 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 149, 1 May 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 18th issue of DistroWatch Weekly. This issue focuses on Linspire, or more precisely Freespire, a new distribution built with the same user-friendly aspects as its commercial partner, but without the price tag; besides revisiting the Freespire press release, we also bring you an interview with Kevin Carmony, the company's CEO. The news section then informs about all the recent BSD releases, brings news from the Slackware current changelog, and provides updates on the development of Kubuntu. Robert Storey is back with his "tips and tricks" column, advising on how to use GRUB with the XFS file system. Finally, it's our pleasure to announce that the April 2006 donation of US$260 goes to the Doxygen project. Happy reading!
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (8.84MB) or mp3 (11.7MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
Content:
Miscellaneous news: Freespire announcement, BSD releases, Slackware kernel hints, Kubuntu updates
 After several quiet months, Linspire stole the media spotlight last week with an announcement about Freespire, a new and free (as in beer) edition of Linspire built by a volunteer developer community. Additionally, the company also confirmed that the new distribution will optionally include support for many proprietary file formats and closed-source applications. Although this has resulted in some harsh criticism by Free Software advocates, the company insists that this is a legitimate way of increasing levels of Linux adoption among the less technical computer users. The first beta release of Freespire is scheduled for around August 2006.
While on the subject of Freespire, some DistroWatch readers might remember that a distribution of the same name was added to this site's database in August last year. This was a personal project by Andrew Betts, a Linspire user, who rebuilt the commercial distribution using free components only and released it as "proof of concept". It was subsequently renamed to Squiggle OS and later abandoned. The new Freespire is a different project, fully sponsored by Linspire; however, it is interesting to note that Betts now serves on the Freespire leadership board. As always, we will keep an eye on this interesting development and will add Freespire to the DistroWatch database as soon as the first development build is released for testing.
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 It seems that many BSD projects find this time of the year highly productive and a number of new releases have been made available in the last few days. A brand new version of OpenBSD is out today, while the first stable release of PC-BSD, an interesting, user-friendly BSD variant based on FreeBSD 6.x was released on Saturday. In the meanwhile, two FreeBSD-based live CDs have also been hard at work in recent weeks - the FreeSBIE project has released several development builds of their live CD for both i386 and AMD64 architectures, while the developers of Frenzy, an excellent FreeBSD-based live CD with a collection of networking, rescue and penetration testing tools, have finally released the first beta of Frenzy 1.0 (see the Upcoming Releases section for more details about this interesting live CD developed in Ukraine).
The first beta of the FreeBSD-based Frenzy live CD was made available on Sunday
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 A large number of updates, comments and hints in Slackware's "current" changelog during the past week has turned the file into an interesting read. Besides package upgrades to Thunderbird, ALSA, Mozilla, udev and others, Patrick Volkerding has hinted that the upcoming Slackware Linux 11.0 will finally default to kernel 2.6: "I think 2.6.16.x, being the first kernel series in the 2.6 series that has been promised some long-lived support, will be the 2.6 kernel you'll see in the next Slackware release. If/when 2.6.17 (or 18, etc.) come out, don't expect to see me chasing after it immediately. I'm looking for a kernel that can be counted on for stability -- not the bleeding edge. Of course, once 2.6.16.x is considered tested enough to leave /testing (and it does seem close), perhaps a newer kernel might take its place here just for fun." For more information please see the latest entries in the Slackware "current" changelog.
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 Following a recent protest by some of the of Kubuntu development team members, Mark Shuttleworth has published an open invitation to KDE and Kubuntu teams to join him at LinuxTag exhibition in Wiesbaden later this week: "This is an invitation for the Kubuntu and KDE community to join us at LinuxTag on 6 May in Wiesbaden near Frankfurt to chart the future course of Kubuntu. We will hold a series of meetings and presentations on the structure of Kubuntu and Ubuntu, the goals of the project, and an open discussion on how Kubuntu can come to represent the very best example of KDE in action." Sounds like a good idea to ensure that Kubuntu 6.06 gets the same attention as its older brother. For more details pleas see the full message as published on the ubuntu-announce mailing list.
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| Interviews: Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire |
Interview with Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire
DW: Kevin, thank you very much for your time. The Freespire announcement came as a surprise to many in the Linux community. Can you tell us what prompted the launch of a free edition of Linspire and why do you think this is the right time to announce it?
KC: I just hit my one-year anniversary as CEO for Linspire, but I have been with the company since the beginning, employee number one, and we're just hitting our 5th year. Wow! It's hard to believe I've been doing this for that long! We've had a fun and interesting history, starting back in the "Lindows" days, but we've had a lot of success and accomplished much. Today over 350 OEMs sell computers pre-installed with Linspire Linux and retailers such as Wal-Mart, Fry's, Micro Center, Target, and Sears are selling these computers.
We've learned a lot during the last five years, and two of the most important lessons were: 1) the open source and Linux community needs Linspire, and 2) Linspire needs the open source and Linux community. We've known the latter for a long time, and we started the Freespire project internally about two years ago. However, I think the timing is now right for us to do what we're trying to do with Freespire. Had we tried this a few years ago, I think a larger part of the open source community would have not understood why we were offering proprietary software as an option in the core distribution. Today, the vast majority not only understand this need, they welcome it. When I announced this at Desktop Linux Summit to hundreds of people, I didn't hear a single "Boo!" or "Hissss!" from anyone, but I saw a lot of heads nodding in agreement and heard a lot of applause.
DW: I guess you had discussed the idea with Michael Robertson (the founder of Lindows and Linspire). What was his reaction? Does he still take an active interest in Linspire or has he moved on to other projects?
KC: This has been a project of mine since before becoming CEO. Michael is certainly aware of what we're doing, and is very supportive. I meet with Michael each week and update him on what's going on, and of course, he always has ideas to share, but for the most part, Michael is very hands off when it comes to Linspire. This is for two reasons: 1) He completely trusts the team here at Linspire, as he knows we have some incredibly bright people here, and 2) he's just way too busy with all the other things he's working on. Michael is a visionary. He sees things years before they have economic viability. If he just did one thing, he'd go crazy, because his head is going a million miles per hour, and usually 5 years ahead of adoption curves. So, it suits Michael to have many different companies, each in a different stage of adoption.
Today he is involved with Linspire, SIPphone, AJAX13, MP3tunes, CompareSoft, and a couple of others. Because Linspire is the largest and oldest of all these companies, it requires less of his time and attention. Michael loves inventing and creating, but lets others deal with the execution and implementation over the years these things take to find adoption. He doesn't have the patience to watch paint dry, he'd rather leave that to others so he can keep painting. He's like Johnny Appleseed, running around planting the seeds for his vision, which hopefully years later sprout and bear fruit.
DW: How would you describe the relationship between Freespire and Linspire? Would you say it's similar to the relationship between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in that Fedora is a freely available distribution that serves as a base for RHEL, or do you see it differently?
KC: I actually just made a post about this on the Freespire forums here. It's a rather lengthy answer, but others can take a look if they want the "long version." The short version is, yes, Freespire is not unlike Fedora in that it's free and designed to be a community project to help make Linspire better. Freespire is more for developers and Linux devotees, where as Linspire is more for consumers, but they will certainly share a great deal of code and make each other better. However, Freespire is very different from every other community Linux because of the option for legally licensed codecs, drivers and software, and the option of using CNR (Click And Run).
DW: One potential problem with Freespire is that the project could find it difficult to attract skilled developers. Firstly, software developers tend to code for more advanced computer users rather than the Linspire target market. Secondly, Linspire itself does not have the best reputation -- rightly or wrongly -- in the "geek" community. Any comments on this? What kinds of incentives, if any, do you intend to offer in order to attract skilled coders to work on Freespire?
KC: Just like Linspire didn't go after the traditional Linux users, Freespire isn't going after the traditional Linux developers. Linspire tries to draw away Windows users, and Freespire is trying to draw away Windows developers. For every Linux developer today, there are a hundred, if not a thousand, for Windows. I have a lot of friends who are Windows developers. When I ask them why they don't program for desktop Linux, they just look at me funny and say, "Why would I? No one runs Linux on the desktop, and there is no marketplace for my work even if I did." Freespire aims to change that. The Linux community sometimes gets so excited about what they're working on, they just assume everyone thinks it's great. That may be true for servers, where you have technical IT people using it, but it's far from true on the desktop.
It's simple math and market share. For every person running Linux on their desktop, there are 95 people running Windows. We had over 1,000 developers sign up for the Freespire developers list in the first 24 hours of our announcement at DLS. So no, I don't think it will be hard to find skilled developers, I'm going to be drawing from a pool of programmers that is 100 times greater than what Fedora and SUSE are pulling from. I've already had meetings with Windows developers who are very excited about CNR and the CNR Warehouse model, and now want to start coding for Linux. Of course, all developers are welcome, and I'm sure we'll get plenty from the current Linux community who just believe in the Freespire vision. They want to see desktop Linux succeed too, and many believe our approach is just what is needed.
DW: The Freespire FAQs talk about "frequent, on-going updates and release cycles". How frequently will new Freespire versions come out? How long do you expect a beta cycle to last? Will Freespire have a fixed release cycle?
KC: This will be similar to Linspire. Development work will always be going on, and new and interesting things will always be happening via the CNR Warehouse (using CNR or apt), but we will not have fixed released cycles because: 1) fixed cycles often force you to compromise on stability and quality, and 2) desktop users don't want to have to upgrade their system too often. Linspire has always believed in longer release cycles, but keeping everything current and fresh via CNR and/or apt-get. I like to think of an OS like a house. Who wants to bother with moving every year? It's a lot of work and hassle. Sure, it's fun and sometimes necessary as your family grows, etc., to move into a new home, but usually you just want to enjoy your house, buy some new furniture now and then, have friends over, have some parties, etc.
An OS should be used and enjoyed, NOT become a burden. CNR lets the OS stay current and interesting, without it needing to be completely changed every few months. The community will help decide some of this, but I think a stable build once a year is about as aggressive as it should get, with lots of activity going on in the CNR Warehouse. Of course, in the early days as we roll the first few releases out, they'll come more often than yearly, but in time, it's good to have things settle down some.
DW: Talking about "on-going updates" sounds great in theory, but we know from other project's experiences that it doesn't work well in practice - new updates sometimes introduce new bugs or worse, they can even break a system. Does Linspire have a panacea for this issue?
KC: Linspire has done it this way for years. We have a system down that works incredibly well. You see, the CNR Warehouse system can provide not only for different warehouses (pools) between releases, but multiple warehouses within a release. We have a few different CNR Warehouses for our developers, a couple for our QA testers, one for our employees here, one for our Insiders, and then one for the rest of the world. For example, let's say there is a new version of Firefox and you're running Freespire 1.0. In short order, we can put the new Firefox in the developers' pool for them to work on. It them moves to our QA testers, then we share it with our Insiders (Linspire has about 15,000 Insiders who help with testing), and then if all goes well, we roll it to the rest of the world. Freespire won't have Insiders like Linspire does, because anyone in the community can choose to point to the testing pools or the stable pools. The key is that by the time it hits the mainstream pool, it has been tested by thousands. Again, we've been doing this for years with Linspire, and we've never completely blown anyone's system up yet with some major bug.
DW: Do (will) Freespire have a freely accessible package repository where interested parties can monitor the development process?
KC: Absolutely.
DW: What version control system and bug reporting facility will Freespire deploy?
KC: That is being decided. There are two phases to the Freespire project launch: Phase 1, the Community Organization Phase and then Phase 2, the Technology Organization Phase. We are currently in the Community Organization Phase and will be until August. In this phase, it's not really about the technology, it's about the 1) the vision and mission for the project, 2) the organization, structure and leadership, 3) the community education and building, and 4) building community tools, such as the wiki, website, FAQ, mailing lists, etc.
The Technology phase starts in August. This was done very intentionally. I didn't want to open up the Freespire project and have a bunch of developers think this was just about code. It's not. I want the community, users and developers alike, to understand what the Vision for Freespire is. It makes no sense for a developer to get involved and contribute code, if they don't buy into the vision for this project. They will just become frustrated. It would be like being a world-class chef, volunteering at a new restaurant that just opened, only to later find out it serves Italian food, when you're a Thai chef!
I want the community to understand WHAT the house is going to look like before they start sawing and hammering. I know this could be a less interesting time for coders, but you can't build a good house on a shaky foundation. I want Freespire to endure and last, so I want a strong foundation of leadership, organization, community tools, all which takes some time, and THEN we can talk about the code in the OS.
DW: Your Freespire press release talks about the CNR (Click-N-Run) client to become an open source application. Under what license will it be released?
KC: This hasn't yet been decided. We know the code will be released and open, but will it be GPL, LGPL, or something else, we just haven't had time to decide that. For me personally, I really don't care. eBay isn't eBay because they have some top secret, proprietary way of doing things. It's an auction site. Anyone can look at what they do and copy it. Same can be said for Amazon. eBay and Amazon are successful because they simply do it better than the rest. I have never cared about the CNR being kept closed, but I do care that we always have the best Warehousing service anywhere for our intended audience.
DW: You mentioned in the latest Linspire Letter that you had converted to Linux shortly after becoming the CEO of Linspire. I assume you normally use Linspire, but have you tried a recent release of another distribution? If so, what do you think of Fedora 5, Ubuntu 6.06, SUSE 10.1? Have you tried any of the more user-friendly distributions, such as SimplyMEPIS or PCLinuxOS?
KC: I have tried them all. I have installed pretty much every Linux distro and I install every new release from any that look interesting. Every time I do this, I get some good ideas of how others are doing things, and I also see how they are now doing things like we have been doing them. I'm a very competitive person, not because I want to make money (I've done that already in other businesses), but because I take great pride in anything I do. I don't want to have the "best" desktop Linux, because that is a subjective term. Best at what? Best for whom? The one area I do want to always be the best in, however, is ease of use for desktop Linux. We say Linspire is the world's easiest to use desktop Linux, and I truly believe it is. For example, if you visit the file types page, every link you see there works, right out of the box, with Linspire and will with Freespire. With Ubuntu, you get to do this. Fedora has its strengths, SUSE has its pluses, Ubuntu has things it's great at, but when it comes to ease of use for the desktop, that's our focus. Even with Freespire, which is geared for developers, it will still be the easiest to use, it just doesn't need to be as easy to use as Linspire, which is for consumers.
DW: Micorosoft's Steve Ballmer was recently quoted as saying that he did not allow his children to listen to music on an iPod or search on Google. Are members of your family allowed to use a competing product? Or have they all converted to Linspire?
KC: I love my iPod (and this is why Linspire has contributed a lot of good code to make iPods work with Linux), and I even have an X-box. (I have no problem with Microsoft competing with Sony in the game area, I think competition is good, besides, they lose money every time someone buys one. =) My oldest son sometimes uses Ubuntu and SUSE, because he's a developer, but I'm confident he'll move to Freespire soon. =) Most of his development is done under Windows. If there were more people using desktop Linux, and a obvious marketplace for his programming, he'd do more Linux work, as would many Windows developers.
DW: Can you tell us something about yourself? What jobs did you do before joining Linspire? Do you ever have time to relax or go away for a weekend? Do you have any hobbies?
KC: I have been involved in a lot of different businesses, mostly software, but also the clothing industry, the music business (that's actually how I met Michael), and I am still involved in a chain of children's photography stores throughout the U.S. I have been blessed with financial success, which is good, because you don't make much money with Desktop Linux yet. =) Linspire is a passion and labor of love these days. If I wanted to make money, I'd be doing something else. If anyone wants, they can visit my web page and learn way more than they would care to.
DW: Anything else you wish to say to the DistroWatch readers?
KC: Sorry we didn't do Freespire sooner. We wanted to make sure we had a viable business model that could sustain our company before inflicting yet another community project on the world. We now know we have that sustainable model. We're not going anywhere. We will be around for a good long time. We have invested over US$35 million into open source software, with all of it having gone back to the community. Because Linspire didn't go after the traditional Linux user, we have often been misunderstood. We've also made our share of mistakes, but what new company doesn't? We've gotten wiser and better with age. Not everyone will agree with the approach we're taking by offering proprietary software as an option in the Freespire core, but we believe it will get more people to look at open source.
Think of hybrid cars. They take half of the good (clean, non-oil burning electricity) and combine it with some bad (oil), but it has been received in a big way by car buyers, which brings them one stop closer to being open minded about other alternative fuels. Well, Freespire is the "hybrid" of open source Linux operating systems. If it can become cool and popular, not just for the tech crowd, but for the masses, it will bring millions one step closer to an open source world. I think that's pretty great.
Thanks for having me, and I look forward to seeing Freespire shoot up the charts there at DistroWatch come August. ;-)
DW: Kevin, thank you and good luck!
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| Released Last Week |
MCNLive "Leuven"
MCNLive is a Mandriva-based live CD developed by MandrivaClub in the Netherlands. A new version, name "Leuven", has been released: "I am glad to announce a new version of MCNLive, code name Leuven. Some highlights: 2.6.14 kernel with updated Unionfs and SquashFS. Desktop environment: KDE 3.5.2. Office suite: KOffice 1.5, Open Document Format, Firefox 1.5.0.2, music, video and image applications with all common codecs, Internet and networking applications for all your needs. All this on less than 350 MB." Visit the project's home page to read the full release announcement.
MCNLive "Leuven" - a nicely designed live CD based on Mandriva Linux
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Wolvix 1.0.4 Media Edition
The Media edition of Wolvix 1.0.4 has been released: "The final release of Wolvix Media Edition 1.0.4 is ready. There are not many changes since RC1, mostly application updates and I've added a few games. This release marks the end of the 1.0.4 series and I want to thank everyone who has given me feedback, suggestions and bug reports. Updated: gmusicbrowser, XChat, Firefox, Thunderbird, AbiWord, GIMP, Comix. Added: Thunar (file manager), MP3Creator (console CD ripper), networkconfig (configuration tool from Zenwalk), Kye (puzzle game), Freeciv (strategy game), Bygfoot (football manager game)." Read the full release announcement for full details.
Foresight Linux 0.9.4 MR5
The fifth maintenance release of Foresight Linux 0.9.4 is now available: "This is the fifth in a series of maintenance releases for Foresight Linux 0.9.4. These maintenance releases help you stay current and also ensure that new downloads include the latest stuff. To update to MR5, 'sudo conary updateall', it’s that simple. There are new ISOs (both DVD and CD) and virtual machine images as well. Updates: Conary 1.0.13, Firefox 1.5.0.2, Beagle 0.2.5, Galago 0.5.0, AbiWord 2.4.4, Linux kernel 2.6.16.11. Added: Alacarte 0.9 (menu editor), GIMP 2.3.8, Inkscape 0.42, XaraLX 0.4r828. Tweaks: VTE patched to support 256 colors." Read the full release announcement for more details.
Litrix Linux 6.4
The Litrix project, which develops a Linux live CD based on Gentoo Linux, has released Litrix Linux 6.4. This is a start of a new series based on Gentoo 2006 and developed during the past seven months. The new release includes support for MMX and 3DNow!, offering a major performance boost to multimedia applications. This is further enhanced by the addition of new KDE-based multimedia applications, such as amaroK with its excellent archive organising abilities and intuitive playlist features, and Kaffeine, which offers playback of both audio and video files. For more information please see the full release announcement (in Portuguese).
Litrix Linux is a Brazilian live CD based on Gentoo Linux
(full image size: 1,347kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
PC-BSD 1.0
The first stable version of PC-BSD, a user-friendly operating system based on FreeBSD, has been released: "PC-BSD software is pleased to announce the immediate availability of PC-BSD 1.0 for x86 based processors. This first 'non-beta' release of PC-BSD ushers in a new era of stability and simplicity for desktop operating systems based on UNIX. Powered by the latest FreeBSD 6.0 and integrated with KDE 3.5.2, PC-BSD provides a solid server base, while being user-friendly enough to run as a primary desktop system. Due to the nature of the UNIX operating system, PC-BSD provides a high degree of protection from the every growing threat of malware, spyware and viruses that plague other popular operating systems today." See the complete press release and changelog for more information.
GParted LiveCD 0.2.4-3
Patrick Verner has announced the release of a new minor update to GParted LiveCD. From the changelog: "Updated to Linux kernel 2.6.16.11; updated to busybox 1.1.2, udev 091, gtkmm 2.8.5, glib 2.10.2, glibmm 2.10.1, pango 1.12.2, mdadm 1.12.0; added Xvesa 4.5.0, added xres2, depth2, and X server scripts to /bin for Xvesa; added better X config scripts in /etc/rc.d; added gvidm 0.8 to the Fluxbox menu; removed /etc/dialogrc to fall back to default colors; cleaned up boot dialog scripts to be more consistent; eject should now eject the proper CD-ROM drive."
OpenBSD 3.9
We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 3.9. This is our 19th release on CD-ROM (and 18th via FTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of eight years with only a single remote hole in the default install. As in our previous releases, 3.9 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system. Improved hardware support, including: some G5-based Apple Macintosh machines, including W^X support (currently restricted to 32-bit mode); many more audio drivers in the macppc port; support for many system sensors (temperature, voltage, fan speed)...." Read the full release announcement and visit the OpenBSD 3.9 page to learn more.
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Development and unannounced releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Frenzy 1.0
Sergei Mozhaisky has announced a release schedule (in Russian) for the upcoming Frenzy 1.0, a FreeBSD-based live CD with a collection of security and networking tools. Beta testing is expected to start on 1 May and, if everything goes according to the plan, the final release should be available exactly a month later. Please visit the project's home page for more information.
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Tips and Tricks: Using GRUB with XFS |
Using GRUB with XFS (by Robert Storey)
Perhaps some of you will recall the following little excerpt from last week's DWW:
"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."
After reading this and following the link to the main story, I became convinced that XFS was the best thing since sliced pickles. As it turned out, the very next day I needed to install Ubuntu Breezy on a friend's machine, and it was a no-brainer to go with XFS.
I've installed Breezy quite a few times already, and I know that by default it chooses GRUB as its boot manager. So I was really surprised when I found that LILO, rather than GRUB, wound up on my friend's hard disk. Was I hallucinating? Had I been kidnapped by aliens, and they were now controlling my brain with radio waves? Perhaps, but even after I put on my tinfoil hat, LILO was still there.
So be it. Even if it is a hallucination, LILO isn't that bad. I could live with it, and my friend (who wouldn't know GRUB from an earthworm) was oblivious.
However, my tinfoil hat really took a beating the next day when I decided to install the all-new Ubuntu Dapper Beta on my laptop. The installation process was identical to Breezy, and there were no surprises... until the very end when this message popped up:
"No boot loader has been installed, either because you chose not to or because your specific architecture doesn't support a boot loader yet. You will need to boot manually with the /vmlinuz kernel on partition /dev/hda5 and root=/dev/hda5 passed as a kernel argument."
The thing is, I absolutely swear that I did not choose to not install the boot loader. I was never even asked that question during the installation. Even worse, since no boot loader was installed, I could not boot into Dapper even though it was installed.
I decided it was my duty as a beta-tester to file a bug report. This I duly did, and in short order received a response from one of the Ubuntu developers:
"Well, you won't be able to easily get the installer to install GRUB, because your /boot is on an XFS file system; we've had a very large number of reliability problems getting grub installed on XFS (see other bug reports), so it's disabled. The interesting question is why the installer didn't automatically fall back to LILO, as it's supposed to."
Aha! So that explains why Breezy installed LILO after I chose to use XFS as the file system. And as for the problem with Dapper, that was indeed a bug and I trust that the good folks on the Ubuntu development team will squash it before the final release hits the servers.
So let it be stated for the record: if you want to use XFS, you should install GRUB to a separate /boot partition formatted with a different file system (ext3 will work fine). How large should a /boot partition be? Surprisingly, bigger than I expected. I checked how much space is being used in my /boot directory and have discovered it's hefty 18MB. Your mileage may vary. On my Dapper installation there are two kernels and two bloated initrd files (probably because I updated the kernel once and didn't delete the old files). Anyway, I would guess that 30MB would be a safe size for a /boot partition. If you keep installing kernels, be sure you clean out the cruft, otherwise your /boot partition will fill to the bursting point. As it is, too many sedentary geeks are plagued with bulging waistlines - last thing we need are bulging /boot partitions as well.
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| DistroWatch.com News |
April 2006 donation: Doxygen receives US$260
We are pleased to announce that, based on readers' requests, the DistroWatch April 2006 donation of US$260.00 goes to Doxygen. What is Doxygen? "Doxygen is a documentation system for C++, C, Java, Objective-C, Python, IDL (Corba and Microsoft flavours) and to some extent PHP, C#, and D." Written by Dimitri van Heesch, Doxygen is widely used by many open source software developers for generating documentation for their software.
As always, our monthly donations programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch, which allocates 10% of its advertising revenue, and two online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software - LinuxISO.co.uk and LinuxCD.org, each of which contributed US$50 towards this month's donation. Both stores have an excellent selection and latest releases at very reasonable prices. Next time you need to order your favourite Linux or BSD CDs, get them from LinuxCD.org or, if you are in the United Kingdom, from LinuxISO.co.uk.
This is the PayPal receipt for the donations to Doxygen:
Dear DistroWatch.com,
This email confirms that you have paid dimitri at stack.nl $260.00 USD using PayPal.
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Payment Details:
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Transaction ID: 9UD16010FE2883734
Total: $260.00 USD
Item/Product Name: Doxygen
Buyer: DistroWatch.com
Message: This is a donation by DistroWatch.com as part of our programme to support open source software projects. Keep up the good work!
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme:
Since the launch of the DistroWatch Donations Programme in March 2004, we have donated a total of US$7,800 to various open source software projects.
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DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 8 May 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Doxygen (by wayne040576 on 2006-05-01 11:28:55 GMT from Grays, United Kingdom)
Great to see Doxygen get the donation. I recently started a new job and it helped me a lot in my exploration of their code.
2 • Slackware (by Edo Hikmahtiar on 2006-05-01 11:55:19 GMT from Surabaya, Indonesia)
Wow....slack with kernel 2.6 (default) .....that's will be a great time........
also see for Frugalware.....
DW weekly is the best! :)
3 • GRUB & XFS (by Mark W. Tomlinson on 2006-05-01 12:15:03 GMT from Roswell, United States)
I read with great interest Robert Storey's tip on GRUB and XFS. I've been running Ubuntu Dapper for some months now (using the Reiser FS) but I've also been following increasing general interest in XFS. Since I already establish a separate /boot partition, it looks like it should be straight-forward to go with XFS on my next install (i.e., the next time I do something stupid and HAVE to reinstall).
Thanks, Robert - I think you just got me off the dime...
4 • freespire (by johansson on 2006-05-01 13:11:30 GMT from Minneapolis, United States)
Interesting interview with Linspire, thanks for: 1) taking the time to conduct the interview, and 2) for publishing it. I look forward to August, when I can 1) download Freespire, 2) install the OS, and 3) test it out for me ma.
5 • Slackware (by Bass on 2006-05-01 13:18:33 GMT from , Egypt)
Hope Slackware 11 will come out VERY soon.. Actually 2.4 kernels worked better for me than 2.6 ones. Ah well, we'll see..
-A
6 • Filesystems (by Luis on 2006-05-01 13:28:22 GMT from Madrid, Spain)
I've always been curious about filesystems, so finally decided to make my own tests/benchmarks (nothing that can be published, just for myself). My conclusions? For compatibility, reliability AND performance, stay with ext3 or ReiserFS. It's not by chance the important distributions support this two.
However, if you like to test new things, try JFS and XFS, or even Reiser4. You'll find out how many problems they have, but that's what testing is about, right?
I just don't understand that recommendation from some bechmarks to go for XFS as a general purpose FS. They should be careful with their conclusions before recommending that.
Great DW, thanks Ladislav !
7 • No subject (by Simon on 2006-05-01 13:38:39 GMT from Augustdorf, Germany)
Interesting as usual.
I'm looking forward to Slackware with 2.6 Kernel.
8 • ext2 for /boot (by C. Dominik Bodi on 2006-05-01 13:41:45 GMT from Falls Church, United States)
Using a journaling filesystem for your /boot partition is not a good idea:
1.) You only change data on /boot when you install a new kernel. Compared to the rest of the filesystem, that's almost never. Therefore the safety benefit you get for using a journaled fs on /boot is next to zero.
2.) That almost nonexisting benefit gets offset by the additional space needed for the fs journalling data. In the worst case, the journalling data can take up several hundred MBs. I've been tricked by meself more than once by using ext3 or reiser on /boot and then wondering why I wasn't able to install more than 2 kernels on a 100mb partition. Using ext2, you could easly install 50 kernels (ca. 15-20 kernels if you are using initial ramdisks) on a partition of that size.
9 • GRUB + XFS (by xzgv on 2006-05-01 13:50:25 GMT from , Panama)
Robert Storey does it again, thanks, pal.
10 • Freespire (by Jesse on 2006-05-01 14:01:24 GMT from Halifax, Canada)
I think the Freespire project is long over-due. The Linux community
could certainly use a supported, progressive distro which
supports non-free componets.
11 • Ubuntu Is A Pile Of Horseshit and FUD (by Sphinx on 2006-05-01 14:15:35 GMT from Sacramento, United States)
There is nothing wrong with XFS and GRUB, I install/run them together all the time. Whatever weakness Ubuntu has shame on them, it's low dirty trash to blame it on the software. You should put some other distro on XFS with GRUB until Ubuntu actually becomes ready for prime time. Guess it takes more than a brass band and a big PR campaign to make a decent distro.
12 • slack (by towsonu2003 on 2006-05-01 14:25:03 GMT from Baltimore, United States)
slack w. 2.6 kernel. oh yea.
the groklaw read on freespire was okay, but it was not very convincing. The link to a mailing archive (about doomsday) from that article, however, was much more convincing for me to review my shopping habits as well as my views on Linspire...
13 • Good for Linspire, BSD and Slackware (by Daniel Mery on 2006-05-01 14:25:58 GMT from Seffner, United States)
Welcome Linspire to "THE BAZAAR" world, it is a real free world.
Congratulation to PcBSD first stable release, good job.
Good news that the next Slackware 11.0 is coming with Kernel series 2.6.
Thanks to Distrowatch because all Mondays with can get a lot of news about "open source"
Regards,
Daniel Mery
14 • xfs (by towsonu2003 on 2006-05-01 14:27:29 GMT from Baltimore, United States)
#11 - Sphinx says: "There is nothing wrong with XFS and GRUB, I install/run them together all the time. Whatever weakness Ubuntu has shame on them, it's low dirty trash to blame it on the software."
I'll say: than go and tell them this on the bug report, not on an obscure DWI comment section.
15 • xfs and /boot (by Tariq on 2006-05-01 14:46:13 GMT from Rochdale, United Kingdom)
if you use recent/patched version of GRUB you don't need to have a separate non-XFS /boot. for example Linux Mandrake has had this feature for a while.
OpenSolaris uses GRUB too.
16 • Stallman ATI Protest (by cheetahman on 2006-05-01 16:19:13 GMT from Washington, United States)
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/rms-ati-protest.html
17 • No subject (by Freespire announcement URL ? on 2006-05-01 16:22:49 GMT from Camberley, United Kingdom)
I think you have got this Link above wrong
the one here = 'announcement' about Freespire
As it goes to a Planning Dapper+1 by Mark Shuttleworth (of ubuntu)
18 • Litrix 6.4 bugs (by Fotograf on 2006-05-01 16:35:18 GMT from Victoriaville, Canada)
This live installer of Gentoo has a bug: could not boot in English ! Had to do try and error to turn the KDE to English after the hdd install - still many Menues remain Portugese....
Otherwise Good Distro - ADSL started from the Terminal:
"rppoe-setup" mp3 play from the Box - DVD after Emerging
libdvdcss too !
19 • XFS (by niklaren on 2006-05-01 16:37:32 GMT from Atlanta, United States)
I read the Debian file system comparison last week and was interested in the XFS results. I've been a suse user for a long time, but KDE 3.4 has been giving me problems on a AMD 64 machine. Looks like 10.1 will solve that when it finally comes out. I have a server with mostly graphics/multimedia files in Reiser partitions.
I would really appreciate it if we could search distributions on the file systems they support.
20 • Freespire (by william johnson on 2006-05-01 16:37:39 GMT from Wilmington, United States)
It will be interesting to see when you install Freespire if you can then
immediately play a cd, play a dvd movie, and stream radio stations.
I'm betting on NO WAY.
I guess PCLinuxOS .92 has got me spoiled.
21 • Filesystems (by Luis on 2006-05-01 17:56:33 GMT from Madrid, Spain)
I've been searching for benchmarks done in modern hardware that would confirm my own about JFS and XFS not being real options. Maybe they do work ok in old hardware (as those published benchmarks show), but in modern hardware they don't !
http://www.bullopensource.org/ext4/sqlbench/index.html
I hope this helps those wanting to give XFS a try.
22 • Linspire = Freespire (by Andy on 2006-05-01 18:18:08 GMT from Stevenage, United Kingdom)
Umm - Not too sure about this one. I just hope Mr.Carmony’s not trying to smoke screen everyone for his (Linspires) own financial gains. He can't blame the Linux community for being sceptical about Linspire’s motives.
From what I've read at Freespire it’s still unclear as to if these extra proprietary components will be free or not. What do they mean as an 'Option'? At Freespire it says that CNR will still cost $20 to receive non-free software, does this also mean the ‘Optional’ extra proprietary software that Carmony’s promoting Freespire with? If so then Freespire is no more than a free downloadable version of Linspire, with CNR disabled until you've paid your $20.00 to get access to the stuff we all want. Mind you I think this is something Linspire should have done a long time ago, why charge for the base operating system when you can make more money with CNR?
I guess only time will tell how this one plays out.
23 • Freespire (by Egon Spengler on 2006-05-01 20:29:55 GMT from , United States)
From comments and marketing-speak, it looks like you get two choices for download, one with nothing proprietary, one with the fairly cheap stuff thrown in (mp3 and the like), and then if you want to play DVDs, pony up the bucks to get it from CNR.
24 • Freespire (by Andy on 2006-05-01 21:30:24 GMT from Stevenage, United Kingdom)
I think your right Egon. Seems like theirs going to be a 3 way split. Firstly a pure GNU version, secondly a version like Suse Eval with a few commercial plugins, then thirdly the option to pay for a full CNR subscription to get things like DVD etc...
Personally I don't think the third option has any place in Freespire. Once CNR is installed Freespire will essentially become a full commercial paid for version of Linspire. I might be being cynical but maybe that's what Carmony’s counting on!
25 • XFS, /boot, and grub (by somethingdignified on 2006-05-01 23:29:26 GMT from Akron, United States)
1: /boot really should be its own partition, for security and for convenience in booting multiple distros.
2: ext2 is the only sensible file system to use on /boot. You only read it once per boot anyway, so who cares about speed?
3. The XFS grub issue is now moot.
26 • Freespire/Linspire - re: comment by Egon Spengler (by Glenn Ewald on 2006-05-01 23:54:30 GMT from Gainesville, United States)
I agree 100%. I've never tried Linspire for that very reason. It reminds me too much of the old shareware/crippleware concepts. I may be in a minority, but I'd just as soon pay for software upfront. I'm pretty much sold on SUSE, and I buy the boxed set. It's a fairly hefty one time cost, but I know exactly what I'm getting for my money; and don't have to worry about getting nickeled or euro'd or 20-dollar'd to death afterwards in order to have a satisfactory system.
Just my 2 cents worth....
27 • WhiteBox has to rename FireFox because of legal issue? (by Nemo on 2006-05-02 00:41:13 GMT from Chicago, United States)
I just read about the release that they have to rename Firefox because of legal issue. I don't see other distro renaming theirs unless of course they have a license. But I thought it's free.?? Does anyone has more of this issue?
28 • STEPMANIA (by Rigodor on 2006-05-02 01:01:49 GMT from Philippine, Philippines)
hey... how about stepmania receiving next month's donation?
29 • packages (by JAG on 2006-05-02 01:35:39 GMT from Linden, United States)
Hey Ladislav...,
May I suggest another package for tracking...
How about 'Dovecot'...?
30 • Whitebox/Firefox (by Geo on 2006-05-02 02:17:08 GMT from , United States)
IIRC, non-official builds of FF are not allowed to use the Firefox trademark or artwork. Since WB is built entirely from RHEL sources, it would by necessity not be an official build.
31 • Will there be a Lite Freespire for older systems? (by ChiJoan on 2006-05-02 04:21:16 GMT from Reno, United States)
In the past, I tested Lindows/Linspire, but on my older systems it was not a good idea. So I had to look to other distros for friends with older systems with less RAM and older VGA cards.
I know I can't be the only person suffering at work on a Pentium CPUs at less than 200 mhz with WinNT. They keep saying I'll get a newer system, but I'm not holding my breath. Their reason...as a tech company they can't get rid of all these at the same time.
Smile, Linspire they shelf you next to Xandros and Corel's Word Perfect Office =)
Thanks, another great read for our Monday.
32 • Blog About GNU/Linux, specially Debian GNU/Linux & based distros (by "VARGUX" on 2006-05-02 05:15:37 GMT from Santiago, Chile)
Blog About GNU/Linux, specially Debian GNU/Linux & based distros.
Please, join my weblog for Debian GNU/Linux for "Alternative Download Sites" or "Web sites relationed"...
For information, please, send a email to: fa_ntasma@hotmail.com
Thanks...
33 • Filesystems (by Robzilla on 2006-05-02 05:38:06 GMT from Laguna Woods, United States)
RE:#6
I have to disagree with your conclusions. My experience using all of the linux filesystems, ext2,ext3,xfs,jfs,reiser fs,reiser4, on the same distro. I found that in reliability JFS and ext 3 were the best. In terms of speed and performance JFS and XFS were the best. The most unstable system I used was reiser. It was absolutely unstable. Reiser 4 was not much better. ext 2 was stable but performance was lagging and hope you don't have to force shut down. So if I was going to recommend a filesystem based on my experience it would be JFS. I think that there are many factors and the best thing to do is to try. If you have a choice try them all and see what works best for you and your machine and distro.
That is what makes Linux great, Choice!!
R
34 • Freespire (by Robzilla on 2006-05-02 05:43:55 GMT from Laguna Woods, United States)
Whether it is free or not Linspire needs to make a better distro. Work on performance and not charging for software!!
If I want to pay for a distro around $89.99 I would rather just buy a macintel and use apple for $129 and then dual boot my choice of truly free Linux.
Who cares about Linspire/Freespire when there are great distro's like PCLinux OS and PCBSD!!!
R
35 • Donations (by Johannes EVa on 2006-05-02 10:11:58 GMT from Haltern, Germany)
I just want to say i find it great you make these donations to open source projects. I didn't know it. Go on!
(And next time, think maybe about donate to Lilypond, it's a great project :)
36 • Linspire/Freespire (by Anonymous on 2006-05-02 15:32:21 GMT from Rancho Palos Verdes, United States)
The same day as the Freespire announcement on DW, I got a 50% off coupon for a Linspire CNR only license (no support).
Coincidence? I agree too little too late. I would have stuck with it if they offered this to me when my registration ran out (about 2 years ago). Now I've upgraded the PC's and moved on to PCLinuxOS.
37 • issue counter is wrong (by Anonymous on 2006-05-02 18:49:32 GMT from Eschborn, Germany)
"Welcome to this year's 17th issue of DistroWatch Weekly"
I think we have the 18th issue this week.
38 • Linspire... I rebuke you. Return to the kingdom of darkness. (by Paul on 2006-05-02 23:55:44 GMT from Saint Louis, United States)
After all that glow and pomp, I thought, "Hey. Maybe I'm just not giving Kevin Carmony a chance. DW has talked me into trying crazier things." So, I popped for a copy of Linspire. It arrived today, and I installed it in Vmware Workstation.
Well, you didn't think I'd let it loose to run around the house and scare the dog, did you?
After the easy install in your choice of filesystems (as long as it's Reiser), I spent 5 minutes with it... about how long it took to boot; it seemed like 10 minutes, tho. As always the absolute first thing I did was try to update the distro. Then, personal information ensued, registration, nag, nag, nag, buy more stuff... then my mouse did the Vmware-VM-"Delete from disk" salute. I love Vmware. I love saluting even more.
Yeah, I'd say this is a good distro for Windows Developers. Yeah, I'd say Kevin isn't interested in the Linux developer audience at all. I just filed it in the same pile with "the Xandros experiment".
39 • DSL-N (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-05-03 05:02:52 GMT from Milan, Italy)
I have noticed with joy that the DSL developer have finally given up their most sacred dogma: pass the 50 MB limit.
This finally introduces a 2.6 kernel.
I hope DSL-N is going to be more Debian compatible from now on, that is, a dist-upgrade is not going to break everything as it used to be.
I also hope they introduce reiserfs support.
With other words, I hope DSL-N is going to be a full citizen of the 21st century :)
40 • Mandriva and Page Hit Ranking (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-05-03 05:33:04 GMT from Milan, Italy)
Well, we have said several times that H.P.D. is not a true meter of a distro popularity. And yet...
I predicted some time ago that Mandriva would become fourth here at Distrowatch and stay there. Well, I was wrong. Put the data span over the last 30 days and you'll notice that it has been overtaken by Mepis and PCLinuxOS. It might even be overtaken by Debian and DSL.
So what went wrong?
Here are my suggestions:
1)Releasing once a year. Mandriva 2006 feels already old. But wait until September and it will feel like a dinosaur. And contrary to SUSE, you don't find many serious updates, like KDE 3.5, Firefox 1.5...
2)The widely spread opinion that members get nothing for their money. If you don't believe me just visit the Mandriva Club forums.
And besides, where is the innovation? Mandrake changed a lot between 8.2 and 9.1. But if I compare 9.1 to 2006 I don't see all that difference, except of course for more recent packages.
So I don't know what business model the Mandriva management has in mind, but from what one can see it doesn't look like a very successful one.
41 • MCN wallpaper (by Misty on 2006-05-03 23:26:33 GMT from Elizabethtown, United States)
Anyone got a link to that wallpaper? I think it's beautiful, but, alas, I don't have the time to browse through kde-look.org anymore.
42 • Will the BSDs produce a liveCD ala SLAX? (by Antonio on 2006-05-04 03:08:52 GMT from Corpus Christi, United States)
Dear BSD developers,
I wonder when someone will produce a liveCD ala SLAX. That is with Copy2Ram, small fast and modular. FreeSBIE produces an ok CD, but went with XFCE, FreeSBIE-1.0 had KDE, KDE is nicer even though a bit heavier, FreeBSD has unionfs already, why not use squashfs and come up with BSD-Live scripts like Tomas's Linux-live scripts. Make a smaller KDE and put it under 256 MBs just like SLAX. This way BSDs will be tried more and more without installing. I hear lots of good things about PCBSD and DesktopBSD, which can be installed, but do not leave the LiveBSD's out. I have taken a look also at OliveBSD but it is using other WM other than familiar KDE/Gnome. Also FreeSBIE has torrents on developing versions, is there a direct iso link somewhere. Not everyone can go with torrents. Please consider the proposal of making a live BSD cd with the idea of SLAX. SLAX is an excellent live CD that small, fast and works beautifully. It has KDE installed, and fits in 184MB why can't BSD Live CD's achieve such a remarkable target. Take a look at linux-live scripts and adapt/convert them to BSD. I know there will be differences kernel, sound drivers, there are no alsa, instead of modprobe driver, use kload driver or something like that. But why not, If it can be done why not?
Thanks for reading
43 • Thank you (by tom on 2006-05-04 13:11:55 GMT from Helena, United States)
Thank you to Apress, Distrowatch, and Keir Thomas.
I just received my copy of Beginning Ubuntu Linux. Autographed by Keir Thomas!! Wow, nice touch.
I have looked through the text and it is wonderful, even includes an Ubuntu CD. I would recommend this book to to most Ubuntu users. It introduces the basics, but then goes a little beyond and is a great resource for more intermediate tasks. This text just cut my Google time in half!
My primary focus has always been newbies. I teach others Linux so they can install, run, and migrate to Linux. Very rewarding work in itself as I learn a great deal answering (at times researching) their questions. Beginning Linux clearly answers a number of common newbie questions and will reduce my research time. I would not want to give the impression that this book is only for newbies and find coverage of intermediate topics such as security, CLI, and sys admin are covered better then most “beginning” books.
This text will obviously be a great tool/vehicle to teach others Linux. Thank you from Helena Montana !!
PS I'm a recovering Windows'aholic. Now 2 weeks without booting windows. Cravings for windows are decreasing......
Although I am no sys admin or programmer, I am contributing, in my own way, back to the open source community and have been working with wine and the Ubuntu community with voice recognition. Linux developers have at least been open to feedback from users, some have even been helpful. It has been a wonderful to work with and contribute, albeit small contributions, to the open source effort. Never had the opportunity to communicate with developers in other software communities and never felt I could contribute.
44 • neurotically based ubuntu bashing (by john on 2006-05-04 13:12:30 GMT from Boston, United States)
sphinx claims ubuntu is at fault for the xfs-grub issue but several distros and the grub webpage itself actually states that xfs is unsupported.
A lot of the linux aristocrats want to tell us how horrible it is that ubuntu exsists. I presume it really bothers them that the average person can use linux too. I don't know about the cliam of animal excrement but the FUD is in their minds.
45 • Tom in Helena 43 (by AC on 2006-05-04 21:29:51 GMT from , United States)
Sounds wonderful!
46 • 44 neurosis (by AC on 2006-05-05 00:29:40 GMT from , United States)
Thank you, Dr. Freud.
While I agree that the criticism regarding the grub/xfs issue is ill-informed and misplaced, I do take issue with your assessment of Ubuntu critics generally.
First, "average people" can use Debian - or Slackware or even Gentoo. It just takes a bit of patience. In the case of Debian, sarge is really not much more difficult. In some ways easier, since sources for non-free software aren't changing with each release. And there are many distros people apparently find easier to use than Ubuntu that don't draw the same flack.
I believe there is a general suspicion of hype and I don't think anyone can deny that Ubuntu does get hyped. For me, there's also the issue of talking peace, love, brotherhood, and commitment to Free Software, while trying to get developers locked into the proprietary Launchpad as a development platform. And suspicions of Ubuntu drawing developers away from Debian, the base on which they're built. Whether they give back more than they take is hard to say, but the concern is understandable.
I see nothing "neurotic" in these concerns. Or "aristocratic".
47 • A bit of patience (by John AKA Dr Freud on 2006-05-05 18:52:16 GMT from Albany, United States)
At the risk of being labeled I've decided to contiune the discussion.
Several years ago I took a kayaking course in Maine. The instructor was a very personable and experiance teacher and guide. We had a few mintues before the group got together and this instructor offered me what I took as his wisdom. he said "if it takes more than 15 minutes to learn (reflecting on the mindset he saw most often) then I don't want to learn it". Almost 10 years has past since that exchange and I don't think that the culture(s) I see have become more patient. This isn't a condemnation just an observation. People are busy and ubuntu does make it easier and faster to just use linux for what you need to do. I have about six years experiance with linux, having used windows at work-because I had to, and mac OS 7 thru 10 at home. I installed debian when it was considered pretty hard to install, and also with the new installer more recently(there's no comparision really becasue debian's recent installer can't configure network or even identify the graphics card while ubuntu can). I also have slackware 10.2 installed. I have installed over two dozen linux distros. Recently I've come to the conclusion that for saving time and reducing aggravation ubuntu is one of the best distros I could use. I also spend time answering questions at various forums. I know how much people like to diss ubuntu.
I guess it's seen as an idiots linux. I think I understand the concerns about taking debian developers away but then again I don't see that criticism leveled at a commercial debian based distro like xandros. Anyway I'm semi-retired so I may have more time to figure out problems than other people do. It all depends on how you decide to use your time.
48 • 47 (by AC on 2006-05-05 19:29:30 GMT from , United States)
First, I'm glad you've found a GNU/Linux distribution that fits your needs (and your hardware).
The distinction between Xandros and Ubuntu is that, while Xandros uses Debian packages, Ubuntu (or rather Canonical) has put a lot of money into hiring many Debian developers to work on their project, developers who now (arguably) spend a lot less of their time on Debian itself. And unlike Xandros, Ubuntu has forked the entire codebase, breaking compatibility at many turns. Under Xandros hasn't tried to wrap itself in the rhetoric of software freedom and community as it pursues its own corporate agenda.
I'm not particularly a fan of Xandros, just trying to explain the difference in attitude. Of course the biggest difference: Xandros isn't number one on Distrowatch or regularly in the news, so you hear less comment about it either way.
49 • Too many distros to keep track of! (by Steve on 2006-05-06 01:03:24 GMT from Meridian, United States)
There are so many distributions that I will never have time to check them all out. It would be nice if DW could somehow categorize the distributions. There seem to be several different types. There are firewall distributions, desktop, live CD, Debian derivitives, Fedora derivitives, BSD things, servers, rescue CD's, etc. If all of the entries were aranged by type then people could browse through what interests them. Just a thought.
50 • 49 • Too many distros to keep track of! (by ladislav on 2006-05-06 01:08:38 GMT from Taipei, Taiwan)
Please visit the search page at http://distrowatch.com/search. There you can filter distributions based on various criteria. Have fun!
51 • XFS file system (by Jack Wind on 2006-05-06 08:45:22 GMT from Fern Tree Gully, Australia)
I have been using the XFS file system for ages. I dont have a problem installing grub ???
People might need to study linux a bit more, and for that matter, partitions in general.
You gave the answer in the following paragraphs Robert!
52 • 52 (by AC on 2006-05-06 09:17:18 GMT from , United States)
I believe the confusion is this: grub works just fine booting an XFS partition, if grub is installed on the MBR. But if grub is in the boot sector of an XFS partition, there's a problem. I'm not certain what the specific situation with Ubuntu is.
53 • GRUB in MBR and XFS (by Winfied on 2006-05-07 05:28:27 GMT from Grnwald, Germany)
This is absolutely correct. To proof just set up two machines: One machine with three partitions. XFS, XFS, EXT3, another machine with XFS,EXT3,EXT3. Then install GRUB in MBR of XFS and on the other machine in /boot of XFS. Then see what is going to happen.
54 • 53 (by Anonymous on 2006-05-07 05:32:32 GMT from , United States)
An even easier test, using a single machine, install grub both in the MBR and in the boot sector of the / partition and have / formatted XFS. Set up grub on the MBR with two entried. One to boot the partition directly and the other to chainload, booting from the grub installed to the boot sector of the XFS partition.
Number of Comments: 54
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| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Full list of all issues |
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openEuler
openEuler is an open source project operated by the OpenAtom Foundation. It is a digital infrastructure distribution which can fit into a wide variety of server, cloud computing, edge computing, and embedded deployments. openEuler is compatible with multiple CPU architectures (including x86_64 servers, cloud environments, ARM-powered embedded devices, and RISC-V boards) and suitable for a wide range of environments. The project releases a long-term support (LTS) version every two years in order to provide a stable platform for enterprise users. A new openEuler interim version is released every six months to provide more up to date technologies. While openEuler focuses on server deployments desktop environments (including UKUI, Deepin, GNOME, and Xfce) are available.
Status: Active
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View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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