 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 150, 8 May 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 19th issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The long delayed SUSE Linux 10.1, which is expected to be released on Thursday, should be the highlight of the week, but FreeBSD 6.1 is also likely to hit the download mirrors within the next day or two. In other news, confirmation of the Debian "etch" December release date target, an introduction to an Ubuntu-based live CD with a collection of genealogy software, and an announcement by a project developing a range of Gentoo-based virtual machines for VMware and Xen. In the interview section, we talk with the two lead developers of Damn Small Linux about their new product - DSL-N. Finally, don't miss the chilling opinion piece by Robert Storey who appeals to all US citizens to fight against the newly proposed COPE legislation. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (14.6MB) or mp3 (14.9MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Miscellaneous News |
SUSE, Debian and FreeBSD release updates, Gentoo development pains, Linux Genealogy CD
 Let's start with long awaited news that the development of the delayed SUSE Linux 10.1 is now over. As Andreas Jaeger explains in his mailing list post, the new release is done and all that needs to be completed before the final announcement later this week is the building of CD and DVD sets, some final testing, and writing of the release notes. He also expresses cautious optimism about the new version of SUSE Linux: "I've heard early quite some criticism but also in the end a lot of people saying that 10.1 is now a great release." What was originally scheduled for release in late February will only arrive in the middle of May, but it should be worth the wait. Get your FTP and BitTorrent clients ready for the download rush on Thursday!
* * * * *
 Facing much criticism during the "sarge" development cycle which took three years to complete, the developers of Debian GNU/Linux are now trying to shed the image of a distribution with the longest time span between stable releases. In a mailing list post on debian-devel-announce, Andreas Barth confirmed that a new release of the largest Linux distribution is still scheduled for early December. Perhaps the most interesting part of the announcement is the fact that, unlike "sarge", the new "etch" will less likely be held back by processor related issues, since it will support major architectures only. Furthermore, those processor architectures which will not be ready in time for the release might be removed from "etch". Speaking of processors, Barth also announced that Arm now qualified as a release architecture, while the new AMD64 port has now been pushed into the unstable branch with the testing branch following soon. There is still plenty of work to be done before December, but at least it seems that the Debian project leadership is more committed to a timely release than it used to be in the past.
* * * * *
 Still on the subject of new releases, it looks like the final release of FreeBSD 6.1 is starting to hit the download mirrors as we write this. As expected, FreeBSD 6.1 is a relatively minor upgrade for version 6.0, containing mainly security advisories and major bug fixes, but also some new drivers and hardware support. A formal release announcement should follow soon; in the meantime, those who are interested in the finer details can read these unofficial release notes by Bruce A Mah, while those readers who just can't wait to put their hands on the new code can download the shiny new ISO images from ftp3.freebsd.org, ftp10.freebsd.org or a number of other FreeBSD mirrors around the world.
* * * * *
 Has Gentoo Linux grown into a huge project that is becoming hard to manage? Some people clearly think so. In a recent mailing list post entitled Gentoo: State of the Union, Ryan Phillips, a Gentoo developer, has expressed his concerns more bluntly: "I believe the way Gentoo is doing things is broken. The entire project has reached a level of being too political and trying to solve certain problems in the wrong way." He continues citing the reasons behind his bold assertion, including issues affecting those Gentoo users who wish to become Gentoo developers, problems with the "live tree" and CVS, worries over quality control, and failures to act timely on Gentoo Linux Enhancement Proposals (GLEP). Phillips also argues in favour of introducing a voting mechanism to resolve some of the above issues. You can read responses to the criticism in this long thread.
* * * * *
Some of our readers might recall an article featuring GRAMPS, a popular genealogical application for UNIX, in a previous issue of DistroWatch Weekly. As pointed out by a reader recently, the project not only develops GRAMPS, it has now also built a couple of Ubuntu-based distributions, both live and installation CDs, with GRAMPS and several other genealogy applications pre-configured and ready for use: "This CD is based on Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) and, in addition to the regular Breezy, features pre-installed GRAMPS, GeneWeb and LifeLines applications, as well as GraphViz program to draw pretty graphs in GRAMPS. The CD is available only for the x86 architecture." If you are interested in the study and tracing of family pedigrees and would like to check out the current state of genealogy software on Linux, please visit the Linux Genealogy CD page for more details and download links.
* * * * *
Finally, a note from Stephen Dennis from VirtualAppliences.net. This new project develops a range of nano-sized virtual machines for VMware and Xen, with web user interfaces for deploying instant infrastructure and applications:
"Virtual Appliances are pre-built virtual machine images for VMware and Xen that provide network applications. For example, our second Virtual Appliance provides Apache Tomcat 5 as its application. Without making any functional sacrifices, the Apache Tomcat appliance comes in a 53MB download. The appliances are built using Gentoo Linux and a custom start-up and management system designed so that non-technical users can manage the embedded network application with minimal learning."
An interesting idea. If you want to learn more, please visit the project's home page for further information and download locations.
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| Opinion |
Wrecking the Internet: Turning Gold into Lead (by Robert Storey)
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits.
- Albert Einstein
Not everyone realizes that the USA invented the Internet. Even fewer people realize that the USA is on the verge of wrecking it. This is not an exaggeration. Some nasty new legislation currently under debate in the US Congress could make the Internet as bland as day-old yogurt.
Those who do not live in the USA should not be smug. There is a famous old saying that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches pneumonia. The USA has a history of exporting its bad laws. Most geeks are familiar with the notorious DMCA and software patents. Thanks to the DMCA, DVDs are region-coded and it's illegal to buy mod-chips for an Xbox. Thanks to software patents, most Linux distros do not have video codecs or an MP3 player. The fact that this execrable legislation originated in America did not prevent its rottenness from spreading around the world.
To understand what is at stake, you should become familiar with the term net neutrality. The basic concept of net neutrality is that Internet content should be dished out in a non-discriminatory fashion. Thus, your ISP should not be preventing you from accessing DistroWatch, nor should your bandwidth be throttled when you try to use BitTorrent or Skype. In this sense, the network is neutral - it does not play favorites.
All this would change (for USA residents) if the US Congress passes the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006. This odious new law is the brainchild of telecom and cable TV companies. Chief ogres include Verizon, Comcast, BellSouth and AT&T. Their incentive for pushing this legal abomination is the opportunity to make a lot of money.
The COPE Act would do away with the requirement for net neutrality, thus turning America's Internet into a "private network." This would permit ISPs and telecom companies to dish out Internet access to the highest bidder. Under such a regime, AOL could, for example, block access to MSN, or Verizon could throttle your Skype bandwidth because it competes with their own voice-over-IP service. Even worse, a wealthy political party could pay ISPs to block access to a rival party's web sites and blogs. Emailing lists could also be throttled. It's not hard to imagine proprietary software companies paying to block access to DistroWatch, or prevent you from downloading the latest Ubuntu or Fedora release.
"If we fail, the Internet will deteriorate to the point of near uselessness."
If the COPE Act is passed, the USA - which likes to boast of being a "bastion of freedom" - could ironically wind up with an Internet befitting a Third World dictatorship. However, the damage would not be limited to residents of the USA. The fact is that about 50% of the content on the Internet originates in America, even more if you're talking only about English-language content. Do a Google search on almost any topic - from "motorcycle repair" to "allergies" - and see how much of the hits are American-based web sites. The web sites themselves could be hosted on servers outside the USA, but server location is not the issue. Rather, deprived of their US-readership or US-based advertising revenue, many sites would have to fold. Would the Internet be as useful to you if Wikipedia or Google folded? For that matter, it's hard to see how DistroWatch (which is not US-based) could survive if we lost our American audience and advertisers.
There is a lot more I could write about on this topic, but there are others who have already done so (and do it better than me). Some excellent articles about this brewing fiasco appeared recently in The Nation, Raw Story and The Free Press. Sadly, I have seen nothing mentioned on the popular geek web sites that I visit everyday (which is why I'm writing this article).
Can anything to done to prevent this disaster (especially since the COPE Act seems to have the support of the Bush administration)? Fortunately, in this case I believe there is hope, though it's going to be a bitter fight. Although we are up against powerful, well-moneyed lobbyists from the telecom industry, we also have some heavyweight supporters, among them Amazon and Google. Opposition to the COPE Act is being coordinated by Save the Internet. If you are a US resident, you should visit their web site and sign their petition. Even more important, they also have a neat little form for sending a message to your representatives and senators - just type in your message, zip code and address, and it will get sent to the proper person (you needn't even know who your representatives are). All such messages should be short and to the point. Basically, what I said in my message was:
- I oppose the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006 in its present form.
- I support the efforts to amend the act by Representatives Markey, Boucher, Eshoo and Inslee, and Senators Olympia Snowe and Byron Dorgan.
- I am in favor of Net Neutrality.
The telecom/cable industry is pulling out all stops to polish this turd. Their "coalition" has the Orwellian title Hands Off the Internet - their thoroughly misleading web site can be found here.
The telecoms have lots of cash, and are handing out campaign contributions (otherwise known as "bribes") by the bucketful in order to get the COPE Act passed. Geeks of the world - especially US-based geeks - need to put down their cups of espresso for a moment and get busy fighting this thing. If we fail, the Internet will deteriorate to the point of near uselessness and we might as well put our computers in storage. In that case, we'll have to all find new hobbies. Possible candidates include knitting and flower arranging.
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| Interview |
Interview with Robert Shingledecker and John Andrews, Damn Small Linux
 
In a somewhat surprise move, the developers of Damn Small Linux have announced a new edition of their popular mini-distribution for older computers - DSL-N, or "Damn Small Linux Not". Although they have always insisted that their goal is to create an operating system that would fit within a 50MB CD size limit, this requirement has placed a severe restriction on their development effort. Software is getting bigger and users have different preferences for the kind of software they need on a CD, especially if it is meant to run on a more archaic hardware. As a result, a 70MB DSL-N has been born. The two lead developers, Robert Shingledecker (on the left) and John Andrews, have kindly agreed to answer a few questions about the new product.
* * * * *
DW: John, Robert, thank you very much for your time. Can you please introduce yourselves? How old are you and where do you live?
RS: I'm Robert Shingledecker. I am 56 and reside in Southern California. I have been an early pioneer deploying Linux at the City of Garden Grove in the mid-nineties. I also have been the CTO for several "dotcoms" and have built many Linux-based appliances. I have been involved with computers and programming since 1971.
JA: I'm John Andrews, 34, born and raised in Northern California. My path to Open Source software is really rooted in self-guided exploration. I have no formal computer or software training, all the coding I've done over the years is self-taught. I also started late, getting my first computer in 1996, but I was quickly drawn to open source software and wanted to learn as much as I could. Like many self-directed geeks, I started by wanting to know what made things work. Over the years I've grown to love simplicity and functionality above all else in software.
DW: Have you two ever met or do you cooperate exclusively on the Internet?
RS: Yes, several times, John has come to southern California. The last visit was last August when we both attended the Linux World trade show in San Francisco.
JA: Yeah, it is nice that we are close enough that we can get together every once in a while. Robert lives near Disneyland, so I could drive down and bring my kids. They could catch Mickey while Robert and I get to talk shop in person.
DW: After hearing about the alpha release of DSL-N, my first reaction was: why? What prompted this development?
RS: Trying to support both old and new(er) hardware had become a real challenge. Also the 50MB limit has always been a challenge. But a very worthwhile one.
Going to a new kernel and modules would mean losing some support for the older machines. In fact, we tried a kernel 2.4.31 release dropping some support for older machines, but picking up support for some newer ones (e.g., SATA support). What we ended up with was not pleasing anyone! John and I decided that to best support the old and the new(er) hardware we should have a separate offering. Hence, DSL-N.
JA: Improving DSL is an enormous challenge. We are still making incremental improvements, but it is like trying to canoe against a heavy stream. Our 50MB size limit puts us at odds with code bloat which is coming at us from every direction. Open source software, like closed source software, is fattening up like a 12-year-old boy with unlimited access to pizza, ice cream, and an Xbox 360.
DSL is a functional and portable Linux distribution. It needs to be able to run on a vast amount of hardware, yet have a desktop with enough functionality to satisfy Robert, myself, and our user base. That means we need a robust kernel with extensive modules, and we need to squeeze in as much desktop functionality as possible.
Here is the thing... unless there is a new push in code efficiency, we are reaching the top of our game with DSL in terms of applications. Yes, we know there are other small distributions that pack in more robust applications into a similar size. We could go that route, but what good is a mini-distribution that fails to run on half the hardware out there? DSL is bowing out of that race; we have our own agenda.
DSL-N is our response to those who want heavier software in a small package. Frankly, having a 50MB limit in an environment that uses GTK2 applications, a 2.6 Kernel, and has good hardware support is a contradiction in terms. That's why DSL-N will be small, but we are not setting any hard limit.
Although the new DSL-N does away with the 50MB size limit, it still adheres to its philosophy of "small is beautiful".
(full image size: 1,043kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
DW: How exactly does DSL-N differ from DSL? Besides adding extra applications and a newer kernel, is there anything else that makes DSL-N a better product in certain circumstances?
RS: DSL-N has a much newer kernel and modules supporting the newer hardware. It offers Unionfs as a boot option and a collection of GTK2 apps. It would not be possible to offer the hardware detection, GTK2 and apps within 50MB. We have not set a size limit on DSL-N. But our users know that John and I believe in the old Unix philosophy that "small is beautiful".
JA: I don't like to think of DSL-N as better than DSL. It is certainly bigger, and more user-friendly. The applications are more mainstream. We have Gaim instead of Naim, AbiWord in place of Ted, Gnumeric in place of Siag, CUPS in place of Apsfilter and MPlayer substituting for XMMS. The newer kernel has greater compatibility with modern hardware. Adding all that up, we have something that is very easy to use, yet portable and light enough to run on 10-year-old hardware.
DW: What other applications have been added to DSL-N and why? Are you open to suggestions by users?
JA: I mentioned a few of them above. DSL-N is not adding more applications on top of a common base with DSL, but rather we are substituting larger applications. Most of the desktop apps are now GTK2 based. In place of Firefox and Sylpheed, we are using the Mozilla suite. That brings up an interesting point: Some users would rather that we use a Firefox and Thunderbird combination in place of Mozilla, but Mozilla is more compact than that combo, and it runs faster too. We are still watching size and response times, and we will always side with speed all else being equal.
RS: When it comes to applications, I usually let John and the user community determine that. I am a little too "over the hill" to know the current pulse in that area.
DW: Is DSL-N compatible with any Debian repository? Let's say that I want to add an application, would I be able to point my sources to a Debian mirror and add it with apt-get?
RS: It is a very crowded field with distros that are Debian compatible. We believe that we have something different as established by the success of DSL. Our MyDSL system uses only the essentials to avoid the code bloat that many package managers often contain. Often times to add one package results in many packages that would often overwhelm our target machines' resources.
JA: Yes, this is the gem of the DSL project that most users fail to see. Robert has developed a way to have applications run dynamically without the usual increase of RAM that would normally occur. While DSL and DSL-N are built from Debian technology we believe that using them to do a traditional Debian install is sort of missing the point.
DW: Many live CD projects nowadays provide an easy way to customise the original CD by adding needed applications and removing unnecessary ones. Is this option available in Damn Small Linux?
RS: Well, DSL-N is not a live CD project. At least I don't think of it that way. Live CD is just one of many ways to run DSL-N. We have had the MyDSL extension repository for a very long time, this concept pre-dates Klik. It provides a simple point and click to install additional apps of all kinds. These apps are an open process and the community of DSL users are always adding and updating the collection. We support three types of extensions that can seamlessly integrate additional applications into our system. These additional applications based on extension type can be simple tar balls, dot dsl's or uci's. The extension type dictates whether the file system becomes writable or not, some are even mountable, which is the least resource intensive. We have had these features before there was Unionfs. We were extending the capabilities of the live CD before it became a popular thing to do. We were the first to offer USB pen drive installs. The first with compact flash installs. First with backup/restore. For the past three years, our goal has been to extend the capabilities of a live CD. And we have an easy "mkydsl" script to encapsulate all these extensions onto a custom "mydsl" CDROM.
JA: Robert said the above well, I don't really have much to add. Except that this combination makes for a beautiful approach for systems with limited resources. Whether one chooses DSL or DSL-N, if you do a frugal method hard drive install or a USB install with your choice applications, you will end up with an extremely compact yet virtually bullet proof system that can not easily be corrupted. Many of our users run DSL and now DSL-N via IDE compact flash or USB pen drive, a media which would be quickly destroyed with a conventional install.
DW: How difficult it is for an ordinary computer user to re-master DSL? Is it a matter of a few clicks or does it require extensive reading of documentation and command line work?
RS: The point of DSL is you can, but you don't need to. But to answer the question, yes. One simple script. We have users making 700MB and some that make DVD-sized versions of DSL. Now without installing the distro to hard drive in the traditional way, many of our users simple save their favorite extensions right onto the pendrive, compact flash or hard disk partition. DSL during boot (whether from live CD, pendrive, compact flash, or within a virtual environment of Qemu or VMware) will auto scan for these extensions, and seamlessly you have any sized DSL distro that you want. Kinda like Burger King: Have it your way. Don't get me wrong. We do have a base set of apps that are mastered into the image. We have a very easy way to seamlessly add applications. All of these running in a compressed "frugal" install. John and I have discussed offering only a tiny "app-less" core. This would then solely rely on our infrastructure to have the distro totally your way.
DW: DSL and DSL-N come with a number of in-house utilities, which while simple, are very effective system administration tools. What toolkit do you use for developing these utilities? And how do you decide which utilities are needed?
RS: At first the 50MB limit meant that most utilities were command line interface. The challenge of 50MB made me think: "How can we offer nice looking GUI without the bloat of the usual GUI toolkits?" Initially, John and I thought about using the Dillo browser. But we were unhappy with the look. John and I evaluated many options from Bash/GTK Perl/GTK and then we found Lua and a Lua/Fltk toolkit. This toolkit is extremely tiny and easy to use. It is just simple scripts. We have been creating many Lua/Fltk GUIs to replace or front end the command line tools. We have begun to use Lua for general scripting needs as well. It is Lua/Fltk that gives DSL a more polished look.
JA: Lua/Fltk is a wonderful tool for us. Using it we have a graphical user interface which runs quite a bit faster than Perl. My only complaint is lack of good documentation. But we have pooled our knowledge, and one of our users has made a great MyDSL extension filled with handy code bits.
DW: Is the development of the 50MB DSL in any danger? I mean, with hardware getting more powerful and software much bigger, it's not hard to imagine that one day you won't be able to continue your work because software developers will no longer write software that would work on archaic hardware. Are you seeing this trend already or do you believe that you can still go on for some time?
RS: There are so many used computers and it is only growing more each day. Think of it like: "we bring good things to life". We have several members who refurbish old computers for charities, and some are in the resale area. We are also very good in the embedded space. I certainly don't see a slowdown in use or popularity of DSL. As far as continued work to do, there is always something that comes up to improve or polish. Many times many of the items in the changelog come directly from ideas and suggestions from our user community. For it is only then, after real life usage, do you really know how things are used and what adjustments would be nice or necessary. And then there is that $100 laptop idea....
JA: We certainly seem to always have much to do for DSL. There is always an area to improve. I think that has been a big part of the reason why DSL is so polished -- our constraints make DSL improve instead of grow. That said, I am not going to pretend that we are not paddling against the current. I guess I am hoping that software developers look at our project's enormous popularity and get inspired to keep things tight. There are a few hopeful signs; for instance, Dillo is being ported to FLTK instead of going GTK2.
DW: Damn Small Linux has climbed to the 6th spot on the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking list, indicating that there is plenty of interest in a small, fast distribution for older hardware. Do you think that the established Linux players have made a mistake by ignoring this area of computing?
RS: Yes, just like in $100 laptop debate. DSL would run great on that. I think that we have climbed up so high because the low(er) end of the market has been ignored. It seems to me, the "small is beautiful" has been forgotten. The new mantra is that we must look like, act like, and be like that 800lb gorilla. You know what I mean. It is everywhere. And code bloat is just as rampant. I also believe that we now have a following of users who want to see what and how we have continued to improve DSL. We are not just another assembly of apps placed atop of a Linux Kernel. I joined with John three years ago because we have the same philosophy and just the challenge of it is great fun.
JA: I am hoping for an efficiency renaissance, there is so much potential out there! Regarding the $100 laptop, and the news that Mr. Negroponte called Linux too bloated for it, I find it a little frustrating. I am typing this up on something with very similar specs to that project, and DSL runs all day every day just fine on this machine. I emailed Mr. Negroponte directly to have him look at our project but he has not responded. I know Red Hat is an underwriter, so they will have to work with them. Yet, here we are with a drop-in solution....
DW: Have you tried Puppy Linux, a distribution with a similar goal as DSL? If so, what do you think of it? Have you ever found yourself borrowing an idea from Puppy?
RS: I rarely have time to look at other distros. So, no, I have not borrowed any ideas from Puppy. I have tried to boot their system and it seems to me that they, like many others, are trying to emulate Windows. But perhaps an early version was suited for older computers. Everything is run as root, all hard drive are mounted and as root. Single user, everything installs to home. To me that is very much like early versions of Windows. Their backup seems to be a very large file that unannounced is deposited onto a hard drive partition. This is not to be negative. Their target of ex-Window users is certainly vast and growing due to the discontinued support of older versions of Windows. DSL on the other hand, tries to stay more like Unix. DSL is designed to be nomadic and as such plays nicely with host hardware. By default we do not mount anything. We can run completely on any capable computer without touching any of their data. I may be off on this assessment, but it is what I experienced with only a cursory look.
JA: I am happy that Puppy exists, and I like that it is not based on DSL like some of the other small space distributions that have come and gone. I have played with Puppy a couple of times -- it is really a different animal than DSL. I don't think we have the same target audience. DSL is made to be light and have broad hardware support. In contrast, Puppy crams a lot of software into a very tight space. Our RAM requirements are quite different.
DW: With new releases coming out in almost monthly intervals, DSL seems to be in a never-ending development cycle. Is this your full-time occupation? How do you pay your bills?
RS: I am a disabled person with Muscular Dystrophy. As such, it forced me into an early retirement. I get much satisfaction to be able contribute to the Linux community. Working on DSL/DSL-N keeps my mind sharp even if my body is not.
JA: Pay the bills? I have a day job and three children. I actually have a lot to say on this topic, but I don't think there is enough room here to go into it all. While DSL and related projects are not yet providing a living for us, I've figured out how to pull a small income for Robert and myself while maintaining our distribution for free. One thing that is critical is to think of your project and the site that it sits on as a publication medium. Another aspect is to not be afraid to ask for help. Very few open source developers are thinking like web publishers, and that is a shame because there is a lot of support to be gained in this way. This is something that I've been studying for three years. I am in the process of writing a type of guide which I'll be publishing on our site. I am hoping that other developers find it useful.
DW: Robert, John, thank you very much and all the best with your endeavours!
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| Released Last Week |
SystemRescueCd 0.2.19
A new version of SystemRescueCd is out: "Version 0.2.19 of the SystemRescueCd project has been released. Changes for version 0.2.19: updated the kernel to Linux 2.6.16.10; option to boot SystemRescueCd from hard disk; fixed boot problems with SCSI CD-ROMs; fixed problems with cdcache; updated ntfsprogs to 1.13.0; updated Oscar scripts; updated the manual; added rsnapshot." Here is the complete changelog.
EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.6
EnGarde Secure Linux has been updated to version 3.0.6: "Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.6. This release includes several bug fixes and feature enhancements to the Guardian Digital WebTool and the SELinux policy, several updated packages, and a couple of new packages available for installation. New features include: source packages are now available via the Guardian Digital Secure Network using APT; three new SELinux booleans; the latest stable versions of MySQL (5.0.20a), GnuPG (1.4.3), PHP (5.1.2)...." The full release announcement.
B2D Linux 20060502
The B2D Linux project has released an updated version of the distribution's "PureKGB" edition. The most important changes in this release include: replacement of dev and hal with udev to automate loading of external storage devices; GNOME Volume Manager is no longer started by default; new addition of Ndiswrapper and Oxim - an input method for traditional Chinese; inclusion of OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 enhanced Chinese edition to "Klik" for easy download and installation; various other bug fixes and small updates. For more details and screenshots please see the release announcement (in Chinese).
Xandros Server
Xandros Corporation has announced the availability of Xandros Server, the company's inaugural release of a high-end server distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux: "Xandros becomes the first Linux platform to provide a 'Debian Enterprise' end-to-end desktop and server platform." The product ships with a number of interesting features, including graphical administration tools, groupware services by Scalix, integrated backup solution from BRU, Windows interoperability features, centralised user management, and streaming media software. For more details please read the press release, visit the product's features pages, and have a look at these screenshots.
Linux-EduCD 0.6
Linux-EduCD is a KANOTIX-based Polish live DVD designed for use in educational and development environments. Version 0.6 was released yesterday with the following features: kernel 2.6.16.5 with extra patches and modules; updated hard disk installer, KDE 3.5.2 with KOffice 1.5.0; OpenOffice.org 2.0.2; specialist educational software (OpenDX, PyMOL, Rasmol, DrGeo, Kseg, KDEEdu...); multimedia applications (GIMP 2.2.10, Blender 2.41, amaroK, Kino); RadRails 6.2; Monodevelop, Eric and Gambas 1.0.15; Scribus 1.2.4 with Scribus templates. Read the full release announcement (in Polish) for more details.
ERPOSS 4
The German Federal Office for Information Security has revealed a new version of ERPOSS, a Debian-based desktop distribution featuring industrial strength security and encryption technologies for potential deployment in government organisations. The main features of ERPOSS 4 include: availability of encrypted file systems; pre-configured personal firewall; DCC Linux kernel 2.6.12; KDE 3.3.2; KMail with integrated virus and spam protection, and pre-configured to send encrypted messages; Kontact groupware client for use with Kolab groupware server; Firefox, OpenOffice.org and many other open source applications. ERPOSS 4 was originally announced (in German) last month and formally released at this week's LinuxTag exhibition in Wiesbaden.
ParallelKnoppix 2006-05-05
Michael Creel has announced the availability of a new version of ParallelKnoppix, a KNOPPIX-based live CD that allows setting up a cluster of machines for parallel processing. What's new? "05-05-2006: new version. OpenMPI 1.0.2; Octave 2.1.73; Povray-3.5 for use with PVM; significant changes to setup: auto-mounting of working directory on compute nodes as they boot, compute nodes can be added and removed on-the-fly; new cluster monitor based on KSysguard; tutorial updated, explains how to re-master." Please visit the project's home page to read the full changelog.
SLAX 5.1.4
Tomáš MatÄ›jÃÄek has released a new stable version of the Slackware-based SLAX live CD: "After a week of testing, SLAX 5.1.4 is released. Official development and kernel modules are available too, feel free to check the modules section on the SLAX website. New features include: added KDE 3.5.2 and KOffice 1.5.0; added FUSE and SSHFS file systems, this will probably replace webconfig in the future (or should we go for CODA file system?); autoexec boot argument now replaces '~' with space; added make_disk.bat to CD, a script to create USB bootable disk in Windows; upgraded many libraries from Slackware current...." Read the full changelog for more details.
easys GNU/Linux 2.1
Marcus Moeller has announced the release of easys GNU/Linux 2.1, a Slackware-based distribution with KDE Light and formerly known as "pocketlinux": "Version 2.1 of easys GNU/Linux has been released. easys GNU/Linux 2.1 is based on Slackware 10.2 and comes with a complete GUI redesign. The new artwork is inspired by Everaldo's Crystal Clear style and has been ported to nearly every component of the environment. We also decided to replace some default applications as it seems they are more common in enterprise environments. OpenOffice.org is now the default office suite and GIMP is the preferred image manipulation program." Read the release announcement on the distribution's news page.
* * * * *
Development and unannounced releases
- StartCom MultiMedia Linux 5.0.5-rc1, the release announcement
- Frenzy 1.0-beta1 the release notes
- DSL-N 0.1-rc1 the changelog
- FreeBSD 6.1-RC2, the release announcement
- dyne:bolic 2.0-rc, the release announcement
- RR64 Linux 3.0-rc1, the release announcement
- ADIOS Linux 5.0-beta, the release announcement
- SimplyMEPIS 6.0-beta2, the press release
- gnuLinEx 2006-rc1, the release announcement
- Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu 6.06-alpha7, the release announcement
- Kaella 2.2-rc2
- R.I.P. 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Translate DistroWatch into your language
Last week we started with updating some of the non-English language files on the site. Currently, Bengali (Jamil Ahmed), Catalan (Rafael Carreras Guillén), Chinese simplified (Zhu Wen Tao), Danish (Per Mortensen), Estonian (Edmund Laugasson), French (Pierre Slamich, ReMink), Hungarian (Kornél Dluhi), Italian (Massimiliano), Macedonian (Jovan Naumovski), Norwegian (Vegard Fiksdal), Persian (Alan Baghumian), Polish (Artur Szymański), Portuguese (Paulo Lino), Spanish (José Manuel Pérez) and Turkish (Yuce Tekol) files are up-to-date, but most others have not been touched for months. If you are interested in helping with translating some of these files into your language or updating the existing translation, please send an email to distro at distrowatch.com for details. Alternatively, take a look at this file and see if you can translate the most frequently used phrases on DistroWatch. Yes, it's not much, but it's a small step to introduce Linux distributions to readers for whom English is a foreign language. All contributors will be credited for their help on the About page.
* * * * *
New on the waiting list
- KNOPPIX-NSM. KNOPPIX-NSM is a KNOPPIX-based live CD dedicated to providing a framework for individuals wanting to learn about Network Security Monitoring (NSM).
- LiMP. LiMP, or Linux Multimedia Player, is a tiny Linux-based live distribution that converts a computer into a multimedia player. It supports most known media formats (MPEG 1 and 2, DivX, WMV, qt-mov, Real, MP3, WAV, WMA, and Ogg, VCD and DVD).
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
That's all for today. The next issue of DistroWatch Weekly will be published on Monday, 15 May 2006. See you then :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • DSL-N (by d00m3d on 2006-05-08 08:12:11 GMT from Victoria, Hong Kong)
The Damn Small Linux (NOT) is now getting big, it is not so small any more! It may be better to choose another name...
2 • Distrowatch news (by Nelson Lobo on 2006-05-08 08:26:05 GMT from Pune, India)
The weekly news service of distrowatch is just great. Keep it up.
3 • The COPE Act - sounds pretty nasty (by latte on 2006-05-08 08:46:07 GMT from Wellington, New Zealand)
Hmm... looks like big business is on the prowl again - if it's not patents, it's something like this. I'm in New Zealand, but I fully support Robert Storey's efforts to sink this proposed Act.
I wonder how long it will be before someone clever gets "mesh networking" going at broadband speeds. Then maybe we can **completely bypass** the bozos in the telecomms and cable-TV business who like to push this kind of stuff.
- latte
4 • DSL-N (by Golden on 2006-05-08 08:49:38 GMT from Winchester, United Kingdom)
Agree with d00m3d. DSL-N falls between the two camps. Bigger, but still not enough to satisfy the clamour for more. And not small enough to meet the original 50Mb criterion. Maybe if a new hyper-compression algorithm could be devised? Otherwise, the approach by Puppy has more to commend it, provided Barry Kauler can molify all the calls for more and keep the resources inventory within manageable limits. His all-new Puppy2 should prove a major innovation when it arrives and will encompass even older hardware within its ambit, making further savings to lanfill.
5 • Another fine issue (by warpengi on 2006-05-08 08:50:33 GMT from Calgary, Canada)
of DWW. Last week seemed a little ho-hum but this week has much of interest.
The one thing that really sticks out for me is the virtual appliancesfor VMWare and Xen. What a fascinating and really really good idea. Now I have to go install Xen on my web server and try out the Tomcat appliance.
Bye
6 • DSL-N (by Golden on 2006-05-08 08:52:22 GMT from Winchester, United Kingdom)
..or even landfill ! Must replace this keyboard.
7 • DSL-N (by Soloact on 2006-05-08 08:56:46 GMT from Redding, United States)
They could change it to Durn Small Linux, if it's larger than the 50 MB CDRs, but still fits on the small 180/210 CDRs. Still small media, and a lot of extra headroom to work with.
8 • Takeover (by klhrevolutionist on 2006-05-08 09:28:39 GMT from Jackson, United States)
Thanks for mentioning the ever increasing police state measures being put into place here in the United States. Hopefully others pick-up on this and post it on there blogs, wiki's, webpages, etc...
As for damn small linux, puppy runs circles around that distro in almost every aspect.
9 • Re :: 3 • The COPE Act - sounds pretty nasty (by ShakaZ on 2006-05-08 10:32:42 GMT from Bruxelles, Belgium)
Ever heard about Wifi??? It's already at 54Mbps and higher, while broadband connections typically are ranging in the 1 to 10Mbps. There already exist several free or humanitarian projects to create mesh networks, in developping countries and in big cities all around the world. If there's enough interest in such a system the population can drive the goverment to connect their open network to the internet...
10 • Little request (by Massimo on 2006-05-08 10:55:52 GMT from Torino, Italy)
Hi Ladislav,
thanks for your fine site!
One little request: it would be nice in "Summary of expected upcoming releases" list to have the final releases in evidence (e.g. in bold)
Ciao!
11 • Ever heard of Wifi? (by ozonehole on 2006-05-08 10:59:41 GMT from Taipei, Taiwan)
There already exist several free or humanitarian projects to create mesh networks, in developping countries and in big cities all around the world.
Yes, the city of Philadelphia tried to set up a community Wifi service and the telecoms jumped right in and lobbied for a state law to make it illegal because "it unfairly competes with private businesses." Don't be surprised if Bush pushes for a federal law to make community-owned Wifi illegal in every state.
Indeed, we need a "humanitarian project for a developing country" - the USA.
12 • DSL and Puppy (by Mark South on 2006-05-08 11:08:45 GMT from Langnau, Switzerland)
First, thanks Ladislav for continuing to produce Distrowatch Weekly for our enjoyment and stimulation. I say this even though sometimes it makes for horrifying reading, as it does this week because of the piece on COPE. The optimistic view is that this is another reminder that freedom is something that must be fought for every single day.
Regarding the DSL interview, it's important to understand that while DSL and Puppy have very different objectives and therefore use very different approaches, they are both good for reviving old hardware and as a base for turnkey solutions built round liveCDs. It's a shame that the DSL team made disparaging comments about Puppy based on what is clearly very out of date information gleaned from a very early version.
Regarding Debian, why is it necessarily a good thing to have frequent releases? Plenty of distros have rapid release cycles and they all suffer the same disadvantages. Diversity means that it's a good thing to have some distros on a slow and careful release cycle, especially if that means that the results are stable, thoroughly tested, and free of bugs.
13 • Small is beautiful (by Lobster on 2006-05-08 11:14:44 GMT from Rochdale, United Kingdom)
A great interview with DSL innovaters. As publicity officer for Puppy, I have a slightly different understanding. DSL uses the excellent Knoppix/Debian recognition engine. Puppy is not based on any other distro and its recognition is not as good as DSL's but if it works and it usually does, it is fast, fun and consistent. Though we look like Windows using JWM - a WM manager which we actively support and use, we can also use Enlightenment, KDE, fluxbox (the DSL default), Xfce and one or two others. We also are developing an XDG menu system that will mean the menu will be the same across these divergent eye candy. Puppy runs in ram - so on laptops HD access is a rare event. Laptop batteries last longer. Puppy boots up faster from CD then other distros do from HD. As for DSL-N . . . Basically you run Puppy, add software (usually you do not need to) and then create your own ISO. Maybe we will do one called Puppy-Y . . .
:)
Our latest Puppy Alpha7 for Puppy2 has Inkscape built in + Mozilla, Abiword (with all the trimmings), Gnumeric, Gaim etc etc
Today the second Beta for PuppyCE (1.09) our community edition will be released and announced here:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LatestNews
You can download the latest Puppy "Singer" (1.08r1) here.
http://www.puppylinux.org
Compare it to DSL-N and make your own mind up. Also try Austrumi which is also excellent - if a little Latvian . . . You may find as our friends at DSL say, 'Small is boootyful'
14 • Older hardware (by Caraibes on 2006-05-08 11:29:39 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Hi Folks !
I enjoyed reading the interview of the DSL guys. I do share and support their vision about "small is beautifull" !
Please, go on making stuff for older hardware.
Since I am a bit of a distro hopper, I try stuff here and there, and it's fun ! I am very much in favor of the DSL-N project, as it will make it more usable for me. I don't think the name has any relevance, and as of me, I don't care if it grows fatter than 70mb or 80mb... I will have it anyway on a regular cd-r and a 256 pendrive...
I am very happy to use both Puppy and DSL, and it is good that they are completely different, because that is the point of diversity.
On the same subject, I have been trying Dyne:Bolic 1.4.1 yesterday, and while the project leader, Jaromil, seems like a great guy, the live-cd had a couple of bugs (what I mean is that it doesn't work well on my hardware, no offense, Jaromil...)... However, I will follow the Dyne:2 project as I enjoyed his approach of things. He too makes stuff for older hardware...
While reading the COPE article, I realised that the internet and Open source movement is just too much freedom for the people, in the eyes of those who are ruling today's world. In Europe they had that DADVSI law, in the US they want COPE, in China you can't access Wikipedia nor IRC... In Cuba you just can't get online... It should be a good brainstorm for DW readers to think about a way to make the complete internet access independent from multinationals/government/dictature... Of course I have no clue about it...
Anyway, good read with my monday morning coffee, and I will follow the comments during the whole week (it is usually interesting and informative).
(FYI, I am writing these lines from Zenwalk 2.4)
15 • DWW back issues (by Jeremias Grym on 2006-05-08 11:52:05 GMT from Stockholm, Sweden)
It should be easier to browse through all old issues of DWW, not just the latest 50 or so. Sometimes it's useful or just entertaining to look back.
16 • Alternative for DSL / Puppy (by Marcel on 2006-05-08 12:01:58 GMT from Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Are you looking for a great alternative for DSL of Puppy? Not scared of larger ISO's that deliver a distro that runs great on old hardware? Try STX! Take a look at the website: http://stibs.cc/stx/
Give it a try. You will not be disappointed!
17 • Robert Storey (by Leo on 2006-05-08 12:06:33 GMT from Winston Salem, United States)
Hey Robert
Great read, but America is a Continent
Cheers!
Leo
18 • Websites on Google originating in America (by Steffen on 2006-05-08 13:33:50 GMT from Dublin, Ireland)
Although I take the point that a lot of internet content originate in America, I have to say that using Google as a proxy indicator for this gives a result that is quite far fetched from reality. The reason is that Google is specifically English language and American oriented. For example, surfing the net in Norway I would use a local engine rather than Google, as they would have much better phone number lookup, maps actually covering the country, news stories from local newspapers, and actually a lot more content. By some estimates, only 60% of Norwegian websites have been indexed by Google.
19 • WWW (by Oddball on 2006-05-08 13:43:51 GMT from Winchester, United Kingdom)
"Not everyone realizes that the USA invented the Internet."
Funny?! I thought it was down to Tim Berners-Lee?
Fairly safe to assume that inventions claimed by our transatlantic bretheren originated in the aulde countrie.
20 • DSL & Puppy (by william johnson on 2006-05-08 13:44:49 GMT from Wilmington, United States)
OK, i can understand if you live in one of the 95 countries
where the per capita income is (good god !!) less than
$5000 a year that you probably can't afford a decent computer
and need to use Puppy or DSL.
But anybody living in the USA that can't afford a 2ghz
computer as cheap as they are, needs to look at themselves
in the mirror and ask" why am i a failure"
Certainly if you are one of the 40% of wage earners WHO PAY
NO FEDERAL INCOME TAX,you should be able to scam up
$300 for a decent computer so you can run a 600 to 700mb
linux distro.
21 • 19 Tim Berners-Lee (by AC on 2006-05-08 13:47:04 GMT from , United States)
The Internet is not synonymous with the World Wide Wide. The web is just one small part of it.
22 • They won. (by crawancon on 2006-05-08 14:05:02 GMT from Clearwater, United States)
I, like many others, have given up.
I admit defeat.
The amount of B.S. the bush administration has saturated the mainstream media with is far too much for the common person to sift through and obtain intelligible data. The common worker class has no time to research, keep up, etc with what is really happening in america or around the world. They rely on what mainstream media tells them to rely on.
Their plan to keep americans ignorant has worked.
Their plan to keep the rich, richer and the poor, poorer has worked.
Their plan to allow terrorist attacks on american soil as to perpetuate the american economy into the 21st century has also worked.
Everyone is fooled; even if told, no one cares.
Their plan has been active for quite a while and its far too late for any of it to be undone.
They are in control.
The Internet is but of secondary importance to the sanity, reality, and quality of life for humanity. The bush administration has successfully negated all three.
All we can hope for is a poor class uprising of epic proportions that removes those currently in power. Big oil executives, politicians, and anyone else who uses every one of their stinking breaths to lie, cheat and screw over humanity will leave ugly skulls.
oh, and happy monday ladslav.
:-)
23 • The COPE Act (by Urcindalo on 2006-05-08 14:42:19 GMT from Almería, Spain)
Although I'm a Spaniard living in Spain, I don't see why all the panic about that Act among our "united-statian" friends.
What if it is impossible to reach service A from ISP B, or the other way around?
History teaches freedom will always find a way. In this case, there will always be a C provider who will be net neutral, for the mere reason that most people will want that.
In a truly free market, it is people who make a company make money. If my ISP would forbid my access to this page my room-mate recently told me about, then I would change my ISP to my room-mate's (or any other one). Nothing can prevent me from doing that. Don't forget all the ISP providers are fighting for your money. What's more, don't forget new ISPs will spring like mushrooms in such a scenario, because no law can prevent the establishment of new net-neutral companies.
The only ones losing here will be the limited-access ISPs. This Act, if approved, will be their coffin.
Finally, I'd like to express my admiration for the US as a nation. It is truly a great country, and living in old Europe I can assure you how much I envy your freedom. You can't imagine how lucky you are. I lived over there for two years and I'm looking forward to go back.
24 • 23 (by AC on 2006-05-08 15:02:15 GMT from , United States)
As an Estados-Unidosian, I thank you for your kind words and welcome your return. But please don't fail to appreciate all of the beauty your own country has to offer. Oh especially the architecture and the museums!
Unfortunately, many companies enjoy near monopoly status, particularly when it comes to broadband. And I wouldn't rule out collusion either. True free markets can be wonderful, but the reality of monopolies that the government helps create but which then want "de-regulation" is often less pleasant.
25 • 20 (by AC on 2006-05-08 15:17:37 GMT from , United States)
Don't be an ass. Some people don't like adding to landfills before its necessary, some people don't like needless power consumption, and yes, some people need to spend their money on food and medical care. For that matter, some people just like the challenge of getting old hardware that others have written off to work. If that's not your situation, there are lenty of more bloated/ful-featured distributions for you to choose from.
26 • No subject (by Michael M. on 2006-05-08 15:28:58 GMT from West Linn, United States)
While I agree that the threat to the overall concept of an agnostic network is real, I have to say that I'm disappointed in DistroWatch and Mr. Storey for publishing what has to be the phoniest and most alarmist take on this subject I've yet seen. And that is saying something, given the hyperbole that some (on all sides of the issue) have resorted to over the past few months.
Anyone who's been paying a little bit of attention knows that COPE would not permit the wholesale blocking of websites at the behest of competitors. The notion that "proprietary software companies [could pay] to block access to DistroWatch, or prevent you from downloading the latest Ubuntu or Fedora release" is ludicrous. Did Mr. Storey not follow the Congressional testimony regarding these issues? There is a very real concern on the part of lawmakers and policy makers that the Internet -- especially the WWW -- be allowed to function much as it has. Despite Mr. Storey's condescending and xenophobic attitude toward the U.S., people here aren't completely unaware of how much the Internet has done for our economy. No one is anxious to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. The real issue is how to encourage and promote the growth and development of new and existing services. Even the most ardent of net neutrality advocates recognize that in order to encourage the growth of bigger, faster, stronger networks, there has to be some potential upside to those companies that would make the necessary investment. If Mr. Storey is concerned that DistroWatch remain available to its U.S. audience, then one would think he would want to see those networks built and improved upon. Yet the path he argues we take is one that would almost guarantee that there would be no improvement to the existing networks Americans use to connect.
27 • ..stuff (by charleston on 2006-05-08 15:29:42 GMT from Horley, United Kingdom)
New name for DSL-N.
How about SSL - So Small Linux ?
Media stuff. As far as I understand deregulation of the US media in the 1990's allowed it to be taken over by the newspaper barons, who have always had a political agenda. And who then moved mainstream US media (radio, TV) as fast as possible over to the right - by things like choosing to air inflammatory stories, control over the questions asked, the slant of the story... all the way blatant bias e.g. 1 liberal vs. 3 rabid rednecks.
Of late there has been a flood of corporate & government fake news (http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary) stories. How many US people know that much of the “news†they watch is propoganda in a 1930's sense? DoD generates and releases many thousands of “re-enacted virtual news reports†a year which get aired as plain news items. No bias, of course.
(see www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/06/1432239&mode=thread&tid=25 re corporation fake news and
www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/14/152202&mode=thread&tid=25 the DoD fake news story)
This is all because: with the collapse of the Soviet Union there is nothing to counterbalance the Right, who are just into a feeding frenzy. After all they are in power, they can do what they like and there is no-one to stop them :)
The final goal seems to attain a corporatist style of fascism, so to maximise profits ("Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini, 1933). All because... they can. But, is it cleaver, is it warranted?
Also see www.amconmag.com and the excellent and very worrying www.counterpunch.org
Back to Linux, it's less upsetting.
28 • Confused on Ubuntu 6.06 (by cheetahman on 2006-05-08 15:31:32 GMT from Washington, United States)
2006-05-08: Development Releases: Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu 6.06 Alpha 7
2006-04-27: Development Releases: Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Edubuntu 6.06 Beta 2
They have Beta 2 then Alpha 7
29 • RE: (by IMQ on 2006-05-08 15:41:38 GMT from Bogotá, Colombia)
Me too!
They have Live Beta2 with Installer. And now the Alpha 7 with both regular installer and Live. Is the Live Alpha 7 is an improved version of "Beta2"?
It does create confusion for people who don't keep up with every inch of the the development process
30 • DSL - PCMCIA broken for older hardware (by Rob on 2006-05-08 15:58:40 GMT from Ottawa, Canada)
I liked DSL until they changed to a newer 2.4 series kernel (2.4.10 or higher) which broke PCMCIA on my old Toshiba Laptop. I had to move to another distro.
I don't think it is a DSL issue but a Kernel issue. But it would appear that the kernel developers do not want to fix it. They have moved on to teh 2.6 series kernel.
31 • Donation for Lua? (by dthacker on 2006-05-08 16:01:18 GMT from Omaha, United States)
DSL makes old computers sing again. Lua adds to the music. How about a donation for Lua? Dave
32 • DSL-N (by Marc on 2006-05-08 16:10:07 GMT from Beloeil Village, Canada)
Great DWW, thanks Lad and Robert ...
About DSL's new distro, i don,t like the name at all.
It sounds like a derivative of DSL but in fact it's a complete
new distro. I would have call it DLL for Damn Large Linux.
33 • Re:32 (by John on 2006-05-08 16:44:38 GMT from Emeryville, United States)
You would call <100MB large?
34 • Re:33 (by Marc on 2006-05-08 18:17:53 GMT from Beloeil Village, Canada)
Not that under 100 MB is large but compare to the other it much larger.
Maybe i should have said Damn Larger LInux !!!
35 • DSL (by Douglas on 2006-05-08 18:42:37 GMT from Oak Harbor, United States)
I don't know about everyone else but I like DSL not because it is small but because it is fast!! I like to run it out of my ram drive, super fast! A gig of ram is cheeper than a new computer. I am sure being small is a large part of why it is fast. I have and old system that only runs a 1.7 AMD chip but with DSL it runs faster than my friends brand new system most of the time!
If I had that shiny new system think how fast it would be running DSL!! Plus as stated, if you need other software it is very easy to install it.
Size does matter.
36 • 35 (by AC on 2006-05-08 19:41:01 GMT from , United States)
...and small is beautiful.
(quoting Michael Gancarz The UNIX Philosophy.
37 • Wrecking the Internet: Turning Gold into Lead (by Dreamcast on 2006-05-08 19:46:31 GMT from Phoenix, United States)
Distrowatch will survive. I currently spend more money on donations to free software projects than I ever spent to purchase software licenses. Should COPE Act ever become law then I will double my contributions to free software.
On a similar note, I take great pride in the fact that as a general rule I only view media with open source codecs. I have not missed a darn thing.
38 • Re:32 (by Akuna on 2006-05-08 20:02:46 GMT from Saint-Gilles, France)
Better yet: NSDSL= Not So Damn Small Linux!
39 • Debian was always committed to timely releases, but... (by Poncho Marx on 2006-05-08 20:08:35 GMT from , Canada)
Says Ladislav:
"but at least it seems that the Debian project leadership is more committed to a timely release than it used to be in the past."
Even back in 2001, Ben Collins, then Debian leader, wanted to make things move forward faster, but Debian has too much dead wood. There won't be another release in september. Don't bet an arm on it.
PM
40 • DSL (by Johannes Eva on 2006-05-08 20:15:48 GMT from Dreieich, Germany)
> Maybe i should have said Damn Larger LInux !!!
Great idea! It's a pity that humor isn't really present in the OSS world.
DSL is great.
Much greater for the average user that i am would be a fast and really complete distro. Something like ubuntu light or suse light. Or "fast suse", "fast ubuntu" maybe... it's awful that a linux box is so slow with 512 MB Ram.
41 • 39 (by AC on 2006-05-08 20:21:32 GMT from , United States)
The plan is for December, not September. Nevertheless, I wouldn't base any major deployment decisions or the like on anticipation of that plan.
42 • 40 (by AC on 2006-05-08 20:29:47 GMT from , United States)
SUSE and Ubuntu are pretty slow, but I find Debian quite spritely with only 256 MB.
Humor not present in the OSS world? Since when?
From the manpage for slay(1)
# ENVIRONMENT
SLAY_BUTTHEAD - setting SLAY_BUTTHEAD to on puts slay into Butt-head mode (which has different messages than normal mode). Setting it to off puts it into normal mode. This environment variable overrides the setting from /etc/slay_mode
# FILES
/etc/slay_mode - contains keywords describing the mode slay works in, separated by newlines:
mean turns mean mode on. In mean mode attempts to slay people without root priviledges are punished. This is the default.
nice turns mean mode off.
butthead switched slay to Butt-head messages mode.
normal switches slay to normal messages mode. This is the default.
You can only use one of mean/nice keywords and one of butthead/normal keywords.
43 • In favor of keeping DSL & Puppy as small as possible (by teobromina on 2006-05-08 20:39:00 GMT from Sabadell, Spain)
I understand the reasons of developing a bigger DSL distro (DSL-NOT), including more modern versions for kernel and apps.
But I am using DSL and Puppy as part of my personal 'tool', that incorporate both, DSL and Puppy, in the same multiboot ISO, and I need both to remain as small (but functional) as possible to fit together in a mini CD. If DSL or Puppy grow too much I will have to decide between them or find some else mini-Linux. It will be very difficult because the high performance of both. May be some other 'projects' have the same need of very small distros with GUI desktop.
So I am supporting a DSL inside the limit of 50 Mb and Puppy below 65 Mb.
About the name, some previous post has suggested DLL, that is very nice.
*JT.
44 • DLL (by AC on 2006-05-08 20:58:47 GMT from , United States)
er, it conjures up bad memories for those who have used certain "legacy" operating systems.
45 • The COPE Act (by tom on 2006-05-08 21:02:30 GMT from Helena, United States)
Ah, yeah.... that will be tough for the Gov to do because we can always make another internet around them.
46 • Ubuntu slow? Depends on your perspective... (by Nequeo on 2006-05-08 21:06:59 GMT from Sydney, Australia)
I guess 512MB RAM is the sweet-spot for current 'heavy' distros.
I've run Ubuntu side by side with DSL on an AMD64 3500+, a Pentium IV 2.4ghz and a Pentium-M 2.4ghz laptop.
All of those machines had 512MB of RAM, and I saw no significant speed-difference between DSL and Ubuntu 6.06 on any of those machines.
For Uni, I tried out Dapper on a laptop with Gnome, then with Fluxbox, and ended up sticking with Gnome. When that laptop went in for repairs, I remastered a DSL CD to include the Sun JDK and vim 6.3, and boot up the lab computers with it. The lab machines have 1GB ram. I am extremely satisfied with my DSL liveCD, but, subjectively at least, it honestly doesn't feel any faster than Ubuntu Dapper with Gnome running off a laptop with less memory.
I also freshly installed Windows XP on my desktop, as I need Access for one Uni course - and it is the one Office program that does not work with Wine. Interestingly, a clean install of Windows XP is much faster than Ubuntu. But I know from experience that in a year's time Ubuntu will still be running at the same speed (if not faster!), while Windows will be itching for a re-install.
47 • COPE (by Mojo on 2006-05-08 21:38:25 GMT from Conway, United States)
I think the Post by Michael M. might be from:
Mike McCurry
Co-chair, Hands Off the Internet coalition
www.HandsOff.org
If so, why didn't he just say it. He has also responded to other negative articles on COPE but at least you knew who he was.
48 • handsoff.org (by John on 2006-05-08 22:01:00 GMT from Emeryville, United States)
Those are some dirty, dirty hands that built that site -- typical big business propaganda.
From:
http://www.handsoff.org/hoti_docs/aboutus/principles.shtml
"Internet users should have total FREEDOM OF EQUIPMENT AND APPLICATIONS.
Consumers are permitted to access or connect to a variety of services, equipment, legal devices, and applications, so long as they don't harm the network or hamper the efforts of law enforcement officials."
49 • No subject (by Slartibartfass on 2006-05-08 22:01:03 GMT from Bingen Am Rhein, Germany)
The fact is that about 50% of the content on the Internet originates in America, even more if you're talking only about English-language content. Do a Google search on almost any topic - from "motorcycle repair" to "allergies" - and see how much of the hits are American-based web sites
thats a the fail off google not from the net they plan to index the whole net in about 2300 ac. asia is a differnt world in the web too.
and i dont think that china will go the american way so theres hope
cause the usa are not the world
50 • DSL is Fast? (by Paul on 2006-05-09 00:42:47 GMT from Saint Louis, United States)
beta2, alpha7... I just dl'd Xubuntu and it was just beta. If you've got a name like Xubuntu Dapper, what's a few liberties with the greek alphabet among friends?
Thanks for the interview with John and Robert. I use DSL everyday in Vmware Workstation. I do not experience the dramatic speed intoxications others claim. In fact, Suse 10, Kubuntu 5, and Nexenta all have crisper UI's under Vmware. Xvesa and Fluxbox can be odd at times. So can I.
I use DSL because it is tidy, launches quickly, and stays out of my way. It never nags or needs. And invisible is best. I don't need planets or penguins. I'm kinda busy.
Yes, you have to rework the fluxbox themes so you don't get laughed out of the office for wearing purple shorts. I do lots of Java development on IBM Regatta AIX boxes; and DSL runs Eclipse 3.1.2 like a champ (once you give it a few gifts). SSH, X and Vnc are all solid. It plays well with others -- not as great as Suse -- but doesn't wallow as a guest-os when the VM host gets loaded either.
It's the little details in a small distro that make them great. Like in DSL LinNeighborhood comes already config'd setuid so that mortals can mount Samba shares in $HOME/mnt with no kung foo... Ubuntu? Please, you might as well sudo -s if you expect to use LinNeighborhood without permission voodoo. Is that because they hate us, or just because it's so big there is too much to get "exactly right"?
There's lots to dis about DSL. Releases are frequent because the distro is not in the "user updatable" variety. But something is so likeable about it. It can get as big as it wants, but as soon as it outgrows the detailed attentions of John and Robert -- that's the ceiling.
51 • DSL vs. Puppy (by robert on 2006-05-09 00:49:07 GMT from Houston, United States)
Both distros provide good functionality. From my point of view this is a Apples vs. Oranges comparison. Yes they are both small distros. The differences are where you want to use them. I have two uses.
DSL
I have DSl installed on a USB thumb drive. When I go to a friends house and want to surf on his PC I boot off the DSL USB drive. I have my bookmarks and tools that I like already setup. I don't have to install anything on his PC. DSL is good at recognizing all his hardware. I hope in the long run, should I go to a library or some public location to use a PC, I plug the USB thumb drive into a USB port and I'm up and going.
Puppy
It is my short term and long term goals to Never Install An OS On A Hard Drive Again. DSL does not have Raid compiled into the Kernel nor can I use raid modules with DSL. Puppy does have raid functionality. I can run a simple server with Puppy. Puppy does have Samba available. Puppy is good for static setups. I have two PC's at home. Going through the hardware recoginition of DSL every time I boot my home PC's is annoying. Once Puppy is setup on a PC, the hardware is already recognized. Therefore it boots faster. I can run Puppy from a USB drive. My PC's are older and cannot boot USB. I boot using the CD and save info to 256 meg thumb drives.
A brief synopsis. Dynamic/DSL/Other places besides your home. Static/Puppy/ Setup once and forget about it.
Robert
52 • #13 (by JAG on 2006-05-09 00:53:47 GMT from Linden, United States)
Hey thanks Lobster...(for your announcement)
Our latest Puppy Alpha7 for Puppy2 has Inkscape built in + Mozilla, Abiword (with all the trimmings), Gnumeric, Gaim etc etc
Today the second Beta for PuppyCE (1.09) our community edition will be released and announced here:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LatestNews
Those are never listed in DW's following list...
Development and unannounced releases
* StartCom MultiMedia Linux 5.0.5-rc1, the release announcement
* Frenzy 1.0-beta1 the release notes
* DSL-N 0.1-rc1 the changelog
* FreeBSD 6.1-RC2, the release announcement
* dyne:bolic 2.0-rc, the release announcement
* RR64 Linux 3.0-rc1, the release announcement
* ADIOS Linux 5.0-beta, the release announcement
* SimplyMEPIS 6.0-beta2, the press release
* gnuLinEx 2006-rc1, the release announcement
* Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu 6.06-alpha7, the release announcement
* Kaella 2.2-rc2
* R.I.P. 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2
Maybe you can talk to Ladislav...he probably has a specific E-mail address where you can send that info so as to show up on his lists.
53 • A couple of interesting links for all! (by JAG on 2006-05-09 01:08:25 GMT from Linden, United States)
Check out these benchmark tests guys/gals!
Linux versus Mac OS X and Windows XP on Intel Dual Core:
http://sekhon.berkeley.edu/macosx/intel.html
Browser speed comparisons:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#testresults
54 • #17#23#24 (by Geogeek on 2006-05-09 03:45:02 GMT from Los Angeles, United States)
#17; Leo,
You must be using a Spanish Dictionary. According to Dictionary.com "America; a republic on the continent of North America consisting of 50 states". You will find about the same thing in the vast majority of all English dictionaries. North America is a continent. South America is a continent. "The Americas" in English normally refers to North America, South America and all islands associated with North and South America. However, if you look up America in a Spanish dictionary you will find that the Spanish definition for America is about the same as the English definition for "the Americas". I don't know why these differences. I only know that it is a fact of life. So, when conversing Spanish I try to use the Spanish meanings and when conversing in English I try to use the English meanings.
#23 #24 If you are going to refer the citizens of the United States of America as United Statesians, then you should refer to citizens of the Federated Republic of Brazil as Federated Republicans, and citizens of the Kingdom of Spain as Kingdomites or Kingdomians or citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia as Commonwealthians. In this case most of the people of the world would simply be refered to as Republicans since most of the countries of the world are "Republics of ......". This is all only true if we are conversing in English. If you are speaking another language then this may not be true at all, but at the moment I think that we are atempting to communicate in English.
Gg
55 • Alpha-Beta-Alpha (by Ubuconfused on 2006-05-09 05:08:18 GMT from Los Angeles, United States)
Can someone please tell me what is going on with DapperDrake 6.06 Flight 6/Flight 7......
What is it with alpha 6, beta, beta 2, and now alpha 7?
Are these alpha and beta guys working in two different places? Are they talking to each other? Which Dapper Drake is what, and is the cart in front of the horse? Is Flight the same as Dapper Drake? Why do they have to make it so damn confusing. What's with DapperDrake (code name Flight 7)? Isn't Dapper Drake a code name? Why do we need 2 code names? Can someone just explain all this to an idiot like me?
Thanks,
Ubewildered
56 • 55 & 47 (by Michael M. on 2006-05-09 06:38:01 GMT from West Linn, United States)
55...I agree the code names get a bit much, but basically "DapperDrake" is the name of the eventual release, scheduled (I think) for June 1 or thereabouts. The whole "Flight" thing is just another way of indicating beta status. I don't know why they do it that way instead of RC1, etc., but basically just grab the most recent version if you want to try it out. If you prefer to use the current *stable* version, download BreezyBadger. But understand that in less than a month or so, Dapper will be the stable version.
47... I think it's funny that you think Mike McCurry would even know what Distrowatch is. The guy is too busy burning his bridges at Huffington Post to have a clue about operating systems. I've certainly no sympathy for his POV, and his screeds would be an example of the hyperbole I mentioned earlier. That doesn't change the fact that working out the future of Internet access requires a lot more nuance and balance than people like Storey and McCurry seem willing to acknowledge. (Well, in McCurry's case, he at least has the excuse that he's being paid to shill for one extreme; Storey has no such excuse, just plain ol' stupidity.)
57 • #56 #55 (by Ubuconfused on 2006-05-09 08:37:03 GMT from Los Angeles, United States)
Let me see. I think I've got it now. Dapper Drake is the code name for Ubuntu 6.06 and Flight 1-7 is the code name for Dapper Drake alpha 1-7, but then between alpha 6 and 7 there were beta 1 and 2, but they didn't have a Flight or Flight number associated with them (I guess that's why they didn't fly). Yes, it's all perfectly clear now. Don't know how I could have been so confused by something so simple and straight forward. But, then, I'm still I don't know if I should replace my beta 2 with an alpha, even though it is a 7.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world...
Those who understand binary, and those who don't!
58 • "United-statian" (by urcindalo on 2006-05-09 11:39:08 GMT from Almería, Spain)
#54. Don't be so picky. I put quotation marks around the word, so I knew what I was saying. I used that word precisely because I'm a Spaniard and, in Spanish, you are an "estadounidense". In Spanish, "americano" is anyone from "America", that is, the whole continent, from Alaska to "Tierra de Fuego" in Argentina.
Regarding why you refer to your own country as "America", maybe it has something to do with your country lacking a name?? You live in the "United States of America", i.e., a series of States (the highest independent political level) that decided to be united (thus having somethings in common), all of which are settled down in America (the continent). Did you know there were some attempts in the past to baptize the Union? Names like "Freedomia" (or something similar) were proposed, but none of them was finally chosen.
So, to me it is the lack of a name, combined with the need every person has of naming things, which finally lead everyone in the country-with-no-name to accept the name of the continent where they live as the "name" for their country. What's more, "the Americas" is an original Spanish expression (las Américas), meaning mainly two things (in Spanish): either the great extension of the continent (therefore the plural), or as an emphasis for the whole continent (and not only the part of it belonging to the Spanish-speaking contries).
59 • #58 (by Anonymous on 2006-05-09 13:01:26 GMT from São Paulo, Brazil)
" #54. Don't be so picky. I put quotation marks around the word, so I knew what I was saying. I used that word precisely because I'm a Spaniard and, in Spanish, you are an "estadounidense". In Spanish, "americano" is anyone from "America", that is, the whole continent, from Alaska to "Tierra de Fuego" in Argentina."
Mas para a potência imperialista, América do Sul e Central são apenas o seu quintal...
A escravidão como conhecÃamos antes, com navios negreiros e etc, não existe mais, mas quando um paÃs como o Brasil é comandado pelo FMI e pelos interesses do império, então não passamos de escravos "new-edition".
Por isso eles, os norte-americanos/estadunidenses se acham no direito de assassinar iraquianos e roubar seu óleo... Afinal, eles são os donos do mundo, não é mesmo?
:-)
60 • DSL & Puppy guys - headsup re Austrumi 1.2 (by Xfanboy on 2006-05-09 14:53:11 GMT from Horley, United Kingdom)
...DSL and Puppy people,
Just try Austrumi 1.2 !
I was shocked how professional, capable and smart this thing is.
This is coming to you from a beautiful Enlightenment desktop, with office apps, Firefox, editing tools for HTML, a CD burner, what else?
And top says - ram used is 39M. That includes the run-time image for this lot; the CD is out of itš tray !! No idea what else this support though; very worth a look.
Thje switch to go into English is a bit buried (lieft-click desktop, Favourite Apps, System, Languages) and there does pop up a bit of Latvian once in a while.
I can see Austrumi quicking becoming a standard. Very nice indeed.
61 • Internacional !!! (by Caraibes on 2006-05-09 16:26:50 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Mi gente,
Todos aqui sabemos que algunos de nosotros somos multilingue...
Es muy positivo, y hay que reconocer que nos da mas herramientas que los demas para navegar en la red, porque tenemos acceso a mucho mas informaciones...
Sin embargo, como Ustedes bien lo saben, aqui es un sitio en ingles, y por eso, es mejor escribir en este idioma...
...Pero, no estoy praticando lo que predico, solo porque comparto que somos todos Americanos, desde Argentina hasta Canada...
Sin embargo :
I love the american (us) culture and I feel at home with you guys, so please forgive me to write a bit in spanich... ;)"
62 • Promoting PUPPY -- Yah! (by David Park on 2006-05-09 17:44:12 GMT from Oakland, United States)
Austrumi's hardware support is very poor, and its applications seem to crash a lot.
It is good to see that all the Puppy fans are posting away in the comments, we all never miss an opportunity to promote our favorite distribution, compare these comments to how few were made by the DSL crowd a few month back when Barry was interviewed. Way to show team spirit! Our user base is smaller than DSL but we know how to get the word out! Keep this up and some day we will be the most popular Linux distribution ever!
63 • distros (by Zu on 2006-05-09 23:46:39 GMT from Polska, Poland)
I can see many ppl here are claiming a Linux distro to be as good as capable to run on an old hardware (except usb thumb, rather new toy). I can hardly understand it as hardware is really cheap these days. You can obtain e.g. used P4 with pretty amount of RAM even in my country.
What about ppl with newer 64-bit machines, not neccesarily top-edge ones? Is the only choice an overpacked "mumbo-jumbo" distro? I'd like my linux to be fast 64-bit, safe and reliable enough. I do also like the idea, to have small desktop distro equipped with basic applications. Closest to that idea seems to be *ubuntu family, however, it is for me hard to understand what for sake are there bundled "cows" like e.g. openoffice or gimp. Couldn't exist light versions of they or at least a choice during install whether I want them or not.
I don't intend to start any flame, just asking for advice.
64 • distros (by Xfanboy on 2006-05-10 00:09:27 GMT from Horley, United Kingdom)
...
try Kanotix 64 bit edition; they do a "lite" without OpenOffice; it's all KDE based (Kwrite etc)
Kanotix is an excellent liveCD. Create a persistent compressed home dir/file (the option to do this is under Kanotic button) and just boot from the current liveCD. When a new one comes out, just switch to that - no need to install, it just works.
65 • Project SOS -- Support Open Source (by ac on 2006-05-10 14:03:23 GMT from Szeged, Hungary)
For those who haven't heard of it yet, there's a new project that's supporting open source projects financially. Website:
http://www.seocompany.ca/project-support-open-source.html
They already donated money to KRename, that's where I found the link:
http://www.krename.net/
Ladislav, you might want to write about them next week...
66 • dsl, puppy, austrumi -- ELIVE (by ray carter on 2006-05-10 14:15:36 GMT from Tacoma, United States)
I've found a good lightweight solid distro to be Elive. It runs as a Live CD with an install to HD button. I've installed on several P166s with 64MB RAM - it runs quite well. Their implementation of Enlightenment is the best I've seen - highly recommended.
67 • LinuxOS.com (by Marc on 2006-05-10 15:50:40 GMT from Beloeil Village, Canada)
Why Distrowatch bothers to post any distro reviews from
LinuxOS.com. Their site is full of anti-Linux publicity !!!
Not that the review could be OK but how can we sure of that !!!
Geee !!!
68 • Re: Xfanboy (distros) (by Zu on 2006-05-10 17:16:17 GMT from Polska, Poland)
Thank's for your kind advice. I'll give it a try as soon as newer x64 Kanotix appears. The current one doesn't boot on my SATA DVD :(
To succeed with full Win>Lin transition I also need a driver for my x-fi. As for now there's no hope for that as industry-hollywood-redmond alliance wouldn't allow it. Perhaps something similar to the competition in enabling dual-boot on MacIntels would change the thing?
69 • SUSE 10.1 (by Jesper Sandström on 2006-05-10 21:21:31 GMT from Stockholm, Sweden)
For any potential readers, I'd like to announce that SUSE 10.1 final ISO images are avalible on the GWDG FTP server :) Start getting them before the humungous release hype tomorrow morning
70 • Elive and others... (by Caraibes on 2006-05-11 20:01:13 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Hi Ray Carter,
I also enjoyed Elive, as it is a fast, lightweight beautifull distro...
I am a firm believer in "Small is beautifull", whatever they might say ! No matter how inexpensive some folks think hardware is, I always give priority to recycling, or canibalizing parts to build a pc, and then run one of my favorite distros on it...
I have been using Puppy and DSL since about a year and a half... I always prefered Puppy so far, but I also enjoy DSL...
I tried Austrumi, since the last 2 releases, and also enjoyed it... I think the move to Enlightment is good...
Then I tried Elive and was really amazed ! I loved it big time ! But trouble is, just like Puppy and Dyne:Bolic 1.4.1, sound doesn´t work in my various pc´s using Via 82xxx integrated chipset. Note that it works great in DSL and Austrumi...
So far, I dual.boot Zenwalk 2.4 and winxp on my hard drive, and I run Puppy from my usb pendrive... DSL, Austrumi, Elive, Dyne:Bolic are being used as live-cd´s...
Thumbs up to all folks who have mad these distros possible !
71 • Wrecking the Internet: Turning Gold into Lead (by tom on 2006-05-11 22:59:32 GMT from Helena, United States)
This has been the response from Montana:
(This is a direct cut-and-paste)
Dear Mr. xxx:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the net neutrality issue. It is good to hear from you.
I completely agree that the Internet should remain an open and neutral medium to conduct commerce and gather information. I generally dislike Internet regulation, but I agree that the concern over large ISPs granting priority to one content provider over another has merit and should be monitored closely. Although it hasn't happened yet, the issue of large ISPs granting exclusive deals with content providers is a serious one and could have drastic effects on Montanans and Montana businesses.
As you know, there is a piece of legislation that has been introduced by Sen. Snowe and Sen. Dorgan that addresses the issue of net neutrality. While I fully support the spirit and intent of this bill, I do have some concerns with how it goes about ensuring the Internet remains a free an open forum. I feel that the FCC is in a much better position to protect consumers from abuses regarding the Internet than Congress and would like to see them monitor this situation to make sure large ISPs do not grant exclusive deals and harm consumer's interest. I also have concerns with a blanket 'equal priority' because there could be serious unintended consequences due to the increase in popularity of VoIP and related emergency communication over the Internet. There could be a day when we want to ensure emergency VoIP calls have priority over downloading music or video games.
Sen. Stevens has included language in the telecommunications overhaul of 2006 which will give the FCC the tools they need to closely monitor this issue and quickly act if any large ISPs attempt to make exclusive deals with content providers. I feel this is the best way to solve this potential problem without creating any unintended consequences. Rest assured, I am taking this matter very seriously and am working hard to ensure the Internet remains and open forum and remains an effective and useful tool for Montanans.
Thanks again for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact my office with any other questions or concerns that you may have. It is important to note that heightened security procedures due to the Anthrax and Ricin incidents have significantly delayed the processing and delivery of mail to my Washington , DC office. I encourage you to contact me via phone at (800) 344-1513, fax at (202) 224-8594, or through my website at http://burns.senate.gov . I apologize for any inconvenience caused by the delay in our mail process. I appreciate your patience as we continue to work through our increased security measures.
Sincerely,
Conrad Burns
United States Senator
72 • More on Oracle and GNU/Linux (by AC on 2006-05-12 08:09:49 GMT from , United States)
http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/tech/software/10284958.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
73 • On 15 May Puppy Linux 1.09 Community Edition will be released (by Lobster on 2006-05-12 15:24:40 GMT from Rochdale, United Kingdom)
More details
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy109
Puppy now has Inkscape and GParted built in the latest Puppy 2 Alpha7
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy2
Two programs are the first to be awarded Puppy approved coding status
http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?p=49255#49255
Mark Tyler for Mtpaint
Joe for JWM (Joes Window Manager)
74 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-05-12 19:47:19 GMT from Buenos Aires, Argentina)
You Puppy folks sure know how to hijack a topic.
75 • -what do you mean ??? (by Caraibes on 2006-05-12 23:34:57 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
there is no hijack, since there´s no topic... This is just a place to comment, and Puppy was mentioned in DWW.
Come on, I think it is a good place to talk about all these Linux things...
And Puppy is part of the Linux stuff, so we can write about it...
76 • NO HOPE FOR NOVELL (by Mr. Pink on 2006-05-13 00:45:53 GMT from Redmond, United States)
I just tried to install SUSE 10.1 and couldn't. I used their netinstall iso which is only 35MB. So for netinstall this CD is surprisingly lacking in identifying NICs.
0000:01:02.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 1247
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 3
I/O ports at bc00 [size=128]
Memory at efdfff80 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
Expansion ROM at e7b00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
Debian, Slax, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Knoppix and many other install and/or Live CDs properly identify and configure this card without problems. Not SUSE.
I even tried with USB network adapter. Same result.
I see many articles how Novell aims to position itself to directly compete with MS. Well ... Good luck.
77 • just thnking aloud (by mikkh on 2006-05-13 05:02:07 GMT from Winchester, United Kingdom)
I see QiLinux has another release, and because it doesn't even appear on the top 100 chart, a lot of people won't even bother with it.
Just like a lot of people never bothered with Conectiva, before it got swallowed alive by Mandriva - one of the best distros I've tried IMO (Conectiva, not Mandriva)
So here we have a very nice newbie friendly distro, complete with 3D graphics and running very nicely. Fellow distroholics probably notice, like I do, the lack of effort by a lot of distros in trying to add to the bog standard menu layout - I often think, yeah it's OK, but it's just default KDE or Gnome/Whatever
QiLinux has a custom entry for installing flash/java/win32codecs etc - a lot of distros could learn from that
It gets better with each release, but is destined to become another Conectiva I fear - which is a shame. because I like it a lot, and think it deserves a lot more coverage
78 • RE: 77 • just thnking aloud (by ladislav on 2006-05-13 05:24:30 GMT from Taipei, Taiwan)
If you enjoy QiLinux so much, why not write a full review? That, I think, is the best way to increase its awareness and to spread the word about it. You can publish it on a blog or submit it to DistroWatch (or OSNews, NewsForge, etc) for publication.
79 • re 78 (by mikkh on 2006-05-13 13:22:28 GMT from Winchester, United Kingdom)
OK I will. I was really, as the title said, just thinking aloud and remembering a comment I once saw posted here, about how someone never looked beyond the top 20 for new distros to try.
I think that's a very blinkered outlook, as my own top 5 distros mostly feature well down the list - or as in QiLinux's case, don't even make it to the top 100
80 • DyneII (by Caraibes on 2006-05-13 14:34:24 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
I just upgraded from Dyne 1.4.1 to DyneII, and wish to state that either sound and network are working well...
It is a fun distro, rather different, but this is what I enjoy, because if I wanted mainstream, then I would stick to mainstream...
my 2 cents... writing from DyneII...
81 • Re 77: DistroWatch -> UbuntuWatch? (by rglk on 2006-05-13 18:31:46 GMT from Edgewater, United States)
I've also noted an increasing trend of the news in DW becoming dominated, both in the weekly issue and in the comments, by a handful of celebrity distros that make a lot of noise but are almost indistinguishable in their offerings. If this trend continues I can foresee the day when DW should more appropriately be called UbuntuWatch or USFMWatch. Is there anything that stands out from the homogenous mix of features that Ubuntu, SuSE, Fedora, Mandriva, Mepis, PCLinuxOS offer? It seems to me, if you've run one of them, you've run them all.
In particular, I think the readers' time is wasted with news that celebrity distro X has been incremented from v.6.3 alpha rc3 to v.6.3 alpha rc4 which was released just a week earlier. It seems to me that much of the real innovation in the Linux Desktop is happening in the lesser known distros, and with the increasing focus of DW on inconsequential news from the celebrity distros, a lot of this interesting news is falling through the cracks.
I could think of a dozen excellent smaller distros that in the past few months have come out with interesting or exciting features, and there hasn't been a peep about it in DW. Even if there is a comment or two on such a thing, it simply gets drowned in all the gossip about Ubuntu, Mandriva, SuSE et al. which generally is primed by Ladislav's choice of topics in the weekly DW issue.
If you're tired of the McDonald's fare about the usual suspects, check out the live CD's of Phaeronix, Wolvix, Austrumi, Pingwinek, Troppix, Klax, Myah, Hedinux, MCNLive, Belenix, Stux, STX, Dyne:bolic, CentOS, Mutagenix, and, among the security distros, Backtrack, NST, Helix, Pentoo. None of these distros is among the Top 40 on the DW hit list, which simply means any news about them has fallen through the cracks, and yet, they have more to offer than many of the Top 10 distros.
One exception I can think of in recent DW issues to the rule that truly excellent innovation frequently gets overlooked in the drone of chatter about the bland heavy hitters is Zenwalk. That distro deserves to be among the top ten. Of late, Zenwalk has received some attention in this forum, so consistently in fact that I finally went ahead and installed it, only to recognize what a fine and fun to use distro it is. Perhaps Austrumi is another exception, getting a bit of deserved recognition lately, amidst all the noise about DSL and Puppy.
Speaking of slackware, the entire clan of Slax and its descendents deserves more attention. Slax in its own way (e.g. with its downloadable compressed modules which can customize and extend the base OS on the live CD) is as innovative as Knoppix has been, and some of its descendents have carried the improvements even farther. I'd rather hear about that than get debates about the respective merits of the business models of Novell vs. Mandriva vs. Ubuntu or the trials and tribulations of top executives of these well-heeled corporations/foundations. Let's have some fair and balanced coverage.
Robert
82 • RE: 81 • UbuntuWatch? (by ladislav on 2006-05-13 22:53:38 GMT from Taipei, Taiwan)
Again, I can only reply the same as in post 77: if you enjoy a lesser known distribution, it's in YOUR power to spread the word. Write a review, submit a story to Linux news sites, mention it in Linux forums around the Web. If you are just going to sit and wait for somebody else to discover your favourite distribution, then don't complain that it doesn't get enough coverage! There are more than 500 of them, so it's unreasonable to expect that every small distro gets the same attention as the big ones.
On the news page, all distributions -- big and small, commercial or community -- are treated as equal and small releases are announced in the same manner as the big ones (show me another Linux news site that does the same!). But in DistroWatch Weekly, the focus is on the main distribution, simply because there is not enough news, reviews and reports about most of the small ones).
83 • re:81 (by x on 2006-05-14 00:01:05 GMT from Burlington, United States)
I have been following Distrowatch since very near the beginning. The announcements never were the main attraction for me, as I have always regarded them as mostly noise. I believe that in order to appear in that list, the distributions website must make an announcement, which is where the noise eminates.
The most important information offered at Distrowatch is contained in the individual distribution's page. At one time it was very difficult to compare distributions offerings. The addition of the BSD's are a major enhancement(my opinion). The distribution's summary and package information help in choosing the right distribution for a given individual's situation. Basing decisions on the most popular distribution will not always provide a user with a good experience.
The addition of the Weekly now provides us with an opportunity to get more in depth information about various distributions. If someone wishes to tell us about the merits or negatives about a particular distribution, there is now a method for them to relay that information to more than just the followers of a particular distribution. Write a review and submit it to any one of the previously mentioned entities. Personally, I would like to see more reviews on Distrowatch. Not just the installation and initial experience, but what is it like to install and use a particular distribution for six months. I realize that many dristributions change more frequently than that, but most changes are minor.
I have no complaints about Distrowatch, it has and continues to evolve in a positive way.
84 • Re #81-83 (by rglk on 2006-05-14 03:03:42 GMT from Edgewater, United States)
I think a less than healthy positive feedback loop may be at work in DW: the "big" or popular distros make a lot of noise, DW then goes for this news because it's easy to get, and it winds up in the weekly report which is probably the most widely read section of DW. Everybody then jumps on the bandwagon in the Comments section and only talks about U&S&F&M&M which further constrains the interest to this narrowly focussed field which increases their H.P.D.'s which then may entice Ladislav to opt for more news about them, and so the loop is closed.
E.g. DSL is a sample case of a distro that probably only reached their current position on the hit list because they started releasing micro-incremented versions every two weeks which constantly keeps them present in the "latest news and updates" section. Many other equally or more meritorious distros don't engage in such nonsense, hence they don't show up in this section as often, hence less interest is stimulated in them, hence they slip on the DW hit list and ultimate spiral into DW oblivion.
I don't understand why Ladislav goes for this posturing, does he just want to fill space? A case in point: after I posted my comment #81 a few hours ago, SimplyMEPIS 6.0 beta 3 showed up on the "latest news and updates". Read the announcement: it's about some esoteric infinitesimal tinkering leading from beta 2 (or was it beta 2.9?) to beta 3. I don't think that's newsworthy, to me that's just fill.
This kind of dynamic leads to the adsurd situation of the top 5 distros commanding roughly 10-27 times as much interest as excellent distros such as Wolvix, Yoper, dyne:bolic, STX, GoblinX, Austrumi, etc., with ratings of around 100 H.P.D., judging from the H.P.D statistics for the past 6 months. Playing this numbers game is perhaps meaningless but it does vaguely quantify the trend.
The lesser known distros I mentioned favorably in my post #81 are not my "favorite" distros, they simply are distros that stand out in one way or another, and I believe most discerning distroholics would agree on that. Yet they get lost in the noise about the top 10 or 20 distros to which in fact they may be superior. Isn't it the job of someone who watches distros for a living to watch for outstanding merit and report it to the multitudes rather than going for easily obtainable celebrity distro news?
If Ladislav were to premier a section of news on real stand-outs from the less well trodden byways of the Linux distro world and also throttle the noise from all the distros, big and small, that scream to be noticed with their miniscule incremental releases, I'd be content. Such actions would have more impact than my posting comments here which most of the time I expect to be wasted because of the forum's preoccupation with distro pop idols. E.g. I'd be surprised if comment #77 about QiLinux sees any follow-up, and that distro may well have outstanding merit.
Robert
85 • re:84 (by x on 2006-05-14 04:10:42 GMT from Burlington, United States)
Well, I do not believe Ladislav falls for anything(well almost anything). I personally do not try something because it is popular. Example: McDonalds are the most popular, most advertised and most profitable restaurants in the world. I do not consider anything they produce to be edible, but billions disagree with me.
Some distributions have zealot-like followings, we have to live with it. Remember the excitement when you first successfully installed and used a non-MS operating system? How did it feel? Did you have a desire to convince others to try it?
As to QiLinux, there have been several announcements recently. No one has reviewed it. Maybe you could devote some time and enlighten us. Promote the distributions you feel are better than the popular ones by telling the rest of us about their virtues.
86 • http://distrowatch.com/ (by ladislav on 2006-05-14 04:40:15 GMT from Taipei, Taiwan)
If Ladislav were to premier a section of news on real stand-outs from the less well trodden byways of the Linux distro world... I'd be content.
I can't do that. One country's terrorist organisation might be another country's freedom fighting group. Similarly, one person's "real stand-out" may be another person's complete piece of rubbish!
I didn't create DistroWatch to make everybody content. I created it to inform interested readers about distribution releases - good or bad, big or small, development or final. The fact that you know about Wolvix, GoblinX or AUSTRUMI is a proof that the site is fulfilling its purpose - chances are that without DistroWatch, you would not have heard of most of the 500 distributions listed here.
Oh and before I forget, just a reminder that I still haven't received your review of one of the "real stand-outs" for inclusion in the next issue of DistroWatch Weekly. You know my email address, don't you?
87 • Austrumi & Elive (by teobromina on 2006-05-14 06:27:51 GMT from Sabadell, Spain)
#60 Xfanboy
#66 ray carter
#70 Caraibes
spoke about Austrumi & Elive.
Both distros have in common Enlightement, (a very nice and fast desktop manager), though that differ absolutely in size: Austrumi=50Mb and Elive=700Mb. Both worth the wile to try them. They are fast and comprehensive for a newbee, because the selected desktop, because the modern (or last) versions of the programmes they have.
I like DSL and Puppy, but I am discovering and trying to know better on Austrumi and Elive amongh the live Linux...
*JT.
88 • Re: #85 & 86 (by rglk on 2006-05-14 06:44:07 GMT from Edgewater, United States)
x wrote:
"As to QiLinux, there have been several announcements recently. No one has reviewed it. Maybe you could devote some time and enlighten us. Promote the distributions you feel are better than the popular ones by telling the rest of us about their virtues."
I don't know anything about QiLinux. I just took it as an example because mikkh (comment #77) spoke about it in a very laudatory way, and I'm willing to give his judgment some credence. I've posted comments and micro- or mini-reviews of lesser known distros here before, with zero or little response in recent times. It's like talking into the wind; everything gets drowned out by talk about the big five.
It didn't used to be that way in DW. There used to be a real appreciation and knowledge here about the diversity of Linux distros and a willingness to explore. Ever since the arrival of the Ubuntu juggernaut and excessive coverage of it and the resulting arousal of partisans of the other half dozen biggest distros the talk here seems to revolve around nothing but that small subset of Linux distros.
It would be instructive to go through the last few issues of DW and count how many posts were concerned with distros that are not in the top 10 or 20 on the hit list and also how many responses they triggered. I'm pretty confident that that would show that coverage of anything but pop distros has become somewhat marginal in DW. Of course, much of what I'm talking about applies to the Comments section over which Ladislav has no direct control but he does control "DW Weekly" which sets the agenda for Comments to a great degree.
As things stand, I find that I read less than half of DW Weekly, less than half of the Comments and considerably less than half of the Latest News and Updates, especially when there is hardly anything new about any given update. A year ago, I used to read 100% of all of these sections. Most importantly, I'm not walking away anymore with any real "finds" from DW Weekly or Comments.
As Ladislav observed correctly, perhaps DW is fulfilling its function for me in providing links to what's new among the distros - and he's doing a fantastic job with collecting that information - but I then go to the websites myself, often way before DW actually covers the new items (e.g. items newly added to the waiting list), and check them out. If I make a real discovery (e.g. some distro with exceptionally well implemented features), more often than not that's not recognized in DW Weekly & Comments, even if I post an alert - no response.
Ladislav, I may take you up on your invitation for reviews of stand-out lesser known distros in DW Weekly!
Robert
89 • For Ladislav--- (by Caraibes on 2006-05-14 10:53:34 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Hey Mate,
You are doing an outstanding job !!!
Of course, one can always comment on some aspect of your website, or suggest something, and that is healthy.
But bottom line is Distrowatch is the leader in the WWW when it comes to Linux news...
As of me, I would never have heard about most small distros if it wasn't for my browsing of Distrowatch...
And the regulars of the DWW comments have noticed that in most of my posts, I write about these small distros that I knew here, such as Zenwalk, Puppy, GenieOS, Dyne:Bolic, Elive, Austrumi... (I don't know if PCLinuxOS qualify as a small distro...).
However, I do enjoy playing with major league distros, and I will be among the crowd downloading and installing the new Ubuntu the day it comes out...
Same thing for Slackware, the day version 11 shows up, I'll download and install...
That is because IMO Ubuntu and Slackware are worth it...
On the other hand, I don't even bother with Suse 10.1, too many cd's, too similar, just like I shouldn't have bothered with FC5, which was a waste of bandwith and a waste of blank cd's (purely personal opinion, no offense !)...
I don't even bother reading anything about Mandriva anymore neither...
I am concluing with the same "Small is beautifull" as before...
And, yes, it is fundamental to fight that "upgrade your hardware" propaganda, and let the word out that your 6 or 7 years old PC can still do an efficient job when running some Linux Distros !!!
-When is it that I'll walk in the local supermarket, where they sell "PC Mag", and the cover will be something like : "don't be fooled by the trend ! get a garage-sale PC for a cheap price and run Puppy on it !!!" ????
Anyway, lots of friendship to you all !
90 • Complaints about Distrowatch (by x on 2006-05-14 16:10:30 GMT from Burlington, United States)
No matter how close to perfection someone or something is, someone else will complain about some aspect. It is human nature to find fault and complain. Using this constructively is the key to development.
As to the 'Watchers' responding to the comments of others. Most people will very rarely respond, if at all. At the time of this post there are 89 comments, by an estimated 60 readers. I seriously doubt that 60 represents even 1% of the readers of Distrowatch. Some people are likely to post comments when they disagree with an article or other comment. A few offer additional information, but most comments have nothing to do with any of the articles.
91 • Hey Ladislav... (by JAG on 2006-05-14 16:23:20 GMT from Linden, United States)
Don't sweat it...Just keep going forward!
I've been thinking...(yeah sometimes it happens)...
maybe (a suggestion of course)...you or one of us can come up with something/someway to increase exposure of lesser known distros to help them a little...
How about also scrolling accross the top of the page somewhere the Page Hit Ranking (either vertically or horizontally) thereby at least allowing people ;who browse through without scrolling down, to notice these other distros...???
92 • A thought...(ow!...it hurts!) (by JAG on 2006-05-14 21:09:08 GMT from Linden, United States)
Or maybe...you could invert the Page Hit Ranking (100-1)...causing the curious of the top distros (as per HPD) to have to scroll through the list...increasing exposure of the little guys (other distros)...
Number of Comments: 92
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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