 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 175, 30 October 2006 |
Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The long awaited Fedora Core 6 and Ubuntu 6.10 are finally here! Amid all the usual excitement accompanying any major new release, reports from around the web suggest that Ubuntu's latest version might suffer from upgrade issues as many users find themselves unable to boot into "Edgy" despite following the standard upgrade procedure. After months of media speculation, Oracle's entry into the Linux distribution market was finally announced late last week - with a re-branded Red Hat Enterprise Linux and heavily discounted support costs. Also in this issue: update on Yellow Dog Linux 5.0, a link to an excellent audio interview with Slackware's Patrick Volkerding, and a contributed review of Elive 0.5. Finally, don't miss ArtistX, a new live DVD for audio, video and 2D/3D graphics artists. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (6.0MB) or mp3 (5.9MB) format (courtesy of Matt Taylor).
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
|
| Miscellaneous News |
Fedora Core 6, Ubuntu upgrade woes, Oracle Linux, Patrick Volkerding, Yellow Dog Linux 5.0
 Fedora Core 6 was finally released last week. Based on a few early reviews and first impressions on mailing lists, the Fedora development team has once again done a fantastic job. Many users have been impressed by the graphical configuration tool for Xen virtualisation, as well as the ability to add third-party repositories during installation. Most RPM repositories were especially quick to update their packages for Fedora Core 6 and provide instructions for configuring the yum package manager. And although yum is reportedly still as slow as ever, it seems like a reliable tool, which is probably the most important characteristic of any package manager.
The only black mark on the Fedora Core 6 experience was the downtime by fedoraproject.org, which saw unprecedented volumes of traffic shortly before and after the release. While download figures are hard to estimate (Fedora has more mirrors than any other distribution, except perhaps for Debian), the Fedora torrent tracker apparently served almost 90 Terabytes of data within the first 48 hours of the release! No wonder we had trouble getting to the project's web site! As for the breakdown of architectures, it's interesting to note that almost 20% of users downloaded the x86_64 editions of Fedora Core 6, while the PowerPC architecture accounted for less than 2% of all downloads.
* * * * *
 Just two days after the release of Fedora Core 6, the Ubuntu project was the next one to saturate the bandwidth of many download servers around the world. "Edgy Eft", as the latest version is called, continues to impress with new artwork and features, as well as the latest versions of popular desktop applications, including GNOME 2.16, KDE 3.5.5, Firefox 2.0 and OpenOffice.org 2.0.4. Unfortunately, the release was marred by major troubles to upgrade from Ubuntu's previous version (6.06, code name "Dapper Drake") to the one released last week. According to an informal poll by UbuntuForums.org, almost 44% percent of those who attempted the upgrade process encountered "serious problems" or reported that their upgrades went "really bad".
This result actually echoes your DistroWatch maintainer's experience - during the upgrade procedure of two machines last week, one went without any major trouble, while the other required several hours of fiddling with dpkg and performing manual resolution of dependencies before the box was made to boot into Edgy. It is hard to pinpoint the cause of the problems at this stage, but they indicate continuing quality control problems at Ubuntu, despite an earlier promise to set up mechanisms to prevent any future update disasters. Nevertheless, once installed, Edgy appears to be a highly usable release, perhaps not as "edgy" as we were led to believe at the start of its development process, but still fairly up-to-date and certainly beautifully crafted. Just remember to download an installation CD in case your upgrade experience turns sour and you have to re-install.
Xubuntu 6.10 showing the Thunar file manager and Xfce settings manager
(full image size: 158kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
 The news about the Fedora Core and Ubuntu releases were soon overshadowed by the first appearance of what many Linux analysts speculated about for some time - Oracle's own Linux-based operating system. Called Oracle Unbreakable Linux, the distribution turned out to be not so much Oracle's as Red Hat's - it is built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and, once all the sombreros rojos and other registered trademarks are surgically removed from the files, it gets released under a new name. Oracle doesn't sell the distribution; like Red Hat, it intends to generate revenue from a "support programme", undercutting Red Hat's prices in the process. The modest pricing, Oracle hopes, will attract many potential Linux enterprise users who need support for their Linux deployments, but find Red Hat's support contracts a tad too expensive.
If you frequent Linux news sites, you have probably read many expert comments about Oracle's foray into the world of Linux. Unfortunately, as much as your DistroWatch maintainer would love to welcome the big database company in the community of Linux solution providers, the manner in which Oracle entered the market leaves a distinctly sour taste in the mouth. The company, although reasonably open source friendly in the sense that some of its major products are compatible with Linux, has done very little to advance the Linux cause over the years. Its latest move to re-brand Red Hat's distribution and provide support for the "new" product brings zero innovation to the Linux market; in fact, it only serves to generate revenue for Oracle and, as some analysts believe, to potentially destroy Red Hat, Inc.
Contrast that to Red Hat and its contribution to the Linux community. While the North Carolina company is a business which has to answer to its stakeholders and which is strongly motivated by corporate profits, it has succeeded in generating revenue without sacrificing the spirit of open source software development. For over a decade Red Hat has been giving away its Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core distributions (complete with security updates during the lifetime of the products), it has been developing or helping with the development of many essential open source software components (e.g. Autoconf, glibc, LVM, etc.), and it has been employing some of the brightest open source software developers the world has seen. Whatever your experiences with Red Hat as a company, you have to admit that it has contributed an enormous amount of work to the pool of Free Software which we all share, irrespective of whether or not we use one of its end products.
Oracle, on the other hand, has brought very little to the world of Linux so far. Besides much negative sentiment which the database giant generated in the Linux community last week, the technical aspects of Oracle Unbreakable Linux are not particularly attractive either. Promising unspecified bug fixes on its web site is one thing, but showing a changelog with a list of bugs fixed by the company's engineers -- which has yet to materialise anywhere -- is an entirely different matter. Also, despite claims to the contrary, Oracle Unbreakable Linux is not a complete recompile of Red Hat's source packages and some software, notably Thunderbird, are missing from the distribution. Furthermore, what Oracle claims to be "Update 4", does not correspond to Red Hat's "Update 4"; as an example, Oracle's product contains older versions of the Linux kernel, Firefox, LVM, and many other packages. It also provides Ethereal, a package which is no longer maintained and which Red Hat had already replaced with Wireshark. Worse, no updates were reportedly available for any of these packages, despite that fact that some of them have known security issues! Unbreakable? Hardly!
Granted, these are still early days, so let's hope that Oracle will fix their product and find a way to contribute back to the Linux community. But for now, customers who need comprehensive support contracts for their Linux deployments should definitely choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux - even if it's more expensive than Oracle's support programme. As they say, you get what you pay for. Based on a recent survey, the results of which are summarised here, Red Hat ranks as a number one computing technology company with customer satisfaction rated at 84%. In contrast, Oracle is 39th with only 55% of its customers giving Oracle a favourable rating. These numbers speak volumes.
* * * * *
 Slackware Linux is undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood Linux distributions on the market. Just one look at the default kernel version or bootloader seemingly conjures enough negativity on various Linux forums and web logs to warrant critical comments and even outright dismissals of the product. But is that all there is to Slackware?
If you happen to hold a negative view of the oldest surviving Linux distribution on the market, then please set aside some time and listen to this exclusive audio interview (OGG, 34.9MB, MP3, 29.7MB) with Patrick Volkerding. Published by The Linux Links Tech Show team, the elusive founder of Slackware Linux talks about the philosophy behind his distribution, explains the reasons for keeping the 2.4 kernel as the default, gives some hints about the project's future, and even branches out to talk about his pastimes. Will the seemingly old-fashioned distribution ever include AIGLX or other emerging technologies? And how is the business side of things over at Slackware? This 90-minute interview gives many answers that will hopefully clear up some misconceptions about the project that keeps proving its worth year after year.
* * * * *
 With the decision of Apple to switch its processor architecture from PowerPC to Intel, there was a danger that the specialist PowerPC-only Yellow Dog Linux distribution will soon run out of a market to cater for. Luckily, it seems that the project has re-invented itself. As announced recently, Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 will be released shortly - with a difference. Designed for PlayStation 3 and featuring the Enlightenment desktop, the new product should be of interest to users wishing to run a full operating system on their Sony gaming consoles. While details about Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 are still sketchy, Terra Soft Solutions has updated its product pages with new information about the upcoming release, including a brief FAQ section. Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 is expected to start shipping in the middle of November and should be available for free download about two months later.
* * * * *
 On the eve of the release of OpenBSD 4.0 -- the product will be formally announced on November 1st -- ONLamp published a comprehensive interview with the developers of this popular security-oriented operating system: "On October 18th, OpenBSD celebrated its 11th birthday and ten years of punctual biannual releases. Now it's time for OpenBSD version 4.0, which includes tons of new drivers for wireless, network, and storage chips. Discover what's new and what battles developers must face daily to access documentation and support new hardware." The highly technical interview touches on the subjects of wireless networking support, pf firewall, carp group demotion feature, storage drivers, X.Org issues, status of the SPARC64 port, Xen virtualisation, and other interesting topics. The 3-page interview starts here.
|
| First Looks |
First look at Elive 0.5 (by Ryuga Akikawa)
Elive is more than just a Linux distro, it's a work of art.
Elive, or Enlightenment Live, is a Debian-based distribution that runs solely on the Enlightenment system. The system can be installed on your machine with the use of their installer. Enlightenment itself is a very beautiful window manager / desktop shell that allows everything to be customizable, while providing beautiful eye candy that would probably only be seen on Windows Vista systems.
Is this system a work of art like the Elive team boasts? We shall find out.
The Revolution Begins
I first put the Elive 0.5 CD on my disk and was whisked away to the wonderful world of Elive. The CD boots to a live CD, but before it does that, it asks some basic hardware questions, such as what type of screen you use and what theme do you want to start with by default. The choices are Elive and Night. I chose the night theme. Next you are asked what type of screen you are using, and the video card. I made my choices and proceeded onward.
Afterwards you are greeted with a login screen that is quite impressive with all of its animations and such. You are given a dummy account and password to login with, no need to log in as root, which is a good thing. Next you are greeted with a functional E17 environment. Once you are done playing around with the system you can choose to install Elive by clicking on the icon in their taskbar known as ibar.
Installation itself was pretty straightforward. You are greeted then asked to check the integrity of your system. I recommend doing this, once you are cleared you are then given the choice of how you want to create your partition layouts. (Note: if you have an Elive system already installed, it will ask you if you would like to update the system, rather then do a full-blown installation).
I chose the trusty cfdisk to make my partition layout (other option is GParted). If you need to reboot by this point, you can and just come back to the installation. Afterwards you are asked what partition will be the root partition, along with what file system you wish to use. I chose XFS and was told I needed to have a separate boot partition which I already did. I chose the partition to put boot in. Next you are asked if you wish to add more partitions. The choices are /home, /usr, /usr/local, and /var, then you are asked what file system you wish to use for each partition. Afterwards the installation begins. Then, out of nowhere, you are given a little card game program to kill time while then system installs. How cute. Once done you are then asked for the usual stuff; root password, user account, user password, what VGA settings you want to use for boot up and where to install GRUB. After making my choices the installation was complete and I rebooted the system.
Elive installed and ready to go
Once I rebooted I was greeted with the plain GRUB screen, which I didn't mind too much. On the Elive community site a nice little HOWTO shows you how to add your own GRUB splash. The system defaults to E17 but your other choice is E16. Once logged in I was greeted with my fully installed Elive E17 system. The system worked really well and everything was very pretty - from the twinkling background to all the pretty eye candy and colors. This was truly an amazing system. Elpanel also helped configuring a lot of different options, really handy and powerful. Since the system is Debian-based, we have the famous Synaptic package system which is always nice. The Elive community is also very friendly and filled with a lot of creative, intelligent people who are willing to help and contribute to Elive.
Though for all of its positives, there are negatives as well. Most of these bugs however are more problems and setbacks with Enlightenment then anything else since the system is still under heavy development and constantly evolving.
Is it a work of art? Is it the next big thing?
A lot of love and dedication went into this system and it shows. E16 and E17 were painstakingly tweaked and modified to be a very usable and powerful, while still showing off all of its eye candy potential.
Is this distro worth looking at? Is it a work of art like the Elive site boasts?
I most definitely agree.
Enlightenment is one very powerful and innovative desktop environment. I honestly think we are looking at the next big thing as far as desktop environments of the future goes. Elive just touches on the potential of this system and I must say, I like what I see. Keep your eyes opened for not only Elive, but for Enlightenment itself, as we may be witnessing the future in progress.
Elive - a Debian-based distribution featuring the impressive, light-weight Enlightenment 17 desktop
(full image size: 407kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
|
| Released Last Week |
Fedora Core 6
Fedora Core 6, code name "Zod", has been formally announced and officially released: "Tremble, Earthlings, for Zod is released from the confines of testing. Zod intends to hammer the servers of the world ... starting TODAY!" On a more serious note, Fedora Core 6 includes significant new versions of many key components and technologies, including improved look and feel for various international languages, the Compiz window manager, GNOME 2.16 and KDE 3.5.3 desktop environments, a refreshing new "DNA" theme, Dogtail - a graphical test and automation framework for the desktop, the GnuCash 2.0 accounting application, and many other enhancements. Please read the release announcement and release notes for further details.
Fedora Core 6 "Live-Spin"
The Fedora Unity project has announced the release of Fedora Core 6 "Live-Spins", a set of Fedora live CDs and DVDs for the i386 and x86_64 architectures: "The Fedora Unity Project is proud to announce the initial release of several Fedora Core 6 Live-Spin CD and DVD ISO images. These Live-Spins are based on the 24 October initial release of Fedora Core 6." The set consists of a GNOME live CD with GNOME 2.16.0 and related applications, a KDE live CD with KDE 3.5.4, a server live CD with Apache, MySQL, PHP and various server administration utilities, and a comprehensive live DVD with GNOME, KDE, Xfce and a number of packages from the "extras" repository. For more details please see the release announcement.
Ubuntu 6.10
Ubuntu 6.10, the latest version of the popular Linux distribution for desktops and servers, has been released: "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 6.10, codenamed 'Edgy Eft'. This release includes both installable Desktop CDs and alternate text-mode installation CDs for several architectures. Highlights of this release include: Tomboy, an easy-to-use and efficient note-taking tool; F-Spot, a photo management tool that enables tagging, photo editing and automatic uploading to on-line web management sites; GNOME 2.16; substantially faster startup and shutdown with eye-catching high-resolution graphics; the latest Firefox web browser, version 2.0; proactive security features, preventing many common security vulnerabilities even before they are discovered; Evolution 2.8.0...." Read the press release, release announcement and release notes for full details.
Kubuntu 6.10
The Kubuntu project has announced the release of Kubuntu 6.10, code name "Edgy Eft": "Kubuntu 6.10 has been released and is available for download now. Kubuntu 6.10 brings a bit of edginess to this release, including a new and improved desktop, artwork, applications and much more." Some of the more interesting features of Kubuntu 6.10 include: KDE 3.5.5 desktop; Digikam photo management tool; Guidance - a new power management system; a hardware database client; support for many special laptop buttons; accessibility profiles; an improved System Settings dialog; automatic setup of non-Latin writing systems. Read the complete release announcement for further details.
Edubuntu 6.10
Edubuntu 6.10, a distribution specifically designed for classroom use, has been released: "The Edubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Edubuntu 6.10, codenamed 'Edgy Eft'. This release includes both installation CDs and installable live CDs for several architectures. This version introduces a host of new features, an improved interface and a wide variety of new applications and desktop tools making Edubuntu 6.10 flexible and user-friendly. Highlights: the very recent versions of well-known free educational software like the KDEedu suite in version 3.5.5, GCompris 7.4, SchoolTool 0.11 and the Tux4Kids applications; GNOME 2.16; substantially faster startup and shutdown; the latest Firefox web browser; proactive security features; Evolution 2.8.0." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Oracle Unbreakable Linux R4-U4
The first official release of Oracle Unbreakable Linux is out. According to the project's web site, "Oracle starts with Red Hat Linux, removes Red Hat trademarks, and then adds Linux bug fixes." Although Oracle Unbreakable Linux is touted as a "support programme", rather than a distribution, it is also provided in the form of freely downloadable CD images with optional support packages starting at US$99 per year. Oracle Unbreakable Linux is, and intends to remain, fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. While the distribution itself does not bring anything new or innovative to the table, the support programme does provide an extra choice for companies that require comprehensive support contracts for their Linux deployments. For more information please visit Oracle's Linux pages, read the press release, and consult the Linux Technology Centre.
Scientific Linux 4.4 Live CD/DVD
The Scientific Linux project has released a set of live CDs and live DVDs of the latest version of their Red Hat-based Linux distribution: "Scientific Linux live CD and DVD 4.4 have been released for both i386 and x86_64. Changes: update to Scientific Linux 4.4; update Unionfs to 1.1.5, Squashfs to 3.1-r2, NVIDIA driver to 1.0-8776; add SMP kernel to live CD/DVD (support for Dual-Core and multiprocessor systems); add r1000 and ipw3945 drivers; add more packages to the live DVD; add boot options: nopasswd, serviceon, serviceoff; live CD/DVD now runs with native Scientific Linux 4 kernel (no more special live CD kernel); live CD/DVD can boot from USB CD-ROM or DVD." Here is the full announcement.
Xubuntu 6.10
Jani Monoses has announced the release of Xubuntu 6.10: "The Xubuntu community is happy to announce the release of Xubuntu 6.10, codenamed 'Edgy Eft'. This release includes both installable Desktop CDs and alternate text-mode installation CDs for several architectures. Visible changes since Xubuntu 6.06: newer Xfce desktop environment (4.4 RC1) which brings trashcan support in Thunar and the panel, accessibility settings for the keyboard, and other improvements and fixes; new artwork for the boot splash, login screen and wallpaper; more mature gxine media player replaces Xfmedia; newer versions of Firefox, AbiWord and Gnumeric...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
pfSense 1.0.1
A bug-fix update to the recently released pfSense 1.0, a FreeBSD-based firewall distribution, is out: "1.0.1 is now making its way to the mirrors and here is a rundown of the bugs fixed: set maximum cache size for APC to 7 MB; re-start 'check reload status' if it exits; miscellaneous syslog.conf fixes; Snort now blocks traffic correctly; PF does not know about congestion flags, remove from shaper; miscellaneous OpenNTPD system logging tab fixes; removes states from a user when disconnected by Captive Portal; fix FTP helper when strict LAN or Optional LAN rules are in place; ZoneEdit now works; filter reloads rules correctly after changes; faster, snappier webConfigurator and console." Here is the full release announcement.
* * * * *
Development and unannounced releases
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
|
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| DistroWatch.com News |
Adding DistroWatch RSS feeds to Google
Last week, a reader reported an interesting issue - while trying to add one of the DistroWatch RSS feeds to Google Reader, the application reported that "no feed was available" whenever he linked directly to one of the XML files. The same was also observed when trying to add these feeds to Personalised Home on Google.com. While we haven't been able to work out the reason for this behaviour or a solution (if anybody knows, please let us know), there is a simple workaround: instead of linking directly to the XML file, you can add http://distrowatch.com/index.php to Google Reader or Google.com. The index page has embedded RSS feed links, which seems to be picked up correctly by Google's web site and its news reader.
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
- Oracle Unbreakable Linux. Oracle Unbreakable Linux is an enterprise-class Linux distribution supported by Oracle. According to the project's web site, "Oracle starts with Red Hat Linux, removes Red Hat trademarks, and then adds Linux bug fixes." Although Oracle Unbreakable Linux is touted as a "support programme", rather than a distribution, it is also provided in the form of freely downloadable CD images. Oracle Unbreakable Linux is, and intends to remain, fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- ArtistX. ArtistX, or eXtra ordinary art tool, is a Debian GNU/Linux live DVD based on Debian Live. The distribution includes thousands of multimedia software packages for audio, 2D/3D graphics and video artists. The project's web site lists software, hardware and media for free multimedia production and will grow slowly but constantly into a full source for creative enthusiasts mirroring and linking to the best free multimedia technology sources. ArtistX is created by Marco Ghirlanda, one of the former developers of Medialinux.
- Emanon Linux. Emanon Linux is a security-oriented server distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Endian Firewall. Made in Argentina.
- Majilux. Majilux is a KNOPPIX-based live CD that includes a thin client server (LTSP) and Internet filtering with DansGuardian. It is designed mainly for schools and the software is pre-configured to work "out-of-the-box". There are two editions - one based on Debian "sarge" and the other on Debian "etch". The project's web site is in French only, but the CD images support English and other languages as well.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
And that concludes our latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 6 November 2006. Until then,
Ladislav Bodnar
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • great work (by towsonu2003 on 2006-10-30 09:22:04 GMT from United States)
Great work. I especially like the "first look" section, and will try Elive from qemu right now :) You might wanna include a link to elive's page in that review though. would be kinda nice...
As per Oracle, well, forking without a good excuse is... uhm... bad ;)
2 • #1 cont'd (by towsonu2003 on 2006-10-30 09:25:28 GMT from United States)
oh, well... can't try elive bc they want money to use the normal server. and the slow server is really slow...
3 • The 64-bit version of FC6 LiveCd STINKS big time!!! Real buggy!!! (by Jean Harrell on 2006-10-30 09:35:33 GMT from United States)
The 64-bit version of FC6 LiveCd DVD stinks big time!!! It is SO buggy that it will not boot up all the way. Before it gets to any graphical log-in screen it says "out of range" regarding my monitor. So I never did get to try out the Live-Spin Dvd of FC6 as it is way too buggy. They need to trash the 64-bit version of FC6-x86_64 Live-Spin DVD. Pure trash!!!
Debian has no problem recognizing and configuring my monitor and neither does Ubuntu. Fedora Core 2-i386, the 32-bit version of FC2 was really good and stable. The 64 bit version, FC2-x86_64 was real buggy. When I would boot up and log in, then nautilus would crash every time because of a bug and I would have to switch to KDE to use the 64-bit version of FC2. These same versions, except for Debian Linux, install fine on my laptop, a Dell Latitude C600. Usually I have to type "linux acpi=off apm=on" to get most of these to boot my laptop and not have the screen go blank. This cures the blank screen problem on my laptop. Ubuntu Linux is the ONLY distro that cures the blank screen problem without my having to install it by typing "linux acpi=off apm=on". It runs real good on my laptop. Ubuntu is the best there is in the Linux world and it is based on Debian Linux which is what I am running on my Desktop computer.
Fedora Core and Red Hat Linux, all the way up to 9, were once great distros. Fedora Core peaked at FC2-i386, the best it has ever had, and since FC2-i386, Fedora Core has gone downhill fast. FC3 was pure trash...I hated it with a purple passion. FC4 was a LITTLE better and ditto for FC5. FC6-x86_64, the 64-bit version, test version 3 was SO buggy that I could not even install it no matter what I did.
It seems that FC2-i386, Red Hat Linux 7.3, and Debian Etch and Ubuntu are about the only versions of Linux that are worth a damn.
However, Ubuntu Linux, a Debian-based distro, is clearly the BEST of all Linux distros without a doubt.
4 • Welcome Oracle (by Lobster on 2006-10-30 10:00:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
Oracle will contribute, simply by offering its customers a good choice. Centos and others also offer Fedora without the hat logos. You want Oracle 'suits' to be altruistic? I think they might have something else, credibility and that is also welcome.
Linux is where everyone is welcome. I would like to see MS Linux (one day it might be their only hope) but then my psychiatrist assures me I can recover . . .
Some are more welcome than others . . .
5 • Oracle Linux - what will be next? (by Mark South on 2006-10-30 10:07:06 GMT from Switzerland)
So Oracle have released a Linux distro. Yawn. No, really, it's potentially exciting. Just because they picked a boring way to roll their own doesn't mean that it will have to remain boring. It seems that being a Linux vendor is almost a respectable part of being in the IT business these days. What will we see announced next? Microsoft Unaffordable Linux?? ;-)
6 • Edgy (by douglas on 2006-10-30 10:15:03 GMT from Germany)
AMD-64-X2 with 2 gigs and sda drives.
Kernel seems to be the same for all systems. I am almost a newbie with linux but this still seems like a strange change. No separate kernel for 2 processors or for AMD64. I wonder why? Is this new way as fast of the dapper way?
Well, I did the upgrade thing and it failed. I had the CD so I did an install but kept home in tacked. This went well!!! First time in a year that I can say that for Kubuntu!! Then I added the usual programs and drivers and then did the beryl thing. This never worked all the times before but now it does!! Total upgrade time 3 hours.
I am happy with the new Kubuntu and would recommend it to all but do back up and be ready for dist-upgrade fights. Firefox 2 is nice also but not much different. Anyone know how to have all 4 cube sides have a different background with a 3d desktop?? LOL Fun.
7 • 4 Oracle (by AC on 2006-10-30 10:15:41 GMT from United States)
Ladislav has voiced some of the same concerns I entertained in a post last week. It is troubling. I'd add another bit, though it's anecdotal: among my friends who administer enterprise databases, even those who prefer Oracle to SAP have told me that Oracle's support is horrible. I certainly wouldn't expect them to provide great support for an entire GNU/Linux stack.
To Lobster: first, CEntOS does not offer Fedora without ltrademarked art and logos, they offer RHEL. Second, the concern is not that Oracle should be "altruistic", but rather that if they fail to contribute back to the Free Software community as Red Hat has done, while at the same time cutting into Red Hat's revenue stream, they'll ultimately be hurting themselves by hurting Linux development - unless their long-term goal is to abandon Linux altogether.
That last possibility is a bit conspiratorial for my tastes. My suspicion is that this is a vanity project for Larry Ellison or at best dipping his toes in the water.
We'll have to keep our eyes open.
8 • Re#1 and #2 getting Elive (by Soloact on 2006-10-30 10:31:31 GMT from United States)
Ok, I see hyperlinks don't get posted, so I'll try this post again.
You can download Elive (or most other distros) via bit-torrent from linuxtracker.org , just do a search for the distro you want.
9 • I don't believe what Oracle says (by Ken Yap on 2006-10-30 11:00:16 GMT from Australia)
I suspect that Oracle's move is more political than anything else, some say it's to hurt RH's share price. RHEL is certified and if your organisation is the sort where it matters, you will stick with RH because you are not allowed to buy a non-certified clone. If your organisation doesn't care, then you would go with CentOS or one of the other rebranded clones. I don't see Oracle getting a look in until they develop some distro support skills in-house and some cred with the FLOSS community. Supporting an enterprise distro is not just a matter of changing the labels on the boxes and setting up a call centre with some underpaid workers.
10 • Slackware (by Darren on 2006-10-30 11:06:35 GMT from Australia)
After many years of trying to find the "perfect" linux, I stumbled across Slackware 9. Straight away, I knew I was onto something special.
Years later and I'm still using Slackware - for me, Slackware is it.
Like the old saying goes, it just works.
11 • Not everyone is happy with FC6 (by Luciano Vernaschi on 2006-10-30 11:08:44 GMT from Italy)
Hi,
I used FC4 and FC5 happily, but now I installed FC6 (not an upgrade, I preferred a fresh install) and I experienced the bug reported at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=211941
That's really bad, since a bug in the installer would need a new DVD release! I'm just searching for another distro, at least until a fix. What is really bad with this bug is that one might need a lot of time before knowing he has the wrong kernel running.
12 • Ubuntu is not so great. (by jokinin on 2006-10-30 11:27:08 GMT from Spain)
I installed it from the LiveCD, and i couldnt create partitions necessary to install it.
I had to create partitions with another live cd, and install after.
Even then, I had to edit xorg.conf manually to get it to work at 1280x1024.
Fedora didn't have any of these problems.
13 • elive - the best linux distro yet! (by Dan MacDonald on 2006-10-30 11:45:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
I wholeheartedly agree with the above review of elive -I've been using Linux for 10 years now, tried loads of distros and elive is the most impressive, nearest-to-perfect one I've ever tried! It really is an amazing distro.
Some important points missing in the review:
It supposedly runs in only 64MB RAM!
It includes not only MP3s playback and all the video codecs but also DVD playback on the CD by default!
Flash plugin (v7) is also on
Cinelerra 2.1 is on there!
Propietary Nvidia and ATI drivers are included
Marillat's multimedia repositories are already added to sources.list
Honestly, taking the elive CD into work and booting it on one of the PCs there to show e17 in action is a great way to win Linux converts. It worked wonders in my workplace- eveybody who saw it wanted a copy!
There are 3 things keeping elive being PERFECT for me right now
1- No low-latency kernel for audio work
2- No auto-login option in entrance (far as I know)
3- No suspend/hibernate
Artist-X sounds interesting, but it is missing cinelerra, xdtv (xawdecode) and DeVeDe which are three of the most important Linux video apps :(
I've already asked thanatermesis (elive's main dev) to include xdtv and DeVeDe on the next elive- he says he'll check them out.
I'd also like to see suspend/hibernate added to PCLinuxOS, which is the other live cd I'd highly recommend.
14 • Oracle Not Innovative? (by Emre Sokullu on 2006-10-30 12:13:24 GMT from United States)
Ladislav, I agree with your point, I love Red Hat, it's probably (definitely for me) the most open source friendly company ever. Remember their GFS, Netscape Directory Server acquisitions; they bought them for millions, then open sourced fearlessly.
But we can't say Oracle is not an open source friendly company either. To be frank, Red Hat would not be present without Oracle's support. Oracle engineers work directly or indirectly in many Linux - open source projects. Anonymously or not, they contribute to open source world as much as Red Hat does.
The reason of this aggressive move of Oracle was quite probably "Red Hat's JBoss treachery".
This was definitely a sad day for real Red Hat supporters - volunteers (like me) but hopefully they'll get to an agreement on this issue. Oracle won't let Red Hat get destroyed because of this move, maybe they're waiting to acquire them for a reasonable price.
Thanx for the coverage.
15 • Slackware (by metoneca on 2006-10-30 12:16:31 GMT from Germany)
I started my Linux-Adventure with Slackware 3.4. Over the years i tried a lot different Distros, not because i was unsatiesfied with Slack, but i wanted to see and learn about other possible ways. At the end i always came back to Patrick's. For me it was always something like "being back home", when using it.
I prefer to understand how my OS works and be able to tweak it myself if needed. This even includes the Kernel. Patrick says 2.4, i install 2.6 coz i need it. But i think there's no reason to blame Patrick for 2.4 or other things. It's his point of view and i'm thankful that his wonderful Slackware exists, since such a long time. Slackware is called Rockstable and yes, it's a Rock.. and i can paint it however i want ;)
Ain't Freedom a good thing?
16 • Oracle's contribution to Linux underestimated (by callum on 2006-10-30 12:25:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
I completely disagree with the statement that Oracle has not brought anything to Linux - it has, but not from a desktop point of view.
Oracles adoption of Linux as a tier one supported operating system (MS Windows 2003 isn't) and the adoption of Linux as a supported platform for the flagship RAC (clustered database) product has given Linux serious credibility boost in the large scale architecture space where Linux was seen as a webby-world server product with little significance on mainframe and mid-size UNIX architectures.
The Oracle support of RAC can been directly related to HP's migration of its enterprise software to Linux such as ServiceGuard (a key component of large scale enterprise systems). We are now at a point in enterprise architecture that a standard RH enterprise OS will outperform Windows 2003/Solaris/AIX in terms of support for disaster recovery, active/active clustering of databases and data access and also clustering of SAN HBA's out of the box. All key requirements of large scale document management systems and SOA's.
Oracle also has great credibility for building secure software that is accredited by the various security bodies - in todays society, a lot of information is protectively marked (data about children at risk etc) and only accredited systems can be used.
Maybe Oracle UL isn't the sort of thing that desktop users will ever be interested in - but it makes a lot of difference for those of us who spend 10's - 100's of millions of euros building systems and wish to see Linux in there!!!!
thanks, great site,
callum
17 • Kubuntu also buggy (by solo on 2006-10-30 12:47:24 GMT from Germany)
Kubuntu Live CD is also buggy, especially concerning the use of wireless lan; it was impossible for me to get it working; Kde 3.5.5 seems also to be buggy since I experienced some crashes on a quiete standard machine using as simple apps as videolan, opera or thunderbird. No luck for me, I shall wait a bit (edgy +1) to download it again.
solo
18 • Unbreakable Linux? (by anon on 2006-10-30 12:54:37 GMT from United States)
How about based off of CentOS and not RHEL. wow.
19 • Ubuntu Past Its Peak. (by Mr. E on 2006-10-30 13:20:10 GMT from United States)
I think the shine may be beginning to wear off Ubuntu; from what I remember, the last release caused a much bigger spike in interest (i.e. page hits) on this website than this release did. Some stats to back me up would be interesting.
There just doesn't seem to be much on offer to make Ubuntu stand out from the crowd anymore..
20 • Ubuntu Edgy (by Mike Walker on 2006-10-30 13:29:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
I run ubuntu on my mums machine after having numerous probs with windows spyware, losing e-mails etc.
I tried doing a dist upgrade to the newest version, and then couldn't boot into X at all. Since I put /home on its own partition, I thought I would do a clean install and recreate the users. What a nightmare...
The desktop install CD just kept going to a blank screen after the ununtu splash appeared and would just stay there until I rebooted. It just would NOT let me CTRL+ALT+F1. I also tried the 'safe' graphics mode and had exactly the same problem.
I then downloaded the 'alternative' CD so I could install in text mode. This ended up with a 6.06 install. Not sure if that was the only option or if I downloaded the wrong CD. I then proceded to dist-upgrade the clean install. An hour later I rebooted and GDM would not start. What it asked if I would like to see the output, I said 'yes' and got... nothing. 'startx' just said cannot connect to the xserver.
I eventually found that the Xorg packages were not installed properly and I had to install them manually to get X to start at all. I was still getting a blank screen, but changing the drive line in xorg.conf from "ati" to "vesa" worked fine. Once in GNOME, everything work flawlessly. A quick install of the fglrx drivers and I was off.
It seems that some of my problems were due daring to use and ATi card in Linux, but also partially due to a broken upgrade process in ubuntu. I think I will be looking at alternatives for the next upgrade, probably OpenSuse 10.2. Even my last XP install wasn't this painful!
21 • elive 0.5 torrent? (by lefty.crupps at 2006-10-30 13:43:27 GMT from United States)
If you don't want to support the Elive development, or if you want to check the Distro out first, you can always download it via BitTorrent.
http://linuxtracker.org/torrents-details.php?id=2920
I find it to be a fantastic distro for my living room, if not my main system (which is currently Edgy)...
An upgrade to Edgy was, without a doubt, a headache. But why do people spend hours trying to fix a failed upgrade? I reinstalled over my botched upgrade, added a few repositories, and did my best to bring my machine back to its former glory. Is it there yet? Nope, but my weekend wasn't lost either ;)
Kubuntu couldn't recognize my 1440x900 Samsung SyncMaster 940BW but I luckily had an old XOrg.conf on file in my home directory. Why can't I use ReiserFS with Ubuntu? And why does the new Firefox make it so hard to close a handful of tabs? Totally unrelated gripes, sorry.
Thanks for the great DWW.
22 • Geography Lesson (by Bart on 2006-10-30 13:48:33 GMT from United States)
Re the Oracle story Ladislav. It is NORTH Carolina not NEW Carolina where Red Hat are located..
23 • Fedora Core 6 -forget it (by Bill Johnson on 2006-10-30 14:48:42 GMT from United States)
Installed FC6, put a dvd movie in, NOTHING HAPPENS.
Yum is JUNK compared to Synaptic.
After a half hour ,i deleted it into the ozone.
Everytime i look at a new distro,the same fact becomes even more
apparent.
TEXSTAR HAS NO EQUAL
24 • DW site slow just after DWW comes out (by johncoom on 2006-10-30 14:49:50 GMT from Australia)
Dear Ladislav
As some one eles pointed out last week - your site has
become very hard to get to just after DWW comes out.
And probably still slow to load for several hours after.
Likely to be because so many are hitting it all at once ?
Either that ? or you've got less bandwidth from NetSonic ?
Would you care to enlighten every one about this phenomina ?
PS: consider this post as Feedback to you and DW site
PPS: Has any one else had problems getting here tonight
25 • Kubuntu and Ubuntu (by Robin on 2006-10-30 15:04:26 GMT from Canada)
People have problems should check there hard ware for problems as I didnt have a problem creating partitions or getting wireless working. Ubuntu is the best out there and i have tried many many others, Edgy is very stable so again if you have issues check your hard ware and read a little I am sure will find the problem and it wont be edgy. Ask people in the ubuntu and Kubuntu forums for help and they will be happy to help you, ubuntu and Kubuntu have a great following and people are so willing to help others I love it. I and my son even play windows games perfectly on Kubuntu with the help of cedega (mohaa Spearhead) (StarCraft) (Guildwars) Bye windows
Good Luck
26 • elive and ubuntu (by ray carter at 2006-10-30 15:33:54 GMT from United States)
I find Elive to be quite impressive. Yes, there are rumors that it will run on 64mb - I have installed on a P166 with 64mb and it runs quite reasonably. I nominate Elive for the next dw donation.
I found out a long time ago not to upgrade software at the earliest possible opportunity. That was made abundantly clear to me 30 years ago with DEC and RSX-11 - always wait for version 2 - it will fix a lot of bugs. I upgraded my kubuntu laptop from 5.10 to 6.06 about three weeks ago - it went quite well. I would plan to wait at least two months before I'd upgrade to 6.10 on anything but an experimental box - it's the nature of the beast. You may also have observed that usable MS systems usually start at 'service pack 2'.
27 • Edgy...not so good (by tlpintpe on 2006-10-30 15:38:33 GMT from United States)
Dapper was a major breakthrough, IMHO, but Edgy should be renamed Buggy. This is my first disappointment with Ubuntu, after using it since its inception. I successfully upgraded, but things that worked on my laptop with Dapper stopped working, and I could not get ATI drivers to work with my Mobility Radeon x1600 256MB card ever.
Then I tried a clean install, and the same troubles persisted.
Edgy is not ready for prime time.
28 • Slackware (by Patrick Useldinger on 2006-10-30 15:43:06 GMT from Luxembourg)
When I see how each and every distro has its sometimes major troubles (SUSE 10.1 package manager problems, Ubuntu 6.10 update problems, to name the most prominent), I am happy to use Slackware.
I have upgraded from 10.0 (my first install) to 10.1, then to 10.2 and now 11.0 without any problem. Granted, it took me one hour or so per machine because it involves some manual work, but I suspect that is not as long as other people have to invest in order to force dependencies, hunt for solutions on a forum and what not.
I am not an elitist, and most Slackware users are not. I just want my machine to work, which is why I dumped Windows in the first place, and Slackware (as well as Debian stable, for example) provides this. And, funny enough, of all really stable distros, Slackware is the most up to date.
Operating systems are complex by nature, and that's why Slackware educates its users. Only those who actually want to be educated agree to invest the necessary amount of time to achieve this. The reward is obvious and should appeal to many.
I have been using kernel 2.6 since 10.1, and most Slackware users I know do the same. Pat has always provided a 2.6 kernel, so it's just a matter of installing it. It's symptomatic that some reviewers pretend that Slackware is kernel 2.4 only. You need to invest some time in order to use Slackware.
But you won't regret it.
29 • Pat Volkerding interview (by Ryan Ruiz on 2006-10-30 16:11:10 GMT from United States)
The interview is extremely insightful and really addresses many questions or concerns that users generally have with Slackware. I've been using Slackware for about a year now (while trying out other distros) and I can honestly say that Pat's recipe works best for me. I never have problems with my system and I upgrade my software when I feel its ready, or Pat feels its ready and provides a new release.
30 • Homework must be done before installs. (by Dave Thacker on 2006-10-30 16:40:36 GMT from United States)
It's shiny, it's new, it's cool! It's the latest upgrade from (insert your favorite distro here) and you've got to have it right now! Or do you......
Before you upgrade, it's wise to do your homework.
1) Check the changelog to see if anything you use on a daily basis is broken.
2) Watch the bug tracker for bugs related to your hardware. (ATI people, are you listening?)
3) Watch the mailing lists for problem reports.
4) Wait. Unless you're really into pain, wait a week. Then you'll be able to have some feedback before you upgrade.
There is no Free operating system that just works perfectly on all hardware. Do your homework, and you'll avoid a lot of pain.
Dave
31 • Edgy more stable than Dapper (by Anonymous on 2006-10-30 16:45:04 GMT from Germany)
Edgy should be more stable than dapper as it is based on the future debian etch and has all of its components, except the newer gnome release and some xorg/aiglx stuff.
@tlpintpe: The problems with your ati card probably relies on the driver release version from ati (which is included in edgy).
32 • 32-bit version of FC6 LiveCd STINKS big time also!!! Real buggy!!! (by Jean Harrell on 2006-10-30 16:54:29 GMT from United States)
The 32-bit version of FC6 Live-Spin Live Cd/DVD is real buggy also. It hung up after booting up so far and stopped. It said "out of range" on my screen about the monitor.
Fedora Core used to be a great distro but it peaked at FC2, the 32-bit version, which was its best version and since then it has gone downhill fast. That's ok. I will stick to Debian Etch, the 64-bit version as it works much better. Also, Ubuntu 5.10 and 6.06 works pretty good...much, much better than the once-great Fedora Core distro.
Oh well.
33 • Fedora, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, SabayonLinux ... (by IMQ on 2006-10-30 17:14:30 GMT from United States)
I downloaded and tested all of these shiny new releases. For me, Fedora disappoint me because it has no wireless support for my card, a rt2500-based PCI, in Fedora. No native driver and no ndiswrapper to use as substitute.
Ubuntu, on the other hand, support the card by default. Even have ndiswrapper installed should I needed. The rt2500-based wireless card is well supported in a number of distros such as Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, SabayonLinux.
Speaking of SabayonLinux, I installed the DVD Edition. Holly cow! Over 7GB of stuff installed. During the installation process, I was asked to choose KDE, GNOME, XFCE, etc. I chose KDE, thinking I will need to install addition stuff via DVD after the initial installation, should I needed. Then out of curiousity, I ran the command 'df' and discover over 7GB of stuff installed. So choosing the KDE was just the preferences of which desktop to be default.
Multimedia playback is excellent in SabayonLinux. It plays all the popular formats (OK, only the ones I have). Even play movie trailer clips.
OK. 7GB of stuff seems large but my brother just installed Windows Vista Ultimate Edition (Beta/RC/whatever) on his PC. It took up over 25GB but you got basically the same apps Windows has had for years: Windows Media Player, Wordpad, Notepad, Calculator, etc....
25GB! Microsoft swiss cheese just get larger and larger every year.
:D
34 • Edgy (by douglas on 2006-10-30 17:31:26 GMT from Germany)
I posted about Edgy saying how much I liked it but I think it needs saying. Dapper means Dapper, IE good looking-working. Edgy means on the edge IE bleeding edge! Why are you surprised that it lacks the polish of Dapper? I think that was the plan, break everything and go out on a limb, make it new make it great and don't worry about not being perfect yet. Try new things and see what you can make happen! In any case I think it is fun but I would not expect to put it on my bosses computer in next week!
35 • package inclusion (by JAG on 2006-10-30 17:36:24 GMT from United States)
Hey Ladislav... How's it going....
(well I presume?!!)
I'd like to nominate gnometoaster for your list.
Here's the homepage link.Check it out.
http://gnometoaster.rulez.org/
36 • Mandriva Missing Files & Trying Another Distro ... (by Ronald L. Gibson on 2006-10-30 18:17:08 GMT from United States)
I was checking out the latest Mandriva so I can do a fresh install on my server and found that there are files missing. The command 'locate' does not exist. Also 'updatedb', 'telnet' & 'vi'. I don't know what else is missing so I thought I would try FC6. On my test machine I have an nVidia video card. There are so many ways to get nVidia installed, I thought that maybe I'll get back to FC6 at a later date.
New FC6 Common Issues:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/FC6Common
Tried Kubuntu but doing stuff under root is a hastle. Next I'll look at Sabayon for the server since it works well and everything seems to be there for me on my test machine.
Maybe next year I'll be brave and try FreeBSD.
I noticed that PC-BSD is not on the Upcoming list.
37 • Re 36 (by warpengi on 2006-10-30 19:18:02 GMT from Canada)
I hate that when basic gnu utitlities are not installed by default in a distro. For god's sake removing findutils (the source of the locate and updatedb programs) vi or telnet doesn't really save much space. These are not huge GUI apps they're litttle command line tools that are extremely useful (indispensible). Of course they are accessible through repositories and not a big deal to install. Urpmi findutils vi telnet. Can't believe Mandriva actually doesn't install vi by default, that jsut blows my mind.
38 • Oracle (by warpengi on 2006-10-30 19:27:56 GMT from Canada)
I'm with some of the other posters here who say give Oracle a chance. They are new to releasing and maintaining a distro. If they don't get some developers rolling out patches and bug fixes REAL quick, no one will want their product anyway. Callum's comments were very enlightening regarding Oracle with Linux and large systems.
Given who Oracle is and who their customers are (fortune 500) I see it as a positive step for Linux. Sure I want Red Hat to garner all the rewards they deserve for their long time support and advocacy. If Oracle does not give back to the community they will not get developers, if they don't get developers all the innovation will be done elsewhere.
39 • Oracle distribution name (by Chris on 2006-10-30 19:32:17 GMT from Canada)
As I understand it, Unbreakable Linux is the name of their program, where the distro's name is simply 'Enterprise Linux'. You can see this name in screenshots or their distro @ http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/?q=node/20
40 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2006-10-30 19:53:41 GMT from United States)
Running Edgy i386 with an ATI card. Edgy installed fine, ATI drivers installed fine. Running WoW on Cedega with no issues. Couldn't be happier...
41 • Mandriva missing files (by dbrion on 2006-10-30 21:01:14 GMT from France)
cf #36, #37
I downloaded on 2 Oct Mandriva 2007s free installation CDs (4): vi was not missing, but there was no syntax coloring (vi could be installed, but not vi common...); I did'nt try "locate", but "find" was present, as far as remember (i looked for include files, etc...) ... => very minimalist ... It was bearable for a VM-player test, but I hope vim be present _in its full glory_ in "semi-commercial" DVDs. A club member told me he had no pb with vi and rpmdrake...
What does 2007 mean ?
42 • Ubuntu Edgy Eft installed just fine (by ubuwalker31 on 2006-10-30 21:34:44 GMT from United States)
I always do a fresh install from the CD. I have learned the hard way that upgrading *any* distro through the command line method is a sure way to disaster. Primarily, packages compiled outside of the distro's preferred install method break. Often, other incompatibilities bork the upgrade too.
That being said, anyone foolish enough to have attempted to upgrade via the command line hadn't done their homework. Digg was reporting the installation difficultiers as early as 7am EST and recommending a CD install.
43 • Kubuntu Edgy (by reyfer on 2006-10-30 22:41:12 GMT from Venezuela)
I just finished upgrading the last of 10 machines that were running Kubuntu Dapper to Edgy, using the apt-get dist-upgrade method, and all 10 are working GREAT! Nvidia drivers work fine, there are no stability problems so far, and the first of the 10 machines (my own) is been running no stop since the 26th and still no stability issues. I had more problems upgrading Breezy to Dapper than I did with this upgrade.
44 • 23 (by Anonymous on 2006-10-30 22:59:52 GMT from United States)
"Put in a DVD nothing happens",
Yes, fedora for some reason or another is not able to play DVD's. nothing happens? Totem should have been fired up and then complain that it could not play your dvd.
If you do not like yum, then download your source tar files
untar them
./configure
make
make install
you can do this also. Who forces you to use yum? Yum should help you make your life easier, but the mirrors get congested and do give problems once in while. Cheer up! At least you have a choice, and by your comment you like PCLinuxOS, which was a fork of Mandrake 9.2, which in turn was based off Red Hat, which of course now runs coordinates Fedora. Come on!!! you are running linux and that in itself is wonderful!!
45 • elive (by godsmonster on 2006-10-30 23:10:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
elive is a refreshing change allthou the included themes where all bad on my eyes , other than that it was a very refreshing change it installed with no probs and was quite a novelty ... ive used many many live distros and none live ...... elive was a nice suprise
46 • Re: 36 & 37 (by kilgoretrout on 2006-10-30 23:12:23 GMT from United States)
Nobody should be using telnet; it's horribly insecure. Use ssh instead. That's been standard security advice for years. I doubt very many distros would install telnet by default for this very reason.
Re the locate command, you can check and see if slocate is installed instead. It's a more secure version of locate.
I don't have mdv 2007 installed but I would be shocked if vi wasn't installed by default. If they don't have it, there must be some other text editor installed and I'm sure you could install vi afterwards if it is not installed by default during the initial install. Anyway, shame on mandriva if they don't install vi by default.
47 • firefox 2 (by jan on 2006-10-30 23:28:11 GMT from Canada)
On slashdot someone claimed that the anti phishing program was ON by default and that it called home(Google) every 30 minutes. Consequently he felt it was spyware.
The comment was moderated at 0; and there were no subsequent appraisals.
Given the emphasis in Slashdot on security and privacy why has there been no comments?
Is it a form of spyware?
48 • Re 46 (by warpengi on 2006-10-31 00:15:59 GMT from Canada)
telnet is still used to access software directly. For instance you can telnet directly into apache or email servers on ports 80, 25 (smtp), 143(imap), 110(pop3) and issue commands directly to teh software.
No I would not use it to access a remote machine across the internet but it still has uses that are not duplicated elsewhere. You never know what someone could be using telnet for.
49 • Half a shame next year with vi and Mandriva. (by dbrion at 2006-10-31 01:10:26 GMT from France)
I was more lucky than 36 : slocate and updatedb existed with my set of cdroms(32 bits).. VI works in a dinosauric way, without syntax coloring; nedit was broken, emacs worked ;so did the integrated editor of Konqueror (syntax colors Fortran files)...
Of course, Mandriva2007 vi is much uglier than Windows XP vi., but it has some (pre)historical interest.
I fear Mandriva2007 was downloaded too early, and perhaps homework 30 recommands should las months instead of weeks...
However, their KDE is more comfortable than mndrv10.2/2006 one.
50 • slackware (by rizahnst at 2006-10-31 04:28:17 GMT from Indonesia)
i begin to use slackware 9.1 to replace my rh9, migrating form rh9 to slack9.1 is not an easy think, but i done it.
now i use slack10.2 with 2.4.x and dropline gnome 2.16 as my every day desktop and i feel it works for me, thx to the Man for a great work !
51 • RE: Installed FC6, put a dvd movie in, NOTHING HAPPENS. (by Anonymous on 2006-10-31 08:54:50 GMT from Romania)
I suppose you were expecting the sky to break down and a voice to invite you to heaven.
Install Windows if you are so much dependent of things to "happen" when you insert something in your PC.
52 • My distro hunt continues (by Dan MacDonald on 2006-10-31 09:23:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Edgy was worthwhile installing for me just because I've now seen that hibernate does actually work on my machine but the latest kubuntu currently doesn't let me turn the screen lock password off after resuming from hibernate.
So I'm appealing to the distrowatch readers for a recommendation. My perfect distro would include:
Debian testing/unstable based (preferably)
Hibernate / Suspend option in the KDE/GNOME/e/XFCE log out menu
Codecs, libmad, dvdcss2 all installed
low-latency /real time kernel for running audio apps
Nvidia and ATI drivers
latest flash plugin would be cool too, but not an essential
Does such a distro exist?
Thanks for your help!
dan
53 • Ubuntu (by Phil on 2006-10-31 09:26:52 GMT from Germany)
Ubuntu 6.10 is definitley the best distro, I tried last time!! Especially Upstart is a great improvement. I had never been such a fan of Ubunu, but this release is wonderful!
54 • RE 52 (by B. Janssen on 2006-10-31 11:35:10 GMT from Germany)
Kanotix should fit your bill.
55 • RE: 23 - FC6 and DVDs (by Jeje on 2006-10-31 12:18:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Many commercial DVDs are encrypted with a weak algorithm called CSS.
DeCSS, a program which decoded and copies DVDs, was found to be illegal.
Which is why most Linux distributions do not play DVDs out of the box (including Fedora, Ubuntu, etc).
However DVD support can easily be enabled by installing libdvdcss2.
On Fedora, here's how:
http://www.fedorafaq.org./#dvd
56 • RE 54 / Distro Hunt (by Dan MacDonald on 2006-10-31 12:57:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Kanotix most definately does not fill my requirements as it comes with NONE of the things I'm after (in a default install) except for it being based upon Debian. elive comes much closer but lacks a low-latency kernel and hibernate. Musix is Debian based and has a low-latency kernel but the current release is quite buggy with no hibernate and it doesn't come with codecs, MP3 or DVD playback.
After typing that last entry of mine, I realised that there probably aren't ANY Debian-based (that doesn't include Ubuntu, which is a fork) distros which feature a hibernate or suspend option in the KDE/GNOME/e17/whatever log out menu because they will all be using the same KDE version and the Debian KDE currently doesn't have the hibernate patch applied, AFAIK.
The two main requirements of my dream distro are a working hibernate and low-latency kernel, a combination I've yet to see out-of-the box.
57 • Unbreakable Linux (by hughesjr on 2006-10-31 15:06:13 GMT from United States)
Well, first off, several of the packages did indeed come from CentOS.
(No issue with that, we release SRPMS so people can use them. Oracle acknowledging that would be nice ... it will never happen though.)
Also, the main thing that I want to stress is this ... giving away free ISOs and not allowing for free security updates is ill advised and flat out irresponsible.
What this will create is a legion of machines installed on the ISOs and not getting updates. This will create "you can own me" servers for spammers ... all because Oracle provides no security updates unless you pay them the $99 per year (per server).
If you are going to pretend that the distro is free (and that you are giving it away and only charging for support) ... then you should absolutely include security updates in that.
58 • Enlightenment (by JC on 2006-10-31 18:50:28 GMT from Costa Rica)
Hello
I what to know the system requirements for Enlightenment E17.
59 • #58 (by ray carter at 2006-10-31 19:02:39 GMT from United States)
I can't speak for Enlightenment in general, but I have installed Elive on a P166 with 64mb and it runs surprisingly well - quite usable.
60 • Elive .05 or Freespire (by Lou on 2006-10-31 19:38:41 GMT from United States)
I have 500mhz Dell desktop and it needs Linux to replace bug infected XP. Both Elive .05 and Freespire 1.0 sound family friendly so what one would you nice people recommend for my Dell?
Thanks!
61 • RE: 52 & 56 / Distro hunt (by Frank Enstein on 2006-10-31 20:30:31 GMT from Finland)
AFAIK, xandros, linspire and promepis are based on debian and they offer the kind of proprietary crap you want. And even if ubuntu is a fork, it's still "powered by debian" -- ubuntu builds each of their new releases upon a snapshot of debian unstable. And debian gets stuff like xorg, gnome & kde from ubuntu -- so it goes both ways. But ubuntu's recent upgrade problems are all its own fault -- nothing to do with debian whatsoever.
62 • #60 (by JQ on 2006-10-31 22:11:07 GMT from United States)
I would say Freespire before Elive. Freespire is a great first distro for your family to try.
63 • Elive CD (by Mike Bear on 2006-10-31 23:46:27 GMT from United States)
One minor beef: I have no problem with Elive CD 'requesting donations' for their product, but it's not really 'free' as most linux distos on this list are.
In order to download, you have to make your way through about 3 Pay Pal pages, pretty much insisting that you pony up an amount 'greater than zero,' which I have no problem with, and in fact, is a bit comical. Someone might just donate 1 cent.
Finally, if you make it through all the Pay Pal pages without 'donating,' they say, 'Alright, if you REALLY want to get something for nothing,' you can download from our 'slow' server.
What I object to is their tone of: "Well, if you don't want to pay for our product,' you're pretty much a leacher.'
They definitely should not be listed under 'free linux distrobutions,' since they pretty much insist on payment and make it clear they don't have a very high opinion if you do want it free--like most other distros here.
64 • distro hunt (by JV on 2006-11-01 00:23:26 GMT from United States)
61) I don't think Xandros does come with dvd and some other codecs.. freespire/linspire does however... but of course, none of them actually come with a low-latency kernel.. which is painfully hard to find..
All the *buntu's, mepis, freespire, xandros, (and other non-debian based distros like Suse, RHEL/fedora, Mandriva, PClinusOS, Zenwalk, slackware, etc..) .. I mean NONE of them use a low-latency kernel...
Anyways, I'm hunting for the same as you Dan. Have you tried 64 Studio? I think it's probably easier to get a low-latency distro then add packages.. however, what could be problematic is gettting power management/suspend to work if the distro did not build it in..
65 • mike bear-elive CD (by postaldave on 2006-11-01 00:53:21 GMT from United States)
mike, your one cheap s.o.b.
people takes hours and hours out of their lives to make such distros. wanting a dime here and there to cover their time and costs isn't a big deal.
have you heard of torrents? it's available and is free. short of them coming to your house and installing it for you and making diner i don't know what more they could do for you.
66 • A sad commentary on linux... (by JAG on 2006-11-01 03:20:12 GMT from United States)
Hey everybody!!! Check out this link...& report back with counterpoints...(I Hope...)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2047507,00.asp
67 • Re: 63 (by Andrew on 2006-11-01 03:34:05 GMT from Canada)
Please appreciate that when a distribution is listed as being free of charge, this means that it is not illegal to obtain it without paying - that is, if you're thinking of the financial type of free.
If only the words 'liberal' and 'libertarian' hadn't been squandered on politicians, we wouldn't be stuck in the quagmire of speech versus beer.
68 • 66 (by tom on 2006-11-01 03:36:30 GMT from United States)
Who cares?
I do not use Linux to game.
69 • Various Distro's (by tom on 2006-11-01 03:50:41 GMT from United States)
Elive: Thanks for highlighting Elive. I have been using Elive for some time and have found it to be the easiest way to install "Debian testing". Biggest problem has been hardware detection. It is otherwise fast and stable.
Too bad about Ubuntu 6.10. IMO, Ubuntu is one of the best, if not the best, for new linux users. The forums are both helpful and colorful. Ubuntu suffers from stability problems....
Any other Arch users out there? I was a Slacker, but Arch is more up to date.
Sabayon lite looks interesting... Anyone tried it?
70 • Reply to 66.. (by JS on 2006-11-01 05:41:34 GMT from United States)
What I would rather see is what percentage of desktop users actually play those games. I know it's big business, but most of the people I know aren't actually gamers, or aren't willing to spend the money necessary for the PC hardware (The would rather just purchase a PS2 or XBox). It certainly doesn't spell the end of Linux at all. As Linux slowly grabs more market share, the game producers will start developing products for the platform as the market demands it. It'll come, we just need to support Linux and continue to aid in it's growth and development. It will be a slow process for sure...
71 • RE 61/64 - Audio distro hunt (by Dan MacDonald on 2006-11-01 08:08:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
I don't understand what people are complaining about elive for. The fact is that the website does present you with a number of links to freely download the latest version and I didn't find them to be slow either. You're not forced to pay anything.
RE 61
It's not 'proprietary crap'- its software that allows me to use my computer fully. What's crap are the US patent laws and Nvidia/ATIs reluctance to release the source for their drivers.
RE 64
Unfortunately 64 Studio is A64 only and I just have a 32bit machine. I should very much hope ArtisticX has a low-latency kernel but I can almost guarantee it won't have hibernate :(
I can't stand compiling kernels or KDE/GNOME, these are the two things I'm trying to avoid here and once I've found such a distro then I can really start recommending Linux to people as a lot of my friends are musicians like me. I can't fully recommend any distro at the moment because I'd have to say
"Oh, but if you want it to boot as fast as windows you have to recomple KDE and all your KDE apps"
"Sorry, but if you want to record music you have to recompile the kernel"
"What's a kernel?"
would likely be their response and 99% of normal people wouldn't bother if they knew what kernel compilation involved.
The only two distros I've seen with Hibernate are SUSE and Ubuntu so I guess I'm looking/waiting for a multimedia (audio) distro that is based upon one of them I suppose.
72 • Other Enlightenment Distros (by Jean-Jacques on 2006-11-01 11:15:28 GMT from Germany)
I you like Enlightenment take a look at these small distributions too:
Described in Distrowatch:
- Austrumi (50MB)
- Mpentoo (200MB)
Not described in Distrowatch:
- Olive (Not OliveBSD!) (100MB) at http://web.isteve.bofh.cz/olive/
My only actual problem with Elive is that the Internet connection was working on the Live CD but no more after installing on Harddisk.
Cheers
JJ
73 • ubuntu 6.10 (by Komrade on 2006-11-01 13:50:16 GMT from Kenya)
Don't try upgrading 6.06 to 6.10, your ubuntu will not boot, preferably do a fresh install. The new ubuntu is quite nice, has a new splash screen, a few new progies, is very stable. Sadly it has no xgl/compiz by default.
Almost everybody is complaing that they upgrade but it doesnt boot. Thanks Mr. Shuttleworth, your prduct rules!!
74 • kubuntu (by Komrade on 2006-11-01 14:06:02 GMT from Kenya)
Saaaay, did anyone find synaptic on Kubuntu 6.10? It didn't see it. There is a new front end for package management. It is good, but I've got so used to synaptic. But there is always the konsole and dpkg command incase other things don't work. The new artwork on Kubuntu is really sweet, this includes the default login screens and startup artwork.
The Xubuntu 6.10 is fine, but it feels like Xubuntu 6.06 with updated packages. I had minor issues with the trash can thingy.
But at least it has synaptic.
I think cannonical should alter motos. It should be:
Kubuntu --- Linux for human beings
Ubuntu and Edubuntu ----Linux for SMART human beings
Xubuntu --- Linux for human beings with old machines and little ram.
75 • Question (by SimoneDice on 2006-11-01 17:37:13 GMT from United States)
Does anyon get tired of continually needing to update your system every 6 months to get the latest software? For me, it would be real nice if distros shipped every year to year and 1/2 but had updates to packages during that time. For example, if want Firefox 2 with Breezy, you can necessarily do it. You have to go and try to install it on your own over the current one which can lead to problems, or up date to an entirely new system. This is also the same for media packages, office packages and stuff along the same lines.
I personally think Linux will do much better if this were to happen. That way people could use the version of software they want. It's almost an all or nothing approach. I also think that the stability of the base system will be much higher since they will use the time to develop over a period of a year to 6 months. Just as when Suse/Fedora/Ubuntu spent extra time on 10.1/5/6.06, the stability was great. Now, when they spend 6 months, things slip through the cracks and headaches rise. I just think it might be good to really re-think the distribution of the software and think of service packs or ability to update packes individually rather than have to reinstall the whole operating system and upgrade every application every 6 months.
What are your thoughts?
76 • Re: Question (by Ariszló on 2006-11-01 18:20:43 GMT from Hungary)
Use Debian. It has a long release cycle but you can have the latest software by first dist-upgrading to [i]testing[/i] then to [i]unstable[/i] and then keep upgrading [i]unstable[/i]. Note that [i]unstable[/i] simply means 'constantly changing' in Debian and not 'broken.'
77 • 75 (by tom on 2006-11-01 19:03:00 GMT from United States)
Try Arch Linux.
78 • Re Question (by warpengi on 2006-11-01 20:23:05 GMT from Canada)
The release cycle is a compromise between getting the latest software to users and keeping the system stable. When a distro releases a version it is supposed to be stable with the versions of the software it is released with. Upgrading a particualr piece of software can introduce instability. Multiply that exponentially by the number apps available on the distro.
Some distros like Arch Linux, as mentioned above, and Gentoo keep rolling along without really needing to release a specific version as they update their software on the fly, so to speak. Although they do release versions of their distros as sometimes new developments (ie replacing devfs with udev) will create upgrading nightmares that are easier to fix by installing a fresh system. Debian testing and unstable are rolling releases as well.
The disadvantage to this approach is an unstable system. Run any of those for any period of time and you will experience breakage. Things that once worked no longer work or they crash frequently. Those probelms may get fixed quickly but they will happen.
Conversely keeping the same versions of packages within a release only applying bug fixes and security patches allows the system to remain more stable.
Of course developers do not provide bug fixes and security updates indefinitely for older versions of software, so the distro has to upgrade at some point. Enterprise versions provide longer life time for a distro but in that case the users are more concerned with having a stable OS than the latest versions of an app.
I think the 6 month release cycle is not working. I think distros are caught between providing users with the latest and keeping a regular release cycle. The ideal compromise seems to be less than a year and more than 6 months yet both users and distro maintainers don't like a release cycle that doesn't fit our idea of "regular" which would be annual or biannual. Will someone try quarterly releases?
Personally I am comfortable with a 1 year release cycle. I have become inured to the allure of the latest and greatest as there is always another one just around the corner. I can wait for the next release to upgrade and I wish reports and reviews would not continually comment on the out of date version of KDE, GNOME, whatever when assessing a distro. I doubt that will happen so I guess I'll just learn to ignore it. I much prefer stability in my desktop OS over the latest version of an app. At the same time I don't want the stability of an enterprise edition at the cost of using a 3 year old version of Mozilla.
I sympathise with the distros trying to walk this line. They have to try to please a wide variety of usage and preference and it is not an easy call where to draw the line.
79 • Re: Question (by SimoneDice on 2006-11-01 21:06:25 GMT from United States)
What if distros were more concerned with providing a solid operating system rather than all the applications that come with it, and this work actually was put on the application developers themselves.
For example, in Windows, Windows is not concerned with how a particular program works, it just provides the base and then the application developer makes sure it gets installed.
I believe this can work with Linux because it would be similar to how Google and other more commercial software is released. For example, to get Google Earth or Picasa running is relatively easy. Just just install and it's done. I just noticed that in Google Earth there was an update and the software asked me if I wanted to download and istall and I did and it was an easy thing. What if the applications like Amarok/Banshee, Gimp/Blender, etc. do this. I know we need more standards, but should this be a goal for where Linux should aim? I think it might be the best.
I think the only applications that should be included are the basic ones with a web browser and office (Open Office, KOffice, etc.) as much of the applications as the host OS distro supports. I believe this would work. Any thoughts? I just don't think it should be the distros responsiblity to make sure that hundreds of different applications are constantly maintained and stable with the OS. I think that more time is given to the applications rather than into the stability of the core operating system, the look and feel, the installation process, and the overall core OS.
80 • Re 75, 78 Question (by dg on 2006-11-01 21:21:21 GMT from Netherlands)
I think it just depends on the update philosophy of the distro.
I'm a user, not a developer, of Lunar Linux, which is a source based distro. I keep my machine up to date with the mainstream packages and I only had real problems in the switchover from a 2.4 to a 2.6 kernel. But for the existing mainstream packages, live updates usually just work. Those rare problem packages are usually reverted or corrected in the central system within a day or two, but you can always resurrect the old version on your machine. The devs do integration and testing of major package releases in a development corner of the package system so you can be really really bleeding edge if you really want it, and help is usually available online. But on the whole, staying up to date is relatively painless.
81 • Re Question (by warpengi on 2006-11-01 22:10:04 GMT from Canada)
Yes I hear a lot of frustration from people who want Linux to work like windows when it comes to installing software. I don't know what all the technical hurdles for this are but I suspct it largely has to do with dynamically linked libraries.
I suspect Google Earth installs some static links. Overall though i agree, developers could maybe do more of the work so the installer looks in all the usual places for libraries. Of course if they ask users "should I install this to /usr/sbin" even a lot of people who think they know how to run Linux won't know. We don't have a Program Files directory and beginners don't have a clue where the executable should go. I know, it's not that long since I was a beginner.
I know I've read about an installer for Linux. That is probably what is needed so that apps can just hook into the installer and developers don't need to right there own. Something like installshield I would guess.
There is the problem too of lib.foo.1.0.321 conflicting with lib.foo.1.0.322. How can we have both libraries available yet not conflicting? Do we expect the installer to be smart enough to set up a chroot for that? Can it be smart enough to find chroots from previous installs? What happens when we upgrade the distro and libraries get upgraded that are needed by old installs.
Can it be done? I would think so, eventually. Is it necessary or should users learn about their distros repository and use that? That might be easier and users can learn the joys of anticipating the next release wiht all the updates they read about over the last months. Too much of society is "I want it NOW. and if I can't have it now I'll cry and scream like a baby. 6 months from now I'll wnat something else and then it wil be too late for your stoopid app. So give it to me NOW. Wah, wah, wah." But hey, that's just my opinion.
82 • 60 • Elive .05 or Freespire/22 • Geography (by Art Levine on 2006-11-01 22:37:41 GMT from United States)
Were you me, (and you better be glad you're not!) , you would get yourself a copy of SimplyMepis6 and forget about elive and freespire.
I spent Friday evening and all day and night of Saturday installing and playing with a variety of distro's as my Mepis system should that there were 72 files updatable and I figured what the heck, Cyndy is in Nashville and it's a good time to try out all those DL's and the presents Cyndy bought me from one of DW's advertisers......
The most dissappointing of all was PC-BSD: there was nothing but trouble from the git go just getting a screen I could center and use was a trip in itself................ after two days of playing I got out my trusty Mepis CD, and did the full install with all the updates and downloaded/installed 682 pounds of additional "stuff" and all in less than an hour....
That FreeSpire is a nice and easy to install and pretty easy to figure out system, I just prefer Mepis and KDE.... Then again, I really like that GoblinX too.
Regarding KDE: I have read many times of its' supposed "Windows-like"ness..,
It appears to me to be much more like the Mac System 7.6 software.... pretty much still my favorite... I have it on a 100mhz 603E with one of them hi-tech hi-speed 56K modem things, still works, I really like "Kaleidescope", a very cool toy, and "BeHierachic". Hey dang, I still have a copy of "CyberDog"!!!
83 • install things like Windows (by AC on 2006-11-01 22:44:08 GMT from United States)
Encouraging people to download software from multiple sources all over teh intarweb is a recipe for trojans, adware, and other malware. And for software, like on Windows, that leaves cruft around even when it's been "removed". And for conflicting expectations for where things ought to go. people who like the Windows way so much ought to perhaps stick with Windows. I'll stick with the Debian Way. choice is wonderful.
84 • choice (by Andrew on 2006-11-02 02:02:36 GMT from Canada)
I want the choice to install programs the windows way
85 • 83 (by SimoneDice on 2006-11-02 03:32:38 GMT from United States)
I just don't think it is. I think that poor security within the OS and poor programming is a disaster of trojans and other infestations - which I don't believe LInux is.
I haven't tried it, but what about what PC-BSD is doing where you can use a web app to choose any version of the software and it installs it in its own wrapper so that there is no dependency problems and they work?
That seems like a good idea. That way if someone wants to stay with a version of the software then they can and if someone wants a new version like Firefox 2.0, then they can have it too. Then the coders can spend more time on the stability of the system.
86 • Stuff (by Scott Wilson on 2006-11-02 04:56:32 GMT from United States)
I have download and installed Fedora core 6, was ok Looks great! but my Intel Wireless card would not work. I popped in my Sound of Music CD, ( I Love Austria)
and it played. and the sound buttons on my dell Inspiron E1505 worked just as they did in windows. But Again as I have posted before, i try to approach each distro I try as a newbie. The fact that i had to really tweek my settings to get my wireless card working was a show stopper. Any newbie would give up and run back to windows or to Mac. Unless they stuck around and found the right person to help with out the RTFM response.
Ubuntu 6.10, what can I say, Everything works, including the wireless (after the initial installation, which require me in turning on the wireless connection, and inputting my wep key. For a newbie to Linux, I would highly recommend. I did a upgrade using Ubuntu instruction, worked with out a flaw.
Oracle, No its not as easy as they think. While many items will work using a package copy version of RHEL and Red Hat commands, Its not the same. I use CentOS which is close but even its not the same.
My personal opinion is that this my harm Linux as a whole. What happens when some company contracts with Oracle, and then the REHL conversion to Oracle Linux fails, could this push companies away from Linux as a whole? I think Oracle should offer the support services, consultants for the major versions of Linux (SUSE, RED HAT, DEBIAN, and Slackware?) Red Hat, I don't see them being harm by Oracle, competition is a good thing.
87 • elive (by winsnomore on 2006-11-02 05:06:31 GMT from United States)
spent 35+ hours downloading on the slow server.
It works, but is disaapointing as simple things aren't configuable.
Hardware detection is a real problem .. won't start the network on it's own .. terminal couldn't be configured .. there is no 'likable" theme/background available ..
in short I had high hopes after the raving review .. but will stick with suse
88 • 85 Simon (by AC on 2006-11-02 07:36:10 GMT from United States)
Security is multi-layered. And Windows insecurity is also multi-layered. You are right: Unix handling of permissions, processes, and filetypes makes spreading viruses much harder. But you are wrong if you think that prevents trojans: a trojan is a program that does (or claims to do) something useful but in fact is (or contains) malicious code. So you download it and install it as root because you trust it. There's not a lot an OS design can do to prevent that. Knowing what sources you can trust or examining the source code are the only ways to prevent that. We can hope that the GNU/Linux community has enough savvy users that someone spreading trojans would be quickly identified and the word would get out quickly, but a lot of newbies don't follow various forums where they'd get the word.
Models like Klik are better because 1. there's centralization and a degree of vetting and 2. the software's not installed as root, so the whole system isn't put at risk.
But if you just want new versions of a few apps while running a stable system, Debian stable + backports is the best approach I know.
As for PC-BSD, my only problem with the model is inefficiency. To avoid dependency issues, code isn't shared. So you may be running multiple versions of the same lib or even multiple copies of the same version. That's wasteful but perhaps those with newer hardware won't mind.
89 • Oracle & Waiting List (by Lawrence D'Oliveiro on 2006-11-02 08:32:29 GMT from New Zealand)
Strange--I thought you had a policy of putting all new distros on your "waiting list" for 90 days before accepting them as "active" distros. Yet Oracle seems to have gone straight to your "active" list practically on the day of its announcement. Why is this?
90 • RE: 89 Oracle & Waiting List (by ladislav on 2006-11-02 10:22:35 GMT from Taiwan)
It is not a fixed policy. Exceptions are made in cases where a new distribution is expected to generate a lot of interest among the readers. In other words, the rule of common sense takes precedence over the waiting list policy.
91 • Ubuntu (by Komrade on 2006-11-02 11:27:18 GMT from Kenya)
I usually overcome the "lack of mp3 support" blues by quickly installing xmms as soon as ubuntu is freshly installed. Xmms comes with its own set of plugins to let anyone play mp3 or ogg files. Plus, xmms allows you to select any soundcard on your computer, assuming you have more than one soundcard like me. Xmms should come as a default mp3 player instead of rhythmbox.
92 • RE: 87 Fast ELIVE download !! (by Anonymous on 2006-11-02 17:32:37 GMT from Germany)
You can download ELIVE-Revolution (=0.5 stable) at good speed here:
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/elive/isos/stable/Elive_Revolution.iso
Found it here in DW: http://distrowatch.com/3720
If you prefer 0.5.1 (=unstable):
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/elive/isos/development/elive_unstable_20061012.iso
DW-report: http://distrowatch.com/3771
93 • gNewSense is here (by Ariszló on 2006-11-02 22:22:51 GMT from Hungary)
gNewSense Home:
http://www.gnewsense.org/
DesktopLinux.com article:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7506163557.html
94 • puppy litter (by JAG on 2006-11-03 03:41:36 GMT from United States)
Those puppies just keep coming...
and they're pretty cool too...
(you know,...learning new tricks and stuff...!)
BK is so THE PUPMASTER!!!
95 • Novell Bombshell (by Jack Spratt on 2006-11-03 05:37:15 GMT from United States)
[b]Novell-Microsoft: What They Aren't Telling You[/b]
Today Novell and Microsoft announced a partnership in which Microsoft has made some unlikely-seeming promises regarding Linux. What aren't they telling you? First, you can be sure that Microsoft's not out to help a competitor. This announcement paves the way for Microsoft to implement significant control over commercial customer's use of Free Software. And it has significant negative implications for Open Source in general...
Read the full story:
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/11/2/9945
96 • 95 (by AC on 2006-11-03 06:05:52 GMT from United States)
Never liked SuSE and never trusted Novell. They'll get theirs as all who make deals with Microsoft do.
97 • re Elive CD (by Mike Bear on 2006-10-31 23:46:27 GMT from United States) (by godsmonster on 2006-11-03 11:26:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
as some one said elive is free from the torrents ... i know the site is a little confuseing but it is free via torrent heres a alternative site that u can get a torrent from http://linuxtracker.org/torrents-details.php?id=2920 itll ask u to register when u click on the torrent link but you dont really have to register to down load the torrent to your computer .. i hope that helps ...
98 • Re: Oracle & Waiting List (by Ariszló on 2006-11-03 14:47:14 GMT from Hungary)
Here is another example of common sense taking precedence over the waiting list policy:
http://distrowatch.com/3824
I wish paldo and Olive were treated like that, too.
Paldo is a very fast Gnome-based distro following the "one app for one task" philosophy. Paldo 1.8 with Gnome 2.16 was released two days ago:
http://www.paldo.org/
http://www.paldo.org/index-section-packages-page-livecd.html
http://www.paldo.org/index-section-packages-page-bootcd.html
Olive is a live cd with Enlightenment, MPlayer and UniPKG. It is one of the new mini distros in MultiDistro 2.5:
http://isteve.depressant.org/olive/
http://multidistro.tlm-project.org/md_en.html
99 • 98 Re: Oracle & Waiting List (by ladislav on 2006-11-03 15:27:11 GMT from Taiwan)
OK, I'll add Paldo and Olive to DistroWatch next week. My next Linux Format article deadline is on Tuesday, so I won't have the time to do it before then, but hopefully things will quiet down a bit after Wednesday.
Too many distributions, too little time :-(
Number of Comments: 99
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Archives |
| • Ussye 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Fedora
Fedora Linux (formerly Fedora, formerly Fedora Core) is a Linux distribution developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and owned by Red Hat. Fedora Linux contains software distributed under a free and open-source license and aims to be on the leading edge of such technologies. Fedora has a reputation for focusing on innovation, integrating new technologies early on and working closely with upstream Linux communities. The default desktop in Fedora Linux is the GNOME desktop environment and the default interface is the GNOME Shell. Other desktop environments, including KDE, Xfce, LXDE, MATE and Cinnamon, are available. The Fedora project also distributes custom variations of Fedora called Fedora spins. These are built with specific sets of software packages, offering alternative desktop environments or targeting specific interests such as gaming, security, design, scientific computing and robotics.
Status: Active
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
