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1 • Thanks for the review (by parkash on 2007-01-22 10:18:49 GMT from Germany)
I wonder how soon will we have GNU licenced Solaris :)
2 • Berry 0.78 (by steveos on 2007-01-22 10:21:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
The server for 0.78 Berry live CD (which went down just after the new release was announced) is now back up after 3 days.
This is one of those rare distros where (as far as I can see) everything is bang up to date.
steveos
3 • Ubuntu? (by ceti on 2007-01-22 10:34:21 GMT from Brazil)
Strange!!! No Ubuntu content in this issue? What happened?
4 • RE: No Ubuntu content in this issue (by Béranger on 2007-01-22 10:53:25 GMT from Romania)
Here's for the Ubuntu part, or more like the "Mr. Shuttleworth part" :-)
1. Shuttleworth... FUDding?
http://gregdek.livejournal.com/8978.html
2. "Applications don't run on source RPMs". Clever.
http://gregdek.livejournal.com/9255.html
5 • hit counter (by dark child on 2007-01-22 10:56:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
With the amount of cheating that goes on regarding distrowatch stats, I think its probably the right time for distrowatch to get rid of the hit counter. Many people use it to judge the popularity of distros although its not an accurate way to quantify the amount of users or popularity of a particular distro. I am sure Mandriva is not alone in cheating, so some other mechanism is needed to judge the amount of interest in a particular distro by distrowatch visitors.
6 • Re: #3 Ubuntu (by Michael Magua on 2007-01-22 11:08:38 GMT from South Africa)
Quite frankly I'm sick of stuff about Ubuntu but I'm sure you can search all the many newb blogs on the web for content on newbuntu ;-)
7 • A question and a request (by Mark South on 2007-01-22 11:11:02 GMT from Switzerland)
Ladislav, thanks again for DistroWatch Weekly.
A curious question: when I load DistroWatch in Opera, quite often the distro logo png images on the left of the announcements don't load. When I put the link address into Opera I get "you do not have permission to access whatever.png on this server". I've seen this happen with different versions of Opera and on different OSs. I'ts not a showstopper, but do you know what's going on there.
And a request (well, really multiple requests :-). In DistroWatch Weekly, would you consider doing an article or an interview sometimes with a hardware vendor who would state their position on Linux support and drivers? This could be a good way to make vendors aware of the scale of the demand from the Linux community, and also help your readers to be more informed about who supports them.
A similar issue to that one which you might also consider updating us on regularly is the ongoing status of burning optical media under Linux and how the different distros are dealing with the ongoing difficulties caused by ATA, SCSI, and personalities.
Finally, you have focused a lot of recent interest on the FSF's endorsement of GNewSense, what about an article about the various FSF-endorsed distros? BLAG and dyne:bolic don't have the largest followings, but going by what one finds on their forums, their communities are very enthusiastic and loyal.
Cheers,
Mark
Cheers,
Mark
8 • On cheaters and liars (by vorbote on 2007-01-22 11:25:21 GMT from Colombia)
Hmm... Nexenta's download page mentions the Distrowatch review page as the first link for a "Direct Download" whatever they may mean by that.
9 • RE: 8 On cheaters and liars (by ladislav on 2007-01-22 11:46:42 GMT from Taiwan)
Yes, but that link is redirected to the main page of DistroWatch so no click for Nexenta from that link. It has been like that for several months.
10 • ZFS & PCLinuxOS (by Eric on 2007-01-22 13:46:16 GMT from Canada)
Hello, I'm one of the people that love the prospect of a new and worthy filesystem. As I've been a fan of the Reiser4 filesystem ever since i heard of the project. I have read another page which states some more interesting and cool facts on the (im)practical full scale use and implementation of the ZFS, including the area needed for current spindle disk amounts, and mass of disks, or even comparisons to grains of sand aswell as pennies. And I believe in my opinion it to be the most interesting article on the filesystem. I'm glad Distrowatch recognized it so I could share this extra bit of intriguing information to the as of yet unknown bits of info upon ZFS to my fellow Distrowatch readers and posters in the DW Weekly which is the earliest I know to date. The earliest to date I say since it was posted on December 12, 2004, over a good 2 years ago, and it STILL has the most interesting info compared to the other recent posts :D
The link:
http://blogs.sun.com/dcb/entry/zfs_boils_the_ocean_consumes
Enjoy!
p.s. I am really liking the new look of PCLinuxOS, and I'm one guy who WILL be downloading that iso and giving it an on disk partition ;)
11 • Cheaters on Page hit list (by Lars on 2007-01-22 14:15:55 GMT from Germany)
How about resetting the whole counter now? Might be worth a shot.
It is sad, that Mandriva uses such poo-poo tactics to increase their page hits. With that behavior, even more people will turn their back on Mandriva. Sad, but true: They cannot be trusted.
12 • Re: Counter reset idea (by Troy Banther on 2007-01-22 14:41:33 GMT from United States)
"How about resetting the whole counter now? Might be worth a shot."
That is an interesting idea. Take a negative and turn it into a total positive.
I would be interested in seeing the new numbers.
13 • BOSS GNU/Linux (by Aventis Khan on 2007-01-22 14:56:30 GMT from Pakistan)
Dear Ladislav Bodnar
Thanks for another new nice distroweekly, always waiting for it from monday to mondays.
Now about BOSS GNU/Linux , read about it on www.softpedia.com and they have given a download link for it`s version 2.0 beta and now few days back read about it on www.distrowatch.com and I see that version 1.0 is mentioned for download. When you checked their website you see directories of evaluation version but then with no iso files for downloads.
Being as neighbour to India ( i.e Pakistan ) I am interested to get this distro as it has support for indian languages but having no iso files for download I am wondering is this a commercial distro ? ( Note evaluation version )
Please clear the confusion and if possible direct me to some download link for current stable version 1.1??
Thanks
regards,
Aventis
14 • Cheating, RE Mark South (by Riaan on 2007-01-22 15:01:42 GMT from South Africa)
Hi Ladislav,
Here's an idea for cheaters.... drop their score to minus 100k and see how often they then do it again. 1st time notice goes out after confirmation and then every day gets them 100k deducted... See how quickly they apologize if they don't get any hits anymore from DW...
Also, RE Mark South,
I would also like to see more hardware vendors being dragged in and questioned about what they are doing for the linux community...
Keep up the great work
15 • http://distrowatch.com/ (by ladislav at 2007-01-22 15:02:20 GMT from Taiwan)
You can download BOSS 1.0 from here:
http://203.129.255.181/BOSS/BOSS-Tarang/
16 • PCLinuxOS 2007 (by Theore Dreiser on 2007-01-22 15:14:41 GMT from United States)
The amazing journey of PCLinuxOS continues on. While some
distros are playthings for a rich boys, PCLinuxOS is dedicated to
being a distro for the PEOPLE, easy to install, easy to use, and
everything "just works". And it's pretty too.
17 • Mepis (by winsnomore on 2007-01-22 15:19:07 GMT from United States)
Whatever happened to Mepis.
It was supposed to release last week but instead a beta -3 and now it's gone even from upcoming releases?
Ladislav .. any comments?
18 • FreeSBIE/FreeBSD - problem with drivers (by ozonehole on 2007-01-22 15:37:52 GMT from United States)
I was an enthusiastic user of FreeBSD back when it was in version 4.x. When version 5.x hit the servers, I enthusiastically downloaded it with high expectations. Alas, it could run on my laptop (IBM ThinkPad X31) - wouldn't even boot. When we got to version 6.x, there were improvements - at least it could boot, but would hard crash (total lockup) on shutdown. There was also the fact that my wireless didn't work, ditto for my (optional) USB keyboard and mouse.
I just downloaded FreeSBIE 2.0 and FreeBSD 6.2. Now the USB keyboard works - that's progress. Unfortunately, still no USB mouse or wireless, and lockup on shutdown.
There is also the nagging little problem of the geometry bug, which shows its ugly face whenever you try to install FreeBSD on a hard drive that it has to share with another OS. Not a fatal error, but it's been in the FreeBSD kernel for at least 10 years. Would be nice if it gets fixed someday.
Meanwhile, OpenBSD seems work just fine on this machine. Ditto for most Linux distros, though some (Puppy Linux) won't boot from the external USB CD drive.
Oh well, I've really tried hard to like FreeBSD. It's still a kick-ass server, and I kno that DistroWatch runs on it. I'm just going to give up running it as a desktop, especially on my notebook.
19 • miscellaneous (by ray carter at 2007-01-22 16:03:55 GMT from United States)
1) Gentoo - I love Gentoo. For the right purpose. I have it installed on my mini-itx - a rather low powered box - 1ghz VIA C3 system - with everything optimized and compiled from scratch, it is much faster than anything else on the same platform.
2) Solaris - I ordered the Solaris disk last week - looking forward to trying it out - 1 think I don't like, it apparently requires a primary partition for installation.
3) I like the hit page rankings, though I don't embue them with any great significance. Call me naive, but I tend to buy the explanation offered above - I don't think corporate management would be dumb enough to try something that stupid. If they were trying to 'cook' the numbers there would be several ways it could be accomplished that would not be as likely to arouse suspicion.
20 • PCLinuxOS "just works" (by Fractalguy on 2007-01-22 16:28:44 GMT from United States)
re #16 by Theore Dreiser. PCLinuxOS "just works" - well not always. They of late are having trouble with drivers for nVidia, at least for my old NV17 GeForce4 MX 440. Looks awful in 1024x768 (all faded text like a missmatch somewhere) and fails to enter 1280x1024 even using Harddrake. I understand it is a beta, but bigdaddy failed also. p.92 was the last release to work correctly here, I hope this one does by final release. :)
21 • Re: 3 • Ubuntu? (by Today Anonymous on 2007-01-22 17:18:41 GMT from Australia)
I too am sick of reading about ubuntu all the time - as the reality is they would never have got so far if it had not been for the Free "shipit" and that does not make it a good distro just because the spungers could get it for free (think out side the square)
22 • No subject (by dbrion at 2007-01-22 17:26:49 GMT from France)
"I think its probably the right time for distrowatch to get rid of the hit counter." Why? It gives an interesting indication of the temporal evolution of curiosity towards a given distribution. It is not an indication of the quality of a distribution, and,, even more, of her ability to be used every day (this would be terrifying or absurd for system recue CDs)...
Getting rid of it or changing the rules ( a small amount of cheating cannot be avoided; in gallup polls, sometimes ppl lie, too) would break the (homogeneity of) the series .
Being curious does not mean one is satisfied (it might be the contrary)
I know ppl who are that satisfied with Linux they do not know their OS is from White Box [ they do not ask to upgrade, nor to go back to Microsoft Windows ; that is for their feelings; it never breaks; that is objective ] , which has a low DWW ranking... ). I suppose great distribution decision makers or sellers are conscious of this fact.
Using such rankings for decisions would be almost as absurd to having a referendum before marrying, but I find it sometimes amusing to compare my liking a distr to DWW rankings....
23 • Page rankings (by spiritraveller on 2007-01-22 17:30:41 GMT from United States)
I find it odd that openSUSE is so high in the rankings, when I barely ever hear about them. They have been in that position (second to Ubuntu) since even before announcing the deal with Microsoft.
I'm probably just biased against it, but I don't see as much interest in their distro as the rankings would suggest.
24 • RE: 20 • PCLinuxOS (by johncoom on 2007-01-22 17:32:00 GMT from Australia)
Fractalguy
That is why it has taken so long to get where they are now and why it was released as a PCLinuxOS 2007 Testing-1 - not for mission critical machines
25 • PCLinuxOS is a Mandriva clone? (by Jayb on 2007-01-22 17:32:55 GMT from United States)
The "it just works" cliche attributed to PCLinuxOS is way
WAY exagerated; it doesn't do so well with nVidia drivers,
and the sluggishness of it on some machines is downright
shameful..
..the Mandrake legacy lives on with that distro.
Zenwalk? Much, much better on most of the machines I
test on.
Double shame for the goofy explanation about the page-hit
subterfuge, Mr. Mandriva.
26 • All Linux distro's need to work out of the box (by Jon Germany on 2007-01-22 17:43:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
I converted to using linux 2 years ago but only through my determination and much patience to understand it. If it hadn't been for Mepis I'm sure I would have thrown in the towel & gone back to windows.
The trouble I found with Linux was, the installation of software with RPM's & dependency problems & the silly problems using linux on the web, what with lots of distro's not having a flash plugin or mplayer plugin with all the necessary codecs or the Java runtime. It made surfing a nightmare. Then I used mepis, which at that time actually had an easy installer, all the browser plugins and synaptic software installer.
Linux needs to be easy to install and needs to standardise on a software installer like debian uses. It also MUST be able to work on the web having all the plugins & codecs needed or people will be put off using it. There also needs to be an easier way to get wireless network cards working. At this time there needs to be a usable alternative to Windows and the time is right for Linux to fill that role.
27 • 26 (by Anonymous on 2007-01-22 18:13:15 GMT from United States)
> It also MUST be able to work on the web having all the plugins & codecs needed or people will be put off using it.
You mean the way Windows comes with all those plugins...oh wait...it doesn't...the OEM's take care of that. Ever hear of the Real Media lawsuit?
I think you are beginning to understand the problems of proprietary software and drivers. If you want to buy a computer with everything preinstalled for you, and access to all things proprietary, you will have to go back to Windows. That's a problem of proprietary, not a problem of Linux or any OS. The master is the producer of the proprietary and the slave is the user. You HAVE to use Windows because THEY TOLD YOU TO.
We certainly don't need to give up on the idea of a free OS just to make things convenient for a few casual users. You should perhaps be posting in the Dell forums, not on Distrowatch.
28 • Page Hit chatter (by Earl Hill on 2007-01-22 18:15:09 GMT from United States)
I love this web site. I gives great insight as to what's up in the Linux world, and thank the fine staff for such great work. Now to the point, why so much whineing about something so un-important?? The hit page it not the end all of what Linux is in use. And even if Mandriva did cook the books who cares?? If it gets someone to try Linux and like what they find it's a win for the Linux world in a whole. I think way too much import has been given to a rating system. It looks like people here see it as a contest between differnt Linuxes and are mad there version isn't on top. As long as people find a verson that works for them we all win.Power to the Penguin!!!!!!!!
29 • Need help with Indian Languages (by Ashish on 2007-01-22 18:19:58 GMT from United States)
Hello.
I know Indian language called Punjabi and I would like to help you create distrowatch page in Punjabi. My email addr is ashii007@gmail.com.
Thanks
Ashish Kumar
30 • re: #20 • PCLinuxOS "just works (by joel on 2007-01-22 18:21:48 GMT from United States)
I had problems with PCLinuxos's NVIDIA drivers on my NV17 GeForce4 MX440 video card also. I found that downloading NVIDIA's 7184 legacy driver and installing it worked much better, however with some occasional crashes. Nothing I can't live with. Just read and follow their installation instructions & you shouldn't have any problems. For me, it gave me nearly 50% faster glxgears results.
For your looks awful comment, do you have texstar's fonts-ttf-dejavu package installed? If not try that. It's an improvement to Bitstream's Vera fonts. As for resolution, do you really need 1280x1024? Mine works fine with 1024x768, * even better at 832x624. YMMV, as that is somewhat monitor dependent. BTW the foregoing comments relate to P 0.92 & 0.93a. I'm anxiously awaiting 2007, or whatever it's going to be called :)
31 • Hit Counter (by Tazix on 2007-01-22 19:03:19 GMT from United States)
Why don't you change the hit counter from what it is now, to people actually clicking the "Download Mirrors" link. While that won't entirely stop the cheating... it would be a little more accurate to what is "popular".
I browse many of the DW pages regarding specific Distros that are reported on the front page... that doesn't mean I download them / try them. Usually I'm just checking out the description and the packages table.
32 • Re: Page rankings (by Anonymous on 2007-01-22 19:06:00 GMT from Germany)
> I find it odd that openSUSE is so high in the rankings, when I barely ever hear about them.
Maybe you're listening to the wrong people? ;-) Honestly, you will find regularly reviews about openSUSE in the "Latest Review" box on the home page and although there is no "most reviewed" statistics I'm sure it's one of the most reviewed distros (due to its popularity in Europe). And reviews of openSUSE 10.2 turn out usually to be quite favorable, so why should people not be interested in it?
33 • 27 and Mepis (by Ryan Southard on 2007-01-22 19:12:07 GMT from United States)
Not everyone who uses linux is a hacker. There are many of us out there who enjoy linux for the stability, lack of viruses or any of the other problems that comes when using the alternative os. By lashing out at the "casual users" you will alienate and even give linux community a worse rap than it has alreay received. We should embrace new comers with open arms and congratulate them for seeing the light. The FLOSS debate will go on forever. If linux on the desktop is ever going to go mainstream there will have to be proprietary software involved. People do want thing to "just work" that is why mepis pclinxos do so well. Perhaps you should spend less time attacking people on this forum and for time hacking the latest .iso from gnusense.
34 • RE 31, 26 (by dbrion on 2007-01-22 19:24:12 GMT from France)
Clicking the "download Mirror" is not a measure of interest and would lead to heterogeneities; It is sometimes necessary to download a distr (I already have intersting distrs, no need to click) to know whether it is dangerous to use it, or if it is shipped with all the compilers (I think of xxBSD: often, they have no gcc in DWW database, however, one can find it by donloading and trying:
PCBSD has a gcc -3.4.4, as far as I tested and a even a Fortran compiler g77 -called f77-) I think the DWW is made automatically, by searching in specific directories of isos or by having a form filled.)
RE 26 :The point of distrs working Out The Box and being dangerous is with liveCDs which are at theGNewSense same time Installation CDs (else, if they have a good localization an dgood games, I can lend them to my 8 yrs nephew -he is a user, too). I think of nov 2006 "Edu"buntu and to-days GNewSense, which have both poor localization (for US English, it does not matter...) and a BIG installation button:
I hope they do not work out of the box....
35 • 34 (by Anonymous on 2007-01-22 19:26:14 GMT from United States)
> People do want thing to "just work" that is why mepis pclinxos do so well.
But we can't make things "just work" by abandoning the principles of free software. There is no reason for Linux to exist, if we don't distinguish between free and proprietary, because there are more than enough proprietary operating systems already available.
Until OEM's sell Linux, you will not have anything that "just works". Plain and simple. As I said in my post, Windows does not "just work" either.
The answer is not, as some argue, to mix the proprietary garbage in with the free and allow individuals to download everything with their favorite distro. Open source projects should be focused on making it easy to install proprietary items, such as is the case with Automatix. Too often people say they want something that "just works" when they mean they want something that "works like Windows". If Automatix is too complicated, I'm sorry, you should not use Linux. It is far more complicated to install Ubuntu than to install and use Automatix. We cannot appeal to all users, the same as Microsoft and Apple do not try to appeal to all users.
36 • Re: Cheating and Cheaters (by kilgoretrout on 2007-01-22 19:29:52 GMT from United States)
Are there any clearly articulated rules as to what constitutes cheating on the page hit rankings, i.e. what is and what is not allowed?
I don't think anyone would argue that mandriva's conduct was not cheating but there are probably a lot of grey areas here as well. Branding people as "cheaters" becomes problematic if there are no clear rules that are being evenly applied.
37 • Ryan Southard (by Anonymous on 2007-01-22 19:34:33 GMT from United States)
> By lashing out at the "casual users" you will alienate and even give linux community a worse rap than it has alreay received.
I am not lashing out at the casual users at all. If you read my post again, you will realize that I am criticizing the Linux distributions and others developing strategies for popularizing Linux. The problem with proprietary things is that open source projects cannot, by definition, control them. We need to come up with more reasonable strategies. Only a bonehead could believe we will avoid problems with Flash by putting it into a Linux distribution. That would not fix the problem that Adobe enjoys promoting the Windows monopoly, which leads it to release the Windows version six months earlier than the Linux version.
Shame on the distributions for making it difficult for the casual users to install these items.
38 • RE:34 (by Tazix on 2007-01-22 19:48:30 GMT from United States)
Well, I am aware that clicking the "download mirrors" link on a DW page also wouldn't be entirely accurate, since people may not actually download the distro in question, once getting to said mirror page. I am also aware that it wouldn't stop "cheaters".
However, I still think it would be MORE accurate than just clicking on a DW news bit that takes you to DW's page of that distro and then counting that as being "popular". While people may not actually download the distro in question... a click on that mirrors link shows enough interest to "possibly download".
Hope that clarifies what I meant.
39 • re 21 re 3 (by anonymous on 2007-01-22 20:05:26 GMT from New Zealand)
Actually, I think Shipit is probably something Ubuntu/Canonical should be commended for. Not everyone has fast download speeds, and getting a bunch of CDs through the post no doubt worked well for spreading the word and the FOSS spirit. When Ubuntu was first released, there were fewer mirrors for Linux and even fewer were up-to-date with the latest distros.
40 • RE 38 'Popularity' vs 'Curiosity' (by dbrion on 2007-01-22 20:06:29 GMT from France)
a) I hope I have not forgotten the way of reading US english, but :
suppose everyone is fully satisfied with, say, KateOS, and that, forever; you would not deny it would be a very popular distr. How many ppl would click on _any_ button of DWW? (I suppose DWW is for ppl who are not fully satisfied with their distr or know they won't be ever satisfied)
Ppl who want to know what is inside a given distr are curious, or interested, but it is not a matter of popularity.
Ppl who download, if they are careful, can decide a given dist is of little interst (there are emulation tools for this decision, now)...
b) Changing the way of counting of 'curiousness'/ interest would break all the temporal evolutions ( which have aroused some scientifical/journalistic) interest...
41 • re 36: Cheating and Cheaters (by jimwelchok on 2007-01-22 20:12:05 GMT from United States)
For more info on what is cheating, see the FAQ page of DistroWatch. That being said, the info there is as little sparse, but the idea is clear: Cheater's will be punished!
42 • cor 34 GnewSense has no BIG install button (by dbrion on 2007-01-22 20:18:54 GMT from France)
todays PClinuxos has (it is a test version)... and thus cannot be lent to children
43 • In what way is the CDDL restrictive? (by Sponge on 2007-01-22 20:23:05 GMT from Germany)
Hello, in the Misc. News section your write
"[ZFS] to remain forever burdened by a restrictive license."
The license in question is the CDDL. I wonder in what way the CDDL is more restrictive than the GPL2? The GPL2 and the CDDL are incompatible because both don't allow code migration into another license. Point in case, take the GPL2 and call a copy "Foo Public License" and they would be incompatible.
Then, it looks like Solaris is going to be licensed under the up and coming GPL3. No porting of ZFS into Linux then, because Linux looks like it is staying under the GPL2.
44 • re 30 • re: #20 • PCLinuxOS "just works (by Fractalguy on 2007-01-22 20:30:40 GMT from United States)
Hi Joel (#30), The PCLinuxOS forum suggests not downloading drivers from vendors because their installation screws up some files in the PCLOS system. I stick with the PCLOS repositiories (expept several years ago I installed Netscape 7.2 from tarball without any problem).
Several PCLOS releases worked perfectly (like p.92-7676) with my set up and a few before and after p92 didn't. As I understand it, with a livecd and only one kernel there is not a lot they can do with multiple drivers, some conflict. At least with the older X. I was told on live chat that the new X would handle all this and so not to worry (.p93a failed on my system) and wait for p.94. Well p.94 is here and fails too. I'll give Tex 'till it is official tho. :)
The whole driver issue is a great puzzle to me. Most but not all versions of KNOPPIX (of all things) work. So far Ubuntus work. (I have an old P450 for which PCLOS fails to boot, KNOPPIX and Ubuntu do. So it is running 6.06 uptime 160 days.) Some Mepis worked here, current one doesn't. Elive, which I think is very nice almost works, I have to back off to 1154x-whatever to have it work. Even DSL works as does Puppy - well the current puppy is "impossible" to set up to go on line. No excuse for this, since it used to be easy.
I'm a distro swapping distrowatch junkie, I guess, since it is the way I get something to work. Use a shotgun, toss up a pile of CDs and see which ones are a hit. Someday I may learn to fix any of them, but I figure with the experts out there, if they only get it right about 40% of the time on the same distro, what can I do? I report back and help as "testor".
Oh, as for needing 1280x1024 - yes, it is a must for the graphics I do. Nothing exotic but I do need the resolution. The looks awful is not a font issue, anyway. I'd think Tex would put the best font on the liveCD anyways. Better to demo and sell. It is a resolution issue. I saw the same thing on elive until I backed off the resolution one notch. To me, that means a driver problem.
Cheers, and here's to DW and PCLinuxOS! :)>
45 • Proprietary Software (by Ryan Southard on 2007-01-22 20:32:07 GMT from United States)
>Shame on the distributions for making it difficult for the casual users to install these items.
My argument is that when people come to linux as an alternative to windows or OS X they are completely lost when they open firefox and get "no plugin found" messages. Do the newbs even know that there are help forums or programs such as Automatix out there that will allow them to surf the internet and visit webpages that require these plugins? How about Blackdown Java? Can you tell me a newb that has ever heard of it?
I am COMPLETELY for the FOSS movement. I just think there needs to be middle ground somewhere so we can attract the average ebayer and myspacer to our wonderful OS. Without these users linux will always be the red-headed step child.
PS Adobe's core customers are OS X user's. Not Winblows.
46 • You are half way right (by Shuttleworthless on 2007-01-22 20:44:51 GMT from United States)
>Without these users linux will always be the red-headed step child
Linux will always have its core base of enthusiists; however, anonymous is right, that you cannot turn your back on what open source is all about. The problem the community faces are now are two fold.
1.) How to get software makers to open their code
2.) How to get hardware vendors to open the code to their drivers
If these two problems are resolved, Linux will but mr. Gates out on the street. Thanks to countries like Brazil and China users are beginning to see that there is an alternative.
Will this ever take foothold in the States? Hard to say. With enough time and continued hard work from developers and users we very well may see it.
Red headed step child...I think not. Linux is number one in our home all the way.
47 • Sleeping cats or dead mice (by Ladislaus Ludovicus Russicus on 2007-01-22 20:47:26 GMT from Hungary)
One may not expect perfect operation from a beta, or first live editions. But, one neither would expect the reincarnation of an annoyance that has been plaguing the Linux distributions for more than a decade: the configuration of the mouse.
Recently, I have tried the following live editions: VectorLinux 5.8, Ubuntu 6.1, FreeSBIE-2, GoboLinux 0.13, and Knoppix 5.1. Within seconds after the initial screen GoboLinux has self-distracted, and started to load again, and self-distract again ... . Tree distros of the remaining four have ended up with frozen pointers. Ubuntu's screen was close to square, it has produced sound, and repeatedly asked for signing in, but unwilling to accept anything. I tried to fix Vector manually, but similarly to Slackware, Vector does not have a mouse test facility; so, without any-sort of feedback it is a daunting task. You just cannot pick it from a list, or enter the manufactural designation of your mouse, but you play the blind game of trying to match a table entry that when you enter into windows' mode, if you can, then it should result in a movable pointer. But actually that has never happened.
One may reasonably ask why monitors, video cars, e.t.c., got their lists, but mice do not?! Why one distribution can recognize the "Logitech First Mouse, Tree Buttons, Model #1455" serially connected mouse, but others produce paralyzed pointers? How one can narrow the problem, and find the reason? If the X configuration including the mouse configuration is done "successfully" just what sort of mouse is in the system? Also, what is a prototype? Isn't it just the figment of the imagination of some Linux system people?! There is no such a thing on the box of the mouse! And, different distros need different answers!
Having worked with MS systems in the past 20 years, I have never had a mouse recognition problem. On the other hand, in Linux distros, one either one gambles, or gives stupid answers for stupid questions like: "Do you want to enable CordMiddle?" "n", and "Do you want to enable Emulate3buttons?" "y", and closes the eyes if that works. Well, lately the questions have been corrected, but when will the answers be correctly interpreted?
After all that, the distro, Knoppix, that deserves all the credits (except artwork) is not really recommended to be installed into the hard disk. Why?! It seems that some people would like to keep Linux on the level of the 1970-s or 1980-s. But really how many files and what sort of files had the Unix systems that time?
And, one more thing, if we expect the startup system to recognize the hardware components, I think, the operating system should learn to recognize when the removable data-carriers are in the corresponding components. Mounting native components of the PC just does not make sense anymoer. Two decades of DOS/Windews experience should not be underestimated. As more and more free software moves to Windows, the appeal of Linux gradually declines. I think long-term users appreciate overall quality, consistency and ease of use over novelty. The promise of the degree of freedom is badly tarnished by the never-ending fractionization and incomplete works.
The kernel may keep up with the changes, but the overall system becomes more and more outdated. We cannot have 500 half-brocken distros forever; we need a few systems that work, can be built dynamically, and can compete in most respect with Windows.
48 • 45 (by Anonymous on 2007-01-22 21:09:31 GMT from United States)
> My argument is that when people come to linux as an alternative to windows or OS X they are completely lost when they open firefox and get "no plugin found" messages. Do the newbs even know that there are help forums or programs such as Automatix out there that will allow them to surf the internet and visit webpages that require these plugins?
Not only that, but there is zero justification for these problems. Ubuntu became popular, IMO, because of the documentation, not the distribution. There is no useful site where you can point a newbie to say "Go here and find nirvana." For that matter, there is not any site where you can go and find information about Linux-compatible hardware and which hardware to avoid.
Why? I have no idea. I'd be happy to buy an Ubuntubook laptop where everything just works.
I don't have a solution. I just don't think the answer is to make Linux proprietary. I would think a company like Novell or Canonical *could* put together such a website or even sell hardware, but for some reason they'd rather doodle along worrying about wobbly windows.
49 • The Linux Foundation (by Ryan Southard on 2007-01-22 21:10:10 GMT from United States)
Just wanted to let everyone know about OSDL and FSG joined forced to promote and foster the standardization of linux. check them out at http://www.linux-foundation.org
50 • Linux resistance from ISPs (by anonymous on 2007-01-22 21:49:29 GMT from Germany)
Some of the Linux/BSD FUD seems to come from ISPs, ironically the very people who are often using those OS's on a regular basis. You'll frequently see their support pages specifically stating that they only support Windows or Mac-related queries (make a support call and tell them you're using Linux and they'll probably ask, "Sorry, which version of Windows is that?").
While the average user might experiment with an alternative OS, they may be put off if they think there might be problems getting online if their ISP doesn't mention the alternatives. The winmodem problems may be fading as more people get ADSL and the like, but ISPs don't help with their Windows bias.
How many times will we see ISP virus warnings with the advice to try an OS that isn't plagued with viruses? Never, probably. Any internet service provider offering security advice should certainly recommend the *NIX fix.
51 • DragonFlyBSD (by Druze on 2007-01-22 22:59:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
why no comments on DragonflyBSD?
52 • Foolproof Linux Desktop? (by rglk on 2007-01-22 22:59:28 GMT from United States)
I have an 83-year old friend who is almost totally computer illiterate. He's got a new Toshiba laptop with Windows XP installed, and for the third time in a row his system got hosed by some nasty bug. He then calls in his "PC Doctor" or the "Geek Squad" to have them fix the problem. Eventually they always seem to resort to reinstalling Win XP. So far he's paid out a total of $700 for this madness.
I want to set him up with Linux but it's got to be a distro that is bombproof and ultra easy to use. Essentially he's totally clueless, and if he runs into any problem at all with Linux and is stranded for a day before I can come to his rescue, he might be inclined to run right back to Windows.
I'm out of the loop as to which is the easiest to use and most reliable Linux desktop distro for newbies as of Jan. 2007 (I myself use Arch Linux). Whatever distro I pick for him, has got to run like a Volvo; I don't want to have to deal with any problems with it for the next 12 months, including problems with any upgrades to newer versions.
What are your suggestions? Obvious candidates are Ubuntu, SUSE, Mandriva, Xandros, Freespire, PCLinuxOS, MEPIS. I'd be most comfortable with a Debian-based distro. He needs hardly anything other than a web browser, an email client, some photo viewer, a media player (watching movies and videos and listening to streaming audio), a decent firewall, etc.
Robert
53 • PCLinuxOS (by Kanwar on 2007-01-22 23:05:26 GMT from United States)
The new look is very cool. I have already installed the beta on my test laptop at work. Since the laptop has an Intel 915 card, everything worked out-of-the-box. Except the fact that I like 1400x1050 resolution and had to install 915resolution package and edit one teeny-weeny config file. Anyway, I have to do that for every other distro -- and I have tried all the "user-friendly" suspects like (K)ubuntu, Opensuse, Xandros, Sabayon etc etc.
The 3d desktop config is simple and trouble-free. You get an option to choose either Compiz or Beryl. I chose the latter and a reboot (due to 915resolution fix) was all that was needed to get everything organized.
Finally PCLinuxOS community is the most vibrant and responsive that I have yet found.
Worth a try for everyone looking for an easy, user-friendly distro. Also packs all multimedia stuff and browser plugins out-of-the-box.
Kudos to Texstar and the devs.
54 • Pclinuxos (by postaldave on 2007-01-22 23:09:26 GMT from United States)
i'm not going to say it's the greatest distro ever, honestly most all KDE based distro work about the same, some better some worse.
i will say WOW! what a beautiful distro. their resent art project is amazing. it really looks like something a full blown commercial company would but out.
their recent change from isolinux has left my laptop behind in upgrades with a grub> blackscreen at boot.however, texstar said he would fix that by 2007.
that is what i love most about the distro, got a problem just talk to the man.
anyone want to try to get bill gates on the line to fix your vista machine?
also props out to mintlinux, tried it this week and really liked it. wireless stuff needs some help but that goes for all of linux right now.
55 • Re: The Linux Foundation (by Ariszló on 2007-01-22 23:12:21 GMT from Hungary)
Here's the press release:
http://www.linux-foundation.org/wordpress/?p=286
56 • Foollproof Linux (by dbrion on 2007-01-22 23:14:04 GMT from France)
Mandriva seems OK: the mem requirements for XP and kde are about the same, it is very easy to install and to maintain. (it took me 15 min to install on a laptop; perhaps it would be a change to Debian for you). In 2004, I had no pbs with SuSE, too (and I suppose they got even easier).
The only pb I see is with mains supply: if one forgets to plug a laptop, it may stop suddenly, out of starvation; putting a service to check the ext3 (say) if necessary -and explaining why it might not start as fast as usual- seems cautious for any distr.
57 • Hit Counter (by Buster on 2007-01-22 23:21:27 GMT from Canada)
Keep the hit counter! I find it very useful in selecting what I want to check out. And, getting all philosophical ;), we don't get rid of democracy because some people cheat at election time, nor do we ban all sports where cheating took place. We deal with it as best we can, as imperfect as it is.
The hit counter is a great and useful tool.
58 • PCLinuxOS (by Anonymous on 2007-01-22 23:33:45 GMT from United States)
I'm trying the new PCLinuxOS demo.
It takes a long time to boot up from the CD, but it's very slick and feels very polished. It seems to have selected the right video driver automatically.
Sounds works for me except for there's a lot of static with the audio.
YouTube and CNN videos play better than with PCLinuxOS .93.
I'm wondering why it has GnuCash 2.0.1 instead of 2.0.4 though.
59 • 52 (by john frey on 2007-01-22 23:57:30 GMT from Canada)
My suggestion to you is unless you are prepared to help this guy 24/7 then don't install Linux on his computer. I tried that with someone who is basically clueless and he went back to MSwindows within 2 months. His problem? He could not install the programs he was used to installing. Those consisted of the programs that would install free smileys, scan your pc for vulnerabilities when you click on the banner ad, help your computer keep proper time, etc. Yes he had many spyware infections and needed a reinstall of MSwindows about every 3 months. I go my all time record high spyware infections on his computer, something around 450, I dont recall the exact amount.
You don't want to install Linux for a clueless user. They are addicted to their cluelessness and to calling for help before rebooting or checking if the printer is turned on, whatever. You don't want to support someone like that! He did not stay clueless and spend over $700 for no reason.
60 • Interesting Points of View (by Jere7miah on 2007-01-23 00:10:50 GMT from United States)
I've tested the new PCLinuxOS release for a while now on quite a few machines.
On a ATI M6 Mobility Beryl and Aiglx worked great I had the same luck with my 9000IGP
as for Nvidia Card driver issues the only issue I had was with a 6600GT with PCI-e I got a white screen using the nv drivers it was an easy fix I used the framebuffer boot mode and loaded the nvidia drivers from the repo via synaptic and all worked well. I didn't have this issue with my 6600GT AGP card my 6200s or my 5600Go on my other laptops. It just worked for me and works faster and better then ever. On there forums there's a ton of users messing with xorg files and etc.. and it's not even needed it's almost like they're trying to make it harder then it really is. Just like a lot of people on here they have people over there giving them wrong information and confusing newbies who shouldn't be testing this release anyways . The gang has done a really great thing with this release. Off goes Zen and all the other Distros, I found my desktop OS and a permanent home.
61 • RE 52, 59 : old people do not install anything (by dbrion on 2007-01-23 00:16:28 GMT from France)
People who install anything under Windows are younger, who want to do "like the others", have the same smileys, ... Very old ppl know what they need, and are not inclined to tweaking, or installing for the fun.
I know it is not general, but I read (in DWW 171) one reader comment who wrote about his father as 'a computer idiot' ..very happy with Linux.., my uncle never installs and finds it geeky,
and it has been tried -in 2003/2004 to have a linux-based PC for old people, with exactly the same needs : it was designed without root acces (I do not know why this idea failed, lack of funding?)...
Besides, having a Linux installed as a dual boot can be a way to kill viruses, worms ... (if Linux has NTFS recognition or if Windows XP 's file system is a FAT32).
62 • re 52 (by on 2007-01-23 00:47:01 GMT from Germany)
Have you considered a live CD with a permanent home folder on hdd/usb media? That way there won't be any bad upgrades, as happen from time to time, but if a big security update is important you can just send him a new CD. Hardware permitting, of course. Maybe something like a Slax build is minimal enough but not too minimal.
I've found silly email attachments, especially in wmv format, are the biggest problem that people with nothing better to do want to waste their time with.
Might I propose the OLPOP project (one laptop per old person). It might add financial drive to the OLPC project -- governments could supply them to help the elderly to help them keep in touch. The simple interface might help those with bad vision, etc.
63 • RE 62(52) Is the idea of a live CD on a laptop good? (by dbrion on 2007-01-23 01:22:07 GMT from France)
I fear the CD/DVD reader is the weakest part of the laptop (many mechanical moving parts); theses devices are smaller than on desktops.
If a laptop is too small, having live CDs can make the laptop too hot (this happened 3 yrs ago) and make the heath-sensitive touchpad unstable (if one likes touchpads...)....
Besides, if there is only (as I fear) one CD/DVD player, watching films on CDROMS wouldnot be that comfortable....
64 • RE: 52 • Foolproof Linux Desktop? (by IMQ on 2007-01-23 01:26:10 GMT from United States)
Without knowing what his needs are with the computer, it will be hard to find a suitable Linux distro to fill his needs. You need to find out ALL of the things he does with the computer to determine if Linux is for him.
I have been using the following distros and they fit my needs quite nicely: PCLinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS, *buntu, Dreamlinux, Vector, Zenwalk, etc... OK, I am ties to any particular distro because I hop around every few weeks. My needs at the moment are simple:
- Surf the web
- Email
- Listen to music from CD/DVD and sometimes online
- Watch movie from CD/DVD and sometimes online
- Viewing pictures
- Wrting document
- Downloading files (lots and lots of distros :-))
All of the above mentioned distros work for me.
Since many of these are LiveCD, you can always test them out to see if they works for his computer.
IF they all works, why not let him play with them to see if he likes them. To see if all of his needs can be taken care by one of these distros. A KDE-based would be best for him since he is familiar with Windows. I would strongly suggest PCLinuxOS and Kubuntu for this purpose.
Anyway, let us know what solution work for him.
65 • Another Distro... (by JAG on 2007-01-23 01:27:36 GMT from United States)
RE:52 Have you Checked out Puppy...?
66 • hit counter (by jack on 2007-01-23 02:48:12 GMT from Canada)
Compare the number of users on the Kubuntu forum with the number on the Mepislovers forum .
The night that I did there were about 10 times more on the Kubuntu forum than on Mepislovers.
Yet Mepis has more hits than Kubuntu
67 • re 63 olde timer linux (by Nom D. Plume on 2007-01-23 02:50:32 GMT from United States)
If possible, choose a live cd with copy2ram. Popcorn Slax plays DVDs, etc (although I don't know what it is like). We don't know the physical details of the notebook in question. It came with XP, so he could use that for movies. Take out the XP networking so he must reboot and use Linux to get online.
68 • RE: 66 hit counter (by ladislav on 2007-01-23 03:09:56 GMT from Taiwan)
You are comparing a primary Kubuntu forum with a secondary (or tertiary) MEPIS forum? I think it would be more fair if you compared the official Kubuntu forums with the official MEPIS forum at http://www.mepis.org/forum/. Unfortunately, the latter doesn't seem to offer any statistics....
69 • Kubuntu forums (by Buster on 2007-01-23 03:46:32 GMT from Canada)
"Compare the number of users on the Kubuntu forum with the number on the Mepislovers forum .The night that I did there were about 10 times more on the Kubuntu forum than on Mepislovers."
Let's face it. You have to write in a lot with Kubuntu to solve all your computer problems. Mepis just works - so you write only when you want to socialize. (Big grin)
70 • nVidia on PCLinuxOS and an old folks distro (by Fractalguy on 2007-01-23 04:55:35 GMT from United States)
OK, to get the nVidia problem I had out of the way, I found I needed to use frame buffer combined with a cheat code: xres=1280x1024 -- and the desktop came up just fine. However the same trick did not work for "big daddy", the previous release. Maybe something else I wasn't doing. :/
As for using a live CD for its safety and stability, one can start many of these with a standard KNOPPIX cheat code of 'tohd' and a copy of the ISO is stored on a hard disk. Check KNOPPIX for details. Then when ever you boot the livecd use 'fromhd' code so the control is transferred to the hard disk copy. The CD can be removed shortly and be used for music etc. I have used this cheat for long running uptimes on old PCs combined with a USB thumb drive.
The hard disk had three partitions for this: one for swap and two FAT32: for holding the ISO image and the other for file storage in addition (or instead of) to the USB for perminant home. A fourth partition (1st in this case)could have been for Windows, but I didn't need Windows. (hehe). Now with the new unionfs you can even install additional software to fill holes in the live distro. For example, I like to get nvu for html editing. And now some livecds have nvu already, so I look around for something else to play with. :)
71 • Re Foolproof Linux Desktop or "Old Timers Linux" (by rglk on 2007-01-23 04:56:18 GMT from United States)
Re Old Timer's Linux: I don't really want to abandon my 83-year old friend to those leeches from "Geeksquad". I don't know how he managed to get his machine hosed so frequently but I'm certain it wouldn't happen were he to use Linux. I would like to set him up with Linux but I don't want this to become a burden to me.
Just to give you a sense of where he's coming from, he liked Windows 98 and was comfortable with it and he hated Win XP from the beginning because it was "so complicated". Now, I don't think there is any desktop Linux that's any less complicated than Win XP. I think Win XP and KDE and Mac OSX are all equally as complicated, more or less, and Gnome or Xfce or even Fluxbox aren't really any less complicated.
I think I'd go with KDE for him. My strategy would be to collect the three "best" (i.e. potentially best for him) distros as live CD's, demonstrate them to him, see how well they can handle the hardware of his Toshiba laptop and then leave them with him for a week to play around with (I hope he can handle that!). Whichever of these suits him best, I'll then install on his HDD, with LILO or GRUB handling dual-booting into Linux and Win XP.
Last night I downloaded the new PCLinuxOS and ran the live CD on my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop. I'm mighty impressed with it. This will be one of the three live CD's I'll give to him. I also own a copy of Xandros 4 Home Edition Premium that I ran for a few months. It's very easy to install and use and is quite reliable. That might be a good choice, too, and I could pass it on to him.
I've always liked MEPIS and have always been impressed by its ease of use. I have very little experience with using any of the 'buntus - can you folks fill me in on their potential suitability as an Old Timer's Linux? SUSE and Mandriva have taken great strides lately in their ease of use but I don't know much about them. And then there is Freespire that really surprised me with being as good as it was when I checked it out half a year ago. Which of these do you think would be best for an oldtimer who wouldn't even know how to mount a removable external USB flash drive manually or via KwikDisk? I mean, EVERYTHING of the few simple things he does with his computer (listed in post #52) has to JUST WORK for him!
Thanks for your help.
Robert
72 • RE: 71 (by IMQ on 2007-01-23 05:57:08 GMT from United States)
I think the good candidates for the home users are PCLinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS, Kubuntu. The reasons I feel these distros suitable for home users are:
- Seem to work well for all of my hardware (4 PCs + 3 notebooks "P3 + P4")
- Support multimedia with minimal addons via Synaptic or Automatix (for SimplyMEPIS and *buntu)
- Detected and mount USB flashdrive, USB External Harddrive. All the user need to do is to click OK to allow the media to be mounted.
- all 3 have a pretty good community forums for help.
- all 3 look like they are going to be around for at least a few years. At least that is my impression. Especially Kubuntu with the Ubuntu's founder.
- My overall experience with *buntus are they are suitable for home users. My experiece are with using Ubuntu/Kubuntu but very little with Xubuntu.
I went back and looked at your post (#52) but did not see the list of things your friend needs.
I am typing this from a freshly installed PCLinuxOS 2007 Test 1 on a IBM A21m with P3 800MHz and 512MB RAM. Every hardware detected. I am looking forward to the final release projected be end of this month.
However, the only way to know if any of these fits the bill is to actually test it and let your friend play with your help to familiarize himself with Linux. My guess that it would be an easy transition since the point and click is no different than Windows.
73 • old timer (by anonymous on 2007-01-23 06:30:35 GMT from Germany)
Puppy Linux, which someone already mentioned, is quite Win 98-ish as I recall.
PCBSD uses KDE, and if it installs OK it should be stable for a year. You can update it automatically, too.
Installing Linux to hdd can be tricky if an update breaks X -- as happened a couple of times recently for Ubuntu users. Hence a Live CD might be better for a "risky" user.
74 • RE 71 OTLx (by dbrion on 2007-01-23 07:30:22 GMT from France)
Mandriva 20076 is very easy to use for me ( text editing, a DVD movie starts, when inserted, a blank CDs start its burner, service aere easy to configurate) ; the USB keys are automatically mounted, but it does not report "a la Windows" so that one may ignore it is mounted;
Mandriva 2007 does it (Konqueror is started to explore the key). I think it is a "progress" of KDE and Hal, not Mandriva specific specific => any new distr with KDE will have these features...
I have colleagues who use Mandriva 2006 for listening on line, emailing, and try Mandriva 2007 (they are happy with it, but it is young, they never complain but I am not sure they fully tested it) .
For web browsing, any distr can be used (a never upgraded White Box "liberation" with a 2.4 kernel is used by colleagues ).
I do not know whether upgrading is necessary, or even useful :
having changes, if they affect the look or comportment of a PC, can be more perturbing than the risk of malware,which is minimum in Linux (perhaps having 3 boots, one with Windows, one with an version which is upgradedand one as a rescue with the system as it was originally installed and tuned?). Now, disk space is not a great matter on a laptop...
75 • cor 74 (by dbrion on 2007-01-23 07:33:38 GMT from France)
20076 is Mandriva 2006 .
76 • Old Timers and Linux (by welkiner on 2007-01-23 07:37:15 GMT from United States)
Robert,
I make about half of my living keeping computers running for folks somewhat like you described. If they are brave enough to make the leap, I usually use Mepis, Mint, or Ubuntu with Automatix2(works on all three, but I don't think Mint actually needs it) and that usually does the trick....but it does cut me out of a lot of business. Obviously, most don't have the nerve to make the leap, so I have a steady income cleaning up their MSeses 3 to 4 times a year.
wb
77 • Here's A GreatChallenge4DW Followers (by FlyingPenguin on 2007-01-23 09:44:25 GMT from Canada)
"Let's tap the combined brainpower of Gadget Lab* readers to work on the best way to build a central file server at home, and consolidate all those digital files. Post your suggestions and we'll document."
Folks, I copied the above-stated quote from http://www.wired.com which is my 2nd most favourite website, after Distrowatch :-)
I acknowledge that the above-mentioned statement isn't related to Linux per se. However, given the fact that the best servers today are Unix-like servers created by pro-Open Source coders, i thought it would be fitting and beneficial to inform you esteemed DW people about Wired.com's challenging invitation.
Anyway, below is the exact link where you could join this great challenge: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/01/the_home_networ.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Gadget Lab is the name of one of the popular columns on Wired.com
78 • Volunteering to translate in Tamil (the roughly 200 phrases) (by V.Raghunathan on 2007-01-23 10:28:59 GMT from India)
Sub : "...If any readers with the knowledge of other Indian languages are willing to help translating the roughly 200 phrases into their language, please contact us (see the bottom of this page for contact details). Your help would be much appreciated!..."
I would like to volunteer for translation of the said 200 phrases in Tamil. My contact details are furnished above.
79 • re: 71 and Old Timer (by dragonmouth on 2007-01-23 12:18:10 GMT from United States)
If your friend was comfortable with Win 98, why not give it to him instead of Win XP or Linux?
80 • RE: 79 (by Anonymous on 2007-01-23 13:57:53 GMT from Australia)
Win 98 = Zero security (even with Zone Alarm or similar running)
Win 98 = no updates any more - discontinued last year I believe
WinXP-SP2 security (firewall) is not very good but at least its got some thing
81 • #52 & #59 (by ray carter on 2007-01-23 15:58:02 GMT from United States)
FWIW - I installed Mandrake Linux on a set of computers at the local library for use as public access internet computers. Last summer I replaced that with Kubuntu. To date there have been zero complaints and universal acceptance. Last year we did a 'customer satisfaction survey' - no complaints. A number of folks, by their answers, showed us that they were not aware they weren't using MS.
I took my time in preparation for the installs. I did some research; figured everything they could possibly need - and installed them. If you take your time preparing, and set things up properly, he'll never know, and he'll never require assistance.
Since that initial install, I drop by every few weeks to do updates - that's it.
BTW - you'll want to check out 'automatix' if you install *buntu and he's much of a surfer. But you'd be well advised to install for yourself first and work out any 'gotchas'.
82 • 71 (by lmf on 2007-01-23 15:59:41 GMT from United States)
It seems the primary criteria are stability and security.
It appears that looks are not important if he likes Win 98.
Many people will hate me for saying this, but Debian Sarge meets those criteria better than any distribution I've ever seen. You'd have a little more work setting things up, but the probability of a problem are as close to zero as you can get.
Debian Etch will look better and probably be just as stable and secure once it is released (coming soon, hopefully).
If he finds XP to be too complicated, I doubt he would like Mepis with a KDE desktop. That's a disaster waiting to happen. You can install Debian base, then add kde-core to get the desktop, then use Synaptic to add the necessary programs. You can customize the desktop to be as simple as he likes, with just a menu button on the bottom and icons for his programs on the desktop.
You can also set up his machine as dual-boot, so that he can go back to XP if he wishes.
Again, I know some people hate my saying this, but it does not sound like the guy is interested in fancy eye candy and complicated menus with thousands of programs and the possibility of upgrade problems. That sounds like a use for Debian Sarge to me.
83 • Going Microsoft.. (by Kek on 2007-01-23 16:29:13 GMT from Mexico)
After several years using linux ( since 1993 ) I left linux and go to windows. I just got sick of all the same problems and bugs. The same half-done distros. I see each day new and more new distros that doesn't bring nothing new , but the same. I got sick to be treated as a stupid "windows user" , even that is the first time I use windows. Sorry, but I like windows more. Everything "just" works as should be. I don't have the time to fix all the bad design work done by distro developers. I have a live to live.
84 • Wonderful (by Anonymous on 2007-01-23 16:38:35 GMT from United States)
Good to know Kek is no longer using Linux!
Thanks for the update. Your choice of OS had been on my mind for a long time. Now I can get some sleep.
85 • Cheating (by Wild Bill Hiccup on 2007-01-23 17:14:28 GMT from United States)
In regard to Mandrivas cheating attempt - what strikes me is how with a little bit more thought they could have got away with it.
For instance, if they had made it so that only the first 10 or so extra hits were registered per day, then incremented this number upwards by about 5 hits per week, noone would have become suspicious enough to check for the invisible iframe. After several months of such slow incremental increases in the number of hits, Mandriva would be near or at the top of the rankings again.
Instead, they flooded the distrowatch server with over a dozen times more hits than are usually generated! This is laughably stupid, but the serious point is that with more intelligence and subtlety, they (or any other distro) could fairly easily manipulate the rankings to their advantage.
86 • 84 (by john frey on 2007-01-23 17:15:01 GMT from Canada)
You too, anonymous? Wow! I thought I was the only one losing sleep over Kek's lack of a life and obseesion with Linux.
Of course now that he is trolling Distrowatch I will sleep better, eat better and probably switch to MSwindows.
87 • Stop making new distros. At least for a year (by Christophe Olinger at 2007-01-23 18:38:26 GMT from Germany)
Ok, I know it is fun to play around with computers but let's face it. There is no need for new distros. Every flavor that you can imagine already exists. From the pure 100% open source to the OS for the Hard core computer engineers, for the hackers, for the gamers, for the multimedia expert.
Why not join your creativity and knowledge and support an existing linux distro.
I love linux. But frankly:
We are killing it ourselves by confusing new would-be users with tons of distros and by distributing our knowledge to many distros. If we all would just support a dozen or so distros, micros&%!it could stick windoze in their arses. Lets play around later. Now is the time to join teams.
We can show each other how is the best when people have finally accepted linux as a valid alternative.
It just makes me so angry. Stop being egomaniacs and would-be texstars.
Take distrowatch. Cut out the first 25 and support only these. at least for a year.
Its for our own benefit
88 • RE: #80 (by Sponge on 2007-01-23 18:55:06 GMT from Germany)
JFYI, MS Windows 98 SE support was discontinued in 2003. MS Windows ME support was discontinued in 2005.
89 • re 87 new distros (by anonymous on 2007-01-23 19:10:58 GMT from Japan)
This point came up in the FreeSBie interview. Many developers are working in parallel and not in tandem. However, FOSS means "free to do what you want" so people will inevitably want to try their own thing. What is good, is that many distros are developing customisation tools, so ordinary users can recreate their own version of a major distro (specifically optimised for their own systems). In the future this might help consolidate the major distros (or maybe just create an even more bewildering array of spin-offs).
90 • RE 85 Which advantage? (by dbrion on 2007-01-23 19:23:58 GMT from France)
distrs could 'manipulate the rankings to their advantage'
a) From http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070108&mode=10 post 22 one can have a lucid idea the ADVANTAGE a small non commercial distr may get of getting 'popular'....
b) In the case of dists who are at (almost) the same time commercial and cost free : I suppose pple willing to buy have other reasons than a gallup to decide (often they ask themselves questions such as "what will I need within >1 year ? can I do it? who can do it best? " What other ppl think now is of no importance) I suppose their employees have no shares on any button hitting scores...
c) IMvHO The interest of DWW rank scores is a _long term_ interest, as it seems to grow at the same rate as Linux grows:
* if pple are dissatisfied with their version of Linux, they can be very happy to know what has been shipped and consult DWW database: these pple have Linux, but I suppose it is not popular...
* If they are interested, they can consult this database, too; but they do not swear to install Lx (and not to desinstall!)
* If they have Linux, and are fully satisfied, why look for another Linux?
If the conting method remains homogenous, with as little 'cheating' as possible (perhaps reasonnable cheating increases are another index of GNU/linux increase, too, but I would not go that far...), one can use it , cross verified with other indexes, as a proof of Linux growth/ decline
91 • Linux - older users (by octathlon on 2007-01-23 20:07:18 GMT from United States)
I set up a computer for my mother (age 71) as follows: First, I found out everything she wanted to do on it, looking at what programs she was already using (web, email, solitaire, photos, and spreadsheet). I installed SimplyMEPIS and set up an launcher for each application. I tested and made sure everything was working (Flash, mp3's etc.) I also transferred her files, email, and bookmarks from the old system, of course.
Then I just told her: Click this one that looks like a modem to dial up and get online, click this one that looks like an envelope for email, click this one for the web browser, click this to turn off the computer, etc. You might want to make a cheat sheet showing the icon for each task and any reminders or instructions.
She loves MEPIS and has not had any problems or needed any additional help other than getting the printer working right (in contrast to the amount of support I had to do on the old Win98 system). The KDE single-click interface is much easier for older fingers too, by the way.
92 • 86 • 84 re Going Microsoft (by Fractalman on 2007-01-23 20:07:47 GMT from United States)
He'll be back right after he buys his next laptop and runs into "The 5 sins of Vista". LOL
http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/5-sins-of-vista.html
Vista is just another Windows distro, half as baked - twice as expensive.
93 • RE: 83 (by Windows_FanClub on 2007-01-23 20:58:43 GMT from United States)
Welcome to The Club!
Did you know Windows Vista Ultimate Edtion will be available in store at the end of this month.?
For as little as $400.00 USD you can have a shiny new Windows Ultimate experience. To make your experience on your Windows Vista even more enjoyable, it is highly recommended that you get yourself a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Edition for a mere $499 USD. Chump change for years of pleasure running your Vista & Office on your PC.
By the way, uncle Steve and uncle Bill (they are called uncles 'cause it's like family) said "Welcome! And Enjoy The Ride!"
94 • 93 (by Anonymous on 2007-01-23 21:07:49 GMT from United States)
Don't forget the new hardware!
Now you can convince your spouse that you need a fancy new machine with more power than you knew how to use when you were using Linux. That way she will be open to putting off the kid's dentist appointment for a few months. Not that you will be using that power for productive purposes, but you can nevertheless boast to your Linux friends about what's under the hood of your new machine. $1000 should get a decent laptop with all the right features.
95 • just few things (by Werewolf on 2007-01-23 21:27:03 GMT from Romania)
RE : #47
I'm agree with your point "We cannot have 500 half-brocken distros ". And this situation it's gona stay as long as the developers of distro's like ubuntu's x,multimedia,cristian etc flavour, will not realize that two (heads) are better than one, and merge their projects resulting an better a better distro (hopefully).
RE: 73
Win 98-ish? In what way? Bacause it has JWM? There are pupplets like rudy which come with KDE or XFCE. Because of it's menu? it's meant for newbies with old machines.
I saw that ValEnt Linux apearred and it's a PCLOS based distro. Come on!.What's that ? PCLOS is still experimental ! why those dev didn't join the pclos team ? (i've tried pclos .93 only in live mode , but i have a partition with his name on it, as soon as .94 is released :))
Thank you Vladislav for your good work!
ps: I know that's not simple,easy etc and it has been proposed, but this site really need a forum .
96 • re 95 on puppy's gui (by Anonymous on 2007-01-23 21:50:33 GMT from United States)
Puppy is designed to offer linux power to users with a win 95/98 mindset (this is good). See the wikipedia comment at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_linux:
"Puppy has recently become window manager independent. Most of the Live-CDs include one of two X Window System managers: JWM (recent releases) and/or FVWM95 (older releases), which provides an interface akin to Windows 95 with a modern-looking appearance."
Note also, puppy supports live cd mode with cd/dvd writeable disks for persistent storage.
97 • Re 95 (by Kek on 2007-01-23 22:15:04 GMT from Mexico)
I agree with you 100%. I got sick of distros based on experimental distros, and more more distros. This is killing Linux, and only servers for developers ego, not the users.
Christian distro? What now? 7 adventist heaven distro or maybe "not so cheetah distro" or "Linux left users distro" based on "Linux right distro" which is based on "central politics Linux users distro"?.
I not saying that windows is better or worst than Linux, if Linux wants to be a wide used OS must be more coherent and easier for use. Each Linux distro has its tricks or way to configure. Common user doesn't need to struggle with the OS. The OS works for the user. Not the other way.
98 • 52, 71, Old Folks OS (by Zeep on 2007-01-23 22:47:37 GMT from United States)
I think Mepis and Xandros are both good contenders. Kubuntu is nice, but only after you run Automatix. You definitely should not discount Puppy, certainly worth a try. Mandriva 2007 and the new PCLinuxOS (at the end of this month) are probably also very good. Elive looks a bit different, but it's pure Debian and done very neatly.
I think 91's method of setting up and testing is very good too, whichever distro you choose.
Kubuntu was my primary for almost a year, but I ultimately gave it up because of touchpad and video config issues.
Puppy is a solid little distro that doesn't try to be all things to all people -- it just tries to do just enough of everything for most folks. It's quick and responsive and very clever. It's not KDE (it's the tiny, solid, JWM) but it feels very much like Win98 done right.
Mandriva 2007 is my primary now because it wowed me with it's full support for my pretty demanding laptop hardware.
PCLinuxOS 2007 will probably be my primary once it's officially released.
Elive uses the Enlightenment manager -- it is fast and well configured and runs very well on both new and old hardware. I don't think it's quite complete just yet, but each release is solid and it may be that all the functionality your friend needs is already built in.
I really love the new Xgl/Agilx stuff in these new distroes, but I'd recommend you turn it off for your friend.
Good luck!
99 • RE: 94 (by Windows_FanClub on 2007-01-23 22:48:43 GMT from United States)
No, I did not forget about the new hardware.
And you really spoil it for the Windows new comer by telling it. New hardware is just one of the many "excitements" and "discoveries" in the World of Vista. Especially the Ultimate one.
I bet the new Window noobie didn't know that Windows is the greatest OS for sharing in the world. Noobie get free Virus, Trojan, and the friendly Spyware from friends they didn't know they have all over the world.
Just for using Windows!
Keep in touch with Microsoft is never been so easy. Vista will do this automatically for you with phone home feature built right into Vista. For free. It's one of the many "innovations" from Microsoft to "enhance" the users experience.
Just for running Windows!
100 • re 96 97 (by Werewolf on 2007-01-23 22:57:44 GMT from Romania)
re: #96 I like Puppy (it's an exelent resscue cd too).In my first post i was saying that even Puppy come with JWM as a wm, it don't look Win 98-ish to me . This is my opinion.
re: # 97 I gave PCLOS as an example because even this (great distro imo) is still experimental, few developers thought of making another pclos distro based, instead of joining or supporting this project.
101 • RE: 85 Cheating (by ladislav on 2007-01-23 23:51:49 GMT from Taiwan)
I don't think that would have worked. I check the list of referrers almost every day, especially those that come from distribution pages, for any signs of foul play. Besides, 10 extra hits per day on the Mandriva page would make very little difference to the distro's position - they would have to almost double what they are getting now for several weeks just to move up one place.
What worries me more about Mandriva is the fact that they hire a person who then goes fooling around with Mandriva's main web pages, yet their paid-for Mandriva Club pages have been half-broken for years, but nobody bothers to fix them! Where is the "remember me" button when logging in to the Club? Why do I have to login again into the forum after logging into the Club when both use the same username and password? Why do I always have to select "English" as my preferred forum language despite having my preferences stored in my profile? And once I select English as my preferred forum language, why do I get French posts when searching the forum? Why is the "Recently Viewed" sidebar always empty? There are many more things that just don't work and haven't worked for ages!
One really has to wonder about Mandriva's hiring policies. First, they employ people who write on a public weblog that they'll never use Linux on their desktops, now we have a person who spends time adding malicious iframes to the Mandriva web site instead of fixing what is broken.
OK, enough ranting for one day. Mandriva 2007 is a very nice distro, by the way.
102 • RE. Here's A GreatChallenge4DW Followers (by Anonymous on 2007-01-24 00:09:42 GMT from United States)
FreeNAS works but is a bit tricky to install especially on a USB key.
103 • Kannada translation (by Bryan & Soosaiammal Siegfried on 2007-01-24 00:14:05 GMT from United States)
If no one steps up to the plate for the Kannadigas, my wife and I might take a stab at a Kannada translation. We would need the English phrases, but the Tamil phrases from #78 would help, too!
104 • RE: 100 (by Kek on 2007-01-24 00:16:01 GMT from Mexico)
Agree with you PCLinuxOS is one of the best distros, but unfortunately not all my hardware works with it easily.And the problem is that very few developers are working on this distro, instead of joining it, people just make another distro based on it (I think there is already 4 or 5 distros based on PCLinuxOS). And that's the problem I see lately with linux . Too much distributions, too much effort put on new distros and new fancy things instead of fix the same old bugs that people keep reporting again and again.
105 • Simple Distro (by Anonymous on 2007-01-24 00:22:20 GMT from United States)
If the user can not handle PCLinuxOS with KDE. I'd try xbuntu or Freespire with XFCE. Then if that will not work with him go to Puppy or DSL..
I don't know if any of these will reliably read/write to a NTFS (WinXP) partion but for PCLinuxOS you will want 5GB set aside just for programs that he would download. I set aside 4gb and it is getting tight already with the things he wants to try out. He is like a kid in the candy (Symantic) store.
106 • Linux for the "oldies" (by Bryan on 2007-01-24 00:50:59 GMT from United States)
When you are talking about Linux for an older person, what we really mean in complete newbies. In this case, someone who can use a computer but is unlikely to even go past the installed software.
There are lots of options out there, but I would honestly say the easiest and most reliable solution is kubuntu with Automatix2. You can install all the major codecs, even java, flash, windows, etc with a few clicks and a little time. Any ubunbtu would work, but Windows refugees will feel more at home with the look of KDE. Ubuntu can be set to take security updates without any involvement of the person using the computer. If you do regular updates, Automatix is installing for repositories, so you can rely on them to install new versions of flash, etc. once they work the kinks out.
However, in your friend's case I may make one startling propostion: turn off updates and only do it yourself when or if you have time. A linux (or mac) with no updates and no firewall is still going to be much more secure than most windows machines. No updates means no snafus (xserver or whatever).
107 • linux for "oldie" computers (by trvce on 2007-01-24 01:52:31 GMT from United States)
Hi everyone
I am currently a windows user who would like to switch to linux. I have a 2001 Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop, Pentium III 866 MHz w/ 256 MB of RAM.
I have heard great things about linux and am frustrated with the vulnerability of windows to threats. I have also found that Windows XP is annoyingly sluggish (takes 5 seconds for Internet Explorer to load, etc.) and was wondering if a Linux could speed up the way I do things.
I would need it for word processing, image editing, ripping/burning cd's, internet browsing and email, and if possible, AIM with Skype with video. I mainly want an OS that can do these things, will not crash, and will be quick to boot, run the programs, and shut down. Sleep mode would also be a plus.
Does anyone have any recommendations on a good Linux for these kinds of tasks?
Thank you all. - Richard
108 • re 102 FreeNAS (by Anonymous on 2007-01-24 02:12:58 GMT from Germany)
For USB FreeNAS storage, maybe try using the preconfigured VMware FreeNAS machine and add an extra drive on a USB key (rather than put FreeNAS on the USB media).
109 • RE: 107 (by IMQ on 2007-01-24 03:42:03 GMT from United States)
Welcome to the world of Linux!
I would suggest trying out LiveCD from PCLinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS (commonly called MEPIS), Kubuntu, and Mint to see which one may fit the bill for you.
If it's possible, try adding more RAM to your laptop.
I have one of those oldies Pentium III 800MHz laptop with 512MB running nicely PCLinuxOS 2007 Test1. It looks like a winner for this laptop. I also have Dreamlinux 2.2 MME, VectorLinux 5.8, Zenwalk 4.2, and Wolvix 1.0.5 installed on this laptop. All work fine so far. These distros have XFCE for desktop instead of KDE.
The distros I suggested have a large pool of applications available. You will have a better chance of finding the apps you need.
Good luck!
110 • RE 102 : Modern Linux on a 256 M laptop (by dbrion on 2007-01-24 07:13:29 GMT from France)
The big problem I see is that , for image editing for ex., you need some memory. Even with xfce (takes about 150 Mo to start, instead of ~190 for kde -in a minimalist conception-) I do not know if you are willing to make sophisticated treatments wich need their own memory.... For a desktop, changing memory is very simple, for a laptop, I must go to a skilled installer (too many tiny screws) and it is expensive.
The vulnerabiliy of Windows can be fixed with system rescue CDs (+ ultimate boot Cd +... [see DWW for a complete list of maintenance/ rescue linuxes]) or with clamav you find in knoppixes (if they can start; anyway, it wonot be as fast as windows or installed Lx(live CDs are much slower than installed linuxes, I could speed it up somehow by adding memory (512 Mo -> 1G), but, if you do not want to upgrade mem., you should be conscient of that.
Perhaps, with DSL or puppy, you can find and test all you need with a very small mem print (some version of Damn Small Linux had a 30 M memory print, but I did not test the last...) It seems worth trying without installing (and you can decide after).
As for hibernation, ? Perhaps one Lx will has/have a solution this yr, perhaps next yr (as there are more laptops bought than desktops now, there is a growing demand....) Laptops on Linux have poor power management, and it improves slowly (but really: sometimes laptops, when running under Linux, had no power management at all and went into fan-roaring burning boxes...see http://www.unix.privat.t-online.de/acpi.html for the principle) Fixes were known in 2005.. but IMO it is far beyond decent sleeping modes...
111 • Re: #110 • Modern Linux on a 256 M laptop (by Ariszló on 2007-01-24 10:34:55 GMT from Hungary)
With a swap partition, 256 MB of RAM should be enough.
112 • RE 111With a swap partition, 256 MB of RAM should be enough (by dbrion on 2007-01-24 11:33:18 GMT from France)
It depends :
* if you want your computer _not to compute _, it is obviously too much.
* For classical treatments (mail, IT browsing) 256 M are fairly enough (the user has 56 M left). The swap partition is then used as a safeguard if there is a memory leak, some huge mails, etc..
* Now, suppose you have a 300 M image you (wisely) want to undersample, or a 300 M database. If you use swap, response times will be very great and erratic, ( one should also think a disk has a given life expectancy, which depends on heath and perhaps on read/write cycles, as they imply mechanical movement; disks have a power consumption, too, which is(/was???) badly managed under Linux for some laptops).
If you think of memory consumption and computing speed, you can
a) know how long it will last (a second, an hour, a night, a week):
with swap, it unpredictable,as sometimes your computer stops computing... to do IO.
b) know whether you have to add swap or not, in desparate cases.
Some image processings might be as memory greedy than what I evoked , and thus image processing, in RE 107 made me very uneasy.
113 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-01-24 12:08:09 GMT from Germany)
Posted by IMQ (#109) >> I would need it for word processing, image editing, ripping/burning cd's, internet browsing and email, and if possible, AIM with Skype with video. I mainly want an OS that can do these things, will not crash, and will be quick to boot, run the programs, and shut down. Sleep mode would also be a plus.<<
All you ask for GNU/Linux can do, but Skype will crash and the boot-time is not fast, or better, not faster than MS Windows XP. To get decent performance out of old hardware you have to compromise. That means, use lightweight software which is either old, feature deprived or not quite hassle-free to setup. Note, i don't think that XFCE4 is lightweight.
As much as it pains me to write this, it has to be said: dbrion has some good points. GNU/Linux on laptops is not for the faint of heart. While your old laptop probably will run without many hassles, getting it there is another story. You have to have time and interest in getting GNU/Linux to work on a laptop.
114 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-01-24 12:09:13 GMT from Germany)
My bad, previous post quotes #107.
115 • Re: 107 (by Simon on 2007-01-24 13:21:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
I had a similar age Dell Inspiron 2500 up to 6 motnhs ago (celery 900Mhz, 256 RAM) on which I ran variously SUSE - up to 10.0 and Kubuntu (Dapper) with no real problems. They weren't mega-fast but ok, Kubuntu was a little faster than SUSE, at least for boot. Based on my experience I don't see why you cant' run KDE or Gnome on that hardware.
So, suggestions: (K)ubuntu, MEPIS, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, SUSE in no particular order. SUSE might be a little heavier than the others and not come with so much hardware/video/audio support out of the box for legal/moral issues
116 • Re: Now, suppose you have a 300 M image (by Ariszló on 2007-01-24 13:52:43 GMT from Hungary)
That's huge. Obviously you need a lot of RAM to edit it but why do you think trvce wants to edit images of that size?
117 • a 300 M image is not that huge (by dbrion on 2007-01-24 14:20:11 GMT from France)
Google SRTM and you will find 10 and 30 meter resolutions elevation maps for the US, 100 m for the rest of the World... In France, as it is not square, it makes 10*1000(km)*10000 pixels=> 100 M...
No one wants to edit manually images of this size, but subsamplig them may be quite memory greedy. This is ONE satellite channel. How many other satellite channels exist? (some of the image may vary with time, such as chlorophyl-linked wavelength, etc...) and may become public....
If, one year, someone is interested, I think any PC running on Linux (or Windows with Mingw/Cygwin) can treat them, but one must be reasonably cautious with memory consumption and basic algorithms.
118 • I would like a list of cheaters. (by Jon Mason on 2007-01-24 15:28:41 GMT from United States)
Any distribution that cheats consistently over a long period of time, might be a distribution that I should avoid. Using GNU/Linux is about fair play and doing good. I want the managers of my favorite distribution to have good morals and ethics.
The intern at Mandriva probably made his/her mistake out a lack of experience and familiarity with the GNU way. I hope that Mandriva gives this person a second chance.
119 • 107 (by Anonymous on 2007-01-24 15:52:07 GMT from United States)
First of all, you should try Linux to see if you would like it. This should be done using a live cd, such as available from Ubuntu or PCLinux, or using VMWare, though your laptop does not have enough memory for reasonable performance in vmware. If you hate Linux when it boots up, do not waste any time installing it.
I have such a laptop, and understand what you mean by performance issues in XP. If you want to wipe XP off the hard drive, I recommend installing Xubuntu, though you might dislike the interface. I assure you, most distros will give better performance.
However, please be aware that you will save your computer and in the long run a lot of time, but you will have to sink a few hours as you should expect when changing OS. Linux is better but not always in the short term. The investment is something to do on weekends perhaps.
The Ubuntu forums are wonderful, the Ubuntu documentation and new user guide very helpful, and google gives a lot of useful information, maybe because ubuntu is popular among those who work for google. (If you do not know Kubuntu, Ubuntu, and Xubuntu are the same thing, just with a different desktop environment.) Google will give you information about Automatix2, and Synaptic will install the open source software you need. If all else fails, the ubuntu forums are very friendly.
Happy hunting.
120 • Any ETA for Etch? (by linbetwin on 2007-01-24 17:07:10 GMT from Romania)
When will Etch be released? When Debian developers fight the whole world knows, but you don't see any news about the release date for Etch.
The number of release-critical bugs never goes below 90 and I think it should be no more than 80 for them to release. If that is the case, I'm afraid that's not going to happen soon.
121 • Helpful guides for Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS (by Fractalguy on 2007-01-24 17:17:05 GMT from United States)
There are several very good free help documents on the web. For example, since we are talking about Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS, I have found this useful... Unofficial Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) Starter Guide:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy
And for PCLinuxOS:
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/HomePage
and
PCLinuxOS_User_Guide.pdf:
http://www.mypclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=1&Itemid=26
122 • RE:107 (by h3rman on 2007-01-24 19:45:54 GMT from Europe)
I'm now running the latest Zenwalk on a Celeron 433 Mhz 256MB RAM 6GB HDD laptop from 1999 (I added RAM). It has an Xfce desktop which is responsive enough even on this low-end system.
Power management works, it boots fast, it's stable (because of its Slackware base), it's "lean and mean". The laptop has defective USB and a bad screen, so I can't judge that very well.
Installing software with Slackware requires some extra reading, but it's actually much worth the effort.
123 • Old Folks Linux - Foolproof Linux Desktop (by rglk on 2007-01-24 19:58:48 GMT from United States)
Thanks to all who responded to my query (#52 & 71) about the "best" Linux distro for a computer-illiterate old timer. A lot of good suggestions were put forward! Here's an interim report on my project of finding the "best" distro.
One quick observation first. I think there's a difference between an old timer (i.e. a person above the age of 70 or 80) and a much younger computer newbie. Old people generally don't really want to learn ANYTHING about a computer, how it works or many details of how to get to use it to its full potential, They just want to USE it, with minimum hassle. Younger people, even if they start from a blank slate, are generally more open to accepting that one has to learn quite a few technical and usage details if one wants to use some of the marvels of modern technology. Just think of cell phones, remote control units for TV sets, video recorders, home entertainment systems, etc.
My 83-year old friend is a retired professor of physics who taught Computer Science 101 decades ago. Yet he doesn't know how the mass storage devices in his modern laptop are organized, i.e. what the differences are between RAM, the internal HDD, the optical drive and external USB flash memory drives. He doesn't even know how to archive his photos by burning them to a CD or DVD.
My objective then is to find a Linux desktop distro that can be used and enjoyed by someone who is almost completely computer illiterate and not interested in learning about computers nor willing to go to distro forums for advice. This distro should work without a hitch on a very recent laptop with plenty of computing power (Toshiba Satellite M55-S3314, Pentium M 740, 1.7 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, DVD/CD-RW drive, etc.) and require no technical support for months and months, beyond the initial installation and setup.
It should support all of the hardware of his laptop (incl. WiFi: Intel Pro/Wireless 2200 BG) and the following functionalities: web browsing, email, viewing and possibly editing photos, playing multimedia (watching movies and videos and listening to streaming audio), burning CD's and DVD's, backing up his data, installing security upgrades without problems, implementing a decent firewall, etc. I'm placing a premium on simplicity and ease of use, stability, and freedom from neverending little problems that would require my constant ongoing support.
I rejected Puppy and SUSE. Puppy is optimized for machines with limited hardware resources and relies on a lot of apps that are not in the mainstream of the average bloated Linux desktop. If he gets lost in Rox filer, helping him over the phone would be a pain for me. I know and use KDE, so I'll go with that for him. KDE is easy to use if one only uses 5% of all that it can do.
I'll be using live CD's in order to check distro compatibilty on his laptop. SUSE doesn't offer a live CD. They'll release a live DVD for v.10.2 soon but I don't want to spend two days using bittorrent to download such an overkill of a 2+ GB DVD.
I've spent quite a few hours so far downloading and test running the most recent versions of some additional 6 or 7 candidate distros on my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop (some of these I already had on CD). Kubuntu 6.10 displayed various nagging little problems. Same for LinuxMint 2.1 which quickly crashed my machine. Mandriva 2007.0-One-Metisse.i586 also crashed my laptop but the preceding version (Mandriva One 2007 from Oct. 2006) worked fine in initial testing.
Freespire is getting closer to releasing v.2.0. I tested FreeSpire v.1.0.13, and it passed the first somewhat cursory screening which I did with the kind of clueless person in mind who will be the recipient of this Linux distro. PCLinuxOS 2007 Test 1 and SimplyMEPIS v.6.0.4 beta3 also passed that first screening reasonably well.
To sum up: PCLinuxOS, MEPIS, Mandriva and Freespire are in the running, and my first impression is that their likely usability for my friend's purposes decreases in about that order, i.e. PCLinuxOS might be the winner, with MEPIS following closely behind.
Next step: more extensive testing on my Dell laptop to spot potential weaknesses, then take these distros over to my friend's laptop, test them there, install the winner on his HDD, and let him use it for some time and hopefully not get a single call from him, unless it's a call of enthusiastic approval.
I'll keep you posted.
Robert
124 • re 123 • Old Folks Linux (by Fractalguy on 2007-01-24 20:30:52 GMT from United States)
I read there were some problems with Kubuntu 6.06 at the time and note they releases a 6.06.1 of ubuntu. Then I was using 5.10 Ubuntu on my old P450 (256Mb RAM) with no problems, so I figured rather than new install, I'd upgrade online. That went suprisingly well. And since I favor KDE (Kubuntu 51.0 was not mature) I checked into adding that desktop onto the upgraded setup. That too went well and I found I could log into either desktop and make either my favorite. In fact, one can log back and forth without rebooting, just log out and log in. All my files were there either way. And I can run many programs from either side, like gedit from KDE.
That said, I find the recent test releases of Ubuntu ahead of Kubuntu (this is specially visible in gNewSense's two version). So, you might take a look at installing Ubuntu and adding KDE to it, have the best of both. The amount of additional disk space should not be an issue, I'm running on 6 year old tech with that box. Oh, and I gave it 1GB swap even tho most recommend 2x the RAM. I figured I might double my RAM later. This came in handy when Firefox 1.5.0.9 ran off with the memory leak using all of RAM and swap less about 40MB. I was able to recover without rebooting, took 10 slow hours. :) I don't see Firefox 2.0 in the 6.06 repos, so I may be looking to upgrade to 6.04 when it is ready.
Having both GNOME and KDE can give you some additional choice for apps, even if the KDE desktop is up all the time, as is mine.
125 • Re: 123. Old Folks Linux (by rarsa on 2007-01-24 20:35:44 GMT from Canada)
And while you are at it, why not find a car where he does not have to learn to drive, read road signs, change oil or fill up with gas himself? I'll save you the trouble. It is called a taxi.
My point is: The computer as well as the car are complex machines. If he does not want to learn to use it he will need someone to drive him around. So he either learns or depends on someone else.
I don't think that is a problem. Many people are technically iliterate in computers and can do wonderful things with them. If there is an issue, they call someone else to resolve it for them.
You won't find the holly grail because the solution does not lie on the distro, but on the problem domain.
I would suggest to search for a distro that you feel comfortable with, If you are going to be helping him or for which he can easily find hired support.
I think that's what people mean when they say that Windows or Mac are easier. It's just the fact that they can find support easily.
Think about this and maybe you'll already have a solution for your friend. I thought about this and found a solution for my mother (the mythological grandma).
126 • RE: 123 (by h3rman on 2007-01-24 20:42:25 GMT from Europe)
I'd also suggest, if graphics card permits, to use Compiz as a window manager with AIGLX/XGL.
Disable the cube and wobbly windows, but keep the "Expose" effect (almost same as in OS X).
It's very intuitive to be able to move the mouse to the right upper corner, see all the windows that are open, and then click the one you want.
127 • thanks for comments! (re: 107) (by trvce on 2007-01-24 21:26:24 GMT from United States)
Hi All,
Thanks for all your helpful comments. I will look into Ubuntu and possibly think about adding some RAM, although I worry it may be a big process for this computer. I won't be editing very big images (juts 5 megabytes or so) so I'm not too worried about that. I also forgot to mention that this computer has the NVIDIA Geforce2Go card, which might speed things up.
I really like the idea of linux, and I think it might be a good side project for me to keep going. It also seems that if I ever have a question, there are a lot of really nice people using linux who might be willing to help.
Also, I don't know if any of you are linux developers, but a sleep mode for linux would be really great. I usually keep my laptop plugged in and am not always worried about energy management in general, but usually when I go to bed I put the laptop in sleep, and it starts up much faster the next day. Most other students I know also do this.
Thanks again to all of you, and I hope to see you on the "other side" of the OS.
128 • PCLinuxOS (by trvce on 2007-01-24 21:31:27 GMT from United States)
I may also try PCLinuxOS as I get used to linux, but from what I can see on various websites, it seems like Ubuntu is extremely popular and a good "introductory linux."
129 • RE: 127 ("Sleep Mode") (by h3rman on 2007-01-24 22:19:05 GMT from Europe)
Also, I don't know if any of you are linux developers, but a sleep mode for linux would be really great. I usually keep my laptop plugged in and am not always worried about energy management in general, but usually when I go to bed I put the laptop in sleep, and it starts up much faster the next day.
On the Fedora Core 5 system I installed last year, (in Gnome), Shut Down > Hibernate is a few clicks away.
130 • Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS (by Jere7miah on 2007-01-24 23:10:58 GMT from United States)
#128
I would give both a try. Don't rate a distro off of popularity. Ubuntu has the means to send free CDs to everybody because they have the money backing. Not to say that they're a bad distro not at all. I just want to point out that other distros like PCLinuxOS do not have the money backing to send out free CDs so the may seem less popular but may be just as much as up to the task as ubuntu based distros. It's always stunned me that PCLinuxOS a beautiful spin off of Mandriva has almost over taken then in Distrowatch ratings, with no where near the backing with development or funding that most of the distros have at that level.
131 • Foolproof Old Timer's Linux Desktop (by rglk on 2007-01-25 01:18:11 GMT from United States)
I may be on the right track in my effort to find the ideal computer-illiterate Old Timer's Linux distro.
In response to a query from an 80-year old correspondent, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols a few months ago answered the question "which are the best Linuxes for someone who just wants to get out of the Windows horror-show and use their PC without security worries."
"Without any question in my mind," he said, "for people who just want a working PC, and could care less about the differences between KDE and GNOME" ... these are SimplyMEPIS, Xandros Home Edition Premium and Freespire.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5272648562.html
Robert
132 • Distrowatch cheating (by anonymous on 2007-01-25 01:37:33 GMT from United States)
Ladislav,
1) Ubuntu use to link to Distrowatch in the same way two years ago: i.e. click to get a list of the software included in the distribution. This worked for them to get their page hit ranking up, plus other paid hits by paid employees ("astroturfers").
2) You let Suse "cheat" two months ago.
3) The whole thing is absurd. Distrowatch page hit rankings act as a proxy for usage statistics because no one does a scientific survey without "cheating".
Ubuntu was successful two years ago at using distrowatch and other forums to bootstrap their popularity. None of it is fair and none of it is cheating. It's marketing, plain and simple. It's smart.
Let it go.
133 • RE: 132 Distrowatch cheating (by ladislav on 2007-01-25 01:49:15 GMT from Taiwan)
It's one thing if a distribution posts a link to DistroWatch and clearly states that the link provides a third-party list of the main packages in that distro, but it's a completely different thing if a distribution embeds an invisible DistroWatch page onto one of their most visited web pages.
If you can't see the difference between the two then I am sorry, I don't know how to explain it better.
The basic rule is straightforward: if you want to link to DistroWatch, you are most welcome, but do so without misleading your visitors. Plain and simple.
134 • here's a link to the ubuntu faq linking distrowatch from 2004 (by anonymous on 2007-01-25 02:04:25 GMT from United States)
https://docteam.ubuntu.com/repos/tags/ubuntu-docs-0.4/faqguide/faqguide.xml
Quote:
Where to find a list of all the programs/libraries
that comes with Ubuntu?
Distrowatch has
a list
Result of dpkg -l: url="&ubuntu-dpkg;&ubuntu-dpkgfile;"
>Here
As Shuttleworth said when Ubuntu made it to #1 on distrowatch in April 2005: "Thanks to all the team including ... for their efforts ...".
135 • And here is the link hidden in the Ubuntu documentation: (by anonymous on 2007-01-25 02:12:24 GMT from United States)
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc-commits/2006-August/002729.html
So, a hit here and and a hit there when people search thru their Ubuntu documentation. Combined with a concerted effort by early supporters and you get a big page hit rise, followed by future revenue.
Not that there is anything wrong with this. Just that everyone does it.
136 • Ubuntu getting started link: (by anonymouns on 2007-01-25 02:23:24 GMT from United States)
And finally this page by Benjamin Mako Hill included in the documentation called, strangely enough, "getting started"
http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~mako/docteam/faqguide/ar01s02.html
"
4.
Where to find a list of all the programs/libraries that comes with Ubuntu?
*
Distrowatch has a list
*
"
137 • RE: 135, 136 (by ladislav on 2007-01-25 02:34:47 GMT from Taiwan)
You give me a couple of obscure links that very few people visit and expect me to take your claim seriously? Please have a look at how many people clicked on them this month:
http://distrowatch.com/awstats/awstats.DistroWatch.com.refererpages.html
That's right, exactly zero. And the number of clicks from the Ubuntu Guide page stands at 118 for this month, which represents 0.2% of all clicks on the Ubuntu page.
Sorry, you'll have to provide better evidence than just claim that "paid Ubuntu employees" have been inflating the numbers.
138 • Puppy Alpha testers welcome (by Lobster on 2007-01-25 08:58:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
The Alpha (Puppy Barbie) will be released shortly for testers
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy214
New features include a Package Manager (PET), FireFox 2 enhanced browser and the usual ease of use improvements
139 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-01-25 13:32:07 GMT from France)
"On the Fedora Core 5 system I installed last year, (in Gnome), Shut Down > Hibernate is a few clicks away.
"
It shows that at least one switch in a mouse is working.
Does it really lead to sleep.
Is it a suspend to ram or suspend to disk sleep?
How can the 'suspend to disk' work in a swapless Linux ?
(I install with a minimal swap , not only because it is my freeedom, but
* because disk space is limited on laptops.
* swap recovery may be long (10 hrs in RE 124.... that makes many mouse clicks) and I do not want to wait that time to detect top memory leaks -and to remove them, if I did not write them, else to fix-)
This is the difference btw a button and a _decent_ sleeping mode ( and I did not write about awakening..)
140 • No subject (by dbrion on 2007-01-25 13:32:18 GMT from France)
"On the Fedora Core 5 system I installed last year, (in Gnome), Shut Down > Hibernate is a few clicks away.
"
It shows that at least one switch in a mouse is working.
Does it really lead to sleep.
Is it a suspend to ram or suspend to disk sleep?
How can the 'suspend to disk' work in a swapless Linux ?
(I install with a minimal swap , not only because it is my freeedom, but
* because disk space is limited on laptops.
* swap recovery may be long (10 hrs in RE 124.... that makes many mouse clicks) and I do not want to wait that time to detect top memory leaks -and to remove them, if I did not write them, else to fix-)
This is the difference btw a button and a _decent_ sleeping mode ( and I did not write about awakening..)
141 • Re. 50 (by UZ64 on 2007-01-25 14:10:25 GMT from United States)
"How many times will we see ISP virus warnings with the advice to try an OS that isn't plagued with viruses? Never, probably. Any internet service provider offering security advice should certainly recommend the *NIX fix."
At least once. :)
A while back, I received an e-mail from my ISP (Earthlink) promoting Linux and other free software, about how you could be free of viruses, spyware, adware, etc. So obviously they're not *all* that bad. I got the email quite a while back though, but it was extremely positive, and very informative to a Windows user. I was pleasantly surprised... it would be nice to see this kind of stuff more often.
That was the *only* message I ever received from a major company, who recommended trying out alternative operating systems to totally rid the system of viruses and other malware; instead of recommending downloading more crap to combat it, not actually "solving" the problem in the first place. Probably the only such message I'll receive in a good long while, too. Earthlink gets some props from me on that one.
142 • ISP's (by lmf on 2007-01-25 15:50:59 GMT from United States)
Speaking of ISP's, a year ago my mother changed ISP's as her old one went bankrupt. I wanted to set up Thunderbird, so I made a list of things for her to ask tech support as I went to run some errands. When I got back, she told me that the ISP only supports getting email with MS Outlook. I said that doesn't make any sense. I called and he told me the same thing. I said it shouldn't matter which client I use. The guy insisted that I could only use Outlook. So I said "Okay, help me to set up Outlook". I wrote down the info I needed, hung up the phone, and set up Thunderbird. The thing to remember is that most of the people working for ISP's are imbeciles who know nothing about computers. To them, OS means Windows and word processor means MS Word. Hoping they recommend Linux is quite a lot.
143 • re 141 ISPs (by Anonymous on 2007-01-25 20:33:38 GMT from United States)
Unbelievable! It seems to be a past era for Earthlink as they now offer proprietary security solutions. And in their glossary, the web browser definition includes the following:
"Examples of common Web browsers are Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Safari."
144 • old timers and LTSP (by Anonymous on 2007-01-25 21:57:00 GMT from United States)
Why not hook your old timer up to a terminal server you are running locally, if you have the bandwidth? That way, you can fix it locally. Could be a back-up option if he does manage to break his local machine (as any self-respecting old timer can do at any time).
145 • budgetlinuxcds.com (by Anonymous on 2007-01-25 23:18:19 GMT from United States)
I don't know if anyone knows this or not but...
www.budgetlinuxcds.com
is gone. It was one the first placed I'd shop when I wanted a new distro when I had dialup. It will be missed.
146 • RE:139/140 (by h3rman on 2007-01-26 01:34:24 GMT from Europe)
>>"On the Fedora Core 5 system I installed last year, (in Gnome), Shut Down > Hibernate is a few clicks away."
>" It shows that at least one switch in a mouse is working.
Does it really lead to sleep.
Is it a suspend to ram or suspend to disk sleep?
How can the 'suspend to disk' work in a swapless Linux ?"
Yes, it seems part of the mouse works. :)
In my system, it leads to hibernation. Suspend to disk/swap, therefore.
So, I guess what you want is suspend to RAM. Sorry, I'm not in the kernel team. ;) I might like that too. It's one of the things I really like about my iBook that it's sleep works very well.
A swapless system is, by the way, not very much recommended. What are you going to do when your system crashes because some disobedient apps are eating all your RAM? You state above that you don't have much HDD space. However, most older systems even with low RAM have a relatively decent amount of HDD space.
Say you have 64MB of RAM and a 6GB HDD, you can surely miss 128MB of the HDD for swap, I suppose.
Yet indeed, some work on suspend to RAM must be done, I suppose.
147 • RE 146 : Thanks for the info (by dbrion on 2007-01-26 15:11:41 GMT from France)
This was what I feared: there is no 'susoend to RAM (ie CPU dozing, but without interfernce with the HD). Now, you seem intrigued why I do not want swap (my laptop has no IT connection [it would be idiotic in the case of a dual boot with Windows XP the other system, to back up Linuxes blunders with Cygwin/Mingw ], if it were,I do not deny the interest of swap) :
<< What are you going to do when your system crashes because some disobedient apps are eating all your RAM? >>
a) I do not want to do anything.
b) I want the disobedient app (without S) to _be detected_ (for removal / fix) ASAP.
c) I use "top" to monitor the apps I introduce, once at a time.
d) If I forget to babysit "top", the most rapid detection remaining is a crash out of RAM starvation...
This happens once or twice a year (I mainly program in Fortran, but I depend on C(--) programs, and I may introduce misspellings...)
This is not as wild as you may think : if I use my laptop as a testing tool for apps who are meant for a 6GB RAM -to day- White Box operated server, with 20 potential users (this means ~300M RAM per user, in the worst /* and equitable */ case, else, one can negociate, but one needs numbers...), colleagues and I would have unpleasant -ie wilder -problems if I programmes I wrote/adapted had a mem link (and all the users monitor with "top" all the programs, to decide to launch,... but if they last 6 hrs?, or if almost every one is in week end? Crash/Swap recovery would not be 10 hrs...). Using databases 10 times smaller than the real one is not that time and RAM consuming.
I hope my explainations are not too long...
148 • Cor 147 (by dbrion on 2007-01-26 15:14:39 GMT from France)
Change mem link to memory leak... (which can be linked to mispellings..)
149 • Ladislav -- check hits from that page period Sept 2004/April 2005 (by anonymous on 2007-01-26 15:40:46 GMT from United States)
Check the hits from the Ubuntu Faq page or from internal redirections from the documentation during the period 9/2004 thru April 2005. Since that time it has been written out of the documentation as far as I can tell from the revision history.
Besides this, it would be hard for you to detect a bot that only brought one hit per day per ip address. Clever people could use multiple IP addresses by continually re-registering with their ISP.
During this time period you can be certain that the Canonical paid staff plus the Ubuntu volunteers were purposefully each hitting the distrowatch/ubuntu page at least once per day per their IP address.
The idea for a successful voting campaign is to "prime the pump" (i.e. bootstrap) until you get enough real users who vote on their own volition having being introduced to the new distribution via a high ranking on the page hits. It works.
I don't think it is cheating, only marketing.
In this light, the attempt by the Mandriva intern, or by the Suse people to direct more hits towards their page look only like a variation in the degree of attempting to move their page hits up.
Even advertisement on Distrowatch serves this purpose -- I.e. we can see canonical and Novell pay good money to be at the top of the advert section, likely driving more hits directly to their sidebar. This is all marketing 101.
To call this "cheating" implies that such marketing has a negative morality. I believe that this is an overly strong characterization of the marketing attempts by the various organizations. They are all only trying to increase their popularity by creating the appearance of popularity.
150 • #127 - put laptop to sleep (by ray carter at 2007-01-26 16:20:27 GMT from United States)
Every night I close the lid on my Kubuntu laptop. It goes into 'hibernate' mode and shuts itself off. Next day I turn in on and in short order it's ready to go.
151 • re #149 - page hit ranking (by rglk on 2007-01-26 18:56:35 GMT from United States)
Exactly what the hits per day (HPD) ranking on DW signifies has been kicked around plenty of times in these pages. It simply signifies current interest ("buzz") in any given distro among the readership of DW, 62% of which log in from machines running Windows. Britney Spears is a massively hyped noise maker, her name constantly appears among the top ten news makers on the "In the News" list of Google News. Does that mean that she is a great artist, good singer, interesting person, loved by all? Of course not.
The HPD ranking bears no clear relationship to the actual usage of any given distro (i.e. the actual popularity), particularly since as many as two thirds of those who contribute to this measure may not even be using Linux. Since this measure is not terribly meaningful to begin with, I can't get incensed when folks try to manipulate it. If you pay much attention to the HPD ranking, thinking that it tells you anything about the quality or usability of a Linux distro, you've been duped, and if it's been monkeyed around with a little beyond the usual promotion/marketing/opinion engineering, you've just been duped a little more.
Having said that, I must commend Ladislav for doing a very nice job with DW. The HPD table, with all its flaws, is one of the regular items of DW that I wouldn't want to see disappear. The raw data that it represents is kind of interesting.
Robert
152 • Time for Puppy to go Mongrel? (by Domar on 2007-01-27 02:10:04 GMT from Australia)
I've done a lot of distro hopping and have found that there are often problems with mounting / unmounting devices, ejecting CDs, getting floppy drives to work, or accessing partitions. The basic drive tools are scratchy.
But I am increasingly using Puppy Linux for these tasks, because it has excellent drive tools. But the problem with Puppy is that it is too small a distro for the more serious application usage. There seems to be few dot pup and PET packages listed on the official sights. Is it time for Puppy to become a full-featured distro of 700MB - to become more mongrel and take on the bigger distros?
153 • 152 (by lmf on 2007-01-27 12:31:47 GMT from United States)
Domar:
What would be gained by doing that? There are already many bloated distros. I doubt they have the resources to do so, and I don't think they'd bring anything new to the table. Puppy is great for limited resource machines. There would be little advantage to using Puppy on a high-end machine. Puppy would not be Puppy if it were full-featured.
154 • RE 150 Laptops sleeping modes (by dbrion on 2007-01-27 16:05:28 GMT from France)
<< Every night I close the lid on my Kubuntu laptop. It goes into 'hibernate' mode and shuts itself off. Next day I turn in on and in short order it's ready to go >>
That makes me very uneasy : how can you *proove* it has been sleeping :
a) because you remove the main and it stays alive for all the night, which would not happen with the CP running?
b) because Saint Kubuntu told you ?
c) because you put a datalogger on the main supply (without batteries) and noticed a difference with normal functions?
d) because the screen, once shut, shows you it is sleeping, and this all the night?
Notice points a) and c) are (somewhat simplistic) empirical evidence (are are not forcibly reproduceable on other laptops...), b) and d) are religion-based arguments....
155 • #154 - laptop hibernate (by ray carter at 2007-01-27 16:41:00 GMT from United States)
I can prove it because:
There are two small lights on the front of the laptop. One shows if it's plugged in - the other shows if the machine is 'on'. The second light goes out after a few seconds. When I next power on, I am indeed greeted with the normal boot screen. The machine then boots and retrieves the saved information returning to exactly the state it was in before I closed the lid - not to the normal login screen.
Please note I indicated it was 'hibernate' not 'sleep' - which I think has a different meaning.
156 • Mandriva (by Caraibes on 2007-01-28 13:11:51 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Hey Ladslav,
You should go easier with Mandriva. Those guys are still doing an outstanding job !
In my view, it is the most complete distro to this day. I also still use Ubuntu and Vector on simple PC's, but whenever it gets complicated, only Mandriva can handle it...
157 • RE 155 (by dbrion on 2007-01-28 14:40:22 GMT from France)
You half convinced me (that is the harder, the other half of the proof relies on the fact that softwares cannt _separately_ switch LEDs and manage the power... this is the BIOS/manufacturere problem).
I think you are lucky, because my laptop has LEDs between the screen and the keyboard=> if if close the screen I donot see anything...
For microcontrollers , sleeping modes are low power modes (the bash command 'sleep xx' does not lead to low power, of course). Some pple see PCs as big and complicated microcontrollers, whence my confusion.
158 • #157 (by ray carter at 2007-01-28 20:13:31 GMT from United States)
I've been a computer professional for over 30 years. I retired over two years ago after 30 years of doing scientific software support and development for U.S. DOD - I know the difference. When I close the lid and it goes to hibernate, it saves itself (as I understand to the swap partition) and completely powers down. Upon boot, if no other intervening boot has disturbed the swap partition) it restores itself and brings you back to when you left off.
159 • Hibernation (by Anonymous on 2007-01-28 21:08:22 GMT from United States)
Support for hibernation is very poor in most distros... I think because kernel support for hibernation is sort of a mess. Which is sort of surprising since it seems like it would be a feature that kernel hackers would love to work on.
Distros should support hibernation out of the box! Come on folks... this is 2007. I hope distros start competing on working hiberation as a feature.
And as for boot times... My BeOS running on a 250Mhz machine with 32 MB of RAM boots in about 1/10th the time of the fastest booting linux distros today (on a new Core 2 Duo machine).
BeOS is a better puppy than Puppy.
160 • RE: # 159 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-01-29 03:20:32 GMT from Italy)
"My BeOS running on a 250Mhz machine with 32 MB of RAM boots in about 1/10th the time of the fastest booting linux distros today (on a new Core 2 Duo machine)."
Exactly. Using BeOS can make sense only on very old hardware.
When did they stop developing BeOS?
I know, there is Zeta, but it costs a small fortune and their latest LiveCD doesn't even boot on my hardware.
And then there is Haiku. I kind of like Haiku, but after several years they haven't released anything yet.
161 • And BTW (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-01-29 03:37:29 GMT from Italy)
About Zeta, I just found out the following:
http://www.yellowtab.com/
" yellowTAB is not developing ZETA anymore due to the insolvence procedures, which started 8 months ago.
If you have any further questions, please head over to www.zeta-os.com, the successor to yellowTAB ZETA.
The yellowTAB ZETA team wish to thank you all for staying by our side all these years.
Bernd-T. Korz"
So it seems that you can still buy Zeta from http://www.zeta-os.com/, but what does it really mean? I can't find an "about us" or anything like that. Besides the main language is clearly German.
162 • More... (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-01-29 03:46:32 GMT from Italy)
I found this, which I feel I must share:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnussoft
"Magnussoft GmBH is a german company that develops and sells games for the PC. Recently magnussoft owns now the rights to sell the ZETA operating system. And any further development of ZETA is done by an independent developing team."
163 • re161 (by dbrion on 2007-01-29 10:07:36 GMT from France)
zeta can be dowloaded from zeta-os.com (and wahrscheinlish Nero burnt, I will see next Week End;
What is interesting is not another OS, but the fact that it can be downloaded in pieces (and winrar puts them together); For Windos users (or ppl who use cybercafés to download), it would be a good idea distr who make DVD could follow (FAT 32 partitions have a size limitation, so does often FTP/http...). Then, pieces can be put together (for -example- by cat, under Cygwin with a NTFS partition, or under Linux with a ext3 partition) very easily.
Number of Comments: 163
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| • 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 |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Sonar GNU/Linux
Sonar GNU/Linux aims to be an accessible GNU/Linux distribution to people of all needs. The project's goal was to bring awareness of free accessible software to people that depend on assistive technology. It was based on Manjaro Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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