DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 194, 19 March 2007 |
Welcome to this year's 12th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! With the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, the focus of many Linux users will shift to those projects that rebuild the source packages made available by the prominent North American Linux vendor into a complete RHEL clone. Many other distributions are also in advanced stages of development: Mandriva Linux 2007.1 will be one of the first major distributions to make a new release this year, while a highly up-to-date Slackware Linux 11.1 shouldn't be far behind either. In other news: Debian has announced the second release candidate of Debian Installer for Etch, Gentoo approves a new code of conduct for its developers, the Freespire community voices its concerns over the direction of the distribution, and OpenBSD announces the release date for version 4.1. Our feature story this week is a commentary about a new, collaborative development model as pioneered by the Wolvix and Ultima developers, followed by a brief review of Wolvix 1.1.0 alpha. Happy reading!
Content:
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Commentary & Review |
A New Open Source Model? by Susan Linton
I heard a bit of news recently stating that one of my all-time favorite Linux distributions would be joining forces with another respectable distro. Details were sketchy, but I understood there would be a co-joining of distros - one emerging from the two. Since I had a bit of mixed feelings about this announcement, I was relieved to later find out it wasn't exactly true. But what I did discover was actually happening may end up making history and being more significant. What we now have the opportunity to witness is probably the first time two separate distributions sit side-by-side and actually share ideas, code, and sweat.
We all know the open source model of using code and sharing back. It happens everyday for the betterment of our community, systems, and mankind in general. It's a wonderful thing. Linux distribution developers toil away and incorporate some fantastic new features. Then they upload their resulting source to a central repository for any interested party to use. The open source community eventually reaps the benefits, but rarely do the developers say to a competitor, "I can help you integrate this great feature into your distro."
But that's exactly the situation we are finding in Martin Ultima's and Kenneth Granerud's new cooperative agreement. Ultima is a Slackware-based Linux distribution that offers customization and advanced system update tools. Wolvix Linux is a great looking light-weight installable live CD based on SLAX. It too offers high-quality customizations with a consistent appearance across applications and other desktops.
When I heard these two distinct distributions would be joining forces, I assumed it meant to produce one distro combined from the two. I had mixed feelings as I've been quite the fan of Wolvix and saw it as truly unique. I wrote each of the lead developers asking them what was going to happen. I share with you the highlights of those exchanges.
The first thing to be explained to me was that neither distribution would disappear and there would not be one made from the two. Martin states: "Well, the projects aren't quite combining; Ultima and Wolvix will still remain independently-developed distributions with different generalized goals and all that stuff, at least for now. But since both our projects are working on similar goals and each one can benefit from the other, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to work together with them so both our distributions can benefit." Kenneth adds: "Wolvix and Ultima will not merge into one distro. I'll still continue to develop Wolvix and Martin, as far as I know, will still be developing Ultima Linux. We will be cooperating though and help each other improve our projects."
I wondered what did that mean exactly? What was going to change? Who was going to do what? Kenneth explains: "The idea for now is that he'll [Martin] be helping Wolvix with creating an additional install-only ISO image with the Slackware installer. He'll also be helping create packages for the ATI drivers and create/maintain some of the packages in Wolvix. What Martin plans to do is start using the Linux Live scripts for the live CD edition of Ultima, so I'll be helping him with that. I guess I'll also return the favor and help out with the NVIDIA drivers in Ultima." Martin adds: "Well, for the most part, Wolven & Co. handle Wolvix, and I handle Ultima; that doesn't really change. Like I said, we haven't announced a full-blown merger yet. But I'm also helping with some of the low-level code in Wolvix now, like the kernel and X11, and they're (eventually) going to help me polish up the Ultima live CD code."
Whose idea was it? Martin blamed it on his users, jokingly of course. He said: "Actually, I'll blame my users for this one. I'd taken the Ultima site off-line for a while, because of other priorities interfering with maintenance, so a bunch of them switched. Once I got back, they told me about Wolvix, and since I noticed their project needed a bit of help with stuff I've been doing a while now with Ultima, I figured I may as well offer what little skill I have with this stuff. I will say that it was Wolven's idea to add me to his development team, so probably most of the responsibility (and blame) lies with him."
Then I asked what were their goals now that they've formed this cooperative venture and Kenneth replied: "I guess the common goal is to improve both of our projects through cooperation. I've mentioned some of the individual goals above, such as the live ISO image for Wolvix and using the Linux Live scripts in Ultima."
Kenneth (aka Wolven) recently released Wolvix Cub 1.1.0 Alpha 2. Wolvix Cub is the smaller-sized image that has the barest of necessities included and that is usually the base for other editions such as the Desktop Edition, the Media Edition, or the Gaming Edition. Kenneth states that there is no Ultima code in this release. Although he is very excited and optimistic about this upcoming release, he thinks this might be a longer developmental cycle than usual as he has some big plans in store. Some of the changes in the works include installable GNOME packages, more focus on the hard drive install, more eye candy, and new features for the Wolvix Control Panel.
The release notes for Alpha 2 state:
- Most of the packages have been rebuilt.
- PS/2 mice should be working now, as support is compiled into the kernel instead of having it as a kernel module like it's in the original Slackware kernel.
- HAL should detect inserted CD/DVD-ROMs.
- Added SLiM login manager. Starts by default, use the 'noslim' cheat code to disable it.
- Wolvix Control Panel has got a few new features and some bugs have been killed.
- A few changes to the package selection have been made.
- New initial boot splash and more help files.
- Firefox has been updated to 2.0.0.2.
I haven't looked at Wolvix since version 1.0.4, so I'm not sure at what point it got the new boot background, but it looks great. In Wolvix gray featuring a wolf paw in silhouette of a slightly different tone in the upper right corner, it makes for a tasteful first impression. The boot process is verbose, but one is soon brought to a new graphical login screen. Again of Wolvix gray, it's an unobtrusive offering with only the distro name in black and username box shown. F1 selects session type, which are Fluxbox or Xfce. Fluxbox is still very much default, but the Xfce desktop has been "wolfized".
The Xfce login splash features the famous Wolvix paw of light gray on that same darker Wolvix gray background. At the desktop, we find a nice new wallpaper. This wallpaper features a wolf howling at a cresent moon silhouetted against the familiar Wolvix gray background. The window backgrounds are almost KDE gray with a really nice window decoration of a darker gray called Sassandra. The Murrina-BlueGrey style is very similar to Polyester found in KDE. The desktop also features some carefully chosen icons. Most of these are for file manager windows opening in different locations, such as Floppy Drive, Trash, Home, or File System, and removable devices when inserted. In the lower left corner is Conky displaying system and networking statistics. Very nicely polished is the feel one has of this desktop environment.

Wolvix Cub 1.1.0 Alpha 2 (full image size: 163kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
It's amazing what has been packed into the 241MB download. In the menus are various applications for everyday computer use. Wolvix features AbiWord for word processing, gLabels for label making, Evince PDF viewer, and Orage. For multimedia enjoyment one finds Exaile, MPlayer, Audacious, and GnomeBaker for CD/DVD creation. In the area of networking, Firefox, Gaim, Transmission, WiFi Radar, gFTP, XChat, Gwget, Transmission and Chestnut PPP configuration/dialer are among those included. Browser support includes Flash 9, Java Script, and the MPlayer movie plugin. Under the Graphics submenu, The GIMP, Comix, GQview, mtPaint, and Inkscape round out the offerings. Thunar is the graphical file manager and GNOME Commander is included as well. Wolvix sits on a 2.6.17 kernel and uses X.Org 6.9.0 as its X server at present.
There is a nice selection of system tools, including Slapt for package management, Firestarter firewall builder, HTop, and Bulk Rename. The crowning jewel of this category is the Wolvix Control Center. The Wolvix Control Center is new since my last test of Wolvix and what a pleasant surprise it was! As with most control centers found in Linux distributions, this one contains modules to the various system configuration tools. Included are a hard drive installer, X configuration, network card and connection configuration, sound configuration, printer configuration (CUPS not present in this small edition), user administration, storage (not all modules are implemented here yet), time and date (again, not usable at this point), and develop (which includes package list and the Wolvix Builder).
Hardware detection was good with Wolvix. My Internet connection was "automagically" available after boot, my sound correctly configured, and I noted that my TV card, scanner, and webcams were detected, although no applications are present to test these further. CUPS isn't available in this edition, so the printer wasn't set up or configurable.
The graphical hard drive installer works well. It consists of verifying your desire to install, choosing a very few options in the next screen, and clicking install. The few configuration options available are for defining the main boot device, the root partition, optional home partition, swap partition, file system, and whether to install GRUB. One can run GParted from this screen as well, but it didn't not open here on my setup. This has to be one of the most user-friendly installers I've used and it worked really well.
Wolvix continues to be under heavy development at this time. As it is, Wolvix is still one of the most unique and polished looking systems available. Wolven is presently awaiting updates to some of the major components and Wolvix is likely to see upgrades of the kernel, X.Org, and the live CD scripts before final. As such, he is concentrating on the applications at this point.
Ultima has not seen a release since last summer. As Martin stated he had to take some time off, but Ultima is back under full development now. We will likely see a development release in the near future. Perhaps it will be presented in the form of a live CD, given Wolven's help. We anxiously await any news coming from the Ultima camp.
While we aren't going to see a joining of distros, we are seeing a new open source cooperative model. For myself, I think this is more significant. I don't believe this model will catch on with the big players such as Red Hat, openSUSE, or Mandriva, but perhaps it should. It's amazing the strides made in Linux and open source software development the last 5 years, but where would we be if this model were used more? We may never know the full extent of the possibilities, but we will see how two competing distros can work together for the benefit of both and their community of users. This level of humility and altruism is rare in today's world and I hope everyone will take a moment to note the event. Perhaps, this new cooperative agreement could be the spark of a whole new open source paradigm.
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Miscellaneous News |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Slackware 11.1, Debian achievements and challenges, Gentoo code of conduct, Freespire controversy
The long awaited Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 was finally released last week. On the surface, not much has changed in the final product since beta 2 (in terms of packages, it is based on Linux kernel 2.6.18 and glibc 2.5, all compiled with GCC 4.1.1, and it ships with X.Org 7.1, GNOME 2.16, KDE 3.5.4 and Apache 2.2.3), but one can only imagine the amount of rigorous testing it had to go through to ensure that all the high-end enterprise features work as advertised. Red Hat is still a clear market leader in providing Linux solutions for many large companies and IT departments, and its latest product should reinforce its status as the most profitable Linux company in the world.
From the community point of view, however, all eyes will now focus on those projects that clone Red Hat Linux by removing the upstream branding and then rebuild the freely available source packages into a complete, installable, RHEL-like distribution. Traditionally, Lineox Enterprise Linux used to be the first to deliver such a product, but with RHEL 5 many things have changed dramatically (the directory structure, the split into a client and server distributions), so the old Lineox scripts that used to be able to rebuild RHEL 4 in less than a day will almost certainly need heavy modifications. In the meantime, both Scientific Linux and CentOS projects released development builds of their distributions based on an earlier beta of RHEL 5. Also in the run is StartCom Enterprise Linux which seems to be furthest along the path at the moment; in fact, its development team has already started the build process and the binary RPM packages are now available for download from the new 5.0.0 directory on the project's mirrors. It shouldn't be long before a set of ISO images is also ready for testing.
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How would you like to see a new Slackware Linux release within the next few weeks? If your answer is a "yes", we have some good news for you. Patrick Volkerding has used the St. Patrick's day last Saturday as an excuse for uploading a massive number of updates to the Slackware's current tree and announcing that Slackware 11.1 should be ready soon: "This is more or less stable (functionally), but there's still a lot of package splitting and other re-arranging and adding to be done, but it's time for the Slackware community to see how far we've gotten. If the luck o' the Irish is with us, it'll be a fairly short alpha/beta/rc period from here. Well, have fun!" Pending further package update and other changes, it looks like the upcoming new version of Slackware Linux will be based on Linux kernel 2.6.18, with glibc 2.5, GCC 4.1.2, X.Org 7.3, KDE 3.5.6 and Xfce 4.4.0, but with Apache still remaining at 1.3.37 and PHP at 4.4.6. For more information please read the new entries in the Slackware changelog.
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As Linux distributions go, there is little arguing that Debian GNU/Linux is a very special project. But what made it such an important and exciting distribution? Erich Schubert, a Debian developer, has written an interesting blog post highlighting the past achievements of Debian, but also pointing out some of the project's drawbacks as compared to other modern Linux distributions: "Debian used to be the cool kid among Linux distributions. Because our stuff worked much better, was easy to install and especially to upgrade. Dependencies would be automatically resolved while others were fighting dependency chaos, and our menus would have all the applications in it, where others had to fill their menus on their own. ... Many of these Debian achievements are now common among distributions."
In separate news, the second release candidate of the Debian Installer for Etch has been released: "This should hopefully be the last Debian Installer beta release before we release Etch. There are a lot of images here, including: a full version of Debian etch/testing (in either CD or DVD form) for all architectures and source; a variety of other discs: multi-architecture CDs and DVDs, and variants of CD#1 that default to installing KDE or Xfce rather than GNOME. All the RC2 images are distributed as ISO, BitTorrent and Jigdo files. Please use Jigdo if you can, as it significantly reduces the load on our servers and it may greatly speed up your download too."

The second release candidate of Debian Installer for Etch is ready for testing
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After a brief discussion, the Gentoo Council has adopted a code of conduct for its developers. This initiative was triggered by criticism that the project's developer frequently indulged in abusive "flame wars" on its mailing lists and user forums which has resulted in several high-profile resignations of Gentoo developers in recent months. The new code of conduct lists instances of unacceptable behaviour that could result in a suspension or ban from Gentoo's communication infrastructure and calls on developers to be courteous and respectful towards others. Three proctors have been appointed to enforce the rules and issue warnings or bring charges against those developers who break them. Following Ubuntu, which published its own code of conduct not long ago, Gentoo is the second Linux distribution project that drafted to a similar code of conduct in order to maintain a positive and friendly attitude on the distribution's communication boards.
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Signs of discontent have been brewing among the contributors to Freespire, a community distribution launched in April last year by Linspire. Despite the initial promises, some members who joined Freespire with the intention to help with the development of the distribution feel disillusioned with their roles. One of them is Patrick Green, the highest elected representative of the Freespire community. In a long message to the Freespire mailing list, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, notably with the continuous string of decisions about Freespire that are being made by the Linspire technical board without consulting the Freespire community. These include the decision to discontinue the Freespire OSS edition, the decision to merge Linspire and Freespire user forums, subtle modifications to the definition of Freespire (from "community-controlled" to "community-influenced") and other such controversial changes.
However, Kevin Carmony, the CEO of Linspire, argues that the Linspire technical board maintains its right to make certain decisions since it is Linspire that pumps money into the Freespire distribution. As a result, the wishes of the Freespire community, no matter how noble and productive, can be overridden in order to maintain a healthy balance between the goals of the community and the needs of the company. Several threads of heated discussions have now been exchanged on the Freespire mailing lists and user forums, but no solution has been found. (Those readers wishing to read some of these exchanges should visit the Freespire user forums; however, be warned that as a result of a recent decision, the forums are no longer accessible to unregistered visitors.)
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The openSUSE project has announced the release of an updated set of ISO images for openSUSE 10.2: "Today we are releasing slightly changed openSUSE 10.2 ISO images. The reason for putting out those updated ISOs is a license issue, which had to be addressed." Apparently the "license issue" was a simple omission of a license that was meant to accompany the agfa-fonts package in the original release. The change has only affected the "non-OSS" add-on CDs and the DVDs for all three architectures. Other than that, the ISO images remained identical to the original ones.
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Pau Amaro-Seoane, an avid DistroWatch reader and a Linux/BSD user since 1996, has written an interesting article. For several months he was on a mission to find an ideal operating system for his new Fujitsu LifeBook - but with a condition that he would only accept Free Software on the system. With that in mind, he proceeded to evaluate OpenBSD 4.0, FreeBSD 6.2, Debian GNU/kBSD, Fedora Core 6 and gNewSense 1.0. The long article highlights the author's experiences and problems with the above-mentioned operating systems and, in the process, it also compares Linux with BSD. Although the conclusions are not straightforward as the author failed to find one operating system that would fit his needs perfectly, he eventually decided to keep OpenBSD 4.0 with Fluxbox as the primary operating system on his Fujitsu laptop. The article, entitled Looking for a free OS for my laptop, is worth a read if you share the author's uncompromising stance on the Free Software philosophy and want to learn about the pitfalls of using Free Software in the world where hardware secrecy and proprietary device drivers are still the order of the day.
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Finally, here is a topic for this week's discussion. Eugenia Loli-Queru from OSNews published an interesting review of the most recent development build of Ubuntu 7.04. Being an avid reviewer and tester of Linux distributions for several years, I read Eugenia's conclusion with interest: "I've been an Arch/Slackware Linux user for the last 3 years, but Ubuntu has won me the last few days because of the conveniences it brings. The point of the matter is, I am now older. I am 33 years old and I just don't have the same energy as I used to to deal with stupid issues that they should not be there, or with removal or non-development of conveniences for no good reason."
I have to admit that I feel exactly the same way. In my early days of adopting Linux I was very keen on running a "geek" distro in order to learn as much as possible about this alternative operating system. For two years I used Sorcerer on my main production desktop, a little-known source distribution that was more advanced and stable than Gentoo at the time, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. But in later years I found myself slowly gravitating towards less "geeky" distributions - first to Debian "sid", then later to Kubuntu and Mandriva. This is of course partly due to the growth of DistroWatch (I no longer have the time to compile things and fix problems on my production system), but also maybe because I no longer enjoy the "low-level" work that is inevitable in the more technical distributions, like Arch, Slackware or Gentoo.
Now for the questions. Have any of you experienced a similar evolution? Did you run a "geek" distro in the past, but switched to a more user-friendly one later? Or do you have a "once-a-geek, always-a-geek" mentality that makes you enjoy compiling software and manually edit configuration files year after year? Please discuss below.
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Released Last Week |
Pioneer Linux 2.0
Dianne Ursini has announced the release of Pioneer Linux 2.0, an Ubuntu-based distribution designed for desktop use: "Technalign, Inc. has announced they have released Pioneer Basic Release 2. Pioneer Basic R2 is available for download immediately and from Technalign's partner network. Automatix is pre-installed allowing for an easy installation of the most commonly used applications. The latest release will be Technalign's last operating system available on CD and is expected to be supported for a minimum of 3 years. Pioneer Basic will be free to individuals, schools, and non-profit organizations wanting to run a workstation, while commercial establishments will be required to purchase a copy and receive full support." Read the full press release for further details.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 has been released: "Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the cornerstone of the company's open source architecture. Initially launched in 2002, Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be found in the majority of Fortune 500 environments, and is renowned for performance, value and reliability." The new release introduces SELinux management tools, Xen virtualisation, IPV6 support, and a number of new services and solutions. Read the full press release and visit the company's product pages for more information.
Ubuntu Christian Edition 2.2 and 1.5.3
Jereme Hancock has announced a new stable release of Ubuntu Christian Edition: "We are very happy to announce the release of Ubuntu CE v2.2! This will be the final Edgy release of Ubuntu CE. Our focus will soon shift to the development of Ubuntu CE v3.0 (Feisty). We have added two new packages to Ubuntu CE. Both packages were developed specifically for Ubuntu CE by user request. These packages are also available for those using default Ubuntu on our new Popular Packages page. The first one is the e-Sword Installer. The second program is also an installer for a commonly requested Windows program. We have also updated the Dapper version, Ubuntu CE v1.5.3, to include the latest version of the DansGuardian GUI." Please read the full release announcement for more information.
Foresight Linux 1.1
Foresight Linux is the first distribution to present the brand new GNOME 2.18 desktop - in the form of installable CD and DVD images: "Experience the greatness of the latest version 2.18 of the GNOME desktop by using Foresight as your desktop distribution! The Foresight team is proud to release Foresight Linux 1.1. Highlights: Epiphany is now the new default web browser; for users with visual impairments, Foresight comes with a powerful assistive technology Orca; Tomboy (0.6.1) note-taking application now supports bullet points, search, pin notes and back-links; faster search with the combination of Beagle 0.12 via the Deskbar; Seahorse (1.0) lets you manage many kinds of keys and passwords...." More details can be found in the release announcement.
Kwort Linux 2.2
Kwort Linux is a Slackware-based distribution featuring the latest Xfce desktop and a custom package manager called "kpkg". The project has announced a new release, version 2.2: "I'm proud to announce that Kwort 2.2 final version has been released. The system is very stable and usable. The core system is based on Slackware and provides a rock-solid system, and it's also a great place to start making a full-featured and usable desktop environment using Xfce. Kpkg is now the official package manager, providing an easy way to remove and install local and mirrored packages. It allows the users to keep their systems up to date with the new 'upgrade' functionality. So now, Slackware's package tools were removed except of makepkg that's included in kpkg." Find more details in the release announcement.
SabayonLinux 3.3
SabayonLinux 3.3 has been released. Here is a brief excerpt from the list of new features: "SabayonLinux kernel sources based on 2.6.20 featuring Unionfs, Squashfs 3.0, Afatech 9005 support, MacTel enhanced support; completely recompiled with new LDFLAGS that give an extra performance boost; complete artwork redesign; faster boot time; created the basis of the experimental eINIT support; X.Org 7.2 featuring AIGLX and composite support; Beryl 0.2.0rc2 supporting Xgl, AIGLX and NVIDIA composite extension; NVIDIA drivers 1.0-9755 and 1.0-9631, ATI drivers 8.34.8; Metisse 0.4 technology preview; outstanding wireless networking support; fonts rendering highly improved; KDE 3.5.6 and GNOME 2.16.2; new games on the DVD; new virtualization support stack featuring KVM...." Read the complete release announcement for further details.

SabayonLinux 3.3 presents new artwork and many bleeding edge features (full image size: 147kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Pardus Linux 2007.1
The Pardus development team has announced the release of Pardus Linux 2007.1 "The first maintenance release of Pardus Linux 2007 is out. What's new in 'Felis chaus'? It is possible to install Pardus in Brazilian Portuguese, as well as Turkish, English, Spanish, German or Dutch; users will enjoy KDE 3.5.6 with the latest release of more than 300 software packages; the PiSi package manager is now 40% faster for repository processes; WPA authentication, status monitoring and improvements have been done with network manager. Pardus comes with Internet tools, office suite, multimedia players, games and numerous applications to satisfy the needs of desktop users, all squeezed into a single CD." Here is the brief release announcement.
SaxenOS 2.0
Michael Stibane has announced the release of SaxenOS 2.0: "SaxenOS 2.0 is released. The SaxenOS 2 ISO image is now down to a 534 MB and needs about 1.7 GB space on the target partition plus the space for home directories and temporary and log files - so a 2 GB partition is still the minimum. Changes: fixed German installer translations; changed formatting of target partition to ext3; removed win32 Codecs - they're now a separate installer download (for legal reasons); removed REALbasic - check the installer downloads next week; new SaxenOS System Panel, written in REALbasic." More information about SaxenOS 2.0 can be found in the release announcement.
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Development and unannounced releases
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Debian GNU/Linux 4.0
The Debian project has published a revised release schedule leading towards the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, code name "Etch". The current release blockers, namely several Linux kernel issues, Debian installer delays and a number of release-critical bugs, should largely be sorted out by the end of March, with the final release expected in early April. For more details please read this Debian release update by Luk Claes.
OpenBSD 4.1
The OpenBSD development team has announced that OpenBSD 4.1, scheduled for release on May 1st, 2007, is now available for pre-order: "You can now place your pre-orders for OpenBSD 4.1 CDs and posters! This is another great release, with CDs bootable on 5 architectures. Many, many new things including: the new landisk platform; improved UltraSparc III support in the sparc64 platform; scads of new devices supported; new tools like pkg-config, hoststated, new ripd, bgplg, bgplgsh; new functionality in existing utilities such as spamd, and much more." More information can be found in this announcement by OpenBSD Journal and also on the OpenBSD 4.1 product page.
DesktopBSD 1.6
The developers of DesktopBSD have published a brief note announcing the upcoming release of DesktopBSD 1.6: "This status update was written to explain the release process of DesktopBSD 1.6 and its current status. Immediately after FreeBSD 6.2 was launched in January, a first preview of DesktopBSD 1.6 was released (RC1). Because some of the more important features were not fully functional then, it was made available primarily to translators and early adopters and not announced on the website. Many problems in that preview have been identified and nearly all of them have been solved already." Please read here for further details.
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to waiting list
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes our latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 26 March 2007. Until then,
Ladislav Bodnar
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Geek Distros plus (by Soloact on 2007-03-19 09:29:28 GMT from United States)
Sabayon is a beautiful distro, with version 3.3 on AMD 64, to use as a live distro. However, as an end user, I still have problems with Emerge, so it won't be installed. I'm not much of a problem solver when it comes to the distros that I use, I'm more of the end-user, and just want it to work. For now, that is SimplyMEPIS. Still waiting for the final release... since January. No problems using the 64-bit betas and release candidates so far. Am hoping that the beryl desktop can be automatically installed with the final release, as it isn't automatic with the current upgrades. Cheers! Thank you for DWW!
2 • Linux tastes changing with time (by Auzen at 2007-03-19 09:44:39 GMT from Australia)
I have had the opposite experience and am considerably older than 33. Started with Mandrake(would have risked installing anything else around at the time). Later I tried Slackware but was not able to keep it maintained to my satisfaction so when Ubuntu came along I jumped on. Two years ago I discovered Zenwalk which was easy to install and did everything needed so that's where I've stayed for day to day work.
As my skills have grown with Zenwalk I've tried many other distro's and my favourite toy at the moment is CRUX but also have Debian unstable and Pardus running at the moment.
3 • Userfriendly (by Kennylog on 2007-03-19 09:50:40 GMT from Belgium)
Great DWW, as usual, I have tried gentoo and arch to enjoy full control and while they weren't bad, I no longer feel like it's worth it to read all those wiki articles... So now I'm checking out the multimedia-ready and non-free stuff including distributions. Pclinuxos, Mepis, Mint, you name it.
It's all about choice and of course the amount of time you're willing to spend configuring your system
BTW New Sabayon looks great! But I'm not going to download it, maybe the mini when it's there :)
4 • Evolution (by Ohnonymous on 2007-03-19 09:51:48 GMT from United States)
I started with Fedora Core and later switched to Ubuntu. I've tried Gentoo, but I could never find the patience for it. I suppose it's like learning to drive a car with an automatic transmission.
5 • Ubuntu Problems (by Benjamin Hackl on 2007-03-19 10:04:10 GMT from Austria)
I tried Ubuntu Linux for the first time two weeks ago when I got my new Laptop. All the hardware was detected and working out of the box which was quite impressive and I thought: Alright, nice distro. But after some time I experienced random freezes. I could not identify the source of it (deactivated wlan, lan, graphics card, one of the cpu cores, ...) but I found out that quite a number of users experienced similiar difficulties. Even the 7.04 release didn't solve the problem. When I switched to Gentoo (my favourite distro since about two years) there were no problems anymore.
6 • Pardus 2007.1 and Linux Mint (by Wes Davidson on 2007-03-19 10:09:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have 2 criteria for a successful distribution in addition to the usual:
1. Will it play television using an Avermedia a771 card. 2. Can I get replay of programmes on the BBC, both without having to carry out loads of configuration.
Pardus works right out of the box without any further configuration. It also has a good packet manager too.
Mint cannot get the TV but it does do the replay bit at the BBC. But what is worse is that I can't seem to find any way to configure it to recognise the TV card. I do like the desktop background.
I do find that Ubuntu based packages suffer the TV problem.
Wes.
7 • Freespire (by Andy on 2007-03-19 10:29:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Quote: 'subtle modifications to the definition of Freespire (from "community-controlled" to "community-influenced")'
About sums it up really. Talk about take the power back. A leopard can't change its spots nor can Linspire. There going about this the all the wrong way.
I really though things had changed, but it looks like Linspire might have a hidden agenda.
8 • easy vs. geeky (by CombatWombat on 2007-03-19 10:32:09 GMT from New Zealand)
I've tried: (in no particular order) RH7.x, MDK9.x, 10.x, Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Suse 9.x, Yoper, PClinuxOS, Sabayon, Beatrix, Foresight, GoboLinux, PCBSD, Dreamlinux, Knoppix, Kanotix, SimplyMepis, Sidux, LinuxMint, IPCop (does that count?), and a few I cannot recall at the moment. I guess that makes me geeky because I have installed so many?
But easy suits me:- I keep coming back to the Debian-based distros because of apt-get installing from huge repositories, it's fast, it's easy, it's usually reliable. Synaptic is the killer app for Linux IMHO. I've never seen too much benefit with compiling all the time, wasting time to save a smidgen in operation, when I have a business and a family.
9 • to geek or not to geek (by Paul Yearwood on 2007-03-19 10:33:14 GMT from United States)
I am not a geek. But, I am curious about non-Windows operating systems. I have tried Mandrake/Mandriva, Freespire, OpenBSD and Puppylinux trying to find something that I could use without an advanced degree in computer science. Now, I use Ubuntu and realize why it is constantly at the top of the DW Watchlist. I had to reinstall it yesterday because I tried one change too many and it goobered the computer. The reinstall was a lot quicker than any Windows repair I have done. I am still learning Ubuntu and have a dual boot with W-XP. There is a need for both systems. There is not need for Vista. Paul Yearwood
10 • Pardus: Promising (by Morten Juhl Johansen on 2007-03-19 10:35:13 GMT from Denmark)
I am really looking forward to seeing the further development of Pardus. It is visually a very beautiful distribution. I had some glitches regarding power management for my laptop. I knocked together a fresh and trimmed kernel to see, if that was the problem, but no go. The configuration interface Tasma and the package manager interface are very good. Administering services has the coolest interface > http://syntaktisk.dk/grphcs/pardus_services.png .
11 • geek evolution (by Penguin Pete on 2007-03-19 10:36:39 GMT from United States)
Well, I guess I'm evolving backwards. I started out with El Sombrero de Rojo back in the '90s, and have gradually gravitated to more 'advanced' distros. Currently my installed boxes hold Slackware and grml, with only one of them have a 'user-friendly' distro (Darn Small Linux, for my kid's box, which is very low maintenance).
The two reasons (1) is that I have a different philosophy about 'easy-to-use' vs 'hard-to-use'. Simply, that there is no such concept. My needs are sky-high advanced; I work from home on computers for a living and maintain a 'geekier-than-thou' site besides. Thus, I can not get through life on a simple distro aimed at the non-power user. The 'easier-to-use' it is for somebody else, the 'harder-to-use' it is for me, and vice versa.
(2) Bad Car Analogy time! The distros that do everything for you without having to mess around under the hood are WONDERFUL! Just like a car that removes the steering wheel from the passenger area because it is so smart it knows how to drive itself. I can hop in one and run it for a while, thinking how nice it is.
That is, until it makes a mistake and crashes me into a wall. Then I'm staggering around 'how do i fix this?' Nobody knows. Nobody has ever tried to do that with this distro before. The distro wasn't built for the kind of user who would think of trying such crazy barnstorming stunts. It was built to operate for me, not be fixed. 'Why did I have to try to use it for such sky-high advanced jobs, anyway?' they ask. So I pick a distro that needs lots of getting greasy and wrenching around, even building parts of it myself. NOT because I'm geeky. Not because I'm elitist. Not because I want computers to be too 'hard-to-use' for everybody else. Because it's mission-critical!
As I am famous for saying (I may need it for my epitaph) "Stealth bombers are more difficult to operate than tricycles BECAUSE THEY CAN FLY."
12 • Changing distributions (by Felix Pleşoianu on 2007-03-19 10:48:05 GMT from Romania)
I had the opposite experience too. I started with Redhat 7.0, which was pretty "retro" on the desktop side, but it was friendly enough for me to learn the basics. After Fedora Core 1 - which disappointed me - I reverted to Windows for a while, but in the last year I used Knoppix. Which is a decent balance between friendliness and expert-ness, except that some details are starting to get on my nerves. So presently I'm contemplating a switch to some Slackware-derivate, possibly Vector Linux. Not having to install -dev packages explicitly will be nice for a change. New times, new needs...
13 • Linux tastes changing with time (by Didier Spaier on 2007-03-19 11:03:19 GMT from France)
I first used Mandrake a few years ago, then switched to Slackware and intent to stick with it, though I gave a try to Ubuntu and openSUSE. I feel *very* comfortable with Slackware 11 and will upgrade to 11.1 or 12 when it shows.
I use a laptop, 99% of time for office usage. You could regret the lack of some packages in official Slackware distro, but most of the time they are easy to find, e.g. on http://slacky.eu (Italian Slacware Community's website) along with corresponding SlackBuilds. And I'm not a fan of Gnome either, thus I don't miss it.
I'm 58 years old and intent to go on learning for as long as I'll be able to.
Didier, Paris, France, Europe
14 • Geek distro (by Anonymous on 2007-03-19 11:22:38 GMT from United States)
I moved full time to Linux after Ubuntu arrived. The dependency problems of RH prevented that before.
After using Ubuntu for a while, I tried Debian. I found Debian to be more stable with all the packages I needed. That was important because I have young kids and so no time to play with my distro. I was spending a lot of time with maintenance on Windows, so moved to Ubuntu, then to Debian Etch. Now I basically don't think about the OS at all. I'll take stable over pretty any day (though Debian does look pretty with not much work).
15 • Once a dork, always a dork.. (by Jerry B. on 2007-03-19 11:25:45 GMT from United States)
..I am probably one of a significant minority of Linux users who can tolerate only so much compiling or even installing of needed software on my distribution of choice. I don't even want to have to mess with browser plugins if I can help it. :O)
But I have learned to solve problems here and there by googling around or by using the forums most distros have for us.
Thing is, most of the problems I am challenged with are there only because I fooled around and messed something up and have to find a way to "unmess" my distro without having to reinstall (again).
I know there are others out there just like me; I see you in the forums all the time posting about borking this or that. :O)
16 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-19 11:36:54 GMT from Sweden)
I'm more and more leaning toward more advanced distros, not because I really see any great benefits of speed and efficiency, but because the so called easy-to-use-distros are quite difficult to fix when running into a incompatibility issue. As someone already mentioned the response from the forums might be total silence, obviously because no-one has encountered the same issue on a similar computer.
I didn't have any interest in Ubuntu and its relatives for a long time, but since it became so popular I thought I wanted to know why. Unfortunately it has been one of the least impressive systems regarding hardware compatibility: live-CD:s is out of the questions on my main rig (doesn't really matter because I like the Slackware approach to the installation process), the boot procedure isn't stable on some systems and I haven't been able to track down the problem yet (no response yet from the forum either), not even a standard 17" LCD monitor is always an easy task to setup (as it is now on one system I can't get Ubuntu to accept the refresh rates I manually have selected), and some more issues as well.
Is Ubuntu bad? No, that's not the conclusion I'm trying to make. However I get the impression that some distros, like Ubuntu, mainly is developed based on a too limited hardware selection, which eventually leads to such disappointments as I mention. The conclusion is instead that for I computer user like myself, who builds and likes to select the hardware myself might be better of choosing a more advanced distro; at least you then do have the control over what is installed and might more easy find out how to fix issues.
17 • Linux flavors (by Snowman on 2007-03-19 11:52:55 GMT from United States)
I've started out in Linux late. I'm over 40 and have been using Linux for only 3 years at the outside. In the past I've used SUSE, Mepis, Mandriva, Fedora Core, Knoppix, PCLOS, and now Sabayon. I've tried out just about every live CD/DVD I could get my hands on. Debian, Slackware and Gentoo proved to be too much for my limited knowledge. Right now I run PCLOS TR3 on my laptop and Sabayon 3.3 on my desktop. I've enjoyed learning more "difficult" distros, but if it hadn't been for the "plug and play" distros, I'd still be a Windows drone.
18 • Geek evolution (by Sander Marechal on 2007-03-19 12:05:52 GMT from Netherlands)
I guess I am evolving forwards and backwards at the same time. I started out with FreeBSD coming straight out of the WIndows world with no experience with *nix at all. Then I moved to VectorLinux (didn't like it) and played around with Suse and Red Hat. I settled on Ubuntu in the Warty era and grew to Hoary, Dapper and Edgy.
Right now I'm taking the evolution path back though. I ditched Edgy from all my computers except one and I an using Debian full-time now. I'm also starting to play with other more geeky distro's and I've reserved an old box to try Linux From Scratch when I have time in the vacation.
19 • Distro history (by Canta Per Me on 2007-03-19 12:17:56 GMT from Slovakia)
I have the experience similar to Auzen. My first distro was Mandrake 7.2 and I was very happy with it, as it helped me to discover the Linux. But after this, with higher release number and with my growing linux skills I was more and more dissatisfied with it. Finaly, I've switched to Slackware. And strangely, it was not so hard step to set-up and use it. I really like it's philosophy, and that it helped me to understand linux more in-depth. Also, there are almost no problems with usage, so it's my main distro for more than 3 years. Lately, I've checked some other distros, just to know other kids in block. I was not very satisfied with Mandriva and OpenSUSE, Zenwalk and Vector Linux were pleasant surprieses and I was really impressed with Ubuntu Edgy. So, staying with Slackware, but knowing there are nice distros out there ;-)
20 • Pardus is the distro of the day... (by Caraibes on 2007-03-19 12:20:20 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Ok, folks... A very happy FC6 user here... But reading the Linux news around, it seems Pardus is getting a big momentum these days... So, following Béranger's advices, I downloaded the distro, and plan to install it on one of my Vector's PC's to see how it feels...
But I want to know more about the plan of Pardus :
-Will there always be a way to upgrade from version to version, like "apt-get update & apt-get upgrade" ?
-Since it is a gvt funded project, does it have an entreprise/LTS vision ?
-For how long are the version supported ?
21 • Growing older (by Matiss on 2007-03-19 12:22:29 GMT from Latvia)
Beeing a very curious person, I became an advanced user in the win-days (and I became tho local "IT-helpdesk" to stress my patience...).
Eventually some virus broke my home PC and I started to test out Linux distros. The easy ones were too limiting and broken at the time (circa summer 2003), so I thought - ok, given a good base, I'll do better on my own than with a Redhat or Mandrake of those days.
Gentoo 1.4 was becoming the new hit and I found it to be what I was looking for - a very good base. I learned a lot, made kernelconfigs during breakfast and so on. It was real fun. But as time passed, gentoo became too complicated and I found it stupid to wait half an hour just to get a recent firefox security upgrade.
Compiling was too long and too pointless, since everybody was effectively doing the same. From the same Eugenia L.-Q. I learnt about Archlinux - it was simple, fast, stable and up to date - gentoo away, Arch in.
Some year later I still felt doing too much work others were doing as well - that was not the way to go - for the opensource model to really succeed. In this context, Ubuntu was making nice progress, yet I felt it wasn't ready, not until Edgy.
With Edgy, both Gnome and Ubuntu were ready for primetime. I was a KDE user before, I'm using Gnome now, and I'm looking forward to KDE 4.
To sum it up - slackware and gentoo (was?) is for classroom use; ubuntu and similar ones - for real life.
Ladislav - keep up the good work! No monday without DW! Matīss
22 • reply (by Penguin Pete on 2007-03-19 12:24:34 GMT from United States)
@anonymous from Sweden
I've had the idea lately that *my* difficulties with Ubuntu (such as when trying to review it) stem from hardware requirements as well. I get all my comps free from friends throwing out Windows desktop PCs, and I notice a sharp divide between people singing Ubuntu's praises and those like me who couldn't get it running or when it did it crawled like a turtle.
That's another thing; 'geeky' distros *always* run better on old hardware.
23 • Freespire / Linspire (by gabbman on 2007-03-19 12:38:05 GMT from Canada)
The road to self destruction, begins with 'in house' discontent.
Quite frankly I have no idea why they are fighting over "Linspire", a 1year +++ distro, or Freespire, a disto that will be playing 'catch up' as long as Linspire did. They should all just bail and get any real distro, Freespire users just click a link in the page hit ranking anything over 18 will get you started.
Let Kevin and his crew spend the rest of Micheal's money trying to get CNR to work.
24 • OS Preferences (by Videoguy on 2007-03-19 13:01:23 GMT from United States)
Hmm....must be "old guy" day at DWW.... ;)
My first linux experience was a Zipslack installation on a 486 machine. I did have some difficulty initially figuring out how to configure X and so forth. I cannot count the number of times I managed to break the install but at least I knew what had happened, or at least what I did to cause the problem. Years later, I'm still a Slackware user. I use other distros but always seem to gravitate back to Slackware.
Cheers
25 • Geek vs user-friendly distros (by ceti on 2007-03-19 13:10:36 GMT from Brazil)
I started with Slackware, then Gentoo.
Before I got nuts, I switched to Fedora Core3, and was disappointed.
So, I tried Ubuntu, a breeze to my tired eyes & brain. Now, I run MEPIS, Freespire & Linux Mint, all Ubuntu-based distros.
I feel comfortable and happy.
26 • Linux distros (by JoeW on 2007-03-19 13:12:14 GMT from United States)
I'm neither a novice nor an expert. I've tried a wide variety of linux distributions over the past five or six years. I'm not a programmer, just someone looking for a readily useable distribution to do "ordinary" things with a computer: office work - including printing, internet surfing, email, a few non-challenging games, etc.
I've consistently had good luck with SuSE - a big, commercially-derived distro.
Recently I've been very impressed with AUSTRUMI, NimbleX, and Puppy. All are small (<200 MB) or very small (50-100 MB) and all are live distros.
Puppy (as of version 2.14) has an excellent package management system and repository (including codecs for mpeg and wmv's), mounts NTSF drives easily, connects to wired networks w/o difficulty and with a little trial and error finds and loads wireless network drivers. Customizing Puppy and burning it "as you like it" to a CD or installing on a USB drive is just a matter of following the menu.
I installed Puppy (version 1.09) on an old laptop: Compaq Armada 7700DTS and it works great! The only thing missing is the ability to find a driver for my Netgear pcmcia wireless card.
AUSTRUMI is also small and excellent, smaller than Puppy and not quite as versatile.
NimbleX is new to me, but amazingly good burned right from the download. Mounts NTFS, reads mpeg & wmv files, good package management.
Vector Linux (installed version 5.8 rather than the live CD) I've found to be an excellent, medium-sized distro of medium sophistication but very easy to use as burned from the download.Plays mpeg, wmv, opens jpg, etc.
BLAG 6000 is another easy-to-install-and-use non-live distro - Fedora-based. I've found the most recent versions of both BLAG and Vector to be much improved in utility and ease of installaton over earlier versions.
Try one or more of the above - they work well.
27 • Collaboration (by Wolven on 2007-03-19 13:12:50 GMT from Norway)
Thank you for the review and interview Susan.
I'm not sure if this will bring about any changes in the FOSS community, but I think the time has come for 'small time distros' to come together and start cooperating and share ideas, code, knowledge, what have you. To me FOSS is about cooperation and collaboration and I don't see why this shouldn't apply to different distros as well. It's not easy keeping a distro afloat all alone, and as the project grows, so does the workload and the required knowledge. Having someone to turn to for help, or just to ask a question that would take you several hours of searching to find the answer to helps so much.
More and more distros are created, which means there are a lot of creative and knowledgeable people out there. This is a resource for the whole "GNU/Linux movement". (If there is such a thing) We need to 'harvest' this resource and place it in a pool which we all can draw from. Perhaps not one single large pool, but several smaller pools or communities if you like.
Through collaboration with the developers of GoblinX, ZenLive and other Linux-Live based distros, Wolvix has gotten better. We (the developers) have created a small community where we help each other out by sharing knowledge and code. (http://live-developers.org) The joint forces with Ultima Linux will help even more and I was recently contacted by the developers of Fluxbuntu who share the same idea as we do: It's time to start working together and learn from each other. The cost of getting together is so small and the benefit is so high.
28 • Linspire / Freespire (by Phlosten on 2007-03-19 13:17:36 GMT from Australia)
They don't have a hidden agenda, they just have an agenda full stop. It's fairly obviously that they are going to do anything they want to make the profit they want, that's what a business does.
Number 1 Rule of Business: There is no such thing as friends in business.
29 • Capability merging (by Francois Belouvier on 2007-03-19 13:31:04 GMT from Greece)
To add to Susan's featured article, I can bear testimony of a similar feature sharing between Clonezilla/DRBL and GParted. The respective devels realized that it would be wonderful to combine the power and capabilities of their tools: Clonezilla/DRBL as a backup/restore/cloning system and GParted to manage hard disks before or after a cloning operation...And this inter-exchange actually went both ways!!! Now there is both a Clonezilla - GParted (merged) LiveCD, where the user may choose through GRUB which tool to boot or DRBL-LiveCD (Clonezilla's bigger brother...) where GParted is embedded in the LiveCD environment!!! I have feedback from a friend that tested both tools to reconstruct an XFS-based openSUSE system - migrating to a bigger capacity hard disk - in less than 90 minutes!!!
30 • From geekish to userfriendly (by fDSFKO33 on 2007-03-19 13:31:59 GMT from Netherlands)
It sounds somewhat familiar. I moved from using geekish distributions (Slackware, *BSD) primarily to more userfriendly systems, primarily RHEL and CentOS). Not to say that CentOS and RHEL can't be used in a geekish manner. I just don't have the time to compile and configure *everything* manually, so I just do that were it is necessary. E.g. CentOS and various repositories (such as RPMForge) provide a lot of Perl and Python modules. I used to compile and maintain them one by one on "geekish systems". Nowadays I think it is a waste of time to redo it if someone else did it in a repository, and only write spec files for packages that are missing. Gets you faster to doing real work.
31 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-19 13:32:46 GMT from United States)
> the wishes of the Freespire community, no matter how noble and productive, can be overridden in order to maintain a healthy balance between the goals of the community and the needs of the company.
So in other words, they became a "community" distro in order to get employees who volunteer their time. Utterly clueless. They just don't understand that the open source community does not donate its time to make profit for companies. "Hey guys, come on in. We have a lot of work to do. To increase our profit margins we are requesting volunteers to do everything for us."
A joke.
32 • From Easy towards Geeky (by Roy on 2007-03-19 13:40:00 GMT from United States)
I started out with Corel Linux, then Xandros. I had an issue with my X configuration. Changes made in the GUI would stick for a while, but not very long. I spent days back and forth with tech support without luck. Finally, after much web searching, I figured out that I just had to make a small change to a text file. I found that there were many text config files that I could read, understand and control. Manual setup may take a little more learning than GUI tools, but once set up, it does not change by itself. I feel like I ended up in the middle of the road, with Vector SOHO. Neither ultra-geeky nor fully automated.
33 • Geek vs non-geek distros (by massysett on 2007-03-19 13:40:33 GMT from United States)
I use Gentoo on my desktop and laptop. It has a reputation as being a geek distro, and I fully agree with that--you have to know some system internals in order to make good use of Gentoo. But I also think Gentoo is very easy to maintain. Sure there is compiling, but once your system is up and running that's not much of an issue. I especially like how easy it is to get the latest versions of packages, without upgrading my entire system. Of course, backports are available for other distros like Ubuntu which make easy updating to latest versiosn of a few packages possible, and running Debian can make updates easy as well. But I find Gentoo easy to maintain so I see no reason to switch from it.
34 • I choosed arch ... for the same reason ! (by Anonymous on 2007-03-19 13:41:02 GMT from Canada)
Well I use ArchLinux exacly because I just don't have the same energy as I used to to deal with stupid issues that they should not be there ...
In my experience ubuntu is easy as long as you want to keep the default install. If you want something very specif, it's a total nightmare. "Geek" distro are more easy if you want total control.
35 • great weekly (by random guy at 2007-03-19 13:47:05 GMT from United States)
this is a great weekly Ladislav, thanks a lot.
36 • Freespire pulling a Lycoris? (by Egon Spengler on 2007-03-19 13:48:50 GMT from United States)
Gabbman should certainly recognize the symptoms, since he experienced the implosion of Lycoris first-hand, and iirc, showed up to try Lindows/spire/Freedish a bit after the death of Lycoris. So he knows whereof he speaks.
37 • Geek VS. NonGeek (by Nybronx on 2007-03-19 14:26:00 GMT from United States)
Like many here I started with Redhat-Mandrake-Suse but really never found a Distro that did what I wanted til I found PCLOS, but that didn't stop me from trying others. Nope kept looking cause I knew the "Distro" was out there. Vector-Gento-Puppy-DSL-Arch-Mandriva well you get the idea, But I always came back to PCLOS. Have that and Sabayon PCLOS for day to day cause it hust works with little fuss or muss and the great forum environment, Sabayon for the "geek" in me.
Great work sir, once again a great read. Thanks Ladislav
38 • Geek Distro's (by Faust on 2007-03-19 14:30:04 GMT from United States)
I am a Arch linux user, and I don't feel that Arch is really a "geek" distro that has to have a lot of bugs worked out. To honestly believe that Ubuntu makes your computing life easier is a joke. For one I had more issues with Ubuntu than I have had with most distro's. There are a lot of distros that actually bring something new to the table, but get overlooked cause of the "oh shiney" of Ubuntu. Innovation isn't a icon theme or package manager. Which is what I feel Ubuntu is. Anyways more innovative distro will cease to exist due to users getting in the MS mindset. Simple doesn't equal easy.
39 • Distro Choices (by Openminded on 2007-03-19 14:32:57 GMT from United States)
After trying many distros, I have concluded that 32-bit gentoo and arch are bullet-proof once configured the way you want them. For latest and greatest, it's Foresight and Sabayon. Frugalware and Blag are good also for having everything included.
Gentoo, Arch, and Foresight are extra nice because they are "rolling" distros, also. Routine maintenance keeps them "current" indefinitely.
I am going to set up a dual boot box today with Foresight 1.1 (as a daily workstation) and Sabayon 3.3 (for the games).
You gotta love linux!
40 • Running out of CDRs (by Keith Jolie at 2007-03-19 14:34:12 GMT from United States)
I've tried almost every distribution on Distrowatch, and several of them in various versions. My testing computer is an old Sony viao PIII with a linksys wireless b card and 192 M ram. My quest began when my computer stopped working because of Windows 98 viruses and windows xp just wouldn't work. Fond memories (distros I like) include:
Ubuntu - I've had at least 4 versions of Ubuntu on my laptop. It's pretty resource intensive, so it's slow on my laptop. Mepis - One of my favourites - it works, but I've had it crash. Puppy - fun, fast, but .pups and some of the theming needs more work. I really do like the .pup concept though...if building packages this way could be standardized across distros (I also really like the module system of Dynabolic)...that would be great. Vector - I really like vector, except I've had it crash and become unusable - looking forward to trying the latest version DSL and DSL-N - great distros for old hardware...but not real pretty, and limited Dynabolic - This is a really amazing distro for music/media creation etc... I've had some challenges with docking and nesting, but the concepts along with their module package installation scheme is awesome.
Pardus - this is what's on my laptop right now...I REALLY like this one...If you're using mepis right now. Install Pardus, and you'll never go back.
that's my thoughts...
cheers,
K
41 • moving to geek distro (by Jason at 2007-03-19 14:39:06 GMT from United States)
I actually find myself doing the oppposite. I'm getting tired of using distros that are suppose to work but I have to spend so much time forcing it to work, getting to the internals. For instance, Fluxbox eats up a lot less of my time than Gnome does, even though to configure Fluxbox I use a text editor rather than GUI programs.
42 • 27 • Collaboration (by johncoom (aka coomjohn) on 2007-03-19 14:41:24 GMT from Australia)
Wolven
I totally agree with you it is a pity that some developers don't do the same "Collaboration" As well I would like to see the management of commercial distro's encourage it as well. Go at it all alone for everything = counter productive + egocentric
Happy days - yours John
43 • Freespire (by Patrick Green on 2007-03-19 14:47:01 GMT from United States)
Hi, I am the Vice Chair of the Freespire Community Board. My post regarding this matter can be found at http://forum.freespire.org/showpost.php?p=45517&postcount=1
Yes, there have been a lot of concerns from the community. Some are unhappy with the lack of community influence. Part of the problem is that the new face of Linux is not like the old face. The original crowd consisted mostly of hackers, developers, and hobbyists. These people have the same understanding of Geek culture that Eric S Raymond has when he wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Community was easier to define and embrace then. People just knew their roles and knew who the SABDFL was. Today, the new face of Linux has people who have an understanding of community, but are not hip to the folkways and mores of hacker culture. Furthermore, these are not programmers. However, these people have been made a promise by the FOSS community that they can take part....that this is their community. However, I have seen all too often that the hacker culture will easily dismiss this new breed of Linux user as whiny newbies. Freespire is one of those projects directed predominately to the new Linux user.
I think part of the problem is that not only has the community not been asked their opinions on certain matters, but there has not been a big move to invite them to join the party. When people complain they are told to roll up their sleeves, but they do not know what to do once the sleeves are rolled.
My post is a call to productive arms. I am not asking people for their resume, I am asking them for a willingness to help and be a part of the community. I wrote this less than 12 hours ago and already I am getting an enthusiastic response from the community. But now it is up to me and the other members of the community board to take this to the next step. The community needs to take action now and be vibrant. IMHO, if you take some of the aspects of the gentoo community, a dash of Ubuntu community, and the unique flavor of someone interested in Freespire, and you have a lot of potential.
If the community is vibrant, alive, contributing, and even having a little bit of fun, then Linspire Inc will have to give the voice of the community it's due. It is my hope that this community does take it to the next level.
You have reported on the controversy and the unrest that occured, from the ashed of those flame wars a community is rising. It is my hope it will be a Phoenix and as it develops and grows, I hope you will watch. I also hope that other Linux distro communities take the time to do what I have done. I have spent the last few days researching various distro communities to see what they do well and what they do not do so well.
I think you will find that there is a lot of interesting stuff going on at other carts in the bazaar. The cool part is, you can talk to these people and then take some of the ideas back to your own cart.
Cheers
Patrick Green
44 • Re: 40 (by laissezfaire on 2007-03-19 14:58:10 GMT from United States)
Yes, I have also tried Mandriva, Mepis, and various versions of .buntu's in the past but I am settled with Pardus for now. Everything just works and it is very polished and stable. Highly recommended to fellow readers.
45 • You forgot something :) (by Luke on 2007-03-19 14:58:54 GMT from United States)
"I will comment on some of the suggestions in the next issue of DistroWatch Weekly."
Thanks for another great DWW!
46 • Evolution (or lack of it) (by spikeb on 2007-03-19 15:01:10 GMT from United States)
I have used just about every distro out there..or at least that was true until fairly recently. But, I keep coming back to what i started with: Red Hat (either via Fedora or CentOS)
47 • Geekiness and Linux (by dutchy on 2007-03-19 15:07:52 GMT from Netherlands)
My experience is also opposite of the the typical "the older you get the less geeky you become". I am more geeky now than I was 5 years ago when I was stuck in the Windows world.
My current distribution is Sidux because it's is a fine balance between easy and geeky. I like the idea of running the latest bleeding edge (almost) packages from Debian Sid, and I like a team of geeks sitting behind the scenes to make sure it doesn't break your system when updates come. If I feel inclined I can pull packages from experimental and not run into too many difficulties. As long as I have my backups, and a grml CD handy I can usually fix anything I bork.
I've tried many distributions in the past few months, and I have to say that the ubuntu based distros have a good idea, but practically it doesn't work. By the time they modify and release the Debian Sid that they "import", Sid has moved on. And when will people understand that having .deb files that are not compatible with Debian is a problem.
We've seen that happen with .rpm files. There are Red Hat .rpm files, Mandriva .rpm files and SuSE (or SUSE as some people like to call it) .rpm files. They are frequently not compatible. That makes it harder for developers. Why is "upstream" mostly source? Because packaging is a pain. This has to be solved if Linux is going to hit the mainstream.
48 • Geek distro (by HXC on 2007-03-19 15:08:51 GMT from Netherlands)
I use and would advice any intermediate users Gentoo. 90% of the other distro's I used work pretty out of the box but can become exceptionally painful and time consuming experience when you want to do something the developers hasn't provided for you yet (for example install a package not in the apt repositories)
Besides I find most distributions even worse than Windows stability wise; with illogical errors that are hard to fix (I maintain several distributions for several people but got sick of unexplainable problems each time). I installed Gentoo everywhere and at least now when there is a problem how I should fix it (because I put it in there in the first place). And now the past 6 months no problems have arisen no matter the users wanted to.
In conclusion. yes Linux is hard to master, yes it is a mess of critical components developed by separate development teams. Heck it isn't even a distribution like BSD is. Your only fooling yourself if you can think you can shortcut through the learning process. In the end there will be always some things that require manual configuration. Therefor I don't believe in this geek or non geek distro discussion, people who get spoiled by to many frontends tend to get disappointed at a later stage when they realize they don't have a clue what is going on.
49 • Distro's (by voislav on 2007-03-19 15:11:11 GMT from Canada)
Started on Red Hat 6, mostly for a web server. Never liked Gnome, so switched to Mandrake 7, then 9. After the Mandriva fiasco, tried a few distros, Ubuntu (still didn't like Gnome), Kubuntu, Fedora Core, PCLinuxOS and openSUSE before settling on MEPIS. Had a bit of fun with Mint recently, but still don't like Gnome. Currently are running new MEPIS 6.5 64bit, and have to say it's exquisite, even the betas are much better than the 64bit editions of openSUSE 10.2 and Kubuntu 6.10, much more stable on my system. I'm still secretly hoping for a Mandriva comeback, they really used to make nice distros.
50 • Not that geeky (by Jesse on 2007-03-19 15:12:01 GMT from Canada)
I've been using Linux for about seven years and I've always tried to stay with distros which were going to make the experience easy (or more easy) for me.
I don't want to compile anything system-related (I'm a software developer, if I'm compiling something it should be my lastest project), I don't want to hunt for packages and I don't want to have to tweak config files to make things work.
A little customization is great, but I just want the system to work. Sadly, I've never had an OS which just works, but Fedora comes close enough.
51 • I had the same thought when I read that article (by earlycj5 on 2007-03-19 15:13:04 GMT from United States)
I started with Redhat 7.3, tried Mandrake, Yoper, finally settled on Slackware for a good while.
Now days my laptop I'm using now is running Kubuntu and my 64 bit desktop at home runs SUSE10.2. Oh sure, I still download and compile stuff if it's not in repositories, but for the most part the most software is and I don't have to fiddle around to get my OS to recognize my internal card reader and other things like that.
So yeah, I'm getting lazy in my old age as well. ;)
52 • Growing old... (by Dex on 2007-03-19 15:23:47 GMT from Philippines)
I used to have to energy and excitement to try out as many distros as possible. I've gone through Slackware, Gentoo, Mandrake, Red Hat, Fedora Core, Ubuntu, CentOS, OpenSuSE, MEPIS, etc. etc. I've since switched over to using a Mac, and running Linux in Parallels as a virtual machine. Why? I've just grown tired of just doing to much tweaking, updating, and just getting things to feel right that I don't get any work done. These days I just deploy Linux servers, and do my work on the Mac, which seems to be just great as a desktop machine.
Quite frankly, if I find out that CentOS 5 will install on my MacBook, and all hardware works without any problems, plus be able to suspend and resume without problems, I'd most probably switch over immediately and permanently. Right now though, I'd rather spend time working than tweaking. I'm just too much of a geek to resist the urge to tweak my personal Linux system.
53 • geek distros (by pp on 2007-03-19 15:23:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Over 4 years of Linux use, I've: -Started with easy distro (Mandriva) -Dipped to a geeky one (Arch) -Bounced back to practical (openSUSE)
And yes, I'm 32 - old,fragile and mentally towards retardation, ;-)
But I do recommend a dip into a geek distro. It will _not_ be a useless learning experience. But it's the kind of thing that is good to do while you're still a student and have time.
54 • Idea (by spikeb on 2007-03-19 15:25:18 GMT from United States)
You know, I'm surprised nobody besides Ubuntu (with their LTS releases)has tried making a desktop orientated distro that has a nice and measured development cycle. I think home users would benefit tremendously from the more sane release cycle of of something like RHEL.
55 • "geeky" vs. "easy" distros (by timon on 2007-03-19 15:34:54 GMT from Finland)
Ladislav Bodnar wrote: "Have any of you experienced a similar evolution? Did you run a "geek" distro in the past, but switched to a more user-friendly one later? Or do you have a "once-a-geek, always-a-geek" mentality that makes you enjoy compiling software and manually edit configuration files year after year?"
I've been a debian user for about four years now (first two years dual-booting between debian with windows xp, then I wiped windows away and since then I've used only debian). Debian has a reputation of being a "geek" distro but actually they're somewhere between the real "geek" distros that try to avoid patching or modifying their packages and the "newbie-friendly" distros that patch their packages, add GUI tools for administration tasks and generally try to make Linux as easy to use as possible.
Debian patches their packages to make applications play well together and they also add sane default configurations, init scripts, post-install configuration scripts and menu entries for applications to make most applications "just work" without further tweaking. I think that many of ubuntu's famed "just works" features were already in debian before ubuntu appeared, although ubuntu has added their own ease-of-use features on top of debian's solid groundwork. Easy package management and many frontends to package management tools is, of course, one of the main things that makes debian easier than the more "geeky" distros. But debian has also its own configuration system (debconf), font management (defoma), automatically updated menu system for all installed applications, the new easy debian-installer, and many other features that rises debian above the "strictly-for-geeks-only" distros.
Still, there's a small geek inside me and I've lately exercised this "inner geek" by dual-booting between debian and a distro that tries to avoid patching their packages. This other distro is sourcemage, a GPL'ed fork of the source-based sorcerer distro (that Ladislav used in the past). The original sorcerer distro changed its license and became non-free, but the sourcemage fork now continues the sorcerer tradition under the GPL license.
Sourcemage is perhaps not the "geekiest" distro out there because they have an excellent package manager that makes installing software from source packages a breeze even for less experienced users, but it definitely gives my "inner geek" more exercise than debian. Sourcemage's unpatched packages require a lot more tweaking after the installation than the debian-patched packages. Dual-booting between debian and sourcemage suits well my current needs: debian is my "just works" distro while sourcemage gives me extra control over my system and it also requires extra tweaking that my "inner geek" enjoys whenever I've got some free time from other activities.
What this all means is perhaps that I'm not yet too old to be a "geek". :-)
56 • Geek distro (by HXC on 2007-03-19 15:36:36 GMT from Netherlands)
A good example is the compilation of a kernel. Sooner or later people will need to know how it's done. The only question is does my distro make it easy and logical to compile my own kernel? Gentoo not only makes it a cakewalk it also provides excellent documentation and tools (Genkernel) to make this as easy and straightforward as possible without hiding the inner workings.
57 • Geek or no Geek, I choose Slackware (by Ruhar on 2007-03-19 16:30:56 GMT from United States)
Although I've tried a few of the "friendlier" distros out there, I just stick with Slackware because once I have it installed/configured with the additional apps installed myself, there is very little tweaking that needs to be done at all. I pretty much just keep current with the security patches applied by Pat V. I find that with Slackware, I spend much less time tweaking/configuring and more time doing actual work. Of all the distros I've tried (Debian, U/Kubuntu, Fedora, Zewalk, Suse, Arch, RHEL) Slackware is the one that frees up my time get work done. Don't get me wrong, I also love geeking out as well ;)
58 • On distros (by 2aperson on 2007-03-19 16:40:22 GMT from United States)
The first Linux distro I ever used was SLS (all 40-3.5 in diskettes). That was followed by possibly the first Slackware (60-3.5 in diskettes). Following that was a period of non-Linux use for a few years. Once I closed the Windows permanently, it was Suse followed by Libranet. After that, it was back to Slackware. I do try other distros. However, it is always back to Slackware. It is simple and reliable - simple meaning that it does not try to do too much for you. I do not mind the tweaking, but then again, I prefer to drive a standard-shift car and enjoyed assembler language programming too. To me, Slackware will always be the "real" Linux!
59 • sidux (by weg on 2007-03-19 16:48:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
For the true balance between geek and easy, I use Sidux linux, and advise anyone who hasn't tried it already to do so.
60 • The other way round (by Boovarahan S on 2007-03-19 16:50:37 GMT from India)
When I started using linux, my favorite was Mandrake and slowly as I gained experience, I moved on to a little bit geeky distros and now I have Arch as my main box.
61 • On distros (by Carter on 2007-03-19 17:22:11 GMT from United States)
I apparently am also getting old (at 34!) but have been puttering away with various distros for approximately 8 years now. I got started with LoopLinux and Corel Linux, but quickly moved on to Debian, and still have a hard time not going back to it. I got used to dselect, and to my mind it is a very good package management tool -- kind of like vi -- once you get used to it, it's fast and it makes waiting on other more resource-intensive tools painful. I tried the three major BSD's (OpenBSD at the time "just worked") and Slackware, and recently have dipped into the RedHat/Fedora realm. For about a year and a half I ran Ubuntu and then Xubuntu on an old home computer until even Xubuntu wasn't light enough. During the same period I ran Gentoo on my work laptop and was quite pleased with it. Now I have a new laptop with a dual-core Turion processor in it and am very excited to try Arch on it. I have to agree that the split between 'geek' and 'non-geek' distros doesn't really have much to do with how much work you're going to put into them -- unless you happen to find a distro that simply works with your particular hardware, you're going to have to put some work into it -- and that is where a strong community helps. I like a simple package manager like pacman that provides rolling releases. I really liked the control I got with emerge/Portage, but I got tired of waiting on compiles, and the recent problems in the Gentoo community give me pause about going back. I suppose it would be very naive of me to expect that Arch will 'just work' on my new laptop, but I have been running it in coLinux at work for a few months, and have been impressed enough with it to put some time into trying to get it to work at home.
62 • Geek or no Geek, I choose Slackware (by Ruhar on 2007-03-19 17:23:16 GMT from United States)
Although I've tried a few of the "friendlier" distros out there, I just stick with Slackware because once I have it installed/configured with the additional apps installed myself, there is very little tweaking that needs to be done at all. I pretty much just keep current with the security patches applied by Pat V. I find that with Slackware, I spend much less time tweaking/configuring and more time doing actual work. Of all the distros I've tried (Debian, U/Kubuntu, Fedora, Zewalk, Suse, Arch, RHEL) Slackware is the one that frees up my time get work done. Don't get me wrong, I also love geeking out as well ;)
63 • Not so old... (by evilmegaman on 2007-03-19 17:24:24 GMT from United States)
I am not really all that old or busy. I am in fact 16, and I do have time for tweaking and configuring and the likes. My main issue is that I want a "rolling" distro (I believe it's called rolling, But I can't be sure) such as Gentoo, or Foresight, or Arch where you never have big upgrades that you have to basically reinstall the damn system (like ubuntu or fedora Core). But I don't want to do all the work required to set up those distros to my exact liking... Any suggestions would be fantastic.
Keep up the good work on DWW!
64 • Re: #11: geek evolution (by Davey on 2007-03-19 17:25:31 GMT from United States)
Penguin Pete, maybe you can answer a question I've had for awhile: I keep reading comments about how the "easy" distros are OK for people that just want to do the usual stuff running apps, but not for people with advanced needs.
So just what is it that you can do in, say Slackware, that you couldn't do in Ubuntu or PCLOS or Mepis, for example? They all have the same commands available in the console, as far as I know, and you can get as far into the system as you want to, including hacking the kernel. As far as I can see the difference between distros is all at the higher level: config scripts with GUI, installation method, app installation, desktop/window-manager. All of these can be bypassed and changed by an advanced user, so what is it that you can do with grml that I can't do on Mepis or PCLOS?
65 • Linux Mint (by Jesse on 2007-03-19 18:39:24 GMT from Canada)
After al the hype about Linux Mint, I decided to give it a test drive. I downloaded and varified the iso file and burned it. However, I can't get it to boot. I tried the CD in a few computers at work (a tempermental LG lapop and a HP Compaq which will run anything) with no luck. I see Loading... and then nothing.
Mint looks like an excellent distro and I've heard great things about it, but I'm unable to get it to run on machines which routinely run Fedora and Knoppix.
66 • RE: Not so old... (by HXC on 2007-03-19 18:55:43 GMT from Netherlands)
There are basicly two distro that provide this functionality:
1 Debian Etch 2 Gentoo
If you update these each week you always have the latest packages available and no need to ever reinstall the system from scratch.
67 • 'geeky' linux distributions (by Arnold Bousley on 2007-03-19 19:06:55 GMT from United States)
I agree with the thought that as one becomes more familiar with Linux, one tends to move toward the less 'geeky' distros. Arch is wonderful, I've used it on an off for 3 years and you can get all the latest stuff working without much trouble but it's just more work that say PCLinuxOS. The time saved is spent on putting more of my music on ogg, better organizing finances, etc.
68 • Evolution from So Called Geek Distro. (by scribe63 on 2007-03-19 19:06:59 GMT from United States)
As stated the So Called Geek Distros, especially Gentoo/BSDs, do serve a good purpose to gain knowledge about GNU/Linux and UNIX like Operating Systems for possible everyday use and Specialized Environments. Said knowledge if of great help in troubleshooting issues in So Called Non-Geek distros.
For an every day use system i went with Ubuntu Dapper, since it serves that purpose well, with a few exceptions here and there. The main issues i still have with most of these types of distros, is that i still can't get my Alps MD 2010 printer to work properly with them, and capturing video in an .avi format for editing as oppose to a dv format. I just started using cinellera so i'm not sure if it does that yet.
In my recording studio, which i consider to be a Specialized Environment, my choices were custom built Debian Etch for a PIII 700 laptop MIDI Workstation with fluxbox, and Gentoo 2006 for a Dual Xeon Multi-track Audio Workstation with fluxbox.
For firewall
and routing I run OpenBSD, FreeBSD also is a very fast desktops which i'm considering for a PII 266 laptop.
Things i got to work using this approach saved me from having to wait for a third person to compile or foe me to recompile a particular feature, an application, or kernel feature which is needed. This approach also gives total control to install as minimal as possible to squeeze as much performance as possible out of the system and applications by not including unnecessary dependencies, features, applications, and daemons that are not needed in a given environment.
So at the end of the day it's all good, based on specific needs. This is what makes GNU/Linux, FOSS, and OSS GREAT.
HeTeP
69 • non geek - geek - non geek (by hants on 2007-03-19 19:28:43 GMT from Germany)
i first started with some real old red hat. it just rocked. then for no reason i switched back to windows. next big thing was freebsd for a year or so. well if you get to know it better it begins to suck. finally gentoo catched me. i loved it. until i screw my system up. again. and .. again. and so on... now im just trying all the non geek distributions to finally find one that is fast, responsove etc and doesnt require too much of extra work. frugalware was quite impressive but one problem remains with the non geek distros. if theyre fast and stable - then they are very small. but during my study of computer science i need programs like swi-prolog, spim and others. so i will try others and others - next one will be red hat again. maybe it still just rocks ;)
70 • move to ubuntu... (by Maxim on 2007-03-19 19:33:58 GMT from Ukraine)
Well last month i moved from Arch to Ubuntu.... as like the rest of you guys I didnt have the time to fix problems... and now I dont think i can move away from ubuntu as it is great ... it works .... and almost everything is pre-compiled...
71 • Spot on with DWW. (by Jason on 2007-03-19 20:29:58 GMT from United States)
I quite enjoyed this week's, good work and thanks.
72 • Just want to use the tools (by dcuny on 2007-03-19 20:48:55 GMT from United States)
I'm a certified geek. I've been a programmer for over 25 years, and played around with a lot of Linux distros. I work full time as a coder, and then come home and code some more.
At this point in my life, I just want to be able to install programs, and have them work.
My kids want to play Flash games. My wife wants to browse on-line forums and watch "The Amazing Race" on-line videos. I want to be able record my own music.
Most of these tasks are difficult to do in Linux. Lots of sites upgraded to Flash 9, and I can't find a Flash update for my distro. MPlayer doesn't play nice with on-line videos. For recording, I have to jump through hoops to figure out why Jack suddenly died/is routed wrong/whatever, or wait until it's possible for mere mortals to use Jokosher. I spent a couple hours fiddling with this setting and that setting before I could get a simple microphone working in Audacity.
Last week, I tried moving to Kubuntu 6.10. Stable? Not really. It took several attempts before I could get it to install (I've done this sort of thing many times before). Running Add/Install programs locked up when I tried to install VMWare, because it popped up a "I agree to this..." sort of dialog box, but the console display was read only from the GUI installer. So I lost an hour's worth of downloaded updates when I had to reset apt-get. (Ultimately, I couldn't even get VMWare to configure on my machine properly).
The GUI installer crashed often, and the UI was slow when I selected multiple repositories - about 30 seconds between clicking a checkbox and getting a response. I've got a fast machine, and a lot of memory - but apparently, not fast enough.
A couple days later, I wanted to play a video. Ooops - the codecs were still on the installer list, but magically deactivated. (Maybe it was that "Restricted Drivers Manager" that Eugenia mentions).
So I'm still stuck on PCLOS waiting for the next release to stabilize while the version I've got slowly rots.
Eugenia Loli-Queru complains she's 33, and doesn't have time to waste doing these things. The sad thing is, after praising how easy Ubuntu is, she's still got a paragraph of bugs she's dealt with.
The sooner Linux "just works", the better. Because I've got work I've need to get done, and I'd rather do it in Linux than Windows.
73 • The Mystery of Ubuntu (by devnet on 2007-03-19 20:51:43 GMT from United States)
I still cannot understand why people use Ubuntu! I've been trying since the very first version to understand why people insist it is the easiest distro to use and administer...and it doesn't have a robust control panel!
OpenSuse has YAST. Mandriva has the MCC. PCLinuxOS has the PCC. These three distros are easier to use than Ubuntu for this reason alone. Secondly, of those three distros, only one makes it easy right out of the gate for new users or users who want to get busy right away...and that's PCLinuxOS. Installing a graphics driver is as easy as opening synaptic and apt-getting it...then you're done. It's a bit harder to do that in Ubuntu I'm afraid...https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Latest_Nvidia_Dapper?highlight=%28nvidia%29 in Ubuntu vs opening up synaptic, doing a search for 'nvidia' and then clicking it to install it in PCLinuxOS. I still don't see why new users don't find PCLOS more comfy and ready to go than Ubuntu.
Can anyone explain this mystery? I think it's simply 'jump on the bandwagon' type stuff...everyone is using Ubuntu simply because everyone is using Ubuntu. It doesn't hurt that it is nice and stable...but so are each distro in the top ten here at distrowatch. Anyone explain?
74 • Linux for older folks? (by Gnobuddy on 2007-03-19 20:55:09 GMT from United States)
Several years ago I found Gentoo just plain worked better for me than any other distro; there was no package, however obscure that I could not get installed and working, and most of them were an "emerge packagename" away. The rest would compile from source with no issues, unlike every other distro I've tried (though Slackware came closest).
So I suffered through several Gentoo installs over the years in order to gain the benefits I wanted. And I kept thinking I didn't really care about USE flags and that sort of fine-grained control, I just wanted the goodness of Portage.
Then Kororaa came along, what a breath of fresh air - a beautiful Gentoo install in minutes! Unfortunately, Kororaa development quickly slowed down to a snails pace, but then Sabayon Linux burst on the scene full of energy and creativity.
Now I have my cake and eat it too - Sabayon installs a working Gentoo Linux system quickly, and additional software is an "emerge" away. Excellent!
I'm not a fan of the dark and sombre huges in the default Sabayon install, but fortunately it is not hard to tweak that away, turn off the unstable 3D desktop effects, and end up with a nice, rock-solid Gentoo system.
-Gnobuddy
75 • Ubuntu v/s PCLinuxOS (by Kanwar on 2007-03-19 21:11:36 GMT from United States)
In my opinion, apart from media hype, there is nothing that Ubuntu simplifies that PCLinuxOS does not. So, in the end it still is a KDE/GNOME game. I would like to ask Eugenia to do a similar test with PCLinuxOS as well and post the review.
I have been trying Ubuntu ever since the hype began but have failed to see any reason to switch to it. Oh, and yes, I am almost 40 ;-)
Cheers.
76 • about getting old (by Psionides on 2007-03-19 21:37:44 GMT from Poland)
> Have any of you experienced a similar evolution? Did you run a "geek" distro in the past, but switched to a more user-friendly one later?
Not exactly, but I can see some similarities... I started with distros like Mandrake, Fedora or Aurox - easy to use (graphical configuration utilities), but they had that "rpm hell" and were sometimes slow. Then Mepis or Debian - no graphical configurators (but I realized I didn't actually need to configure anything), installation is ridiculously simple thanks to apt. Now I'm using Kubuntu - like Debian, but prettier (in my opinion Debian has the second worst graphics designer team in the world (no. 1 is Sun)), more stable than Debian testing/unstable, and more up-to-date than Debian stable. And now I'm considering switching to Mac when I buy a new computer :) So I could say that each of my distros was in some way more comfortable and easier than the previous; Mandrake may seem easier than Kubuntu with all those configs in drakconf, but software installation is much much easier in Kubuntu than it was in Mandrake (at least at the time when I used it, I don't know how it is now). I've never installed Gentoo and I've never even thought about installing Slackware :) I may be a geek, but still I'm not geeky enough to use Slackware or BSD, I think...
One thing that would confirm that I may be getting old (I'm 24 :) - I install a lot fewer distros now than I did before. Maybe it's because I have no problems with those which I use...
77 • Geek distro (by Lukas at 2007-03-19 21:42:05 GMT from Slovakia)
Hi, I've same experience as you and as Eugenia. First, I started with the user-firendly Mandrake (now Mandriva). But I wasn't glad, because I want something different and I had too the time for learning. After a short time I change distro to Slackware. It was very hard on begining, but after one year when I started again testing the distros, I need many things from Slack (for example KISS concept).
I try many distros after Slack - Arch, Debian, CentOS, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, but I finally stay on (K)Ubuntu. Because it's much more fresh as Debian, it's stabler than Arch, simplier than MDK (from KISS side) and faster than OpenSUSE... I must too in (K)ubuntu edit somethings by hand but no so lot like in Slack/Arch/similary. I don't need compilation now, because Ubuntu have a lot of packages (too "restricted" - I don't live in USA, I live in Europe and it's no my affairs that in USA is some packages "restricted", this is problem of Red Hat, OpenSUSE, ...). I use KDE rather than GNOME, and Ubuntu team primary keep GNOME and some thing works better on Ubuntu like on Kubuntu :(
And finally, please sorry, my english is still not so good... Best wishis from Slovakia :)
78 • Distros tried (by Lyn David Thomas on 2007-03-19 21:49:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well I have tried many distros in my time. Like many I ran Mandrake for some time, but while I that was my primary distro I installed many others - Xandros, Lycoris, Debian, Libranet, Mepis etc... but when I finally found Vector I had found the distro that suited me. A good base of excellent and well chosen aps, a set up that was fast and when installed fast to use. But best of all a really friendly user community that were happy to help with any problem. For me it provided the right blend of hand holding and access under the bonnet to play. I learned more in two months using Vector Linux than I did for using Mandrake for the best part of two years. Vector is evolving fast, like most distros, and best of all they welcome the involvement of everyone.
79 • geek distro (by Sergio Fernandes on 2007-03-19 21:56:29 GMT from Portugal)
I agree with Eugenia Loli-Queru. I'm 33 too :-) I started with rh5.2, used mandrake for several years, gentoo, ubuntu, kubuntu, pardus, and now, I use Pclinuxos. Everyrthing works.Simple. I like it.
80 • evolution (or lack thereof) (part 2) (by tomcat on 2007-03-19 22:11:02 GMT from Germany)
"I have used just about every distro out there..or at least that was true until fairly recently. But, I keep coming back to what i started with: Red Hat (either via Fedora or CentOS)"
Same thing here. Started with RH 7.2, gave gentoo, slack, arch, yoper, suse, mandrake, debian, ubuntu, and many obscure distros a try and tried to learn everyting there is. Then I got bored. I went back to Red Hat/fedora and will be installing CentOS 5 soon.
Being geeky is nice as long as you have the time for it. At 33 years of age, having finished two university studies and having a proper job and a family, I am not willing to spend all my time compiling things. I leave that job/pleasure to the true geeks. :)
81 • it should work (by stolennomenclature on 2007-03-19 22:33:11 GMT from Australia)
Just as there are those who use cars primarily to travel from one place to another, and some who spend their time under the bonnet tinkering with them, there are also those who make use of computers, and those who have fun tinkering with them. For the latter group, Linux offers a wealth of options for tinkering, and the more basic and un-automated the distribution is the better. These are the command line people.
But for those who would use the computer for its intended purpose, command lines, scripts, convoluted directory structures and the like simply get in the way. These people want a system that "just works", and does so with the minimum of manual intervention. And rightly so.
I have no objection to the hackers who want to tinker with their hardware and software for the sheer fun of it - more power to them. But they are not the only types of people who use computers. In fact I suspect they are in the minority.
What the Free Software world has not yet supplied is a fully automated and simple to use Linux distro that really just works. Ubuntu is getting there slowly but surely, but none of them are there yet, and at the current rate of progress it looks like years rather than months.
82 • geek vs no-geek (by Hide on 2007-03-19 22:36:51 GMT from Serbia and Montenegro)
I started with Ubuntu (marketing is a wonderful thing), then Mandriva, Slack, Vector, Suse and now i'm using Arch. It's great, and I don't think i'll actually move again, but i'm keen on trying Gentoo and *BSD.
(You can say whatever you want, but Arch is a geek distro [period]. It doesn't have X by default, you need to mess up with alsamixer, build graphical environment etc...)
I'm only 15 and i'm waiting to see what will happen in future... If i decide to chill with geeky distros, i'll move to Ubuntu/Fedora, or any other that is compromise between two extremes...
One other thing, I think that ideal linux path looks like this: easy-to-use - to start with linux a bit sth more demanding - to learn how stuff works (middle to geek - just a transition period) ease of use again - so you can rest, but if sth goes wrong - u can fix it... (my two bits :))
83 • Thanks for the nice review (by Martin Ultima on 2007-03-19 22:46:24 GMT from United States)
It's so nice to see someone saying something positive about me, even if it isn't true ;-)
Anyway, ego-mania aside, I have to say that it really does make a bit more sense for smaller projects to work together - less duplication of effort, depending on the projects in question, and not to mention just sharing ideas back and forth can be a very good thing. I've actually been adding a bunch of stuff into the next Ultima release after seeing just how nicely it works in Wolvix (HAL/D-Bus, anyone?)
By the way, since I'm posting, may as well stick in the obligatory advert... Wolvix is without a doubt one of the most user-friendly systems I've ever used, just stick it in and just about everything works automatically, even on machines like mine which are purpose-built just to screw things up ;-) (But once I've got my own project fully back up and running it's going to be good too ;-)
84 • Sabayon and PCLinuxOS (by tek_heretik on 2007-03-19 23:13:00 GMT from Canada)
Sabayon has a 64bit version, PCLOS doesn't.
Sabayon has the nVidia driver and Beryl out of the box, PCLOS doesn't.
PCLOS is FULL of bugs right now (3 test releases later), Sabayon isn't.
Sabayon comes in a DVD version, PCLOS doesn't.
PCLOS is trying to be another Lindows, Sabayon isn't.
SABAYON'S FORUM IS FRIENDLY AND USEFUL, PCLOS'S ISN'T. I should know, I was banned once for nothing (some guy claimed I called him old and an admin that doesn't like Canadians banned me) and later, under a new user, had a 'testing' post that took 13 hours to create (12 hours of testing and 1 hour to write) torn down with no explanation at all (my guess is ANYTHING negative, bugs, etc. are not allowed to be posted).
PCLOS takes forever to add packages to their repository after a major upgrade, Sabayon doesn't.
Am I bitter, yes, am I glad I found a better distro, yes. >:-]
85 • Borked link (by pete on 2007-03-19 23:36:55 GMT from United States)
The screenshot of Sabayon linux has a link to an image that is Permission Denied. http://distrowatch.com/images/screenshots/sabayon-3.3.png
I wanted to see the high-res version because that sure looks like the icon for my Solarwolf game. How cool to be on the default desktop install. :-) http://www.pygame.org/shredwheat/solarwolf/
But more likely the image is reused for some other tool? Hard to read at the smaller image size.
86 • re 77 • Geek distro by Lukas (by Fractalguy on 2007-03-19 23:39:35 GMT from United States)
"I use KDE rather than GNOME, and Ubuntu team primary keep GNOME and some thing works better on Ubuntu like on Kubuntu :("
You can have more than one window manager in your Linux installation. For example, since Ubuntu seems to have more hardware savvy and a few other advantages (at least a year ago) I installed Ubuntu on an old P450 and then added the KDE window manager. I think I got the best of both since I can run most of either's programs form any window manager. For example, I can run gedit from KDE. This is because all the libraries are now present, as far as I know.
And the login window presents the choice of window manager with your favorite setable as default. I have KDE for default. I had only one issue with this setup (as of 6.06) and that was Kwrite was not in the menu but was installed. So I set up an icon on the desktop. (Some day I'll learn the menu editor. But hey, it was supposed to just work!)
I have just gotten a 40GB drive (they gave up on it for dead at wife's office, but KNOPPIX sees all the files just fine) that I'm going to install distros and experiment with as many window managers as I can. I've already reported here about adding multiple WMs on liveCDs. Kind of high level geek compared to recompiling kernels. :)
87 • Geeks or not (by LLO on 2007-03-19 23:48:47 GMT from Hungary)
If there are problems with the foundation, no paint job can cover it up. One should look at the file structure on the disto CDs and the file structures of the installed system on the HDD, and try to explain what installation is. It is a mapping from one kind of horrible mess to another kind of horrible mass. Complicate that with the never ending version splits due to frequent updating of libraries, compilers, application programs, supporting data, and fashionable changes in presentations.
If the correction won't start from these levels, no matter now many distros one tries to install eventually will face significant problems. To try to perfect a building from a given level up, or from a given viewpoint may help to take nicer pictures of it, but not necessarily guarantee better living conditions.
The argument of geeks and comfy people in this respect is meaningless, because they start with the status quo rather than examining the route to it. Further splitting of distros will lead to development on even a narrower focused areas, and greater fogginess on all around them. In this resect, one should consider how many programming languages are claimed to have high-precision arithmetic capabilities, and how many distribution brings them with those capabilities. Well, very few if any. Because, programming languages have long dropped from the focus areas, and some years-old recipes to set them up may not work anymore. Before thriving blindly forward, we better examine the past: what we hoped for, and how we ended up in an unfamiliar territory dropping many of the original goals, and having replaced them with unfamiliar new ones the numbers of which is overwhelming, but the purpose is rather questionable.
88 • Distro Evolution (by Matt Showman on 2007-03-20 00:05:34 GMT from United States)
I started using linux the summer of 2004 at age 18. I've tried every mainstream distro and a few less popular ones. I started on Mandrake but didnt like KDE, I then moved to Red Hat Enterprise (free thru university) but didn't like the distro as a whole. I read that Ubuntu was real easy to use, and as a newcomer to linux I figured I would give it a try. It was nice, everything worked, but I wanted to feel like a "hardcore linux user". I tried Gentoo but didnt like the time it took to deal with the system, moved to Mepis but felt too much like Ubuntu and then stubbled on Slackware. Loved it, lived it, told everyone I knew to use it, but then realized that I would rather have bleeding-edge and stable-ish over safe and stable. I liked Slackware a lot and wanted something like it so I found Archlinux. There has been two issues since I've started using it, both silly mistakes by me, and I love it and would highly recommend it to anyone.
89 • Geek vs Non-Geek (even again) (by Ricardo / RR_Fang on 2007-03-20 00:15:01 GMT from Brazil)
Ok, I'm really a distribution hopper, but my opinion also counts :-P
I started using Linux back in 2004. Started using Kurumin, followed by MEPIS and Mandriva, yet i was too young, I wasn't a serious user... Then came back to the OpenSource world in July 2006 or so (Ubuntu; like #83 said, the power of marketing is wonderful).
I won't say all the distro hopping, too long and boring :P From this hopping, i can clearly notice i am evolving, getting more experienced and learning new things. Also, i'm in no way a power user (maybe advanced at most), but, with some exceptions, many of my preferred distros can be considered "geek-ish", or geekier than the ones i was using before.
I was using Archlinux as my OS, but some strange internet issues after an update turned it unusable. So now, I'm distroless (can i say that when i have a lot of CDs?), playing with a Gentoo VM (will give a shot when GNOME 2.18 becomes available on it) and Pardus. Also, after talking to 777User, a great person, i may give a try to Resulinux too if it switches to GRUB.
I'm only 16, and i have some spare time, i do like Linux/BSD/etc a lot. I'm not (exactly) a programmer or such, but i now want to help the community, to show my gratitude... And, why not, try to work on something related to opensource (something i like) in the future if i can? (i hope) :)
Sorry for my really long post, and my poor English ~Ricardo/Fang
90 • Geek vs. User-friendly distros (by UZ64 on 2007-03-20 00:20:31 GMT from United States)
I started off several years ago with the easiest distros I could find, which were KNOPPIX 3.2 and SuSE 9.1. Once I had an understanding of the command prompt, the filesystem, Linux partitioning, etc., I started wanting to learn more, moving on up to slightly harder distros. In the end, though, I tend to stick with Slackware-based distros; Zenwalk, KateOS, Vector, etc. (the new Kwort also sounds cool, but it's a bitch trying to download it).
There are certain things I expect to "just work" in any distro, and most of the better distros seem to have all those covered. As long as I get a decent desktop right after install without requiring too much tweaking, and the distro allows me to comfortably edit config files every once in a while if I want to, it's fine by me.
I just don't like playing by the rules when they're so tightly designed to be the *only* way to do something, as is often the case with a few distros. I like to have the choice to do it however I want. That's one of the things I really started liking about Linux, being a Windows user for all these years; there are multiple ways to do things, and some may seem "harder" for people like me who are used to Windows, but once you get used to it, you wonder how you ever could stand being stuck with Windows' one, SINGLE way to do a particular thing.
91 • Geek - non geek (by reyfer on 2007-03-20 01:33:13 GMT from Venezuela)
My first distro was Mandrake 8.0
Then I tried Red Hat. Slackware.
And one glorious day, I discovered Debian and Debian based distros, and I kicked Windows out of my life.
92 • Geek vs. User-friendly distros (by Smartjak on 2007-03-20 01:52:04 GMT from United States)
This is a subject I can relate to very well. I started in '96 playing with Linux - Mandrake and SuSE. Hopped around a lot in those days. It was fun and more than a little fustrating.
I'm older and wiser now. Don't have the time nor the inclination to tear out my hair in order to get a full body - just flat out work distro. Yes, I'm taking the easy way out. And I'm not a shamed to admit it.
I'm glad I started when the CLI was THE way to configure your system. I learned a lot. But even Linux comes out of the dark ages and into the light of GUIs and easy to tweak OSs. It has to if it wants to grab a bigger share of the market than what it's got. And I for one am glad it has. Not a thing wrong with that.
93 • Read post #84 first... (by tek_heretik on 2007-03-20 03:15:20 GMT from Canada)
I forgot to mention I donated a total of $200 US to PCLinuxOS (I have the money order stubs to prove it). Boy was that a mistake after the treatment I received in their forum. Thanks to PCLinuxOS, I have a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to donating funds to a distro ever again, I won't be so quick to, that is for sure. I hate being made a fool of. Give to a distro who needs it and won't treat you like a loser in their forums.
94 • not a case of geek vs non - use what works (by ray carter at 2007-03-20 03:23:32 GMT from United States)
FWIW - I used Mandrake for several years, because it worked better than most for me. Switched to Ubuntu last year for the same reason. I now use Kubuntu on two desktops and a laptop (plus four internet computers I manage for the local library) - because they are relatively easy to set up and keep updated. BUT - I use Gentoo on my mini-itx (1ghz VIA C3) because I need the performance I can only get by optimizing. AND - I use Elive on 'older' boxes - installed it on a P166 with 64MB. IMHO - you just use whatever works best in a given situation.
95 • An easy(?) geeky ( (by rglk on 2007-03-20 03:49:12 GMT from United States)
Four years with Linux. Started out with an "easy" distro, ended up with an easy distro, but at a much higher level of knowledge, i.e. Mandrakelinux => Xandros => Debian => Slackware => Arch. Enf of journey.
In between, tried out >100 distros on live CD's and dozens of distros installed on HDD.
What's great about Arch? It's about as simple as *nix can be, it's transparent (you now what the developers have done), cutting edge (i686, 64-bit, multiprocessor), stable, fast, sports fantastic package management, is being developed very actively, has a very knowledgable user base and an excellent user forum, and undoubtedly will be around for a long time to come. And it shuns commercialism and hype. Simply the best Linux there is, IMO.
Robert
96 • What it does is more important than how. (by George Fragos on 2007-03-20 04:02:22 GMT from United States)
I've been a software engineer since 1964 and have always been much the geek. Now I use Ubuntu because I've become more devoted to what technology can do for real applications that its elegance of implementation. I do still revel in change and like that there's a new Ubuntu release every six months.
97 • geek vs. non-geek (by digger on 2007-03-20 04:27:08 GMT from United States)
I started with Mandrake 3.2, then went to 9, but was disappointed. Decide to try SuSe 9, and while awaiting that release tried Knoppix and Mepis 3.11 which got me Hooked on Debian based Linux. Somewhere around the same time I found an article explaining how to install FreeBSD & got 4.9 up and running. SuSe10 was OK, but another diappointment & I stuch with Mepis and FreeBSD quite a while, then to Debian Sarge. When XP trashed my system, I just dumped Windows altogether & stuck with Sarge till early last year. In the meantime, Ive tried Slackware, OpenBSD, Puppy (my favorite LiveCD). Vector, Zenwalk, Sabayon, Ubuntu (from which I'm posting), scads of Live CDs, and ... others (I'm almost 57 & have a serious case of CRS syndrome). Have failed at every attempt to install Gentoo, however.
I expect to stick with Debian (or derivatives), FreeBSD (or derivatives), and Slackware for the most part, although the current release of Sabayon is very interesting & may make it onto my laptop, when I finish testing Etch there). Off to burn the live Debian GNU/kBSD CD, just cuz I'm curious & it should be a blast if it runs on one of my boxes.
Thanks for DistroWatch, Ladislaw. Please keep it the same, I love this site & check it at least twice a day, 7 days a week.
98 • "once-a-geek, always-a-geek" (by Basel on 2007-03-20 04:31:38 GMT from Saudi Arabia)
I love Slackware for being simple and easy to use but I don't have much time these days to play around with it. I used to have fun when it comes to compiling the kernel and configuring the system but not anymore. Recently I switched to MEPIS and it was a smooth and healthy transition ^^. Still, I use Slackware from time to time ^_~ Slackware simply works for me.
99 • Translation : A New Open Source Model? (by Anonymous on 2007-03-20 06:28:16 GMT from France)
Hi, I'd like to know if there is any problem with translating an article from DistroWatch Weekly (in this case A New Open Source Model? in French) for a blog ? Best regards.
100 • RE: 99 Translation (by ladislav on 2007-03-20 06:35:09 GMT from Taiwan)
As long as you give credit to the author and source of the article, I don't see a problem.
101 • my personal geekdom history (by Misty on 2007-03-20 08:52:03 GMT from United States)
I started out with Mandrake 8; that didn't work very well, as my keyboard was unrecognized when I tried to boot it for the first time (but it worked during the installation, strangely enough). I then tried SuSE 8 (didn't recognize my ethernet or modem), Red Hat (this was before Fedora), Mepis (it kept rewriting device permissions whenever I rebooted -- I never figured out why as I didn't do anything as root to change anything) and I don't know what all. I got into Slackware and stuck with it for a while, but eventually switched to Debian; nothing beats Debian when it comes to updating and maintenance. Debian is a very geeky Linux, but it's actually more user-friendly than it used to be, so it's not as geeky now as it was then. I tried several others during this time, even giving Mandrake, SuSe and Fedora another chance, but wound up keeping Debian.
I've tried Kubuntu and I liked it, but on the computer I had then, any browser was very, very slow. I haven't tried it again since, but I'm planning to on the next one I build for myself. I'm also strongly considering trying Saboyan and Sidux. I rather wish I could find a very simple-to-use distro I could be happy with as I don't have nearly as much free time as I did then, but I've always had hardware issues even when my particular hardware was supposed to be supported, so I've stuck with Debian.
102 • Eventually!!! (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-03-20 09:14:25 GMT from Italy)
Eventually we are going to see kernel 2.6 officially supported by Slackware.
In case you are wondering when 2.6.0 was released, that was on on December 17, 2003!!!
103 • RE: # 84 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-03-20 09:26:49 GMT from Italy)
Apparently I am not the only one who has had negative experiences with PCLinuxOS. My account was deleted, reason unknown. For years the installer failed to install a boot manager to the root partition. Now it does, but I have tons more problems.
My *great* regret is that the future of Kanotix is uncertain. Having tried hundreds of distributions, Kanotix is the only one which came very close to perfection.
104 • RE: 84 • Sabayon and PCLinuxOS (by Anonymous on 2007-03-20 12:09:36 GMT from United States)
Wow. You can't be more wrong on over half your stuff! Is it really good to spread FUD like this based on your own personal experience where you were snubbed? I don't go around spreading FUD about MEPIS even though they totally took a dump on me. In fact, I still recommend it to people.
You're right on the 64 bit...but there is an SMP kernel for my X2 so it doesn't matter to me. Plus, if you consider the fact that most programs aren't even optimized for 64 bit it really gives no advantage yet...except on filesystem writes/reads. So I'm happy with my 32 second boot time with the SMP kernel.
You're wrong on the forums...PCLOS is prided on it's friendly forums.
You're wrong on the packages. Most of the time a package is added within 2 weeks.
PCLOS isn't trying to be Lindows...have no idea where you're getting that. They are targeting new users though...so perhaps the more Windows-like feel rubs you the wrong way. In that case, switch themes and feel better.
DVD version? An international version (DVD) will be out with this release (which is why it's taking so long and is so full of bugs...we're adding so many packages it isn't even funny on this release and we're doing beryl/compiz so it's bound to have bugs...plus this is the first time that we're using the next gcc compiler...so the entire codebase has shifted...there is bound to be bugs). A full DVD version will also accompany this release as well.
As for, "my guess is ANYTHING negative, bugs, etc. are not allowed to be posted" tell me you nickname and I'll verify if you're right. I'll also post back here if you are and agree with you. I know one of the global mods over at pclinuxos.com and I can find out what happened in a matter of minutes. My guess is that you posted your findings in the wrong forum or were asking for help when reporting a bug.
105 • Distros and security updates (by Anonymous on 2007-03-21 18:58:45 GMT from United States)
I installed OpenSUSE 10.2, but was not impressed. The updater wouldn't update Firefox to the current version. It was stuck at 2.0. There goes my main reason for trying to run OpenSUSE (a guaranteed period for security updates).
I was amazed by how slick Solaris Express Developer Edition is, but the updater would not work at all. I called Sun, and they said it wasn't supported! Why did they include it in the menus then? I wish Solaris had apt-get. And it looks like it may with Sun's hiring of the Debian lead.
PCLinux 2007: The best looking and most polished distro. But how long are security updates for it supported for? They've neglected security updates for the current version 93 for a long time. Still stuck at Firefox 1.5ish
Sidux. I like this distro, but same issue... how long are security updates for it supported for?
106 • No subject (by deniros on 2007-03-21 22:41:09 GMT from Belgium)
stop switching distro's all the time! Pick one, and stick with it for at least 2 years! If you see that very nice feature X in distro Y, and you can't make that feature work in your current distro. Live with it!!!! This advice will make your life better. Migrating from one distro to another takes a lot of energy. Especially if you have apps that have different approach in configuring one different distro's, or if you have apps that need custom build kernel modules.
Every month you will see a distro that has a nicer interface, new feature, etc. It's better to stick that energy in your current config.
I'm saying this because i feel i can say that i have recovered from years of distro swapping. (started in 1998)
I'm using only 3 distro's now: puppy and gparted for mobile computing and partitioning and diskcopy stuff. Vector for my workstation. (yeah i know the new slack will be there in a few weeks with new gcc and xorg and stuff.... but i don't give a fuck... really... i mean it this time.)
I wish more distro's would have an LTS release. No new release every 5 months. Just one release they support for 2 or 3 years, and offer security and feature updates.
try to seek help! ;)
107 • distro swapping (by glas on 2007-03-22 13:51:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have no problem with people tring out any number of distros if that's what they enjoy doing. Personally I have a 'working distro' that only rarely changes, and a number of partitions for 'testing distros' - which are changed more often. It's a question of evolution. The best 'testing distro' sticks around and eventually becomes my 'working distro'. 'Testing distros' that don't make the grade are weeded out over time.
I think some people associate multiple distro use with unfaithfulness and polygamy. As a bachelor who likes to date around that doesn't concern me much.
Currently my best 'testing distro' is Pardus and it's likely to prevail as my 'working distro' before long.
108 • Mint "light" is a complete fraud ! (by Caraibes on 2007-03-22 15:12:41 GMT from Dominican Republic)
As much as I know Clem (Mint's dev) is a great guy, and he did a good job with Mint. I have to tell I think he is on a big ego trip : he wants to re-invent the wheel and basically issue Mint "light edition" which is Mint without non-free software !!!
I reacted strongly in his forum : http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11441#11441
It is totally ridiculous, as he is basically releasing Ubuntu with a different artwork, and some different apps !
-What do you guys think ?
109 • RE: 108 Mint Light (by Tazix on 2007-03-22 17:16:36 GMT from United States)
While I don't think anyone will download Mint Light... They probably did it for political reasons, as far as having a proptietary codecless / driverless / pluginless version "available".
110 • Mint test (by octathlon on 2007-03-22 17:53:58 GMT from United States)
Because of all the flattering comments here and elsewhere, I tried the Mint Live CD on both my laptop and desktop.
In both cases, there seems to be a problem with the Mint menu -- it works with the mouse, but not well the keyboard/arrow keys. For example, the application list has a scroll bar, when you try to use the arrow keys to move down the list it won't scroll. It also doesn't highlight the item you have selected like it does with the mouse; instead a dotted line appears around it. I also couldn't get the cursor to move between the different menu areas with the keyboard tab/arrow keys.
On the laptop, it didn't recognize my Atheros wireless card - very strange since both Ubuntu and MEPIS had no problem with it, in fact all the Linux live CD's I've tried have successfully recognized it, except Mint. In the Device manager, it is listed as an unknown device.
Also on the laptop, the USB mouse worked fine for a few minutes, then suddenly went dead. I didn't test to see if any other USB devices worked. Fortunately the touch pad worked.
On the plus side, everything else I checked worked fine, the fonts look very nice, etc.
111 • Feedback from Clem, about Mint "light" (by Caraibes on 2007-03-22 20:14:17 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Here's why Clem had to put a light version of Mint (without the goodies), I am quoting him : the "Linux User & Developer" magazine contacted us and wanted to add Bianca as a cover CD. It turns out they're worried about the distribution of this in the US. For this magazine for instance, we can now give them a version of Bianca which they can safely distribute in the USA.
112 • SAM, Mint light and Ubuntu on DVD (by Fractalguy on 2007-03-22 20:50:48 GMT from United States)
I just booted up SAM and find (for me) it is not useful as a live CD. I see no way to get 1280x1024 screen resolution and it comes up with 1024x768. This sucks since I have nVidia and a 1280x1024 thin panel screen. Oh, and synoptic says the drivers are present. :/ (The X.org driver for NVidia Cards) so this is a poor detection issue, I guess. Just about every other distro I try can get the screen right, some with a little prompt at the boot cheat code line. I sure hope PCLinuxOS gets it right on final. Otherwise, SAM has the right idea, xfce and many apps. Oh well.
And I started a download of Mint light and found it going at 3.7kB - almost stopped!! so I stopped it. Then I read here about how light it really is and I'll save everyone the bandwidth. :)
I'm installing Mint2.2 on my test drive next, kicking off Ubuntu 6.06 I was playing with. I got a nice set of multiple window managers going: GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and Enlightenment (KDE and GNOME). Others I grabbed seemed to have nothing set up - no apps, even no menu! But the big three, GNOME, KDE, Xfce automatically gave me basically ubuntu, kubuntu and xubuntu all in one when finished.
That installation was from a DVD which I was hoping to resolve the question: does (or how to) the installation combined with synoptic grab all the applications from the DVD. The install seems to be just a standard Ubuntu CD version. When I put the DVD in it asked if I wanted to added it to the repo list. I clicked yes. Looks like it might work, but when I added apps, they were grabbed from a *very* slow on line repo - even tho I had those turned off. My bro in the "out back" tried the same thing last week and got nowhere because synaptic kept trying to go to the net. He has no Internet closer than 10 miles. These DVD versions of Ubuntu are included with some books like Ubuntu Unleashed and may be the only source for some users.
113 • Ubuntu & Fedora... (by Caraibes on 2007-03-22 21:27:42 GMT from Dominican Republic)
It seems that Fedora & Ubuntu are the only real "swiss army knife" distros, that will do the job for me... I'll stick with those 2 only... I might keep on distro-hop for curiosity, but it shall be in live-cd's only...
Fedora & Ubuntu, those 2 are the best ones !!!
114 • clarification... (by Caraibes on 2007-03-24 15:17:06 GMT from Dominican Republic)
By the way, I take back my comment about Clem & the egop trip... It was not appropriate...
115 • Web based distrs... (RE 112) (by dbrion on 2007-03-25 16:17:56 GMT from France)
Distrs like Ubuntu are very annoying as they almost entirely rely on the web (their install can even block if one is not connected, out of geographical, security or conviction [children, deep distrust vs local access providers] reasons). By the way, a friend of mine installed and tested 5 main Linuxes distrs, and submitted systematically his favorite stategical CLI apps with valgrind (and thus could have orphaned memory allocations counted). The best one he found in August 2006 was Debian (and his sysadmins would not have to reinstall often; their long release times were thus considered as an (by-way)advantage). Then came {Mandriva (it was rather a matter of habit), Suze and Fedora, the order was not that relevant }. Ubuntu was considered as very suspicious (to put it mildly), even if she might be beautiful or green, from the point of view of banning potential memory leaks. The rest had not (at least, without extra downloads) what he needed to test.
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