
I'm working (gently, so as not to create resistance) on getting the school to install Firefox on some of the school's computers, so they get less malware and spend less time being serviced or re-ghosted. We'll see, public institutions are famous for cautious conservatism, but I hope for progress.
-Gnobuddy
44 • No subject (by tdatb on 2006-03-14 00:33:49 GMT from Wyandotte, United States)
No Kororaa joy on my Shuttle box. It can't even mount my NEC 16x DVD Dual-Layer burner so that it can finish booting. Knoppix and VectorLinux Live-CD boot right up on it, though.
45 • Linux in the classroom (by Antonio on 2006-03-14 02:46:12 GMT from Corpus Christi, United States)
I have also used Linux in the classroom. With some bargain computers, that had Lindows, reformattted them and installed Mandrake 9.2. Students did not like not being able to play yahoo music or yahoo movies, but they were entertained by frozen bubble, lbreakout, patience, etc. Less problems were encountered by using linux and students also wanted to try linux at home. I gave them copies of mandrake and also copies of slax and knoppix for them to try at home. Many were glad I did. Some have gone on to become specialists in linux. One student runs SUSE 9.3 and he tells me that it is better in his opinion than Fedora which is the installed distro of my choice. Schools are pretty much bought out by Microsoft. Only the ones that take risks use Linux and teachers that promote the use of free software.
46 • Hardware testing and diagnostics (by welkiner on 2006-03-14 05:29:36 GMT from Los Angeles, United States)
Can anyone recommend a good livecd for general hardware testing and diagnostics. I currently use ux QuickTechPro and Eurosoft Troubleshooter, which both (I think) use Linux kernel and are quite expensive. What are the best open software alternatives to these solutions?
47 • Dapper Flight 5 livecd (by welkiner on 2006-03-14 06:25:47 GMT from Los Angeles, United States)
Tried the new Ubuntu offering over the weekend and what I saw on my 3 year old amd desktop was impressive. When they get this baby stabilized in the final release they may win over a long time anti-ubuntu-nisti.....but I still don't like their root setup. The livecd looked really good and detected everything on my desktop computer. There were the usual alpha bugs, such as synaptic repositories not working, but selection of applications and quick and easy availability through the program manager or whatever they call it, was great!
Did not fare quite so well on laptop (Dell Latitude C600). Each attempt to boot live cd ended at Gnome desktop with broken, video.
My gold standard for installable livecd must use Deb package management, have good Hardware recognition, provide decent desktop and applications, be useful as rescue repair cd, have a fast easy hd installer that installs a solid usable system, such as Kanotix or Mepis.
When Dapper recognizes the video card on this laptop this old anti-ubuntunisti may just sneak back to Gnome!
48 • FreeBUNTU (by Mike on 2006-03-14 06:39:36 GMT from Nairobi, Kenya)
I’ve been reading Nikolai Bezroukov’s rather opinionated website, http://www.softpanorama.org/. Though Bezroukov makes no secret of the fact that he doesn’t think too highly of GNU/Linux and some of its key proponents (RMS, ESR, and Linus), he still makes some valid points about the drawbacks of the GPL for commercial use. Which got me thinking about the BSD (Berkeley System Distribution) license. The BSDL allows commercial distributors to “close” the code for any value-added features. With GPL, commercial distributors have to come up with intricate dual licensing and other schemes. Apple’s Mac OSX kernel includes FreeBSD code but this does not stop them from contributing code back to the community because it is in their own interest to do so. Which brings me to Ubuntu.
Shuttleworth’s been somewhat vague about how he plans to make Ubuntu financially self-sustaining. The truth is that GPL leaves distributors with few ways to commercialize GNU/Linux. To hardware makers like HP and IBM, commodity software will drive up demand for their hardware, so it’s pretty much a no-brainer why they would support GNU/Linux. If Shuttleworth wanted to make Ubuntu commercially viable, I think the better strategy would have been to work under the BSDL rather than the GPL. This would have enabled him to offer a free version as well as a commercial version of his distribution without having to agonize about ways of not infringing on the GPL.
Secondly, a lot of folks seem to have a very high opinion of BSD. My experience with BSD (and I know I’m not alone when I say this) is that it is a pain in the you-know-what to install and configure. Yet on the two occasions I’ve managed to install it (the first with FreeBSD 5.2.1, the second time with PCBSD), I found it to be comparable to any of the major Linux distros and also surprisingly fast! Hence, I would suggest that perhaps Mark’s resources might have been better spent trying to make a “BSD for human beings.” That is, a BSD that’s easy to install and configure. He would also have escaped the accusation that he is simply reinventing the wheel, or worse, undermining that most venerable of Linux distros, Debian. Also, since he’s always looking for a challenge, maybe the transition from Linux to BSD would have been just the ticket!
Any opinions?
49 • 48 comments and corrections (by AC on 2006-03-14 07:24:00 GMT from , United States)
You mentioned reasons that hardware manufacturers might prefer to have a free operating system, but neglected reasons they might not only accept but actually prefer the GPL ovr BSD licenses.
Under the BSD license, company A can appropriate the code company B chooses to contribute, At the same time company A can withhold their own code, thus gaining a competitive advantage. It doesn't take a genius to suppose that soon company B will decide that doing in effect free coding for company A is not good business. So they'll stop sharing too. This is all despite the fact that it is in the interests of both company A and company B to have a Free operating system with a common standard. Very quickly, we'll be back to multiple incompatible implementations of Unix, the same problem that faced UNIX in the 80s.
Second, you seem to confuse certain terms and assume oppositions where there are none. Free software can be commercial. The Free Software Foundation sells their software. So do GNU/Linux distributors like Red Hat. The latter has become a successful business despite their software being Free. A better contrast to Free (as in speech, "libre") is "proprietary" and you don't need proprietary software to make money.
Third, Apple uses a proprietary GUI with years of coding and development behind it, despite running on a Free kernel and userland. Shuttleworth would have to build a GUI from scratch unless he wanted to use the existing GNOME or KDE. But GNOME and KDE are licensed under the GPL! Even when they run on BSD! (One can develop software using qt libraries using a proprietary license, but improving an existing KDE app means obeying the GPL.)
Fourth, what makes you think that people in the BSD camps wouldn't have criticized him for undermining their existing projects? If Apple escaped such criticism, it was largely because they limited themselves to a single and minority hardware platform (even now, they want to only run on a small subset of x86) and kept OS X from competing directly in the same market space by keeping the GUI proprietary. It's not at all obvious that the same would apply to FreeBUNTU.
Fifth, who says Shuttleworth wants to make a proprietary operating system? Who says he's agonizing? Whether or not we know what his business plans are, I imagine he does. And I'm sure he factored in licensing issues as any reasonable businessman would.
50 • BSD vs Linux distros? (by gnobuddy on 2006-03-14 08:16:11 GMT from Marina Del Rey, United States)
I'm a long, long way from being a BSD expert, but I did install and configure FreeBSD a few times over the past six years, before eventually switching to Linux instead.
In the earlier part of that time, FreeBSD was a refreshing change from the headaches of Linux: no RPM hell, rock solid stability, faster running on the same hardware as Linux, no need to hunt all over the 'Net for software, and one single source of up to date documentation (rather than a million obsolete Linux how-to's scattered far and wide over the 'Web). Oh, and burncd supported IDE CD-RW drives without ugly hacks like SCSI emulation needed on Linux for cdrecord to work.
So why did I switch back to Linux? Two main reasons, the first was very limited hardware support in FreeBSD, and the second was the fact that Linux was (and is) evolving at a rate far faster than FreeBSD (and, as far as I can tell, the other BSD's too). During the years I was using FreeBSD, Linux distros got stabler, they got better installers, user-friendly Debian derivatives and the power of apt became accessible to those without years of sysadmin experience, and Gentoo and Portage arrived. Oh, let's not forget K3b, which finally provided a GUI CD-burning tool on Linux that was not a usability nightmare (X-CD-roast, anyone?).
In short, it seemed that every time a piece of software I needed and had been waiting for was created, it was created for Linux, and if it got ported to FreeBSD at all, it would be an older, less functional version.
Every now and then I think I should go back and try FreeBSD again, to see how it's changed since the last version I used (something around version 4.8, I think). I still remember how fast the slender FreeBSD kernel made old hardware seem!
-Gnobuddy
51 • No subject (by Christopher on 2006-03-14 08:18:44 GMT from Oxford, United States)
Mark Shuttleworth has not been vague at all about how Ubuntu will be self-sustaining. He going to sell support contracts to corporation who want professional level support for the distro. How many times does he have to say that Ubuntu will always be free (in both meanings of the word)?
52 • RE: #50 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-14 08:44:16 GMT from Brescia, Italy)
Similar feelings here, gnobuddy.
You hear still quite often: Linux is not ready for the desktop.
The only truth in that sentence is that (quite) a few apps don't have a native Linux port. In my case it is a whole collection of chess games (and no, Crafty + Eboard are not an adequate replacement, too few features)
However recently I managed to install one of mentioned games with the latest wine and it works just fine. Another solution is to have Windows running in VMware, albeit without support for 3D games.
And now FreeBSD. How ready is it for the desktop?
A *lot* less than Linux, IMO.
I won't even mention the infamous geometry bug.
But if you have some unusual hardware (example: I have the Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit) you can just forget about it.
Also something as common as a pppoe internet connection is a pain to set up.
The list goes on.
After having spent years trying to have everything working in Linux, and now that I am almost there (of course thanks also to the fast improvement of Linux) I don't fancy starting everything over again, no thanks.
53 • Reload DW main page (by welkiner on 2006-03-14 08:51:42 GMT from Los Angeles, United States)
Why does a reload of DW main page always take you back to the top of the page, and not your current location on the page?
54 • BSD hardware support (by AC on 2006-03-14 09:03:18 GMT from , United States)
A few words on The BSDs and hardware support. Note: I use Debian and NetBSD, so I'm not anti-Linux and my comments will be more about NetBSD as I know it better.
Hardware support is a tricky issue. I will say this though. First, NetBSD supported USB before Linux did. It supported x86_64 before Linux did. And of course, when we start talking about support for various platforms, Debian has achieved a lot though they're needing to pull back. The Linux kernel is not portable by design: Linus never expected it to run on other than i386 and it has to be modified to run on other arches.
But of course, the average user is more concerned with getting a particular peripheral for x86 hardware to work, not with turning a videogame console into a router or putting a Free OS on an old UNIX workstation. The ability to do the latter means a lot for the quality of the code overall, but the average user isn't interested in that either. The best that I can tell such a user is that when NetBSD does support a piece of hardwrae, the drivers are of high quality. Poor drivers are pulled from the tree. That's not something that can be said for Linux.
55 • Ubuntu bug (by AC on 2006-03-14 09:17:01 GMT from , United States)
I don't have the words to describe how bad this is. It's... well, Redmond bad really. Not for the average desktop enthusiast, but imagine Ubuntu deployed in a corporate or desktop setting. Now, who knows which employees or students have root access on the system? And it's something they must have added, because it doesn't effect the Debian-installer or even the Hoary or Warty installers. This does not inspire confidence in the coding practices on Ubuntu. And seeing how long it took to discover this flaw makes me happy that I use an "outdated" and "obselete" distro like Debian when security matters. Slow release cycles aren't such a bad thing, folks.
56 • Re: 55 (by Lanx on 2006-03-14 10:15:54 GMT from Stuttgart, Germany)
Considering how long it took until this bug had been discovered the chances are very good that noone else took advantage of this bug. After the discovery it was fixed in a few hours. The developer responsible for this bug has posted an explanation on OS-News:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=13951&comment_id=103849
57 • Re - Post 55 (by Me - That's not where I live? on 2006-03-14 11:00:36 GMT from Stevenage, United Kingdom)
Don't talk crap. Your blowing this out of all proportion. All that's needed to secure a Breezy is to change the password. Single desktop users aren't at risk. 99% of admin who run clusters would change their password in the last 5months anyways. Those who haven't have no right running clusters.
Unbuntu made a fix available in 7hrs!! IMHO that gives me great confidence in Ubuntu. Hardly a Redmond responce now is it!!
58 • No subject (by mixmatch on 2006-03-14 12:35:24 GMT from Apo, United States)
Coding the installer logger in a manner that caused the password to be printed in plaintext to a world-readable file is very Redmond-like. I stand with the Debian crowd; I'd rather have security than the latest and greatest. If you use complex passwords, you do not necessarily have to change it regularly. Even if you do, a semi-annual or annual schedule would not be unwise. Just because there is a portion of admins that have a monthly - quartly password change policy doesn't mean that all others 'have no right running clusters.'
We're not saying, "Ubuntu screwed up once, so it must really suck." so don't get all defensive. The speed with which they patch a 5-month old vulnerability is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that if you have not changed your password since installation, you might as well assume that your system has been compromised if it was in a multiuser environment.
Reguardless, if *buntu has a series of incidents of this nature, its public image will be severly threatened.
59 • translating of multiboot livecd or dvd (by piale on 2006-03-14 13:34:30 GMT from Salt Lake City, United States)
Just use the google translation service it wiil translate it into english. Good work done people of distrowatch. that xgl thingy is beautiful. too bad my system specs will not allow me to taste of this wonderful treat.
From Ghana with love. Long live Free/Open Source, Long Live GNU Long live linux and Long Live Distrowatch
60 • Re 58 (by Me on 2006-03-14 13:46:55 GMT from Stevenage, United Kingdom)
Quote ' The fact of the matter is that if you have not changed your password since installation, you might as well assume that your system has been compromised if it was in a multiuser environment.'
Not true, since this has only been discovered in the last 48hrs. The patch was out within 7hrs. This would be only true If the problem was public knowledge, which it wasn't up till now.
You can't base an attack on a Ubuntu system if your not aware of cdebconf/questions.dat file. If it was known preiously then I'm sure google would be full of proud hackers.
Granted it's an embarrassing error, but due to Ubuntu's fast responce I expect in reality no machines became compromised because of it.
61 • PaiPix and Parsix (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-14 15:55:24 GMT from Roma, Italy)
From the PaiPix site:
"For hard disk installation, PAIPIX is now using the KANOTIX facility that renders the installed system pure Debian and therefore much more robust to upgrades."
And:
"KANOTIX started by being a KNOPPIX remaster but has become a distribution kernel that tries to approach perfection. "
So it seems that the PaiPix developers feel like me about Kanotix.
Similarly, Parsix is based on Kanotix:
http://www.parsix.org/html/index.php
"Parsix GNU/Linux is a live and installation CD based on KANOTIX and Debian Sid. "
Ladislav, I hope you don't mind:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=parsix
Clearly the info that Parsix is based on Knoppix is not accurate any longer.
62 • late (by txmail on 2006-03-14 17:18:08 GMT from Houston, United States)
is this late or what? Good none the less. Cant wait to burn Kororaa today!
63 • Various new releases (by George on 2006-03-14 17:23:04 GMT from Indianapolis, United States)
Oh, my God! Gentoo and Knoppix and others have INSTALLERS!!! What is the world coming to? Where are the manly men of yore for whom DOS 6.2 was the pinnacle, and GUI-based Windows was a betrayal?
Speaking of installers and installing process and Live CD's: I have had the misfortune of having to deal with: Knoppix, Kororaa, and one or two other distributions, all within the space of one week or so. My previous opinion stands: these are NOT "ready to run out-of-the-box" Desktop OSes, no matter what their intrinsic worth might be. Even Mandrake 2006, in my opinion as close to a complete system as any, is still temperamental and not easy to tame.
As to the freedom of choice, often that freedom can be defined as the freedom to go to hell, unless one is well-versed in command line intricacies of Linux. For a user who wants to migrate from Windows, the path is thorny. Of course, Linux is free, but too often one gets what one pays for.
Linuxes will get there, eventually, as the desktop OS; my point is, "no choldren, we are not home yet."
64 • 60 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-14 20:18:45 GMT from , United States)
Not all hackers post their sploits on teh intarweb.
65 • 63 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-14 20:22:37 GMT from , United States)
I hope you posted whatever bugs you found to their respective distributers. Oh wait! Much better to try a bunch on distros and bitch about them than try a few and work with the one you like the best.
66 • 63 (by AC on 2006-03-14 20:44:58 GMT from , United States)
To say GNU/Linux not "user friendly"... fair enough. Though who that reflects upon, I leave for another day. But the "you get what you pay for" implying some lack of quality is just pathetic. If someone gave you a sports car and you didn't know how to drive, I suppose you'd say "you get what you pay for" about that as well. Same thing.
67 • The Podcast is great! (by Tom Arnold on 2006-03-14 22:59:21 GMT from Muenster, Germany)
Hey Shawn, thanks for being so fast this time! Your the best! Keep it up ;-)
68 • to #66 (by George on 2006-03-14 23:44:39 GMT from Indianapolis, United States)
Sorry to say, but that sports car is too easy to break. I note with amusement that people take great pride in "devices recognized and bugs fixed" - fine, good job, but Windows has done it for years, from the box. Imagine the outrage if it didn't! My point again is: do NOT overhype something that is still in the works. It is only good as far as it goes.
And I am amused at the offence people take; as if I was assaulting their mothers....lighten up, for heavens' sake.
Btw, I am not a computer illiterate, and I LIKE linux, just not love it blindly.
69 • 68 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-14 23:52:35 GMT from , United States)
Windows has detected devices for years because hardware manufacturers have catered to that OS. It's a matter of marketshare. And still, when the driver isn't part of the Windows version you're using, it's harder to track down the right drivers. I know, because I help Windows users.
If you don't want breakage, use something stable like Debian Sarge or (I hate to say this but it is stable) Slackware. Or CentOS. I've heard good things anyway. Don't use Mandr* if you want stability.
70 • 69 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-15 00:36:05 GMT from , United States)
Oh, as for bugs, Windows has been fixing bugs, including critical security flaws, for years. With no end in sight.
And "out of the box"... it helps when you have a monopoly and every OEM installs and configures your software to work with their hardware.
71 • 69 re 68 (by Tim on 2006-03-15 00:40:26 GMT from Denver, United States)
"Windows has detected devices for years because hardware manufacturers have catered to that OS. It's a matter of marketshare."
Sorry, no, at least not directly. It's also because MS has poured billions into designing their "os" to work only with hardware mfg's who play ball and write only drivers for MS's products. And from the blackmail that system mfg's and other mfg's have had to deal with. If they don't play the MS way, they lose the "Made for Windows" or whatever logo. Without that, they lose money to their competition.
Any way you slice it MS's better and longer hdw support is a direct result of their size and business practices, not because mfg's necessarily desire to support MS by providing hdw specs to them.
I remember hearing once that MS actually contemplated making their flagship products refuse to run on non-intel processors. Too bad they didn't. It would give the *nix's a real up.
72 • 71 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-15 00:52:02 GMT from , United States)
I agree completely, but when engaging in certain debates, it's easier to simply attribute it to marketshare rather than spelling out how that marketshare is abused than to get sidetracked with accusations about how GNU/Linux users are whiners and subscribe to conspiracy theories about Microsoft. I don't think it's whining and I actually think there is quite a bit of conspiring, but that's perhaps best tabled for another time.
73 • answer to 70 (by George on 2006-03-15 01:21:50 GMT from Indianapolis, United States)
My last comment on the matter: I was not discussing the perfidy of Microsoft or the unfairness of their monopoly - both are probably true; I simply said that Linuxes are not yet at the "ready to use out of the box" stage for an AVERAGE user who contemplates moving away from Windows. That is all.
74 • 73 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-15 01:56:33 GMT from , United States)
But the point you miss is that installing Windows on a bare machine and tracking down the drivers is no picnic for a novice either. So, you're setting the bar higher for GNU/Linux.
As for usability once basic installation and configuration is dealt with, my clients who have had Sarge setup by me run into fewer problems and need less assistance than those who have Windows. This leads me to believe that GNU/Linux will do better than Windows "out of the box" as soon as manufacturers start putting it "in the box". Until then, in a world where many users would rather sell or give away their old hardware when it's infested with malware, rather than using those very simple "system restore" disks, installing another OS will be a hard sell.
75 • solyak1 (by solyak1 on 2006-03-15 06:35:58 GMT from Kiev, Ukraine)
solyak1 http://www.solyak.com ; Thanks!
76 • Super Grub Disk (by adrian15 on 2006-03-15 10:41:01 GMT from Madrid, Spain)
Can you help me spreading the word in anglosaxoon world the Super Grub Disk?
http://adrian15.raulete.net/grub/
It is not a Linux distribution but rather a GRUB distribution.
Description:
Super Grub Disk is a bootable floppy or cdrom oriented towards system rescue, and more specifically to boot and restore of boot.
However, Super Grub Disk is simply a Grub Disk with a lot of menues with a lot of options where you don't need to use commands.
Features:
* Activate partitions
* Boot partitions
* Boot MBRs
* Boot your former OS (GNU/Linux or another one). This command, in fact, loads menu.lst from your hard disk.
* Restore Grub on your MBR automatically.
* Change your shell keyboard layout
* Multilanguage
* Swap of hard disks in BIOS and boot from floppy / cdrom / partitions...
Situtations where Super Grub Disk is useful:
* GNU/Linux is intalled in your pc, you reinstall Windows and GNU/Linux no longer boots as Grub menu no longer appears on boot. You can restore Grub on your MBR automatically.
* You have Windows 9x installed in a second hard disk and it does not want to boot. If you swap it from Super Grub Disk you will be able to boot it.
* You can not boot Windows because your MBR is corrupt or Grub installation is not well done or whatever. With Super Grub Disk you will be able to boot the partition where Windows reside.
* No Active Partition Found message appears. With Super Grub Disk you will be able to activate partitions.
adrian15
77 • "Linux isn't ready for the average user" (by Misty on 2006-03-15 15:57:55 GMT from Elizabethtown, United States)
Good. I know I sound like a nerd-snob (nerb? snerd? hmm), but I can't help it. I work on people's computers and all of those computers run Windows. Now, I normally defend them against those who take the attitude "it's all the clueless users' fault" because I know good and well it isn't their fault often enough - Windows is so vulnerable that the only way to completely protect it from malware would be to never have it online and never install anything.
But let me tell you a story. My neighbors came to me because their subscription to McAfee ran out (just in time too, given the latest news about McAfee). The computer came with McAfee and they didn't know what to do. So I installed AVG and told them how to use it. I noticed that they not only didn't have an alternative to IE installed, they also had no anti-spyware of any sort or a firewall (and no router). So I go download what I need to protect this system, install it and update - surprise, surprise, they'd never updated Windows either - and then run a virus scane. AVG didn't find anything, cool. Then I scan with Ad-Aware. It found 640 instances of spyware on their computer. The thing only had 128 mb RAM so I was shocked it could even run! While it's rebooting the owner is talking to me and asking me questions. I quickly found that they were utterly and completely clueless - they didn't know, for example, that there was such a thing as a popup-blocker. They didn't understand why Scandisk couldn't finish a scan because they had thier screensaver set to kick on in 1 minute. And so on.
Thing is, their teenaged daughter is taking a computer course in school and she's just as clueless as they are. What are they teaching them in that class, how to play WoW?
The moral of this story: the AVERAGE Windows-user you're talking about doesn't know how to run Windows either. And stories like this are apallingly common.
78 • ease of install/use (by ray carter at 2006-03-15 16:29:56 GMT from Meridian, United States)
I believe the bottom line is that a mainstream, current Linux distro is no more difficult to install or use than MS - it's just a little different. As has been pointed out, Joe SixPack is probably going to have trouble installing MS from scratch, too. My experience: a little over a year ago I installed Mandrake Linux on the public access internet computers at the local library. I took my time and tried to do it right. I installed all the browser plugins I figured they'd want, I installed AbiWord and Gnumeric in addition to OO - basically tried to get it done right. Over the course of more than a year there have been NO complaints. A customer satisfaction survey a few months ago revealed no problems, and a few of the responses indicated that the patrons were unaware they were not running MS. Current plan include the addition of a turnkey system with one computer handling four stations (usb keyboards and mice with multiple dual port video cards) which will tie into the subscriber database and enable selective internet content filtering. Linux has been a big success on the desktop there. I might add that NO additional instruction was available for patrons, they just sat down and used the system. All four seats are usually very busy from opening time until closing - very heavy useage, and, of course, no malware has been picked up - very low maintenance - I stop in every couple of weeks for a half hour or so to do updates.
79 • linux for the computer-illiterate (by Gnobuddy on 2006-03-15 21:00:59 GMT from Pasadena, United States)
I too have several computer-illiterate folks among my friends and relatives, including a few who are elderly and have a hard time learning new things, and a few who never got beyond high-school.
've set several of them up with Linux over the past few years (usually Mepis) and they manage to struggle along with it.
I am very optimistic, however, about the progress some Linux distros have made towards being ideal for people like this: those who are computer-illiterate, and not interested or capable of learning much about computers, but who want to be able to surf the Web, write e-mail, and maybe type the odd document.
The distro I am most eager to see finished in this category is SymphonyOS. The beta versions that are out now are already easier to use than anything else I've tried, Windows and MacOS included.
ByzantineOS was in a similar category, but the project appears to be dormant or dead.
I'm a bit surprised there aren't more linux distros geared towards internet-cafe or internet-appliance type usage on standard PC hardware. Maybe I just don't know about them.
-Gnobuddy
80 • man ! we have a bunch of SPAM today !!! (by Caraibes on 2006-03-15 22:08:02 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Hi Folks !
It's funny to write about security and being flooded in SPAM !!!!
Now to add my voice to that coment :
"I'm a bit surprised there aren't more linux distros geared towards internet-cafe or internet-appliance type usage on standard PC hardware. Maybe I just don't know about them.
-Gnobuddy"
I feel the same way... I think one could set up an Ubuntu, well-tweaked... Of course, Mepis does it out of the box.
Sorry about all those Kanotix Fans, but it only boots in 800x600 in Via or Sis integrated chipset, that is not a great hardware detection. Plus fonts are worst than ugly... Still find Kano and the guys on IRC very friendly and helpfull (no offense for the critic..)
Puppy could do an "on the flight" internet-café distro...
My experience is that most internet-café's PC's are eaten alive with viruses and spyware...
Internet-café distro should be multi.lingual (like Ubuntu or Mandriva, or Suse...)
By the way, Suse 10.0 doesn't show X on Via or Sis integrated chipset (!!!)
81 • GNOME 2.14 (by Cheetahman on 2006-03-15 22:16:14 GMT from Burlington, United States)
It came out today do any of you have it I am looking for the Binaries for SuSE Linux 10
82 • Internet cafe (by AC on 2006-03-15 23:19:36 GMT from , United States)
Morphix set up with a Firefox (JUST Firefox, no WM) main module and perhaps mini moduleswith plugins, fonts, and such, makes a great internet kiosk. Easy to customize to a particular need.
83 • Kororaa liveCD is amazing !!!!! (by Daniel Mery on 2006-03-16 00:06:12 GMT from Seffner, United States)
Congratulation to all Kororaa team, really the liveCD is amazing...
It is very good news for the Gentoo community and specially for Kororaa users.
Regards,
Daniel Mery
84 • Gentoo forum is very good to help us....... (by Daniel Mery on 2006-03-16 00:15:18 GMT from Seffner, United States)
I wnat to say to Andy from UK, that Gentoo forum is a good support for the newbies like me. Gentoo forum is a good place to receive help and to get a lot of information. Really, I learned so much participating inm the Gentoo forum. Is a good community. By the way I like so much Kororaa and I think it is a very good Distro into the Gentoo's world.
Regards,
Daniel Mery
85 • Gentoo forums (by AC on 2006-03-16 02:09:59 GMT from , United States)
People may make fun of "ricers" http://funroll-loops.org/ - I've been one of those in fact - but Gentoo's forums are friendly and helpful to newcomers. That's one thing that can also be said for another very popular distro and that unfortunately cannot be said for my own distro of choice. In fact, that and experimenting with USE flags (optimizations are a red herring though) are the reason this Debianista still toys with Gentoo more than any other distro. (Debian is still my choice for anything serious.) Gentoo certainly isn't the distro I'd recommend to a newbie, but the forums are always friendly and helpful.
86 • XFS should be part of most distros. (by anonymous on 2006-03-16 06:49:36 GMT from Rohnert Park, United States)
XFS does not seem to work, on FC5. and the latest Open SUSE does not seem to support it anymore.
This is a pity: XFS is a very solid file system, with better tools than others.
--
87 • No subject (by AC on 2006-03-16 07:08:19 GMT from , United States)
I agree XFS is very nice, but I suspect that most people who take enough interest in their systems to use non-default filesystems also compile their own kernels.
88 • Filesystems/Linux is way easier! (by Robzilla on 2006-03-16 17:00:32 GMT from Los Angeles, United States)
I find it dissapointing that more distros do not support multiple filesystems. Ubuntu as much as I am not a fan of it includes a nice array and so does Mandriva. I find that IBM's JFS filestystem to be excellent. I have installed on the same computer multiple instalations of the same distro with different filesystems and it is amazing to see the difference. There really is a big difference. I know that Rieser filesystem is included in most Linux distros and I have to say on every distro that I have used Reiser it has made the system unstable. Now maybe Rieser4 is better but it is dissapointing that for most distros the choice is ext 3 or Reiser. To me not much of a choice. Some of the newer filesystems are extremely reliable and perform better than the standards. When I run Mandriva with JFS it works faster. It is more stable and is more stable when multi-tasking. I think both XFS and JFS are the future for Linux in terms of filesystems. I used Ext 2 or 3 for stability in the past but the performance was lacking. I have found the same stability in JFS and XFS with an increase in performance. I hope more distros include more choices in filesystems. They make a big difference!!
As far as the comments about Linux not working out of the box you have to be kidding right?? Am I using some crappy XP not I am using the XP rescue disc from Sony that has been designed for my system. It is not ready after installation. I have to download a ton of updates from M$ and Sony just to get the drivers working. Then if you want to go on-line XP will not run out of the box. Try it without any additional software. In a few minutes you will have been infected with a plethera of malware! On the other hand I can install PCLinuxOS Vector Linux and all of my hardware is detected. I have to do a couple of configurations that take less than a couple of minutes and boom. I am ready to surf the net with a firewall that works. I have an arsenal of software at my disposal that all works out of the box! No need to buy M$ Office or Adobe Photoshop or antivirus and anti-spyware software.
For clueless internet users I think Linux is much better. As others have pointed out most people can't even configure a firewall on Windows let alone run the anti-virus scans or update their software. They run IE and add to their vulnerability. In contrast in Linux most of the distros enable a firewall by default. Running firefox in Linux or one of the many browsers available in Linux are much more secure than IE. So anyone can just browse the net and not worry about it. Just set it and forget it! As far as ease of use I think in many ways some of the user friendly distros are as easy or easier to use than Windows. The menus are organized better. The GUIs are simple and better rendered. Overall the look and feel of most modern Linux distros is better than Xp using KDE or Gnome.
I think you are completely wrong if you think Linux is not ready out of the box. Maybe you are not ready to accept that Linux is ready and is now leaving Windows behind. I also have to argue with the idea that Mac user interface is not ready for Windows users. I think any modern Unix(BSD, Linux,Mac,etc) GUI is way better than any Windows based Gui, including Vista-Longhorn or whatever whenever it comes out!! At least with Mac you can run Linux applications and we all know Unix is more stable and more secure than Windows.
If you like Linux that stop saying stupid comments and stop using Windows!!
R
89 • Hardware Support (by John Kilgour on 2006-03-16 21:05:10 GMT from Hungerford, United Kingdom)
I have somewhat elderly hardware, run SuSE 10.0 and have had all my hardware automatically detected (with the exception of a PrimeFilm 1800u scanner). Linux problems only seem to arise with brand new hardware where the manufacturer does NOT provide LINUX data or drivers. Manufacturers know that if they don't provide W*****s drivers, they wont sell much hardware. It takes time for the Free Software developers to design and produce drivers. I reckon that they do a remarkably good job. For any new hardware I check that it will run with Linux.
90 • 52 tip for Anonymous Penguin (by AC on 2006-03-16 23:36:42 GMT from , United States)
I agree hardware support can be difficult with the BSDs - although a lot of hardware works perfectly. But may I suggest, for someone who is interested in learning more about Unix, running NetBSD (it uses fewer resources than FreeBSD or OpenBSd, so it's better with this approach) on Qemu? Then hardware issues go out the window and you can find out whether it's worth it to track down hardware that it can support perfectly. (NetBSD will run on some very old boxen. It's even better in that regard than GNU/Linux.) The performance, even with X and the default twm is still great on Qemu and you can explore many of the subtle differences between Unix flavors. You may not decide it's worth your time to do an actual install, but you may just decide you really like it.
91 • 2nd beta installer for Debian Etch, nice improvements (by AC on 2006-03-17 00:45:17 GMT from , United States)
http://debcentral.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=321
92 • RE: #90 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-17 08:40:46 GMT from Roma, Italy)
Thanks for the tip.
And what would you suggest, could I use VMware instead?
93 • 92 (by AC on 2006-03-17 18:54:05 GMT from , United States)
From what I understand, VMware will work just fine for this sort of application, likely better than Qemu, I imagine.
Here's a great site with tips on virtualization and different OSes, with sections of Qemu and VMware:
http://www.the-labs.com/OS/
94 • RPM Hell?! :-) (by Anonymous on 2006-03-17 22:37:57 GMT from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil)
http://www.indidea.org/gael/en/fired-message.php
95 • mac (by robzilla on 2006-03-18 02:08:44 GMT from San Clemente, United States)
Just got my first mac. I got rid of my Sony and now have a nice little iBook 12". All I could afford but so far I am very happy. I still have my old desktop for Linux but it is nice not to have to use Windows or M$ any more!
96 • Kororaa (by Tim on 2006-03-18 03:29:51 GMT from Denver, United States)
DL'd Kororaa to see what the hoopla is for myself. MD5 checked. K3B burned it and then did a byte for byte compare and said my CD's OK. Started the install.
Everything appeared to be detected just fine. Finally, it apparently tried to start the graphical environment (5 times!) and then threw me to a CLI prompt as root.
I typed logout.
The "L" went on the line with the prompt, the rest went to the next line where apparently it expected a password.
So I tried following the instructions remaining on screen: to log in as kororaa with password xgl.
Same thing happened. Nothing I tried could get things working. Any suggestions from someone who has got it working would be appreciated. I have: 1.1GHz Athlon, 512MB, nvidia GeForce4400 w/ 128MB.
Thanks.
97 • 96 (by Tim on 2006-03-18 03:30:38 GMT from Denver, United States)
BTW, you got my location correct
98 • #47 (by welkiner on 2006-03-18 05:27:24 GMT from Los Angeles, United States)
Tim(#96),
Guess that's what we get when we're trying the latest and "greatest".
I've had about the same thing happening with Ubuntu's live-cd Dapper Flight 5. In my post #47, I stated how impressed I was with the live-cd on my desktop comp., but it would not boot on laptop. Well since then I have burned it twice (in case that was the problem) and tried to install to HD on 3 different desktops...No Joy...
I'm still looking for a good HD installable Live-CD with Gnome. The best that I've found is Parsix. It uses Kanotix detection and installer, is Gnome, and seems to be rock solid, though I don't need the Persian language apps. I guess I am looking for the best of both worlds. When it comes to HW detection and fast simple HD install, I want cutting-edge as in Kanotix, but after the install I want something more in the line of Sarge with bells and whistles, as in GeniOS. Still open to suggestions.
#97 Sure didn't get my location. I'm in North Carolina and my cable ISP server is in Pennsylvania...go figure.
99 • Blag (by Mika Hack on 2006-03-18 07:44:14 GMT from Cagliari, Italy)
New Blag released................
wooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Have a look!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will!!!!!!!!!!
100 • RE: #93 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-03-18 09:15:48 GMT from Roma, Italy)
Thanks for the link. It sounds like an interesting site. I'll have a close look.
101 • # 98 (by Anonymous on 2006-03-18 12:16:41 GMT from Braslia, Brazil)
"I'm still looking for a good HD installable Live-CD with Gnome."
Kurumin, but it is KDE.
And kurumin is also a knoppix/kanotix/debian derivative.
"but after the install I want something more in the line of Sarge with bells and whistles, as in GeniOS. Still open to suggestions."
No need to suggestions. Simple download GenieOS and install it.
Than apt-get sarge in the sequence...
102 • #98 - still looking (by ray carter at 2006-03-18 16:13:31 GMT from Meridian, United States)
"I'm still looking for a good HD installable Live-CD with Gnome."
gnoppix?
103 • tomahawk (by memyself on 2006-03-19 18:08:59 GMT from Tartu, Estonia)
tomahawk desktop looks promising, something i have dreamed of. the user package management i and maybe you have seen in LinuxFromScratch hints. just wish that they came up with a GUI for it.
104 • tomahawk (by memyself on 2006-03-19 18:14:06 GMT from Tartu, Estonia)
oh, and widescreen monitors support.
Number of Comments: 104
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| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
KnoSciences
KnoSciences was a Knoppix-based bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. It was designed for use in educational institutions.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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