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1 • Ichthux (by Ariszló on 2006-08-28 12:34:29 GMT from Budapest, Hungary)
Why UCE and why not Ichthux? Ichthux has been there for a longer period.
2 • RE: 1 Ichthux (by ladislav on 2006-08-28 12:36:12 GMT from Bratislava, Slovakia)
Simple. The UCE project bought 100,000 banner impressions on DistroWatch. That usually is a sign that the developer is serious about his project.
3 • Quo vadis, Linux distribution? - Peanut Linux (by ou_ryperd on 2006-08-28 12:47:03 GMT from Johannesburg, South Africa)
Peanut Linux has been around since 1999/08/19 (version 1.1). It has been renamed to aLinux and the version number bumped up twice since, but it's still the same distro.
As far as I know it was initially based on Slackware 4 or something long ago, but it has really been standing on it's own legs for a long time.
I've been using it since 9.4 in December 2002, and it works well for me. This distro doesn't get enough credit.
4 • Distributions? (by fireedo on 2006-08-28 12:47:35 GMT from Surabaya, Indonesia)
Well still Slackware rule them all..... :)
5 • Quo vadis, Linux distribution? (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-08-28 12:48:11 GMT from Roma, Italy)
"Very few readers will disagree if I assert that this number is clearly unmaintainable and the vast majority of them will disappear in the course of the next couple of years, if not months."
Very true. Sadly many excellent Debian derivatives have either already gone the way of the Dodo (Libranet, Mepis no longer a Debian derivative...) or will soon: Kanotix has not yet released a stable this year, and no 64bit version at all. Knoppix might keep going, but everybody can see that it hasn't the vitality it used to.
I'd go as far as saying that even the future of Slackware looks dubious: releases far between and I am afraid the number of people who use it as their main desktop OS is going down very fast.
So what is the future of the Linux desktop? If in 2003 I firmly believed that SUSE 9.0 was the best OS in the planet, today I can hardly find a distro which fully satisfies me.
6 • interesting article... (by Caraibes on 2006-08-28 13:08:23 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
The Quo Vadis article is well written, and quite interesting. It asks valid questions... I enjoy reading it, and most of all, thinking about it afterwards, while reflexioning on distros...
About Freespire, a starnge announcement caught my attention, read it here :
http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Main_Page
(it's the text in red)
I don't know if it's only hype, to get some momentum...
7 • Reason for distro overpopulation? (by utabintarbo at 2006-08-28 13:23:52 GMT from Detroit, United States)
I would contend that one of the primary reasons for the explosion of distros is DistroWatch itself. Many (if not most) of the derivative distros that come into being these days could be considered "vanity" distros. They fit the description given above: "nothing but re-mastered editions of the existing ones with a different package set and new desktop wallpaper", and yet are given their own page on what many consider the definitive site for Linux distros.
I would suggest that DistroWatch "tighten" the requirements for inclusion in the database. Or perhaps subdivide it into "original" and "derived" works. Or perhaps present it as a tree, showing derivative relationships. Criteria will have to be developed to determine a distro's degree of "derivation vs. originality"; not an easy task, but necessary IMHO.
The only alternative is to really fix the Search page here. :-P
8 • RE: # 6 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-08-28 13:25:53 GMT from Roma, Italy)
No idea what that "HUGE announcement" is going to be, but actually I believe that if Freespire/Linspire play their cards right, they have a very good chance of succeeding.
Linspire is exactly what Jo User needs: everything working out of the box, including proprietary drivers and plug-ins.
9 • Vector (by Roy Stefanussen on 2006-08-28 13:26:21 GMT from Cincinnati, United States)
One count for someone who would miss Vector Linux.
10 • Quo Vadis (by jon on 2006-08-28 13:28:31 GMT from Winchester, United Kingdom)
You are correct. Puppy Linux is not for average users, it is for everyone. There are versions for just about every need. It is intuitive and reviews simply do not attract any adverse comments. Under its originator, Barry Kauler, and a merry bunch of international devotees it is probably under more dynamic and better informed development than any other distribution, including the largest houses. Everyone should take the opportunity - disappointment is highly unlikely. It might have started as a modest little live-CD, but now it surpasses them all with its power.
Woof, woof.
11 • Quo Vadis (by |TG|Mateo on 2006-08-28 13:29:37 GMT from Quincy, United States)
Ladislav,
Great read! Agreed, 90% of distros out there do not matter: not to the bulk of users, not to corporations, not to anyone but the maintainers...but somehow, I'd feel that linux would be the lesser for them: out of that pack, the next great idea will come.
So yes, the bulk of of them are derivative, but you do point out some interesting projects that are deviating from the status quo: GoboLinux, SymphonyOS, Nextena, etc. I'd add 2 more to that list: grml and PC-BSD. The reason these should not be overlooked is that PC-BSD brings ease of use to BSD, along with a really slick packaging system, and grml strikes off in it's own direction aggregating all of the text tools and applications into one live/install CD.
There are lots of interesting ideas out there...so don't be too harsh on the "also rans". In five years, they may be at the top of everyone's linux short list....even if they are based on Slax.
:-P
12 • Arch (by tom on 2006-08-28 13:36:01 GMT from Helena, United States)
Thank you for llisting Arch Linux as one of the "10 desktop Linux distributions". Arch is, in my opinion, under rated.
13 • Kanotix Future (by Chris Hildebrandt on 2006-08-28 13:43:07 GMT from Vienna, Austria)
Opposite to Anonymous Penguin from Rome, Kanotix is very busy preparing the upcoming 2006 release. The last stable was announced 12/31/2005, and several RC-versions have been heavily tested meanwhile. It's just that we don't publish a new release after changing the wallpaper, and most of our fans do appreciate this policy.
And of course there was, still is and will be again a full featured 64bit (pure 64bit!) edition of Kanotix ....
10 Seconds of visiting the web site at http://kanotix.com/ and reading just the download tracker there on the left, would have made things more clear.
Our team bigger and more active than it was 1 year ago - so, there is really no reason to worry about the future of Kanotix. ;-)
Grettings,
Chris
14 • Then who WILL keep track? (by just john on 2006-08-28 13:49:16 GMT from Fremont, United States)
SOMEBODY should keep track of all the mom'n'pop distros that come down the pike. If not DistroWatch, then who?
Of course, DW has the right to do whatever it pleases. But if it narrows its scope, I hope it at least links to a more "completist" site, or maybe an offshoot of the main DW site.
15 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 13:51:41 GMT from Tirana, Albania)
The world of linux distribution reminds me of an old tactick of Roman Empire, "divide and captivate".That is how the Roman empire captivated the world. They divided a nation and then surrended under its power. Sometimes I think it is Microsoft behind so many distribution.
16 • Arch Linux (by Sigi on 2006-08-28 13:53:13 GMT from Hnenberg, Switzerland)
quote:
"... take a look at Arch Linux - an unpretentious, independently developed distribution with a great package manager, knowledgeable user community, and large software repository. That's what I'd call a "real Linux distribution"!
Great!
17 • RE: # 13 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-08-28 13:53:46 GMT from Roma, Italy)
Chris,
Isn't it at least a contradiction releasing a Debian Sid based distro only once a year?
Why then not wait for Etch to become stable and base the next Kanotix on it?
In the meantime users go away, donations decrease (I suppose), Kanotix goes down in Distrowatch Page Hit Ranking...
18 • Quo vadis, Linux distribution? (by PP on 2006-08-28 13:56:24 GMT from Rochdale, United Kingdom)
The comment on the state of distributions was a good one. It was also very brave to try to draw the line and name the top 10 desktop distros - well done! This should be done more often. There should actually be some kind of credibility ranking of distros as well - perhaps based on things like:
1) history - high points for long history
2) funding - high points for commercial backer or fund a la ubuntu
3) developer community - minus points if dominated by one person
4) user/install base (if there is any chance of estimating it)
5) software repository size
6) ... etc ..etc
I think someone should do a ranking like this. It should only include items that affect the probability that the distro will be around for at least 3 more years (or something like that).
Diversity is a great thing - but linux needs some strong trees to lean on as well. And we should try to make clear what those trees are! I think one of the most valuable pieces in DW is the "major distributions" list which is extremely helpful for newcomers. I think it should have a more prominent place in DW, and it should be kept well updated.
19 • Meaningful distros (by William Johnson on 2006-08-28 14:02:08 GMT from Wilmington, United States)
Let's be honest about it, as regards to DESKTOP distros, its already down
to PCLinuxOS "big daddy" and about 5 others. There is a reason that
PCLinuxOS has been zooming up the hit list ( now #3 on the one month
list). For the individual moving over from Windows, this is THE distro to
get. And the frightening thing for all the others is , PCLinuxOS is still
beta (not 1.0) , the best is yet to come.
Texstar ,more than any other developer, realizes that most RATIONAL
linux users want a distro that is super fast to install,super easy to use,
and fully READY TO RUMBLE.
20 • Quo Vadis (by pnovak on 2006-08-28 14:10:51 GMT from Georgetown, Canada)
Your comments about MEPIS were certainly thought provoking. I've used MEPIS for several years, preferring it to every other distribution I've tried (quite a number). For me, personally, it has been the best choice for a desktop distribution. And, valuing it as a resource, I have ensured that my organization has contributed to the project by buying subscriptions, etc.
At first I was a little bothered that the base was going to switch to Ubuntu from pure Debian. However, I appreciated Warren's concerns about stability and compatibility of the repositories, versus what was happening at the time with Debian, and am pleased to see the 3-year stable life cycle that MEPIS will gain from linking with Ubuntu. (Last week's repository glitch was unfortunate, and hopefully will not be repeated.)
As much as I like MEPIS, however, I share your concerns that a one or two man development will have a difficult time over the long haul. The need for sustainable, sufficient Income, of course, is a prime factor, and another--which you alluded to--is health and possible burnout of the developers. It is likely that "something will have to give" but I hope that whatever happens, arrangements can be made to provide for future long term development of MEPIS. Having said this, I believe the current version of MEPIS is very stable, and hope that it's release gives Warren some well earned breathing room.
21 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 14:13:14 GMT from Graft, Germany)
"Very few readers will disagree if I assert that this number is clearly unmaintainable ..."
It is simply impossible to maintain over 500 distros on a website. I would propose a rule of thumb: If a distro has not published a new release after two years, drop it from the list.
Yes, this is a bit harsh, but this rule could have the following "positive effects":
1. developers will work hard on the distro and finally submit a new release instead of redesigning everything again and again and again.
2. if they cannot come up with a new release, they might want to reconsider merging with another distro or stopping the project completely. There are dozens of distros that are very, very similar and merging would make them better than just working on a never-finished-always-amateurish distro for years.
One example. I was once a happy user of Yoper (back in 2003), the only binary distro that was designed for i686 processors and with speed tweaks that made it an outstanding although not extremely stable distro. It climbed to the top 15 on Distrowatch, now it is at #83 over a six months span. Now we write the year 2006 and Yoper has yet failed to release a new stable version although they promised it since at least one year. Instead they say "we are nearly finished" since roughly a year and they keep on fixing things over and over again and never release an iso except the rather broken 2.91 release.
Sure, they lack manpower, just like dozens of other distros, too. But if I want to use a distro for my everyday work, I NEED a stable release someday (I was finally forced to switch three months ago. Now using Mandriva 2006-free. Great distro imho). And the thing that set them apart for some time from other distros, using i686 and speed-tools for a fast KDE, are now available elsewhere, too. E.g. Mandriva and Arch also use binary packages, they also have very fast KDE desktops and Arch has i686 architecture available (on Mandriva, it is i586, which is fast enough for me). I don't see any reason why the Yoper developers (and others, too) still try to pull out a new release if it is obvious that they fail. And I don't know why they and others don't consider merging with another distro. Is it an ego problem? Maybe...
What are the pros of merging?
- More developers per project = hopefully better/faster development
- Better bugfixing possible = distro is less amateurish
- a likely growing userbase
- reduced webhosting costs
What are the disadvantages:
- Less "ego-showoff" for developers (Yes, it sounds better to say "this is MY distro" than "I work on that distro with 200 other people")
- less freedom to implement drastic changes / experimental things
- more coordination among developers required
I don't think that all distros should look for someone to merge with. I only suggest that those small distros that are very, very similar to other projects and that DO struggle should really think of merging. We would all benefit from it.
22 • Agreed! (by 1c3d0g on 2006-08-28 14:22:08 GMT from Sero Blanco, Aruba)
Arch is a great (but underrated) distro, and I'm glad that more of you share that point of view. :-)
23 • distro wiki? (by Allan on 2006-08-28 14:29:07 GMT from Perth, Australia)
Ladislav,
Just a suggestion. Why not draw a line between the top (say) 20 and the rest, continue to update and report on those and move the rest into a wiki? That way you can offload the maintenance overhead onto those who are most interested in the minor distros.
Allan
24 • MEPIS (by Acesabe on 2006-08-28 14:29:20 GMT from Madrid, Spain)
"Where is MEPIS?, some would ask. Well, MEPIS was an exciting project when it started, but there are signs that it is starting to suffer from a burn-out" - er - #4-5 in distrowatch for the last coupla years - can't say i've noticed much slack in the dev of the project - especially considering how small the dev team is!
And no sign of letup either:
http://www.mepis.org/node/10984
-And what health issue - you know something we don't about Mepis?
25 • PCLinuxOS (by Harry Barracuda on 2006-08-28 14:37:05 GMT from Manama, Bahrain)
I have to agree about PCLinuxOS. I have a crappy old Fujitsu Siemens laptop and I'd still rather run a Vista beta on it than any Linux Distro because of hardware detection - until PCLinuxOS, which is an absolute doddle.
It seems to me that if anything, if you're going to want to filter distributions, you should use better criteria.
One thing that I think is fairly vital to all Linux Users is hardware detection.
How about a matrix of hardware support for each release? Personally, as soon as I tried one that didn't recognise the RALink RT2500 on this laptop, I gave up on it (No, I don't want to fart about with NDISWrapper).
Only two or three actually made it relatively easy to configure and start using wireless.
I don't think hits per page is anything like a meaningful assessment of a distribution on its own.
Horses for courses. What's good for the goose isn't always good for the gander, etc., and other well known cliches.
26 • No subject (by Patrick Useldinger on 2006-08-28 14:41:14 GMT from , Luxembourg)
Ladislav, I agree on this new "major distributions" list, but then you should also update your "major distributions" page to refect this. I think that new Linux users probably start there, and PcLinuxOS and Arch should be given the credit they deserve rather than Mepis and Xandros. OTOH, CentOS should be referred to in the Fedora paragraph in the same way as Redhat.
I also agree that any distro which does not show any signs of evolution for about a year should maybe not be eliminated but at least flagged as such on DW.
To #5: Slackware is still very active and up to date, a new release is about to come out, and people still use it on their desktop even if it appeals more to people who like to tinker with their distro's gutts. But the same is true for Gentoo, so I wouldn't dismiss Slackware. Both are very useful distros and have their happy users.
Finally, on democracy: I think that the most successful projets have usually been one-man "dictator" shows: Linux=Linus, Python=Guido, Slackware=Patrick, and many others. They all work because there one central person who has a vision and who makes sure that it is seriously implemented. We're still free to follow them or not, our freedom is not at stake. It just seems to be the way which yields the best results.
27 • Linux Vista . . . or not . . . (by Lobster on 2006-08-28 14:43:04 GMT from Rochdale, United Kingdom)
"nothing but re-mastered editions of the existing ones with a different package set and new desktop wallpaper"
Using an existing distro (if it is a good one)
it only takes a few hours to create a new "distribution"
http://tmxxine.com/tmx/
Here is how I got it onto distrowatch (first official version will be released in 2008)
http://tmxxine.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=DistroCreate
And what is a good distribution? Perhaps it is something with a future . . .
Wallpaper and a mix of apps are just that.
. . . What happens when Microsoft puts a front end on the kernel? You think they won't?
28 • I MUST Disagree (by Flavio de Oliveira at 2006-08-28 14:45:55 GMT from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil)
Of Course I must disagree on Quo Vadis article..
There are several excellent projects based on some distros. Kanotix is a good example, several users consider it better than Knoppix, but for me both are NOT enough good... any Slax's remaster is a better livecd than any Knoppix distro.
The idea we do not need more linux distro is bad for everyone... I have my project, called GoblinX, it's going to celebrate its second anniversary very soon, october, and I must say there is no other distro like it, as there is no other distro like Symphony OS, for example. I know my project receive only 500 visitors per day, but I know hundreds of users will miss it if I stop its developments.
And you are not considering regional aspects. Here in Brazil, Kurumin has more users than all other distros together, but I'll not miss it, I'll only miss Slax, Slackware and GoblinX, so for me the rest can be their development stopped anytime.
29 • Frugalware (by Texan in CT on 2006-08-28 14:46:28 GMT from Newbury Park, United States)
I would consider frugalware one of the up and comming distributions out there. They have a good dev team and the distribution is well put together. I expect to see them stick around for the long haul.
30 • re: Ichthux (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 14:50:37 GMT from Gretna, United States)
Ichthux hasn't been supported in a while, but they say they plan to get the ball rolling again in Septemeber, according to what I've read.
31 • Kubuntu is hands-down-winner-put-SUSE-back-into-box on the issue of ... (by Greg M. Johnson on 2006-08-28 14:52:48 GMT from United States)
... wireless. To get to the internet, kubuntu is ready to roll. To get to the internet in SUSE, you need an internet connection to download the wireless drivers.
When I figured this out, I put the 10.1 discs back into the box and started looking for a competently constructed distro.
](*,)
32 • Distro vs Edition (by Bob on 2006-08-28 14:54:14 GMT from Trenton, United States)
I would suggest that having a website does not a distro make. Rather, it is a divergence from its parent which creates it. Debian is a root distro, and there are a number based on it, but each is creating its own code and is more then just a skin. Is Kubuntu an Edition or Distro? If there is specific code which separates it from Ubuntu, then yes. If the code is "cosmetic only", then no.
33 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 14:55:17 GMT from Shiraz, Iran, Islamic Republic of)
For me it's always been redhat (fedora), suse, ubuntu. If I had the time and connection speed gentoo would be fun to mess with. In the end nothing beats a good friendly community that listens to your suggestions and solves your problems=ubuntu.
34 • M (by awakatanka on 2006-08-28 14:56:11 GMT from , Netherlands)
[quote]It's highly likely that the above paragraph will be contested by many of you reading this commentary. Where is MEPIS?, some would ask. Well, MEPIS was an exciting project when it started, but there are signs that it is starting to suffer from a burn-out - long development cycles, too many bugs, lack of solid income despite honest effort and endless hours of work, the founder's health problems... One has to wonder how long MEPIS will still be around. Compared to PCLinuxOS, it lacks energy and excitement. How about Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux? Yes, these are excellent projects, but they are not designed for the average user's desktop.[/quote]
Can you go a little deeper into this plz. Because as a user of mepis i don't find it instable our buggy. Health problems? Dev cycle to long wasn't that because the dev had problems with the debian repo's?
If you know more then us then share it.
35 • New approach for distrowatch (by amd-linux on 2006-08-28 14:58:49 GMT from Essen, Germany)
Ladislav,
may I suggest that you change the distrowatch approach?
My suggestion in detail:
Focus on the Top 5 distros for
- desktop
- server
- embedded
as so called "distro parents" and have their derivatives as "familiy members".
Distrowatch has become rather usesell for newbies, since it lacks an overview. Also, less publicity for small distros would prevent another distro just for the sake of 100 days of fame on distrowatch while long term success stories such as Ubuntu would be more exposed.
Just my 2 cents - if you dont want to change, another web site might do just that - focus on the important stuff, going in details/derivatives only for those who need the details.
Besides, a new look / some polishing for the site would also be great - the website does not really look appealing to new/possible Linux users.
So I absolutely agree - to many distro, slim down Distrowatch.
36 • Distributions (by Ben Woods on 2006-08-28 15:02:52 GMT from , Australia)
Ladislav - in the past I have disagreed with a few comments you have written here and there, but I 100% agree with your comments on the distributions available today. I used to flick between distributions all the time, trying to find the best for me. I must have gone through at least 30 distributions (and I am well aware there are plenty more than that!). I got to a point were I realised that they were almost all exactly the same, just with a different wallpaper, menu, desktop environment / window manager etc.
Those that really stood out are those with a different package manager. After all, what is the underlying difference between the major distributions? 2 things really: The package manager, and the configuration method. Eg) Slackware has its simple but brilliant tgz pkgtool package manager and uses mainly text files for configuration with very few user front ends (except for network config and X). Debian has dpkg, apt, aptitude, synaptic etc and dpkg does much of it's configuration. Other distros have gui configuration tools aka "Control Panels".
This is basically the difference between distributions imho. And as such, there are actually very few true distributions with their own grounding. Those I can think off on the top of my head would be Slackware, Debian, Red Hat (et al), Gentoo, CRUX and Arch linux. The others just tweak a few things here and there.
With that said, those tweaks can mean A LOT! I am currently a ubuntu user - I just can't get over the way they have tweaked debian's look and feel. I recently installed debian on a desktop of mine and tweaked it to be as similar to ubuntu as I could. It was nice... but why do all that work when Ubuntu does it for you?
So in the end you are back at square one. The distro tweaks can really make and shape a distro IF THEY ARE GOOD ENOUGH. So you do kind of need to try a few here and there. But personally, it's only really worth trying a new distro if you read up about it and believe it has something truely worthwhile to offer.
37 • RE: 13 - Kanotix (by IMQ on 2006-08-28 15:07:04 GMT from Decatur, United States)
I am glad to hear that Kanotix is alive and continue to be so for quite some time. :)
Thanks for a heads-up.
38 • Mepis (by Buster on 2006-08-28 15:27:41 GMT from Scarborough Township, Canada)
I use and like Mepis and PCLinuxOS, one on each of my computers. To suggest one is inferior to the other seems untrue to me.They both have advantages and disadvantages. Both are excellent, but neither is perfect in all situations. But they are two of the best out there. Maybe we should have the Top Eleven Distros. (The comment 'unstable' does not apply to either by the way.)
39 • MEPIS (by Chris J. Paxton on 2006-08-28 15:36:04 GMT from Toronto, Canada)
Overall that was a great article and, as expected, has generated quite a bit of comment. One thing you have to say for the OSS community, we're passionate about our software.
I was a bit surprised about the MEPIS comments. Similar to your SUSE-turned-Kubuntu user, I am serisouly considering becoming a SUSE-turned-MEPIS user. I had always liked SUSE for its cohesiveness. I know YAST has its detractors but it was always nice to have one place to go for system settings. I have also, though, preferred the DEBIAN package set because of its vast variety. I never could find a DEBIAN-based, KDE-centric distro that I liked overall as well as SUSE. That is until I tried MEPIS 6. It seems stable, plays well with Windows, has (inderectly via Ubuntu) access to the DEBIAN package repositories and generally seems well put together. If my evaluation at home and work continues to go this well, I may be bidding farewell to SUSE after over three years as a steady user.
As for the high number is distros, I guess that's a byproduct of freedom of choice. I think we're better off for it in the long run.
40 • Distro vs Edition (by Gary in Texas on 2006-08-28 15:58:52 GMT from Herndon, United States)
Being a PCLinuxOS user and former Mepis and Kanotix user I feel we also need to watch the slow but exciting developments of the freeBSD community. The debates about either the technical merits of freeBSD vs Linux or the BSD License vs the GPL can get interesting indeed but in the end it comes down to support of the applications you need. No doubt freeBSD is an excellent OS for server room support. from web server to firewall. It's has only been the few, until recently, willing to enjoy the self inflicted pain of setting up freeBSD as a desktop OS. The new “PC-BSD” freeBSD based distribution has been leading the way in the easiest method of adding and removing software using it's *.pbi file format. Simple point and click within KDE and the application is installed or removed. There is controversy too about it's efficiency and overhead but I feel that's only minor compared to the innovative focus the PC-BSD team has at making a good freeBSD desktop OS for running our favorite GNU/GPL applications on. There are freeBSD “editions” also gaining strength. Desktop BSD, freeSBIE and a newcomer, RoFreeSBIE.. They make it as almost as easy as our present Linux distros to setup a desktop. Yet PC-BSD stands out. It has a number of popular applications in the *.pbi format but the number is almost insignificant compared to what's available via the conventional ports/packages available for freeBSD.
For my desktops/notebooks, the present Linux distros have what I need. The available applications with the ease of installation and configuration.
Something about the freeBSD OS still draws me to it. I can't fully pinpoint the reasons but on every time I have conducted a test installation, it ran with a subtle “smoothness” in Gnome or KDE that I've never felt in Linux. I have no actual objective data to support my statement but that's just the way it felt on my hardware. If PC-BSD gets to the point that PCLinuxOS, SLED10, or (K)Ubuntu is as a desktop, (installation ease and configuration and numbers of *.pbi apps) I just may choose it. .... anyway let's also watch freeBSD, I believe a "sleeping giant" that is waking up.
41 • Linux Distros mainly peanut/alinux (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 16:04:57 GMT from Rancho Palos Verdes, United States)
That single and only download page for alinux is the most agrivating thing I've come across in a long time. Windows pop under and sometimes don't prompt for a save location. Then the download times out or is corrupted. Has anyone got 12.8 to download and work. It needs to get on a public mirror, I'm starting to think it is on purpose.
42 • Idea excersizing and incorporation (by lefty.crupps on 2006-08-28 16:19:45 GMT from Minneapolis, United States)
I agree that there are too many distros for some users to follow, but not everyone has to try every distro.
Just like the political parties in a democracy, the smaller parties usually have the more interesting ideas, which are then incorporated into the larger parties (especially as votes are drawn towards the smaller ones). I would expect that happens with the Distros as well -- new ideas go into Mepis, people like the ideas and use the distro, and changes/tools/settings are absorbed back into the larger distros.
Well, Mepis might not count, sonce its toolkit isn't GPL.
43 • Too many distros (by jared on 2006-08-28 16:20:40 GMT from Salt Lake City, United States)
I would much rather have too many choices then too few choices. I love the freedom.
44 • Distributions (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 16:31:44 GMT from Rancho Palos Verdes, United States)
Ladislav,
I know you don't want to get into the distro blog business but I also know that everyone is seeing the same issues over and over on the same hardware with every varation of the same main distribution.
Because the remasters are not fixing the parents issues before they do their remaster (to make them better) something needs to be done.
So, I propose that the main 10 or so have some kind of way for long known unfixed bugs/short commings/common hardware incompatiblities to be in their listing. Then the branches can be ignored unless there is some compelling reason to try it.
Then maybe the bugs will get fixed or the branch distributions that are actually doing something for the commmunity can be highghted. But until where the main ones fall short are documented it will still be a trial and error for everyone that is still looking for one that works.
Myself I'm looking for a full featured, upgradable i586/i686 distro that does not run KDE/Gnome (too slow) with a pre-2001 bios and 256mb memory, 2gb HD and a non-digital monitor (800x600). The v.2 puppy doesn't work and RH4 is too slow with gnome. It is running DSL now. Most of the others do the same thing as the main one either it boot loops, black screens, hangs up on install, drops to command line with a region 9 error, or has a xwindow error when it does come up. Too many now are not listing/not allowing start up options and are over ridding/depending on iffy automatic hard ware detection. Too much same stuff different day, I'm sure many of us can provide the same conclusions to reduce the trial and error for the newbees.
45 • Re: 6 • interesting article... (by Greg on 2006-08-28 16:51:11 GMT from Victoria, Canada)
It is only false hype. It is a teaser. They can't lose. People will talk no matter what. Excellent job "Caraibes" you mole you :)
46 • arch - Agreed! (by imran on 2006-08-28 17:28:41 GMT from Kampong Lalang, Malaysia)
1.That's what I'd call a "real Linux distribution"!
2. Arch is a great (but underrated) distro.
47 • Arch (by |TG|Mateo on 2006-08-28 17:41:33 GMT from Quincy, United States)
Arch you say? Hmm...guess I better take another look.
48 • openSUSE 10.2 Release Schedule (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 17:43:10 GMT from Stadtbergen, Germany)
http://en.opensuse.org/Roadmap - maybe you can now fix the name from "SUSE Linux" to "openSUSE" in the upcoming releases section?
49 • Zenwalk (by UZ64 on 2006-08-28 17:43:36 GMT from Alliance, United States)
"The rest? One often hears good reports about, say, Zenwalk Linux or VectorLinux. But if those were to fold tomorrow, can you honestly say that you'd miss them?"
Two words. HELL YEAH. :p
Well, Zenwalk, at least. It's showing extreme progress with every major version, and to me, is damn-near *perfect*. It just keeps getting better and better at an amazing speed, and has, IMO, a near-perfect collection of packages. I feel that it has the ability to some day be up there with Slack, as Ubuntu is with Debian. It just doesn't have the extreme financial power Ubuntu has to advertise the hell out of it and be a direct competitor to the "big ten" in terms of popularity in less than a week.
50 • distro flipping (by Darren on 2006-08-28 18:05:23 GMT from , United States)
I have been using Linux since 2000, when I popped a Corel Linux CD in my work computer. I think Linux is one of the reasons that they eventually got rid of me... I was spending WAY too much time tinkering with that Corel installation and not enough time on my actual work there. I have tried almost everything else since then, and I confess that I'm still undecided as to which distro is the *best* of them all. One of the things (if not THE thing) that bugs me the most about any Linux setup is the lack of a file manager that competes with the simplicity of Windows Explorer. Iknow, I know... go ahead and scorch me now with the firey comments, but I have a collection of hundreds of thousands of files that I maintain on networked PC's running mixed OS's and I have found no other app that can move, shift, delete, sort, copy, organize and compare this many files with the the ease and speed that explorer can. I think the only thing that has come close is Xandros file manager. Too bad they dont release that as a seperate free app. If they did that, I think they'd get many folks to come over and actually pay for the full product. That being said, I still don't want to use Xandros myself as a desktop solution because I just don't want to be caught in a cycle of paying for my updates.
Is there a better file manager that I don't know about? If so, someone please tell me about it.
So after all this time, what's the distro I use? Simple... Knoppix. After all my testing, Slackware is my real true love... but I actually USE Knoppix more than anything else... set up a persistant home or USB and I'm in business.
And as far as too many distros??? I think not. If there was an extremely clear winner in this race, then maybe... 500+ distros would be too many. But until then, let them keep coning. I'll try them all.
Thank you to Ladislav for keeping our passion going here... this is the most fun I've had computing since I used to back up my home-brewed programs on my old Billy Joel cassettes. Remember cassette drives? Little piece of tape over that hole and you had, like several KILOBYTES of space to store stuff on.
Cheers!,
Darren
51 • Slackware (by Morten Juhl Johansen on 2006-08-28 18:14:47 GMT from Odense, Denmark)
@ #5:
I think Slackware attracts the same kind of people it has done for years. It is not for everyone - it will not be mainstream and is not trying to. But a lot of people still use it - I doubt that the number of Slackers is dwindling.
The "major distributions" on Distrowatch is considered a place to start in one of the above posts, but... beginners using Debian, Slackware, Gentoo and FreeBSD is hardly a good idea.
Bringing in the BSD theme is very relevant; personally, the system I would be most inclined to recommend to a beginner is DesktopBSD. That is one of the simplest installers in the OSS-verse.
52 • Re. 50 - file managers (by UZ64 on 2006-08-28 18:18:58 GMT from Alliance, United States)
"I think the only thing that has come close is Xandros file manager. Too bad they dont release that as a seperate free app. If they did that, I think they'd get many folks to come over and actually pay for the full product. That being said, I still don't want to use Xandros myself as a desktop solution because I just don't want to be caught in a cycle of paying for my updates.
Is there a better file manager that I don't know about? If so, someone please tell me about it."
Xandros uses a modified KDE file manager (modified Konqueror) as far as I know. Have you ever tried Thunar, the new Xfce file manager? It's becoming the new default Xfce file manager, soon, if it hasn't already (some distros, Kate OS and Zenwalk being two of them, already come with it). It's fast, light, simple, and... well, very nice. Give it a try, it might just be what you're looking for.
53 • Starting your own project - pro's and con's (my list) (by Troy Dawson on 2006-08-28 18:22:47 GMT from Batavia, United States)
Pro's
- Your company/group needs something customized. Depending on the size of the company it might be easier to just make your own distro.
- Lot's of eyes. This is actually where I disagree with the article. When there is a big project, many people say "I'm not going to bother looking at that because that is some else's job" But if there are a bunch of derivitives, there are a bunch of lead developers, each is going to hit the same problem. If these different derivitives cooperate, they can help each other. I'm thinking of many of the Recompiled-RHEL distro's (CentOS, Scientific, Tau, and a few others). Although each has their own release, many of the developers help each other out, and many help RHEL out as well.
Con's
- Making a distro is usually a LOT harder than people think, even if it's just a derivitive. Usually the hardest part is the security updates and making sure you don't break things as you are keeping them secure.
- Answering user questions and fixing things for users. It will amaze you at what people do with your distro. They will find ways to break things in new and undiscovered ways.
- Having people think you know everything about everything. Many people might like the fame of lots of people think you are a guru. But just because you can recompile someone elses code doesn't mean you know what it does. Prepare to be humble because no matter how much you know, someone is going to ask you something about the program you haven't given a second thought to.
54 • RE: UZ64 - Thunar (by Darren on 2006-08-28 18:30:57 GMT from , United States)
Thanks for the tip... I have already downloaded Zenlive, but haven't gotten around to dissecting it... I will now.
Come on Thunar... daddy needs a new file manager.
:)
D.
55 • File manager 50 (by tom on 2006-08-28 18:37:13 GMT from Helena, United States)
Have you looked at xfe? Light weight and powerful.
56 • my $.02 worth (by Walt on 2006-08-28 18:40:05 GMT from Boise, United States)
I get the sense from the comments so far that most people are suggesting or at least implying that the main Distrowatch page should no longer provide news about distributions outside the top five or ten. If that is the case, I must disagree.
I come to Distrowatch to read about other distributions, and I would miss that. I used PCLinuxOS for a while, and it was not the end-all be-all for me. I did not like the fact that it was KDE-based (as another poster said - too slow - and too much overhead). And, while it did recognize my wireless adapter, after a time, I began having trouble maintaining a network connection.
So, I came back to Zenwalk. It's lean, mean, and not that hard to install. I also have an older laptop that I run Puppy on. To me, at least, the term "major distribution" depends on the audience. I would suggest that for new potential Linux users, especially those with older equipment, Puppy can easily be classified as a major distribution. It is written from scratch and has a growing user community (3148 registered users at last count, compared to 3420 for PCLinuxOS - not much difference there).
Sure, as someone has suggested, you can put these other distributions on a wiki separate from the main page. But I think that does a disservice to newcomers who may need something or want something different from the "big five" or "major ten."
If this site is going to be Distrowatch, then watch all distributions or as many as you can, not just a select few that meet someone's subjective criteria as to what constitutes a "major distribution."
Just my opinion, of course.
57 • RE: 7 (by ezsit on 2006-08-28 18:47:19 GMT from Chandler, United States)
"Or perhaps present it as a tree, showing derivative relationships."
Thanks for eching my posting last week. I still think this would be a tremendous job, but very interesting and useful to the user.
Many of my comments were not seen through the haze of religious talk. This was primarily my fault for mouthing off about a topic so many people take personally. However, a focus-shift to distributions and their interconnectedness could be valuable. Since I do not have time to contribute to this type of project, I cannot fault others for not acting on the suggestion.
58 • The search engine at DistroWatch rules OK! (by klonkku on 2006-08-28 18:49:39 GMT from Tampere, Finland)
Wow! I just used the search engine here at distrowatch.com in order to find out about the available source-based distros (I support open source and I think the best way to do this is by using a distro that encourages you to build programs from source tar balls). What a great service this search engine is! Thanks a lot!
http://distrowatch.com/search.php
59 • How's CentOS "for servers" only?! (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 18:55:41 GMT from Bucuresti, Romania)
"CentOS, you ask? A great project -- for servers." How's that?
CentOS 4.x is RHEL4, all the editions in one (ES, AS, WS, Desktop). If CentOS is for servers only, this means you basically say RHEL (WS, Desktop) is not good for a desktop.
Why? Because it doesn't feature the latest and greatest packages versions? (Especially window managers, huh?)
If _some_ people can use Debian Sarge not only for servers, they can also use CentOS too.
Beginning-2007, after RHEL5 releases, it will be a CentOS 5 one. Will you be able to say it's for servers only, given the versions of the packages it'll have?
C'mon, Ladislav, don't disappoint me.
60 • Vector Linux (by Lyn David Thomas on 2006-08-28 19:08:50 GMT from , United Kingdom)
Count me in as another that would miss Vector Linux, two main "flavours", standard, which is non KDE or Gnome and ideal even for Pentium 1 machines and the Soho version which is in my view the best 1 cd distro that combines the best software for home and small office use. Great combination of software, best of breed. Great configuration, much centralised in the VASM men. It is under active development and has one of the best community forums that I have yet seen. Plus it is optimised for speed. Yes good things are said of it, and yes it doesn't get the notice that it deserves.
61 • Number of Distro's and DW's stance. (by Andy on 2006-08-28 19:13:41 GMT from Oxford, United Kingdom)
Does seem to be quite a lot of distro's around at the moment. However I feel your comments are a little harsh. We all need to cut our teeth somewhere and where better than build your own derivative. Even distro’s like PClinuxOS wouldn't exist if it weren’t for this adventurous spirit.
While I appreciate that it must be a real pain to report and document each version I feel distrowatch needs to make a clear decision on the criteria needed to qualify as a new distro's for inclusion, and ensure its readers know where it stands. IMHO I think Distrowatch should report the facts and be as impartial as possible letting the readers decide if they wish to boycott a release or not. If Distrowatch becomes selective on what it includes then it will be a black day for the freedom of software. Kinda like a news channel that only reports things it agrees with.
That's my 10 cents anyway.
62 • Even if impossible... would be nice to know for every distribution: (by nickwe on 2006-08-28 19:16:11 GMT from , Mauritius)
* Time to install it on the HD? MEPIS is the fastest I have tested so far.
* The fasted to boot from HD? Arch is the fastest I have tested so far (my distribution of choice for the moment and probably for a long time!).
* Ease of use to install proprietary software? I've dropped BLAG because couldn't find (fast enough at my taste) extra repositories :-(
* Estimate the size of the community (cfr the title: no really possible but still...): developpers vs. users
* Quality of the documentation, espacially if the distro as any kind of a wiki and how rapidelly they answered technical question on their forums. I've just dropped Sabayon because of their empty WIKI :-(
Those criterias are unfortunately too subjective and related to too much discussion but that would be very interesting!
63 • Quo vadis, Linux distribution? (by NK on 2006-08-28 19:23:10 GMT from Salt Lake City, United States)
I come to distrowatch to specifically to here about progress developement in new distributions. I also like the fact that I can come here and find easy quick access and information/knews about a little known distribution (like gobolinux), or a specific distribution type to serve a specific purpose (like a firewall). That's what makes disttrowatch very useful. Also, it's very interesting to see what new ideas come forward. distrowatch watch is also useful to get a historical perspective about a project. All reasons that I browse distrowatch.
I like the idea that if a distro is not active for a year that it should be off loaded to a wiki where it still can be found if somebody wants to find/update news about it. Maybe that will inspire distro makers that if they want to be mentioned on the frontpage they will make a concerted effort to keep moving things forward.
If the work is too much to do so, then they should try to employ the help of a community to keep moving things forward, if they can. While it may seem true that a one man dictator style of leadership -seems- to benefit a distribution, I do not think this is the case. The only thing is that these one person distros are able to accomplish a lot of work by themselves and have the resources to do so.
The comments about Mepis are valid. The sad thing about Mepis is that warren (for whatever reason) killed of the vibrant developer community that wanted to step in and help with some things (aka dotmepis).
I am all for one man operations. But going at it alone can be difficult.
64 • Only for Servers? (by hughesjr on 2006-08-28 19:31:39 GMT from Corpus Christi, United States)
I'll agree w/ #59 :)
CentOS is an enterprise desktop ... that might not be good for the latest / greatest crowd. It is, however, great for deploying on business desktops.
Open Office 2.0 installs fine on CentOS-4, it has the latest seamonkey/firefox ... the only real issue is that there is no MP3 player.
Dag's repo solves that :)
65 • Kernel Binary Drivers (by Corey on 2006-08-28 19:48:35 GMT from , Canada)
Being an avid gamer and the owner of a laptop with an ATi X700 graphics chip, I understand the pain of leaving the drivers up to the manufacturer to develop. On the user side of things, its a pain in the behind, and many users don't understand the reasoning behind it. While I do believe that the specs should be released so that open-source developers can create full drivers, I understand the company side of it as well. NVIDIA, for example, uses proprietary components from not just their own development, but also licensed components by other companies and are bound by non-disclosure agreements. This limits them to using binary-only to avoid lawsuits. I'm quite confident that if NVIDIA owned all aspects of their code, they would be much more inclined to releasing it for the public.
I'm not sure if this is the same deal with ATi or not, perhaps they feel that if they were to release everything, it would open the door for other graphics cards manufacturers to rip them off. Who knows. But, I believe it will be a long time yet before we will see full open-source hardware-acelerated drivers for either of the big two.
While we can all hope for change, we might have to live with the fact that these companies do not just choose to keep the door close, but are forced to.
66 • Re: Only for Servers? (by Béranger on 2006-08-28 19:49:33 GMT from Bucuresti, Romania)
Oh, Johnny (Hughes), it was the humble myself who forgot to fill the name :-(
I converted an old laptop from Sarge to CentOS some 2 months ago, but it was only last week that I posted something on that.
I believe that, if so many people were able to run Win98 or Win2k for many years w/o any update except for security updates, they should be able to run CentOS as well, no matter it doesn't feature the latest and greatest etc.
As for the MP3 player, I managed to find almost everything in extra repositories -- my personal notes here: http://beranger.org/index.php?article=1483
Audacious, for one. But I'm usually listening to MP3 streams with gxine! (Everything is possible, even in CentOS ;-)
67 • CentOS (by wam on 2006-08-28 20:01:30 GMT from Durham, United States)
I find CentOS to be more stable for me as a desktop than Debian sarge. I have everything working on it from mp3 to codecs to playing DVDs. Super stable!
68 • "Commentary" or "troll"? :-) (by eco2geek on 2006-08-28 20:13:14 GMT from Portland, United States)
If you wanted to start a long discussion thread, well, that was one way to do it. :-) You do have the difficulty of deciding which distros to provide information about, and deciding which ones stay or go will lead to controversy.
As far as PCLinuxOS goes, it could arguably be called a Mandriva derivative. Try comparing their "control centers." Apart from the artwork, they look about the same. (Which is not to dis' PCLOS. If I was going to use an RPM-based distro as my main distro, that'd be the one.)
I've been using Kanotix for a few years now, and even though this year's been a bit thin as far as releases go (although Kano's "release candidates" are quite good enough), the user community is strong and active. The help base (Wiki, manual) is growing. And it's only based on Knoppix when running in LiveCD mode. When installed, it's based on Debian Sid, which means it's always being upgraded. Whatever its Distrowatch ranking, Kanotix will be my favorite, unitl and unless something dire occurs -- which isn't likely. (And then there's always straight Debian Sid.)
69 • One distro that can be taken out : (by Caraibes on 2006-08-28 20:34:05 GMT from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
About a year and a half ago, there was a small distro that was great for old PC's : Beatrix...
I used it... I was expecting updates, and follow-ups on the website, but it seems it just froze in time, and it appears to be dead...
I guess you could put it in the dead distros category...
70 • The Top Ten Distributions (by Anonymous on 2006-08-28 21:05:50 GMT from Dorval, Canada)
Ladislav,
I totally agree with your opinion. I just wonder why the page "The Top Ten Distributions" still list mepis and xandros, but not PCLinuxOS and Arch. I suggest you to change that page to be coherent with your editorial position. This will also help Arch and PCLinux, two very good distro to get more visibility on the web site.
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
Visibility on the web site should be gived in priority to "real" distro (don't forget the BSDs ...) and secondly to minor distro that are innovative (GoboLinux, Nexenta, SymphonyOS for example).
71 • Quo vadis, Linux distribution? (by Ariszló on 2006-08-28 21:08:53 GMT from Budapest, Hungary)
Quoted and commented on at OSNews.com:
http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=15648
72 • The Top Ten Distributions (by NK on 2006-08-28 21:29:49 GMT from Salt Lake City, United States)
I think the "top ten distributions" come from cumulative hits over a given period, not by choice. PClinuxOS did derive from mandriva, but it has morphed into it's own distro with significant differences and it's own community. mandriva originally came from redhat, so it's not the only one to take that path.
73 • Re: 70 • The Top Ten Distributions (by Ariszló on 2006-08-28 21:30:32 GMT from Budapest, Hungary)
Call it then Top Twelve so that you can add both Arch and PCLinuxOS.
74 • too many distros? (by SlaxFan on 2006-08-28 23:18:33 GMT from Johnstown, United States)
I have tried several distros that require installation and quite a few Live CD's. I can see that it is hard to maintain a great site like Distrowatch but the small distros can add real value by showing us the popularity of features that the big guys blow off.
Knoppix gave us an example of a pseudo-writable file system and live CD, Slax shows modularity and ease of remastering with it's built in scripts and modules, and Puppy showed us that changes could be saved with multi-session CD recording. Live CDs introduce programs to users that might not try them otherwise.
Perhaps the standards for calling something a new distro are too low. Remasters that don't add something more than a wallpaper or different window manager shouldn't be listed.
75 • Re: #1 & #2 (by Sergeant Pepper on 2006-08-28 23:32:38 GMT from Savannah, United States)
#1: "Why UCE and why not Ichthux? Ichthux has been there for a longer period."
#2 [ladislav]: "Simple. The UCE project bought 100,000 banner impressions on DistroWatch. That usually is a sign that the developer is serious about his project."
Translation - 'money'.
That's fair enough, since everyone has to make a living. But now we know the criteria for whether a minor variation on a distro gets its own page on Distrowatch or not - buy advertising and you're in!
76 • Quo Vadis Improvised (by Paul on 2006-08-29 00:18:55 GMT from Dallas, United States)
It's a mistake to think the Linux distro world will eventually distill to 4 or 5 basic black models. On the contrary, the forces of specialization have only begun to work their magic. It is the natural order of things.
C|Net reports that even Microsoft is rumoring Vista may be the last "general purpose" OS they build. They've tasted XP Home, Professional, Server 2003, and Media Center, and the fruit was good. Do you think they're going to stop now?
I believe they learned this from Linux geeks who are very gifted at rigging an OS to solve impossibly difficult problems right out of the box.
Specialization. It's not just for insects anymore.
77 • MEPIS (by Jimmy at 2006-08-29 00:19:18 GMT from Bakersfield, United States)
I find your comment on the development of MEPIS to be for most part Bull poop. Sure MEPIS dev spent alot of his own money to develop MEPIS and has gotten little in return as far as $'s go, but dev has seen his goal come to light and is still today working hard to keep his MEPIS community happy. As far as health goes, what do you base your statement on? Dev was seen recently at Mexico Linux Convention with a smile on his face, to me that don't sound like a person with bad health. Bottom line, install MEPIS and be happy, send some money to MEPIS and be Happy. :-)
78 • Re. 77 (by UZ64 on 2006-08-29 00:45:03 GMT from Alliance, United States)
"Bottom line, install MEPIS and be happy, send some money to MEPIS and be Happy. :-)"
I recall putting the Mepis live CD in my drive, rebooting into it, and rebooting back into my usual OS in record time. With the switch to Ubuntu, Mepis is practically identical to the way it once was. Sure, maybe it's got newer packages, but the same stupid aquarium is there by default. The same weather applet set for Morgantown is still there, still refusing to change to *my* city. The same bloat that's plagued this OS from the beginning is there; the same overly-cluttered desktop. I was expecting more from a seemingly well-liked distro that has reportedly gone through development problems, and even made a complete transition to Ubuntu because of them. Yet, all of its annoyances remain.
79 • HPD counter (functioning properly?) (by JAG on 2006-08-29 01:12:09 GMT from Linden, United States)
Hey Ladislav! How's it going...?
Would you be able to let me know when the HPD for OpenBSD was not 114?
Thanks in advance!
RE: Previous discussion...Offloading to a wiki sounds pretty good...
Perhaps you could also use the HPD counter to determine who's on the main page (greater than 99 stays/less than 100 goes)...just a thought...
Happy Juggling!
80 • Freespire's Big Announcement (by Larry on 2006-08-29 01:14:22 GMT from Tewksbury, United States)
Rumor is Google is going to take Freespire and make it into AdSpire and give Hell's Gates a run for their money. You'll see convergence with online apps and all the other goodies we love. ;-)
81 • derivative works (by Nathan Fisher on 2006-08-29 01:16:44 GMT from Houston, United States)
While I understand the comments I tend to disagree on a few things. For instance, Wolvix (a Slax remaster) is just plain fun, one of the most fun distributions in a long time. Slackware still rules and shows no signs of slowing IMHO, and Vector has an extremely active community and quite a few talented developers. And Puppy is way more mainstream than you give it credit for, in fact it is much more usable than most of the bigger guns.
Further, I run one of what you might call the 'vanity' distros and while it's true that it's very specialized I take offense to the implication that it doesn't matter. I've considered folding it back into it's parent a couple times and the users keep telling me not to because they love it. And really it offers quite a bit that isn't in any other distro. Not even the big ones. I also don't consider it to be wasted effort because I collaborate with a couple other distro maintainers and the projects tend to feed off of one another from time to time.
Now there is a point to be made that a lot of distros offer nothing new, and some would be better off combining their efforts. But the situation is, as in almost everything else in life, more complex than that.
82 • Quo vadis, Ladislav? (by Yagotta B. Kidding on 2006-08-29 04:03:38 GMT from Dreieich, Germany)
Thanks for your work on this great webpage, Ladislav.
I couldn't agree more: after I have read the Linspire propaganda for more than an hour, I wish them nothing but a quick demise. The bunch has won sympathy for 'fighting Microsoft' at the time of Lindows, yet they are obviosly not about any service to the community at all.
We could laugh at their 'informative' sites
http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/The_Perfect_Desktop_Linux_OS)
yet it is plain sad, that his copycat model of an alleged community-driven flavour (freespire) and $$$-driven (linspire) one fails to deliver. Making cheap fun of Dr. Robert Atkins (1930-2003) adds nothing but confusion to the meager contents of linspire's propaganda. No more need to further the topic.
Which leaves us with the originally stated question: Quo vadis, Ladislav?
Wikipedia goes quality - will your exceptionally informative website go towards a "quality wiki" too?
Yours,
YBK
83 • Gee this is a really old old argument! (by Scott Wilson on 2006-08-29 04:20:43 GMT from Phoenix, United States)
Again we find ourself discussing the to many vs not enough Linux issue.
Each one is a work in pride and accomplishment. In reality there are only 4 maybe 5 parent distribution.
I work in the IT field, I am really getting tired of revamping some one else mess. The Linux "guru" admin got hired, decided in using a "hobbyist" Linux distribution so they could play on someone else dime. Then they move on by choice or by force, I end up taking over a server and network that has no documentation, some off the wall packaged that has been customized setup that takes a while to figure out. In a non staffed IT or IS department, which many small to medium size companies now have, anything besides Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Novell/SUSE Linux and Debian, doesn't belong on the servers or desktops. Of the customers I have that run Linux I have been able to “save” most of them. One customer decided it wasn't worth the hassle (time and money) and went back to Microsoft. Leave the hobbyist distro's at home or on a test bed in the corner of the fully staffed IT/IS department.
hobbyist distribution = any flavor where you have to compile from scratch, tweak to make it work, and are not supported by major PC Server vendors. The three I have listed and supported are installed (optional) on Servers.
My vote yes for to many. Last count there are I think were 165 distribution based on Debian.
76 on Red Hat. Why in world do we need Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and so forth and so on.
With the up coming release of Vista and then the Microsoft subscription for updates and use by corporate users, the time may be rip for wide adaption of Linux. Lets not ruin it by using hobbyist flavors in the businesses switching to Linux.
84 • ??? (by iMoron on 2006-08-29 04:28:28 GMT from San Juan, Puerto Rico)
Hey... I seem to not be able to find the link for the stadistical information... like from where each distro orriginate and on what is it based...
It has been a long wile since I last cheked, and seen the discusion about the many distros I wanted to have a pick at the info... but I cant find it... I use to remember the link at the top of the page... but am lost now...
Now...
Are there to many distros? Yes!
Should Distrowatch keep track of all distros as posible? Yes...
Thats why this is distrowatch.com
Now... I think that instead of discusing which distros are not distro enough on distrowatch, maybe we chould try and convince some developer in to consolidating resorces where posible...
In a way we have seen few examples of this...
Like with mandriva buying conectiva and libranet (was it libranet... fuzzy memory)....
...with kubuntu and xubuntu by ubuntu... :p ... Maybe they should be considered one distro with corncening to the Distrowatch database... even if they may actually be seperate proyects tyo some extend...
The Ubuntu Familly friends... TUFF! :p
But for real... there should be some consolidation from some distros for their own survible... Uniting common goals...
I propose:
The Linux Consolidation Program... Mostly geared tours small distros, with the idea of getting their resources well manage... solve problems faster!
... well... I am just saying... don't know if this comment is that well thought out....
*keep on searching for the statistics* (not the P.H.R.)
85 • Freespire (by UZ64 on 2006-08-29 04:34:56 GMT from Alliance, United States)
Well, the funny thing is, all that crap Freespire links you to really does have to be done. Debian is a bitch in a half to get set up how you want, let alone installing/setting up restricted codecs. EasyUbuntu gave me nothing but trouble, never worked - just a bunch of "could not download files from server" messages - so Ubuntu is really no better for getting "restricted" formats. Never bothered with Red Hat, but Fedora is a bitch too. I recall SUSE being somewhat annoying as well. SUSE is the only one I had much progress with, but for all four distros I think it's more trouble than it's worth; I'll take a distro packed with all the goods ready to go, or at least one that doesn't go out of its way to prevent new users from installing them.
Now, what's ironic is that I couldn't even get the Freespire disc to boot into the installation program, let alone run their operating system. [face_laugh]
So while I can't argue that you have to jump through hoops to install proprietary/patented stuff you may want in the distros they listed, they have some work to do themselves so I can actually, you know, finish step 2 and *install* their operating system. Unfortunately for them, I've already decided that I'm going to settle with Slackware and Slack-derived distros and the Ubuntus.
86 • RE: 84 (by Scott Wilson on 2006-08-29 06:00:44 GMT from Phoenix, United States)
Distrowatch use to list which distrubutions are based upon.
My figure may be a little high, but if you use the search link on the top of the page, then search by based upon: Debian comes up with 115, Red Hat 21, Fedora 51, SUSE 4, Ubuntu 18, independent 50(which include gentoo, free bsd, debian ,etc,etc) The Ubuntu should be Ubuntu everyhting else should be a package, (kubuntu, Xubuntu, Etc)
87 • 83 (by AC on 2006-08-29 06:27:33 GMT from Olympia, United States)
I wholeheartedly agree about the great mistake an enterprise makes in choosing what I would call "enthusiast" distributions. RHEL (and CEntOS for those with in-house staff who don't need Oracle certs) and Debian are the way to go. (I've heard mixed things about SUSE, but I won't dispute their inclusion.)
The very worst thing to encounter is the enthusiast distribution set up in an enterprise setting by people who seem never to have heard of an audit-trail. Strangely, I've encountered this most often in systems with Slackware installed. (I'm sure some Slackware users are skilled sysadmins who practice sound policies, so my experience may not be representative.) It's as if these "administrators" think that all that matters is that they know what they've done to the system and - like modern package management - keeping careful records is a needless complexity. It probably works for them... on systems for which they are solely responsible. But in business, it's sheer irresponsibility.
None of which is to dismiss the value of the many distributions out there. But if you are going to advocate and offer your services to a business, please don't let your zeal outweigh your good sense. Personally, I prefer to work with Debian. I also prefer the use Free database software in place of Oracle and other proprietary solutions. In many cases, that's an ideal solution. But in some settings, MySQL, et al, aren't viable. Sometimes, a community based distro even as solid as Debian GNU/Linux is penny wise and pound foolish. And idealism is fine, but we shouldn't be idealistic with someone else's dime.
88 • RE: # 78 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-08-29 06:37:24 GMT from Roma, Italy)
Ditto. I have always found Mepis buggy and its desktop incredibly cluttered.
Bad taste!
89 • 84 Consolidation (by AC on 2006-08-29 07:05:22 GMT from Olympia, United States)
Given my conservative views as to what distributions are appropriate in an enterprise setting, one might expect me to be on the "too many distros" bandwagon and all for consolidation.
Nope.
Let's set aside the open question of whether Mandr*'s efforts at consolidation will bring them success... or even slow their decline. That sort of consolidation model may work with distributions managed by corporations, but it is highly suspect as a model for uniting and improving volunteer/small business distros.
Volunteer efforts cannot be redirected at will. Free software is driven in large part by individual talents and passions. It is naive to suppose, for example, that if we got rid of such-and-such distro, we could somehow "reassign" these people to working on .doc comptibility and improve OOo's handling of documents made on that legacy OS. Or "reassign" them to reverse engineering Nvidia drivers to provide fully-functional Free alternatives. Or just "reassign" them to polish up another distribution's init sequence, so it boots faster.
It doesn't work that way.
In a sense, the same reason that there are so many distributions is the same reason that there's an audience for them: fun. Just as you could devote your energy to learning to make one distribution do exactly what you want, but you may choose instead to pursue an ongoing quest for the "perfect distro", because it's more exciting in many ways, so it is more exciting to build your own distro than to go to bug-squashing parties and submit fixes to a distribution you didn't create.
Fortunately, for all of us, some people don't choose the glamorous path. Someone people get into the dirty details instead of the big ideas. But we can't expect that those who crave excitement can be made to pursue more "productive" paths.
And sometimes the "unproductive" can actually yield worthwhile results. And diversity can be worthwhile in and of itself.
90 • What about Slackware? (by Giovanni on 2006-08-29 07:22:39 GMT from Roma, Italy)
Why in your upcoming releases section you didn't mention Slackware?
The various RC releases were signalled on DW but nothing apperars in DW weekly.
91 • RE: 90 What about Slackware? (by ladislav on 2006-08-29 07:31:12 GMT from Bratislava, Slovakia)
The upcoming releases list contains only distributions with a known release date. Slackware does not pre-announce their releases so we don't know when version 11.0 will be out.
92 • Re: 81 • derivative works (by Ariszló on 2006-08-29 07:40:37 GMT from Budapest, Hungary)
Nathan Fisher wrote: I run one of what you might call the 'vanity' distros...
No, Grafpup is not a vanity distro. It is a very nice light-weight distro for desktop publishing and graphic art.
93 • MEPIS weather applet (by Ariszló on 2006-08-29 07:56:01 GMT from Budapest, Hungary)
UltraZelda64 wrote: The same weather applet set for Morgantown is still there, still refusing to change to *my* city.
1. Go to http://www.nws.noaa.gov/tg/siteloc.shtml and find the four-letter code of your town.
2. Open ~/.kde/share/config/KWeatherServicerc and add the four-letter code of your town to the list of stations.
3. Open ~/.kde/share/config/weather_panelappletrc and set report_location to your town by replacing the code of the original location with the four-letter code of your town.
94 • Interesting comments, all right (by eco2geek on 2006-08-29 08:00:56 GMT from Portland, United States)
- Why is it that just about everyone who criticizes Mepis mentions the inclusion of kaquarium, or a "cluttered desktop"? Come on, if the underlying system is buggy, criticize that. Otherwise, the first thing you're going to do when you sit down in front of a newly installed version of KDE (or GNOME) is tweak it to your liking, right? So carping about how Mepis looks out of the box is kind of superficial. I'll take "robust package management system" over "pretty GUI out of the box" any day.
- Say what you want about Freespire, but it's the only distro I've seen that included both ndiswrapper and the drivers it uses (plus a GUI to set it up). It works in LiveCD mode, too. Meaning, you don't have to have a pre-existing Internet connection to get your wireless connection working. (Laptop users, take note.) Plus they've actually got their own Freespire repositories now (i.e. you can install Freespire-tweaked software via apt-get or Synaptic, instead of that "click 'n' run" jazz).
- #83, I'm an end-user with no experience administering Linux in an IT department. Most of those "hobbyist" distros are made as labors of love, aimed at end-users who will appreciate them, not IT departments. My guess, however, is that "you have to compile from scratch, tweak to make it work" for just about any OS you use in a business environment, including Windows, unless your needs are dead simple. Having watched the IT guys where I work, they do quite a bit of tweaking and use customized scripts and software -- on Windows. So two of your criteria would seem to be invalid.
95 • 94 (by AC on 2006-08-29 09:04:21 GMT from Olympia, United States)
"My guess, however, is that 'you have to compile from scratch, tweak to make it work' for just about any OS you use in a business environment, including Windows, unless your needs are dead simple. Having watched the IT guys where I work, they do quite a bit of tweaking and use customized scripts and software -- on Windows. So two of your criteria would seem to be invalid."
Custom applications and configurations are generally built against a base system of known and established reliability. For example, one reason gentoo (though I quite like it) is unsuited for enterprise is that the various build options can introduce bugs in your own version that the distributors or upstream developers can't reproduce and that slip past quality assurance. A stable set of well tested binaries is the background against which customization takes place.
96 • MEPIS (by Jason on 2006-08-29 09:09:41 GMT from Sandridge, United Kingdom)
This is the second time in 2 months that Ladislav has deliberately snubbed MEPIS. Clearly he has a personal agenda against the project.
97 • RE: 96 MEPIS (by ladislav on 2006-08-29 09:22:30 GMT from Bratislava, Slovakia)
Absolute rubbish. As a matter of fact, MEPIS has been sponsoring DistroWatch for several years, so for that reason alone I'd like to see it going strong for a long time. All I did was that I expressed an opinion about it. If you disagree, that's fine. But don't come here and tell me that I have a personal agenda against some distro!
98 • Just stuff (by steveos on 2006-08-29 09:50:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi there..
Too many distros? Too confusing?
I'd like to see a hierarchical lineage display - somethat says where a distro came from, why it is different, then a link to a community forum. The posts there will quickly show if the distro is active and supported. That would be good - it would be easy to find that exotic distro which was the cut-down home server LiveCD of your favourate.
Now, I'm interested in IT - yet I use distros to do work :) so I want the thing to do what it says on the side of the box. I don't want to spend half a day bludgeoning the thing into working because it's only ever worked on the developer's rig - and mine is different.
And I can report being pleased with Knoppix, Kanotix, dyna:bolic, DSL and Puppy.
Do want to mention dyna:bolic a bit more ... having the low-latency mods in the kernel (necessary to work with audio) has the side effect of making for a really snappy distro; brings back life to old kit and can only be compared to say Puppy in response. Makes a difference.
Plus the average standard of distros is MUCH better now then 3 years ago. I put this down to Knoppix. This LiveCD was easy, effective, and polished - a shock and a wake-up call - everyone had to raise their game.
Do want to second the call re Windows Explorer, the Win98 version. I would instantly use a 100% clone of this.
Yes, all the other file explorers work. Some nicely, some rather strangely. But explorer98 had speed, smartness, useability, capability and the combo web/picture dispay was really good to use. A rare example of M$ doing good (I'd rate their optical mice, too). Yes, every other file explorer - works, but you have to row them along with extra clicks and all seem slow - especially in dirs with many pictures.
steveos
99 • Simplicity for newbies (by gavin on 2006-08-29 10:45:57 GMT from India)
I am new to the Linux world and have had to do quite a bit of exploration myself (Distrowatch was a great help). Well, as a newbie, the page I refered to in the beginning was the 'Major Distributions', but I was disappointed to find that it was not updated. (the page for live distros as well). These would be a sure help for someone moving to Linux. Also, if the distros and all the info, news, etc could be categorized in some way; say desktop, server, recovery, live, multimedia and so on it would make things easier for visitors. To make your life easier, Ladislav you could ask the developers to maintain the info page for their respective distro. You could, as someone else suggested, create a tree/ flowchart to indicate which distro stands on its own and which is a distro. One distinct way of classifying distros could be by language, this would encourage developers to widen not just the the linux audience but also the computing audience.
100 • Distro vs Edition (by maslot on 2006-08-29 10:50:30 GMT from Poland)
I think possessing web site or buying commercials is not a good criterion to state if something is distribution or is not. I would use some kind of questionnaire to solve this problem:
Original distributions
1. Has it packages (software management system) prepared (compiled) by its developers?
Derivated distributions (you should answer “yes” at least once)
2. Is the installation different from original distribution?
3. Has it any important software included (like window manager) which is developed by distribution’s creator?
4. Has it many changes against original distribution (e.g. kernel patches, system management)?
For example: Kubuntu is edition of Ubuntu (all answers “no”) and Kanotix is distribution (answers “yes” to 2. and 4.)
101 • Distro vs Edition (by Chris Hildebrandt on 2006-08-29 11:24:39 GMT from Austria)
ad 1. yes, too. Kanotix runs a growing repository which adds several important apps and tools to Debian Sid, mostly some time before they get accepted into Debian repositories. More at http://kanotix.com/debian/.
So, we happily answer all 4 questions with yes. :-)
Greetings,
Chris
102 • RE: 100 Distro vs Edition (by ladislav on 2006-08-29 11:44:04 GMT from Slovakia)
I don't think that either you or I have the right to redefine what a "distribution" is - the term has been around for a while and has been defined by others. Arbitrarily stating a few new criteria to evaluate if something is a distribution or not is not our job. Besides, even if I accept your criteria, there surely will be those who'd disagree and come up with a different set of criteria!
Basically, a Linux distribution is a collection of software built on top of the Linux kernel and GNU utilities, integrated into one installable (or "runable") system. By this definition, even SLAX Popcorn edition is a distribution, but because it's developed by the same developer as SLAX itself, we call it an edition of SLAX. On the other hand, Ubuntu Christian Edition is not developed by Ubuntu, so we can't call it an edition of Ubuntu. The article above serves an explanation for those who asked about this in last week's forum; it was not meant to be an invitation to start a debate on what is a distribution and what is not.
One more thing: Ubuntu Christian Edition was not called a "distribution" because the developer gave me money. The money simply served as a motivator to do add it to DistroWatch ahead of the other 160+ distributions currently on the waiting list.
103 • Re: Too many distros or variants (by Troy W. Banther on 2006-08-29 12:33:07 GMT from United States)
I believe it is nonsense to say there are too many Linux distros or BSD variants out there. It's one of the major reasons I read Distrowatch.
I am going to date myself with this but I was born before the advent of the ARPA-Net (what would become the Internet) or personal computers.
I remember when there was only one phone company, there were only three `major` network television companies and the `big three` automakers. Now we have thousands of broadcasting stations around the planet as-well-as private broadcasts. We also have many more automakers.
I think we live in an absolutely wonderful time of personal freedom. Go ahead and believe in the nonsese that less is better and I will choose the path less travelled. More is Linux distros and BSD variants on the marketplace are better.
-
Troy W. Banther, B.Sc.
ENMU Alum 95' & 00'
Linux, BSD, and MacOSX
http://banther.homelinux.net:8080/webportal
http://www.marcelgagne.com/node/387
---
“Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho.”
104 • RE: 100 Distro vs Edition (by maslot on 2006-08-29 12:43:29 GMT from Poland)
II didn't want to change the definition of the word "distribution". I thought about using some clear criteria when you add distributions to your site. IMO you can use some arbitrary criteria for YOUR site, can you? It seems that you have some conditions i.e. “strong motivation”, independent developers or web site. However this conditions lead us to flame wars like in case of Ubuntu Christian Edition.
105 • The Top Ten Distributions (by Anonymous on 2006-08-29 12:45:15 GMT from Canada)
I don't agree with post #72. As far as I understand, this page is "A Beginner's Guide to Choosing a (Linux) Distribution (sic)". So this page should reflect the editorial opinion of this web site.
The introduction of "top ten distributions" page say :
"It lists 10 distributions [...] which are generally considered as most widely used by Linux users around the world. [...] MEPIS and Xandros are considered the best for new Linux users who want to get productive in Linux as soon as possible without having to master all its complexities"
Ladislav editorial opinion is that Mepis show "signs that it is starting to suffer from a burn-out - long development cycles, too many bugs, lack of solid income [...]" and that Xandros is "too commercial and detached from the Linux user community". I think it should be more coherent to remove these distribution from the beginner's guide to choosing a distribution.
On a positive side, other interesting projects like the very good Arch and PCLinux will get more visibility. Arch is generelly underated and does not get a visibility that really reflect is level of quality. PCLinux is a good candidate to replace the commercial distro Xandros in the category of simple distro for new Linux users. For philosophical reason, I think it is better to introduce new users to linux and to the open source world via a totally free distro.
106 • Keeping Track of "Editions" (by just john on 2006-08-29 12:47:50 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu Christian Edition beat me to the punch on something I'd been thinking about doing for the Church of the SubGenius. My notion is to vreate a LiveDVD based on dyne:bolic (what with its mix of software and with Morphix seeming to be asleep), named either dyneBobbic or perhaps Dobbix.
Anyway, this would basically be taking an existing distro, one that encourages customization and adding mostly a ton of content.
I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes wildly popular -- something that doesn't care what software you HAVE, because it's all a self-contained disc that does its best to figure out your hardware and cope with it.
And this sort of edition release should have at least one website keeping tabs on what's available, both so people could find the products they might enjoy AND to run up the red flag when the inevitable finally happens, a deliberately malicious LiveCD or LiveDVD. (I mean malware-style malicious, not malicious in terms of political or social content.)
LiveCD/DVDs are a whole different world from distros intended for installation. Some of my best music has been done on a (legitimately) borrowed laptop and dyne:bolic. That Musix LiveCD has taught me a lot. And, by their nature, special-purpose LiveCD/DVDs will always have smaller user bases than the Big Boys.
And THAT'S why I come to DistroWatch!
Not to see that Ubuntu's up to, but to see the latest Berry release, or that single-purpose Go player one people were making fun of here.
If DistroWatch only kept track of the major releases, what would distinguish it from other sites that have exactly the same data? Why would I come here at all?
107 • PS (by just john on 2006-08-29 13:13:54 GMT from United States)
(By "I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes wildly popular," I meant content-added LiveCD/DVDs, not my particular version.)
108 • Re: 105 • The Top Ten Distributions (by Ariszló on 2006-08-29 13:38:05 GMT from Hungary)
Yes, I agree that Arch and PCLinuxOS would deserve being listed among the Top Ten but I still suggest that it should be Top Twelve. Even if you remove Mepis and Xandros to give room to Arch and PCLinuxOS, there will be 11 distributions with FreeBSD but 11 is not as good a number as 10 or 12. So why not add one more Linux distribution (say Frugalware) or another BSD "flavor"?
109 • Release ages (by Fred on 2006-08-29 13:43:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
You could use some kind of colour (or color) to indicate age of a distro, green for last 6 months, yellow for 6 to 12, orange for 12 to 24, red for over 24.
Just my 2 cents...
110 • Linux != Server (by bluejay on 2006-08-29 13:46:19 GMT from Australia)
"CentOS, you ask? A great project -- for servers."
You say that as if it is a bad thing. Could it be that Linux is great for desktops but leave the servers to Windows. ;_)
111 • I will miss... (by Winter at 2006-08-29 13:59:14 GMT from Japan)
I will miss the following linux distros if they folded:
ipcop
sysresccd
vectorlinux
These do fill niche markets. I think those markets are quite important.
112 • BSD = Server (by Ehh on 2006-08-29 14:44:36 GMT from France)
"
You say that as if it is a bad thing. Could it be that Linux is great for desktops but leave the servers to Windows. ;_)"
Or could it leave it more for the *bsd. The *bsd are as excellent, if not more, as linux for servers. Linux can be "optimized" for the desktop while the open source guys always have the bsd to get the servers running.
113 • Desktop as a layer (by ALejandro on 2006-08-29 15:52:36 GMT from Argentina)
It would be great if desktop became a layer on top of a basic, solid, stable, linux base, just like ubuntu-desktop/kubuntu/christian ubuntu/xubuntu on top of ubuntu base install.
so you can use your XXX desktop knowing for sure that repositories would be always updated and everything underneath is OK.
maybe the distros will take the mepis way but a step further, providing just a new desktop to ubuntu, so will be choices for everyone, but sharing a common base.
a new developer that wants to create a new user experience will not reinvent the weel, but just focus on what he/she wants.
sorry for my english.
114 • Quiet you! (by 1c3d0g on 2006-08-29 15:53:14 GMT from Aruba)
#96: better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and resolve all doubt.
115 • Obligatory car analogy. (by Wolven on 2006-08-29 16:03:17 GMT from Norway)
Why do we need all these different cars and car manufacturers, when we could all be driving Ford?
116 • The idea of a wiki is a good idea. (by Shaggy Dawg on 2006-08-29 16:04:55 GMT from United States)
I think part of the reason that much of the distributions out there fail, even ones that are legitimately different and good, is because of a lack of accessibility world. In the distro world, the rich get richer. As in, the more popular become more talked about and thus more popular. Even as an experienced linux user, it's hard to be a fan of a small distro not just because of the lack of support and updates, but because of a lack of accessibility.
I find myself liking the idea of a wiki where the smaller distros can post news about upcoming releases, however the possibility of vandalism is too great.
It occurs to me that a wiki would be unnecessary for the creator of a distro to post its news.
For example, you could have a section for "all upcoming releases." and "all releases." If a distro was human-approved, the creator would be given a user and a password, connected to that distro.
If a small-time distro wanted to notify the public of its upcoming release, they could sign in, and give a date of a release. And if it was an actual release and not just a changed release, they could write in up to 1,000 characters of the changelog. Naturally, every post would link back to their written site. Also, if the owner wanted, they could mark the distro as dormant themselves.
It would be pretty nifty.
That said however, I would like to express my annoyance at the amount of people who create small time distros "just because they can" or to be able to say "I created a distro" rather than not creating one, or only creating one to fulfill a particular purpose which needs to be filled. It is great that we have so many people who want to contribute to the open source world, but their time would be better spent working on an existing distro or piece of software.
It is very easy to help in this way, but if they are unqualified to do even that, I have the suspicion that they only created a distro by using a premade template or an online easy guide, and not through hard work and coding. Most small-time distros to me have the feel of a normal distro but with a few different default packages. That is fine to make, but it's not that original or different. It rarely provides something that you cannot get anywhere else. When you work on an existing and even slightly established distro, or you work on software, you are creating actual new content and code, improving on something, instead of just throwing a bunch of things together.
There are plenty of ways to help the open source community. And the open-source community needs all the people-power it can get! You would be surprised to find out how many orphaned projects there are on Debian simply because there was no one else has enough time to work on them (http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/work_needing). And you know how some projects aren't very helpful in their documentation describing how to do things? That's because no one finds the time to write it! See? You don't even have to be a programmer to get involved in the open source world! As I said, there are plenty of ways to help the open source community.
But creating a new distro often isn't one of them. There's no "I" in team. You want a distro with different capabilities? Add those capaibilities to an existing one. Remember the UNIX philosophy! "Quality not quantity!" Folks, if you've got programming skills, or even basic writing skills, use them to make an existing project better! Don't waste yours, our, and Ladislav's time by reinventing the wheel! The world would be better off with 200 very good and original distros than with 100,000 forked and low-quality vanity one. Please help out the linux world. But making an entirely new distro rarely counts as helping.
117 • Purity of intent, and the policing thereof (by just john on 2006-08-29 16:37:45 GMT from United States)
Shaggy Dawg -- "There are plenty of ways to help the open source community."
What current distros have that as their primary goal? I thought, for instance, the mainstream ones have the goal of providing good computing environments for their users, and usually at a very low price.
Is the $100 laptop project about helping the open source community, or about helping kids? Are the creators of dyne:bolic on here talking about the open source community, or are they more about providing media activists with the means of production?
If we're going to get all huffy about 'There is no "I" in team' and all, perhaps that line currently sitting on my title bar should be changed? Y'know, the one about "Put the fun back into computing."?
118 • No subject (by awakatanka on 2006-08-29 16:52:42 GMT from Netherlands)
Why call it distrowatch.com if you going to filter on youre own personal idea who belongs in top 10. If someone pay's he suddenly move's in the list?So at the end its all about money in opensource land?
"The money simply served as a motivator to do add it to DistroWatch ahead of the other 160+ distributions currently on the waiting list."
Distrowatch was for me the place to find a distro to try out and to find distro's that where different then others. If its unmaintainable then youre site need to change the way it handles the distro's that want a spot to.
119 • Quo vadis, Linux distribution? (by strebormj at 2006-08-29 17:08:56 GMT from United States)
I generally agree with the author's comments, although I think that, to some extent, distro/edition proliferation is the nature of the beast when it comes to Linux. I can even see Linux distros eventually becoming like logo T-shirts that nonprofits sell to raise money. It's a good marketing vehicle, really; you slap on your organization's graphics, verbiage on how to donate, pre-install your events in the default calendering app, and put the ISO on your web site, or hand out your CD at fundraisers. Of course, lots of individuals will also continue to tweak the number of programs installed, or customize an app or two, and throw their versions out there as well.
All of this will undoubtedly increase the visibility and the installation base of Linux, although it will also add to the confusion (Can I upgrade my Ubuntu Linux 10.8 to Amway Linux 3.7? Can I replace the package manager in K-martix 4.5.1 Texas Edition 7 RC1 with the one my friend has in ACLUx Agitprop 2.5?) and the perception of anarchy. With there being no deterrent against everyone and his brother creating a new, short-lived distro, it's almost guaranteed that Linux will become a commodity and that development energy will continue to fragment.
However, to paraphrase Harold's co-inmate in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, "In the end, the Universe tends to unfold as it should. Plus, I have a really large hard drive. That keeps me happy."
120 • Re. 93 and 94 (by UZ64 on 2006-08-29 17:23:43 GMT from United States)
"1. Go to http://www.nws.noaa.gov/tg/siteloc.shtml and find the four-letter code of your town.
2. Open ~/.kde/share/config/KWeatherServicerc and add the four-letter code of your town to the list of stations.
3. Open ~/.kde/share/config/weather_panelappletrc and set report_location to your town by replacing the code of the original location with the four-letter code of your town."
The thing is, when I was trying the distro out, I could get my city displayed - but as soon as I hit "Apply" or "OK" it would be gone, and Morgantown would still be the default, and the only one available. So those instructions - I've already followed them; I've tweaked the KDE weather applet several times in other distros with success. Mepis just always refused to save them. I had this problem before the switch to Ubuntu even occurred, and all the way up to the RCs (never bothered to waste my time on the final).
"Otherwise, the first thing you're going to do when you sit down in front of a newly installed version of KDE (or GNOME) is tweak it to your liking, right?"
The thing is, there's a difference between tweaking a desktop to your liking, and having to clean a bloated mess presented to you right on the first boot. Customizing is good, but cleaning up someone else's mess just to make the UI decent to use is not.
121 • RE: #1 + #2 (by Anonymous on 2006-08-29 17:33:49 GMT from Germany)
#1: "Why UCE and why not Ichthux? Ichthux has been there for a longer period."
#2 [ladislav]: "Simple. The UCE project bought 100,000 banner impressions on DistroWatch. That usually is a sign that the developer is serious about his project."
I call this corruption!
122 • RE: 118, 121 (by ladislav on 2006-08-29 19:27:51 GMT from Slovakia)
Why call it distrowatch.com if you going to filter on youre own personal idea who belongs in top 10.
I didn't filter anything - I simply stated an opinion. You are welcome to disagree with it and you are even welcome to write your own for publishing in the next issue of DistroWatch Weekly.
If someone pay's he suddenly move's in the list? So at the end its all about money in opensource land?
If I understand you correctly, you volunteer to add 166 new distributions to the DistroWatch database, right? Create 166 new pages, design the logos, extract the package lists, fill in the tables, find links to forums, mailing lists, documentation, reviews....? Then monitor them for the duration of their lives, set up scripts to detect new versions, monitor their mailing lists and RSS feeds, test each new version, report about them, publish news....?
Guys, maintaining DistroWatch is a lot of work. Yes, I still consider it a hobby, but I can't deny that it's also a full-time job and a business. I never tried to hide the fact that I accepted money from UCE; in fact, it was me who suggested it to the UCE maintainer. If you consider it corruption, it's fine with me. But my view is that as long as I am honest and open about it, I don't need to feel guilty.
123 • Ladislav is doing a great job (by Anonymous on 2006-08-29 19:55:20 GMT from Canada)
Hey guys come on ... Ladislav is doing a really good and usefull job. Maintaining this web site requier a lot of work and Ladislav do this in a very professionnal way. Also don't forget that Ladislav also contribute back to a lot of project with donation and constructive review.
Please ask you the following question before bashing him :
Can I do all this work ?
Most of us will answer "NO I am not able to do this. There is too much work".
On another topic, my previous suggestion about the top 10 is not to filter it, but to present a usefull guide to choosing a linux distribution. When writing such guide, you must make choices. I suggest to use this editorial opinion to choose the distro to present in that guide.
124 • Re: UCE Buying a Distrowatch Page (by Sergeant Pepper on 2006-08-29 21:08:56 GMT from United States)
If I understand you correctly, you volunteer to add 166 new distributions to the DistroWatch database, right?
Wrong. The problem isn't that all those other non-entities haven't been added, it's that a non-entity like UCE was added purely because they stumped up some advertising cash.
Just like those rich kids who buy their way into Formula 1 rather than earning their place, there's nothing necessarily wrong with it per se, and if it helps people pay their bills it's hard to argue with it, but it's just not particularly fair on the others.
125 • Too Many (by Diver on 2006-08-29 21:33:22 GMT from United States)
There are too many distributions or editions or whatever you want to call them. The OSS community would benefit if more of the talented programmers would concentrate on fewer projects. Better software would result. Hubris and the somewhat wacko nature of smart people tends to send them off in a zillion directions.
126 • No subject (by awakatanka on 2006-08-29 22:00:26 GMT from Netherlands)
" I didn't filter anything - I simply stated an opinion. You are welcome to disagree with it and you are even welcome to write your own for publishing in the next issue of DistroWatch Weekly."
You made a system that look how popular the distro is, So those distro's belong there by you're own measurement script. If you're opinion is that some don't belong there its OK, but if you change that by hand like some visitors say it isn't fear.
" If I understand you correctly, you volunteer to add 166 new distributions to the DistroWatch database, right? Create 166 new pages, design the logos, extract the package lists, fill in the tables, find links to forums, mailing lists, documentation, reviews....? Then monitor them for the duration of their lives, set up scripts to detect new versions, monitor their mailing lists and RSS feeds, test each new version, report about them, publish news....?"
Thats why i visit you're site. And you doing a great job. But if it takes to much time you have to try to change it in a way its fair to all distro's that try to get in the lists. There lots of smart visitors ( not me) that may have good idea's for you. And sure you may earn money with this site, but that line gives me the feeling you can buy you're way to the top. I'm sure it isn't true but it just gives me a bad tast.
127 • # distros: head bandwidth and documentation (by steveos on 2006-08-29 23:18:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
:( A bright developer can only find so many hours in a year to put into any hobbyist work. And that is given... they have wrapped their head about the distro. Not trivial.
There is too much information in just the kernel, let alone the full system to be a real master - that's why distros are built one atop another.
So you get to know your own; lets say it's a success. Who will come and join? If people do, will they find the hours / weeks / years of work you have put in documented logically, thoroughly and up to date?
Sometimes yes for the Pro & some Pro/Am distros- but I suspect usually with smaller distros - NO. Documents are optional, so = rare.
This is a real handicap. How can all that knowledge be transferred? On big teams there are specs, manuals, standards, QA procedures, config control, build and release systems and 101 backups. With hobby work - Yep some gets done - but all of it? Really? Often key bits are just dropped under the weight of work.
Who do you know who has done a walk through / spec review lately for an important minor subsystem (like the package management system) on their small distro? And is the review documented with action points and work assigned for fixes??
Anyhow. The end result of all this:
1) the full data / knowledge about a distro is rarely written in depth & maintained, together with
2) peoples brains are NOT big enough to take in all the needed data
Consequence: It's Easier To Start Over With Your Very Own Distro
- you're you. You know your work, specs, intent and you can choose how much QA or not to have, config control etc etc.
- you can build atop an earlier working distro, assimilating what you need to know as you work. No need to chug it all back at once.
Thus the profusion of distros is seen as a consequence of working practices, volume of data, human psychology and simple practicality (= time available).
And I don't see any way out. Infrastructure support like this is where the Cathedral wins over most Bazaars alas.
:( again.
128 • fun and love (by steveos on 2006-08-29 23:29:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
:)
An upside. Why do people make distros, why does Ladislav put all that effort in - why are we reading this?
* Because its fun *
:) ~~ Well done you crazy workaholic guys! My heros!
Plus we love it too. madness!
129 • 89. AC (by iMoron on 2006-08-30 03:46:17 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Well... true... Thats why I said SOME, not all nor most but "some"...
Yes I see that the Mandriva thing is not a good example... until you realize that one of the two distros it absorved was about to go under... the other one I don't remember...
What I mean with my "Linux Consolidation Program" (and am just playing with all of this in a way) is to help keep alive distros that are failing to solidify... or that might be crumbuling alone and could survive integrating with a similar proyect...
I know it does not work that way... but for some it could work... even if only a tiny fracton of distro unite... (-1%)
Besides... I agre that the reason why there are so many proyects that APEAR to be similar is because there are many ways of doing things... not just one or two...
Heck... it would be nice to see a bit more consolidation of SOME apps... though usualy evolution takes care of that...
... Am just pondering... there are distros that COULD benefit by cooperating on SOME level of standarization...
..................................
Hey... Ladislav, why not requaire more info from the new distros so that you at least don't have to seach for things like the logos, package list and the like. Also...
I consider that maybe the mantainers of all distros are intersted on having their presence in your database. So... it would be of benefit, once the distros are in the database, to have its info up to date by themselves thrue some representative of the distro...
This way you would post the news like you do now... And let others (registered member) from the distros to mantain the info on their page in your database...
mmm... hopefuly you understand my meaning...
It might not be bullet PROFF... but it could work if well planed and distro mantainers/developers help out too...
And... even though I don't like the Christian Ubuntu adition to the list (separation of church and source... oh.... wate... it is church and state :p ) I think distrowatch should keep track, as good as humanly posible, of all distros... Maybe a tree structure would be nice to see how some distros start... maybe even categorize them (as an option) in it (tree vew)... Even if it is an edition or a distro a tree veiw might come in handy for some, of cource all of this info should be properly suministrated by the developers of the distros....
ummm which I could help... but am to slow for this I think...
Oh... and... freespire/linspire, well, I don't think that their comment tours Novel is to be consider bashing... they do have a point... maybe in the future they, freelin (:p), will not need close source drivers/codecs to give support for hardware/media when more open source drivers/codecs are avaible... doing the same as Novel now... Until then, they have a point!
............ Well I will end this moster of a post.
- iMoron, the Big Moron...
130 • Storytime (by Shaggi Dawg on 2006-08-30 04:52:43 GMT from United States)
I'm going to use an analogy to talk about the current way-too-many-distros situation.
Let's say you fly in boeing 747s all the time, and you want it to fly better. The plane deals with certain kinds of turbulence badly, and you think you know how to fix it. Lots of people fly on Boeing planes, and the bumpiness affects them, too. The people at boeing are open to help, suggestions, and working with all sorts of members of the community, and if you came to them, with a pair of hands willing to work on and improve hands, they surely wouldn't decline. If you wanted, you could work together with the Boeing people, fix the plane up a little, and everyone would fly better. It would be a great solution.
-------------
Storytime over, kids. If you want to back up that story, why don't you check out some of these recently-recognized-as-deceased distros listed on the Augst 18th 2006 issue of distrowatch weekly.
Those little distros usually don't all grow big, have tons of users, or succeed. Most garner a few dozen users, last a year or two, and then die out. Yay.
As to those creators of the tiny one-man spinoff distributions out there: If you really wanted to make a (more secure/faster/cleaner/neater/cooler/better for [insert field]) kind of distribution, a safer bet would have been just helping out an already existing one. Too bad you didn't want to make the effort. Hope you had the "fun" you were looking for doing all that work for nothing. Because I doubt more than a handful of other people got anything out of it. It's the cold truth.
But because you're an egomaniac, or you want to show off, or some other bizarre reason, you decide NOT to do that. No, of course not, that would be too beneficial to humanity. Instead, you decide to copy the Boeing factory and plane blueprints (which are open source in this universe), and make your own plane line, but with the few tiny alterations necessary to make it run smoother. Also, you slap on your own log everywhere and make some arbitrary style changes. Then you go out in public and try to convince lots of people that if they don't like turbulence, they should switch from the boeing line to yours. Maybe 1,000 or so people, out of the few million of plane passengers, are mildly interested. Perhaps you even get 100 or so routine flyers (but that's a generous estimate).
Time passes, the boeing line improves because of the hundreds of engineers they have. You struggle just to keep up with their constant improvements. It's a lot of work running a plane line, and maybe you have a helper or two (probably not), but even then, it's a lot of work running a plane line. You get tired quickly. Your customers eagerly ask you when the new, improved plane that you promised them is coming out. You say soon, and that you're working on it, and it's gonna be great. But the truth is, it's hard work, and it's not going to be that great. Maybe, if you're lucky, it'll be okay, but it won't be great.
More time passes, and you begin to notice other small-time plane lines which aren't doing so well simply because they lack the manpower. Hundreds of them. Planes out there riding entirely on a pretty dream. But they barely run on anything else. They cough, they sputter (your engines have started to do the same... you've caused a lot of kinks and flaws in the design over the years. They're not that great. You realize that there are plane lines out there with similar goals, and that if you worked together you might be able to fix your problems and make better planes, please more passengers. But out of selfishness or laziness, who knows which, you decide not to.
More time passes. Some new passengers have started flying on your planes, but most passengers have left. Boeing is more popular than ever. You're burnt out, and you feel like no one appreciates your work. Not like you have the energy to do any work. Why did you ever think this would be so great or different or important in the first place? Why did you spend so much money and time on this? You're not sure, but you're tired, and you've had enough. You officially hang up the project and go home. Maybe some people had fun, but you've wasted a lot of people's time. And if you had really, truly wanted to make people's flights better, you would have gone to boeing in the first place instead of taking all the effort to do this. That would have solved the problem right there. And you would have saved so much time.
131 • Ladislav, you look tired. (by Mollybear on 2006-08-30 05:52:24 GMT from United States)
Maybe you should hire an assistant.
If you can't afford it, remember you are dealing with an open source community. They love helping out. Relegating some of the extensive work of indexing the entire distribution world might be good.
132 • Various (by linbetwin on 2006-08-30 07:03:46 GMT from Romania)
1. Linspire's big announcement is that CNR Basic is now free for users of both Linspire and Freespire and will eventually be open-sourced. I never used Lin/Freespire myself but I think this is good news.
2. A Linux distribution (IMHO) is something on which the developer(s) spend(s) more time and effort than it takes Ladislav to set up a page for that said distribution and monitor its development.
3. You expect Ladislav to be some kind of distrobot crawling the Internet for anything that might look like a sorry excuse for a one-man distro. I think that for any distribution that has less than 50 HPD he should only publish the link to that distro's web page and let you people find out for yourselves what, who, where and when from the horse's mouth.
133 • Waiting List (by Ariszló on 2006-08-30 07:49:53 GMT from Hungary)
As of today, there are 165 distributions at the DistroWatch waiting list, ranging from Generations Linux (submitted on 2003-12-03) to 4BAK (submitted on 2006-08-19): http://distrowatch.com/table.php
Are there any criteria to automatically add a distribution to DistroWatch or remove it from the waiting list? Like these:
1. It has been active for some (say 2) years.
2. It is current (or unstable if you prefer a Debianite term) package list is not older than some (say 3) months.
3. It has an easily accessible list of packages.
4. It has a community forum with at least some (say 100) users and the latest post is not older than some (say 1) week.
If all the above criteria were met then the distribution would be automatically added to DistroWatch. Otherwise, Ladislav would decide as he wishes accepting no objections.
134 • One more thing (by Ariszló on 2006-08-30 07:55:27 GMT from Hungary)
And it should be the task of the distribution's maintainers to inform Ladislav that their distribution satisfies all four criteria.
135 • RE - Quo vadis, Linux distribution? (by John on 2006-08-30 08:43:09 GMT from France)
I can see that some of the distributions mentionned in Distrowatch are not really "derivatives works", and should rather be considered like "versions" of an original distribution :
- Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu are only special versions of Ubuntu
Starting from a solid base like Debian, Redhat or Slackware and adding KDE on the top shouldn't be considered as a new Linux distribution : KDE is very complete, and it's really easy to build a professional desktop system with it. A distribution is much more than this : you have to provide a new implementation of the GNU/Linux system with administration tools, hardware detection, init system, application integration...
There are a lot of other examples like the Ubuntu one. A question : would Kzenwalk, Gzenwalk EZenwalk and some other possible versions of the same original OS be added to Distrowatch if someone build these versions ?
It's true that Distrowatch distribution list needs a cleanup, I would personally prefer a TOP50 on the main page, cleaned from overlaps like Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu.
John.
136 • RE: 131 Ladislav, you look tired. (by ladislav on 2006-08-30 08:53:24 GMT from Slovakia)
You are right - I think I need another holiday :-) Or maybe I should just resist the temptation to be drawn into flame wars....
Anyway, I am going to review the waiting list and add those distribution which are trying something unique or which have decent web sites with forums and documentation. Any particular favourites you wish to see added?
As for the suggestions to turn DistroWatch into a wiki, I don't want to do it. My goal is to run a web site that offers something that you can't find elsewhere. If you want wikis, there is Wikipedia - why you should I duplicate something that already exists?
Yes, the "top 10" distribution list will be revised. I don't like the idea of turning it into "top 12", because next time there will be suggestions to add a few more and make it "top 15", then "top 20"... Let's keep it as "top 10 Linux distributions" + one BSD.
137 • Freespire (by Dave Brown on 2006-08-30 09:40:25 GMT from United States)
Freespire is a cool distro and now it is better!! Linspire announced today.. Linspire Does Away with Annual Fee for "Click 'N Run" Linux Service.
138 • 130 Shaggy (by AC on 2006-08-30 10:25:40 GMT from United States)
"...If you really wanted to make a (more secure/faster/cleaner/neater/cooler/better for [insert field]) kind of distribution, a safer bet would have been just helping out an already existing one. Too bad you didn't want to make the effort. Hope you had the "fun" you were looking for doing all that work for nothing. Because I doubt more than a handful of other people got anything out of it. It's the cold truth.
"But because you're an egomaniac, or you want to show off, or some other bizarre reason, you decide NOT to do that. No, of course not, that would be too beneficial to humanity.
I trust when you take a break from passing your sanctimonious judgements, you are writing code, fixing bugs, and contributing to the distro of your choice. But even if you are, what business is it of yours how someone else chooses to direct their interest in computers?
Personally, I agree it would be great if more people chose the path of helping an existing distro. However, even if the motivations transferred, there's no guarantee that the skills will. Maintaining a package is not the same as building a distro, which is not the same as fixing a bug.
139 • No new distros without sources (by Ariszló on 2006-08-30 10:55:26 GMT from Hungary)
Binary distributions should only be accepted if they also provided the sources along with build scripts and patches (an srpm package contains all). Source-based distributions, like Gentoo, would only need to provide build scripts and patches. Sources could be provided as it is convenient for the distributor: on a cd/dvd or in an ftp directory.
This raises the question of derivative distributions. I would be less rigorous with distros like GenieOS that only provide an alternative installer to Debian Stable since you can get all the sources and build scripts from the Debian Pool but I would only accept live cds based on Debian Unstable if they also provided all the source, patches and build scripts. Why? Because the Debian Unstable repository keeps changing day to day and you may not easily find the source packages and build scripts of yesterday's live cds today.
This would radically reduce the number of distributions on the waiting listing by excluding binary-only Knoppix remasters or Slax derivative.
Since one cannot rewrite history, distributions that are already tracked should stay.
140 • Too much distros (by Gibolin on 2006-08-30 11:28:36 GMT from France)
500 Distros on Distrowatch and almost 200 on the waiting list.
And none of them is good enough. All buggy and not usable by... my parents and sisters, for example ! By normal users. (and they tried with good will !)
The same problem with the office suites. OpenOffice.org, maybe the best one, is too slow, buggy and not good enough. If you have tried the new microsoft Office, then you know where the innovation is coming from. Not from 700 bad linux distros and 10 bad office suites.
I hate to say this... but if there was only one good distro, it would be used ! Simply used. The truth is 95% use windows.
Sad but true.
141 • Proprietary Grammar (by Ariszló on 2006-08-30 11:37:57 GMT from Hungary)
All grammatical mistakes in my "139 • No new distros without sources" post are mine. You are not allowed to distribute them. Should you quote the post, you must add all the missing plurals and remove the second -ing from waiting listing.
;-)
142 • I agree! (by 1c3d0g on 2006-08-30 11:41:27 GMT from Aruba)
Well said, Ladislav. Keep the "top 10 distros" + 1 BSD (and don't turn it into a wiki, Wikipedia does an excellent job already). I also understand your position, someone has to pay the bills at the end of the day and it doesn't come cheap.
Remember guys, very few people donate back to the Open Source community, and Ladislav is one of them. He's a good guy. Besides, DistroWatch is his site and he can do as he pleases, we're only offering an opinion/advice.
143 • remove distro that provide only liveCD (by Anonymous on 2006-08-30 12:45:15 GMT from Canada)
To reduce the number of distribution on the list, you can do a separation like
1) traditionnal distribution : CD or DVD (or other media) that provide an installer (or at least an installation documentation). Distribution in this category can include a live CD.
2) LiveCD only : no installation possible or very difficult / badly documented
If you remove the category 2 from the site, you will significally cut the list ! For me a liveCD that is not installable on disc is ***NOT*** an usefull linux distribution
144 • Re: remove distro that provide only liveCD (by Ariszló on 2006-08-30 12:58:21 GMT from Hungary)
No, don't. Only remove a live cd distro from the waiting list (and only from there) if it does not also provide sources with build scripts. See my earlier post at 139.
145 • Making life a little bit easier for Ladislav (by steveos on 2006-08-30 13:03:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
OK.
Not many distros do NOT know about Distrowatch, so why not use that to make life for Ladislav a little bit easier, a bit more practicle?
Here is an idea: basically every distro makes news announcements / press releases already. Some guy at the distro shop already does that job.
Hows about asking them to present their release info on some standard form and pass it to Ladislav? Perhaps - a web based form. Hm.
Example: A DW-Wiki page, only editable by the distro owner.
So it's time to release: they go over to the DW-Wiki and fill in a blank "new release" form. Ladislav gets an email saying - and all he needs is there in 1 place. The form can capture all the necessary info, ready for the main distro page. URLs, release notes, logos, links to dl sites, build info...
Might even have a script to make a proposed DW page entry from the new Wiki form.
146 • Top 10 (by Texan in CT on 2006-08-30 13:34:30 GMT from United States)
It will be interesting to see how this "Top 10" is determined. Hopefully something tangible. I appreaciate your opinion and I respect it, I just don't agree with it though. But that's ok, I like DW because it provides information on distributions that I otherwise couldn't keep up with. Keep up the good work.
147 • RE: 142 I agree! (by ladislav on 2006-08-30 13:42:11 GMT from Slovakia)
Ah, I know where I'll go on my next holiday - Aruba! It looks like a pleasant place with very nice people. Any good beaches there?
148 • 145. (by iMoron on 2006-08-30 13:54:04 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Yes... thats what I meant with my idea in a way...
It will not be like a full wiki, but just the info that distrowatch now tracks nothing more... and all been manage by the owner of the disto making it their resposability to help keep DW updated so that Ladislav has an easier time managuing DW... No more hunting by Ladislav...
Atleast that will help with the database problem... in terms of manage ability.
Stevos' example if far more cleaner than the bastardice example I tried to explain...
149 • Re : Top 10 (by John on 2006-08-30 14:11:54 GMT from France)
Hehe ;) top 10, that's funny !
Actually, Distrowatch ranks are assigned by counting how many times the visitors have 'clicked' on any of the particular distro's presented in the Top or the news.
With only 10 distributions in the Top, I let you imagine which distributions pages would be visited :)
After all : what makes Distrowatch different from all the (some are excellent) Linux related websites and surveys : the Top 100 !
Anyway a Top50 would be enough imho
John
150 • 'major' distros vs 'niche' distros (by Akuna on 2006-08-30 17:54:31 GMT from France)
Now what Ladislav said about many distro -- who do not have a real added value but just change a couple minor things to another 'major' distro & then call themselves distro -- is true in many situations... Problem is that he (purposely?) named some popular smaller distros (who each brought added value of their own) & sort of shoved them in as well:
Judging from Ladislav paper, I only used one of the major Linux distro for just about 3 months (Mandrake) at the time when I first used linux...
Since then I used VectorLinux, then Kanotix & finally Zenwalk... which are all considered not so important or 'niche' distro in that paper, yet, they are the ones that were able to keep me in Linux to this day... & where I feel I was able to learn a lot (much more than I feel I would have been able to directly with the original 'major' distro they were based on, ie: Slackware &/or Debian) .
I guess that means I'm not part of the majority (average) Linux users... Grin
Now what could that mean for Zenwalk?
Maybe it is just a matter of being still too young to receive 'proper' recognition yet.
We should be happy to be in the role of the 'easily dismissed' challenger rather than in the one of the favorite...
If that is the case then it is a natural process & not very important...
If we have what it takes.... it is bound to show sooner or later & if we don't... well it is also bound to show sooner or later!
Time is the most unbiaised & fair outside observer... Time will tell!
PS: BTW two obvious added value of Zenwalk (apart from the fact that it is a bleeding edge yet light Xfce-centric Slackware-based distro & that it also uses a rather unique low-level automount system for removable devices) are: Zenwalk's netpkg + Zenwalk's system tools.
151 • conceptual false analysis: The zenwalk case :) (by snvv on 2006-08-30 18:43:11 GMT from Greece)
Well the first thought i had after reading your article it was about cars :) They have four tyres, two, four or five doors and they are pretty much about the same. According your suggestion from tomorrow most of the "infamous" car plants should close down :)
Seriously now, I have use your site to choose my OS. I tried : ubuntu, xubuntu, suse, Mephis, PClinuxOS, vector, and many other (more than 15 distributions) before I select my permanent OS which is Zenwalk and I have to thank you for that.
Personally, I like pclinuxos too but zenwalk is perfect for everything that I have to do. Its light, fast, "beautiful" with a great and very active community. Actually, only in zenwalk and pclinuxos the creator / developers are all time in the forum and irc to help, explain, get feedback and making a better OS... (thats for those dont understand how these OS evolve and become better).
Then I read your following statement
"Those of you who intend to create another live CD by remastering SLAX and send an email to DistroWatch about it, then please don't! You'll be wasting your time.""
My comment in our forum about your statment was " bring some money into the "table" and the table and/or the game will be destroyed...."
I think you have to encourage the development of new and or different (whatever it means)distros. That is one great difference of linux in comparison with microsoft. And that difference is that has make linux so famous recent dates...
If distrowatch include only ubuntu, suse, fodora, slackware and may be arch then firstly you will be able to make such comments and secondly distrowatch would be just be an other site for announcements of the "big" distros.
In conclusion i would say that zenwalk is compact, fast, with xfce, Gnome, Kde, enlightment etc, with every application that might someone need (i.e multimdia, science, education etc) and all that in one core package... Which is easy to manage and maintain and very very stable.
What more can expect??? The next version of zenwalk because Jean-Philippe Guillemin and the development team of zenwalk knows how to make a very good OS even better :).
Finally, because I strongly believe that distrowatch it is a very influential site in the world of linux I think and I hope future statements to be more thoughtfully analyzed before they presented to public...
152 • 150 logic? (by AC on 2006-08-30 19:02:26 GMT from United States)
"I used VectorLinux, then Kanotix & finally Zenwalk... which are all considered not so important or 'niche' distro in that paper, yet, they are the ones that were able to keep me in Linux to this day... & where I feel I was able to learn a lot (much more than I feel I would have been able to directly with the original 'major' distro they were based on, ie: Slackware &/or Debian) ."
On what do you base that? Learning "much more" from a derivative that is designed in part to make things easier than from the original? And not having tried the otiginals, how on Earth would you know?
153 • My homepage (by Ellen on 2006-08-30 19:51:34 GMT from China)
Great work!
My homepage | Please visit
154 • Ubuntu-Close (by Oskar on 2006-08-30 20:05:54 GMT from Germany)
"Those of you who intend to create another live CD by remastering SLAX and send an email to DistroWatch about it, then please don't! You'll be wasting your time."
Sorry but I really disagree
So having 20 Ubuntu-Clones is no problem but 5 differents Slaxes is?
I personally think some clones are really worth it (for example CentOs is a pretty good redhat-clone i may even prefer it to the original),
For Example there could easily be an Xzenwalk, Kzenwalk and GKzenwalk + and EduZenwalk. But would it be sane?
I mean lets face it: Ubuntu is yet another Debian-clone (like linspire, freespire etc) the only thing I noticed was that they removed the compiler ;-)
Ladislav please use the "Search" option on your site and you will easily find there exactly 18 Ubuntuclones (and 171 debian-based distros) listed on distrowatch but only 9 Slax-Clones (and 59 distros based on slackware )
So the correct form of the questions should be:
Does the community really need yet another Ubuntu-Clone?
155 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-08-30 21:54:44 GMT from France)
Re-152: What makes you think I didn't try them? ... and what is one to think of your logic in assuming this? ;-)
Just because I do not use a distro regularly does not mean I haven't tried it, installed it on some of my machines and eventually got rid of them because they just didn't suit me... after all, I'm on Distrowatch right now... doesn't that say some things to you?
The forums of the 3 specific so-called 'niche'distros I mentionned were very helpful & inviting to the perfect newbie I was, contrary to some of the other big distros where I only dipped my toe in & didn't find things very clear or inviting to my personal taste!
I'm not saying the big distros are bad... I'm just saying they didn't suit me... So it is a good thing to be able to have smaller distros available, where for exemple the community & the devs can have direct interaction... To some folks, it means a lot.. it's part of the "Put the fun back into computing" thing!
You must allow for every taste to be satisfied... Live & let live!
You can have your bigger distro for the masses, allow some of us to have our choiced smaller, more human-scaled distro.
Thank you :-)
156 • re- 158 (by Akuna on 2006-08-30 21:56:31 GMT from France)
Oops... Anonymous there is me... Akuna :-)
157 • PCLinuxOS OnLine Magazine (by Tim on 2006-08-31 02:17:53 GMT from United States)
Texstar has just announced:
It is my privilege to announce on behalf of the team members of the PCLinuxOS Magazine Project sponsored by MyPCLinuxOS.com, the September 2006 introductory issue is available for download! We've put a lot of effort into producing a quality magazine made for the community, by the community.
Contained inside are many articles written for the PCLinuxOS community and a few for those interested but not yet using it. Some highlights include:
1. An interview with Susan Linton of Tuxmachines.org
2. An RPM Tutorial for beginning users
3. Hunting rootkits with Rootkithunter on PCLinuxOS
4. Much, Much more!
http://mag.mypclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6
158 • Gentoo 2006.1 released (by linbetwin on 2006-08-31 05:11:38 GMT from Romania)
Gentoo 2006.1 has just been released. Maybe this time I'll try it myself.
159 • OK this is Official now beating a dead horse! (by Scott Wilson on 2006-08-31 06:15:12 GMT from United States)
Everyone Breath in and exhale.
Ladislav thank you for all your hard work.
The Linux community has a variety of opinions and goals.
Ladislav, has created a “monster” or a brilliant forum to get us talking about Linux. Letting us know whats new and different. I think the market place has decided who is the the main stream and who isn't.
I still think there is to many, but hey its my opinion and you have yours.
I wish I could of came up with the idea, a full time job that is also a hobby. Making a living off of Linux. I'm kind of jealous.
I do wonder since UCE created this fire storm, that the issue really wasn't about the “31 flavors” of Linux but the fact that its a “Christian” version. As if some how this has some offended the golden Tux and got everyone taking swipes at distro “X”.
Its a Holiday weekend in the US, everyone just breath in and relax. For those in the other parts of the world, enjoy your weekend, use Linux and be happy!
160 • NetBSD is dead (by Anonymous on 2006-08-31 08:47:58 GMT from Canada)
Charles M. Hannum, co-founder of NetBSD posted to 3 major BSD lists saying that "The NetBSD Project has stagnated to the point of irrelevance. It has gotten to the point that being associated with the project is often more of a liability than an asset. I will attempt to explain how this happened, what the current state of affairs is, and what needs to be done to attempt to fix the situation."
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2006/08/30/0016.html
With the OpenBSD project in financial danger
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20060321034114
I don't see a very good future for some BSDs ... This is very sad !
161 • 160 (by AC on 2006-08-31 08:49:32 GMT from United States)
A new variant of the old Slashdot troll!
162 • not a troll (by Anonymous on 2006-08-31 09:04:12 GMT from Canada)
when the co-founder of a project say that this project "will
continue to fall further behind, and to become even less relevant" it is not a troll to say that this project is dying (ok, I admit the "*BSD is dead" sentence sound like a slashdot troll ...). Sadly, we have a **lot** of irrelevant linux distro, but all BSD projects (except maybe FreeBSD) are stagnant. They don't have journaling FS, HAL/DBUS equivalent and 3D hardware acceleration is rudimentary or inexistent.
163 • Quo Vadis (by D-oh on 2006-08-31 09:46:42 GMT from Poland)
Well, this whole thing sound very bitter imho. Sometimes it's very true, but if among the sea of medioctrity rises a star that offers something unique - than it's cool for me. I'd disagree about Puppy being not for average user though. It needs some improvements sure, but it's really simple. (Although it's looks still may be a little scary). Thats because linux is not a corporation, hiring marketers, designers - it's just whoever feels like creating a distro (with exceptions of course)
164 • Re: #160 (by linbetwin on 2006-08-31 11:01:50 GMT from Romania)
Don't worry, Windows will forever carry on the legacy of BSD...;)
165 • Yes, of course! (by 1c3d0g on 2006-08-31 12:16:30 GMT from Aruba)
Ladislav, of course there are nice, white sandy beaches, tourism is our specialty. It's sunny most of the time too. ;-)
Here's a live webcam, if you want to see one of the beaches in (almost) real-time: http://www.bucuticam.com/index.html
166 • Quo vadis, Linux distribution? (by Penguin Pete on 2006-08-31 13:38:29 GMT from United States)
While I understand that 500 distros should be enough for *anybody*, I hope I was mistaken in reading the article - it sounded almost like you were dismissing the development work of many. There are dozens of distributions which I would miss *dearly* if they vanished, because I am one active, busy geek.
I like to have Damn Small and Puppy close at hand to run on a machine that is too old to run anything else. I like niche distros like Hikarunix because I'm an avid Go player, grml because I'm on the opposite side of Debian from Ubuntu and like a distro which isn't dumbed down to the point of being a toy every now and then. I like Wolvix game edition because it has a bundle of the best games on Linux handy to run without my having to grapple with installing them. I dig Dyne:bolic because it has the multimedia toys. And so on. But on two of my three machines, there's Mandriva and Slackware, too.
In short, I like the vibrant, carnivale atmosphere of such a thriving FOSS community - without it, the Darwinian drive of natural selection producing new innovations would not be possible. While I'm sure that the intent of the article wasn't to scoff at the efforts and works of so many, it sounds like it could be misconstrued that way. Doubtless, you've gotten responses much more heated than this one. Just remember that any one of today's niche distros could be the *next* Ubuntu, which did, after all, start off as a remaster of Debian, so to speak.
167 • #2, #102, #124 (by Anonymous on 2006-08-31 19:34:35 GMT from United States)
First, let me say I love Distrowatch. It's the first page I pull up every day, and probably the only page I look at every single day.
But it is odd that UCE can pay $160 to bypass the waiting list.
On another note, didn't Ubuntu do some funny stuff with their web site in order to increase their ranking here? (redirection or something) I've tried Ubuntu, and it pales to other distro in the top 10.
168 • suggestion (by Anonymous on 2006-08-31 20:18:50 GMT from Germany)
If you are searching a distro for one of the next 'first-look-reports', I suggest FreeNAS.
This very small serverdistro turns every old pc into a home-NAS.
And: it won the consumer prize (5,000$) in the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge !
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/challenge/winners.html#consumer
169 • RE: # 167 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-08-31 23:17:07 GMT from Italy)
"On another note, didn't Ubuntu do some funny stuff with their web site in order to increase their ranking here? (redirection or something) I've tried Ubuntu, and it pales to other distro in the top 10."
I have always felt like you, especially after the last release total fiasco.
But try and tell that to the thousands of Ubuntu zealots.
Why are there so many zealots of such a mediocre distro?
At least I could understand the Gentoo zealots, a few years ago, even if I didn't share their enthusiasm.
But Ubuntu? What is the big deal?
The misteries of the human nature!
170 • 169 Ubuntu (by AC on 2006-09-01 00:34:56 GMT from United States)
I attribute it to systematic marketing with the zealotry brought about by Ubuntu promoting itself with the values of community that Debian has always upheld but never used as an advertising campaign. Of course, Canonical keeps launchpad closed source, so their commitment to free software is suspect at best, but they've been skilled with PR.
Ubuntu introduced people to the values that Free Software has always upheld, but represented with warm and fuzzy multicultural imagery and naked people holding hands instead of Stallman's scruffiness and the in-fighting of Debian developers. It shows that the values are winning values, but people are drawn to imagery as well.
171 • RE: # 170 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-09-01 01:51:03 GMT from Italy)
Exactly. Good analysis.
172 • Not just imagery (by Ariszló on 2006-09-01 05:54:21 GMT from Hungary)
Yes, I agree that Debian's values are winning values. Debian is one of the two distributions which I always have on my machine these days. There is a feature of Debian though that many people may not like. Debian Stable is pathetically old for the desktop and Debian Unstable has an intimidating name. Ubuntu is made from a snapshot of Debian Unstable without using unstable in its name.
173 • 172 (by AC on 2006-09-01 08:18:44 GMT from United States)
Not calling unstable "unstable" IS a matter of imagery: calling it "unstable" conjures up in some minds images of crashes and assorted mishaps and software that doesn't work. Ubuntu avoids that imagery. Even their development version isn't called "unstable" though it is way less stable than sid.
As for "pathetically old", many of my clients find Sarge quite adequate for the desktop, especially when introduced to Klik and/or Backports for the odd app they really need current. No, it's not for those who want the latest and greatest, but I hardly see that as pathetic. The only real issue where age is a problem apart from not satisfying the craving for novelty is when hardware is particularly new and the drivers aren't available. There are ways around this, but I agree that's a showstopper for many.
174 • Unstable? (by linbetwin on 2006-09-01 09:46:01 GMT from Romania)
If Ubuntu should brand it's releases "unstable", then what should SUSE 10.1 with XGL be called? Or Fedora, or Mandriva, or PCLinuxOS? Or Zenwalk, who's getting so much love these days? All the "top" distros are "unstable" (except for Debian, Slackware, maybe others too...) But they don't call it "unstable" anymore, they call it "the latest and greatest".
175 • 174 (by AC on 2006-09-01 09:54:29 GMT from United States)
I'm not saying what Ubuntu should call anything. I'm just making the point that not using what Ariszlo called an "intimidating name" is a matter of imagery.
176 • imagery (by AC on 2006-09-01 09:56:56 GMT from United States)
Incidentally, I am also not saying that appealing to imagery is a bad thing. It's smart and there's nothing unethical about it, per se. My objection to Ubuntu is not their imagery, per se, but the fact that the actual behavior of Canonical, re: Launchpad, belies their supposed commitment to Free Software principles. So the imagery is hollow.
177 • RE: # 174 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-09-01 11:55:44 GMT from Italy)
Even if the distros you mention have their fair share of bugs, I can install and run them (I am using SUSE and I could use Fedora, not too bad at all)
Ubuntu doesn't even install here. In order to overcome that I must install "a server" and then go from there. If that is newbie friendly...
Once installed the number of bugs is simply terrifying, much above average.
178 • Still on Ubuntu (by Ariszló on 2006-09-01 12:42:37 GMT from Hungary)
Although Ubuntu is based on Debian Unstable, an Ubuntu release is not unstable. Unlike the Debian Unstable repository, an Ubuntu cd is shipped with a fixed set of packages.
As for Launchpad, it is not part of Ubuntu so what is the problem? Are you saying that a company that financially supports a free software project should only be involved in free software projects?
179 • Ubuntu (by tom on 2006-09-01 13:36:29 GMT from United States)
1. The (current) selling point of Ubuntu is the forums. It attracts and caters to newbies, which is fine. Gentoo and Arch, for example, are more technical.
2. Ubuntu is somewhat unstable right now. The update in June trashed my Ubutnu install (I updated from a Beta install to the stable release). Look at the recent debacle with X.
3. Once users learn Linux, as I did, they migrate away from SUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu to light weight distros or "server" (minimal) installs with custom applications.
180 • Re: Ubuntu (by Ariszló on 2006-09-01 13:50:41 GMT from Hungary)
Tom wrote: Ubuntu is somewhat unstable right now.
Yes, in the sense of crashing -- but not in the sense of Debian Unstable, which means continuously changing.
181 • 180 (by tom on 2006-09-01 14:14:06 GMT from United States)
Ooops...
You are correct, yet another example of how "unstable" may not be the best choice for Debian. I certainly did not want to imply Debian Unstable has the same type of unstableness as Ubuntu.
182 • 178 Ubuntu (by AC on 2006-09-01 18:28:14 GMT from United States)
Your point about "unstable" is well taken.
As for Launchpad, it is not as straightforward as Canonical sponsoring both Ubuntu and Launchpad. Shuttleworth owns Canonical and is SABDFL at Ubuntu, so one might expect the Ubuntu manifesto to reflect his views. Furthermore, Ubuntu, with its alleged commitment to Free Software, allows its build infrastructure to depend upon a piece of proprietary software, Launchpad, and encouraged developers to use it. So, even if Shuttleworth isn't inconsistent and can disclaim the rhetoric of Ubuntu, surely the Ubuntu project itself (if we grant such a separation) isn't living up to its commitments by using Launchpad and encouraging its use.
183 • Re: 167 • #2, #102, #124 (by Ariszló on 2006-09-01 20:00:16 GMT from Hungary)
Anonymous wrote: First, let me say I love Distrowatch. It's the first page I pull up every day, and probably the only page I look at every single day.
Ladislav works full time to give this to us for free.
But it is odd that UCE can pay $160 to bypass the waiting list.
Why not take it this way? Being tracked at DistroWatch is like being a student at a university. The tuition fee is $160 but smart and hard-working students may be exempted. A distribution is a smart and hard-working student if Ladislav finds some extra value in it when he tests it. Paying for tuition takes no time but testing a student's hard work takes a lot of time.
On another note, didn't Ubuntu do some funny stuff with their web site in order to increase their ranking here? (redirection or something)
I don't think so. AFAIK, redirected hits are ignored if not banned.
184 • too many distros (by Misty on 2006-09-01 21:52:13 GMT from United States)
You could easily solve some of the clutter by categorizing them rather than having them all in one list. Make categories for ethnic-based and specialist (e.g., PHLAK) as well as a general list. In addition, you could give inactive distros their own list. You might keep a master list of all distros if you wish. At any rate, it would make it easier for folks to find what they're looking for.
When you just cut away ethnic/ language-based, specialist and inactive distros away from the rest you might find the number of distros left is smaller than you'd esitimated.
I worry about this "too many distros" attitude. If it prevails, there may be no Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS or Arch in the future when the current distros get older and start to stagnate (as, I'm afraid I have to say, Mandriva has). It may be hard to imagine Ubuntu ever getting like that, but less than three years ago it would've been hard to imagine so much resentment in the Mandrake community and the distro being left behind by so many users for a newer alternative.
185 • Who cares about UCE ? (by Anonymous on 2006-09-02 01:30:14 GMT from Canada)
> UCE can pay $160 to bypass the waiting list.
Who really cares about UCE ? Even if they paid 1 million $, distrowatch users will never used it if it's just an ubuntu copy, with 2 or 3 additionnal packages.
I don't cares about UCE ? I never hear about that before and I will never use it (even if I am **VERY** proud to be a christian !). Just let this distro die. Even after UCE death, it will be possible to get better by installing ubuntu + "religious" packages.
186 • RE: # 184 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-09-02 02:13:58 GMT from Italy)
"It may be hard to imagine Ubuntu ever getting like that, but less than three years ago it would've been hard to imagine so much resentment in the Mandrake community and the distro being left behind by so many users for a newer alternative."
In fact I'd be very surprised if it (people losing interest in Ubuntu) didn't happen.
Sooner or later people always realize that "the king is naked"
You mention Mandrake. Well, Mandrake/driva has always meant a lot more to the Linux community than Ubuntu will ever do. Mandrake 9.1 was the nicest, most stable release Linux release I had ever seen.
And what about Gentoo? Its zealots came in every unrelated forum to preach the new gospel. And now? While I write, a Gentoo 2006.1 review at OSNews has only one comment: sic transit gloria mundi!
187 • 186 (by AC on 2006-09-02 02:30:06 GMT from United States)
...and I continue as I have for years now, using Red Hat when I must and Debian when I can, finding Solaris boxen fewer and farther between, keeping Knoppix in my toolkit, dabbling in BSD, and once in a rare while trying one of the new distros to come along...
I'll give this much to Gentoo. Unlike Ubuntu, it really was and is genuinely about community development. And it really did have some innovative ideas. Sure, the "garsh, now I am l33t!" crowd made it look silly, but Gentoo could be really fun. And occasionally useful. Which reminds me; I haven't updated my Gentoo chroot in a very long time.
188 • RE: # 187 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-09-02 03:16:09 GMT from Italy)
Indeed, I didn't mean to put Gentoo in the same league. Its zealots could be annoying, but Gentoo was/is really something innovative and meaningful.
In fact its full potential could be realized later, once the installer is perfected and computers become even more powerful.
189 • Ethnic/language-based distros (by Ariszló on 2006-09-02 11:03:50 GMT from Hungary)
Let me try to understand Misty's term used in comment #184. Debian, Fedora or SuSE are generic distros, not restricted to a specific language community. On the other hand PCLinuxOS is a language-based distro because it targets one specific language community, English.
190 • 189 (by AC on 2006-09-02 11:17:28 GMT from United States)
It might appear that way. I had some trepidation concerning her phrasing, though I know she didn't intend to seem unreasonably Anglocentric.
191 • RE: # 190 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2006-09-02 15:48:13 GMT from Italy)
As an Italian I prefer that a distribution defaults to English rather than to some less known language. But then I have been practising English since I was a kid :)
192 • Puppy (by Sidney on 2006-09-02 19:31:12 GMT from United States)
Currently. I have three distributions on my comptuer, pclinuxos, ubuntu, and puppy. The only one that I can use with my wireless laptop is pclinuxos, and this is tricky. If Puppy can solve two problems, difficult to set up a printer if it is not a listed printer and wireless, I would recommend it first to all my friends.
193 • Re: Ethnic/language-based distros (by Misty on 2006-09-02 21:53:44 GMT from United States)
No, that's not quite what I meant (sorry). There are quite a lot of variant distros that are made for one specific language or country rather than a general distro like PCLinuxOS, using a specific default language and (usually) font made to work with it. Most are based on one of the standard distros like RH or Debian, but with a variant standard package listbaccording what the devs think would be most popular in their culture.
This is the kind I mean -- a distro based on another distro repackaged for a specific country or language.
194 • Re: Ubuntu update fiasco (by Eddie Maddox on 2006-09-02 23:10:22 GMT from United States)
Re: Ubuntu update fiasco:
"Let's hope that the project has learnt from the mistake
and that a similar situation won't happen again!"
Do not get your hopes up...
What everyone learns from their mistakes
is how to keep on making mistakes
in the first place.
Eddie Maddox
Inwood IA USA
195 • CNR now free (by trat on 2006-09-02 23:33:48 GMT from United States)
I am wondering why distrowatch didn't comment on this press release of 8/30/2006?
http://www.linspire.com/lindows_news_pressreleases_archives.php?id=203
Seems like a big deal for Lindows/Linspire/Freespire folks.
196 • Conspiracy Theory (by Tommy Tomato on 2006-09-03 00:46:03 GMT from United States)
This may well be merely coincidental, but has anyone else noticed that whenever an Ubuntu release appears on the main Distrowatch page, the announcement always seems to stay at the very top of the page for at least 24 hours afterwards?
The Ubuntu 6.10 alpha 2 development release has been at the top of the page now since yesterday morning. This doesn't seem to happen for other distros.
We know now (see #2 & #102) that Ubuntu has been paying for separate listings of minor variants in Distrowatch, so maybe (just maybe) they've been paying for other things as well..
Just saying!
197 • Re:#196 (by Bobby Bean on 2006-09-03 02:28:36 GMT from United States)
On second thought, it's not really worth commenting on.....Get a life...
Ladislav,
I don't know how you put up with all the crap. You're a better man than me.
Thank you for all that you do, and keep up the good work!
DistroWatch is the only website that I peruse every day. I don't even check my email every day. I don't like the way you do "every" thing, and I don't agree with "all" of your commentary, but you have put together the most complete and most concise (info packed) and most relavant (to my Linux needs) website on the web on the subject of Linux. I tell my customers and linuby friends that the search for knowledge for all things "Linux" begins at DistroWatch.
So far your choices and instincts in this project have been very good (to say the least), so you just keep on doing what you've been doing, and do it any damn way you want, and I will continue to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Thanks again for this wonderful tool that makes my life/work a little easier.
198 • Re: #196 - Another conspiracy theory (by linbetwin on 2006-09-03 08:24:14 GMT from Romania)
Did you know that Vista was delayed so as not to coincide with the release of Dapper? Did you know that Canonical has talked Microsoft into delivering Ubuntu to all Windows users on the next Update Tuesday?
Seems to me there's a lot of Ubuntu bashing these days. They deserve it for the botched X update and maybe for Launchpad being closed-source, too. But I still think it is one of the best distributions out there (THE best for me) and it attracts a lot of attention towards Linux in general.
199 • 198 (by AC on 2006-09-03 08:34:29 GMT from United States)
As someone on record bashing Ubuntu for the Launchpad issue (I was only peripherally aware of the X update), let me say that I agree: some of the conspiracy theories seem downright absurd. this is partly because some imply collusion with ladislav and I trust him. Why do I trust him? because he's quite open about how and when money does influence his decisions!
One good thing about Ubuntu: I have three friends who started with it and have started moving to Debian as they've gained more confidence.
200 • Re: #87 (by Anonymous on 2006-09-03 14:33:30 GMT from United States)
Slackware is not an "enthusiast" distribution, it's a stable platform with a long and excellent history. I agree that Debian is an excellent system for enterprise (I don't extend this to most of its derivatives, which seem to exist merely to push unstable software in front of users). It's especially useful in a team environment, but there are times when Debian is severely limiting and the community seems involved in endless (but necessary) bickering. I started with Red Hat (hated it), switched to Debian (loved it), then to Slackware (I'll never go back) when Woody just couldn't cut it and Sarge looked like it would never be released (probably the very reason so many Debian-based alternatives appeared during this period). Slackware is stable and it's not limiting. Yes, sometimes limits are a good thing, but even a stock Slackware distribution is a solid foundation for enterprise. I understand the frustration expressed in #83, but isn't following anyone in any job equally frustrating? Suggesting that sticking to only three major Linux distributions would avoid this frustration is simply a fallacy, and, even worse, encourages vendor lock-in, which has its own very serious pitfalls. I have been immune to most of the exploits that struck these major distributions, and my Slackware-based ENTERPRISE servers have chugged along famously. Pat can take his time perfecting 11.0, I'm in no hurry.
201 • Tinkerbell Linux (by Andy Axnot on 2006-09-03 17:31:11 GMT from United States)
Paris Hilton Releases Tinkerbell Linux
http://www.bbspot.com/News/2006/08/paris-hilton-tinkerbell-linux.html
Hey, how cool is that?
Anybody want to review it? :-)
Andy
P.S. good thing today's Sunday. Fresh Distrowatch Weekly tomorrow... I hope!
202 • RE: Tinkerbell Linux (by Anonymous on 2006-09-03 18:38:07 GMT from Germany)
Oh yes! Please include Tinkerbell Linux in Distrowatch. I'm sure Paris can afford to buy 1,000,000 banner impressions on Distrowatch.
203 • RE:189 (by TripleA on 2006-09-03 20:52:37 GMT from Belgium)
Is that so?I could have sworn that it is in DUTCH it runs on my ol' p4.
Hey Ladislav , don't take it personal,but it seems that the crap on THIS PAGE is increasing by the week.
What's up?
For the whiners complaining about the CATHOLIC banners :
firefox +addblock=byebye
O ,before I forget :drop the Ubuntu shit ,I don't even try to understand what people like about it ,are you all brainwashed ,like good christians?
204 • Re: it is in DUTCH (by Ariszló on 2006-09-03 21:36:40 GMT from Hungary)
Yes, I was wrong. All you need to do is install the kde-i18n package for your language. It is my fault -- but not only mine:
"PCLinuxOS is an English only live CD initially based on Mandrake Linux that runs entirely from a bootable CD."
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos
"PCLinuxOS comes to you as an English only self-booting live CD, it runs entirely from a bootable CD without installing anything on your computer."
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PCLinuxOS
Number of Comments: 204
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| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Noid Linux
Noid Linux is a Void-based minimalist Linux distribution with Xfce as the preferred desktop. It includes a long-term supported Linux kernel, the Calamares system installer, the Brave web browser, support for Flatpak packages, and a custom Welcome screen. The project also provides its own repository for Void's XBPS packages with additional software.
Status: Active
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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