 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 148, 24 April 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 17th issue of DistroWatch Weekly. A flurry of distribution releases and related announcements were the highlights of the past week. The Ubuntu project has released the complete set of betas of all their derivatives, including the newly added Xubuntu, and also made an initial announcement concerning the development of Edgy Eft, the code name of its next release. Similarly, the Fedora project has announced an estimated release schedule for the development of Fedora Core 6. Also in this issue: updates on the status of Mandriva's Cooker repository, new minor release by Linspire, a comparison of journalled files system on Debian, and an interesting interview with the lead developer of Elive. In the First Look series we share our first impressions of CCux Linux 0.9.8. Finally, a little statistical titbit: with the recent addition of Xubuntu, the DistroWatch database now contains exactly 500 distributions. Happy reading!
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (4.64MB) or mp3 (5.86MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
Content:
Miscellaneous news: Edgy Eft, Fedora, Mandriva and Linspire updates, SUSE Enterprise features, journalled file systems, Elive interview
 With the development of "Dapper Drake" nearing an end soon, Mark Shuttleworth has started planning for the next release of Ubuntu, code name "Edgy Eft". His mailing list announcement last week brought several interesting points. Firstly, it's obvious that the Ubuntu developers have high confidence in Dapper, the distribution's first product with long term support (3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server). Secondly, Edgy Eft will have more experimental features than any of Ubuntu's previous releases - as was so poetically expressed by the project leader who was born and grew up in Africa: "An Eft is a youthful newt, going through its first exploration of the rocky territory just outside the stream." And thirdly, Edgy will also bring some changes in the project's management structures, giving more free reign to individual developers who wish to pursue their own interests. With the development tree expected to branch in the middle of June, it will be interesting to see how they manage to balance the need for stability with experimental features many of which are just starting to emerge.
* * * * *
 The recent release of Fedora Core 5 has brought a flood of reviews, articles and Fedora-related community projects. Among them, Fedora Frog looks like an interesting initiative, designed mostly for new Linux users, to considerably extend the capabilities of Fedora 5 with a single script. Those who are interested to learn more about their new system will find this overview by Red Hat Magazine invaluable, while O'Reilly's Linux DevCenter has contributed an interesting first impressions review and HowTo Forge has written a 6-page story entitled The Perfect Setup. And although most reviews of Fedora Core have been overwhelmingly positive, not everybody is pleased with certain aspects of the Fedora 5 experience: do you agree or disagree with this unflattering comment made by a well-known open source personality over the Fedora 5 artwork? Please discuss below.
* * * * *
 Those SUSE users and fans who are getting impatient following the unexpectedly long development of SUSE Linux 10.1 might be able to kill some time by reading about the great new features in the upcoming release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. Jeff Jaffe has summarised most of the important ones in his web log: "With Novell Linux Desktop 9, we had an example of a desktop that was good enough for many applications. And we have been seeing a rapid rate of innovation for the Linux desktop. I claimed that with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, it is ready for prime time." Besides general points, the author also lists many of the product's innovative features, such as Beagle desktop search, Xgl graphics subsystem, policy-driven network manager, speed enhancements and faster boot. The complete article is available here.
* * * * *
 With many Linux news sites focusing on the big release announcement and various testing stages of Fedora, SUSE and Ubuntu, the developers of Mandriva Linux, who desided to skip the 2nd quarter release rush, quietly continue maintaining the Cooker repository in preparation for an upcoming beta release of Mandriva Linux 2007. According to Linux Wizard, some of the more recent addition and upgrades in Cooker include KDE 3.5.2, GNOME 2.14.1, X.Org 7.0, Mono applications with Beagle (and a hope that Beagle will replace Kat as a default desktop search tool), and several other new features. Also of note while on the subject of new features is this post by Adam Williamson - while needlessly taking a poke at a recent Ubuntu announcement, it does give a few hints about some of the features found in Mandriva Linux. According to the schedule estimation, a beta release of Mandriva 2007 can be expected any day now.
* * * * *
 After more than a year without a major announcement, Linspire has suddenly sprung into life with the release of an updated version of Linspire Five-0 (marketing name: Five-0 V2, development version: 5.1.427). The minor version bump indicates that the release does have a few new features, including a new kernel, X.Org and many updated applications, although the base system and unsupported software packages were left unupgraded. Even more interestingly, in the latest Linspire letter Kevin Carmony promises a major announcement expected during the upcoming Desktop Linux Summit, starting today (Monday): "As the CEO of Linspire, of course, the thing I'm most excited about is a very big announcement that I'll be making during my presentation at DLS. This is something Linspire has been working on for two years, and is the biggest news to ever come out of the Company." Any guesses what the mysterious "big announcement" might be? Update>: the cat is out of the bag and it's called Freespire.
* * * * *
 Do you also hesitate every time you need to choose a journalled file system while installing a Linux distribution? If so, you might find it interesting to read the File system comparison on Debian 'etch', as published by Debian-Administration.org. In it, Hans Ivers provides a number of benchmarks to evaluate the performance on ext3, JFS, ReiserFS and XFS file systems. And the winner? Perhaps surprisingly, it's the less well-known and relatively rarely used XFS: "While recognizing the relative merits of each file system, a system administrator has no choice but to install only one file system on his servers. Based on all testing done for this benchmark essay, XFS appears to be the most appropriate file system to install on a file server for home or small-business needs." Read the full article here.
* * * * *
 Those readers who enjoy the eye candy provided by Elive and the Enlightenment window manager should read this interesting interview with the lead developer of Elive - Samuel "Thanatermesis" F. Baggen. Answering the question about why he chose Enlightenment for his development work, he replies: "I chose Enlightenment for various reasons. All other distros use the same desktop, KDE or GNOME.... I like to offer a different thing, a different experience. Enlightenment is fast, perfectly stable, and the customisations are infinite. It is a really powerful and optimised desktop, and I try to tell people to understand it is not just beautiful. For the next version of Elive I am writing a basic interactive tutorial -- a funny toy -- to give users a good first impression, the real light of Enlightenment." Read the rest of the interview here.
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| First looks: CCux Linux 0.9.8 |
CCux Linux 0.9.8
 CCux Linux is a Linux distribution developed independently by Christian Metzen and a small group of developers in Germany. Optimised for speed and intended as an easy-to-use desktop system, the project has been around for over 18 months during which it produced a number of alpha releases. Then finally last week, the distribution's latest release was declared stable and made available for free download. I installed the new version during the weekend to check out the progress CCux Linux has made in recent months.
The CCux Linux installation CD boots into a graphical installation program, providing a way to choose between German and English as the installer's language. The partitioning part is also a graphical one, based on QTParted, but if you don't need to partition, you can safely close the application to return to the tabbed installer. And this is where I found the first bug - despite QTParted detecting all 27 partitions on my /dev/hda, the installer limited the number of options to just 15 of them. As for the file system options, ext3, ReiserFS and XFS were available from a drop-down menu. The installer was also characterised by a somewhat "Germanised" English, with most English nouns capitalised; while not a big deal, it does give a somewhat negative first impression about the distribution's attention to detail - or lack of it.
Next: boot loader configuration. Again, I found it a little disheartening that the distribution only allowed installing GRUB into the master boot record (MBR) and not into the root partition. This was compensated by the "Profiles" dialog - a clever way to select pre-defined application sets (normal, minimal and full), but those who prefer to fine-tune the installation process will also find an expert options allowing individual packages selection. This was followed by several more oddities, such as the one on the system language and keyboard dialogue which had German pre-selected, despite having previously selected English as the installation language. Interestingly, setting up a root password is compulsory, but creating a user account is not. The final installation screen is dedicated to configuring network options.
After the installation completed, I rebooted the system into a KDM login screen, which was, once again, in German! Luckily, the unfamiliar language settings were not carried over to the KDE desktop (version 3.5.2) which was correctly set to English. A quick edit to xorg.conf was required to fix the less-than-optimal screen resolution, but otherwise hardware auto-detection and auto-configuration appeared to be without further flaws. Apart from the default desktop wallpaper, KDE was left unmodified from its upstream state.
CCux Linux 0.9.8 - the first stable release of the desktop-oriented, i686 optimised distribution from Germany.
(full image size: 618kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
On the desktop, things looked pretty similar to most other single-CD, desktop-oriented distributions available today. The application set consisted of familiar names, such as AmaroK, The GIMP, digiKam and Xine under the multimedia menu, Firefox, Thunderbird and Gaim for the Internet, KOffice and Scribus as productivity applications, and Bluefish as the only HTML editor. Proprietary graphics drivers were not included on the CD (they are available as a separate download), although support for MP3 files and encrypted DVDs was provided out of the box.
The most intriguing feature of CCux Linux is its inclusion of 'Smart' as a method of handling RPM packages. Although Smart was originally designed as a command line tool, the developers of CCux Linux have also included a graphical front-end for the package manager. Besides managing installed packages, the Smart Package Manager (see screenshot below) on CCux 0.9.8 was pre-configured to provide a simple way to install extra applications directly from the project's package database; a quick look through the repository revealed the availability of exactly 1,000 binary packages ready for installation. The user interface, somewhat resembling Synaptic, was nice, but not quite polished - as an example, searching for a package only revealed a subdirectory where the package could be, but not the package itself.
CCux linux 0.9.8 - the Smart Package Manager
(full image size: 57kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Overall, CCux Linux 0.9.8 is not a bad distribution. It does not provide enough unique features to give it an outright recommendation and the annoyances in the system installer make it look like a beta release, rather than a stable one it claims to be, but this is a problem faced by many other projects that don't have enough users and testers. Perhaps with the current "stable" release now out, more users will give it a try and help the developers with fixing the remaining bugs and annoyances and perhaps even write some useful documentation.
For more information and download links please visit the project's web site at CCux-Linux.de.
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| Released Last Week |
StartCom Enterprise Linux 3.0.5
StartCom Enterprise Linux 3.0.5 has been released. This is the latest in the series of updated releases based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. What's new? "StartCom made a strategic switch concerning the update mechanism and all current and future operating systems will receive their updates via the new YUM. Other changes and additions for AS-3.0.5 are full support for smart cards from the OpenSC project, addition of Firefox and Thunderbird (both 1.5 versions) with the natural support for the StartCom Free SSL Certification Authority, but also some 300 other updated packages." Read the rest of the press release for further details.
Arabian Linux 0.6
Arabian Linux 0.6 has been released: "After 4 months without working on Arabian Linux, I'm happy to announce today the final release of version 0.6. There are no big changes between RC1 and this release, a number bug fixes and the Arabic spell checker has been added to OpenOffice.org and aspell. Arabian Linux is a bootable CD with a compilation of GNU/Linux software, full support for Arabic and English languages, and automatic hardware detection. It's the first Arabic live distribution using KDE as the default GUI and the first to have the Arabic language enabled in consoles." For more information please read the release announcement (in Arabic) and visit the project's Wiki pages.
FreeNAS 0.66
FreeNAS is a small FreeBSD-based operating system which provides free Network-Attached Storage (NAS) services. A new version 0.66, fixing bugs and adding minor new features, has been released. What's new? "Upgraded to FreeBSD 6.1 RC #12; added Broadcom NetXtreme II PCI/PCIe Gigabit Ethernet adapter driver; added FreeBSD version on the main page; added iSCSI diagnostic page (useful for displaying a list of target names); permit to mount more than 1 partition on the same hard drive; permit to use numbers in the login name; add CIFS buffer configuration option; added smartd daemon on the syslog settings page." For more details please refer to the release notes.
Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r2
Martin Schulze has announced the release of a second revision of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 "sarge": "This is the second update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (codename 'sarge') which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with some corrections to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update. Please note that this update does not produce a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 but only adds a few updated packages to it." Read the rest of the release announcement for a complete list of changes.
Scientific Linux 4.2 Live CD/DVD
The Scientific Linux project, which rebuilds source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) into a complete RHEL clone, has released a live CD/DVD edition of their latest version for the i386 and x86_64 architectures: "The Scientific Linux Live CD/DVD is a bootable CD/DVD that runs Linux directly from CD/DVD without installing. It is based on Scientific Linux 4 It uses Unification File System (Unionfs), allowing read-only file system to behave as a writable one and SquashFS providing on-the-fly decompression that allows to store 2GB of software on a normal CD-ROM. The Live CD/DVD was built using modified scripts from Linux-Live." A mini live CD, a standard live CD and a full-blown live DVD are available for download; please see the release announcement for details and a list of download mirrors.
GoblinX 1.3
A new stable version of the Slackware-based GoblinX live CD has been released: "GoblinX 1.3 is released. GoblinX 1.3 uses the same kernel from GoblinX Premium; it means you can use all extra drivers from the Premium edition on it. The new release has several improvements and upgrades, also some new special features are added, some errors and bugs are corrected, a new version of Linux-Live is used, and some scripts are upgraded. In comparison with Goblinx 1.2, this is a more stable and complete version, and almost all of the live CD was upgraded. GoblinX 1.3 uses kernel 2.6.15, NVIDIA and ATI 3D acceleration, KDE 3.5.1, X.Org 6.9.0 and more." Visit the project's news page to read the full release announcement.
DNALinux Server 0.592
DNALinux is a SLAX-based live CD with a collection of software for bioinformatics. Here is the latest release, version 0.592: "We have updated the DNALinux server. This version is based on SLAX 5.1.0 and Apache 2 web server. DNALinux server allows you to run a blast server (like NCBI BLAST server) in your own network. Some sequences are already included and it is easy to install more databases (provided that you feel comfortable with the Linux command line). But you don't need to know Linux to use it; just boot a networked PC with DNALinux server and point your browser to that machine, and you are set!" More details can be found in the release announcement.
CCux Linux 0.9.8
The CCux project has announced the first stable release of its desktop-oriented, i686-optimised Linux distribution: "We are proud to announce the new CCux Linux release. Some highlights of this release: kernel 2.6.16; KDE 3.5.2; RPM 4.4.2 and 'smart' package manager; Firefox 1.5.0.2 and Thunderbird 1.5; many installer bug fixes (uses QTParted now). We now finally use 'smart' as the package manager, even for the installation, all old usage of apt is gone! We really hope you like this new release and give it a try." Read the full release announcement for further information.
Debian From Scratch 0.99.0
John Goerzen has announced a new release of Debian From Scratch, an unofficial Debian rescue CD that provides an easy way to build a complete Debian system directly from source code: "Debian From Scratch (DFS) is a single, full rescue CD capable of working with all major files systems, LVM, software RAID, and even compiling a new kernel. The DFS ISO images also contain a small Debian mirror subset that lets you use cdebootstrap, along with the other utilities on the CD, to perform a manual, 'Gentoo-like' installation. It also serves as an excellent rescue CD, with a full compliment of files system tools, backup and restore software, and a development environment complete enough to build your own kernels." More information can be found in the release announcement and on the project's features page.
Linspire 5.1
Linspire has announced the release of an updated ISO image for Linspire Five-0, version 5.1.147: "The engineers released Linspire Five-0 V2 today." Although this appears to be a minor update, several new features have been included in this release; most notable among them are: upgraded kernel 2.6.14; upgrade to X.Org 6.9.0; replacement of LTorrent with BitTorrent 4.4.0; addition of Gizmo, a free and easy-to-use Internet phone; a large number of new network tool features and supported Windows modems; upgrade to OpenOffice.org 2.0; many bug fixes. For more information and a detailed list of changes please see the release announcement and release notes.
* * * * *
Development and unannounced releases
- Berry Linux 0.69, the changelog
- SimplyMEPIS 6.0-alpha2, the press release
- DSL-N 0.1-alpha, the release announcement
- Ubuntu 6.06-beta, the release announcement
- Kubuntu 6.06-beta, the release announcement
- Xubuntu 6.06-beta, the release announcement
- PCLinuxOS 0.93-minime, the release announcement
- VectorLinux 5.1-rc3 (Live), the release announcement
- Edubuntu 6.06-beta, the release announcement
- Bayanihan Linux 4-beta1, the release announcement
- SUSE Linux 10.1-rc1, the release announcement
- Kurumin Linux 6.0
- DragonFly BSD 1.4.4
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Fedora Core 6
Jeremy Katz has announced a draft schedule for the upcoming Fedora Core 6, thus marking the project's return to a 6-month release cycle: "We started off with a discussion around the merits of a six month vs a nine month schedule. While the longer schedule did allow us to get more 'stuff' in, from my point of view of trying to get the release out, the more 'stuff' actually made it significantly more difficult to finish the release. Also, a six month schedule tends to make it so that we line up better with a variety of other projects that we depend on. There was more, but suffice to say that the overwhelming consensus was that six month schedules work 'better'." The first test release of Fedora 6 is expected on 14 June, while the final release is scheduled for 20 September 2006.
Frugalware Linux 0.5
Following the recent release of Frugalware Linux 0.4, the distribution's developers have published an updated release schedule for their next major release - version 0.5. As usual, the development process will consist of two pre-releases and two release candidates before the final release on 30 September 2006. For more information please visit the project's roadmap page.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to the DistroWatch database
- Xubuntu. Xubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. Unlike its parent, however, Xubuntu uses the light-weight XFce desktop environment and is optimised for lower-end machines. The distribution includes only GTK+ applications where possible.
* * * * *
New distributions added to the waiting list
- BESTIX. BESTIX, based on KANOTIX, claims to be an Internet Cafe CD with a wide selection of languages selectable at boot.
- DeniX. DeniX is an independent Linux based distribution built from scratch. It aims to offer a user-friendly full-featured server operating system, pre-configured, well structured and easy to work with, and filled with the latest stable versions of Linux applications. Every package is downloaded from the author's source and compiled when installed.
- YAKR. YAKR, or Yet Another Knoppix Remaster, is a new live CD based on KNOPPIX.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 1 May 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • No subject (by Andrea on 2006-04-24 10:31:49 GMT from Cagliari, Italy)
a bit flat issue. I'd like to read something funny by robert storey (I hope the name is right) again. :-)
2 • MiniME (by Caraibes on 2006-04-24 10:56:09 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Hi Folks !
Nice to read DWW, always enjoy it with my morning coffee !!
I would have enjoy more attention to the very interesting project of PCLinuxOS MiniME, which is a "bare-bone" OS, that one can customize...
The end-user can feel creative without breaking his back (!!!), because it´s all in synaptic, a couple of clicks away...
Anyway, I wnjoyed reading about "Fedora Frog", I might test it, to see if it´s anny better that "easy Ubuntu", which was quite buggy...
Xubuntu sounds like a great project who deserves more attention, and a better website. If any of the Canonical guys are reading this, they should give more help to that project, which is in their Ubuntu family !
3 • Xubuntu (by AC on 2006-04-24 11:01:21 GMT from , United States)
has become an ugly parody of Ubuntu with Xfec4 looking like a clumsy imitation of GNOME instead of a desktop environment that is elegant in its own right. blech!
4 • 3 (by AC on 2006-04-24 11:02:39 GMT from , United States)
but you're right. It is a worthwhile project. Maybe more attention would lead them away from the path they're currently on.
5 • fedora artwork (by darkie on 2006-04-24 11:13:00 GMT from Winchester, United Kingdom)
I don't see why some people are complaining about the artwork. I really like it and I think its a lot better than previous versions. For those that don't like it, it can be changed, by taking a quick trip to gnome-look.org and kde-look.org. The only thing I dislike is that the KDE login manager theme is not as good and GDMs.
6 • Xubuntu is awesome (by JGF on 2006-04-24 11:17:22 GMT from Adelaide, Australia)
Xubuntu is awesome. Stable, fast and light. The menus are customisable so who really cares what the default configuration is?
7 • Xubuntu is a very young project... (by Caraibes on 2006-04-24 11:32:32 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Friends,
I agree that Xubuntu is a bit "clumsy" loooking... I had that feeling when using it as a live-cd yesterday... However, it can improve, it can get to a point where they find their own niche as a lightweight desktop...
of course, they have a very strong concurent in Zenwalk, who does exactly what Xubuntu wants to do, in a very nice and elegant way (hey, I am partial, since I am writing this on Zenwalk !!!)...
But one advantage of Xubuntu is apt-get, and the huge *buntu/deb repos...
That is why I call on Canonical to help out Janni, the very friendly Xubuntu guy...
8 • Where is Mini-Me? (by Anonymous on 2006-04-24 11:46:22 GMT from Sarasota, United States)
It was released last week - why isn't it mentioned?
9 • Re: Xubuntu (by Ariszló on 2006-04-24 11:47:36 GMT from Budapest, Hungary)
AC wrote: Xubuntu has become an ugly parody of Ubuntu with Xfec4 looking like a clumsy imitation of GNOME...
XFce (started in 1996) has never imitated Gnome (started in 1997). XFce's look and feel is based on CDE, which is much older than Gnome or even KDE.
10 • 7 (by AC on 2006-04-24 11:47:43 GMT from , United States)
Of course one can rearrange things to one's liking. But it does not inspire confidence in a desktop aiming to do for Xfce4 what Ubuntu and Kubuntu are suppoed to be doing for GNOME and KDE - provide the best exmples of their respective desktops available - when the approach seems to be to just try to make Xfce4 more GNOME-like.
11 • 12 (by Anonymous on 2006-04-24 11:50:13 GMT from , United States)
I am very well aware that Xfce4 has never aimed to imitate GNOME and of its inspiration in CDE. I used to use CDE. I am talking about Xubuntu's default configuration. Check this out and see if you don't see what I mean.
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=618&slide=5&title=xubuntu+6.06+beta+screenshots
12 • 27 partitions? (by Anonymous on 2006-04-24 11:56:11 GMT from Braslia, Brazil)
"And this is where I found the first bug - despite QTParted detecting all 27 partition on my /dev/hda1, the installer limited the number of options to just 15 of them."
all 27 partition on /dev/hda1
or
all 27 partitions on /dev/hda?
13 • XUbuntu (by vipernicus on 2006-04-24 12:06:00 GMT from Shreveport, United States)
If XFCE is not trying to immitate GNOME, then why is Thunar (XFCE file manager) trying imitate Nautilus?
14 • 16 (by AC on 2006-04-24 12:11:39 GMT from , United States)
Actually, if you read the discussions on the Thunar page, you'll see in fact a thoughtful discussion of what is most usable in each of several file managers.
http://thunar.xfce.org/wiki/ui:overview
And remember that Thunar is very much in flux at this point.
Xfce has never had a strong file manager, hence the widespread practice of using the Rox filer with it. But what it has had has seldom imitated GNOME and has very much been about the design underlying CDE, along with principles of modularity.
15 • RE: 8 • Where is Mini-Me? (by ladislav on 2006-04-24 12:16:12 GMT from Taipei, Taiwan)
It was released last week - why isn't it mentioned?
It _is_ mentioned. You just need to read more carefully.
16 • Edgy Eft (by Nobody special on 2006-04-24 12:30:16 GMT from Paris, France)
From what I understood of the announcement, the free rein is only given for Edgy Eft, not for all subsequent releases.
The Ubuntu developers are confident enough about Dapper that they are willing to recommend it over Edgy for those seeking stability, with the following release (Fickle Fledgling?) consolidating the advances made during Edgy, built for stability again.
Maybe it will be a return to the old Redhat scheme:
- x.0 risky, with lots of infrastructure work,
- x.1 standard, with most rough edges from x.0 gone,
- x.2 rock-stable,
- (x+1).0 unsafe again...
The practical side was, we always knew where in the stability cycle we were supposed to be. I miss that.
We'll see, I guess.
17 • Re: 11 • 12 (by Ariszló on 2006-04-24 12:50:39 GMT from Budapest, Hungary)
I see your point. I can also see that referring to topic numbers sucks. They change after junk posts are deleted.
18 • 16 (by AC on 2006-04-24 12:52:51 GMT from , United States)
What I find interesting is that the big advantage of Ubuntu over Debian was supposed to be their regular release schedule. Now, I don't begrudge them six extra weeks for Dapper, but how "edgy" will Edgy be? Will it instead be a truly stable release every year and a half and the rest "kind of sort of" stable? If Debian gets Etch out the door as scheduled (a big "if" I know) then the advantage will be hard to see.
19 • Re: 13 • XUbuntu (by Ariszló on 2006-04-24 13:00:33 GMT from Budapest, Hungary)
If XFCE is not trying to immitate GNOME, then why is Thunar (XFCE file manager) trying imitate Nautilus?
What do you mean? The icon theme? Or the GTK-style shortcuts also used by The GIMP independently of Nautilus? Although both The GIMP and Nautilus are GTK apps, The GIMP runs well without Gnome or Nautilus.
http://thunar.xfce.org/wiki/ui:suggestion-20050320
20 • xfs is not rare! (by project2501 on 2006-04-24 13:03:19 GMT from Rochdale, United Kingdom)
"the less well-known and relatively rarely used XFS" - i disagree, those who've needed to chose between filesystems for a reason have used XFS for years.
and its great for a responsive desktop system too. if only all the distributions could boot from it - mandrake can, fedora needs an ext2/3 /boot partition.
21 • What is the problem ? (by Marc on 2006-04-24 13:03:27 GMT from Beloeil Village, Canada)
Who care which immitate which.
A car is a car , a house is a house.
The difference is inside and you can't change that !!!
XFCE4 is a very speedy and responsive DE and this
what we lack in the computer world now.
I'm using it in Zenwalk and the thing rocks.
Just for an exemple, it take less than 30 secs to boot
to the Desktop. Not to GDM, to the desktop.
Now thats good computing.
22 • imitation (by AC on 2006-04-24 13:10:28 GMT from , United States)
I have no problem with imitation, per se, so long as people are accurate about who is imitating whom. The initial objection I posed to Xubuntu wasn't about their imitating the default GNOME interface so much as the fact that they're totally ignoring the strengths of Xfce4. I imagine they think that GNOME is the be all and end all of usability, so Xfce4 needs to look and feel like GNOME. But I've found Xfce4 to be no only easier for newbies to get a handle on, with commonly used applications a click away with easily recognizable icons, but also quite suitable for more experienced users.
23 • 5 Fedora Artwork (by Anonymous on 2006-04-24 13:29:18 GMT from Hamden, United States)
I agree. I like the Fedora 5 artwork as well. I don't even mind the KDE login manager.
24 • Boot times (by william johnson on 2006-04-24 13:50:09 GMT from Wilmington, United States)
Who cares whether it takes 45 secs or 65 secs to boot?
It's what you got when you arrive at your desktop. There
are distros in the top ten here that after you install them, you
can't play a dvd , to me that is a total joke.
I guess TEXSTAR has spoiled me.
25 • Frugalware (by Edo on 2006-04-24 13:53:42 GMT from Surabaya, Indonesia)
Frugalware is really a good, reliable and complete distro it fast and stable......and I cant hardly wait for the next release (0.5) .........
Oo....btw....I heard that Frugalware has released A live CD but it still has bugs so they dont make an annoucement yet......so wait for the big news guys.... :)
let's make things Frugal !!!
26 • ccux (by retired on 2006-04-24 13:54:35 GMT from Crawfordsville, United States)
A fair review of the installation, but I fear you have missed it's strength's. I've used it since May 2005 and I have experienced it's speed and stability. .97 actually had fewer bugs and I found it to be better than any other distro out there except for pclos.Wish you could give it time to witness it's strengths instead of a breif experience with the installer.
27 • DVDs (by AC on 2006-04-24 14:06:53 GMT from , United States)
Texstar has spoiled you by breaking the law. And by not giving you the choice of whether or not to break the law. The only joke is the sick joke the MPAA and the US Congress has played on us with the DMCA.
28 • Fedora (by Anonymous on 2006-04-24 14:32:04 GMT from Barmstedt, Germany)
I agree that the artwork was a step back. The wallpaper is eye-stresing, icons can hardly be identified on it, it is way too bright. FC4 was much better imho. More stable, faster (on my box), prettier.
Nice to see that Mandriva 2007 is slowly rolling out. I am really interested to see if the one-year release cycle will make Mandriva finally rock stable. It sounds interesting though. :)
29 • Elive (by ray carter at 2006-04-24 14:44:38 GMT from Meridian, United States)
I've done a few things with Elive. It has become my favorite Live CD, and I've had ocassion to install on some P166s with 64MB RAM - it performs quite acceptably. I appreciate the fact that Enlightenment is indeed something a bit different. I'd like to see Enlightenment or Elive selected for the next DW donation.
30 • No PPC Xubuntu? (by JimK on 2006-04-24 14:50:08 GMT from Nashville, United States)
Xubuntu apparently supports i*86 platforms only, but regular Ubuntu has a PowerPC version that supports G4 and G5 Powermacs. I have an old G3 iMac and I was hoping Xubuntu could work with it, but it looks like I"m out of luck. Does anybody know why Xubuntu doesn't have a PPC version? Is there any distro that will work on an old Mac with less than 100MB of memory?
31 • ppc ubuntu (by AC on 2006-04-24 14:54:28 GMT from , United States)
as I understand it, from my former roommate who uses Ubuntu, it is possible to do a minimal install of Ubuntu then apt-get xubuntu-desktop (or something like that)
I don't know what else is available, but have you considered Debian? It supports PPC and you can set up whatever desktop environment and choice of applications you like. And it's noted for its performance on older hardware.
32 • RE: 30 • No PPC Xubuntu? (by ladislav on 2006-04-24 14:56:20 GMT from Taipei, Taiwan)
There is a powerpc edition of both the installation and live CD in the Xubuntu download directory:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/dapper/beta/
Or are you looking for something else?
33 • No subject (by AC on 2006-04-24 14:57:45 GMT from , United States)
I've also heard good things about something called Slackintosh.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slackintosh
I personally am no fan of Slackware, but it too is noted for its performance on machines with little RAM or CPU power. I would guess that Slackintosh would be similar in that regard.
34 • ppc xubuntu (by JimK on 2006-04-24 15:04:28 GMT from Nashville, United States)
Thanks for the link to the ppc edition. When I made my comment, I was relying on the DW xubuntu page, which lists only an i386 version. (Ladislav, you may wish to fix that.)
I'll try the live cd now and if that works I'll try the install version when Dapper is released in June.
Also thanks to the ACs for the other suggestions.
35 • RE: 34 • ppc xubuntu (by ladislav on 2006-04-24 15:16:26 GMT from Tingtungshih, Taiwan)
Yes, the announcement only links to the i386 ISO image, but it also says that ISO images are available for three architectures. With so many different editions, live and installation CDs, torrent files, etc, it's not practical to link directly to every single ISO image.
36 • ppc xubuntu (by RE: 35 xubuntu (To Ladislav) on 2006-04-24 15:37:28 GMT from Nashville, United States)
Actually, I hadn't looked at the announcement. This was another place.
In the Feature table on your Xubuntu page, the 9th row lists "Processor Architecture." Only the i386 version is listed there.
I don't expect you to have links to all versions in the announcements. Your Web site is great, and I really appreciate all the care and work you put into it! Thanks, Ladislav.
37 • Xubuntu (by Dermotti on 2006-04-24 15:38:07 GMT from State College, United States)
Xubuntu's default "gnomish" layout isnt that bad. But a quick reoganization it can look very very sexy.
http://www.xubuntu.info
38 • First Look (by Videoguy on 2006-04-24 15:45:29 GMT from , United States)
I almost always enjoy reading the latest issue of Distrowatch Weekly. In this issue, I particularly read with great interest the article, First Looks: CCux Linux 0.98. I was, however, a bit distrurbed by the "mini-review" of it and felt in light of some of the other release announcements, compelled to respond.
A disclaimer on the front end: I have been working on a distribution as well for quite some time. It is still in its Alpha stages and it is still a royal mess. Also, I have not downloaded or installed CCux Linux. I will stipulate as accurate the "details" of the install as propounded in the article and I have no affiliation with CCux.
Apparently, CCux is, not unlike many others, a distribution put forth by a small group of developers with one guy as the lead. The fact that the project has been in Alpha for 18 months really isn't that shocking to me. However, I did find disturbing that the article stated: Then finally last week, the distribution's latest release was declared stable and made available for free download.
Then finally? Hmm, I think this reveals a prevailing attitude, shared by many in the community, that development is too darn slow. For many, the worth of a distro is all too often marked by how many "bleeding edge" packages are installed by default, and, by golly, it better be bug free at the same time. I call it the "I want my MTV" attitude. Although I do not use Debian or it's derivatives, I think in some respects their "it's ready when it's ready" philosophy makes sense.
I wonder how may of the currently listed distributions would accurately detect and allow configuration of the reviewer's 27 partitions? Is this really a bug? The fact that CCux's installer would allow configuration for 15 partitions is reasonable, don't you think? The "Germanised" English referred to in the installer may or may not put some folks off, but I'm not sure that this is the best way to determine a given distribuition's attention to detail, or lack of it.
As far as the bootloader goes, again there are many distributions that predominately feature lilo only. Nothing new here, move along. It would have been nice if the installer had accurately followed the language selection during the install and KDM login. I suspect that the developers will take that as a constructive observation, and correct it. Again, many distributions do not mandate a user account be created.
As far as video resolutions are concerned, I find this a minimal complaint as well. It is quite common for users to have to do a bit of tinkering to get an optimal setup. The installer set up X most likely with a conservative estimate to enable success on a wider amount of hardware.
Now here's an oddity. The article took a dim view that proprietary graphics drivers were not included on the cd. I gathered this was a bad thing. Interestingly though, the support for MP3 files and encrypted DVD's being provided out of the box was just stated as a matter of fact. Excuse me? Where's the outrage? In a prior review on this site, a distribution that I'm rather fond of, got shot at quicker than one of Dick Cheney's friends on a booze-filled hunting trip, for having the gall to incude this kind of ability. Make up your minds please.
If I am not mistaken, the Smart package manager was authored by a fellow from the former Connectiva, as well as the gui for it. I do not believe that the (lack of polish?) to the gui is CCux's fault. I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.
While the article states that overall, CCux Linux 0.9.8 is not a bad distribution. It does not provide enough unique features to give it an outright recommendation, I have to wonder given the large database of "distributions", both established and on the waiting list, whether or not this is a fair "First Look".
I would argue that many currently listed distributions, given this kind of criteria, are not distributions at all. The somewhat endless list of Debian, Ubuntu, Slax, Slackware, Fedora, Knoppix, et all remasters seemingly clog up the database with what appear to be endless vanity releases, consisting in some cases nothing more than some base distro with a different window manager.
A fresh look at what constitutes a "distro" on this site would be a welcome discussion. For example, Distrowatch treats installs on a M$ machine and many live cd's as second tier releases, while other live cd's, again with only "window manager surgery" as first class citizens. This trend continues, by the way, in this weeks edition , (cough, Xubuntu, cough).
As for CCux, it seems their biggest mistake was in symantics. The article states that the many annoyances make it look like a beta release. That's probably because it is.
Regards,
Videoguy
39 • No subject (by Zu on 2006-04-24 15:53:16 GMT from Polska, Poland)
Recently released distros made me change what I like/dislike. My experience with linux is quite short (I did start to try out about a year ago - in comparison to my PC experience of 14 years). After many trials my favourable distro become SuSE with KDE. It changed rapidly as my DVD died and I bought SATA ODD - I can't boot my SuSE anymore (many linux distros can't boot while 6y old WinXP can). SuSE 10.1 does can boot but it is total disappointment for me (but that's another story). So I decided to give a try to *buntu 6.06 as it can boot from SATA. I started with Kubuntu as i wanted to use KDE. I also tried out Ubuntu and now it seems to me it is far more polished version as it's derivates. Perhaps "german affair" has something to do with it or not - dunno. But I can't understand that I download a fresh daily build and just after installation I have to download 50M of updates then next day brings 100M of updates and so on. Ubuntu doesn't have this kind of adventures bundled. I still hope for that day I can whipe out my Win and have free OS of comparable quality (and to have a new PC is no more a sin).
40 • Praising XFce (by yur on 2006-04-24 15:57:32 GMT from Richardson, United States)
While being an XFce (and GNOME) user for a long time, I am hardly convinced by the assertion that XFce immitates GNOME. The file manager is not a desktop ... (not yet released) Thunar is not XFce.
Thunar's getting ideas from other files managers (which happen to be Nautilus ... or Konqueror or Explorer or whatever) is not the main issue. XFce is a very light-weighted, but very well-featured desktop. XFce seems a close-to-perfect one for people like me who do not want much of computing resources occupied by the desktop, not only for those who have slow or less equipped hardware.
XFce has a definite advantage over GNOME and KDE, not in that XFce is richer in features, but in that it can do most things that most users need while utilizing just a fraction of computing resources.
Accordingly, I'd like to welcome Xubuntu to the Linux community.
yur
41 • A reccomendation of a great distro for experts (by Kensai on 2006-04-24 16:09:43 GMT from , Puerto Rico)
I have been using linux for more than 2 years and I have used almost every distribution there is available, now I have been using lately Lunar Linux, Crux and Source Mage Linux. I have to say Lunar is good, Crux is great and Source Mage is Awesome. I find Crux and Source Mage to be great distributions, I have Source Mage as my Operating System now and it is beautiful and very flexible. I reccomend SMGL to every expert (read not afraid of command line) that wants to have a very flexible desktop.
42 • Fedora Art (by Jesse on 2006-04-24 16:33:34 GMT from Halifax, Canada)
I agree with the comment Fedora's art work has taken
a serious step back. The whole "f" inside a speech bubble
was silly and probably the result of design by commity.
The following Bubbles theme is a bit annoying. I wouldn't
say it's as bad as the mailing list poster suggests, but
it sure isn't soft on the eyes.
43 • DVD (by Texstar on 2006-04-24 16:50:18 GMT from Houston, United States)
You cant play encrypted dvds on PCLinuxOS out of the box without installing additional software. The user does have a choice.
44 • SUSE 10.1 in May (by SUSE on 2006-04-24 17:14:15 GMT from Fremont, United States)
Actually, SUSE 10.1 will not make the April 25 date. In fact, RC 3 is scheduled for the 28th and a full release should happen early May.
45 • I just luv this Fedora mumbo jumbo! (by Alberto on 2006-04-24 17:44:41 GMT from , Canada)
I really believe I'm gonna switch to Fedora. Man, they've really got it all: Pirut, Pup, the new HAL policy kit, LUKS, Sabayon, Tomboy, you name it. Can't see how anyone could use Linux without all this precious stuff. It's really easy to see where Fedora's roots are. I luv it.
Then again, if I don't have time to get acquainted to all this gibberish, I might very well stay with Slackware.
46 • ccux (by Simon on 2006-04-24 17:58:55 GMT from Seevetal, Germany)
I've been using ccux for more than one and a half years now and i've been enjoying it most of the time. I installed dsl on a different machine some weeks ago and made a debian unstable out of it. God, I'm so looking forward to installing ccux on this one too. It has been working stable all the time despite being a "alpha" release at that time. But even better than the system itself is the great community. Where else can you chat with the main developers and get questions answered directly by the experts? Talking about smart, the gui was not developed by anyone from the CCux team, we just contributed the German translation and a big testing community of course.
One final point about the English, normally when I meet a foreigner talking my native language very well i concratulate him, even if I do notice some little mistakes.
47 • fedora core (by matt on 2006-04-24 19:25:52 GMT from San Francisco, United States)
i really like look forward to tring out this fedora frog. i found it especially dificult to add repos to the test releases of FC5 (which is understandable). i think the biggest problem with FC5 is not its artwork (which is a very minor prob imho) its the nvidia propriatary drivers installation bug. i love FC and it was my first distro and im still using it. but some of my compies don't have internet and most of them have nvidia cards. so that was a very disapointing thing for me. i still love FC because of all the software it includes on the cd.
48 • RE: 27 (by IMQ on 2006-04-24 19:50:54 GMT from Decatur, United States)
How does Texstar break the law?
The PCLinuxOS does not play "encrypted" DVD by default. Users, who want to play DVD such as ones from video rental store, have to install libdvdcss via apt-get or 'Synaptic Software Manager'
As far as I can remember, this is the way PCLinusOS has always been. Texstar and the team just make it easier for users to add more multimedia capabilites, if they choose.
49 • The Linspire "big news"... (by Anonymous on 2006-04-24 21:06:50 GMT from Ploiesti, Romania)
is the ressurection of Freespire (officially supported by the company).
50 • Number of all distributions in the database is... (by Gabe on 2006-04-24 21:09:27 GMT from Bemidji, United States)
Number of all distributions in the database: 500!!!
w00t!
P.S. I think there should be a universal easyubuntu/fedora frog for each distro.
51 • 43 & 48 (by AC on 2006-04-24 22:23:47 GMT from , United States)
I stand corrected. I assumed given the claims of William Johnson in #24 that he was talking about encrypted DVDs. But then if it's something you have to add, most distros have that available.
52 • PS (by AC on 2006-04-24 22:31:04 GMT from , United States)
Given the nature of what I said, "I stand corrected" is insufficient. I apologize to Texstar for making serious and false accusations with insufficient information. That was thoughtless and irresponsible of me.
53 • Freespire (by AC on 2006-04-24 23:20:32 GMT from , United States)
http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/04/24/1951201&from=rss
The promised Linspire news
54 • Fedora - Yum & incompatible repositories (by ozonehole on 2006-04-25 00:51:07 GMT from Hsingya, Taiwan)
I think that Fedora Frog is a great idea and I hope that other distros take this approach. However, the really big problem with Fedora is Yum and its incompatible repositories. You can read about that here:
http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_4_installation_notes.html#Warning
This is not to mention that Yum is slow. Really slow when compared with APT. My recommendation to Fedora would be to abandon Yum and go to an APT system of package management. I don't give that much chance of happening, though.
55 • Universal EasyUbuntu/Fedora Frog (by A. Gered on 2006-04-25 08:29:57 GMT from Wien, Austria)
That will be next to impossible. It would neet to support RPM and DEB and also know which packages to download from the official repositories to resolve possible dependencies. Then there's a problem with settings (Num-lock on, etc), since few distros use the same config-files.
A better approach would be to take a good script and addapt it to a specific distro. Eg Automatix has been changed to work with SUSE.
56 • Re: #39 • No subject (by Zu on 2006-04-24 15:53:16 GMT from Polska, Poland) (by Lanx on 2006-04-25 09:18:45 GMT from Stuttgart, Germany)
What do you expect when using a system that is still beta software and in active development? The most recent ubuntu is Breezy Badger Ubuntu 5.10 from October of 2005. Dapper will be released on June, 1st. Until then it will be heavily updated every day. If you don't want to be forced to update, wait for the final release.
57 • DWW on MP3 (by Brad Kelley on 2006-04-25 12:03:59 GMT from Freeport, United States)
What happened to the distrowatch weekly on MP3. That was part of my morning routine. Coffee, oatmeal and distrowatch on the headphones. Was this cut due to lack of time or lack of funding?
Brad Kelley
Lighthouse Systems
58 • 500 distributions in the database (by end user on 2006-04-25 13:04:39 GMT from Camberley, United Kingdom)
Most non-geek end users just want to use a Linux distro and if DistroWatch has 500 listed in their database ? then there are certainly many more distro's than that around in the world.
It seems that despite the countless times it has been suggested that people do NOT create a new distro, but improve or join an existing distro is just being ignored. The statement of "but it is a learning experience" is just not good enough for me and I am sure many other people. One can just as easy gain that "learning experience" by working on an existing project. AND the statement of "you do not have to use this new XYZ distro" is not being very constructive at all, having so many Linux distros has just made things become even more complicated for the non-geek end user.
There are now to many distro (all-be-it many are specialised) it is just become "counter-productive" it does not seem help the Linux community at all. In fact I would assert that having so many distro's around (often one-man-band or just a few-man-band types) has now become detrimental to the growth of the use of Linux by non-geeks. Which to me is far more important than pandering to existing the Linux geeks. After all where is growth going to come from, not from geeks but from non-geeks.
Now I know that many of you will become very defencive and write things like "I do not care about non-geeks" and have an "I am all right jack" attitude. Commonly geeks say things like "go back to using Windows". Well that is not being very helpfull is it. Or (mentally) you do not "look outside that little box you live in" Many of you will continue to "live in denial" and claim that new growth in the use of Linux is not important. I would claim that you are wrong.
I would like to assert that there are now to many Linux distro's and that it has become counter productive having so many. It is just an "IMHO" and my 2 cents worth.
59 • Fedora frog (by tom on 2006-04-25 13:33:19 GMT from Helena, United States)
Has anyone tried frog. It looks great.
Is there anything simmilar for Debian/Ubuntu or SUSE?
Can the script be adapted to other distros (change configuration)?
AC- I've been using wine, broke a few things, learned a few things, fixed a few things, still no voice recognition in Linux. My problem seems to be with sound/microphone recognition. Working with the wine group.
60 • 59 (by AC on 2006-04-25 18:11:35 GMT from , United States)
That's the spirit! I do hope that they've been helpful. In my experience they have been. And I hope it works for you. Plus it would be great to have another program in their database so others can benefit from your struggles.
61 • 58 (by AC on 2006-04-25 18:19:00 GMT from , United States)
Who appointed you to the "Distro Police"?
"The statement of 'but it is a learning experience' is just not good enough for me and I am sure many other people."
Since when does anyone answer to you. Get over yourself.
btw, the word is "albeit", not "all-be-it".
"Many of you will continue to 'live in denial' and claim that new growth in the use of Linux is not important. I would claim that you are wrong."
In other words it's important to you. That doesn't mean it's important to them. Do there's no "denial" involved, Dr. Freud.
I'm the first person to encourage people to stick to one or two distros rather than distro hopping and to suggest that the top 10 provide most of what most people need. But guess what? Free Software is about Freedom. And as much as we (Free Software advocates I now presume to speak for) might like to encourage everyone to use Free Software, we're not going to start limiting freedom with dictates about what's good for hypothetical new users intimidated by the plethora of new distros.
62 • Re: 56 (by Zu on 2006-04-25 19:51:27 GMT from Polska, Poland)
I do understand what "beta" means. Notice - I compared Kubuntu vs. Ubuntu - both in state of development.
PS. To be honest, I do expect not much from Linux (as desktop) as for now, regardless whether in stable or beta version. I do like many things in Linux but a lot of problems remains unresolved and I can't tell how long will it take to fix it.
The sound quality - it does count for me. I plan to purchase SB X-Fi card and enjoy what it can - currently I have no choice but WXP. That's only one example to illustrate what I mean. However, I wish Linux is one day mature enough to become my only desktop. I can see it depends also from hardware industry approach to Open Source. They still don't care in most cases whether they products can operate under Linux or not despite of it's growing popularity.
63 • 61 & 58 (by tom on 2006-04-26 02:51:10 GMT from Helena, United States)
Distros are fine, consider them art. Be happy they are free.
#58-> Have you considered contributing to Linux? Linux is not just for Geeks/Sys admin/Programmers. You can test, hack, report bugs, promote, teach, use, improve, and bring a "reality check" to Linux.
#61-> Hi AC.
My thought is Linux would benefit from some degree of standardization. This obviously makes learning, admin, and third party (commercial) [both hardware and software] easier. It is hard to ask our hardware or software colleagues (and I use the term loosely) to make hardware/software for Linux without standardization (within Linux).
For example, say I have program X that is popular on say Windows. I would like to market to Linux. How much work will it take so my product can run (without bugs) to the satisfaction of my customers (hardware or software)? Do I need a separate version for Slackware/Fedora/SUSE/Debian/Ubuntu/DSL/Wolfvix??? How long is the list and how much work is this?
Seems if Linux had a “standard core” it would be easier for hardware/software developers to migrate to Linux. There would be pressure on most distros to maintain standardization to maintain compatibility (with subsequent access to hardware/software).
A distro could then choose to add to the core whatever “art” they wanted and (hopefully) maintain hardware/software compatibility.
Another distro could chose to maintain a non-standard core for art, fun, non-commercial, whatever. Compatibility would suffer, but who needs compatibility?
Standardization would promote growth of Linux and could be done in a non-restrictive way.
64 • 63 It's called LSB (by AC on 2006-04-26 03:20:46 GMT from , United States)
http://www.freestandards.org/en/LSB
And Debian founder Ian Murdoch is currently heading it up
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=628
Hi Tom
65 • Vector Linux ranking (by Darrell Stavem on 2006-04-26 03:23:58 GMT from Winnipeg, Canada)
Hello:
My name is Darrell Stavem, Robert and I created Vector Linux in 1999. We have watched our ratings on this page patiently for a long time, and appreciate our position. We feel that we should be ranked better than 13th although an improvement from 14th.
I am not demanding anything nor telling you what to do.
We simply feel strongly that we do out perform some of the contenders that are ahead of us.
Please let me know what you would like us to do for you to have another look at this issue.
Thanks
Best regards
Darrell Stavem
66 • PS (by AC on 2006-04-26 03:33:41 GMT from , United States)
To answer your questions more directly, the hardware drivers issue isn't affected that much by variations in distributions as they mostly interact with the kernel. Or X.
Applications are another matter and many developers will maintain versions of Red Hat, Fedora, SUSE, Slackware, and Gentoo in chroot jails to run atop their Debian installs (assuming here that all sane developers naturally use Debian) to test for compatibility. And that can be a pain. Standards go a long way to help but many don't comply - or have their own idea of what constitutes compliance. Generally hitting Red Hat &/or Fedora, SUSE, and Debian, are considered adequate since so many other distros are derivatives. A nod to Slackware and Gentoo may also be made. Note: compiling packages against Sarge will usually allow them to run on distros based on stable, testing, or unstable, but compiling against testing, unstable, or Ubuntu tends to make for compatibility issues.
67 • 65 wtf? (by AC on 2006-04-26 03:36:59 GMT from , United States)
"Out perform" in what way? HPD is a measure of just that and nothing else, not a remark on quality. Maybe this will shed some light, from the FAQ:
It is a lighthearted way of looking at a popularity of any given distribution. Since each distribution has its own page, I decided to track the number of visitors viewing individual web pages. The HPD figure represents hits per day by unique visitors, the emphasis being on the word unique; the uniqueness is determined by the visitor's IP address. This prevents those visitors, not disciplined enough, from rigging the results by reloading the pages multiple times. The idea is to identify which distributions attract most attention and to rank them accordingly. This also introduces an element of competition and competitions are fun, aren't they? Admittedly, the page clicks by themselves may not always reflect the popularity correctly. They are also "seasonal", meaning that distribution currently in beta testing will often receive much more clicks than the one past the stable release. All in all, these numbers should, over time, provide an indication about the popularity of Linux distributions.
These rules have been implemented to prevent various counter reloading schemes:
* Repeated page and counter reloads in short or regular intervals are not allowed. If you are inclined to set up cronjobs to repeatedly wget your favourite distro's page counter, then please do yourself a favour and go to see a psychologist. You need help.
* All suspicious page hit counts will be investigated and any regularly reloaded counts will be deducted from the total count.
* The repeat offender's IP address will be banned from accessing all areas of DistroWatch, including mirrors, for a period of 30 days.
68 • RE: 65 • Vector Linux ranking (by ladislav on 2006-04-26 03:37:05 GMT from Tingtungshih, Taiwan)
Please understand that "Page Hit Ranking" is NOT "rating". It does NOT gauge the quality of a distribution - it simply ranks them according to how many people view each distribution's page on DistroWatch.
In other words, it's just a fun (and highly inaccurate) way of measuring the popularity of distributions among the DistroWatch readers. Don't read too much into it.
69 • Linux has huge biodiversity (by hobbitland on 2006-04-26 09:13:17 GMT from London, United Kingdom)
Well, Linux is under-going huge genteic mutations and we get
some biodiveristy. Moe protetcion from viruses and parasites
that way. We biodiveristy soemthign will come that becomes good
and the rest will die slowly by natural selection (ie no users).
Contrast Windows which in biology terms is a genetically modified
crop. Easy to plant, easy to grow but when disaster comes bang
the whole crop is spoiled with a single pest (virus).
Well, people are forking distributions because some are ran by
stubborn people who refused to take advice. But then sometimes
can be doen in 100s of different ways.
70 • Re: 500 distributions in the database (by Misty on 2006-04-26 10:41:31 GMT from Little Rock, United States)
Dear end user,
Please go ahead and switch to Windows or OS X, where all the choices are made for you and your brain isn't taxed with nuisances like having to make decisions, and don't bother spamming Distrowatch anymore.
The rest of us enjoy having choices, and we will continue to prefer having choices, whether or not people such as yourself like it. You don't like having so many choices? Fine -- go elsewhere. Free software is obviously not for you, and many developers don't appreciate working so hard to provide choices for the ungrateful who whine about having so many choices.
I don't get get people like you. If you were given a free buffet at a restaurant, would you complain to the management about having more than one choice of entree? Or would you prefer that they just serve you chicken, regardless of whatever you might actually want? That is what you're advocating.
And, as I've noted more than once here, sometimes your add-ons, fixes and ideas aren't added to a distro even if you submit them. If you want to go deeper into customizing your distro the only choice you may have is to make your own, as what you've sent to the developers may be ignored. I'm a Debian-user and I love Debian, but it irks me that they have been guilty of this too. Some developers completely ignore almost everything that is not developed by themelves.
So, in short, if you don't like it, tough. I'm sick of this anal-retentive "there shouldn't be so many distros" attitude. I'm tired of people trying to take choices away from me. Microsoft and Apple have proven that they're perfectly capable of making all the choices for you, so what is your problem? If you don't like having choices, you obviously don't want an open source OS, because open source is all aobut freedom, and freedom includes choices.
71 • Re:61 & 58 (by Misty on 2006-04-26 11:12:19 GMT from Little Rock, United States)
Tom, I agree some standardization is needed. There is no need to reinvent the wheel constantly. We have more than one good installer, more than one good package management and package format, so why not use them as standards? Same goes with commands: to set up your dsl on Debian, the command is "pppoeconf", but on Slackware it is "adslsetup", if I'm not mistaken. Why did they have to make it a diferent command? Likewise if the arrangement of system files were more standardized (although they're pretty similar on most distros) it would make it far easier for others to develop software for *nix. Most of all, we need standardization on drivers; a driver repo would be a great idea, with all distros including as many ethernet/modem drivers as possible so drivers for other hardware could be downloaded by the package manager. So yeah, some standardization would be good, and with a fringe element deliberately not adhering to standards it could push innovation.
Unfortunately, developers are all too often unwilling to listen to users. That sounds like a snotty thig to say, but its true. Likewise, they don't want standards in favor of doing everything their way, despite the fact that it creates problems in compatibility and confusion amongst the users, not to mention that many users get knocked out of using a distro that they otherwise like because of hardware that isn't supported by that distro but is by others (although *why* developers chose not to support hardware that other distros do is a mystery to me; strangely, this is just accepted as a fact of life by *nix-users, when the only reason that their hardware isn't working with a particular distro is that the developer chose not to include support for it).
Perhaps if a large group of knowledgable users were to get together and agree upon some standards and publish it on the web, sort distros and mark what standards the distros follow, new users could use it as a checklist when considering a disro and this would make standardization more attractive to developers. In addition, some developers would actually tumble to the fact some standards could even make their lives easier, as they wouldn't need to code everything from scratch, such as an installer, package manager and so on.
But -- with that said, I doubt you'd see any of the established distros following a list of standards as they already have a large user base and wouldn't see the point of changing over. But the standards would be attractive to people starting new distros, which tend to suffer from problems with the basics because they don't use the stuff that's already tried-and-true, such as anaconda or APT.
Note that I'm not saying all distros should be the same. I'm just saying it would be a good idea to come together on the basics, such as installers and (especially) drivers. That leaves quite a lot of room for individual differences between distros, and those individual differences are what makes or breaks many distros in the eyes of the users anyway.... but all too many of which wind up using another distro because their hardware isn't suported by the distro they like.
72 • Misty on installers (by AC on 2006-04-26 11:49:09 GMT from , United States)
Debian's developers considered porting Anaconda and made some efforts in that direction, but could not get it to support all of the architectures for which Debian is available. Now that YaST is open source, that could be an option, since it has an ncurses front-end as well as a qt one.
But as it stands, the Sarge installer is the most powerful, most flexible installer out there. Not the prettiest, not the easiest, but I certainly wouldn't give up its flexibility for something "simpler". While I certainly don't begrudge people their PGI (Progeny Graphical Installer, based on Anaconda) or whatever other installers they may prefer, too much can be sacrified in aiming for standardization and appealing to the lowest common denominator.
73 • d'oh (by AC on 2006-04-26 11:57:51 GMT from , United States)
need... coffee...
PGI and the Anaconda port are two quite distinct things, though how I phrased that ran the two together. Should read something like, "...I don't begrudge people having PGI or an installer based on Anaconda or YaST..."
74 • more on d-i (by AC on 2006-04-26 12:09:01 GMT from , United States)
One of the strengths of the Debian installer is that it honors the principle of Unix philosophy:
Rule of Separation: Separate policy from mechanism; separate interfaces from engines.
(It honors other principles as well, in particular the Rule of Modularity.)
Having aimed to design a universal installer, goals such as portability made paramount, they've created a back-end that can easily (relatively) have any front-end you like added to it. Such as the gtk front-end in testing now.
Tried and tested isn't always CORRECT.
75 • About Vector... (by Caraibes on 2006-04-26 12:24:00 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
I read the post of the gentlemen that created Vector, and it made me feel like commenting (as a friend).
I really value and respect Vector´s philosophy of running on older hardware. It´s the sharpest idea in my opinion.
However, most Vector´s version never installed correctly on my pc´s, either for lilo problem or video problem. Keep in mind I used and enjoyed Slackware 10.2 and Zenwalk on these pc´s, so it should be quite straight forward.
My boards are cheap integrated via chipset, one with a radeon 7000, but most running the via chipset. All pc´s dual boot with winxp. Best I could get is a resolution of 800x600 on the via chipset, and no x in the radeon... On some version, the lilo doesn´t see the windows partition...
So I gave up on Vector, even though I feel it should be a good distro. I am now very keen on Zenwalk.
I feel that the releases of Vector are not well tested, and I am not surprised at all it doesn´t rank any better in DW...
Finally a word of encouragement, I feel Vector has been a pionneer in the lightweight distro, and I am confident it can get better. I will follow and try the new releases, because I am confident they will improve from the actual buggy ones...
76 • FC Art (by Sphinx on 2006-04-26 19:42:00 GMT from Sacramento, United States)
I'm amazed somebody actually spoke up finally about FC's slide into butt ugliness, RH8 was a thing of beauty by comparison and RH has always been a bottom feeder for looks, sadly most of it's derivatives are much better looking. Hopefully this will be the call to action they need to pull it together.
77 • Re: 500 distributions in the database (by end user on 2006-04-26 21:13:40 GMT from Camberley, United Kingdom)
ha ha - just what I thought would happen - Geeks living in denial - no wonder I used the anon of "end user" do you not wonder why I did this :-(
63
QUOTE
#58-> Have you considered contributing to Linux? Linux is not just for Geeks/Sys admin/Programmers. You can test, hack, report bugs, promote, teach, use, improve, and bring a "reality check" to Linux.
END QUOTE
Do you really think that I have never contributed any thing to Linux ?
70
QUOTE
Please go ahead and switch to Windows or OS X, where all the choices are made for you and your brain isn't taxed with nuisances like having to make decisions, and don't bother spamming Distrowatch anymore.
END QUOTE
I started using with RH 5.3 in 1996 when I first decided to start using a GNU/Linux distro and have used almost every major distro (including Deb) - BUT I am not a puritan I can and do use occasionally Win and Mac's - jees I even ran OS2 once upon a time. So one thing is for sure - insults will never drive me away from using a GNU/Linux distro 99% of the time
BTW - it is not "spamming" it is just my IMHO - freedom of expression
78 • RE: 77 (by IMQ on 2006-04-26 22:40:59 GMT from Decatur, United States)
Think of the 500+ distros listed in DistroWatch as a form of "freedom of expression" :)
79 • 77 (by tom on 2006-04-26 22:43:48 GMT from Helena, United States)
There are medications that can help you. Seroquel perhaps?
80 • Various (by tom on 2006-04-26 22:54:52 GMT from Helena, United States)
Vector- I tried and liked this disto. I liked Zenwalk more. Zenwalk seemed more polished and Vector did not offer anything I can not "slapt-get". What would I like to see in Vector- Polish the gui, give me something better then slapt-get???
Fedora core 5. I am surprised to say I like this distro. I tried FC4 and found there were too many small but annoying “flaws”. For example I never cared for the red hat logo or the way FC4 installed software. I am also surprised to say I like the art. Blue is so vanilla these days, and I normally prefer the Ubuntu brown, green of SUSE maybe. For some reason I found the art in FC5 artistic, yet professional. After a few days, well who stays with a default desktop, but FC5 lasted longer then some.
71 & AC- As always thank you for the discussion.
Misty- Exactly me sentiments. Thank you for your eloquence.
81 • More about Vector (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-04-26 22:55:25 GMT from Roma, Italy)
Vector is nice, but...
1)It has never installed lilo in my computers (the one I have now and the previous)
2)It can be OK for people who like a minimalistic approach to operating systems. Personally I prefer Debian or SUSE.
To Debian you add Marillat.Free and Debian Unofficial and everything is an apt-get away (around 19,000 packages in testing)
SUSE comes with proprietary plugins (if you want), it installs Nvidia...And then configure apt or smart and you'll have an amazing choice of apps: about 8,400 at the moment for 10.0
82 • Vector Linux (by AC on 2006-04-26 23:54:41 GMT from , United States)
It's like Slackware only... buggier and they do all the configuration for you. I thought the reason people still used Slackware was because it was stable and left you in control of how everything's configured. So the point of Vector...?
83 • still Vector... (by Caraibes on 2006-04-27 11:14:41 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
"- So the point of Vector...?"
It is a lightweight distro for older hardware.
But is is buggy, so I recommend Zenwalk for that. Or Puppy Linux, but it is a different product.
Zenwalk is exactly what Vector always tried to be.
(No offense to the Vector guys, it is just positive critic)
We have now Xubuntu showing up in that area of needs, and Texstar was writing about creating a "lightweight PCLinuxOS".
I think it is a great and positive idea to have various distros in that line. So we can re-use all these old pc´s...
84 • No subject (by rape video on 2006-04-27 12:55:00 GMT from Hanoi, Vietnam)
Cyber mans write many but mean nothings. Your article is pretty good, bun need more comments.
85 • Born again (by tom on 2006-04-27 13:56:18 GMT from Helena, United States)
I DID IT!! I installed and configured Dragon naturally Speaking onto Fedora Core 5 (thank you Fedora !!). This was the last of the last.
I'MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No more dual booting. Goodbye Microsoft, Hello Linux.
Thanks to:
Anonymous on 2006-04-15 21:43:21 GMT from Bras�lia, Brazil)
You were a godsend
No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-04-16 23:19:27 GMT from , United States)
AC- My “rant” several weeks ago was primordial cry of frustration of learning a new OS. You answered with your own rant, but that re-energized my batteries.
I could not have done it without Distrowatch, all the distros I “broke my teeth” on (thank you most of all Debian and Zenwalk), wine, or Skype.
To all you Linux geeks- Thank you most of all. Wish I spoke your language, but I can hack.
86 • 85 - tom (by Anonymous on 2006-04-27 16:10:30 GMT from So Paulo, Brazil)
"I DID IT!! I installed and configured Dragon naturally Speaking onto Fedora Core 5 (thank you Fedora !!). This was the last of the last.
I'MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No more dual booting. Goodbye Microsoft, Hello Linux."
Congratulations!!!!!
87 • Good job! (by AC on 2006-04-27 19:33:07 GMT from , United States)
And congratulations
88 • 83 (by Tim on 2006-04-27 20:58:29 GMT from Denver, United States)
"Texstar was writing about creating a "lightweight PCLinuxOS".
He did it! MiniME is around 250MB and flies on my AMD K6-II w/ only 196MB Ram.
There are lots of us out here that don't have recent hardware to work with. I've managed to install some "full-size" distros and then begin to pare them down. This seems to me to be a) SLOW, b) DANGEROUS (accidentally deleting something needed by an app I wish to keep), and c) Inefficient.
It makes more sense to me to start with bare bones (barely able to get on the web and download (MiniME comes w/ only Konquerer) and then systematically build the distro into what I need.
My $0.02
89 • visited links (by Tim on 2006-04-27 21:02:57 GMT from Denver, United States)
BTW, can anyone explain how I just installed PCLOS MiniME to a new, formatted drive, visited Distrowatch for the 1st time under this install, yet the "comments" link on the home page and the "ladislav" links on his comments are marked as having been visited? Does DW maintain such info on their site, tied to my addy? Curious.
90 • RE: 89 • visited links (by Anonymous on 2006-04-27 21:13:25 GMT from Tingtungshih, Taiwan)
Does DW maintain such info on their site, tied to my addy?
No, of course not. But if you've just visited the DistroWatch home page, it is only logical that it will be marked as visited, not so? At least that's how things work in Firefox and Opera. Otherwise it's possible that the browser history on the new PCLOS CD already contains links to DW.
91 • Lightweight MiniMe (by Caraibes on 2006-04-27 21:21:39 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Hi Tim,
You are right about miniMe, I tried it, it is nice...
However I read a post from Texstar where he says he will customize a version of MiniMe with maybe Fluxbox (I was hoping for Xfce...), Abiword, and the basic lite apps... It is still a project...
PCLOS is very strong these days...
My personnal top 3 for distros (for my own needs, of course...) :
Zenwalk, PCLinuxOS and Puppy, depending of my use...
92 • 90 (by Tim on 2006-04-27 21:54:29 GMT from Denver, United States)
I really didn't think they did, but your suggestion is perhaps an explanation. It wasn't the DW home page link that was marked, but the "comments" link which I had not yet visited. And to my knowledge, I have never clicked on a "ladislav" link either in PCLOS or any other of the distros I have tried. Since Firefox does not come as part of the MiniME CD, I would be very surprised if its history would be on the CD by mistake. I'll post a request on PCLOS' forum and see if anyone else ran into this. Thanks for the suggestion.
93 • No subject (by forced sex movies on 2006-04-28 19:08:00 GMT from Plano, United States)
Fill free to make more posts. It is interesting.
94 • #88 - lightweight, (by ray carter at 2006-04-29 15:40:28 GMT from Tacoma, United States)
Have you tried Elive? Elive is a Live CD with hard disk install only a button click away. It uses Enlightenment for the GUI - quite different from KDE or Gnome, but still looks nice and performs well. I've installed to several P166 systems with 64MB RAM, and it performs remarkably well. My vote for the next DW donation.
95 • 94 (by tom on 2006-04-30 02:41:22 GMT from Helena, United States)
Tried ELive. Nice desktop as you say. Works well on older machines.
It is basically Debian with Enlightenment rather than GNOME/KDE/XFCE/you get the idea.
Problem: lousy hardware detection, especially on older PC's. I have tried to do a hardware install on 5 older PC's, 4/5 will not even run the CD in Live mode.
Has Potential, needs to use Knoppix or something for better hardware detection.
I have been using Zenwalk as my version of "Linux Light". have tried several others, but keep coming back to Zenwalk.
96 • RE:#89 (by dtrud0h on 2006-04-30 04:24:12 GMT from Newton Center, United States)
If you used your old /home partition (slash)folder then all the information there is used for the new OS, including favorites, browsing history, recently opened files, and whatnot.
Number of Comments: 96
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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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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