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1 • DW and Ubuntu (by dutchy at 2007-03-26 09:27:17 GMT from Netherlands)
Ladislav,
Very good DW. You always do it well.
One thing I wanted to point out about Ubuntu that isn't mentioned is that Ubuntu's Debian packages are frequently not compatible with Debian. That might not be much of a problem for Ubuntu users, but it is a problem for the Debian users because some things are made by third party and are packaged only for Ubuntu. The rest of us have to compile.
However, new users to the GNU/Linux world might not know that a .deb file can be different than another .deb file, just like a .rpm for one distro won't always work on another.
2 • Debian (by AC on 2007-03-26 09:31:06 GMT from United States)
Murdoch's remarks are absurd. Strong leadership making unpopular decisions would only lead to a mass exodus from the Debian Project. And Debian project leaders quickly being voted out. Achieving what he suggests would require changing the whole community and spirit in which Debian is produced.
3 • No subject (by mzee on 2007-03-26 09:33:17 GMT from Belgium)
Kindly note that following "Possible alternatives" based on Fedora are also available :
- Adios Linux (Australia)
- Berry Linux (Japan)
In my eyes they are too nice!
4 • RE: 3 Fedora-based distros (by ladislav on 2007-03-26 09:42:54 GMT from Taiwan)
Sure, there are about 50 distributions based on Fedora and those who want to see them all can always visit the search page:
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?basedon=Fedora
For me, ADIOS and Berry lack one very essential quality: a public communication board, such as a user forum or mailing list. They also lack detailed changelogs, bug reporting facilities, beta testing information, etc. Yes, their products are indeed very nice, but as I've said elsewhere, a distribution is not just a CD image. A good distro is much more than that.
5 • Debian / Ubuntu (by Chris on 2007-03-26 09:56:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
The fact that Ubuntu is more popular than Debian doesn't IMHO mean that it is a better OS. Also, the idea that democracy should be abandoned over dictatorial leadership is ridiculous. This just shows that there are improvements to be made with the community, with people perhaps being able to compromise a little more?
6 • PCLinuxOS in Top Ten (by Ariszló on 2007-03-26 10:01:38 GMT from Hungary)
PCLinuxOS replaces Xandros in Top Ten. Althouh I like Xandros, I must agree. Xandros is quite newby-friendly but not as polished and up-to-date as PCLinuxOS.
7 • consider Sabayon for top-ten inclusion (by REMF on 2007-03-26 10:18:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
It has many stand-out qualities that highlight an important branch of linux -
> Gentoo derivative
> wide readership interest (8th in six-month, 12th in twelve-month)
> provides drivers + codecs + pre-configuration
> heavy emphasis on attractive artwork + compositing
> innovation in auto-setup utilities and Gentoo package management
8 • Mandriva & Ubuntu (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-03-26 10:32:30 GMT from Italy)
"a Linux... 100% financed by a South African billionaire -- hence using a business model no company can compete with -- and flooding the market."
Well, for once I find myself in agreement with MR Bancilhon.
Last week we saw 5 Ubuntu based development releases in a row, here at DistroWatch.
Something like that had never happened before, AFAIK.
By now so many distros which were previously based on Debian have moved to Ubuntu.
But Debian has always been there for about 11 years and it is a true community project.
What would happen if anything went suddenly wrong with Ubuntu?
9 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-26 10:47:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
I know that SuSE were bought by Novell but surely most of the developers of openSUSE are European and work in Europe so openSUSE should be considered European.
10 • RE: 3 / 4 Fedora-based distros (by mzee on 2007-03-26 10:56:28 GMT from Belgium)
Cannot but agree with you.
Would like to add that the 'makers' of both Adios and Berry are always ready to answer your questions via email. So you can get help if required. But a detailed changelog and a public forum would be handy!
Thank you for your efforts.
11 • No Nationalism At All ?? (by Michael scb on 2007-03-26 11:00:21 GMT from Malaysia)
I just cannot believe it. In my line of business, i will choose to get
the supply of the same products from a few companies. This is
risk management ! If the French parliament doesn't care about
risk management, at least, be a bit nationalistic when it comes
to choosing between ubuntu and mandriva !!!
12 • Mandriva, Ubuntu (by Simon on 2007-03-26 11:08:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Mandriva - I was pretty surprised to see the French parliament is getting Ubuntu (actually, Kubuntu I think). It must suck to be Mandriva right now...
Ubuntu - "Ubuntu has grown to become the most popular desktop Linux distribution by far". Really? It wouldn't surprise me at all if suse, fedora or debian have more desktop users, although you could be right. I just wonder what this is based on in the interests of accuracy.
13 • RE 11 Risk management (by dbrion on 2007-03-26 11:08:47 GMT from France)
The French Parliament's risk management might be for their successors, as there are elections within 3 months. ... One will see then whether Linux can improve productivity (better, more numerous laws...)or if it was a joke.
14 • RE: # 13 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-03-26 11:16:13 GMT from Italy)
"One will see then whether Linux can improve productivity (better, more numerous laws...)or if it was a joke."
You expect too much from an operating system.
An OS is only a tool. Everything else is up to your Parliament.
15 • Leadership (by Ohnonymous on 2007-03-26 11:37:38 GMT from United States)
Working on a team without a leader can be as frustrating as working with a bad leader. The work stagnates and everyone plays the blame game about what everyone should be doing.
With one good leader, you don't have any armchair quarterbacking. If things go wrong, you know who to blame and you can get it out of the way more quickly.
16 • Top Ten (by John Lloyd on 2007-03-26 11:41:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
It's nice to see the French -not- basing a decision basing a decision on nationalism for once. They have obviously followed a logical process for a change!
I started using Mandrake back in the 90's, but have migrated to Kubuntu via Fedora over the years.
Why? Because software installation and updates are so much easier, there is a much better attitude to 'non-free' software. There is also far less of the internal politics and business uncertainties that have afflicted Mandriva, Suse and Red Hat / Fedora in recent times.
17 • Ubuntu / Mandriva (by KimTjik on 2007-03-26 11:43:00 GMT from Sweden)
A very un-French decision by the French Parliament. I'm in no way a nationalist, but from practical standpoint it doesn't make any sense to choose Ubuntu; it's not better and a large community will probably not make the day for the working force of the French Parliament (I doubt they will look for help by themselves on the forums anyway). I'm a bit saddened as well, because even though I'm not a Mandriva user I would like to see something that could boost or help Mandriva to stay focused and improve. It might look as I'm an antagonist of Ubuntu (I've had no good experience using it though), but Ubuntu needs the competition of other big players to improve, because at times it looks like they're too content with what they've accomplished.
18 • RE 14 "You expect too much from an operating system" (by dbrion on 2007-03-26 11:46:01 GMT from France)
Linux is not just an OS (a kernel) but there are apps. Knowin whether future laws are consistent with former ones might be an interesting computer science/technology problem/application (laws are sometimes rejected as incompatible with Constitution, thus leading to less laws being produced, and to doubts regarding their quality, leading to cynism and immorality).
Anyways, the argument of productivity is often seriously used in favor of such or such Linux=> why should not I use it?
". Everything else is up to your Parliament."
Which/Whose Parliament? the former one, who responsably chose Linux 15 days before Fool's Day and 2 months before elections?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19 • ubuntu powerpc (by ssam on 2007-03-26 11:53:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
you ought to add powerpc to ubuntu list of architectures.It may not be an 'offically supported' architecture anymore, but there are still iso and repositories. It is still years ahead of yellowdog. and it works near perfectly on my powerbook (sleep, power management, sound, video out, wireless, 3d acelleration etc all good).
20 • ubuntu description (by Jurjen Stellingwerff on 2007-03-26 12:08:15 GMT from Netherlands)
There are small factual flaws in the ubuntu description:
1- they are almost never more actual than the Sid tree.. only more actual then the stable debian. Better to rephrase it that they have very actual packages from Sid and recent desktop related packages of their own.
2- you never mention that the normal security is 18 month only that the long term is 3 or 5 years.
3- you can better say something about how the project differs from Debian.. you now only state that they differ but as under my point 1 they mosly differ on more recent desktop related packages/libraries and speed boosts in the startup of the system.
21 • No subject (by shamaz on 2007-03-26 12:39:44 GMT from France)
It might have been a good idea to tell that Ian Murdock is leaving the Linux Foundation and joining Sun (to work on opensolaris?)
http://ianmurdock.com/2007/03/19/joining-sun/
"I’m excited to announce that, as of today, I’m joining Sun to head
up operating system platform strategy."
IMHO it's another hint that opensolaris is going to be released under GPL v3.
22 • Debian and Ubuntu (by richo123 on 2007-03-26 13:01:06 GMT from United States)
Personally I think Debian is in very good shape. The slow and informal and non-directed style works for them. Murdock is just pissed that he is not Shuttleworth. I think Ubuntu and Debian work very well together and give choice and breadth. Why the conflict? Disclaimer: I use Ubuntu.
23 • Mandriva (by Dave E on 2007-03-26 13:19:53 GMT from United States)
I can understand why the French government went with Ubuntu over Mandriva. Look what Ubuntu has done for Linux. What has Mandriva done for Linux, aside from alienate its user base a few years back, by changing release dates, not listening to user comments, etc...
Mandriva users felt crapped on by the company, and it is no wonder that they are now suffering a fate that they so richly deserve. Yes, I was a club member for a few years, and bent over backwards to support Mandriva. But, when they made a release for i586 only and overlooked x86_64, it upset a lot of people.
And then as I mentioned, the release changes from every 6 months, with special release for club members, to once a year. That burned a lot of folks, and many voiced their objections to this plan in the Mandriva Users Club.
And then there was Gael's dismissal. Mandriva is an expert at shooting itself in the foot and alienating its user base. Ubuntu on the other hand, is an excellent model of how an open source company can be viable. Mark my words, You're going to start seeing more Ubuntu in the enterprise than you will Mandriva. Not because of the mistakes Mandriva has made, but because Ubuntu does everything better.
Mandriva seems to have no direction at the top of the corporate structure, that can make logical decisions that are good for the company, rather, they seem to make decisions that are bad for Mandriva.
Just my 2-cents worth.
Oh yeah, I switched from Mandriva to Ubuntu, and haven't looked back.
24 • Open letter (by Anon on 2007-03-26 13:29:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
I sometimes wonder if Bancilhon is in denial. He can not expect nationalism to be a primary concern when formulating a government strategy like this. This to me shows ignorance of the relevant argument(s). However, it is of no surprise when you consider the somewhat shaky quality of Mandriva's "commercial" offering, their apparent disregard for good customer service, and their attempts to avoid their commitments under consumer law!
Bancilhon should be questioning his management, asking why are we not good enough, whay are we not the best? But no, he demonstrates the Mandriva management's inabilty to manage, by whinging about nationalism, rather than deal with the problems with the company he heads!
25 • 2 distros don't belong in top 10 (by Lindemann on 2007-03-26 13:46:41 GMT from United States)
In my mind if a distro has a perplexing,difficult installer ,it should not
be listed in the top ten. That's why no BSD distro should be included
till one of them gets a clue.
26 • RE 23,24 PLS do not confuse parliament, administration, and entreprise... (by dbrion on 2007-03-26 13:54:20 GMT from France)
In democratic countries, it is a non sense. Mandriva is used in France mainly by administrations (and the Parliament has not the same constraints) but it might change, as administrations are not encouraged to a quasi-monopole (it was the case in 2003 with Microsoft, but boycott rumors reminded our decision makers of this [-administrative- and not legislative] rule and asked our MPs what to do): French MPs thought a lot and said 'let our
successors
test Ubuntu' and I really think it is a joke (but they know some principles of power separation)...
Mandriva are used with success (and users full satisfaction, as is Microsofts Windows) in some administrations ( tax-collectors: I do not think their PCs are 64 bits....), for repetitive strategic tasks (no support needed, once it works)). If they become too influent or if needed, they might/should be replaced by another OS, according to good book-keeping rules => it has nothing to do with nationalism or their provider's silly management...
This has nothing to do with {future MP}s future experiments...
27 • In defence of the French Parliament (by voislav on 2007-03-26 14:02:15 GMT from Canada)
They were probably looking at the Long Term Support feature offered by Ubuntu, which really is not matched by any other distro. For such a large system you won't be looking to update every year or 18 months, you need long term solution. Mandriva should asking themselves why can't they offer this kind of support, not why French Parliament made the choice it did.
I think it's very interesting that Red Hat will start dabbling in desktop solutions, they always struck me as the best managed of the Linux companies and if they are ready to make the plunge there must be blood in the water (Microsoft's blood).
28 • French Government, Mandriva, Ubuntu (by Andy on 2007-03-26 14:04:46 GMT from Finland)
Personally I think the comments from Mandriva's CEO about the French Government's decision to go with Ubuntu smacks of pure "sour grapes". This reminds me of the ploy that Alain Prost allegedly used in Formula one to get a drive with Williams some years back. Williams at the time used Renault engines and (no doubt because of that) fuel from French company Elf. Alain Prost discussed with then president Chirac that he should be given a drive with Williams thereby bringing about a "French" F1 team...albeit the team and its owner were British. Chirac pressured Renault and the deal was done.
One can argue the relative merits of Mandriva (never used it myself) and Ubuntu (used it quite happily at one time, but not currently using it) but these kind of barbed comments and sniping remarks betray a complete lack of any reasoning other than self-interest and nationalism.
29 • Why Ubuntu? (by David Gypsy on 2007-03-26 14:06:20 GMT from Malawi)
For all the whining and complaining about the French not choosing Mandriva, the fact remains that they have a responsibility to ensure they make the right long term decisions. Mandriva look to be in trouble financially, they are losing support, their business decisions seem hurried and haphazard at times, and they don't have a product that other distros can't emulate.
Ubuntu on the other hand is at the top of the game, both in popularity and quality of product. They have a clear business plan, strong leadership, and good release cycle. They give the very clear impression that they will be around for a very long time.
You don't need to be a genius to work out which one to choose!
By the way, I use Mepis, not Ubuntu. But that's the beauty of Linux! Choice to use what suits!
30 • Re 26 (by Anon on 2007-03-26 14:12:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
I had some difficulty in interpreting your post as the grammar is poor. How ever I did notice you use the term book-keeping, and wish to ask WTH that has to do with decision making? Book-keeping is merely a recording process, I think you where looking for something along the lines of Management Accounting? I am well aware if the differences between public and private sectors, I have worked in and studied both!
Unless you can give me a strong arguement against, I will take your point as yet another ill-formed reply from a Mandriva supporter! Clearly you have learned well from Bancilhon's example!
31 • Additional Ubuntu cons? (by timon on 2007-03-26 14:13:34 GMT from Finland)
The last time I looked, Ubuntu had several package archives (main, restricted, universe, multiverse) and only some of those received official support (bug-fixing & security updates) from the full-time developers. The "universe" and "multiverse" archives (which together contain roughly 2/3 of all the packages in Ubuntu) seemed to receive only random community support or no support at all.
This lack of active maintenance and official support for most packages in Ubuntu seems like a big minus that should be mentioned in the DistroWatch introduction of Ubuntu.
Also, it's perhaps worth mentioning that Ubuntu only ships free CDs of their old 6.06 release but not the latest releases. (I couldn't say if this is a pro or a con.)
32 • No subject (by Anon on 2007-03-26 14:15:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
Before it is brought up, I use Fedora, not Ubuntu!
33 • Top ten (by Dano on 2007-03-26 14:19:51 GMT from United States)
I second that about the BSD installer. I tried FreeBSD and was not very happy with it. It assumes you know more about your hardware than I want to. It reminded me of installing Debian about 5 or more years ago.
On another note, I am happy about the release schedules of some of the top distributions, notably Mepis, PCLinuxOS, and Debian. Where some distros tend to hurry a release out and let their users deal with the bugs, these distros are having up to 3 long release candidates and making sure the final release is rock solid. A little patience means a much better computing experience. Kudos to these three, and others I may have left out.
34 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-26 14:23:42 GMT from Belgium)
The last time I looked, Ubuntu had several package archives (main, restricted, universe, multiverse) and only some of those received official support (bug-fixing & security updates) from the full-time developers. The "universe" and "multiverse" archives (which together contain roughly 2/3 of all the packages in Ubuntu) seemed to receive only random community support or no support at all.
Yes. You just described the reason why there are several package archives: main is supported and the others aren't. It's clearly indicated, only main is enabled by default, etc etc...
Why this should be a con is beyond me.
35 • re 31 (by San on 2007-03-26 14:23:55 GMT from Belgium)
The last time I looked, Ubuntu had several package archives (main, restricted, universe, multiverse) and only some of those received official support (bug-fixing & security updates) from the full-time developers. The "universe" and "multiverse" archives (which together contain roughly 2/3 of all the packages in Ubuntu) seemed to receive only random community support or no support at all.
Yes. You just described the reason why there are several package archives: main is supported and the others aren't. It's clearly indicated, only main is enabled by default, etc etc...
Why this should be a con is beyond me.
36 • Red Hat desktop (by octathlon on 2007-03-26 14:25:04 GMT from United States)
I think it's a very wise decision by Red Hat to offer a desktop edition, though it came a little late. To stay at the top, they need to have one and I'm sure they will do an excellent job.
37 • RE:29 (by darkie on 2007-03-26 14:32:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
[quote]Ubuntu on the other hand is at the top of the game, both in popularity and quality of product. They have a clear business plan, strong leadership, and good release cycle. They give the very clear impression that they will be around for a very long time.
[/quote]
I agree that Ubuntu is going to be around for a long time, but I really don't see what their business plan is. At the moment, they are not really making money but using up the 10 or so million that Shuttleworth donated to the project. Ship-it is probably costing them a fortune and I bet most people using Ubuntu have not paid a dime for it, so how is Canonical going to make money?
38 • RE 26 : Sorry for breaking a prejudice ..... (by dbrion on 2007-03-26 14:42:05 GMT from France)
"Unless you can give me a strong arguement against, I will take your point as yet another ill-formed reply from a Mandriva supporter! Clearly you have learned well from Bancilhon's example!
"
Cher Anon...
Sorry, but I often prefer Cygwin (it was a very clever idea of Redhat!) and am interested in PCBSD..... Professionnaly, I had no trouble with Mandrake 10.2, -neither with redhats derived distrs-but I had some on my PCs wih Mandriva's early releases...
I am very sorry for my poor grammar (please explain me my faults in French , German, Spanish, Portugues or Malagasy) but :
a) administrations are not encouraged to keep the same source of products (it is very difficult to bypass this rule) => one year or another, administrations will have to change from Mandriva to another OS , as they now try to do from MS to (Mandriva, often, but some pple think Suze or Debian are better and it sometimes works...)
b) Serious MPs do what they want (they make laws), as long as it concerns their successors...
39 • RE: 25 • 2 distros don't belong in top 10 (by Lindemann (by Béranger on 2007-03-26 14:44:23 GMT from Romania)
> if a distro has a perplexing,difficult installer ,it should not
> be listed in the top ten. That's why no BSD distro should
PC-BSD 1.3 can be installed even by the mentally-retarded.
40 • dww (by random guy at 2007-03-26 14:45:31 GMT from United States)
great dww Ladislav thanks a lot. i think it is great that there will be a new top ten ranking to comederate the 200th dww.
thanks.
41 • RE: 27 • In defence of the French Parliament (by Béranger on 2007-03-26 14:47:31 GMT from Romania)
> They were probably looking at the Long Term Support feature
> offered by Ubuntu, which really is not matched by any other distro.
Oh, yeah?
1. RHEL WS/Desktop is supported for 7 years. CentOS replicates this for free.
2. MCD 3 (Mandriva Corporate Desktop 3) is supported for 5 years. Should the honorable Asssemblé Nationale have waited for the version 4 to be released...
42 • How is canonical going to make money (by penguish on 2007-03-26 15:02:14 GMT from Turkey)
I think MS will give the money to canonical. In very near future, I believe that ubuntu is going to do the same thing like novel.
French parliament must pass a law that it's forbidden to use other distros in parliament even after the elections.
I am wandering why MS didn' try to convince the parliament to not use ubuntu?
43 • Red Hat Desktop (by Jesse on 2007-03-26 15:04:47 GMT from Canada)
As a Fedora user, I hope to see more desktop oriented tools
appear in the Red Hat family. Fedora's all-in-one approach
is nice for someone like me (I use a broad set of tools) but
it doesn't make Fedora newbie friendly. Some simple,
less geeky desktop apps would be a great help in making
Fedora more popular.
The new write-ups for the top three distros look pretty good. I
am curious though why you would recommend gNewSense
as an alternitive to Unbuntu? The projects appear to have
very different goals and qualities.
44 • RE: Top 10 review (by davemc on 2007-03-26 15:06:27 GMT from United States)
Whats with the Sabayon dis?!
Sabayon has been in the top 10 for a while now and continues to be a rising star, and for darn good reason, while Gentoo is dropping like rock due to thier internal drama. It IS the distro to watch IMO!
45 • Ubuntu Alternatives (by Bob on 2007-03-26 15:07:12 GMT from United States)
Possible alternatives: Linux Mint, Freespire, gNewSense and DEBIAN!!!
46 • FREEBSD, OpenSuse, the top ten list. (by Ed on 2007-03-26 15:11:12 GMT from United States)
FreeBSD maybe hard for some people to install, so what? What does that have to do with the top ten list. It's not what you like, it's how popular it is and FreeBSD is a very popular BSD OS. I recently installed it, it was scary at first but once you figure it out your fine. The key is to read the documentation well. One thing I did want to point out is that there is too much discussion in the OpenSuse section about the Novell decision to work with Microsoft. While I don't disagree that it should be mentioned, I believe too much focus seems to go into it. I think the Top Ten list should discuss the technical merits of the distros, and leave the ideological issues for the user to figure out. Just my take on it though.
47 • RE: 25 (by Fred on 2007-03-26 15:13:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've got to disagree with you there: FreeBSD's installer is not a fancy graphical installer but it is not hard to use either... Though I'll concede you need more know-how *after* the install.
48 • RE 23 (by Plato on 2007-03-26 15:21:54 GMT from Latvia)
"Mandriva is an expert at shooting itself in the foot and alienating its user base. Ubuntu on the other hand, is an excellent model of how an open source company can be viable."
I fail to see the point of the last part of your comment. What is so excellent about the model adopted by Canonical (no Ubuntu as you said)? They just exist on the money donated by Shuttleworth and in fact so far it is not clear to me what he intends to do about the popularity of the distro. I myself am no that enthusiastic about the project. I admit that Ubuntu is a damn good distro, but basically this is not the reason of its popularity. There are other distros which are more userfriendly than Ubuntu, it is just their marketing that accounts for their failure, no the quality of the OS.
I cannot comment on French Parliament decision to go for Ubuntu as I have no information about their reasons to make that choice. Nevertheless it seems to me a bit disappointing as I think that SLED would be much better option for that purpose.
49 • French Parliament and Ubuntu (by Fred on 2007-03-26 15:26:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
While Bancilhon's letter is ludicrous and nationalism should much of a concern for that sort of decision, Ubuntu seems like an odd choice. After all they're quite new, Dapper was their first LTS release and we still have four years to go to actually judge how well they've managed. As a side note Mandriva (then Mandrake) was at the top of the game in linux desktop four years ago...
To sum up I can't understand why they didn't go with Redhat or even Suse. Just my opinion.
50 • Yoper 3.0 beta 2 (by Anonymous on 2007-03-26 15:29:01 GMT from United States)
Glad to see that Yoper is back. It didn't look good there for a while. Yoper 2 was very fast on old (PII 300MHz) hardware.
51 • Mandriva vs Ubuntu (by Darren on 2007-03-26 15:49:56 GMT from Canada)
Let's face it, unless we are/where there, and unless they publish the reasons (not sure if they have or not) it is all just speculation as to the reason behind it. I speculate that it is just a matter of business is business. They probably paid someone to look at the choices and to recommend what the best distro is that suits there needs.
52 • French Parliament / Fedora Community & Desktop (by Clement Lefebvre on 2007-03-26 15:51:06 GMT from Sweden)
Hi,
Although Mandriva is a great distro, I would have chosen Ubuntu as well. There is no secret why Ubuntu is number 1 in distrowatch, google trends and so on.. it simply is one of the greatest distributions at the moment. I'm glad the French Parliament went for Linux, and I'm glad they chose what seems to be the best option.
I can understand the bitterness felt by the CEO of Mandriva, and I can understand why in a moment of despair he would send such a letter to the Parliament. What I cannot understand though is the fact that he made that letter public, as some kind of a denunciation in the name of nationalism. This is ridiculous!
Being French and maintaining an Ubuntu-Based distribution I'm seriously thinking of sending a letter myself.. just for the laugh :)
(ah no.. maybe I won't).
Anyway, back to the Top10. I think the selection is fair, although it doesn't reflect the current chart (Sabayon not being there for instance), it probably reflects the 10 most "major" distributions, so that's fair enough.
With Linux Mint we're aiming at making a better desktop and I have to say Fedora is probably one of the distribution we have the greatest respect for in this domain. Their artwork is far better than any other distributions and they really have one of the best desktops out there. I can understand some manipulations are not made easy for novice users but I would certainly not put "desktop usability" in one their "cons".
And finally (I'll stop there otherwise you might think I've been bribed by Red Hat) I find the Fedora community one of the most welcoming communities I've happened to see. People are passionate about their distribution, I found them very open-minded and very helpful. Again, I wouldn't Fedora is "less community-orientated than other major distros".
Clem.
53 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-26 15:51:43 GMT from United States)
Linagora is a French company and UniLog is a French company which is a subsidiary of LogicaCMG PLC, which based in the UK. Unilog's customers include Crédit Lyonnais, France Telecom, Michelin, PSA Peugeot Citroën, and Sanofi-Synthelabo. These companies are as French as you get. This whining by Mandriva Linux is shameful.
54 • No subject (by Plato on 2007-03-26 16:16:54 GMT from Latvia)
Jus forgot to add in my previous post. Does anybody know something about PClinuxOS upcoming release. They planned to release 2007 at he beginning of March, however it is almost April already but it is still not there. What's the reason of delay?
55 • Lightweight distros (by scribe63 on 2007-03-26 16:28:59 GMT from United States)
There should also be a list or emphasis on the availability of of Lightweight Distros/Lightweight Desktop Environments for use on old hardware such as Pentium II's and PIII systems with memory maxed out.
56 • SUSE section (by Waldorf on 2007-03-26 16:37:41 GMT from United States)
One comment on the SUSE section. It now reads "which apparently acknowledges Microsoft's intellectual property rights over Linux". That language makes it sound like Microsoft's position is correct. Perhaps consider clarifying this to read "which apparently concedes to Microsoft's argument that it has intellectual property rights over Linux."
57 • What is popularity? (by Scott Dowdle on 2007-03-26 16:49:06 GMT from United States)
I'm a Red Hat / Fedora person. I'll admit that up front... but I don't think that fact will affect the point I'm going to make:
1) I added up all of the HPD (Hits Per Day) for the top 10 distros as listed on the distrowatch front page at the time of writing... and the total came to 13,245.
2) A week or two ago, the Fedora projected reported that they have had over 2,000,000 downloads/installs of FC6
3) I haven't really seen any numbers from any other distros.
How valid of a popularity meter is the HPD on distrowatch.com?
I make no claims on what is popular and what isn't... but I have to question why Ubuntu is seen as the most popular distribution. Other than the HPD, what meter do we have? I'm guessing that Debian is as popular or more so than Ubuntu.
I also question the validity of saying that Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edbuntu, and Xubuntu (and all of the rest) are separate distributions. While they all have different install disks, they are basically (correct me if I'm wrong) different package selections from a single software collection. You can take any distro with a sufficiently large package repository and or set of installation media... and install just what you want at install time... and end up with the same desktop subsets. Why each Ubuntu sub-distribution needs branding and coverage is beyond me. While many of them were started outside of the Ubuntu umbrella, I believe they are all under it now... although there are additional ones that remain outside (Ubuntu Christian Edition, etc).
If it sounds like I'm being overly hostile towards, Ubuntu... I'm not. I think they make a fine distribution... but like some users, I grow weary of all of the hype and claims of popularity when I'm not aware of any real numbers that show that.
If presented with some form of numbers that seem reasonable... that show Ubuntu is the most popular or somehow a leader in Linux marketshare, I'll accept them... but I don't think it is really as much of a given as most people seem to make it out to be.
In fact, I don't think popularity really tells us all that much... and I'm glad there are a slew of distros to pick from... as all of the competition keeps everyone on their toes.
Like the recent attempts by Linux Weekly News to put some measure on who contributes to the kernel... I think it would be interesting and useful to continue with such measurement attempts, and to expand it to include all of the various distribution sub-systems (Xorg, gcc, GNOME, KDE, etc).
Just what are the various distributions giving back to the community and at what levels? How important are the various distribution makers to the overall ecosystem?
I don't know the answers to those questions, but I'd like to find out more.
58 • Suggestion for Distrowatch (by Neopath on 2007-03-26 17:05:19 GMT from Canada)
A couple of weeks ago Ladislav asked what could be done to make this site better and the majority said "Don't touch it" and I agree. To a point.
The fact that I need to write this off-topic message here, right in the middle of another "thread" tells me what this site needs very badly: A forum.
Wouldn't that be a nice way to solidify the DW community? Actually I've never seen a community so strong and so invisible at the same time. If that does make any sense.
Oh and another thing. I wish there was a "comment" section in the box announcing each new release. It would be nice to read comments of people who have already tried it and such....
Editorially DW is great but I believe now would be the time for some sort of "facelift".
I don't have the ressources or the talent to help Ladislav with this and I'm sure his hands are quite full right now. Surely some whizbang web 2.0 develloper around here could help him do something about it?
See, it's some sort of catch-22. We need a forum to gather the persons/ressources to help build a better site/forum... or something.
That is all. Thank you.
59 • Compress with password? (by IMQ on 2007-03-26 17:11:16 GMT from United States)
Is there a way to compress file(s) with password under Linux?
I tried 'man bzip2' but I didn't see any mention of password. Is it even possible under Linux?
I know under Windows, zip and rar files are popular and can be compressed with password but I have no clue how to compress file(s) with bzip2 or other tools running on Linux.
Thanks.
60 • top 10 (by ray carter at 2007-03-26 17:15:41 GMT from United States)
I can't help but point out a couple of things here:
1) IMHO Gentoo should probably not be there if this is really aimed at newbies. I love Gentoo - use it on my mini-itx - but you can't expect a Linux neophyte to cope with it.
2) Could not help but notice that you refer to kubuntu, et al as 'editions' of Ubuntu - seems to contradict your inclusion of all the variants elsewhere. Personally, I think they should indeed be referred to as 'editions' of Ubuntu and not listed separately.
61 • On Mandriva (by areuareu on 2007-03-26 17:26:10 GMT from France)
Somehow, I understand. Just imagine the titles: "French parliament stalled by dependency hell" :o)
62 • About number of installs (by Krakatos on 2007-03-26 17:42:45 GMT from Italy)
It is true that there is no way of judging the number of installs based on the popularity on distrowatch, but as a matter of facts there's not even any way of evaluating the number of installs/users based on the number of downloads.
The only number I can think of, to try count somewhat which distro is more used, is the number of forum members.
Ubuntu 261866 http://www.ubuntuforums.org/
Fedora 90288 http://www.fedoraforum.org/
Mandriva 38982 http://forum.club.mandriva.com/
Opensuse 18135 http://www.suseforums.net/
Of course many of these distro have national forums, but they are a lot smaller. Overall, Ubuntu has a lot more forum users, which I think can be a decent indication of the number of installs
Of course now some purist will start saying: because we at are more expert so we don't need the forums. But let's be honest... these can only be labeled as excuses.... many expert users use Ubuntu too
Don't get me wrong, I like both Ubuntu and Opensuse, have one of each installed, and every distribution has its pro and cons, but if we speak strictly of popularity and number of installs, I think there's no doubt that Ubuntu is the most installed in the desktop market.
63 • RE 57 "How valid of a popularity meter is the HPD on distrowatch.com?" (by dbrion on 2007-03-26 17:48:56 GMT from France)
This I do not know either: it is a curiosity indicator, showing that one is intersted in a given distr; it obviously doesnot mean one will download it
(for example, Poseidon Linux interested me because of her shipping list; as she had everything I had compiled[ (before I knew PLx existed) under Mandriva -and the scripts are reliable enough to be ported to many VMplayed free OSes -it takes nights, without meaningless babysitting, and I can thus have rescue applications-], I downloaded Poseidon Linux, knew thus pple had the same tastes than me, , but never used)
Even if downloaded, a Linux wont be always installed...
Even installed, I know people who go back to Windows (sometimes with good quality free apps; most of them are ported ).....
I see on DWW that Austrumi's popularity/interests remained constant over a 12 months period, but, from http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/?group_id=103017&ugn=austrumi&type=&mode=year, one of the Austrumis downloading sites, downloads were obviously decreasing...
One overinterprets these popularity indexes. However, if 2 or 3 indexes would vary in a consistent way, it might be interesting (but it does not mean it will be popular with one individual's needs..). .
What might interest a consumer is to know how many bugs/ mem. leaks remain in a distr, once it is released : if they release every 6 month, but you have to wait till your favorite apps are debugged, where is the progress? The developpers'quarrels make me think of Britney Spear's hair, it is not a conclusive point to install (unless one proves it: how??)...
I know some mem. leak detection may be done with CLI applications, for a given need, but it is time consuming and therefore cannot be assumed by the distr....
64 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-26 17:58:43 GMT from Canada)
"Other than the HPD, what meter do we have?"
Well we have Mepis and Linspire moving from Debian to Ubuntu base. We have all the hype, as you say too. Lots of people are talking about Ubuntu if you listen to the LUGS and read Linux news sites. Not that I like the excess hype any more than you. I just know it is very popular right now.
I too was surprised at the French decision. Normally I would expect them to be nationalistic and support Mandriva. I don't have a problem with that but it is a French characteristic that we have come to expect. There are other reasons why I would criticize the decision. Mandriva has been around for a long time in the world of Linux. Ubuntu just a short time. What would happen if Shuttleworth removed his financial support? Will Canonical and Ubuntu survive in the longer term?
I have used Mandriva for many years now. It was an easy distro to get into and yet encouraged me to learn and use the command line. They have a huge package repository that usually includes packages for software that I want to try. There is a lot of support and were a lot of howto's out there. I have just become used to it. Probably not unlike your Windows user that doesn't want to switch. I have tried to switch but just keep coming back. I have the skills to switch if I want to and I enjoy using Debian as well. For the desktop nothing satisfies me like Mandriva. I am running the x86_64 version and it is a stable desktop distro, well integrated, nice to look at and KDE based. What more could one want?
65 • Ubuntu/Mandriva (by john frey on 2007-03-26 17:59:15 GMT from Canada)
"Other than the HPD, what meter do we have?"
Well we have Mepis and Linspire moving from Debian to Ubuntu base. We have all the hype, as you say too. Lots of people are talking about Ubuntu if you listen to the LUGS and read Linux news sites. Not that I like the excess hype any more than you. I just know it is very popular right now.
I too was surprised at the French decision. Normally I would expect them to be nationalistic and support Mandriva. I don't have a problem with that but it is a French characteristic that we have come to expect. There are other reasons why I would criticize the decision. Mandriva has been around for a long time in the world of Linux. Ubuntu just a short time. What would happen if Shuttleworth removed his financial support? Will Canonical and Ubuntu survive in the longer term?
I have used Mandriva for many years now. It was an easy distro to get into and yet encouraged me to learn and use the command line. They have a huge package repository that usually includes packages for software that I want to try. There is a lot of support and were a lot of howto's out there. I have just become used to it. Probably not unlike your Windows user that doesn't want to switch. I have tried to switch but just keep coming back. I have the skills to switch if I want to and I enjoy using Debian as well. For the desktop nothing satisfies me like Mandriva. I am running the x86_64 version and it is a stable desktop distro, well integrated, nice to look at and KDE based. What more could one want?
66 • Fedora 6 doesn't set up video and monitor (by John on 2007-03-26 18:05:45 GMT from United States)
I recently got a Distrowatch copy of Fedora 6 and installed it. The installation was graphic and looked nice. Then I booted it, and got just a console login. Logged in as root and tried to start X---it was already running, the system said. Then I tried to start KDE and it wouldn't start, saying DISPLAY wasn't set as I recall. Redhat 6.1 set up video card and monitor and would give me a graphic desktop. Fedora 6 has gone backward even if the software was built late in 2006.
I also visited the freenode/fedora chatroom and found that the inhabitants are braindead. They fail to recognize that usability issues like I ran into are a big reason why Linux will not make further inroads into the desktop market until its developers stop thinking and talking like dorks.
At least, other distributions know the value of a good graphic desktop and try to provide the user with desktops that work---Mandriva for one. It's been my favorite distro for years tho I found some problems with what I received as the 2007 Mandriva distribution.
67 • Comment #62 by Krakatos (by Scott Dowdle on 2007-03-26 18:12:36 GMT from United States)
I do appreciate your effort to provide a measure... but registered forum users only tells us... how many registered forum users there are. It begs questions like... what is the ratio of users to registered forum users for each distro.
It might sound reasonable to say that you should have approximately equal numbers across distros if everything else were the same... but all of the distros were started at different times as were their forums. Some forums coincide with distribution birth whereas some others were created much later... certainly after most users had found alternative support methods (third-party forums, mailing lists, etc).
I'm also curious to know what the ratio of business installation is to home user desktop. Are there more business users than home users? I don't know.
Again, your assertion that one distro is more popular than others is not a given.
68 • Fedora6 does autoconfigure X! (by DavidW on 2007-03-26 18:50:05 GMT from United States)
Then I booted it, and got just a console login. Logged in as root and tried to start X---it was already running, the system said. Then I tried to start KDE and it wouldn't start, saying DISPLAY wasn't set as I recall.
Don't start X as root! Do not login as root. I know in Windows you're given a default superuser setup, but it's not the intelligent way to do it on any OS. You only switch to superuser by going "su" or by using sudo for short term sessions. Sitting around as root indefinitely is a security vulnerability. You should only login as the user.
Have you heard of virtual consoles? It sounds like it's running on a different console, you can toggle the different virtual consoles by going ctrl-alt-F[n] where you replace n with numbers. To kill X, just switch run levels. Look at /etc/inittab to see what the run levels are. Once you've done that, you can login with a user account (not root) and startx.
Redhat 6.1 set up video card and monitor and would give me a graphic desktop. Fedora 6 has gone backward even if the software was built late in 2006.
Fedora 6 autoconfigured X for me. If you want to see if it did look at /etc/X11/xorg.conf. If it doesn't exist, then X hasn't been configured yet. If it does, but it's short, it's just a dummy file and hasn't been configured yet. If X hasn't been configured there are two easy ways to do it. The automatic way is
(a) Xorg -configure (this tests things and makes a file, xorg.conf.test or something like that)
(b) X -config xorg.conf.test (or whatever the file is called, it will tell you)
(c) if it works right with the test done in (b) go cp xorg.conf.test /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
The manual way is to execute xorgconfig and answer the questions. Creating /etc/X11/xorg.conf must be done with root privileges.
I also visited the freenode/fedora chatroom and found that the inhabitants are braindead. They fail to recognize that usability issues like I ran into are a big reason why Linux will not make further inroads into the desktop market until its developers stop thinking and talking like dorks.
Well I don't know about that, I think that Microsoft and Apple's devs also think and talk like dorks. ;-) One thing you have to realize about Linux is that if you don't pay for support, then the support that you receive is generous, because you're not entitled to it. Even if Linux is alot more polished and easier to setup these days, in many ways it's still the free dyi community driven way to do an OS. For the most part they are not selling their software, they're sharing it with you. If you wrote a program, and then a friend asked to have your code, and you gave it to him, would you then by default have to offer him support for it? Bottomline is be thankful for free support that you receive (no matter the quality), and if you want better support pay for it.
At least, other distributions know the value of a good graphic desktop and try to provide the user with desktops that work---Mandriva for one. It's been my favorite distro for years tho I found some problems with what I received as the 2007 Mandriva distribution.
Yup Mandriva has more than earned their place in the top ten. :-)
69 • French Parliament (by Anonymous on 2007-03-26 18:52:40 GMT from United States)
One thing the disagreement about distro in France highlights is a big advantage of Linux.
If you save all your documents in open formats and use only open source programs, the choice of distro is not such a big deal as the Linux vs. Windows vs. Mac question.
If they decide Ubuntu is not well supported, or otherwise don't like it, there is not much challenge in moving. Copy your documents (which should be in the home folder) to a backup medium, such as a server. Install the new distribution - Mandriva or some other - and pull up your documents.
That is so much easier than dealing with the proprietary world. You can have twenty distros in use, it won't matter beyond having to (possibly) deal with different support organizations. You'd have multiple sets of updates, etc.
Try this in a mixed Windows/Linux/Mac environment, where some computers use MS Office.
70 • RE: 52 Next step would be to make it more compatible... (by KimTjik on 2007-03-26 19:15:59 GMT from Sweden)
"it simply is one of the greatest distributions at the moment"
It might be, but it's really hard to tell when it never works out of the box on my computers. There's probably some way of solving the issues, but as far as I understand that's not the point of Ubuntu, so as long as it doesn't work I'll choose other options: source or binary.
On my main machine (AMD Opteron 180, DFI lp Ultra-D, ATI X800GTO) none of all variations of *ubuntu live-CD:s have ever worked (everything from kernel-panic to freezing). The alternative-CD does, but after going through hell, so why do that when I could use that time to setup and tweak a more configurable operating system.
A basic working station (IBM NetVista P4, i845 chipset) had Ubuntu installed for a month before I gave up on it: it would not boot except if following a really odd alternative in GRUB, but finally it started to change sound-card configurations by itself and ignore manual configurations. I tested the forum, but after 4 weeks the thread looks more like my personal blog. I suspect someone knows about Ubuntu having incompatibility issues, but by silence pretending it doesn't exist.
Why do I write this nonsense? I just hope that you, Clement Lefebvre, or somebody else will investigate why Ubuntu still isn't compatible with a lot of standard hardware. I wouldn't consider Ubuntu one of the greatest until it manages to run on hardware that Fedora, Gentoo, Pardus or whatever other linux distro does.
71 • Fedora/Ubuntu/Mandriva (by pilpilon on 2007-03-26 19:16:24 GMT from Israel)
As Mark Shuttleworth said in December: "We know now that there are probably at least 8 million [Ubuntu] users".
So it is 4:1 to Fedora. It is popular Ok.
As for Mandriva, it seems the only reason Parlament choosed Kubuntu over Mandriva is that good and reliablr IT Integrators prefer to work with Ubuntu, that Canonical plays better with them, and that Mandriva is not so good as integrator and not so good in cooperation with integrators.
72 • PCLinuxOS - 2007 release (by PastorEd on 2007-03-26 19:44:42 GMT from United States)
In reference to post #54:
I use PCLinuxOS on my desktop here at work, and on two laptops at home. All are running the -test versions, and all are very VERY stable.
The reason why 2007 "final" has not been released yet is that it's taking time to track down and fix some of the more obscure hardware issues. For the vast majority of users the -test versions are just fine.
They're far more stable than products coming out of Redmond, Washington, for example. [insert grin here]
Seriously, PCLOS will come out with a "final" version when Texstar and the team feel that their test cycle is truly completed. But 2007-test-3 is available for download right now, and is an excellent system in its own right.
73 • post 71 (by Plato on 2007-03-26 21:07:17 GMT from Latvia)
As Mark Shuttleworth said in December: "We know now that there are probably at least 8 million [Ubuntu] users".
===================
In this case one would rely on data, no to what Shuttleworth says. It is strange that you refer to that quotation with such confidence. Moreover, Shuttleworth is careful enough to say "probably".
74 • PCLinuxOS SimplyMEPIS are not major distro (by Anonymous on 2007-03-26 21:16:04 GMT from Canada)
PCLinuxOS SimplyMEPIS are not major distro. They are just customized version of mandriva and ubuntu. Please focus only on distribution that add something to the linux/unix world.
My list
Ubuntu
openSUSE
Fedora
Mandriva
Debian
Slackware
Gentoo
Archlinux
Knoppix
FreeBSD
75 • Mandriva and French Parlement (by Tazix on 2007-03-26 22:12:30 GMT from United States)
Just about any government agency in most any country puts large scale things out to bid. If Mandriva wanted the contract bad enough, they could have lowered their price to beat Ubuntu's bid, instead of try to suck the nipple of the government for as much as they could.
While the lowest bidder may not always be the best choice... that's just the way things mostly work. Not sure why Mr. Bancilhon doesn't "understand" this. The only reason I do, is because I actually work for a Government agency... and I know the amount of red tape, delays, and justifications to be documented for not choosing the lowest bidder, which usually makes it near impossible to do so.
That's not to say there aren't political tricks to be able to get the higher bidder chosen... but that is fairly unethical in the taxpayer's eyes, and usually not done on large scale items / contracts, due to audits.
76 • No subject (by tdatb on 2007-03-26 22:26:04 GMT from United States)
What's with Freespire's now being based on Ubuntu? I thought the entire point of Freespire was to have a free community-oriented version of Linspire. Is Ubuntu becoming the Microsoft of the Linux world - swallowing up all that it can and stifling independent development?
77 • Re 76 (by Andrew on 2007-03-26 22:46:35 GMT from Canada)
Ubuntu hardly uses extortionary tactics on companies like Linspire, and, to the best of my knowledge, has not been charged with antitrust yet.
78 • Mandriva and French Parlement - Continued (by Tazix on 2007-03-26 22:49:07 GMT from United States)
Also, just because Mandriva is a French company, doesn't automatically entitle them to "win the bid".
Since I work for a State Agency, often, there are contracts that are won by companies not within our State. Again, because they are the lowest bidder. It's really that simple. We haven't had anything really that needed to go international, however, if we were getting bids on linux support... that would be an international bid situation... and if Ubuntu beat Red Hat's and Suse's bids (both are in the US)... Ubuntu would win our contract too.
79 • Top 10 Distributions: openSUSE (by vzduch on 2007-03-26 23:20:07 GMT from Germany)
Quote from the article:
Software package management: YOU graphical and command line utility using RPM packages
Uhm, not quite... YOU (YaST Online Updater) has been the tool to get security updates and the like since SUSE 10.1. As of openSUSE 10.2, this has been replaced by either the ZEN Updater or the opensuseupdater, which latter one basically is a frontend to rug/zypper.
As to package management, there are now several possibilities to install and remove software. Of course you can still do that in YaST2. Other possibilities include YUM and zypper. And there is apt4rpm, which is not supported by Novell and to be used at one's own risk. :)
Please feel free to post additions and amendments if you think it necessary; I wouldn't consider myself an expert on this topic. :)
80 • Top 10 Distributions: openSUSE - Correction (by vzduch on 2007-03-26 23:21:56 GMT from Germany)
"YOU (YaST Online Updater) has been the tool to get security updates and the like since SUSE 10.1." <= replace "since" with "until"
:)
81 • re:70 (by Eddie Wilson on 2007-03-26 23:31:06 GMT from United States)
You seem to be one of the few people who thinks Ubuntu is not compatible with standard hardware. I've installed Ubuntu many of times on different systems. I've never had any problems. So I do agree with you that what you said is nonsense.
82 • Fedora & Yast??? (by Azrael Nightwalker on 2007-03-26 23:57:05 GMT from Poland)
You've written that Fedora's package management tool is Yast, which is not true because Yast is in Suse. Fedora has yum.
83 • Uhm... (by 1c3d0g on 2007-03-27 00:43:52 GMT from Aruba)
#8: so? Then don't use it and switch to another distro. Really, what's with you people? Isn't there anything positive that can be said about a distro without someone bashing it for no reason at all? Get a life, loser.
84 • RE: 57 What is popularity? (by ladislav on 2007-03-27 01:04:20 GMT from Taiwan)
A week or two ago, the Fedora projected reported that they have had over 2,000,000 downloads/installs of FC6
What Fedora does is that it measures the number of connections to Fedora's update servers and counts the unique IP addresses. It's not entirely accurate either; as an example, I have a variable IP address that changes once a day so if I were a FC6 user, I'd register as a new FC6 installation every day, which is obviously not correct. Nevertheless, Fedora's way of counting users is probably as close as it gets to real usage figures and 2 million users is certainly impressive. Good job there!
How valid of a popularity meter is the HPD on distrowatch.com?
Who knows... I hoped that there would be some correlation between the HPD figures and real-world usage (at least in terms of desktop Linux installation by home users), but if there really is one, it's very hard to prove. The HPD figures are more like a hype counter in that they indicate what is hot and exciting during a particular period of time.
I make no claims on what is popular and what isn't... but I have to question why Ubuntu is seen as the most popular distribution. Other than the HPD, what meter do we have? I'm guessing that Debian is as popular or more so than Ubuntu.
Aah, so you are also susceptible to "guessing"? It's OK, I am also just guessing that Ubuntu is the most popular distro as I don't have any figures to back it up. This guess is based on various factors, such as the number of community web sites, reviews in the media, books published, blog comments, etc. There are other ways to gauge the popularity; recently an advertiser ran a couple of banners promoting an Ubuntu book and an openSUSE book - guess which one got more than twice as many clicks than the other? There are many other hints like this, although in the end, there are nothing more than guesses.
As for figures, Shuttleworth has previously stated that he distributed more than 6 million Ubuntu 6.10 CDs through the ShipIt programme.
I also question the validity of saying that Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edbuntu, and Xubuntu (and all of the rest) are separate distributions.
We've discussed this several times before. As long as they maintain separate web sites, they are considered distributions in their own rights.
If presented with some form of numbers that seem reasonable... that show Ubuntu is the most popular or somehow a leader in Linux marketshare, I'll accept them...
If my life depended on the correct answer and I had to pick the most widely-used desktop distro, I'd pick Ubuntu without hesitation. I know it doesn't mean much - my only real defence for saying this is that I've been running DistroWatch for almost 6 years now, so I think I am in a better position than most to evaluate the popularity of distros. But that doesn't mean that I can't be wrong.
So in the end, there are no figures and no conclusions. Distro popularity is still very much a guessing game and it will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.
85 • RE: 58 Suggestion for Distrowatch (by ladislav on 2007-03-27 01:16:07 GMT from Taiwan)
What this site needs very badly: A forum.
There are so many Linux forums on the Internet - what's the point of starting another one? Please make a suggestion that would make DistroWatch unique, not one that would make it just like any of the hundreds of other Linux web sites.
I wish there was a "comment" section in the box announcing each new release. It would be nice to read comments of people who have already tried it and such....
No. The news items are nothing but pure facts. As soon as there is an option to comment, they will turn into pages with opinions (at best, ugly flame wars at worst), which is something I always wanted to avoid.
86 • RE: 60 top 10 (by ladislav on 2007-03-27 01:34:18 GMT from Taiwan)
IMHO Gentoo should probably not be there if this is really aimed at newbies. I love Gentoo - use it on my mini-itx - but you can't expect a Linux neophyte to cope with it.
Good point. However, I think it still has a place in the top 10 list because it's an independently developed distro with some unique ideas. It also serves as a good base for several user-friendly distros, including SabayonLinux and VLOS. And then don't forget that there are newbies who are willing to learn for whom Gentoo might be just the right first-time distro.
Could not help but notice that you refer to kubuntu, et al as 'editions' of Ubuntu - seems to contradict your inclusion of all the variants elsewhere.
I think it makes more sense to call them 'editions' on the top 10 page, but treat them as separate distros elsewhere on DistroWatch. Yes, it's a contradiction and yes, these projects have blurred the line between a distro and an edition of a distro. But for now I want to stick with where I drew the line originally - if a project has its own web site it shall be listed as a separate distro on DistroWatch.
Besides, I think it would be a bad idea to remove Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu from DistroWatch now. Can you imagine the reaction of the fans of those distros?
87 • Re: Top 10 Distributions: openSUSE (by Anonymous on 2007-03-27 01:44:21 GMT from Germany)
> YOU (YaST Online Updater) has been the tool to get security updates and the like since SUSE 10.1. As of openSUSE 10.2, this has been replaced by either the ZEN Updater or the opensuseupdater, which latter one basically is a frontend to rug/zypper.
Wrong, opensuse-updater is rather a frontend/notification appet to start YaST's YOU. It does NOT call zypper or even rug.
88 • umbutu (by george spillers at 2007-03-27 01:54:00 GMT from United States)
having very good sucess with software,thanks.going to add another version 7. edgy next.made an error in reposatories abd installed a server.now need to research how to remove without affecting the one s that work. ....keep up the good work and i will soon be able to contribute.
89 • "Top 5 Distributions" section (by Shawn on 2007-03-27 02:27:12 GMT from Canada)
Glad to see you are updating the "Top Ten Distributions" page.
It's been needed for some time.
I also find the "Top 5 Lists" down the side of the page very helpful. Since i've always chosen to keep my Windows partition and try dual booting with different Linux systems, i think a list of the "Top 5 Distributions for a Windows Dual-Boot" would be a useful list for many newcomers to Linux. Dual booting with Windows is probably a very common practice. I look for distributions with quick and easy access to my Windows partitions, without having to reconfigure the original setup.
Some of the most convenient i've tried so far are Knoppix, Sidux or SimplyMEPIS.
90 • Ubuntu editions (by Dano on 2007-03-27 02:54:45 GMT from Canada)
The only thing I have to add to this is that I can have a single debian installation and log in with any window manager I want, yet for ubuntu they are separate distros. I don't want to put down Kubuntu or Xubuntu, as I think they are necessary for those that don't want Gnome, but why didn't the Ubuntu team follow their daddy's lead(and many others) and allow that choice? I think their original decision to have only gnome as their desktop has created a lot of confusion and unnecessary complexity. I don't blame distrowatch as they have to deal with the fallout from that, but the bottom line is that to me a window manager is not a distro, and making it so just because it has a separate website just doesn't seem right. However, paying more for a different version of Vista to get a better window manager doesn't seem right either. Put in that perspective, I'll take the Linux way anyday.
91 • Hey Ladislav, (by Frank on 2007-03-27 03:48:19 GMT from United States)
I think you should create some links like:
- Distro counter, make your system count, let us know how many computer you he running Linux and what distro?
- constructive suggestion for your distro.
thank you
92 • Arch not in the list? (by Nicolas Heinen on 2007-03-27 06:29:07 GMT from Madagascar)
Just wonder why arch has been suppressed from the list you made in one of your weekly newsletter?
Anyway, this is the distro I use for more than one year and I install it everywhere I can :-)
Cheers,
Nick.
93 • RE 81: Ubuntu compatibility (by KimTjik on 2007-03-27 08:12:33 GMT from Sweden)
"You seem to be one of the few people who thinks Ubuntu is not compatible with standard hardware. I've installed Ubuntu many of times on different systems. I've never had any problems. So I do agree with you that what you said is nonsense."
I thank you for a constructive answer. I do have some distance to myself and that's why I wrote nonsense.
Overall I still think Ubuntu is a great idea, so why do you have to be so defensive? This is attitude we see all the time concerning some distros: "out distro doesn't have these issues, it's the best, you, the user probably did something wrong". All right, we have freedom of speech, but such comments, as yours, or blunt denial won't improve anything; it just leads to status quo.
It's not about what I think. Why do you think I gave exact specifics about the two systems in question? How come I know that other distros work on these computers? I'm not writing some fantasies here. It might be I'm not an expert Linux user, but I know my ways around on several, and have installed and used many. Unfortunately Ubuntu happens to be a distro that doesn't work out of the box on these two computers. If you need witnesses I can provide that too. Note I wrote: "out of the box", because that's the important part concerning Ubuntu, since its intention is to be a distro for the masses.
I'm not spreading FUD here, but when a developer happened to post I took the opportunity to in a respectful manner present the issues I've had with Ubuntu. Instead of attacking someone with a different experience, be a happy user.
94 • Opera on BSD (by Anonymous on 2007-03-27 09:48:25 GMT from Germany)
Is it something about the BSD licensing attitude? Or perhaps its rigorous adherence to web standards? Opera is often shunned by many FOSS purists, but it seems to be getting more widely adopted as a BSD accessory--an environment where it functions very well. I first noticed it when it unexpectedly appeared on Frenzy, and now PC-BSD has announced that it will be included as a standard item in the next 1.4 release.
95 • Opera (by Anonymous on 2007-03-27 10:08:50 GMT from United States)
Opera is closed source software, so my guess is that "the BSD licensing attitude" is the difference.
96 • Re # 83 (by Y0urM0m on 2007-03-27 11:01:34 GMT from United States)
I'm with you 100% on that one. Also, what's up with people that have to feel like they have to stand up to others when someone has a bad experience with a distro? Get a life you dolts.
97 • Re #83 & 96 (by Ariszló on 2007-03-27 12:22:33 GMT from Hungary)
I'm trying to figure out how #83 is related to #8. Comment #8 is about a decision of the French Parliament, not about personal use.
98 • Ubuntu (by SAK on 2007-03-27 12:37:46 GMT from Australia)
I've checked out many distro's over the years as a curiosity having come from a Microsoft Dos and every version of windows background.
I run Ubuntu on my IBM T30 laptop, there are 2 good reasons for this:
1. Hardware detection and easy installation means you can get up, netted and running without any technical knowledge at all.
2. When you are up and running, you can use this distros greatest feature - all the help on line to find solutions to just about any problem you can come up with.
Mandriva does not have "out of box" usability to the same high standard, I am sure they are trying but it's no where near as good as Ubuntu. If new users can't get up and connected to the net "hands free" and then readily find support - thats where people switch off and try another OS.
Once up and running, I like many others don't want to ask questions and cop the attitude from the "smart" people, Ubuntu has the "unofficial guide" and user forums that are thankfully free of snobbery prevalent in so many other communities.
99 • Top 5 for your old Win98 computer? (by octathlon on 2007-03-27 13:43:43 GMT from United States)
A suggestion: Since so many people, including many school systems, have Win98 computers for which support has stopped, and they can't afford to upgrade or buy new ones for Vista, many are now beginning to check into Linux as an alternative.
For some of those machines (the not-as-old ones), distros in the Top 10 might be OK, but for most of them, a list of the Top 5 for Win98-era machines would help them make a smooth transition to Linux. Vector?, Saxen?, Zenwalk?, Puppy?, Kate? I don't know which 5 you think best, but this is currently a big sector of potential Linux users who should be helped out with the same kind of overview you did for the mainstream distros.
100 • Bug race and hit counter. (by dbrion on 2007-03-27 14:02:27 GMT from France)
In 199è, I was very surprised by a platform where, instead of a classical Unix, a -real sysadmin had installed GPLd appilications: they were slower, not buggier, man were better (nobody did not need Holy Support nor Sacred Forums) and there were more interesting options.
I wonder to day if applications are less buggy than 10 years ago (it was a serious argument against Microsoft Windows ... 5 years ago).
Knowing in a systematic (and independant: thus Debian cant do it) way whether and where bugs remain for a given app and a given distr would be more user-friendly (IMO, a user is a human being who does not need bugs, not a sheep-like creature) than popularity indexes.
By the way, according to todays 'Le Monde', Microsoft sold twice more Vistas in ONE month than Ubuntu in all her glorious eternity... That gives all its conclusive value to popularity indexes...
As far as French Parliament decision, no newspaper writes about it :
If MPs are discredited (one will see it within 60/90 days), it won't even be a good publicity for Ubuntu (any way, whining about it is fully ridiculous)...
If future MPs gef unhappy with Ubu/Linux, they will change back to popular Windows (and a temporary switch to Linux can lead to lower prices).... The phenological state of marroniers is more interesting...
101 • Re 99 Top 5 for your old Win98 (by dbrion on 2007-03-27 14:24:21 GMT from France)
It seems ridiculous, but Cygwin (for comfort) + Mingw (for speed ) worked well in 2002 with W98 and 128 M Ram, and I do not think they have become bloated/ressource greedy. It might be sufficient for pple who just want to learn bash, C , Perl of Fortran (or...), without losing games/applications nor dual booting ...
DSL seems - from VMplaying- very memory friendly (16 M, I think: it thus leaves some RAM for the user) and fully original. I liked Zenwalk and Kate, (both seem easy to install and try to select good quality _standard_ apps), the latter more because they acknowledge their translators (it is an ethical reason, sorry).
102 • Re #74 (by serge on 2007-03-27 14:29:12 GMT from Canada)
"PCLinuxOS SimplyMEPIS are not major distro. They are just customized version of mandriva and ubuntu. Please focus only on distribution that add something to the linux/unix world"
YES: Completely agree with you.
103 • RE: #66 Fedora 6 and X (by Fedora User on 2007-03-27 14:56:02 GMT from Canada)
In post 66 the poster mentions the graphical desktop did
not start for him/her when they installed Fedora 6. This
was a common problem with FC6, which was quickly
fixed. There was a glitch in the graphical boot program
(rhgb) which would cause the user to get dumped to
a text console instead of a graphical login. Pressing
CTRL-ALT-F7 would generally get you to the right scrren.
A week after Fedora 6 was released, there was an update
for the rhgb problem which you could get by running the
command "yum update rhgb".
Yes, it was a silly problem which shouldn't have occured, but
they did correct it and the respins don't have this problem. It
was also easy to get help from the Fedora Forums
(fedoraforum.org) on this issue.
104 • RE: #74 & #102 (by atk406 on 2007-03-27 15:32:33 GMT from United States)
Following that logic, shouldn't Ubuntu be removed for being 'just a customized version of Debian"?
I use PCLinuxOS, and feel it adds plenty to the Linux world.
105 • Debian for me (by David on 2007-03-27 15:42:09 GMT from Canada)
I've gone through spindles of blank CD's trying out the various distros, often after seeing them on the DW pages for the first time. My first kick at Linux was RH5.0, but I've played with SuSE, Slackware, Mepis, Ubuntu/Xubuntu, Fedora, and myriad others. In the end, I always keep coming back to Debian. I use it for my desktop (Gnome), my server (Fluxbox), my laptop (Fluxbox), even my Ultra Enterprise Sparc 2. (command line only!)
Fancy installer? No.
Latest 'n' greatest of everything? No again.
Solid, dependable, and consistent? YES.
I'll keep trying other distros, but I know where I feel the most comfortable, and that's with good old Debian.
106 • RE #74 and 102 (by Tim on 2007-03-27 15:49:51 GMT from Canada)
"PCLinuxOS SimplyMEPIS are not major distro. They are just customized version of mandriva and ubuntu. Please focus only on distribution that add something to the linux/unix world."
Well I may have a different take on things here being kind of new to all of this but I think we should concentrate more on those distros that really work right out of the box such as PCLinuxOS and SimplyMepis. I'd downloaded and tried at least 20 Distros over the past couple of months and two of the very best were PCLinuxOS and SimplyMepis. Ubuntu didn't work well at all with my hardward and seemed very buggy, and Mandriva One was a bad experience too as nothing worked smooth. Neither of those were on my systems for more than a few minutes and were less than impressive, so say what you want about them being major distros, but as for me I'll stick with those distros that take what they can from the "major ones" and vastly improve on them. For anyone switching from Windows to Linux for the first time not one distro will do more for making them a convert than the ease, stability, and speed (not to even mention how polished and complete) PCLinuxOS is.
Just my opinion. ;)
107 • The most popular distros (by Anonymous on 2007-03-27 16:10:56 GMT from Germany)
I'd say that Red Hat Enterprise Linux & Fedora put together (since you list them both under "Fedora" in your top 10 list) is the most popular Linux distro. At least, this was clearly the case in 2005 and there are no facts to prove that this would have changed.
Debian is probably number 2 in popularity, especially if you consider Debian-based distros, like Ubuntu, to be part of Debian. Debian got strong boost in popularity with the Sarge release (Jun 6, 2005) and they're likely to get a similar boost with the Etch release, that is planned for next Monday -- Apr 2, 2007.
Here are some Netcraft statistics from 2005 that show which distros were popular a year and a half ago:
(Mar 14, 2005) http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/03/14/fedora_makes_rapid_progress.html
(Dec 5, 2005) http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/12/05/strong_growth_for_debian.html
108 • PCLinuxOS (by Just FUI on 2007-03-27 16:22:03 GMT from United States)
You are going to review PCLOS as 1 of the top 10 here at distrowatch, thats good.
Please, when you review PCLOS take a look at there claim of being family friendly.
and check image posts by member gryphen in screen shots in the forum, and I'll let you ask the questions of family friendly life styles and if the site is standing behind there claim or not.
109 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-27 19:05:09 GMT from France)
HPD Top 10 distros that are strong contenders to the "most user-friendly to most users" title, such as MEPIS and PCLOS, deserve to be in this top ten review, imo.
110 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-27 19:05:59 GMT from Mexico)
"PCLinuxOS SimplyMEPIS are not major distro. They are just customized version of mandriva and ubuntu. Please focus only on distribution that add something to the linux/unix world."
PCLinuxOS is THE frankenstein distro: it takes the best from other distros to make them its own. Patches from Fedora, apt-get from Debian, configuration utilities from Mandriva... Texstar just gather all of them and makes them live!
But if you don't leave it alone, it will stomp you. ;-)
111 • RE:108 (by ezsit on 2007-03-27 19:29:06 GMT from United States)
"Please, when you review PCLOS take a look at there claim of being family friendly and check image posts by member gryphen in screen shots in the forum, and I'll let you ask the questions of family friendly life styles and if the site is standing behind there claim or not."
I looked through the screenshots and did not see anything offensive to families. One happy face with talk bubble and the mention of B.M., but this does not count as anti-family. I don't know of one member of my family that does not take a dump every now and then.
112 • Ubuntu and the French Paliament... (Off-topic) (by Basilio Guzman on 2007-03-27 20:13:05 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I love to read the comments from the DWW readers; they live by the spirit of the "freedom" by which Linux and the Open Source is well known. I only want to point to a few points because the Ubuntu choice is not as bad as it sounds:
1. Ubuntu is a key player in the "Open Source Movement"; they NOT only make a great distro, but besides they include OpenSource projects (for Windows) even when they don't fund these projects.
2. Ubuntu populariy, despite debates whether or not it is so popular, has a greater share amongst users. Probably most Linux newcomers have tasted the Open Souce waters trying Ubuntu, and
3. I see the debate as if we were fighting our brother-in-law for choosing our younger sister instead of the older one. People! The Parliament is in the right direction having chosen AN OPEN SOURCE ALTERNATIVE.
For me, the lastest is great enough. Keep the debate running.
DISCLAIMER: I use 3 OSes on a daily basis: MacOS 9/X (for graphic design), Several Linuxes (for Testing/Support), and Windows XP (for a living as a Malware Fighter).
113 • French Parliament, Mandriva and Ubuntu (by Adam Williamson on 2007-03-27 20:50:53 GMT from France)
I will post the official English translation of Francois' letter tomorrow - I hope people will read it in its entirety. We dispute the decision on its merits, not on nationalist grounds; we stress the French base of Mandriva as this is an obvious advantage when it comes to providing support.
We do indeed provide products with long term support - Corporate Desktop and Corporate Server. Please see our website for more on this.
114 • How about Sabayon in the top-ten list? (by gnobuddy on 2007-03-27 22:41:52 GMT from United States)
I agree with REMF's post: please consider Sabayon for top-ten inclusion rather than pure Gentoo.
While the Gentoo Linux project seems to have no wind in its sails at the moment, Sabayon Linux seems to be sailing full ahead with spinnakers billowing. Sabayon is providing what Gentoo never quite managed to - a fully configured Gentoo based operating system and applications that can be quickly and painlessly installed, and then upgraded and managed with Portage.
I have used Gentoo for many years because I could not find a better replacement. Now Sabayon lets me eat my cake and have it too - I have all the goodness of Gentoo minus 95% of the tedium and grunt-work.
I read elsewhere that the original goal of the Gentoo project was to create a Linux meta-distribution, a base from which other distro's could build. Perhaps SabayonLinux has finally made that original Gentoo goal come true.
-Gnobuddy
115 • No subject (by 1c3d0g on 2007-03-28 01:28:50 GMT from Aruba)
"But Debian has always been there for about 11 years and it is a true community project.
What would happen if anything went suddenly wrong with Ubuntu?"
That's the part I was replying to.
116 • RE: #113 (by Tazix on 2007-03-28 03:14:58 GMT from United States)
With the chat options over TCP/IP and Remote Desktop options like VNC, I don't see a real huge support advantage. Yeah... you can send a tech or engineer on-site easier... but after things are up and running, how much of a need would there be for that? (Linux is pretty solid, as you well know)
You have Global competition. Adjust your bid price to take that into account. (If the Parliament will give you a second chance at bidding... if not... lesson learned for the next contract you bid on).
117 • PClinuxOS, Parliament and OO. (by dbrion on 2007-03-28 13:19:14 GMT from France)
" PCLinuxOS SimplyMEPIS are not major distro.
They are just customized version of mandriva and ubuntu"
AFAIK, first versions of PCLINUXOS used a copy of Mandrivas disk portitioner, as it is user friendly (Zenwalks recommands it, if one is unhappy with her cfisk...), and it was then fully rewritten => some functions were cloned...
As they remain modest, seem to release when they are ready
(users are seldom ready for new bugs) and warn their users,
I do not understand why they were not chosen for the "honorable Asssemblé (sic!, from #41) Nationale ".
Can one say that Open Office Writer (OO drawer is fully original) a customized version of Microsoft Word?
118 • The top 10 revised (by Claus Futtrup on 2007-03-28 19:24:10 GMT from Denmark)
It is a great idea to revise the top 10 list. Previous posts shows attention to the fact that the Distrowatch top 10 "hype meter" should not be the only concern. Number of forum users, number of downloads etc. can be indicators. I think though, that the original idea was to list Distrowatch top 10 ... but I could be wrong (at least today this concept is probably wrong).
Going through the list it seems that it needs very little revision. On the list there's the following distros not in top 10 anymore:
Gentoo
Xandros
Knoppix
New on the DW top 10:
PCLinuxOS
Sabayon
Damn Small
I don't know if Gentoo deserves an exit - DW scores are dropping but the distro probably still has a considerable user base. I don't know if Sabayon deserves a spot, it is after all based on Gentoo and quite new on the scene.
Another issue with top 10 list would be to spread the top 10 on different types of distros, as in "Server" and "Small desktop computer" etc. It therefore makes sense to me to see e.g. Damn Small added to that list. I don't know if Knoppix deserves an exit - because there's no LiveCD to replace it (and it is currently no. 11, so what gives).
I think Xandros deserves the boot. It is a shadow of previous times. I vote that Damn Small should take its place on the list. Other than that - the hefty discussion on revising the top 10 list is a bit overkill, given that the list already seems to contain most of what's popular of various types. Good job, Ladislav.
Best regards,
Claus
119 • Grafpup final alpha (by Raymundo Flores on 2007-03-28 22:10:14 GMT from Mexico)
As of March 21 final alpha of grafpup has been reached. A remarkabily beautiful and small distro making roots on Pupy Linux now includes abiword.
Can be downloaded at http://grafpup.com/download/index-2.0.html
120 • Mandriva (by Yoshi on 2007-03-29 05:06:11 GMT from United States)
こんにちは、 Mandriva が大きいdistro であるが、私もまたUbuntu を選ぼう。Ubuntu がdistrowatch の第1 なぜであるか秘密、google の傾向があり、従って。最も大きい配分の1 時単に今である。私はフランスの議会Linux のために嬉しく行った、最もよい選択のようであるものがそれら嬉しい選んだ。私はMandriva のCEO が感じる苦味を理解絶望の時に彼が議会にそのような手紙をなぜ送るか理解できる。彼はその手紙の公衆を作ったという私がである事実しかし理解することができないある種として何を、の国家主義の名の弾劾。これはばかばかしい!
121 • Arch and Gentoo (by mutlu on 2007-03-29 06:24:36 GMT from United States)
I think that the biggest downside of the HPD way of measuring a distribution's popularity is that distributions with a rolling release system are very likely heavily underestimated.
First, it simply does not make much sense to look at the package status of a rolling release distribution since it will be (as is the case with Arch and Gentoo) very much up to date.
Second, there are way less reviews of these distribution. Reviews are often prompted by new releases. Gentoo's and Arch's "releases" are in fact not releases and (rightly) not treated as such by most linux journalists.
Third, the buzz around the weeks before and after a distribution's release with release candidates, their announcements, preview articles in online press, links from Distrowatch Weekly, etc. prompt a vast number of clicks.
Therefore, I would really like to see a conscious effort to pay more attention to rolling release distributions. Especially Arch Linux (which I have to admit I am using for a few months now) seems way underrated to me.
122 • PCLinuxOS re#111 (by Just FUI on 2007-03-29 14:18:57 GMT from United States)
http://www.divshare.com/download/181191-37b is the link to images questioned
for family. Is there a push to make forums Pay to join? A lot of drive by Exterm.
123 • PCLinuxOS, re link from #122 (by Anonymous on 2007-03-29 15:03:47 GMT from France)
ok, the story is that there are 2 gay kiss screenshots (please correct me if I missed something else. Does that qualify as "family unfriendly" in the US (where JustFUI posts from)? Isn't "Desperate Housewives" labeled as family friendly in the US?
124 • RE#123 PCLinuxOS (by Just FUI on 2007-03-29 15:26:40 GMT from United States)
In US under 18 years of age, parents make the call, and again OTHER life styles
has been labeled as adult by all courts in the US. How can you make a side by side view with a TV show, its not real life.
125 • RE: 122 • PCLinuxOS re#111 by Just FUI (by JustAnonymous on 2007-03-29 17:22:25 GMT from United States)
Sorry to bust your bubble.
Whatever the link you posted, it does not represent PCLinuxOS officially. Unless the pictures (any) includes in the *official* repository.
Get your fact straight.
126 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-03-29 18:02:19 GMT from United States)
"1. Ubuntu is a key player in the "Open Source Movement"; they NOT only make a great distro, but besides they include OpenSource projects (for Windows) even when they don't fund these projects."
You really need to rephrase that to "...they have taken a great distro, cut out 90% of it, repackaged it with a shiny new label, rushed it out the door with worse than average QA and called it their own."
Are they a key player? Have they added anything to the community? I see no evidence of such, just hype.
127 • Keep up the great work. (by Jay Ellington on 2007-03-29 20:23:43 GMT from United States)
You guys do a great job here, and as a regular sense you first published I hope you keep it up. I would have never found great firewalls like Gibralter and m0n0wall, utility distros like damn small linux and dyne:bolic, source based projects like sorcerer and LFS and it would be much harder for me to track my favorite desktop debian sid without you.
128 • Further delay for Debian Etch (by timon on 2007-03-29 23:51:03 GMT from Finland)
A new release update has been published by the Debian Release Team, saying that they had secretly planned to release Etch on April 1st but now they think that one more week is needed before Etch is ready for release.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2007/03/msg00023.html
129 • PCLinuxOS RE:#109-#122-#124 (by FUI on 2007-03-30 10:57:44 GMT from United States)
Fact, stand by post, and theres 3 pics, its not family , If PCLOS does
not supportit so take it down. . .
130 • Dell Linux (by cosh on 2007-03-30 22:42:16 GMT from Ireland)
Would everybody please visit http://www.dellideastorm.com and show their support for their favourite distro? There are some suggestions that Dell make their own distro too.
131 • Top Ten (by vukota on 2007-03-30 23:10:49 GMT from United States)
Good choice Ladislav!
Although SimplyMEPIS and PCLOS does not belong there, no matter how much you or me like these distros.
Regarding other comments about other distros on the Top Ten list I think you can disregard them.
There should be a criteria list how distros got in the Top Ten list. Is it just how popular on DW distro is or it is something else?
I think following should be considered:
1) How old distrio is?
2) Is it a base distro with lot of unique features from which many other distros are derived or it is just repackaged other distribution with not too much innovations in it?
3) What is the estimated install base (not just DW ranking).
4) Does this distro has active support for current AND older releases (either free or commercial)? For how long after release date?
5) How many packages distro actively maintains it self?
6) How popular distro is?
7) How much documentation is available for distro?
Also maybe instead of having just Top Ten distros DW should have Top 10 distro families, since it is ridiculous to mention in the Top Ten list same distro 10 times when actual situation is that it is the same distro with just couple different packages or settings.
132 • Re: 59 - Compress with password? (by Vance on 2007-03-31 03:14:29 GMT from United States)
"I know under Windows, zip and rar files are popular and can be compressed with password but I have no clue how to compress file(s) with bzip2 or other tools running on Linux."
If you're still around, the 'zip' command can be used with the '-e' option to encrypt files. However, zip encryption is rather weak. A better choice is to use 'gpg -c filename' to more securely encrypt a file using a passphrase (it's compressed as well). A passphrase is not as strong as using gpg's public key encryption, but that can be a somewhat difficult subject to understand. Search around for gpg tutorials if you'd like to know more.
133 • Top ten distributions | openSUSE (by Peter Head on 2007-04-01 16:58:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
That's odd. Now the summary of openSUSE has:
Pros: Professional attention to detail, easy-to-use YaST configuration tools.
Cons:
But a day or two ago the Cons wasn't blank -- there was a comment about how some people (this writer included) are uncomfortable at the recent agreement between Novell and Microsoft, differently interpreted by each party. Who grumbled and got this caution removed?
134 • Re: About number of installs (by Anonymous on 2007-04-01 18:38:54 GMT from Germany)
> The only number I can think of, to try count somewhat which distro is more used, is the number of forum members.
I don't think that you get more accurate numbers this way. E.g. it doesn't respect when someone changes his distribution, his forum account doesn't get deleted.
> Opensuse 18135 http://www.suseforums.net/
The SUSE user community is split up between different forums for historical reasons. Why did you pick this one? http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/ has 28,723 registered members.
> Of course many of these distro have national forums, but they are a lot smaller.
You're wrong again. The SUSE-centric German forum linux-club.de/ has 32181 registered users.
135 • Mark Shuttleworth (to Plato) (by pilpilon on 2007-04-01 20:41:14 GMT from Russian Federation)
Well, I believe to Mark Shuttleworth. Sane people usually don't lie.
I believe to Fedora people too, for the same reason. I have no means to check their data.
136 • RE: 132 (by IMQ on 2007-04-01 20:49:04 GMT from United States)
Saw your post but I couldn't respond because the comment section was locked.
Yes, I read about the weakness of zip password thing and really didn't want to use zip. I know nothing about gpg and my impression was that it is used per file instead of group of files. Plus it seems (to me) complicate to set up.
I was looking for something similar to Windows counter parts like zip and rar: simple to use.
I came across something interesting called encfs which seems simple to set up and use. I have to find time to experiment this.
Thanks for the info anyway.
137 • Post 131 is totally right !!! (by Caraibes on 2007-04-01 21:30:52 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I agree, the criteria of post 131 are the right ones for the top 10 !
And, no, PCLOS & Mepis have nothing to do in the top 10, regardless of their popularity... Those distros only come in 1 language !!!
138 • RE#137 (by FUI on 2007-04-02 00:38:57 GMT from United States)
All you have to do in PCLOS is to set up you language, and yes any distro with a large active member base does belong in the top 10, linux world wide is 25 million. You sound like you want to debate the difference between xp or vista, both are windows. . .
139 • Re: #137 "in 1 language" (by Ariszló on 2007-04-02 05:52:22 GMT from Hungary)
Here are some screenshots of PCLinuxOS and Mepis in another language:
http://ariszlo.tripod.com/scr2.html
140 • Link corrected (by Ariszló on 2007-04-02 05:55:10 GMT from Hungary)
Sorry, wrong link. That's my English site. Here are the screenshots in Hungarian:
http://ariszlo.freeweb.hu/scr2.html
Number of Comments: 140
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| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
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| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
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UTUTO
UTUTO GNU/Linux was an Ubuntu-based distribution (Gentoo-based before version 2017) developed by at the Universidad Nacional de Salta in Argentina. Named after a fidgety local lizard that pokes its nose into every hole, UTUTO was a high-performance desktop system designed to be used by home and office users, developers, organisations and government officials.
Status: Discontinued
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