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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Fedora7 ! (by Naresh V at 2007-05-28 09:29:29 GMT from India)
Wow, time to finally give Fedora another spin :)
2 • Fedora security features (by Anonymous on 2007-05-28 09:34:33 GMT from United States)
One thing that really differentiates Fedora 7 from most other distros, is the security features that it offers by default. See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Security/Features
Hope the other distros get with the program. Not that Fedora security can't be improved, but at least they are taking the lead compared to most distros.
3 • PCLinuxOS 2007 Review (by David on 2007-05-28 10:34:52 GMT from United States)
Thank you for your Review.
I Don't agree with many of your conclusions , and find your comments overly negative. I Believe that PCLinuxOS 2007 is the best yet.
most of my argument with your review was personal tastes though and they are improving this distro all the time.
I Would have no hesitation to recommend it to the new or serious Linux user.
Cheers!
David
4 • DELL disappoints with its initial offer of Ubuntu-based PCs (by Yagotta B. Kidding on 2007-05-28 10:35:45 GMT from Germany)
DELL disappointed me with its initial offer of Ubuntu-based PCs in many a respect:
1. The offer is hard to find. Searching for 'Ubuntu' leads NOT to the order pages, but to the general marketing gobbledygook about "Linux for corporate customers". What corporate customers?!
2. The laptopts are neither very modern nor particularly sexy. Take the highest possible resolution of the TFT - it is 1440x1024. Nothing you'd loose your sleep about, or would you?
3. There is a plethora of other stuff being offered to you when trying to find an acceptable configuration - bags, batteries an such. Support is one of those, and it costs HUNDREDS of $$$ !
My conclusion: stay well away of Dell.
Get a notebook/laptop of your choice, e.g. a ThinkPad, MacBook, or whatever rocks your boat, and install your favourite Linux flavour on it. This way you'll get the hardware you need, and the distro of your liking.
One more thing: the "glare" or "mirror" TFTs are not my cup of tea - and one more reason to stay away from Dell.
5 • No subject (by Petter on 2007-05-28 10:58:01 GMT from Norway)
Re: 4 At leas Dell is doing something. I see no reason to ditch dell just because you don't like their offerings... bah! Congrats to Dell :)
6 • PCLinuxOS (by Alter Ekko on 2007-05-28 11:04:21 GMT from Norway)
PCLinuxOS has got much attention these last weeks, and
I think everyone should try it. At least if you like something
with a taste of Mandriva.
After playing with 4 computers and more than 100 linux distros
the last 4 years I'm simplifying my life by using a HP Intel
chipset laptop most of the time. Mandriva based distros
have been the best at finding the correct 1280x800 X and
easy WLAN configuration.
Mandriva 2007 (not the 2007.1) and PCLinuxOS latest works
very well. And so does MCNLive - a distro that in my
opinion should get much more attention. The MCNLive Delft
is my favorite CD (and USB) live disttro on this spesific
computer.
But Puppy linux latest 2.15 is also very good.
Aren't we linux users lucky people having the chance to
try out a lot of interesting programs for free !?
7 • Dellinux (by spd106 on 2007-05-28 11:28:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
The most important aspect of this deal is that now users can order a PC with hardware that they know will work well with Linux. There's no need to research for hours and hours to check whether the wireless card or graphics chip will work. That might be ok for the more technical user, but most of us don't have the time or knowledge.
So if your not happy with Ubuntu, go ahead and install Fedora or PCLinuxOS afterwards, at least you know your not paying the Windows tax.
8 • PCLinuxOS vs. Mandriva 2007 (by Martin Hansen at 2007-05-28 11:47:47 GMT from Denmark)
I do agree with the review of PCLinuxOS.
Looks wise, PCLinuxOS is one of the nicest around (if not the nicest). However, when it comes to more advanced use and setup I found it to be more difficult and less user friendly than Mandriva 2007.1 (and Mandriva 2007.0).
When I tried it I ended up with gnome programs (Evolution) that did not respond to the changes made in gnome-control-center which I found no way to solve. There were some other smaller issues and I ended up staying with Mandriva Powerpack 2007 which I find "second to none" based on my needs and taste.
I do not think Mandriva gets the credit they deserve for their work on their distribution (knowing their community is not that great :-) )
9 • Pre-Installed Ubuntu on Dell (by UbuntuLover on 2007-05-28 11:58:39 GMT from South Africa)
Do any of you guy's think maybe Dell just looked at their range of offerings and chose the laptops/desktops that would work without any further config. It is possible if you choose the right hardware that Ubuntu would not require any further tweaking. Even the graphics drivers are a few clicks away which you can hardly call "tweaking". I dunno, considering how quick Dell got their production line up and running it just doesn't seem like they did a lot of configuring. I presume that the normal way these things are done is Dell sets up one of the laptops/desktops until it's perfect and then creates an image of the install and that image is then copied to the new laptop/desktop at some point on the production line. Please correct me cause I find all this interesting. What do you guys think they do with Windows what with all the licensing and activation and such.
10 • Re: PCLinuxOS (by DistRogue on 2007-05-28 12:05:23 GMT from United States)
I actually use PCLOS 0.93a as my backing system (MadWifi fails to work after kernel 2.6.16), and I must say, PCLOS 2007 is a huge step forwards. In case the graphics don't tip you off, it's designed to be a Windows look-alike, catered perfectly towards ex-Windows users migrating to Linux.
For an XFCE version, check out SAM Linux. It's a seriously good distribution.
11 • Re: Pre-Installed Ubuntu on Dell (by DistRogue on 2007-05-28 12:09:57 GMT from United States)
Probably. Think about it. Linux comes with built-in Intel drivers in X.Org, and some distros (Ubuntu Feisty comes to mind) include ipw3945 drivers for the wireless.
12 • pclinux os (by Joey on 2007-05-28 12:12:17 GMT from United States)
Weird. It's not as stable as Mandriva, has much of Mandriva's character, and sports crappy graphics card detection on 9 of the 11 machines we tested it on (in hopes of getting a distro with the new kernel on all our production computers).
Vector Linux wins, for detection and speed.
But Tex Star has another problem I've noticed: his "community" is growing into a smug bunch over there, even attempting to rally users to spam bad reviewers. Shame.
We tested it for its merits, though, not the political end of the game. As it is, this review caught some of the problems, proving that Linux distros are very "machine sensitive," I think. Gotta find the one that works best on your equipment.
Slackware based distros seem to work best here. Plus, Vector does not have the negativity in their approach that pclinux os seems to be cultivating.
13 • DEll (by Rogelio on 2007-05-28 12:18:08 GMT from United States)
I'm glad customers now have a choice with there OS. With Vista's requirements:
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
* WDDM Driver
* 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
* Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
* 32 bits per pixel
DVD-ROM drive
It's nice to know your not forced to buy something that is so demanding and bloated for your PC.
14 • PCLinuxOS versus Ubuntu (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-28 12:18:53 GMT from Italy)
I haven't fully tested PCLinuxOS 2007 yet, but overall it feels like a distro I might like, much improved over previous releases.
What is remarkable, however (from my point of view) is that my prediction that Ubuntu would be overtaken by another distro became true even earlier than I expected: I have always been of the opinion that Ubuntu is an average distribution and that it was overhyped.
15 • Re: DELL disappoints... (by Azrael Nightwalker on 2007-05-28 12:21:44 GMT from Poland)
@Yagotta B. Kidding
"There is a plethora of other stuff being offered to you when trying to find an acceptable configuration - bags, batteries an such. Support is one of those, and it costs HUNDREDS of $$$ !"
That's a standard practice with all Dell products. Nothing to shout about.
"One more thing: the "glare" or "mirror" TFTs are not my cup of tea - and one more reason to stay away from Dell."
You can always choose a non-glare TFT - so what's the problem?
My conclusion: you're exaggerating.
16 • PCLinuxOS versus Ubuntu, follow up (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-28 12:24:50 GMT from Italy)
However if the PCLinuxOS' community suffers of the problems described in post #12 (and by others), we have another problem.
17 • PCLinuxOS (by NK on 2007-05-28 12:48:18 GMT from United States)
What I would like to see is better release date management. I think that is a weakness with the date slipping continuously with this last release.
I really think that this distribution will be the number one distribution after the release of KDE 4. Also, with the new kernel improvements, it will be hard to say that desktop linux has not arrived.
So much as personalities are concerned, in case people have not noticed, politics and stupid decisions exist with any software project. Some more so than others. I would hope that PCLinuxOS would become less Texstar centered and more team centered.
But that's a small gripe. It's certainly leagues better than Mepis in this area, which has handily been overtaken by PCLinuxOS. I remember when PCLinuxOS was 20 places behind Mepis.
So my feeling is they are more on the right track than off.
18 • PCLinux OS -- why nikpick (by winsnomore on 2007-05-28 12:52:26 GMT from United States)
Ladislav, you review is picking on such minor details that I am astonished
Not having Sudo is a negative? I would give them a medal for it.
That alone takes away from your usually impartial writing.
PCLinux OS is clean and usable out of th box because they seem to have spent the time to write simple configurator's for most useful things.
I never never liked Ubuntu because of it's contrapted ways .. didn't play with Madriva much either, but have tried 50+ distros .. and this is the best.
19 • Beafanatix (by Popeye on 2007-05-28 12:56:15 GMT from Germany)
Beatrix resurrected? That is good news. Now let's hope that it will exist for a long time. :)
20 • RE: 10,12 and 16 (by Hootiegibbon on 2007-05-28 13:02:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Distrouge,
Have you tried the PCLinuxOS 2007 livecd, the atheros chipset (ie uses madwifi) works 'out of the box - at initial setup in my laptop with out any issues.
Joey & Anonymous Penguin,
There is nothing wrong with the community, it is growing at a terrific rate, some of the 'more enthusiastic' new users have had to be reminded on occasion (by mods) about the 'usage rules' most of these users come from other distro's forums.
I can not think of a post that called for the spamming of a reviewer, all reviews are good even if you don't agree with the opinion of the reviewer.
Jase
21 • PClinuxOS (by voislav on 2007-05-28 13:04:44 GMT from Canada)
It's a nice distro, but sometimes they do get too much credit. They do organize their distro much better than Mandriva does, but most of their tools are straight from Mandriva.
I do wonder how long will it take for the next release, KDE 4 is going to be out in September or so the next edition will probably include it. That's going to be a big job and Textar and the gang took a lot of criticism for the "flexible" release schedule allready.
I don't think that their community is as bad as people make it out to be, their forums are pretty frendly (I ran one of the test versions for a bit), they get a bad rap because there are a few fanboys with nothing else to do than to troll around.
22 • Congratulations to Ubuntu and Dell (Delluntu)... (by Daniel Mery on 2007-05-28 13:04:49 GMT from United States)
Guys,
It is a great news for the linux user and very great news for many people that wants to migrate to linux form Micro$oft with a linux distro "ready to use". I hope that other hardware companies follow the "Dell way"...
Congratulation to Ubuntu that deserves this "moment of glory" and congratulation to Dell for bring to the market this option...
Regards,
Daniel Mery
23 • Dell's offering (by Leo on 2007-05-28 13:06:43 GMT from United States)
I hope the people who voted on Dell'ss ideastorm were really honest and wanted to buy a dell pc, and go through with it. I didn't vote because I don't need hardware right now.
In fact, I coul use a light notebook, but these are very expensive.
The offering from Dell seems extremely well balanced:
* the notebook is really a sweet "one size fits all ". Rather light (not a lightweight though), not too bulky, inexpensive (USD600). Yes, there are more sexy notebooks, you've got to pay for those.
* the "budget" desktop gives you a dual core processor, 250 Gb SATA, _dual_channel_ 1Gb RAM. Excelent home, even SOHO machine, for USD 600 _including_the_monitor_
* The expensive desktop I am not very sure about, I'd really invest on 64 bit AMD dual core for something like that, and you can get a white box for a lot less I believe.
Besides the home and SOHO user, I can view these as very, very nice inexpensive offerings for academic customers. Think of all those PhD students and Postdocs working under research grants. For USD 1200, you can get them both a decent laptop and a decent home PC for their research. Let's not forget that a lot of the research in the academia is done in Linux environments, for obvious reasons :-)
All in all, it looks like Dell looked into "average hardware for the average user", and at least two of the three offerings should do the trick.
Cheers!
Leo
24 • Re: #22, Daniel Mery (by Leo on 2007-05-28 13:09:54 GMT from United States)
I agree Daniel
I think other companies will follow if Dell makes money out this, simple as that :-)
The flip side would be: if all those people who voted are just "vocal people trying to get heard" with no intention to buy what they said they intended, then our community will look like, well, needless to say it.
I think there is a lot at stake here, I hope it works out well.
Cheers
Leo
25 • PCLinux OS Review (by drizake on 2007-05-28 13:09:59 GMT from United States)
It was not Ladislav's review it was Chris Smarts. Reading the review makes me want to stick with openSUSE...
26 • LVM on PCLinuxOS (by Salman on 2007-05-28 13:10:33 GMT from Indonesia)
Yes, i'm waiting PClinuxOS to fully support both LVM and RAID... .
Tex?
27 • RE: # 20 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-28 13:16:56 GMT from Italy)
"There is nothing wrong with the community"
I very much hope you are right, because "aggressive" competition is badly needed, IMO.
28 • fedora (by rubberduck on 2007-05-28 13:20:47 GMT from Sweden)
I have run opensuse 10.2 for a while on my new laptop only because ive waited on this release. Good old suse is going by, by. i just cant continue use it with the treacherous deal nagging my brain all the time. Despite the fact that it is the open dist. If i can give something back to red hat i will.
And so by using and exploring fedora again. This dist has never failed me before in my work, and it always braught me a hell of a lot of fun to!
Good times are back.
=)
29 • RE:#27 and #18 (by Hootiegibbon on 2007-05-28 13:45:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Anonymous Penguin,
Competition?
I was not aware that being a Linux user was a contest!, to me there is no 'competition', only choice.
winsnomore,
its true you got the authors name incorrect on the review, but lets just face it, PClinuxOS is good, and the fact that its 'minor' things that are having to be found is a positive in my book.
and to the author of the review you can set up sudo (if you REALLY want to), personally I do not like sudo use, and feel that is a poor option for the security of the system.) so is not a major issue for long term use.
Jase
30 • New ranking - Distributions family (by pbs on 2007-05-28 13:50:55 GMT from Poland)
About popularity of PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu:
The ranking is mislead because users of Ubuntu are splited into Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Kubutu, Mint (it's Ubuntu + codecs), MEPIS (based on Ubuntu), Ubuntu CE, Xubuntu, Ulteo, etc.
I propose add short second ranking:
Distributions family:
1. Debian (with Ubuntu) family
2. Ubuntu family
3. Mandriva family
4. Suse family
5. RedHat family
6. Gentoo family
7. others
This is the true ranking. Beginers don't know that Mint, MEPIS are Ubuntu based and Ubuntu (or Debian) core is most popular. People want know what become a standard in linux world (Debian-Ubuntu core).
31 • :/ (by pbds on 2007-05-28 13:55:59 GMT from Poland)
ups... sorry for double post :)
32 • more on Dell (by 392 on 2007-05-28 13:59:11 GMT from United States)
Well I think this is fantastic because:
A) more hardware vendors will try to get in to the game, so better support with drivers and stuff like that.
B) Dell just become another Linux Distributor same as M$$$
33 • :/ (by pbds on 2007-05-28 14:00:41 GMT from Poland)
ups... sorry for double post :)
34 • Ubuntu vs PCLinuxOS (by pp on 2007-05-28 14:09:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
PCLinuxOS is probably my fav live CD. But..
I've never actually installed it for 3 reasons:
(1) I sometimes need unusual packages and PCLOS doesn't have them.
(2) The community is tiny, about 8.000 registersed users in forums, whereas ubuntu has more than 300.000. The level of support comes from a big number of committed users..
(3) I also have to admit that I'm suspicious of one-man led distros.
PCLinuxOS still deserves it's success, and these problems may be fixed in the future if PCLinuxOS grows..
But for now, I would recommend (k)ubuntu with Automatix, or OpenSUSE for a desktop installation.
35 • :/ (by pbds on 2007-05-28 14:14:40 GMT from Poland)
ups... sorry for double post :)
36 • Nice work Ladislav (by Bill Savoie on 2007-05-28 14:38:11 GMT from United States)
Dell's offer is good news. PCLinuxOS 2007 is my new main system, easier to install than SuSE 10.2 and it is trivial to be programming in Ada 95. I found the agreement SuSE made with $M robbed me of my idealism. One for all and all for one, Pure Buddhism is my path. Radically simple. Thanks Dell, PCLinuxOS, all all open source developers!
37 • PCLinuxOS Community (by mudcat on 2007-05-28 14:40:29 GMT from United States)
There is nothing wrong with the PCLinuxOS community. The "arrogant" label which some are trying to stick to PCLinuxOS, is simply not true. If one were to judge a distribution simply by the "arrogant" gestures of immature fans, there would be nary an OS to run at all. All distributions (as well as Windows, Mac OS, and BSD) have their obnoxious adherents. In my experience, the PCLinuxOS community is better than most. In fact, Texstar routinely reinforces the opinion that if you don't like PCLinuxOS, try something else, so long as you use Linux. I wish many of the Distrowatch posters would learn this simple truth, rather than instigating inter-distro infighting.
If you really want the truth, visit PCLinuxOS forums and find out for yourself. One caveat: It should be noted there is a low threshold in the PCLinuxOS forums for trolling and distro-bashing -- so, if you do start along those lines, you will likely get your posts deleted.
As to post #12, this sure looks like another troll or astroturf. Something in this post is just not adding up. Politics are not the issue, functionality is. The review above has that part right about PCLinuxOS: "Some live CDs are fun to play with, but lose their charm when they don't follow up with a back-end system that makes the distribution usable every day. PCLinuxOS is different. It is nice to have a system that both looks and plays nice..." I have used PCLinuxOS on a wide variety of hardware, with considerable success. I have found it to be easier to use and more stable than Mandriva -- although I have liked the Mandriva 2007 releases, so far. I also noticed this post is rather long on opinion and short on fact. For instance, were the 9 of 11 machines identical (or similar) computers which might truly have support issues under PCLinuxOS? Did the author of this post try to resolve the hardware issues on the PCLinuxOS forums? (BTW, if you do solve hardware issues on a PCLinuxOS install, the nice part is that you can easily remaster your changes for future installs on similar hardware.) Sorry, with such a(n ironically) smug and opinionated post, providing little in the way of detail, I'd have to call BS.
I do agree that Vector is a very nice distribution, though.
Also, thanks for adding BeaFanatix. I hope Steven is doing okay. Beatrix was always one of my favorite distributions. Do you think Steven would allow future releases to carry the simpler, more elegant Beatrix moniker, though?
38 • PClinuxOS (by Richard on 2007-05-28 14:41:56 GMT from United States)
The latest version of PClinuxOS is very good. Side by Side with Mandriva 2007.1 I feel it is much quicker to install. Overall if I had to pay to use Mandriva to become a club member or not (which I am . . . ) I wouldn't do it again. So many distro's to choose from. I agree with one of the comments above about rating the OS's by core
development. (i.e. 1) Debian/DreamLinux/ deb
2) Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Mepis/Mintlinux
3) Fedora/Mandriva/PclinuxOS rpm
4) Suse/OpenSuse
5) Freebsd/Pcbsd/Desktopbsd/Netbsd
and all the others bagged into the mix.
Over the past 3 years I've continually played with many of the distro's. The biggest hinderance to me has been working with wifi connectivity and the distro's that got my system up and running with the least headaches using wifi have been my choices. Pclinux,Mandriva/ Mepis/Ubuntu/Kubuntu,MintLinux,Dreamlinux,and Desktopbsd have been the least troublesome for me and my picks for winners.
39 • Re 30: the advantage of granularity is that it does not lead to (by dbrion on 2007-05-28 14:43:37 GMT from France)
inconsistencies (like 1 and 2 in your post..) One can also agglomerate Mandriva to Red Hat (it is historically true, just add to Red Hat Cygwin and OLPC -both likely to be much spread, now or in some future...) . Providing granular numbers makes that every one can group as he likes/thinks...
BTW, (Re 29) these kind of post show that there is some competition, at least from users/spectators (I prefer Cygwin as they are the only ones in the wonderful Free Word to have thought that it is not always possible to download from ones computer, thus allowing for downloading a mirror of what ones needs... That is common sense..). I never saw any rational reason in this inter-linuxen competition (it is like clothes, just a matter of fashion), but it exists (like cholera, perhaps)...
40 • pclinux os (by Joey on 2007-05-28 14:44:15 GMT from United States)
You're mistaken, hootiegibbon:
http://www.seopher.com/articles/review_pclinuxos_2007_final_release
read the whole review...
41 • Fedora 7 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-28 14:49:42 GMT from United States)
First, if you want a distribution with good hardware support, good graphics and fonts out of the box, and a community with a focus on providing a free software distribution rather than competing with other distros, try Fedora 7. In my mind it is better than any OS. They now even have an installable Live CD, with both KDE and Gnome variants.
Package management is still not as good as Debian/Ubuntu, but they are improving. I had to dig for a long time to find out that to install from the Live CD, it is necessary to run /usr/bin/liveinst. The documentation still needs a lot of work.
Nonetheless, I really am excited about Fedora 7, and if I play with package management a little bit and can handle it, I will probably move to Fedora 7 on at least some machines.
If you haven't used Fedora for a while (or ever) you might want to give it a try. Some small problems make it tough for newbies. It doesn't get the press of some other distros. It has corporate sponsorship from a wealthy company that has been a big open source contributor.
42 • Dell is not friendly to Linux (by William A. Statt on 2007-05-28 14:50:03 GMT from United States)
Starting last Thursday, you could go to the Dell website and officially purchase a Linux Ubuntu computer. If you did not know that Dell was offering Linux computers, it would be very hard to find them on their website. First, you have to go to the Dell website. Then you have to click on the Products Tab, and then you have to click on Desktop Computers. You have to scroll all the way down the page, and it doesn't say anything about Linux, and it doesn't say anything about Ubuntu, it says, "Open Source PC's." I've never heard the term Open Source PC's before. Then it says something about, "Not sure Open Source is for you? The main thing to note is that when you choose Open Source you do not get a Windows Operating System, and, if you are here by mistake, you are looking for Dell PCs with Windows, please use the following link." Then it says that if you are a computer expert that you can configure your Linux system. It goes on to say that some of the hardware may not be compatible with the Windows operating system. Now, let me stop right here. If Dell were really serious about Linux, first of all they had it hidden on the website, then, they have an advertisement for Windows right in the middle of the page. In the introduction they start with a comment that Linux cannot run Windows software. Why start with very negative comments about Linux? Why not start with positive comments about Linux, if that is really what you are trying to sell? Why not mention that Linux has its own software packages with over 15,000 titles to choose from and over 97% of them are free. Then maybe they could have a short list of Linux applications in a table showing comparable software titles to Microsoft titles. That would make more sense if they were really trying to push Linux or make Linux a competitor of Microsoft. I really can't believe that they are actually using the words, Open Source PC's. It looks like they're afraid to use the word Linux. You cannot find anything on their site that says that the Windows hardware may not be compatible with Linux. I don't think that someone who is new to computers, who would go to this website, and see these statements about Linux, would ever consider choosing Linux. Maybe if they were to say something positive about Linux, about how many people and governments are using it worldwide, how it is the fastest growing operating system, or about the free software applications, maybe that would influence someone to actually try Linux.
If you actually pursued it farther and clicked on the Open Source PC's you would find three models. The first two models are desktop computers. As an example, the first computer is only $599. But what is not easy to find out is that this is with a $150 rebate. You know, you pay first and hope to get your rebate later. And, if you go father to check things out, you'll find the exact same computer with the exact same hardware is sold with Windows Vista and they only charge you $50 more without the rebate. I wonder how long the rebate is going to last. Then, when you look a little harder, on this computer you find out that it has 1 GB of RAM, a dual core processor, a 250 GB SATA hard drive, and a separate NVIDIA video card. Linux does not need an operating system with all this power. It can run very happily on 512 MB of RAM, an entry level processor, onboard video and onboard sound. Dell could have built a Linux computer that would have run as fast as their $800 Microsoft Vista computer, which would only have cost $300 or $350. If they had done this, maybe a computer shopper would really have to do some questioning instead of purchasing Windows for $800.
Then we come to the operating system itself. They provide Ubuntu 7.04. Sounds good doesn't it? Guess what? Right after that, in bold highlighted graphics, they have a link for Windows Multimedia Operating Edition. Then it says, "Click here to learn more." Guess what, the Ubuntu edition that they ship, will not play MP3's or DVD's out of the box. They do not include the codecs. They don't even include the codecs to play MP3s. The last time I checked, the codecs to play MP3's were free. It was only the codecs to record MP3's that were proprietary.
Then, there is only one choice of video card. Then they go on to tell you that if you're using a Sound Blaster audio card that there'll be a lot of configuration for you to be able use that. Another thing that makes this bad is that they only offer one choice of video card, and one choice of sound card. I've got seven PC's, with several different types of video cards and both Sound Blaster and Turtle Beach sound cards. I have ATI and NVIDIA video cards. To this date I've used over 123 Linux distributions and upgrades. I've got them all working and I only consider myself an advanced amateur. Are you telling me that with all the engineers that Dell has on hand, they can't offer more choices of video and sound cards? On top of that, they don't offer any flash reader card for your digital camera. Of course, there is no floppy drive either
Then it comes to support. If you want 30 days of support, it is $65. If you want six months of Basic Support, it's $125. If you want a year's Standard Support, that is $275 or about half the price of their computer. By the way, Regular Support with Windows is free. Then, right on top of that, they have a link that says, "If you want a Windows Multimedia Edition, click here." You know why they had that link right there? It's because this version of Ubuntu Linux cannot play any multimedia files right out of the box. It doesn't have any kind of card reader or anything. So what they're saying is that they are offering Linux, but if you want to do what most people want to do you, have to buy a Windows computer. Don't you think the Dell could license this technology and put it in their Linux computer? Or maybe choose a version of Linux that has the codecs already installed? Don't you think, that as I started this paper, Dell is really not trying to sell Linux? I think, that they are in bed with Microsoft. That the two of them together have hatched up the scheme to appear to support Linux while offering an overpriced Linux computer that is not preset up for the new user. It is my feeling that this will set the Linux community back years.
I have not had a chance to check this out yet, but I'll bet that in the Internet Browser will not play video files. I'll bet that there are none of the plug-ins set up with the browser.
I think that Dell is setting themselves up in the martyr role. They can say that they offered Linux users Linux computers but nobody bought them. They won't mention about how they try to hide the link to the Linux computers on their webpage. They won't say anything about putting all the Microsoft windows ads in between everything about the Linux computer and only printing negative comments about Linux. They won't say anything about the fact that they are overpricing, by about double, what they could have put a Linux computer out for. They will just say, Oh, poor Dell, we tried Linux, and it is not ready for the mass market. Americans seem to love to root for the underdog. Look how many people hate the Yankees. Look at what happens in a Super Bowl. We are leery of the corporate giant. In my opinion, Dell's offering of Linux is very calculated with the help of Microsoft to defame Linux and put the concept of Linux back several years in the marketplace. This is not a real attempt to provide a full basic Linux operating computer. Come on E-Machines, why don't you bring out a real, full Linux, basic operating computer, for around $300?
43 • RE: 17 • PCLinuxOS question Development Team (by user on 2007-05-28 14:50:53 GMT from Australia)
PCLinuxOS Development Team
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=69
There are enough people involved who could continue to develope PCLinuxOS. Even with out Texstar = He has replied in a forum topic !
44 • To PCLinuxOS Fans (by Anonymous on 2007-05-28 14:55:48 GMT from United States)
Rather than arguing that PCLinuxOS users are not a problem, just focus on supporting your distribution. All of your responses "prove that PCLinuxOS users are smug" only make the problem worse.
Learn to accept criticism. When any person or distro moves into the spotlight to become a public figure they have to learn to ignore ugly comments and correct statements that are factually incorrect. Get used to criticism, it is a sign of popularity.
45 • Dell's offerings are what is to be expected (by tom at 2007-05-28 14:55:58 GMT from United States)
Dell's move is bold and risky and marks one of the most progressive moves for the linux desktop, there is little doubt that their initial offerings illustrate systems that do not need extra configuration, otherwise the speed of their deployment would be impractical and reckless, a concept that we as Linux users know only too well. I suspect that we will see more models in the future, even to go so far as seeing an option for Linux on all models, a move that dell most likely knows will maximize their profits by introducing an effective differentiation model.
So please, get your heads out of your butts and support dell, otherwise this will go away and we will lose this opportunity to spread Linux!
46 • 42 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-28 15:00:41 GMT from United States)
If someone asks me where to buy a Linux PC from a tier 1 vendor, I can say go to Dell. Pretty simple, actually.
If your time has any value, you would be better served to not write comments that long and donate the monetary value of your time to your favorite open source project.
47 • re:10 (by beany on 2007-05-28 15:06:18 GMT from United States)
Dude whens the last time you used Windows? PCLinuxOS 2007 is basically set up with standard KDE stylings, Simply Mepis, Suse, so many KDE based distros just seem to have that "Start" icon at the bottom left and a clock on the right. Gnome like Mac often has main kicker on top. This basic configuration alone does not fool even the most foolish user.
48 • Re: 42 • Dell is not friendly to Linux (by William A. Statt ) (by Leo on 2007-05-28 15:15:54 GMT from United States)
Mmm. Yes, Dell sells hardware, they make money out of it, they try to sell newer, more expensive hardware.
But the $600 desktop, comes with a nice flat monitor and instant rebate. Meaning: instant discount. No coupons. In other words, for $400 (if you don't need the monitor), you get a machine that will be current for the next 5 years.
Linux doesn't need 3D acceleration, or more than 256Mb Ram to install, etc. But, beter hardware always helps:
1Gb RAM means that a lot of the OS will be cached, thus working incredibly fast. That helps with apps such as openoffice, which are slow to start.
Users, Linux home useres, need power for multimedia and stuff. Dual core makes the desktop experience much smoother.
If I had to choose between $400 in this machine, or $300 in this old hardwarem I wouldn't hesitate and spend the extra buck:
http://www.sub500.com/299s.htm
(same thing with the koobox, etc)
49 • Re: Comment #44 (by mudcat on 2007-05-28 15:15:55 GMT from United States)
What is the point of this? I don't get it. This is true of all distributions. What I object to is posts like yours, which insinuate (like the classic "are you still beating your wife" comment) rather than enlighten. The issue with attempts to label the PCLinuxOS community as smug is that they are patently untrue. What is wrong with arguing for some truth? If you really want to see how "arrogant" PCLinuxOS users are or want to see what level of support the community can supply, I heartily recommend that you find out for yourself -- download PCLinuxOS and visit the forums. Then, you be the judge. But, don't let the careless FUD being thrown about in the Distrowatch forums make your decision for you. I wish Ladislav would check to see if any of these posts coming from Microsoft domains -- because this is exactly the kind of FUD and infighting that Microsoft would LOVE to see.
And, for the record, in my opinion, the PCLInuxOS community does an excellent job with support. I have been able to successfully run PCLinuxOS -- without a reinstall -- for much longer than any other distribution. I've tried most of the major distros and many of the "hotter" minor distros. When I say "tried," I mean I have kept long term installs of Mandrake/Mandriva, Fedora, openSUSE, Freespire, and Ubuntu (among others). I would expect credible commentary to come from others who have had similar experiences. Every distribution and its community have flaws. But, let's be fair about them.
50 • Best distro ? Here it is (by Nikoolinux on 2007-05-28 15:26:26 GMT from France)
I think that the best distro should combine :
- tools from Mandriva.
- package management STYLE of Ubuntu/Kubuntu. Or just integrate SMART by default.
- Archlinux base system, for its powerful and simple base.
Do this, and you'll build a great distro.
Pretty sure.
51 • PCLinuxOS 2007 (by GreenWolf70 on 2007-05-28 15:33:44 GMT from United States)
Chris, great "Queer Eye" review of PCLOS. You focused on the really important issues of how pretty an OS appears. Why overload interested readers with trivia, like how the OS really works? I doubt that I will be reading any more reviews with your name on them.
My goal for an OS is one that does NOT require use of the command line and PCLOS does the best of all the OS's I've tried in the last two years. Top it off with excellent configuration on install, being fast to boot up and a good Wiki site for help and I believe TexStar and his folks have a winner.
I don't understand where the "smug community" comments come from, all my questions, as a NOOB refugee from MS, have been answered with none of the elitist BS I see elsewhere and are to the point in helping me resolve my issues. I don't know of anything else you can ask for in a community.
Only improvement I'd like to see is a 64 bit OS.
52 • RE 50 (partial illustration) (by dbrion on 2007-05-28 15:36:49 GMT from France)
Combination of Mandriva's tools and other features was suggested by Zenwalk (if you are not satisfied/do not feel easy with our disk portitionner, just use Mandriva's, as disk portitions are recognized before install). I used this tip with pleasure to install and run under VMplayer(Windows) or qemu (Linux and Windows) about 10 distrs (and reject 6 of them, as incomplete/badly localized).
I noticed that distr developpers were often more lucid than users...
I doubt automatic upgrades by web are a reliable solution ("just get the latest bug installed and your work be destroyed" : this led to dark screens, last year, with UBUlinux....).
53 • No subject (by pbs on 2007-05-28 15:39:58 GMT from Poland)
About my idea - short second ranking - Distributions family:
Linking distro by package system rpm or deb (like Fedora+Mandriva) or history (started from Slackware) is bad idea.
I propose linking by COMPATIBILITY.
Debian & Ubuntu & Mepis are HIGH compatible.
Fedora & Mandriva & Suse are VERY LOW compatible.
So good idea is the short second ranking:
Distributions family:
1. Debian (with Ubuntu) family
2. Ubuntu family
3. Mandriva family
4. Suse family
5. RedHat family
6. Gentoo family
7. BSD family
8. others
54 • PCLinuxOS beautiful but not easy to install (by Stephen Wilson on 2007-05-28 15:46:54 GMT from United States)
I found the PCLinuxOS live CD worked great and looked great and was anxious to install it beside my Ubuntu install. Easier said than done. I chose to install in unallocated space on my HD, at which time it told me to reboot and choose existing partitions. As a precaution, I used gparted to check if anything had happened and discovered the PCLinuxOS had created three non-formatted partitions on my HD
Okay, so I rebooted the Live CD and started the install, selected the option to use existing paritions. From there I was lost. I was shown a list of partitions, including the new mystery ones. But one of the partitions the installer wanted to format was my sda1 Ubuntu partition and there was no way to get out of it. I had to choose a mount point for it or go no further. I went no further.
55 • har! (by Anonymous on 2007-05-28 15:48:03 GMT from United States)
Does all this about pclinux mean that its "arrived?"
I don't like it, but somebody must.
Distrowatch pagehit stats don't lie.
Do they?
I wonder what other polls we have that could tell us
something about the various linux distro's popularity.
??
56 • Re 50 (by Anon on 2007-05-28 15:48:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
I would not put too much faith in Mandrivels tools, many are buggy, and can kill a system (trust me, I have done this plenty of times with their GUI's), there are far superior tools out there, just not quite so pretty/tellytubby-ish.
57 • RE 53 As one cannot compete against oneself, (by dbrion on 2007-05-28 15:51:03 GMT from France)
"
1. Debian (with Ubuntu) family
2. Ubuntu family"
make an huge inconsistency, illustrating the irrational nature of interlinuxes "competition". Rational criteria could be based of number of bugs...
58 • Flurry of interesting new releases (by Barnaby HomeUser on 2007-05-28 16:10:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just downloaded PCLinuxOS 2007 a few days ago and must say I really love it, feels much better than (k)ubuntu and runs fast from cd as opposed to some other live cd's I've tried here in the past. The only problem, and this is ENTIRELY subjective, is that I've never felt comfortable with .rpm based stuff and liked the Slackware or alternatively Debian way much better. Anything Slackware based is just so fast, and incredibly easy to set up with codecs, gfx drivers etc. Vector even comes with the codecs. However PClinux is close to changing that for the first time, and that's an achievement in itself. Actually like the look as well, and KDE is more vanilla than in most other KDE centric distros.
Still to try as well: PC-Bsd, Archlinux, Vectorlinux SoHo and Fedora 7 Live. In the end it will probably lead to a shoot out between Vector and PClinux. Or we'll just go and keep trusted old Zenwalk on these machines.
Just another opinion.
59 • Dell 6400 and Fiesty 7.04 (by cwesks on 2007-05-28 16:11:52 GMT from United States)
I bought a Dell 6400 before they were announced and mine came with Vista home basic. I quickly found that I did not like Vista, and loved my experience with Ubuntu. I quickly formated the HD and put Win XP Pro for the few times that I have to use it; then put Ubuntu 7.04 on it. The only hitch was the Broadcom mini-pci card. It was working, after reading the forums. I just could not seem to get over the 30k download speed. I was used to 700k or better.
I quickly found and bought an Intel Pro 3945 on ebay and installed it and everything works GREAT! I think that it is a good thing that Dell has done this. They should be thanked not ridiculed. IMHO
Now if we could just see the same offerings from HP and Lenovo that would be great.
cwesks
I am who I am because of who we are.
60 • RE: # 29 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-28 16:11:55 GMT from Italy)
"Anonymous Penguin,
Competition?
I was not aware that being a Linux user was a contest!, to me there is no 'competition', only choice."
That was true before Ubuntu came into existence. Because I never believed for a moment in all their "humanity" hype, I do believe they have used "aggressive" competition (the choice of Ubuntu by Dell is a proof. For me SUSE was a much more obvious candidate).
61 • repl to 50 (by Eudoxus on 2007-05-28 16:15:13 GMT from Latvia)
tools from Mandriva.
- package management STYLE of Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
======================================
Man, it's not Ubuntu/Kubuntu style. It's DEBIAN style.
62 • Deli Linux: help needed (by areuareu on 2007-05-28 16:20:15 GMT from France)
I intended to install w98 on an old computer and I had reserved a whole day for it. Deli Linux install took me 15 minutes instead (Gnumeric, Firefox included). What shall I do with all that spare time??
63 • RE 57 - Ranking - Distributions family (by pbs on 2007-05-28 16:22:02 GMT from Poland)
If we want know popularity of Ubuntu family, we must split Debian and Ubuntu:
1. Debian (with Ubuntu) family
2. Ubuntu family
3. Mandriva family
(...)
Or we can use only sum "Debian-Ubuntu":
1. Debian-Ubuntu family
2. Mandriva family
3. Suse family
(...)
64 • Ubuntu 7.04 is a very buggy release (by hobbitland on 2007-05-28 16:34:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, I have gone back to Ubuntu-6.10 after using Ubuntu-7.04. I cannot believe they release it such a buggy state.
1) Low refresh rates for graphics. Reported by many people.
2) Gnome screen saver activates while playing some games (ie ET).
3) Libgphoto2 2.3 is breaks PTP cameras for "gthumb".
4) Mencoder produces corrupt sound.
5) Mencoder is about 4X slower for encoding XVID
6) VMWare Player hangs during Windows XP SP2 installation.
(3) and (4) I down graded some libraries to Ubuntu-6.10.
I think there is a problem with fixed 6 month releases of Ubuntu. I think Ubuntu 6.06 is good but 6.10 was more stable. Ubuntu-7.04 is not good at all. It looks as if they just upgrade packages to latest version and don't always test them out. Maybe Ubuntu shoudl have two types of releases like Stable and Testing.
I may switch back to using Debian with their 4.0 as reliability is quite important for me.
I have installed PCLinuxOS 2007 but didn't quite like it. Saw problems with Mplayer throwing up Mad errors in last 2 seconds of XVID videos. Very annoying. I think the Ubuntu liveCD installer is much better. All questions shoudl be asked at the begining. I prefer ".deb" systems anyway.
So may go for Debian 4.0 as it should be more stable than Ubuntu-6.10.
65 • RE 57 - Ranking - Distributions family (by pbs on 2007-05-28 16:37:28 GMT from Poland)
If we want know popularity of Ubuntu family, we must split Debian and Ubuntu:
1. Debian (with Ubuntu) family
2. Ubuntu family
3. Mandriva family
(...)
Or we can use only sum "Debian-Ubuntu":
1. Debian-Ubuntu family
2. Mandriva family
3. Suse family
(...)
66 • 49 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-28 16:44:59 GMT from United States)
I think you kind of proved my point. PCLinuxOS users take offense at any and all statements about their OS unless they say "PCLinuxOS is the greatest, doing everything I want better than any other distro."
That's stupid. Maybe if you read my comment you will understand it.
Ubuntu became popular and faced a lot of negative comments from users of other distros. That happens. It's a sign of maturity if you can handle negative comments, apparently you come up short in that regard. I didn't even say anything negative about PCLinuxOS and you got your underwear in a bunch.
Smugness is a matter of opinion. You're not going to win that debate. This is one of the growing pains for PCLinuxOS and more importantly its fans.
67 • #30 and second ranking (by EduardoZ on 2007-05-28 16:46:29 GMT from United States)
You want rankings by family, but still want a separate listing for Ubuntu? I find this bias and desperation humorous. Like, you'd do anything to see PCLinuxOS put back in its place. Anyway, they're DISTRO rankings.
Quote:
I propose add short second ranking:
Distributions family:
1. Debian (with Ubuntu) family
2. Ubuntu family
3. Mandriva family
4. Suse family
5. RedHat family
6. Gentoo family
7. others
68 • Re: 42 Dell (by octathlon on 2007-05-28 16:47:01 GMT from United States)
I have mixed feelings about how Dell is going about this, but overall more positive than negative. They moved quickly and got some basic Linux offerings out in a short period of time, starting with something that was already pretty much compatible and limiting options to only what they could guarantee would work.
I'm assuming they plan to keep working on it and offer more models, with more options on them, later. It takes time to make sure things are gong to work right. Same thing with offering them in other countries - they need time to get support staff trained to handle the calls, even though it will be hardware support only.
As for hiding the pages for ordering these systems, I understand why they did it -- it's obvious that at this point they don't want to advertise or promote Linux - they only want people who already know about it to buy these systems. The last thing they want is people who have no idea to accidentally order them. But I find it irritating just how deeply they've hidden them, making it hard even for us to find them, and not even using the word Linux, just an inconspicuous link to "Open source" [?!] computers.
I've been wanting a new laptop. I'd like to support the effort by buying one from Dell, but the one they are offering, though a good start, is really not what I want. It makes the one I do want - the Darter from System 76 (drool) - look even better; the only thing holding me back is the price. It's actually a pretty good price and they have excellent support, but it's a big purchase and I had to wait and see what Dell would do first.
69 • PC Linux OS Live (sequel to Chris Smart's review) (by moscowtime on 2007-05-28 16:48:48 GMT from United States)
N.B. in order not to raise any flame wars, I won't mention here any other distributions, all talk will be about PCLOS.
--------------------------------------------------------
The box: Gateway GT5098E
Dual Athlon-64 2.6 GHz
1 GB RAM, 2 hard drives 250 GB each (hda and hdb)
Integrated video, emulating Geforce 6100 card
Integrated NIC 10/100/100
I-INC monitor TW191D, 1440x900 native resolution.
CD/DVD Read/Write +/- (all formats)
2WIRE DSL portal with NAT and DHCP integrated.
In this system hda is hosting Win-XP Media edition, hdb is partitioned into 6 partitions 41 GB each + one 2 GB partition for swap. 3 partitions host Linux distributions, which I use in daily work, others are free for newcomers.
Having downloaded PCLOS-2007, I had verified not only the MD5 for the downloaded file, but also the MD5 for the disk, which was burned after download. This way I made sure, that my drive correctly reads the CD.
Try # 1 - default boot.
This procedure was very simple - just insert the CD, restart the computer, then hit Enter, when "Default" is highlighted in the boot menu.
There was a short announcement "Booting the system - press 'ESC' for verbose mode", then there was some announcement apparently from the monitor "Processing auto-configuration", and thereafter I ended up looking at the strangest picture I ever saw while booting any Linux distro I can remember.
The Nort-West quadrant of the display had some image in it, but it seemed to be the image belonging to the South-East quadrant. The other 3 quadrants were just black, so in general the impression was, as if all the picture was moved in North-West direction and 3 quadrants just went beyond the borders.
The funny thing was, that in the remaining 1/4 of the image there was visible some part of a dialog window with a clearly seen "NEXT" button. However, the nature of the dialog was out of view, so I could not make any intelligent decision. The only reasonable course of action appeared to reboot the system and choose some other booting options.
Here it turned out, that in the described state the system was unresponsive to 'CTRL-ALT-DEL' combination, so I just pressed and held for 5 seconds the power switch on the computer.
Let's be frank - If one of my friends would bring me this CD and start convincing me about the virtues of PCLOS system, this would be an unconditional show-stopper.
Try # 2 - booting under 'fbdev'
This attempt brought me quite a bit further on - all booting dialogs were visible, i could set the keyboard, mouse, time zone, network, and finally log in as root. The resolution was a meager 800x600, but it gave me the workable KDE desktop, so there was a chance to improve things using the PCLOS configuration utility.
However, I immediately discovered, that in all the configuration dialogs there was no possibility to click the 'OK', 'Apply' or 'Cancel' buttons. The reason is, that in 800x600 resolution these buttons are hidden under the panel. And the funny thing is, that by default the panel in PCLOS is not equipped with hiding buttons.
So I opted out of configuration utility, right-clicked the panel, enabled both left and right hiding buttons, then returned to configuration and collapsed the panel. Then only the buttons became visible.
Next step - clicking the 'Change screen resolution' icon. This immediately gives me the 1024x768 option - a far cry from my native 1440x900, but still far better, than the present 800x600. Selecting this resolution and hitting "OK", I get a message that I must log out and relogin. After doing this, I am returned back to 800x600 resolution, however with hide buttons on the panel still enabled.
To make a long story short, the resolution did not change, and I was not in the right mood to fire up the Synaptic, install the NVIDIA drivers (to LiveCD? what sense? and which ones from their collection?).
So this was the second - and final for me - show-stopper for PCLOS-2007. to their credit I must say that Internet connection worked right out of the box, with a weird 2Wire module integrating DHCP, NAT and DSL modem in one unit (several Linuxes have miserably failed, being unable to handle this beast).
Maybe for somebody else's hardware PCLOS will be a wonderful system, but for me - at least not now.
70 • Ranking - Distributions family (by ezsit on 2007-05-28 16:52:59 GMT from United States)
I proposed the idea of ranking distributions by family almost a year ago. It has probably been suggested many times over the years. One thing I don't understand is why people consider Ubuntu as a family. Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian, simple. Ubuntu does not deserve to considered as it's own family.
I used Ubuntu from version 5.04 up to 7.04 and have recently switched to Debian Etch and will not go back. Debian Etch was enough of an improvement over previous Debian releases in the user friendliness category to drag this lazy butt over from the derivatives. In my mind, there is just not enough ease-of-use benefits included with Ubuntu and other Debian derivatives to warrant any special attention. Debian has become a user friendly distribution in its own right.
71 • Ranknig - Distributions family (by Claus Futtrup on 2007-05-28 17:03:31 GMT from Denmark)
I think the problem with ranking by family is, that it doesn't help anybody to get the overview needed when trying to understand the differences between distros.
Best regards,
Claus
Zenwalker
72 • RE:#30 and second ranking (by EduardoZ on 2007-05-28 16:46:29 GMT from United St (by Gentoo_user at 2007-05-28 17:07:54 GMT from Netherlands)
Now this is a great idea! WHne will it be implemented? :D
bout my idea - short second ranking - Distributions family:
Linking distro by package system rpm or deb (like Fedora+Mandriva) or history (started from Slackware) is bad idea.
I propose linking by COMPATIBILITY.
Debian & Ubuntu & Mepis are HIGH compatible.
Fedora & Mandriva & Suse are VERY LOW compatible.
So good idea is the short second ranking:
Distributions family:
1. Debian (with Ubuntu) family
2. Ubuntu family
3. Mandriva family
4. Suse family
5. RedHat family
6. Gentoo family
7. BSD family
8. others
73 • 70 (by Barnaby HomeUser on 2007-05-28 17:17:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Absolutely spot on. Etch replaced Ubuntu 5.10 on one machine here last summer.
74 • PCbuntOS (by linbetwin on 2007-05-28 17:22:30 GMT from Romania)
I've had it with these two distributions. They were my two favorite distros, but not anymore. When I install Feisty it says at first boot that my drive hasn't been checked for errors for 47910 days, then it "fixes" the "errors" and reboots without asking. Then, after installing the NVIDIA proprietary driver, the only refresh rates available are 50 Hz and 56 Hz. And the PCLinuxOS installer's list of available locations has all the countries in the world except Romania and it formats my / and /home with ext2!
I suggest that these two distros merge and be hanged. And be named PCbuntOS. Many would be the advantages for the Linux world, should such a holy union be consummated.
- The HPD of PCbuntOS would surpass the number of page views for this entire site.
- The combination of the two installers would make the distribution virtually impossibe to install.
- Ubuntu would get a decent KDE version and PCLinuxOS won't need to develop their own GNOME version.
- This marriage would unite the Houses of Debian and Red Hat-Mandriva and create the undisputed king of Linuxdom.
- exterm would get to ban all the 300,000 users of the Ubuntu forums.
- The fanboyism will reach heights that no Linux user ever dared dream of.
75 • Congratulations Ladislav (by Tillman on 2007-05-28 17:30:42 GMT from United States)
You have managed to piss away 50% of the credibility of this site.
Instead of you reviewing PCLinuxOS 2007, you get Chris Smart.
He who has a distro Koraraa that isn't on the top 100 hit list.
Now i see why.
He who doesn't know enough to install the bootloader to the root
partition, instead he hits cancel.
But the topper is, he is installing it to a MACBOOK. How often is that
going to happen in the real world. Like almost NEVER.
I find it very curious that you allowed this pathetic review to be put
up on your site.
76 • #75 slam on PCLinuxOS review (by EduardoZ on 2007-05-28 17:41:33 GMT from United States)
Heh, a bit harsh, but, I think you've made valid points.
77 • Various points (by Adam Williamson on 2007-05-28 17:54:26 GMT from Canada)
The 50Hz / 56Hz thing is a bug in the NVIDIA proprietary driver. The display is not actually running at 50Hz / 56Hz, the driver is just reporting that refresh rate to X (and hence the KDE randr tray applet is reporting it to you). If you happen to have a monitor which can tell you what refresh rate it's running at, check it out, and it'll probably let you know you're running at a higher rate than that. Most modern monitors can do this, there's an 'info' panel in their OSD which gives you the current resolution and refresh rate. This bug affects all distros AFAIK, if you install a recent enough NVIDIA driver.
Comment #8, Mandriva's community is excellent. Mandriva development is extensively based on community involvement. I think at least 50% of the packages in Mandriva are maintained by community members (not staff).
Commnet #38, the PCLinuxOS installer is draklive, the Mandriva Linux One installer. If you install Mandriva from the One live / install CD rather than the traditional installer, you will get an installation sequence just like PCLinuxOS's. The advantage of the traditional installer is that it's much more powerful and flexible, which is why it's still available.
78 • RE: 75 (by voislav on 2007-05-28 17:59:03 GMT from Canada)
You really should try something more constructive. The identity of the reviewer doesn't matter, at least he has a distro, which makes him more competent IMHO to review one. The fact that it's not in Top 100 is a bonus, no bias there. You are competely off the mark with the bootloader, Chris already had one installed before and did not want it replaced. And installing it on MacBook just shows how good the hardware support is.
Yeah, the review is not that good, but you have to realize that not all contributions to DWW are going to be the same quality and with PCLinuxOS being such a hot topic, Ladislav can be excused for publishing what he had.
79 • PClinuxOS: a Mandriva-based distribution (by h3rman on 2007-05-28 18:11:16 GMT from Europe)
From the PCLinuxOS review:
"The default package management is handled by Synaptic to APT to RPM, the control centre and installer both come from Mandriva, and the loading cursor reminds me of Fedora."
The latter (the blue bubbles when loading) is in Mandriva too.
I think anyone who wants to seriously review PCLinuxOS should also (have) check(ed) out Mandriva.
This review is a bit too much focused on the esthetic side, imho.
80 • Re: 69 by Moscowtime (by davecs on 2007-05-28 18:38:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi again Moscowtime, I'm sure we've met on the PCLinuxOS forums.
You could have had the video working on your NVidia graphics quite easily.
Run the Live CD in the framebuffer/vesa mode that got you a graphics screen. Once up and running, you run Synaptic and install dkms-nvidia. You CAN get to the buttons even if the window is larger than the screen. The default behaviour is that if you hold down the ALT-button you can drag a window from anywhere, not just from the titlebar.
So once you've restarted X with the nvidia drivers, you can change the resolution to the correct one using the control centre and restart X again, and you will be OK. What you now have, graphics-wise, is what you'll have if/when you install.
The problem appears to be that some nvidia cards are not working correctly off the xorg-7.1 "nv" drivers so you need to get the proprietary nvidia drivers installed. I've also had a problem that my monitor does not report itself properly through the DVI connector, on my old computer it wouldn't work at all and I had to use analogue, on my new one, DVI works but I have to set the correct res in the control centre, as it defaults to 1024x768 instead of the correct 1280x1024. But once set, no problems at all.
I know it's not ideal, and we hope to make it easier to get past this problem, but help is available at the site, and you can get the correct resolution, even on the live CD, by downloading a package, and making an adjustment in the control centre.
As for Chris Smart's review, there is an element of expecting a distro to work a particular way. Sudo IS available and installed in PCLinuxOS, as is visudo, so if you want to set up sudo, you can. For me, I can see the sense in Sudo if you have a big networked system with different users having different admin repsonsibilities. In such a case, you would have to set up the /etc/sudoers file from scratch, even in a distro like Ubuntu which currently uses sudo by default. For a small home computer system (PCLOS target audience) sudo makes little sense alongside kdesu/gksu.
Anyway, now we've got the base code straightened out for the next few years, expect little gripes to be dealt with, Tex and the gang are very sensitive towards getting the details right.
81 • RE:62 • Deli Linux (by john frey on 2007-05-28 18:39:47 GMT from Canada)
LOL, you might have to take up drinking as a pastime. Easy installs, no virus/spyware problems heck we're going to be like the lonely Maytag repairman in those old commercials:-)
82 • Second ranking - Distributions family (by pbs on 2007-05-28 18:47:33 GMT from Poland)
Re 71: "I think the problem with ranking by family is, that it doesn't help anybody to get the overview needed when trying to understand the differences between distros."
I propose TWO rankings:
- actual (long with separate distros)
- short with 8 distros family
Beginers don't know that Mint, MEPIS are Ubuntu based and Ubuntu (or Debian) core is most popular. People want know what become a standard in linux world (Debian-Ubuntu core) and distros compatibility.
83 • RE: # 70 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-28 19:18:29 GMT from Italy)
I am also in total agreement. Debian is the only Real Thing.
In the past we needed distros like Libranet or Kanotix for their easy installers and their extra tools, but now Etch is user friendly in its own right.
84 • PCLinuxOS My favorite Distro (by Distrowatch reader on 2007-05-28 19:22:08 GMT from United States)
Go Texstar and the Ripper Gang.
85 • RE: #42 & #68 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-28 19:27:19 GMT from United States)
dell dot com frontpage:
"By popular demand, Ubuntu has arrived"
Did you miss that? It's been that way for days now...
86 • PCLinuxOS (by asasega on 2007-05-28 19:44:39 GMT from Romania)
I dont understand this debate over distros
Everybody should use their favorite distro, it's not so hard to download a cd or dvd and try out a distro and make a decision
87 • PCLinuxOS (by BobbyC on 2007-05-28 20:15:37 GMT from United States)
Wildfire Baby ! PClLinuxOS is spreading like wildfire. On my machine AMD 4600 X 2 it is faster than Ubuntu 64. Nobody makes installing the Nvida drivers easier and they have the best FX drivers.
Texstar and The Ripper Gang rule the world at this time. Thanks for a spectacular distro !
88 • pclos 2007 (by srlinuxx on 2007-05-28 20:17:42 GMT from United States)
While it's true that one does have to enable cpufreq in the "start up services," it's not true there is no suspend and hibernate. It should be right there by default in the systray. (Although I admit I later installed kpowersave to replace the default klaptop cuz I think it works better.) I don't know why it didn't appear on yours.
...unless it's because you installed on a macbook? Does the site state they support that?
I like Chris and consider him a friend, I like(d) Kororaa lot as well, but I wonder if a developer can be objective about another's distro, especially one that seems to be growing more in popularity all the time.
89 • PCLinuxOS: what a joke? (by slonik on 2007-05-28 20:32:30 GMT from United States)
Owing to all this hype about PCLinuxOS I gave it a try (liveCD mode) on a standard DELL D610 laptop (Mobile Pentium processor, 1400x1050 LCD 15" screen, ATI videocard). I was gravely disappointed. Two major issues made it useless for me.
(1) Wireless configuration screen suggested to use Windows driver over NDISwrapper. I chose it. Then it presented me with a file browser dialog supposedly to locate required Windows wireless driver. There was no any information or help screen that would be of an assistance on what type of file it was looking for. It is implicitly assumed that user is already familiar with NDISwrapper configuration and knows what files are needed and where to locate them on Windows partition.
(2) The KDE desktop started in 640x480 resolution (my screen is 1400x1050 15" LCD). Not only it looked terrible. The worst of all, it was clipping all the windows. I could not reconfigure the resolution in Mandriva control center simply because "OK" button was off the screen.
In my experience with KDE based LiveCD distributions I find Knoppix 5.1.1 more "radically simple" that PCLinuxOS.
90 • RE: # 86 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-28 20:37:29 GMT from Italy)
LOL, that is the way human beings are. The "mine is better than yours" must be as old as mankind.
91 • 89 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-05-28 20:41:24 GMT from Canada)
Do you have an X1xxx-series ATI chip, by any chance?
If so I'd guess the problem is that, as mentioned in the review, by choice, PCLOS don't include the proprietary ATI driver. The open source driver doesn't support the X1xxx-series Radeons, so you'd be stuck with the fallback driver (dunno if PCLOS uses fbdev or vesa or what, but they're all quite likely to result in that kind of problem).
Mandriva Linux One might be a better option in that case as it does include the proprietary driver. You could install it on PCLOS, too. This isn't a criticism of PCLOS, whether or not to include the proprietary drivers is really a policy decision more than a technical issue.
92 • RE:#40 (by Hootiegibbon on 2007-05-28 21:00:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
Joey,
The first review you linked to was quite favorable, I noted the comment a 3rd party made followed the links, and read it, if you re-read all the information you will notice that no invite to spam bad reviewers was made (as has been claimed), and that was said in a heated thread has been taken out of context. Also read comment 3 at the bottom of the linked blog.
Have you never had a bad day Joey?
Jase
93 • PcLinuxos 2007 (by Sergio Fernandes on 2007-05-28 21:05:31 GMT from Portugal)
I use it. I like it. Linux is freedom of choice. PclinuxOs work ok with me. If not, i'll switch to another one. I have a laptop where I installed and used others distro (gentoo,ubuntu,kubuntu) but for now my choice is made. Thanks Tex and the Ripper gang for this fine distro.
94 • 89 : PCLinuxOS and ATi drivers (by davecs on 2007-05-28 21:19:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
The method I outlined in post 80 for nvidia drivers also works for ATi cards if you select the right driver.
95 • Defaming Linux (by Korangan Kazhutha on 2007-05-28 21:23:39 GMT from United States)
The best way to kill Linux is for a large company to support it, provide PCs with Linux pre-installed, and make it have a bad user experience. With no codec support, no proprietary drivers, and price comparable to Vista machine, no eye candy like Beryl/Compiz activated by default, and Ubuntu (deb-apt-synaptic package management is great, but the repository is a mess), an average Joe, whose only customization or installation is changing the desktop wallpaper in Windows, will be scared. Every news media or opinion makers will explain in detail how bad their experience was, along with the above Joe. What good opinion Linux had cultivated till now, will be drained out.
My distros of choice (an I tried many) ...
1. Fedora with livna (rpm-yum-yumex based) - mid to enthusiast - I use this. Rock solid, innovative, everything works out of the box on my complex hardware, livna for codecs and proprietary drivers
2. Linux mint (deb-apt-synaptic based) - entry level - My parents use this.
96 • RE # 91 (Was #89) (by slonik on 2007-05-28 21:45:40 GMT from United States)
Adam,
thanks for your comment. I do not know what ATI chip I have. The whole promise of "radically simple" distribution is to spare a user the burden of manual configuration.
By the way, KNOPPIX 5.1.1 has no problem of figuring right resolution and correctly starting X on the very same laptop (DELL D610 Latitude) with no user intervention. Correct me if I am wrong, but free Xorg ATI driver should work OK without 3D and acceleration. I guess this is what KNOPPIX is using.
Thanks,
slonik
97 • Mandriva 2007.1 is wonderfull, better than others... (by teks on 2007-05-28 21:45:53 GMT from Turkey)
It is really Comedie, that PClinuxOS have 3. Place (Eventuell 2. Place ) in Distrowatch-Tabelle. After my very very longtime Testing I must say it hier, that Mandriva Linux is at the Time the best linux on the Linux-Area.
Have a nice days from TURKIYE.
98 • RE: # 95 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-28 21:59:31 GMT from Italy)
Wow man, if I am paranoid (I have always believed that there is something fishy about Ubuntu) I am not alone.
99 • Fedora 7 (by Varied Doom on 2007-05-28 22:36:27 GMT from New Zealand)
Looks fantastic. Looking forward to it.
100 • RE: #1-#98 (all of the above) (by Unknown Penguin on 2007-05-28 22:37:15 GMT from Canada)
The best linux distro is the one that works the best with your hardware.
Fortunately they all keep getting better and better.
I find a lot of similarities in the distros, and I find most of them are heading in the same direction. They include the best OSS with slight variances.
Here is what I like to see in a distro:
Live
Good Partitioner Installer
Easy to Install packages
Upgrade Notifier
Network Manager for Wireless Internet - just enter password
Good speed - not bloated - cause it is easy to bloat the pc yourself ;-)
Stability
Plus many more, but we will just stick with this list for now.
As you can see, I prefer the live distros, so I can eliminate a lot of them from my own recommended list based on that alone.
So basically what happens as you make a list, you can eliminate distros based on your own criteria.
Then what happens is you find one, or two, or maybe a few that you really like.
Since everybody's expectations are different, each person will think that distro X is the BEST ONE. And they will defend their decision and back it up. This is fine because LINUX is about choice.
Hopefully we all can get along here and realize that we are all here , at distrowatch for the same reasons.
Obviously if the distro doesn't detect your hardware properly, you can't use it, and then in your opinion it will never be recommended.
So YES use your distro, love your distro, and realize that your distro isn't the best for everybody.
Have a nice day ;-)
101 • Go e-Machines! (by D on 2007-05-28 22:42:49 GMT from Canada)
#42: "Come on E-Machines, why don't you bring out a real, full Linux, basic operating computer, for around $300?"
Great idea, go e-machines!
102 • No subject (by frapelli at 2007-05-28 22:58:23 GMT from Italy)
Seems to me that most, or at least many, of criticism to PCLinuxOS in this forum, are about the community, that in the opinion of many is snug, aggressive, unfair or intolerant, or all of those. The quality of the product is seldom questioned, the question is about the quality of people "belonging" to that product.
Seems to me also, that when a distro gains too much popularity amongst part of Linux users, a certain hostility to it rises amongst others, and criticisms go beyond the technical aspects, not only in this forum. That is what happened (and still happens) also to Ubuntu and its creator, sometimes (luckily not too often) even charged of intentional secret and malicious projects against Linux. Seems as Linux community does not like parvenu distros.
The attitude "my-distro-is-better-than-yours" is there, no question. But seems to me that we are going towards the attitude "we-are-the-best-and-you-are evil", with some wise prophetic voice inviting "Stop fighting, we all are brothers and must love each other, let's be united against the common enemy that is elsewhere..." and so on.
Maybe time for sociological doctoral dissertations about the People of Linux?
By the way, I like PCLOS. I like also Sidux and Mepis, but I prefer PCLOS.
Thanks.
103 • PCLinuxOS -Productive Help (by Exasperated on 2007-05-28 23:02:28 GMT from United States)
It appears that responsibility of PCLOS 2007 documentation was left primarily to the user community; namely this WiKi:
http://docs.mypclinuxos.com/
In spite of a (sticky) post in the Forums requesting help from the community, clearly there has been little response. (Ditto for the hardware database.)
There also clearly are a number of PCLOS fans with spare time, which they're spending nit-picking reviews of 2007. Yes, answers to some user questions can be found by searching the Forum. But it does get old reading through several multiple-page threads to find out how to set up a problem video card. It also gets old answering the same old questions over and over. Imo, much of that spare time could more productively be spent doing, at a minimum, Forum HowTos for the more common issues users are having.
In other words, consider that it might be time to switch the emphasis from publicizing PCLOS to the (admittedly tedious) work of supporting the new users.
104 • No subject (by Joey on 2007-05-28 23:23:27 GMT from United States)
No, it's been a great day.
You may have missed the point in the comment about
"hammering."
That was disappointing to me, for a while. Then I
went in and looked around the pclinux os forums and
found it not up to the standards I'm used to seeing
for info (especially for new users) and for overall
profesionalism by the "hero" users and other old timers
there.
Maybe they have "bad days." Maybe you have a bad day
going on. None of my business. :) It's just that
if Linux were a structure, like a big building with
an elevator system, pclinux os would be the guy who
comes in and releases his gasses into the place.
105 • Sabayon! (by Anonymous on 2007-05-28 23:49:31 GMT from United States)
Speaking of forums and information!
They've crafted something special in Italy, Sabayon
Linux. And the forums are friendly and not "smuggy."
LOL
106 • RE:#105 (by Hootiegibbon on 2007-05-28 23:51:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
Joey,
I would suggest you reread the post that was made and read not just the comments on the blog but also the comments on the review you linked to..
As has been stated we are ALL Linux Users*, that last post you have made makes you seem more like a troll than someone with a (misquoted & misinterpreted) point.
As for 'professionalism' the forum members (including myself) are VOLUNTEERS that donate time to trying to offer help for a product that for many is 'head and shoulders' above other similar products and overall (imo) we do a good job of it.
*ok maybe not all some use BSD or Solaris or another quality alternative OS
Jase
107 • Granular Linux (by Dennis on 2007-05-29 00:12:21 GMT from United States)
Played around some with the PCLOS based Granular Live Cd. I bet this one will move up the list in time. Pretty nice distro it looks like. Upon boot up you get KDE by default or in 'session type' select to go into XFCE. In XFCE right clicking makes all the KDE stuff readily available of course.
Anyway, give this Granular a look, you might find something nice to use to your liking.
I am a relative newcome to linux, and have been using mostly PCLOS and Xubuntu (for XFCE). As well as trying many of the available distros. Liked SAM for a PCLOS based distro using XFCE, but it just won't work the same from time to time on my equipment. So glad to have Granular as another option.
108 • RE: 75 Congratulations Ladislav (by ladislav on 2007-05-29 00:28:43 GMT from Taiwan)
Kororaa used to be as high as top 20 on DistroWatch. It was the first ever live CD with out-of-the-box support for 3D effects with NVIDIA and ATI cards. Unfortunately, they got threatened by a law suit over a possible GPL violation over the inclusion of proprietary kernel modules into the Linux kernel. They have stopped developing the live CD and Kororaa slowly faded away, but it certainly had its moments of high popularity and innovative thinking.
I don't expect that everybody will always like everything that is said or written in DistroWatch Weekly. But if you are going to criticise something, please be constructive. Concentrate on the review or article itself, not on the reviewer. We are all a big community of human beings and our only crime is too much love for free software. So let's not insult each other - just share and enjoy instead.
Finally, if you think you can write better reviews that everybody will always love and agree with, you are more than welcome to submit them to DistroWatch ;-)
109 • Re: 95 • Defaming Linux (by GL on 2007-05-29 00:41:26 GMT from United States)
"An average Joe, whose only customization or installation is changing the desktop wallpaper in Windows, will be scared." That average Joe will not be buying a Linux Dell to begin with! Remember, pre-loaded Windows Vista remains an option for all Dell buyers! The Linux PCs will be bought by Linux professional/users and Windows users who don't want to pay the "tax" for a bloated Vista.
Here's my prediction for the fate of the Dell Linux PCs: one-third will be used with Ubuntu, one-third will be quickly reloaded with another Linux distro that will work well with the Linux-optimized hardware, and one-third will be quickly reloaded with the copy of Windows XP or 2000 that the buyer already owns and prefers to Vista anyway, at a savings of $50!
110 • Linux computers? (by davecs on 2007-05-29 01:03:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
Savvy people build their own computers anyway! I always do, well desktops anyway. No M$ tax. Carefully select hardware for Linux compatibility. Shove in Live CD, off we go ...
111 • RE: # 110 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-29 01:41:48 GMT from Italy)
"Savvy people build their own computers anyway! I always do, well desktops anyway. No M$ tax."
Exactly. And besides you choose the best quality for your budget.
112 • FIND UBUNTU LINUX ON DELL.COM (by JOhn at 2007-05-29 01:49:54 GMT from United States)
OK People. GOTO DELL.COM, there is a script that rotates between something and UBUNTU. IF YOU GET "something", REHIT the "GO" button in Firefox.
113 • PCLinuxOS (by JOhn at 2007-05-29 01:55:07 GMT from United States)
If you like PCLinuxOS default theme, but hate how there are only like 6,000 packages. Download Kubuntu, goto and PCLOS apt ftp server and download there default theme then run "alien -d theme name here" You can probably alienate all their other unique packages as well.
114 • Re: #108 and Kororaa (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 02:46:41 GMT from United States)
Ladislav: Kororaa was an interesting case that never seemed to get resolved (other than the developer dropping the live CD after a long discussion, IIRC). Other live CD-based distros, like Sabayon, include proprietary video drivers. And, on others that don't, you're often able to install them while running in live mode, through a combination of UnionFS (or aufs) and access to the project's repos. Yet other distros include the drivers in an uninstalled state, with a script to install them.
It would have been nice to get a definitive answer as to what's really legal, rather than this "IANAL" he said/she said. Why haven't any other distros gotten engaged in this discussion?
In any case, PCLinuxOS is possibly the best-looking distro I've seen, out of the box. (Helps that I'm a KDE fan.) The only thing wrong with it is that it uses RPMs instead of DEBs. :-)
115 • Re your review of PCLinuxOS 2007 (by Garry Freemyer on 2007-05-29 03:00:58 GMT from United States)
In your review you said you did a simple apt-get install "nvidia-_97xx" to install the video drivers for the Nvidia card.
This file is NOT found when I try this. What is the REAL name of the file you are referring to? I do not understand the reference to ati in the line either.
By the way, I am trying to set up a 6800 ultra card.
116 • Oops, FWIW #114 was me... (by eco2geek on 2007-05-29 03:01:36 GMT from United States)
...and Susan Linton wrote a review of PCLinuxOS 2007 final for the Linux.com site, available here:
http://distrocenter.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/05/22/1859204
117 • RE: 12 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 03:09:05 GMT from United States)
IF you don't have positive things to say about Linux...why don't you go comment on a Windows website? Keep your hate to yourself eh?
118 • I have Ubuntu Feisty in my Dell e1505...Its great! (by Carlos Gonzalez on 2007-05-29 03:13:21 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Since Ubuntu Feisty was released I installed it in my inspiron e1505. Its been behaving flawlessly to the extent that I'm thinking of erasing my copie of Wincrap for good.
I have tried Linux since suse 9.3 but never considered to replace my other OS,mainly because the people behind other distros think you need somekind of computer "superpower knowhow" to understand it or even try to install a program in there. Well I can tell you why ubuntu Its been getting so much attention before Dell got involved. The people behind Ubuntu "get the idea" that not everyone that has a computer has a bacherlors or a master degree in computer science and still need a OS that can handle their everyday tasks. The only trouble I had was setting the wireless card and managed by reading someone post the instructions on a forum. My laptops works great, and I think Beryl(that's my windows manager in Gnome) looks ten times better than Winpoop.
119 • RE: 26 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 03:21:16 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS DOES support RAID AND LVM...raid modules are included in the kernels and LVM is an option in installation...
You have to go with 'custom partitioning' option in the installation. Man I hate it when people make comments unfounded.
You people need to go out and find out for yourselves...find out both sides of the story instead of accepting things without doing any research whatsoever.
120 • RE: 34 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 03:24:01 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS has a developers team of around 10 people. This one man distro leading stuff is non existent.
121 • RE: Comment 103 (by devnet on 2007-05-29 03:50:47 GMT from United States)
Hi,
I run the community projects website for PCLinuxOS. If you'd like to know how many active projects and participants for PCLinuxOS at http://mypclinuxos.com please ask. You're insinuating that there isn't anyone working on documentation at PCLinuxOS...and that is entirely false.
I would appreciate it if you did contact me...as would distrowatch readers. Mainly because we would be able to prevent disinformation from being propagated. I request that anyone who would like to know ANY specifics about PCLinuxOS or the community, please contact me at your leisure.
122 • Congrats to Dell/Ubuntu - my 'distro ho' weekend :) - No Mas XP! :) (by Gandalf on 2007-05-29 04:17:58 GMT from United States)
Dell is 'a player' and if they offer Linux who cares which one it is? It's Linux.. They are also offering XP to consumers, that alone tells you just how horrible Vista is.
Go Dell! Others will follow.
I use PCLOS and have for almost two years now. First week of July will mark two years since I got my system at walmart.
emachines W3052, Sempron 3000+ @ 2GHz, 512M, 120GB, Nvidia GForce 4 MX 64M, 16+/- DL DVD burner, 17' monitor, Lexmark all-in-one (since gone... it was 'a wannabe' replaced recently with HP OfficeJet 600 that works just fine). Nothing really special about it. Just sort of a 'middle of the road' in capability. Considering I have run Debian on a P-90 with 32MB RAM and a 2GB hdd I thought installing Linux on this was gonna be dead simple. I was wrong.
I recently added 1GB RAM so that is now 1.5GB but no other changes. It also came with XP SP2 pre-installed. That is also gone. I did a complete backup then nuked XP off the drive last Friday evening. :) Man, I have waited for a long time to be able to say that. XP is Gone! :)
The first distro I tried to install was Ubuntu. I had a set of discs already so didn't even have to go looking for it. It wouldn't boot at all. Talk about bummed. But I had a hispeed connect so I went looking for some that I had used before when I was in Seattle.
In short order I tried Debian, Slackware, Vector, none of them booted either. I tried Fedora and Suse and they at least would boot and install on my system. About this time I found out about the 'live cd' and went looking and burning all of them I could find.
Some worked, some didn't. One of the ones that worked from the git was PCLinuxOS. So did Mepis and some others. PCLOS just had a nice feel about it. In the end, that's what it all comes down to isn't it? Personal preferences and a distro has to work on your hardware. You can't very well try it if it won't boot.
Every time Ubuntu has a new release I check it out. It will boot and install now at least but for the life of me I can't seem to get it out of 800x600. This weekend I tried out Debian and Slackware.
Both booted and installed which is a vast improvement over what it did a couple years back. CLI stuff is great. The GUI though just won't get anywhere near a 'working resolution' which I define as 1024x768 at minimum. I normally use 1400x1050 in PCLOS. So it seems that, for me and my hardware, neither of them will work.
I will be trying Fedora 7 as soon as the DVD finishes d/l. Been a couple years since I've tried it so I'm kinda eager to see how things have gone. Fedora was one of the few that booted and installed for me before.
Happy Memorial Day to one and all. A Disabled Viet Nam Vet.
Bill
123 • sidux (by khai on 2007-05-29 04:22:54 GMT from Canada)
why is SIDUX listed every two days?
well, recently. but anyway, we see it here more often than it deserves. also some kind of sponsorship?
124 • RE: 123 sidux (by ladislav on 2007-05-29 04:55:11 GMT from Taiwan)
also some kind of sponsorship?
What have I done to make so many people believe that this web site is constantly being bought by somebody?
I keep hearing how Mark Shuttleworth paid me millions of dollars to make sure that Ubuntu got to the top. Now that it looks like PCLinuxOS is going to overtake it, will you also suspect that Texstar has done the same? And sidux too has bought me so that it can be in the news every second day?
Come on guys, give me a break, please! Sure, the Internet is full of people whose only purpose of getting online is to make money, one way or another. But some of the claims that keep showing up here are ridiculous. Before you type up another stupid comment suggesting unfair play, please use your brains! It's not that hard.
125 • Dell (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 04:57:09 GMT from United States)
I got a e-mail from dell last week for the same laptop with the crummy basic home Vista and 2GB of memory for $100 LESS with no rebate. Unless they can tell me what was $100 more expensive that Linux neeed right now, I will not be interested. I will go back and resurect old Dell and IBM laptops instead. There is no good reason for this.
126 • Why is SIDUX listed every two days? (by welkiner on 2007-05-29 05:06:40 GMT from United States)
And they say that there is no such thing as a stupid question?
Could it be maybe because this is DistroWatch, you know, like a website where we come to see what is happening with Linux distributions.
An amazing thing that I have noticed about DistroWatch is that every time a listed distribution has a release it appears on DistroWatch. Now can you imagine that?
Sidux has had 2 releases in the last 2 days.
Maybe we should require a license to operate a computer. (smile quietly)
127 • PCLinuxOS Review (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 05:18:24 GMT from United States)
I'm sticking with the 06' version. The new one is a step backwards.
Firstly, you can't upgrade the 06' to 07'. From what I see above it would be less problematic. The 06' was a bit of a pain getting the partitions right on a HD install with a dual boot but it was quite workable after a couple of tries get the swap and the type right. Onece set up it was almost uncrashable.
You shouldn't have to download key drivers every time you run a live CD. It also causes Beryl to not work at all and may even black screen. As a work around, it should detect the problem and after you get the network card set up it should ask if you want the Codecs and/or the vendor video drivers before it trys to load the minimal video drivers. Or run through a video setup each time like Puppy and/or ask for the refesh rate. I even got audio crashes and saying that another apps has it in use and you just booted the live CD. Haupage TV card did not work with the TV app either but may have been because of the audio..
Now when you go get it up and through the crummy load screens you'll find less apps and in most cases a 640x480 or 800x600 screen. Then you try and do a install and it says that you have no authority to load any file systems. You then plug in a usb key and it does not load automaticly anymore and Samba is not on the menu. Your network shares are not there. So it is just a dead demo live CD. Why the step backwards? If you needed room why did you put Beryl on the live CD, in most cases it is unuaseble on the live CD (needs 3D).
The new SAM has more polish than this version.
128 • 96 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-05-29 05:21:24 GMT from Canada)
You're wrong and I'm correcting you ;)
As I said, the X.org free ATI driver currently doesn't support the X1xxx series ATIs (that's X1300 through to X1950, and the new X2000 or whatever it's called too, of course) at all. It _will_, they just haven't got it done yet. For older cards, yep, it'll work fine at least in 2D (actually it has experimental 3D support for all Radeons up to X850 now, but it works best with 9850 and earlier).
I'm not sure what your Knoppix experience suggests, though, as I'm not sure whether or not Knoppix includes proprietary drivers.
129 • RE 120 : Inconsistencies... (by dbrion on 2007-05-29 08:13:10 GMT from France)
"PCLinuxOS has a developers team of around 10 people. This one man distro leading stuff is non existent."
1=10?
Is there a new arithmetic bug in the blessed Free World?
How can people download an inexistent distr?
They should be rather greated as, with a small number of developpers (and few material ressources, I fear from the problems linked with a too small server), they made many pple happy (not me: I have Cygwin , RedHat deriveds and Mandriva, and it is more than enough for me...)...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
130 • Re post 115: Garry and nvidia (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 10:09:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
If you look at my post 80, you will see how you can use synaptic to add nvidia video drivers, even if the "OK" button is off screen to start with.
Using apt-get, the correct command is:
apt-get install nvidia_97xx
You seem to have got a hyphen AND a dash between nvidia and 97xx. Even though it's beta, you may also find that nvidia_100.14.xx works better on your card (it does on my 7600GT).
131 • No subject (by Lars on 2007-05-29 10:20:00 GMT from Finland)
Uh oh Ladislav... your PCLOS review was not 100% positive! You should be careful about what you say. ;)
http://www.thepcspy.com/blog/pclinuxoss_militant_leadership
132 • RE# 131 (by Hootiegibbon on 2007-05-29 10:35:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Lars,
Try to read and keep up with all replies and refer to reply #106 and read the comments at the bottom of the blog.
Jase
133 • re132 (by re 132 on 2007-05-29 10:46:46 GMT from United States)
re 132 and several other posts:
Look out, the posting cop, "Hootiegibbon," is here.
(and others)
Don't make reference to pclinuxos's strong-arm tactics.
Alert alert. Pclinuxos cops. Alert.
134 • PC Linux OS (by Smergold on 2007-05-29 11:01:24 GMT from France)
Hello ,
A distro may be nice or beautiful or more.... is it the more important?
It must be functionnaly a good distro, with no bugs (or just a little)
So if there is hundreds of distros you can ask yourselves : why ?
What is the most imprtant for you ? And remember, what is important or nice or whatever you want, will not have the same signification for the others.
Personnaly, (I say 'personnaly') I think a distro such as PC Linux OS must have several desktop environnement and not only KDE.
But that's only my own opinion. I rather prefer Fedora, Mandriva for this reason. I prefer XFCE;
But I respect all the work made by all developpers around the world who try to give us so many pleasure with GNU/Linux distros
Love your distro and appreciate the others, you respect each others
Smergold
135 • Re: 131 (by davecs on 2007-05-29 11:09:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Most of the responses by PCLinuxOS users in these comments are not in response to Chris Smart's article, but other comments. Apart from comments by David and winsnomore which are taking up a couple of the points constructively. Personally I couldn't care less about sudo, and I hate LVM -- I have no use for it and it seems to be the biggest delay in both booting up and closing down on my computer, unfortunately everything else has been built on top of it and it you try to remove it, the whole system comes tumbling down. So much for no LVM.
I've read all sorts of nonsense around the net lately about PCLinuxOS, including that it does not recognise their NTFS partition (can't remember where). If the person who wrote that review had clicked on My Computer and followed the link to "Storage Media" they would have found and opened it easily. When you see that kind of thing, you start thinking, is this a genuine problem, or is the reviewer trying to do a hatchet job?
Speaking of which, any fool can write a "hatchet job" review, then delete posts made in response which correct a number of points, then change the review when he realises he's been found out, then come onto the forums of the distro he did the hatchet job on and continue to deliberately wind people up to the point where someone in a postition of importance gets flustered and makes an unguarded comment, for which he quickly apologises and withdraws.
Most people would realise at that point that they have been a fool. If, instead, you then choose to make an "international incident" out of the unguarded comment, then it suggests maybe, that your motivation from the start was rather more sinister.
136 • RE 134 SAM (suffit) (by dbrion on 2007-05-29 11:24:17 GMT from France)
" I prefer XFCE": Perhaps you could try SAM ( PClinuxOS based, uses XFCE, has European localization, is almost as green as Mint {this was the only argument I can remember from Mint/UBUlinux users....}). I tried her under qemu (from Mandriva), without any problems, but it is too redundent with Mandriva, IMO, to raise in me any enthusiasm (it is not new with what I am accustomed to)...
Their release policy, however, is very different from Mandriva's (they release when they are sure it is OK; Mandriva releases at scheduled times => if you want to avoid youth defects[ex: rpmdrake/urpmi in Mandriva 2007.0 was spectacular for me] , perhaps it has some interesting advantages).
The fact PClinuxOS=>SAM claim to release "when they are ready" can lower mindless pressure on other distrs, and unpleasant surprises for beginners...
BTW the release policy is another [among many others] aspect of distrs, like (absence of) quality control: on the long term, it goes farther than cpio/tar/ar based package management race..
137 • BeaFanatIX (by maconulaff on 2007-05-29 13:13:54 GMT from United States)
Steven Watsky (founder of BeatrIX) is not associated with the development of BeaFanatIX. BeaFanatIX is being developed by fans of the BeatrIX idea, was started after Steven had disappeared around the time that hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, and only after it was clear that no additional development of BeatrIX was ever going to happen with Steven at the helm.
When it was clear that Steven would not be returning to develop BeatrIX, several forum members began working on updating BeatrIX, but changed the name to BeaFanatIX, as Steven owned the BeatrIX name. BeatrIX was based in Warty - which limited any ability to keep applications current.
R3, aka Stephan Emmerich, is the developer who brought BeaFanatIX to reality using Breezy. The next phase of development will include a change to use Edgy.
There was an extend attempt on the team making BeaFanatIX to reach and include Steven in their efforts, but those efforts have been in vain.
138 • RE: Comment 121 (by Exasperated on 2007-05-29 13:20:06 GMT from United States)
I'm the author of Comment 103. I did not insinuate that no one is working on the documentation or, afaik, propagate disinformation. I posted the url for the only PCLOS 2007 documentation I found ... anyone interested could view it.
If there is additional 2007 documentation - and/or there are any errors of fact in my comment - please post your corrections to this open forum. ,
139 • No subject (by sid on 2007-05-29 13:39:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Don't loose heart Ladislav. DistroWatch is wonderfull.
When i first started looking into Linux 6 months ago i stumbled onto your site and my eyes were opened, 'wow there's more than one version on Linux, i get it now'. And since then i've kept returning here as this has been a great starting point for my Linux adventures (dreamlinux, pclos, e-live(looked wonderful but over my head as-yet) and debian). As i recall you've only ever said that the hpd chart is a rough guide alot of people seem to forget that.
Perhaps you could learn from Chris Smart and never end a review with 'Now who could argue with that?'
Keep up the good work.
Sid
P.S. Maybe you could make the 'Distribution Release:' and 'Development Release:' headers/links on the main page different colours to help differentiate between them. Say orange for Development and green for Distro
140 • Once again (by Anon on 2007-05-29 14:15:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
I am comfortable in the knowledge that I use a distribution developed by a community dedicated to OSS and GNU Linux as a whole, rather than a bunch of petty fan boys resorting to flaming other distro's.
141 • diversity in Linux (by Joey on 2007-05-29 14:50:19 GMT from United States)
(post 140) yes.. diversity in Linux is its strength, in my opinion. At some point the attitudes of the developers and the community (forum regulars, etc) does influence a person away from or toward a distro. Just look at BLAG, for example; a very satisfied group over there.. like minded people enjoying their take on the "free" aspect of Linux.
We see a post or two in here about the "distro of choice," Fedora, openSuse, pclinux os, Mandriva, etc. It has to do with several factors, I think: does the distro work well on your machine? are the problem areas solvable? and if so, through an accepting, helpful group of users and developers in their forums and mailing lists, etc? are the developers dedicated enough to consider the long term as far as support, updates/upgrades and re-releases?
Lots of considerations. Lots of choices.
142 • PCLinuxOS 2007 Live CD (by PCLinuxOS User on 2007-05-29 15:27:33 GMT from United States)
I don't need help. I'm just relaying my recent experience with the latest PCLinuxOS. It ain't radical, simple, or any combination of the two.
When I went to boot up the PCLinuxOS 2007 Live CD using my modern (ca. August 2006) Dell Dimension desktop, I couldn't use my USB keyboard at the boot screen. See, I need to be able to use my keyboard so I can tell PCLinuxOS not to start X with the ATI driver it thinks is correct for my machine. It's no big deal that it doesn't configure my video driver correctly. Not many distros do. Nevertheless, I give PCLinuxOS a ding for this. Video driver issue aside for a moment (I know my way around that), I still want to be able to use my USB keyboard at boot time. After all it's a Live CD and a Live CD should be able to handle a USB keyboard, right? Surely a USB keyboard is simple enough for this OS. Every single other distro that I have used has allowed me to use my keyboard at boot time. When I headed to the forums for help on the issue, I discovered other users with the same problem. Well, the support guys over there attribute my keyboard woes to a bug in my Dell's BIOS. The suggested solution was to use a PS/2 converter. How do you like that? I think my solution is more simple...use a different distro. Not being able to use my keyboard when booting up a Live CD, is a major show-stopper for me and my modern PC. Kind of like test driving a car with a flat tire. Worthy of four or five dings from me. My advice to the PCLinuxOS "team" is to get it working.
143 • ups and downs (by ray carter at 2007-05-29 15:58:53 GMT from United States)
I recently installed Mandriva spring from the DVD in Linux Pro Magazine. It was pretty good, though for my personal taste I've grown to prefer gnome to kde for several reasons - major one being startup speed. Anyway, while installing on my tower, I became aware (reading the release notes) that they have a new driver for Intel graphics chips which does not check the video bios for supported modes - this has been a big issue for me on my gateway M305 laptop - worked and worked on that sucker and the only thing I could get to work was the commercial driver from xigraphics, and it had a couple of problems. So, anyway, installed Mandriva on my laptop, hardwired to the lan (since it didn't support my Atheros based wifi card 'out of the box'), did updates and installed the Intel driver. Worked like a champ - boy was I impressed. I then spent another few hours trying to get madwifi working with aforementioned Dlink WNA2330 Atheros based card working. Could not see to find the right incantations there, so gave up. Somewhere along the line I became aware that Ubuntu 7.04 also has the new Intel driver, so installed that and it worked, plus the wireless. So I'm in the process of transitioning to Ub 7.04.
Bottom line is, I'm glad I took the subscription to Linux Pro. It gives me the impetus to try a new distro every month and find out what's happening. I somehow never found the time before.
144 • re 134 • PC Linux OS (by Smergold) (by Fractalguy on 2007-05-29 17:23:31 GMT from United States)
>>I think a distro such as PC Linux OS must have several desktop environnement and not only KDE.<<
My first PCLinusOS was .53, I think, back in 2005. It had KDE and GNOME - it still runs on one of my hard disks.
Back on 2007-04-10 I posted in article 74 about running 3 desktops in Mint and 5 in PCLinuxOS on my test hard disk:
"On the PCLOS partition I have five desktops (window managers): KDE (default), GNOME, Xfce4, iceWM and fluxbox."
You can install them from the repos. Look in Synaptic for something like "GNOME desktop environment". It is a a virtual package which requires all needed packages to have a fully working GNOME desktop environment. After installation, log out and select KDE or GNOME on login. You can even log into KDE, GNOME, and Xfce (if you added it) in the same account at the same time and hop between them with ctrl-alt-F7 and ctrl-alt-F9, etc. It is no big deal, KNOPPIX live DVD has something like a dozen to play with. Ubuntu has many available, I set up 3 on my Ubuntu box.
There is a possible downside to setting up multiple desktops and that is the kicker menu is often taylored to only one. For example, Mint has a nice GNOME program menu but when I went to my KDE "addition" it didn't look so nice, but fully functional. Mint has a KDE release now with a very nice kicker menu. Someday it may be possible to have both.
I suspect most distros now can have multiple desktops. They just don't push the issue so we think PCLinuxOS and Kubuntu are KDE while Redhat and Ubuntu are GNOME. On my Ubuntu box, I had installed 5.10 then upgraded to 6.10 and then added KDE and Xfce. We prefer KDE here and so Ubuntu is showing its KDE face all the time. But GNOME is available :)
So, I figure: choose the distro based on hardware compatibiliiity and repo software selection. Then set up the desktop you want from those available. You can have your cake and eat it too. Even with PCLinusOS.
145 • 143 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-05-29 17:28:38 GMT from Canada)
What you need for madwifi to work is probably the dkms-madwifi package from the non-free repository. See http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software#Making_more_applications_available for instructions on setting up the non-free repository. Install the dkms-madwifi package, and also kernel-source-stripped-latest , and it should help.
This package contains non-free components (the firmware for the madwifi driver is not under a free license), so it's not in the Mandriva Free edition. Ubuntu choose to include non-free firmware in all their releases, they don't consider this a violation of their policy. We include it in One and our commercial releases, but not in Free.
Mandriva is desktop-agnostic: GNOME is a fully supported part of the distro. Personally I use GNOME exclusively.
146 • why oh why (by beany on 2007-05-29 17:47:39 GMT from United States)
It would be nice if we stop bashing Ubuntu and PCLINUXOS for a few seconds and read this little article. Perhaps those here picking each others distros apart could take that energy there and defend Linux in general.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/29/linux-car-first-to-crash-at-indianapolis-500/#comments
147 • Mandriva 2007.1 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 18:06:53 GMT from Portugal)
I've installed Mandriva on a laptop with aetheros wifi and it worked!
For best out of the box experience, Mandriva ONE (free download) or Comercial Edition are the ones to choose!
148 • Ubuntu choose to include non-free firmware in all their releases (by Caraibes on 2007-05-29 18:07:47 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Hey, Adam W.
Indeed, I thought just like you than Ubuntu choose to include non-free firmware in all their releases, but when I tried to perform a clean install of Feisty in my Dapper laptop, my wireless card (RTL8180) wasn't seen in the network app...
So I re-installed Xubuntu Dapper, and it worked out of the box again...
I also tried Debian Etch, my first choice, but I had the same problem with my wireless card (RTL8180)...
But I am wondering what happened to the *Buntu Feisty, did they took some non-free firmware off of that new release ??? It is too bad, as I am only using *Buntu for that very reason, otherwise, I would use Debian, or maybe Fedora...
149 • Both do play well together (by Chris Ward on 2007-05-29 18:10:48 GMT from United States)
I have been using linux for over a year now. I have to say that I do like both Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS. On my desktop (where my wife watcher her soap clips) has Ubuntu Fiesty. The laptop that we have upstairs and goes on trips with for the kids has PCLinuxOS 2007. I use an older dell with the Ebox platform that is based on Debian to keep files and do light server duties in my home (and wireless to boot). Guess what both of these access the old dell and work just great with samba. Both of these distro's I would recommend to anyone. The work great and both are free and that is fine by me. Life is good already and computing got a whole lot better with these distros. Now if the State of Iowa would hurry up with my Microsoft antitrust check then life would be perfect. :)
150 • Will the real apt-get Nvidia driver name please stand up? (by Garry Freemyer on 2007-05-29 18:35:06 GMT from United States)
Severall have posted that rather than using apt-get to get my nvidia drivers using the simple "apt-get install nvidi-_97xx ati" as mentioned in the article, that I could use synaptec to get these drivers.
Well, that was the first thing I tried, and I kept getting file not found errors.
Maybe the synaptec site was down but I was able to get the other drivers via the author's apt-get install line except my video drivers.
That is why I asked, sorry if it appeared I didnt' try, but I really did, it just refused to work. Maybe it will work today, but I'd rather see the real command.
Thanks!
151 • Bad Day? (by jeffcustom on 2007-05-29 18:45:01 GMT from United States)
When people are having a bad day, Distrowatch seems to be the place to come and let it all hang out by hurling insults at a well-known distro. Apparently, someone came to DW looking to hurl some insults to make them feel better and saw the Sidux logo first for inspiration. Why can't people just use their distro and be happy that others are using Linux too? It's ok to say, well PCLOS didn't do this for me or Ubuntu didn't do that for me.....but why all the hateful and sarcastic comments? I have no ill feelings towards any distro and like to play with Mint, Mepis, DSL and Sidux.
One of these days, Ladislav is going to get tired of all the idiocy. How about people show some respect to Ladislav and his work at DW or go start your own site with highly scientific distro ranking and free-for-all distro bashing message boards.
152 • re 150 (by NErancher on 2007-05-29 18:46:44 GMT from United States)
Make sure you hit reload in synaptic first, then just search for Nvidia in synaptic. A few results down should be dkms-nvidia_97xx , that should be it exactly. Right click, mark for installation, apply. Should work I think for that card I think.
153 • re 152 (by NErancher on 2007-05-29 18:52:48 GMT from United States)
Don't use apt get much but it might work if you use that file name there, not sure though.
154 • Re: 150 (by davecs on 2007-05-29 19:01:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Garry, it's:
apt-get install nvidia_97xx
No hyphen no ati and it won't work if the internet isn't connected, maybe that's your problem.
155 • Some people have an ax to grind (by rm on 2007-05-29 19:07:06 GMT from United States)
Reading these comments, I can see that some people have an ax to grind. I guess it is human (imperfect) nature at work. I have been using Linux for many years, having started with a Slackware box full of floppies. We really should all be jumping for joy with the state of Linux desktop today, and should be rejoicing when one distro or another makes a new breakthrough. Eventually, all other distros are pulled up by it.
I have been using PCLinuxOS for almost a year now, and I am very happy with it, especially with the latest release. It is not perfect, of course, but if it works with your hardware, I don't think you can find a better distro right now, overall. Sure, every distro has its advantages and disadvantages, so what I say does not apply to all circumstances. That is why you should always try more than one distro before settling on any one of them. What is clear about PCLinuxOS is that it has definitely become a "must try" distro. I always recommend new users to try Ubuntu and at least one of the top KDE centered distros like Mepis or PCLinuxOS. One of them should work for them.
There is no need to get overly proud and arrogant because your favorite distro is working well for you. There will always be those for which it doesn't, and if you get to cocky, you will only get heated responses. On the other hand, there is no need to get overly upset with newbies that are discovering what an awesome OS Linux is, and are shouting from the roof tops that their particular distro is the end all be all of all distros. Eventually they will realize that all distros are very close, and that they all keep leapfrogging each other. No need to become too emotionally attached to any one of them. Just rejoice with them, or ignore them.
Finally, tho Joey, as others have said, if you read all the comments on those articles you linked to, you will see that Oli is blew things way out of proportion and that Texstar was actually the mature one in the end.
Any way, greetings to all, and thanks for this great resource, Distrowatch.
156 • Ubuntu is Too Buggy (by mp on 2007-05-29 20:38:12 GMT from United States)
> Hi, I have gone back to Ubuntu-6.10 after using
> Ubuntu-7.04. I cannot believe they release it such a buggy state.
"Here Here!"
First the geniuses have synaptic automatically ask you for an upgrade to _beta_ quality software. That's more like a downgrade.
The upgrade failure rate is 50% according to ubuntu's own poll. That is very quick and dirty project management. For what exactly?
It's sad that some in the Linux community want/need a Shuttleworth/Dell to be validated when Debian/Slackware have done a better job.
157 • lol #151 (by Anonymous on 2007-05-29 21:49:40 GMT from United States)
what does sidux have to do with anything? ;)
158 • RE: # 146, 155 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-29 21:56:03 GMT from Italy)
I have always had all sort of complaints against many distros, but always with the hope they would improve themselves, and in most cases they have.
However when it comes to Ubuntu it is a different matter altogether: too many unanswered question, a real sense of fishy business.
I wouldn't be too surprised if Korangan Kazhutha of post # 95 were 100% right. Micro$oft couldn't destroy Linux via SCO. What better method than the age old Trojan Horse?
159 • Re: #157 Another one of those question (by welkiner on 2007-05-29 22:03:51 GMT from United States)
"what does sidux have to do with anything?"
If you really want to know, read the previous comments, starting at #123
160 • Re: # 148: Driver changes in Feisty (by Mark South on 2007-05-29 22:18:36 GMT from Switzerland)
To quote:
"my wireless card (RTL8180) wasn't seen in the network app...So I re-installed Xubuntu Dapper, and it worked out of the box again...I also tried Debian Etch, my first choice, but I had the same problem with my wireless card (RTL8180)...
But I am wondering what happened to the *Buntu Feisty, did they took some non-free firmware off...."
What apparently happened is that this driver hasn't been updated for a long time (and probably never will be, it's an obsolete chipset now), and it appears to cause breakage in the newest kernels. In Feisty, for example, you can take a look at /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. The Realtek wireless drivers are the last two entries, and the Launchpad bug numbers are given.
What can one do? Well, help with testing and report on the bug entry. Comment that driver out of the blacklist and see if your machine crashes or not, for example. Agitate for people to update the driver. Call Realtek and tell them to do a proper GPL driver. Or you can use OpenBSD or NetBSD, which have better wireless drivers than Linux.
OMG, I think I might have mentioned an Ubuntu release by name. I must be in the pay of Mark Shuttleworth. Now the PCLinuxOS klansmen are probably going to form a posse and take revenge by planting a burning cross on my blog....
161 • Dell PC - I would have bought one (by Jaro Cooke on 2007-05-29 22:28:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
I would have bought a Ubuntu/Dell laptop with 100% certainty, if they were available in the UK.
How do I know this, because I bought a laptop with Ubuntu installed anyway! (From EfficientPC.co.uk if anyone is interested.) I will probably buy next laptop from Dell though and you can bet it will be one with Ubuntu installed.
162 • Re:#160, Driver changes in Feisty (by Caraibes on 2007-05-29 22:40:09 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Thank you Mark for your comment, it helped me understand what's the deal...
I'll then stick to Dapper, until 2009 because the desktop ed. will be still supported.
While on the wifi subject, I happened to read this : https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html
So I'll use this list of supported wifi card to buy my usb wifi card to use with the soon to come (5 years old) Mac iBook that I plan to convert to Debian only (maybe Ubuntu if no wifi gets to work...)
163 • Ubuntu on Dell (by hayden on 2007-05-29 22:47:47 GMT from Australia)
wonder if they will ship with a Windows button on the keyboard ;-)
164 • RE: # 163 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-29 23:20:17 GMT from Italy)
"wonder if they will ship with a Windows button on the keyboard ;-) "
ROFL, that would be a big irony from many points of view.
165 • re (by re on 2007-05-29 23:44:36 GMT from United States)
Why do people feel the need to provoke/taunt others? GROW UP, act like adults.
166 • Re: 163 (by GL on 2007-05-29 23:45:45 GMT from United States)
I've programmed my Windows key as the hot key for Kompose! Finally, it's good for something!
167 • Difficult to interpret Page Hit Ranking (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-29 23:54:37 GMT from Italy)
Last 30 days:
1)PCLinuxOS
We knew this one, but why going down?
2)Ubuntu, downwards. I love this one. I hope this means that the Linux community isn't as gullible as some would like.
3)openSUSE, going up. I love this one too, because Debian and SUSE are my very favorite, but I prefer SUSE for my friends' desktops.
4)Fedora, up. Good distro, even if not my favorite.
5)Debian. Why going down? Maybe because the release of Etch is becoming "old news" ?
6)Sabayon, upwards. I also love this one, absolutely. It will never be my favorite distro, probably, but I am delighted that a very young man, very friendly, can almost single handed achieve so much.
Also worth mentioning that Mandriva is only 11th, going down. An undeserved verdict, IMO, because it seems to me that Mandriva is trying hard to solve past problems. If openSUSE doesn't stop excessive experimentation, especially with package management, I might replace it with Mandriva as "user friendly desktop distro" (not that Debian is that hard any more).
168 • Linux for Toshiba Genio e 550G (by Alberto on 2007-05-30 01:26:44 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Help! I'm trapped in Pocket PC 2002 OS and cannot upgrade. Does anyone made a Linux Distro for it? I need to use WiFi with this machine
169 • Re: 167 • Difficult to interpret Page Hit Ranking (by GL on 2007-05-30 01:34:41 GMT from United States)
"6) Sabayon, upwards."
Wow! That distro is dark and alien looking! A gamer's paradise!
That's what Linux is all about: "Ognuno ha i suoi gusti!"
170 • Re: 167 • Difficult to interpret Page Hit Ranking (by rac on 2007-05-30 02:11:27 GMT from United States)
Come on Anonymous Penguin, be fair:
1)PCLinuxOS
We knew this one, but why going down? (I'd say it's going down because most people who wanted the latest release have downloaded it. If Debian Etch can be "old news," why can't PCLinuxOS 2007?.)
2)Ubuntu, downwards. I love this one. I hope this means that the Linux community isn't as gullible as some would like. (I don't understand the prejudice here. Feisty has been out for a few weeks and most people that want it have it, just like with PCLinuxOS and Etch. It's only natural for it to fall off the peak, no cynical explanation required.)
3)openSUSE, going up. I love this one too, because Debian and SUSE are my very favorite, but I prefer SUSE for my friends' desktops.
4)Fedora, up. Good distro, even if not my favorite.
5)Debian. Why going down? Maybe because the release of Etch is becoming "old news" ?
-------------------------
It's a shame for someone to use the word "community" while slamming a distro. In the Linux community, there should be room for them all. As a new Linux convert, one of the things that puts me off the most is all the infighting that I see going on. It really makes me wonder what I'm getting into.
171 • PCLinixOS (by itsthemedication on 2007-05-30 02:37:56 GMT from United States)
I just installed PCLinuxOS 2007 on an Acer laptop with Atheros wireless, and it installed and worked flawlessly. CPU throttle works, hibernate and suspend work, it detected my screen resolution perfectly, and most importantly patience has more games than my normal distro!
The writeup on 2007 does a disservice. This was so easy to install that it shames Windows and most Linus distros. I didn't have to dredge up any drivers, or dig through the Acer website. I'm using Beryl and it's fun. I just can't say enough about this distro. I'll stick with Mandrake PP for my 64 bit machines, but for the lightweight 32 bit boxes, I've found my distro.
After installing, I sent Tex the $20 donation for prime server access. Just fantastic, and no I wasn't excited about the previous version.
172 • It works! (by cellar on 2007-05-30 03:56:18 GMT from Australia)
I tend to run a few distributions on some old hardware, Tyan board with twin 400mhz Pentium II and 512m ram and four ten gig scsi drives (a distribution on each). Some distributions load, others don't so I find something that will work.
Distrowatch seems to get a lot of discussion/heat about ranking and favourite distributions - if a distribution works for you use it, recommend it to others, hand a copy to a friend but I don't see the need to run down another distribution.
We all have our favourites, I mainly use Fedora on the main box, with Centos on the server and an really enjoying the Wolvix 1.1.0 beta, and there are more than enough distributions out there that each one of us will find something that works, and we like, and can recommend.
Cheers from the cellar
PS I fired up some old hardware - a Macintosh 7300/200 running BEOS just to see if it was capable of running broad band - and it works - I've posted this comment using it. Now where is that Morrow Micro Decision running CP/M??
173 • RE: # 170 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-30 05:31:24 GMT from Italy)
"It's a shame for someone to use the word "community" while slamming a distro. In the Linux community, there should be room for them all. As a new Linux convert, one of the things that puts me off the most is all the infighting that I see going on. It really makes me wonder what I'm getting into."
You are a new convert. I am an old dog :) I must do my part so that this wonderful reality (FLOSS) will be there for everybody to enjoy also in the future.
Free/Libre and Open Source Software has plenty of enemies, believe it or not.
174 • PCLinuxOs on Acer (by Jordan on 2007-05-30 10:04:35 GMT from United States)
This is in reference to post number 171 about installing
PCLinuxOS on an Acer laptop.
My roomy Joey gave me this Acer laptop three weeks ago.
It is a Aspire 5610 and it came with Windows Vista
Premium.
Everything is fast and runs perfectly. It's got 2 gigs
of ram and a big 120 gig hard drive.
But he wanted me to try Texstar's Linux on it so I made
an attempt using a burned cd (with the md5 checcksum
matched) and all it did was end up with a screwy way off
resolution and horrid fonts.
Live CD mode was slow, so I tried to install it on the
hard drive.
The forums have dozens of people with problems installing
and dozens saying they fixed things ok. Just like any
other distro.
But as I told Joey, this laptop is staying Vista; just
too beautiful to mess with and it runs cool (I mean the
temperature; I downloaded and run "speedfan," a core and
hard drive monitoring utility)... I had seen anxieties
in the Acer forums about their various older models of
Acers getting hot (well, Dell has that problem, too).
Anyway, I don't "bash" Linux, this post is just about
my experience and the decision to stick with the operating
system the laptop came with.
Jordan
175 • ref: 168 • Linux for Toshiba Genio e 550G (by Chris Hildebrandt on 2007-05-30 11:18:58 GMT from Austria)
I guess there is no much hope for that, please see http://handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/SupportedHandheldSummary
Greetings,
Chris
176 • RE 174 : Keep cool (by dbrion on 2007-05-30 11:25:38 GMT from France)
Your post was not Linux bashing, it was common sense and decency (I find obcene burning xx 100 E$ banknotes, even if they are my friend's). You can find nice Windows ported application in ADIOS linux site (Australian localized), you can VMplay any Linux you want under Windows, and wait till this fan issue is fixed; if you add Cygwin, a Red Hats bright idea, you may have a Windows full of free blessings( Windows ports are often seriously tested)....
You can even try dual booting, to know whether this temperature issue is real. BTW, Mandriva hase been making consistent efforts since at least one year , testing tenths of laptops and publishing in GNU/linux magazine France in mar 2006 and in Linux Identity Kit, no 1, p33 . I read Suze did some work, too, in this domain (this is not the job of a distribution who did not forecast her /* deserved, IMO */ success, out of modesty?). I was (partially, nothing is perfect) satisfied with Mandriva contributed fixes, last year, for my laptop. As she is localized in >60 languages, I suppose you would not suffer from dépaysement if it works..
BTW, it is fashionable bashing Mandriva (cf this weeks comments posts 56 and 140, and hundred of comments in the last 7 months). I suppose "moral" linuxers have a selective memory, when they complain about UBUlinux bashing (I suppose 80% of the UBUlinux loovers (parents) hare gone back to Windows at the first serious bug which was automagically downloaded, thus making perhaps the decline of an irrationnal fashion)...
177 • About using apt-get to install package (by IMQ on 2007-05-30 12:13:35 GMT from United States)
Hello everyone,
I saw several post about how to know the name of the package to use with apt-get. Try the following command:
apt-cache search foo
where foo is the keyword contained in a package name.
For example, you want to install nvidia driver but you don't know the name. Is it nvidia_something or nvidia-something? The just type this in the terminal:
apt-cache search nvidia
You will get a list of all packages that have the keyword nvidia in their name. Then you can install proceed to install the package using apt-get:
apt-get install nvidia_97xx
for example.
This approach only helps if you already know partially the name but now quite sure the complete name of a package.
Hope this help someone.
178 • Acer laptop (by itsthemedication on 2007-05-30 12:24:26 GMT from United States)
To 174:
the Acer I was talking about was a older and cheaper, a 3600 model. I have had plenty of trouble with Linux on newer machines, especially 64 bit systems with SATA. So, I should have been a bit more specific.
To 176:
I've been a Mandriva club member from pretty much the beginning, and I really, really, like Mandrake (er, Mandriva), and I'm sure that it why I like PCLinuxOS so much -- it's a stable Mandriva. Of course Mandriva has more packages, but I can't tell you how many times playing with those "extra" kernels and other packages have resulted in a complete reinstall (but hey, sometimes it's fun). Hats off to Mandriva for giving so much to the community, and of course you have to remeber that they in turn originally stood on Redhat's shoulders. Open source is just great. I'll continue to support both Mandriva and PCLinuxOS as long as they continue pumping out great distros like 2007.1 PP 64bit with virtual box (ok, sans the xorg problem) and PCLinuxOS 2007.
Linux on the desktop is here, and it will take off in foreign countries where the shadow of Microsoft is fading in light of Linux reason.
179 • number 178 (by Jordan on 2007-05-30 12:43:17 GMT from United States)
That's a great post, itsthemedication.
I love, "Hats off to Mandriva for giving so much to the community, and of course you have to remeber that they in turn originally stood on Redhat's shoulders. Open source is just great."
That's what keeps me coming back to Distrowatch. :)
180 • Mandriva and PCLinuxOS should just merge (by h3rman on 2007-05-30 13:17:03 GMT from Europe)
PCLinuxOS is indeed a "Mandriva Stable".
I feel PCLinuxOS and Mandriva should just merge, IOW, why don't they follow the Compiz-Beryl example and make one amazing distro in stead of two?
But maybe in order to know why that will or won't happen I may have to check out why PCLinuxOS started out as a separate distro in the first place...
181 • Mandriva/PCLinuxOS, et al.. (by Jordan on 2007-05-30 14:53:03 GMT from United States)
Well, from the "other information" portion of their info
page at http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=70:
"In addition to Mandriva, PCLinuxOS would also like to thank the developers of the Gentoo, OpenSuSE, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu as we also use patches and bugs fixes from those distributions."
I'm not certain, but I doubt if Mandriva developers are
utilizing patches from Gentoo, etc in their products. I think
Texstar wanted more leeway and flexibility in his distro.
182 • @181 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-05-30 16:34:48 GMT from Canada)
Um, try grepping some changelogs =)
all distros merrily nick patches from each other at every possible opportunity. My packages in MDV contain patches from at least, Fedora, SUSE, Debian, Gentoo, and SourceMage, there's probably some I forgot. This is one of the points of open source.
183 • Well said welkiner, jeffcustom (by sinczar on 2007-05-30 16:40:56 GMT from United States)
As a daily reader of distrowatch I think ladislav does a great, impartial job of watching and reporting on "distros". He deserves our support. If it were not for this site I would have only tried perhaps a few of the top distros and missed so many more that eventually would rise to the top ten, PCLinuxOS, and Sabayon to name a few.
The review of PCLinuxOS, as a user, I thought was balanced although even though we are all under some kind of time pressures, a little more research about, the LVM and RAID criticisms, for example, would have been good. If I were writing a review of a product I certainly would ask the manufacturer about things I couldn't get to work. A request for information from the dev's would have made the problems solvable as well as informative for the readers wanting to try the OS.
This whole distro A vs distro B thing reminds me of a saying an old Harley-Davidson motorbiker said to me. There are some HD folks who look down on those who ride other large v-twin motorcycles, but the bottom line, and most important thing is to just RIDE.
We are all on the same team. Team Linux, team freedom.
Keep up the good work ladislav
Rich D.
184 • RE 178 Some points could be even better, perhaps. (by dbrion on 2007-05-30 17:32:10 GMT from France)
"Hats off to Mandriva for giving so much to the community, and of course you have to remeber that they in turn originally stood on Redhat's shoulders"
Why not "Hats off to Redhat?"
They had AFAIK at least two great ideas:
making and spreading tons of GPL applications without a Linux/BSD kernel => this leads to cygwin, which is a very decent CLI plus a sufficient X system, under Windows. I believe it was meant to disgust pple from Windows and making them switch to Linux, but most prefer developping under cygwin...
the OLPC base soft (a Linux with minimalist (at least from prices) and stable (it is watertight=> one cannot modify the HW)hardware) which might be more spread (and more useful, IMO) than any Linux desktop, and never anyway will reach interesting DWW page hit ranking, or download/upgrade numbers .
"great distros like 2007.1 PP 64bit with virtual box (ok, sans the xorg problem) "
What is the xorg problem?
( for stability reasons, I will buy a Mandriva 2007.0 this year, and then test the 2007.1 with qemu {virtualbox is pleasant, but remains young and too graphical}; )
this might interest eager hungry Mandriva users. When I wait some time with Mandriva, I had, as far as now, very few unpleasant surprises...
185 • Cassandra is unleashed! (by welkiner on 2007-05-30 17:53:09 GMT from United States)
Mint Linux 3.0 "Cassandra" is hitting the servers as we speak!
186 • PCLinuxOS is great for us, but not for ordinary people (by Pazi on 2007-05-30 18:25:41 GMT from Finland)
From my smallish experiences with PCLinuxOS, it's "a great OS for nerds" like me. But it lacks for example localization and many other infrastructural things, and I currently fail to see what PCLinuxOS is offering that would deserve massive amount of resources (read: people) to be devoted to it. But anyway, as it's seemingly very popular at least in some circles, I hope all the best to the project!
I just hope it's going to be grow, a lot, with the perceived big amount of fans it has. Apart from the DistroWatch hits, the community, both developers and active users, seems not to be too big. Even a technically great project will not succeed without a certain type of "movement" and devoted people.
187 • keep it rolling... (by Anonymous on 2007-05-30 18:44:08 GMT from Portugal)
Now I'm just posting to see if we can reach 200 posts... I don't remember the last time it happened :P
P.S: great news this week: another great release, dell with ubuntu, new revisited fedora coming up... now only if kernel devs approach some stability and who knows ABI compliance, Linux will have a meteoric ascension.
188 • PCLinuxOS Community (by rm on 2007-05-30 18:50:10 GMT from United States)
The PCLinuxOS community is growing and continually getting more involved. For example, on the localization front, there is quite a bit of work being done already. Se here:
http://www.mypclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=6&board=47
another good example of community involvement is the PCLinuxOS Magazine. They have done a very nice job so far.
http://mag.mypclinuxos.com/html/enter.html
And there are several ongoing projects as well. Sure, more help is needed, but I think it will come. You are certainly welcome to join. :)
189 • 200 posts? (by Oiving on 2007-05-30 19:01:35 GMT from United States)
Ok, here's my contribution:
Who started it all? RedHat is my impression, but my
guess is that there was a distro before that. ;)
Need history lesson. ..........
- O
190 • History Lesson (by Oithona on 2007-05-30 19:37:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/LinuxDistroTimeline.png
191 • Re: 187 & 189 (& 200 :) ) and Vector & Mint (by awong on 2007-05-30 19:37:30 GMT from Canada)
Okay, if you want to keep the posts going, has anyone installed the new versions of Vector Linux and/or Mint Linux, or is that for next week's installment?
;)
192 • 186 (by KDulcimer at 2007-05-30 20:16:26 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS is being localized:
http://www.mypclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=2
What's more, there will be a DVD released in the coming weeks or months with localization.
193 • RE: # 190 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-30 20:22:43 GMT from Italy)
Very interesting. Apparently it started in 1992 with a couple of distros I had never heard of before. In 1993 Slackware and Debian were founded. Slackware a bit earlier, thus it is the oldest distro still alive (I knew that).
In 1994 S.u.S.E. and Red Hat were founded.
A little known fact is that S.u.S.E started as a Slackware fork. Pretty amazing, because nowadays Slackware and (open)SUSE couldn't be more different.
194 • Quick link to Dell's Linux PCs (by Robert Pogson on 2007-05-30 20:58:59 GMT from Canada)
http://www.dell.com/open will take you right to it. Click on the "Shop for Ubuntu" button (green, low and left).
If I were in the USA, I would have an order in for a laptop.
195 • PCLOS vs. Ubuntu (by whocares on 2007-05-30 21:28:29 GMT from Finland)
In my opinion PCLOS seems to be a good distro BUT its so ugly looking i mean toyish and plastic looking, are all KDE based distros same? At least Ubuntu is very elegant and stylish looking compared to PCLOS
196 • Vector (by Jordan on 2007-05-30 21:36:54 GMT from United States)
Awong, Vectorlinux is the fastest, most efficient Linux
distro I've ever had (Slackware based). 5.8 "SOHO" is a
real dream.
Try it on an old machine!
197 • You guys at linux (by del - uk on 2007-05-30 22:05:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have tried many, distros, up to now pclinuxos p92, is the one that has been staying on duel boot. Too me as a punter, linux software, should be bundled, like yooou know, with hardware. Many be there will come a time.
Oh one final point, when update, or what ever its called, the system fails.
But its good, from the live cd, then add bits of software.
have a nice day, from one of the millions!
198 • RE: #193 (by welkiner on 2007-05-30 22:11:52 GMT from United States)
"In 1993 Slackware and Debian were founded. Slackware a bit earlier, thus it is the oldest distro still alive (I knew that)."
If I remember correctly, Debian was actually founded first, but Slackware released a public version first.
When most people refer to the oldest distro still in existence they are usually refering to the earliest release date thus Slackware, but since you used the word, founded, that would refer to the start date of the organization. I think that would be
Debian.
199 • Cassandra! (by welkiner on 2007-05-30 22:18:13 GMT from United States)
Just completed downloading Linux Mint 3.0 "Cassandra".(Development Release)
Got to go burn and play now!
200 • Mint, PCLos, Sidux (by Fractalguy on 2007-05-30 23:09:18 GMT from United States)
To 195 - take a look at Mint-KDE. Or even elive. :)
to 197 - PCLos p23 was a very good one. I still run mine on HD2. HD1 has 2k4 on it. :)
to 199, Mint 3.0 will be on one of two partitions on my next HD, HD3.
I'm in Sidux live now. It could use some nicer fonts. I'm going to look into that. But Mint and others come with better looking first view. The repo doesn't have nvu (too buggy they say). Otherwise, sidux seems not too bad.
201 • pclinuxos (by del - uk on 2007-05-30 23:51:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
All distros of pclinuxos, work ok, checked in sums, ect. But the latest PClinuxOS 2007, live boots so far then stopped one fith along the boot line ????????????
202 • GNU/Linux OS (by Beatnik on 2007-05-31 00:06:32 GMT from Panama)
Quote from wikipedia:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux)
"In a later study, the same analysis was performed for Debian GNU/Linux version 2.2.[40] This distribution contained over fifty-five million source lines of code, and the study estimated that it would have cost 1.9 billion dollars (year 2000 U.S. dollars) to develop by conventional means."
Wow, if this is true, I would like to know like how many source lines of code does it have right now?, and how many billion $ it would cost today?
Maybe Microsoft is near!? (joke)
I started to play with Linux since this year, and I love it, my favorite distros are Sabayon, PC Linux, Sam and Mandriva.
Now, my only problem with all distros is none of them recognizes my Zyxel Prestige 630-11 USB modem for my ADSL if you can help me I would thank you infinitely.
I would like to try the new Fedora7 and Open Suse.
I think the best distro for newbies is PC Linux, and Dell should have made their deal with them, not Ubuntu, I tried Ubuntu and it is good, but not as user friendly as PC Linux, Sabayon or Sam.
Well I think its good to have distros to choose from, but why not have like 6 main or mother projects: Debian, Gentoo, RedHat , Slackware, Open Suse, Mandriva, rPath, etc...
The developing power to make Linux a beast over other OS is fragmenting in too many projects why 500 distros? Linux advance would be faster if all son projects contribute to their mother distro that way all benefit from the development process.
I am a medical student from a third world country called Panama (you know the Panama Canal?) and I dont understand why the government of my country prefers Microsoft over Linux, I think only knowledge can give us freedom thats why I want to learn Linux and help others know about it.
Thanks Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and all the developers for Linux.
203 • 201 • pclinuxos (by del - uk (by Fractalguy on 2007-05-31 00:19:33 GMT from United States)
You may have to check at their forums. You can watch the progress thru the scripts by press ESC. Then you might get an idea where/why it hangs.
I'm still playing in Sidux live CD and there are several nice things... it got my screen resolution correct, I can open my USB thumb drives, mount and open hard disks as easily as with KNOPPIX. So many distros - so little time, the lament of a distro junky. :)
204 • Latest M$ invention? (by Beatnik on 2007-05-31 01:01:55 GMT from Panama)
Hey, check this out:
It is called Surface computer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlZxuqjJDgk
Here you have another interesting projects of other companies:
- http://www.perceptivepixel.com/
- Living Surface (from Vertigo systems)
- 3d Desktop in Bumptop
I think Linux should do something like this, some hardware box, powered by linux with many people thirsty of all the potential things you can do with it, maybe a new gaming console powered by Linux, just an idea. Exploding the market just like Apple did with their iPod.
There is one very interesting Phone project powered by Linux:
http://www.openmoko.org/
Now one question why nobody is investing in latest tech Hardware specially designed for and with Linux preinstalled. Like I said before maybe something like Mac (Hardware + Software integrated perfectly) with the consumer in mind exploding the entertainment market.
Where is Mr. Shuttleworth Ubuntu millionaire when linux needsof people like him?
205 • PCLinuxOS vs. Ubuntu Commercial Business Plan (by mr private on 2007-05-31 01:23:34 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu "community" in 2004 did the same thing as PCLinuxOS, talking up their distro and trying to get hits at the expense of then market leader Mandriva. Of course, it did help Ubuntu that Mr. Shuttleworth had tons of $$$'s to spend on paid Debian community converts to "seed" his "community", if you could call it that in the fall of 2004. To me, it was more like a stealth company. (Or was it 2005 when he started, I don't remember.) Texstar in comparison has nothing except happy users and unpaid volunteers. Now Mr. Shuttleworth has been successful in his business plan to monetize his Distrowatch rankings with paid support contracts sold thru Dell, and now he has a true community, although I believe that its size is exaggerated. Note well how almost the first post on Ideastorm included Ubuntu as the first (and only) distro to vote for. Who exactly did that posting and were they paid to do it, or was it an enthusiastic "fanboy"?
Ubuntu users bashing PCLinuxOS as being somehow different than the Ubuntu community in 2004/2005 is entirely unfair. By the way, I use a third party distro.
Remember that the appearance of momentum can create further momentum.
It is simply amazing how someone like Michael Dell can use unscientific Distrowatch page hits and an unscientific poll to decide corporate policy. There must be a better way to assess Linux marketshare.
This is how I see it.
Good luck Texstar and crew.
206 • Re: Filed to boot into graphic screen (by rm on 2007-05-31 02:47:33 GMT from United States)
@201
Try using one of the other boot options in the Live CD. For example, I believe the Vesa option should allow you to reach a login screen. Once you log in you can use Synaptic to install one of the proprietary drivers for your video card. Hopefully that will get you going.
207 • Dell Ubuntu (by Lahans on 2007-05-31 03:15:36 GMT from United States)
I just purchased my Dell Desktop today. I ordered the top-of-the line XPS with the top processor and extra ram. I should have it in a week or so. The price was good (because I did not have to pay for Windows crap and MS Office) and I'm looking forward to getting it. If anyone is bitching about the Dell deal, get a life and support the biggest break in recent linux history and open source software. I told the customer rep that she should let the management folks know that the reason I'm buying from them is because of their linux support. If they did not carry linux I would NEVER buy a Vista machine from them (whether she cares to tell anyone is unknown, but I feel better saying it!). Bravo Dell, keep up the good work. The rest of you linux fans, buy from Dell when you need a new computer.
208 • RE: # 205 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-05-31 06:02:32 GMT from Italy)
"Texstar in comparison has nothing except happy users and unpaid volunteers."
Exactly. That is the true, genuine open source *community* I love. I believe I will donate even if I decide not to use it.
209 • He 202 : Very finite and partial USB modem help. (by dbrion on 2007-05-31 06:40:43 GMT from France)
Beatnik,
"Now, my only problem with all distros is none of them recognizes my Zyxel Prestige 630-11 USB modem for my ADSL if you can help me I would thank you infinitely.
"
Have you tried Knoppixes (they are live CDs, hard to install(no big button), so wo not destroy you installed system and your work on it) or derived (Kaella, which was localized in French, can now speak German and american; perhaps Kurumin could be tried, too). Knoppixes have /had the best HW recognition => you can use them to see whether you have some hope, and then, if your HW is recognised by some linux CD, you either install the Knoppix(derived) (good luck: it is difficult, they are not ment for that) or choose your favorite linux and see if something has been done/can be done (there are forums, road maps, etc,etc).
BTW: the fact there are many linuxen is somewhat good, as some distrs think of exotic HW recognition(USB modems are a bad idea, anyway, as they eat a plug I could use : for me, it is a cause of IT boycott).
BTW in France, Kaella is used by pple who have illegal copies of Windows (this is somewhat amusing, as some counties want to promote Linux and *give* Kaellas to children - I am almost sure it is useless, though they have no defects- ) to browse and do some IT playing/cli-clicking. It is obvious :
* that it somewhat biases IT connection statistics
* that these pple want to do 'like the others' and use what is most popular => it is exactly the same way of "reasoning" that the DW hit page ranking attitude...
*that they do not install Linux, based on its popularity....
210 • Re: 209 Kaella in English? (by Beatnik on 2007-05-31 08:24:47 GMT from Panama)
Hey dbrion, thanks for your help.
This USB modem is what has me still using Windows XP for internet, there is no way to connect to internet using Linux. Really frustrating situation Linux without internet is no fun for me.
In the forums of the distros they tell me that I have to pay for an ethernet connection or point me to some driver in sourceforge.com very hard to install, because I am still newbie on linux.
Now, I want to make some suggerence for linux developers:
COULD YOU PLEASE MAKE MORE EASILY THE INSTALLATION PROCESS OF THOSE .TAR FILES or every other software (packages) for linux and not caring about if it is based on debian (deb, apt), or gentoo (portage), or rpm, etc...
On windows if you want to install some driver or .exe file you just have to make some clicking and there you have that software or driver easily installed. Why Linux is so complicated on this? Why do not create some universal installer file like the .exe UNIVERSALLY for every linux distro?
I went to Kaella web site, interesting project, but all is in french, and I do not understand much of this beautiful language; I really doubt there is another version of Kaella in other language (than french).
My natural and main language is spanish (no problem with english).
I think I will have to wait for Knoppix 5.2 to be released, or maybe try another distro based on it.
Hey I found on google this very occult page of distrowatch naming distros based on another distros. Really very interesting maybe needs some update:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=independence
(Hey Ladislav could you have it more easy to find this page? it is very informative)
By the way Ladislav lives on Taiwan, where my Zyxel Prestige 630-11 USB modem is made maybe I should write him to see if he can help me on this).
Thanks dbrion, and Ladislav
211 • RE 202 204 Million of free lines under Windows+ Linux boxes (by dbrion on 2007-05-31 08:31:12 GMT from France)
"Wow, if this is true, I would like to know like how many source lines of code does it have right now?, and how many billion $ it would cost today?
Maybe Microsoft is near"
Anyway, Windows users can be as near as they want.
See http://debian-cygwin.sourceforge.net/ and youll see there is some common sense (not Pavlovian reasoning) in the blessed Free World.
Normally, everything is provided for any useful GNU app to be Windows ported
"I think Linux should do something like this, some hardware box, powered by linuxr...
"
They still exist some, the big issue being with kernel numerology: as they change every 3 months (it is even considered as a sign of smartness by mindless linuxers!) no industrial would rely on linux to program HW (apart from the olpc, which is a prototype, and seems to have enough mem to be autonomous): specific free cross compilers are Windows(98 or XP) ported, and HW handling/simulation is stably managed by Windows. Things are evolving a little, but , though Linux was considered in the nineties as very convenient for hardware development, most of the developpement is done under Windows, sometimes with free softs... This avoids bankrupcy to industrials..
{ for the 2 partial exceptions I know, google search
armadeus / acmesystems fox board
Both can be used for plays, and must be cross developped. Armadeus is full Linux)...
=> it is likely that most Linux boxes , in the near future, will be easily developped/customized ... from Windows XP, with free and stable softs...
212 • RE 110 I really doubt there is ..of Kaella in other language (than french (by Anonymous on 2007-05-31 08:55:45 GMT from France)
http://mir.zyrianes.net/kaella/?M=A
is a link I use to download Kaellas (the 3.1 seems Englicised, there is a button with an English flag
else, it uses somewhat standard KDE pictograms and the fact that linux jargon is higly americanized / I could play in some extent with PUD linux using her drawing, though I do not know Chinese...)
Else, if everything is desparate, "download" is francised into "téléchargement"..
The less bad solution I found against the many (> 10: it wo not stop growing...) package management is the traditional one (I suppose Open Sorce was meant for that.....):
untar/unzip/uncpio (or convert SRC rpms to cpios) the free source, read (and try to understand)the instructions and often
configure ---- ---- && make && make check && make install
It is (considered as) silly, but often works under cygwin, Linux and Unixes...
213 • re #202 (by hab on 2007-05-31 14:06:39 GMT from Canada)
@beatnik
Here is maybe a quick and dirty solution if your underlying hardware is up to the task.
Download and install virtualbox for windozzzzzzzz.
Make a partition image of your linux install.
Import this into virtualbox.
Tweak windozzzzzzzzz to use minimal services yet run vbox and
network connectivity.
Run the vm (virtual machine) full screen and you wont even see windozzzzzzzz.
If and when there is linux support for your hardware you can get anything
from your vm over to your "real" machine.
cheers
214 • Sabayon; HPD rankings (by Anonymous on 2007-05-31 14:07:48 GMT from United States)
In post 169, GL said:
"Wow! That distro is dark and alien looking! A gamer's paradise!"
Sounds interesting. Think I'll take a look
*click*
Hey, wait a minute. That post was an obvious attempt to bump the HPD for that distro! Unfair!
That was just a little joking around, of course. In reality, I often do click on a distro's DW page after reading someone's comments on it. If a comment tells me something interesting I didn't know about, naturally I will go take a look. It doesn't mean I will use that distro.
I've been a Debian user for quite a while. I do not go to DW's Debian page because I do not need to. But my actions might bump Sabayon while not bumping Debian in the rankings. I see the HPD rankings as an interesting sidebar, not a true barometer.
215 • Fedora 7 is out! (by Anonymous on 2007-05-31 15:33:40 GMT from United States)
Just downloaded and tested the Live CD. I posted earlier about how Fedora 7 looked good (#41). The release is even better than the early test versions (not a surprise).
I'm going to install it and see what the package management looks like. If that's fixed, there will be very little reason for me to not make it my main desktop. Debian-based distros have always had great package management, we'll see if Fedora now fits into that category. The fonts and just the overall feel of Fedora always seem better than other distros, at least to me.
216 • Re: 214 • Sabayon; HPD rankings (by GL on 2007-05-31 21:20:47 GMT from United States)
"I see the HPD rankings as an interesting sidebar, not a true barometer."
You are absolutely right! I offered my comments after checking out the Sabayon web site, reading a couple of reviews, and looking at some screen shots - basically "window shopping." I'll never download or install the ISO.
DistroWatch helps you find what works for you. I'm finally sticking with PCLinuxOS and actually trying to get some work done here instead of "distroing" all day! To quote Winston Churchill: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
Actually, my new addiction is Linux-based CMS programs. I've got Mambo, Joomla and Drupal all running on Xampp. Oh, well. If its not one thing, it's always another....
217 • RE 215 (by KimTjik on 2007-06-01 11:42:36 GMT from Sweden)
Good to hear, but I don't have any CD media to burn it even though downloaded - 64bit version. Overburn isn't an option either since it by far exceeds 700MB. Actually I'm a bit disappointed to see how some distros make these unnecessarily huge images. If you choose one with KDE it's even 833MB.
So if I want the 64bit there's no other option than to download the full DVD version, which is a waste of resources. I've looked around and just found a couple of 800MB CD-R media options, but if you then compare prices between that and a DVD-R or DVD+R the difference in price is too slim to make any sense.
My personal view is: either you make a lighter Live-CD which fits on a standard 700MB CD-R, either make a bad-ass Live-DVD with all kinds of yummy-yummy.
Let’s see when I get the DVD since most ftp servers have reached their limits.
218 • Problems with Zyxel? (by Hooke on 2007-06-01 12:19:46 GMT from Spain)
"Now, my only problem with all distros is none of them recognizes my Zyxel Prestige 630-11 USB modem for my ADSL if you can help me I would thank you infinitely."
I have a Zyxel Prestige 650HW-33 and it worked with all distros I tried, IIRC.
Are you using dhcp or static configuration? try dhcp first.
You can ask in pclos forums if you are trying pclos. Surely someone will help :)
219 • Re: 212,213,218:Thanks Dbrion, Hab, Hooke (by Beatnik on 2007-06-01 13:22:26 GMT from Panama)
Thanks for helping me
I think I will try virtualization but first I have to read about it and Install Virtual Box.
And for Hooke, in spanish:
Es bueno poder escribir en mi idioma natural. Me preguntas si es dhcp o static, pero en verdad no sabria responderte en el instalador de Mandriva le pongo ADSL y en vez de reconocer el USB modem, me reconoce la tarjeta de red.
Existen algunos how-tos para instalar este Zyxel 630-11 USB modem, pero son bastante complicados para mi nivel de competencia en Linux, incluso requieren compilar el kernel, algo en lo cual no estoy familiarizado.
Creo que aparte de la virtualizacion, sólo me queda buscar alguien experto que me pueda instalar el driver para linux, o cambiarme a un proveedor de Ethernet.
I downloaded the last PC LinuxOS, but it gives me some KDE desktop crash at starting the desktop first time (NO desktop icon appears, including the install icon).
I will try at another PC. Anyway, I like it, Sabayon DVD is my favorite right now (I prefer DVD version over mini CD because this last one do not comes with open office and other softs preinstalled), my only problem with Sabayon is the package management system (portage and kororaa).
But if I solve the PCLinux crash, I will have 2 new favorites. Sam Linux is also good for me.
I want to try also Fedora 7 and OpenSuse 10.3
Thanks
220 • Re: 212,213,218:Thanks Dbrion, Hab, Hooke (by Hooke on 2007-06-01 13:54:00 GMT from Spain)
Beatnik,
Creo que no necesitas instalarle nada al router desde linux. Si te funciona en windows, ya queda configurado. Con el dhcp lo que hace el ordenador es pedir una dirección ip al router cada vez que intentas conectarte a internet, y el router se la da automáticamente. Así es más fácil.
Para configurar el dhcp en varias distribuciones, incluida Mandriva:
http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/basicconfig.shtml
En cuanto al problema con PCLinuxOS, posiblemente sea de la tarjeta gráfica. Qué tienes, una ATI Radeon?. Prueba de iniciar el liveCD con la opción "VideoSafeModeVesa". Si así funciona, es que tienes que configurar la tarjeta.
Un saludo,
221 • No subject (by davecs at 2007-06-01 14:53:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
Whether or not you intend to use PCLinuxOS in future, we would appreciate it if you log in at our forums www.pclinuxos.com and report your problem with a hardware description. If it's the LiveCD it could be as simple as a bad burn, or there may be some workaround for your particular hardware.
I say even if you don't intend to use PCLinuxOS, because we do like solving these problems, so that we can either change something in the OS, or if that's not possible publish a workaround on the site.
We need to know all about your hardware. We've had a lot of instances where the xorg-x11 nv driver doesn't support the odd nvidia card and you have to make do with fbdev until you get the proprietary nvidia driver installed. I don't read Spanish but I put 220 into Babel and yes, that's the correct advice for ATi. Once you get some sort of screen the guys at the forum will help you make it right.
222 • Comments 213 & 219 (by dbrion on 2007-06-01 14:56:24 GMT from France)
The idea of virtualization is brilliant, and the use of VirtualBox under Windows is very easy (good documentation, very intuitive) though I only use it in Cyber Cafés (never met tar and feather, though it is young). I prefer VMplayer under Windows (one has to guess how to configure, but it is very fast and intuitive) and Qemu (I did not -yet- find bugs in her last version, easy to install , to reproduce (CLI) , full GPL and quite fit for 32 bits; the doc is good, too).
One must be warned however against virtualisation if one wants to test nice 3D effects (it eats CPU, in the best case) or for speed (it is almost forbidden by VMplayer's EULA $3.x) and verify it works for 64 bits (poor Sabayon: I never could VMplay her with an old 768 M...).
An other solution, more classical, is to use one of those virtualizers/emulators as sand boxes:
if one needs some compiling, one can
* verify by following sourceforge's instructions 'it compiles and does not harm' the virtual OS (one cannot go much farther for HW recognition, methinks, and try to understand/have explained if anything went wrong)
* register the configuration options (sequence of command lines) (under Bash:
history >
file_to_be_kept_simplified_and_retested_and_then_exported)
* export the script, once one is satisfied, from the virtual machine (normally, an USB key plugging works ok with VMplayer)
* test the script on a real Linux, if one needs/wants (I did it for 3 Linuxen and one BSD for my favorite apps, and I keep the scripts till one of my laptops breaks....). => if one likes distro hopping, this can be, in the long term, somewhat useful, with adaptations, of course.
223 • Dellinux (by ihaveno on 2007-06-01 15:08:01 GMT from United States)
Dell's laptops w/ Linux are essentially the E1505 with the (better?) Intel wireless cards (as opposed to the default Broadcom ones) and the Intel Driver, with no choice (from what I saw) of adding a different, more powerful video card. I have to say you shouldn't be picky. Dell is in a way going out on a limb here by offering Linux, if the offers aren't to your liking yet then it's ok you can buy anything you want and install linux on it yourself. RELAX don't expect it to be perfect, they are testing the market, and just getting started. There is not obligation to get the Linux laptop. GO them for trying. Let's not be to picky, seriously. The only legitimate argument I know of is that they didn't make it very easy to find the Linux computers. However this is just proof that they are doing this to cater to the Linux crowd, not get Windows users to switch to linux. That is not Dell's job. Plus the last thing they need is for customers to not realize That Linux is NOT Windows and get the Ubuntu computers because they are cheaper and then call in angry that they can't find the start menu.
224 • @ 34 (by ihaveno on 2007-06-01 15:12:44 GMT from United States)
you realize that Ubuntu is also a one-man led distribution right?
225 • Bugs and Ubuntu (by Adam Williamson on 2007-06-01 17:26:27 GMT from Canada)
221: so, um, how's forum software as a bug tracking system working out for you? :)
224: Texstar is actually obviously the *lead developer* on PCLOS: he does a lot of the technical work and directs the others. There is no one person at Ubuntu with this role. Shuttleworth is not a packager.
226 • AUSTRUMI is the FASTEST OS in existance (by litepenguin on 2007-06-01 22:11:09 GMT from Canada)
So far i have tested / tried at least 100 OperatingSystems, which includes most major Linux and BSD distros listed here on DW, as well as various versions of MacOS, M$ Windoaz, dozens of other OpSystems, including OS/2 (which i loved) and ReactOS (which is a truly spectacular project still in-progress) and BeOS.
And based on all my testing and experiencing of ALL those Operating Systems over the years, i can definetely say that this new and obscure Linux distro AUSTRUMI ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrumi ) is the FASTEST OS i have ever tried out. It's even much, much faster than other competing lite distros, such as Damn Small Linux and PuppyLinux. The only exceptionally faster OS (i recall being faster) than AUSTRUMI is BeOS, which, unfortunately, has been discontinued.
Well, in order to be objective i have to mention that there exists even a much lighter and faster OS called TriangleOS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TriangleOS But unfortunately it's a closed-source, which is really a pity, because it has a very beautiful and user-friendly GUI (better than almost any Linux distros), along with most desktop and server apps -- DESPITE fitting on a single floppy disk ONLY! It's really worth checking it out. I sincerely hope Wim Cools, TriangleOS solo developer eventually open-source this extremly small, light and fast, yet beautiful and user-friendly OS, loaded with great computing apps,
Apple inc. almost bought BeOS in the mid 1990ies, but it changed its mind in the last minute and instead it bought NeXTSTEP, an inferior OS, which was a real tragedy for computing technology --- because had Apple bought BeOS, MacOS X today would have been a much lighter and faster OS than it is currently. As such, MacOS X would have been an inspiring example for increasingly bloating and resource-sucking Windoaz and Linux OpSystems. The tragic story and loss of BeOS makes a fascinating reading on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS
Anyway, now in AUSTRUMI distro we are, once again, happily excited to see a truly light and fast OS since the demise of BeOS. I hope coders in the World around tinker with it, derive even better distros out of it, or develop AUSTRUMI much further, creating a truly lite and fast, yet modern and beautiful OS that competes with Mac and Windoaz, besides competing with its sister Linux distros in the struggle for the heart and soul of desktop computing.
227 • Re:220 (by Anonymous on 2007-06-02 00:37:43 GMT from Panama)
Gracias Hooke,
Voy a probar lo que me dices, en verdad no comprendo bien lo del router, yo no estoy usando un router, sino mi ADSL viene directo a la cajita del Zexel 630-11 modem USB, entonces este modem lo conecto a la PC a traves de un puerto USB.
Y en relación al PCLinux, entré en modo "Video Safe Mode Vesa", pero sale el mismo mensaje:
"The process for the file Desktop died unexpectedly". Un mensaje que ya me ha salida anteriormente al usar Kubuntu Feisty.
228 • Re:221 (by Beatnik on 2007-06-02 00:50:01 GMT from Panama)
Thanks davecs:
No problem, I will post that little problem on PCLinux forums.
Believe me I like PCLinux, but I don´t know what to do with this little error message.
Well, maybe it is my old PC, or a bad burn, what software do you recommend to verify the burning?
I tried using the "Video Safe Mode Vesa", but I got the same message:
"The process for the file Desktop died unexpectedly" interesting Kubuntu Feisty also gives me that message at starting the desktop with no icons.
You asked for my hardware:
A Dell Dimension Desktop x86 intel processor from 1998, 450Mhz, 40Gb HD, 256 Mb RAM. It isn´t easy to find the model of my video card, I think it is an old nvidia.
Thanks
229 • Re:222 (by Beatnik on 2007-06-02 00:55:30 GMT from Panama)
Thanks dbrion,
I will try virtualization in a very near future.
But you are telling me to use Linux virtualized under Windows?
I was thinking about using Windows virtualized under Linux, or it isn´t possible to install that windows USB modem driver in a virtual windows under linux?
Thanks
230 • PCLinuxOS -- wrong at the very beginning (by truth machine on 2007-06-02 01:20:26 GMT from United States)
The very first thing I did when booting the PCLinuxOS CD is, well, the very firt thing anyone should do -- hit F1 to read the boot help. But guess what -- the boot help is completely and utterly wrong, apparently relating to some other distribution, but not this one. Such sloppiness and failure to do even the most basic QA does not instill confidence in the quality of the rest of the release.
231 • re #229 (by hab on 2007-06-02 01:28:10 GMT from Canada)
@beatnik
Run "real" windows and run linux in a virtual machine. The "real" os controls the hardware.
If you run "real" linux and virtualize windoze than linux controls the hardware and your modem is not supported.
BTW i did some googling and came to this link http://sourceforge.net/projects/zyxel630-11 which purports to be drivers supporting your modem.
Grab a look if you want.
cheers
232 • FEDORA 7 (by Anonymous on 2007-06-02 01:39:42 GMT from United States)
ahhhgggggg nice, very nice , but come on it is a nightmare to set up the wireless card NO ndiswraper, this guys at fedora are nuts, they need to step to the 21st century yes I know i can downloaded from the internet, but how if that is the only way i have to connect to the internet, and what about the dependencies?.
233 • Re #226 - 1. Austrumi the fastest? 2. Question for dbrion (by rglk on 2007-06-02 04:43:57 GMT from United States)
Well, it certainly was the fastest download ever for me for a complete Linux distro: 48 sec for the entire ISO (50 MB). 10 sec later I had it started in QEMU (running in Arch Linux), hoping to set a new record (e.g. <90 sec) for the time taken from the start of downloading a new distro ISO to having the distro booted into its Desktop. Alas, Austrumi in QEMU crashed with a kernel panic. Too bad. The same thing happened with the live CD's of Fedora 7 Gnome and KDE. They only crashed when run in QEMU, not when I actually booted the OS from the live CD after a machine restart.
Question for dbrion, our resident virtualization addict :-) : have you run into this too? Austrumi is based on Fedora, I believe, hence there is something fundamentally fishy with the early init sequence in Fedora. I haven't had this problem with any of the other dozen Linux live CD's that I've run in QEMU.
Robert
234 • Austrumi the fastest? (by rglk on 2007-06-02 06:16:19 GMT from United States)
48 sec to download the ISO, 75 sec to burn it to CD, 45 sec to boot the live CD to the Desktop. And it runs like greased lightning. This distro is phenomenal! I've repeatedly praised it here over the past two years, and it keeps getting better all the time. However, what astonishes me most is that exceptional talent on the part of the developer(s) [I think it's being developed by some academic(s) at the University of Vilnius] is paired with real amateurishness in some of the details of the distro.
E.g. even though they finally provided an option for English localization right at the boot screen, i.e. through entering "lang_en" at the boot prompt (in previous versions the distro started up all in Lattvian by default and you had to blindly poke through three levels of all-Lattvian language menus to divine the option for English localization - if you were lucky, that is), the localization is only partial: the keyboard still seems to be Lattvian only. I.e. try to type "it is" contracted, it comes out as itš.
But these minor flaws shouldn't detract from the massive virtues of this distro. If so much speed, functionality and good looks (I think they use a trimmed down Xorg X Window server rather than the crappy kvesa X server that some of the other slim distros have adopted) can be wrung out of a mere 50 MB, why then are the standard bloated Linux distros that come in a space of 700MB to 2 or 3 GB only two or three times and not 10 or 20 times as good or capable?
Hats off to these folks from Lattvia who made this slightly obscure distro that may well beat some of the much better known slim Linux distros.
Robert
235 • Re 233 Partial answer (by dbrion on 2007-06-02 09:04:15 GMT from France)
Hi Robert,
I could start Austrumi 2.4 under Virtual Box, from XP (as it is very intuitive, I can use it in cybercafes; as it seems reliable, I do not get tar_and_feathered.., as far as now). I could not measure times, due to antivirus scans... but it took less than 20 mn to dow+install Innotec Virtual Box, and have Austrumi started (with 100 M RAm; it broke with 60 (X did not start, the init messages seemed OK,then there was a randomly colored screen with a dead mouse)....
The former version of Austrumi worked good, too, with Virtual Box and VMplayer (both under Windows XP).
Virtual Box can be Linux installed, too (I discovered with MCN live in February 2007) and I think one can trace her settings (this is an issue of intuitive softs).
I will try her with qemu this afternoon, but I must upgrade my qemu0.8 -> 0.9 on Linux...
BTW thanks for the hint you gave in March or April to have an American speaking former version of Austrumi: I could discover she could be remastered, and the resulting iso could be qemulated from within an inside Austrumi qemu...
236 • Re #233 & #234 -- AUSTRUMI the fastest? (by litepenguin on 2007-06-02 09:16:35 GMT from Canada)
Hey Robert ;-)
I truly appreciate and enjoyed reading your experience using AUSTRUMI here on DW. Unfortunately i'm not coder like you, or like most folks, who surfs DW regularly. Therefore i believe your sharing of your experinces with us trying a distro isn't only appreciated, but it's also very beneficial in developing truly authentic, super lite and super fast distros like AUSTRUMI.
You see, unlike you, a poor, non-coding Linux user like me can only comment so much on a distro, as i (for the most part) don't really know what lies under a distro's shell or GUI.
On the other hand, I strongly hope that Ladislav will try to secure an interview with one of AUSTRUMI developers for DW Weekly in near future, thus enlightening us a bit more about this almost-mysterios distro.
Similarly, i hope more people like you (and dbrion) share their observations using AUSTRUMI (or any other similar distros for that matter) here on DW. Likewise, i hope you would try to send a personal email to AUSTRUMI developers detailing your technical observations about AUSTRUMI and any suggestions you may have for improving the distro.
I personally sent them such a personal suggestion earlier today......., and plus i (within the same message) informed them about my AUSTRUMI comment here on DW (posting#226). But most importantly i thanked them for their efforts in creating a truly original and great distro like AUSTRUMI,
237 • No subject (by dbrion on 2007-06-02 09:22:05 GMT from France)
"But you are telling me to use Linux virtualized under Windows?
I was thinking about using Windows virtualized under Linux, or it isn´t possible to install that windows USB modem driver in a virtual windows under linux?
"
hab is right:
if one has hardware problems with Linux, and cannt/have no time to solve them, Windows, which has less hardware problems, must be the system on wich the emulator runs: Windows-> Emulator(qemu, Vbox,VMplayer,...) -> Virtual System (Linux, BSD, Win 98). The hardware keeps being recognised by Windows, and the emulator "steals" the HW from Windows to give it to Linux, in a rather standard way (it simulates old hardware...).
Sorry for the over simple explanation...
If one just wants to test some complicated
installation/compilation chain, without hardware problems, the nature of [ the OS the emulator runs (host OS) under ] is arbitrary.
The ressource greediness increases (it sums to both systems /desktops RAM needs, plus the emulator needs, which can be neglected).
238 • Linux mp3 player: Wizpy (by Beatnik on 2007-06-02 11:22:20 GMT from Panama)
Hey, remember what I wrote on post 204?
Well Turbolinux from Japan are selling the Linux mp3 player:
quote from
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/11/turbolinux-wizpy-mp3-player-and-linux-to-boot.php
"It's not often when "This is a first" can be said with a straight face in the DAP world. But the upcoming 4GB Turbolinux Wizpy really is a first. It's certainly not the 1.7-inch OLED display, FM radio, or DivX support that makes the device unique. And we barely blink an eye these days when another new player can play MP3, Ogg, WMA, and AAC formats. Yawn!
The stand-out feature of the Wizpy comes in the form of what's preloaded on 1.5GB of the player's internal flash memory . . . (wait for it) . . . Linux. Turbolinux FUJI, to be exact. And what good is bootable Linux without a sampling of what are arguably the best applications around? Yep, in addition to the plug-and-play OS, the Wizpy also comes preinstalled with Firefox, Thunderbird, and Skype. All this in a 3.3" x 1.7" x 0.5" device that weighs a mere 2.1 ounces.
The Turbolinux Wizpy will sell for about $250 when it hits Japan in February. "
239 • Turbolinux Wizpy (by Beatnik on 2007-06-02 11:34:15 GMT from Panama)
Their website in english (if you like me do not understand japanese):
http://www.turbolinux.com/
Well, I think all this hardware products, PCs with Linux preinstalled, mp3 players, Handhelds and phones, and entertainment devices will have a positive impact on Linux.
Even there are projects that have been succesful installing Linux in Playstation and Xbox.
I hope that in a near future we all could have the option to have a Linux hardware+software alternative to every device.
240 • RE 234 & cor 235 : Austrumi 1.5can be qemulated under qemu 1.9 (by dbrion on 2007-06-02 15:07:54 GMT from France)
and 1.8.1, though this one is somewhat uncomfortable (shaky).
First, I am very sorry for the numbers of Austrumi in post 234 => i tested both (1.4 and 1.5, after posting) under VirtualBox, without starting bugs (I hate version numbering, realistic dates would be better).
Second, I have a Mandriva 2006 (upgraded from 2005Le + pieces of Suze + compilations of mine) and a qemu 1.8.1; All the qemus I refer to are unaccelerated (thus slow, but without additional soft (errors) layers), and without GUI, for recording.....
Bugs were linked to memory starvation at the beginning... => perhaps your issue is with another version of qemu or with the accelerator?
I fear qemu needs much RAM to start, which is then freed (at least in a diskless configuration). After starting, I had 22 M occupied (from top), which leaves some room to gimping big pictures, etc, etc....
The qemu which is shipped with Austrumi is 1.9.0, like mine (it is the most recent; I did not try to start her, as cascading emulators might be very, very slow...)...
The Latvian wallpaper was a flat forested landscape, the Italian one some hills with a round pound, the US Astrumi wallpaper was grey...
Here are the most relevant command lines I used (unmodified, except for comments):
1010 qemu # to get the options and the version; it was 1.8.1
# and worked ok with the default -192M- RAM
1011 qemu -cdrom /mnt/removable3/austrumi-1.5.0.iso -boot d
#
# mounted a HD and shuffled the USB disk to have a newer Qemu (this way, I protect -what remains of- the original distribution....=> breaks in irrelevant history lines)
1012 drakconf
1013 export PATH=/mnt/removable3/QEMU/bin:$PATH
# First trial crashed (dark screen, dead mouse) after X starting (no RAM enough?)
1018 qemu -cdrom /mnt/removable9/austrumi-1.5.0.iso -boot d -m 68 &
# Second trial was very comfortable (gave 168 M RAM)
1019 qemu -cdrom /mnt/removable9/austrumi-1.5.0.iso -boot d -m 168 &
# Third trial remained OK, with 88 M RAM (=> 96 M might be comfortable), but giving austrumi a French keybord map did not work.....
1020 qemu -cdrom /mnt/removable9/austrumi-1.5.0.iso -boot d -m 88 -k fr &
1021 history > /mnt/removable11/qemu_austrumi.txt # saving history on an USB disk
241 • PCLinuxos tr4 + 93-a (by pop_a_Top on 2007-06-02 16:20:22 GMT from United States)
I've had a bad time with this distro trying to get on the internet from a :LIVE" CD. I did get some help from their fourms , no luck! I was told it could be my router, yester day I called Comast [cable] , with their help I pulled the router + the tect reset all my internet setting, which I copy down. On my other HD I 've got Mepis 6.5 , I go into Mepis interent setting to compair . Their the same setting as XP. I tried inputing these same setting in PCLinux and it will not connect to internet!! I see there are posting in their fourms about this same Issue! I do hope they take note of this-WORK on THE INSTALLER. Please. I 'd like to try it!
242 • Re 227 (by Anonymous on 2007-06-02 16:26:30 GMT from Spain)
Beatnik,
Perdón, con lo del modem te estaba despistando más que ayudando. Con un router, como tengo yo, es mucho más fácil conectar que con un modem, ya que el router funciona él solito y no necesita drivers, De hecho, sigue funcionando aunque apagues el ordenador, y te permite conectar varios ordenadores a internet, enchufándolos mediante cable ethernet al router.
Encontré este mensaje, con tu mismo problema, en los foros de PCLOS, pero es de septiembre del 2006, así que vale la pena preguntar otra vez:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=10242.0
En cuanto al problema que tienes con el live-cd, se me ocurren dos posibles causas: O el cd tiene defectos (por ejemplo, el programa de grabación lo grabó mal) o quizá la RAM sea tan baja que no te deja arrancar el KDE. Prueba a darle a "Memtest" a ver si la RAM está bien, y a MediaCheck para un análisis más completo. Apunta los resultados.
http://docs.mypclinuxos.com/PCLinuxOSLiveCD94
243 • Re#240, and AUSTRUMI vs 550+ distros!! (by litepenguin on 2007-06-02 20:15:58 GMT from Canada)
Bonjour dbrion :)
Pleaese keep continue sharing your thoughts and experinces using AUSTRUMI with us, as this is highly appreciated by people like me, who aren't coders, thus learn more about this mysteriously spectacular distro through reading what passionate coders like you and Robert (a.k.a. rglk , post#234) write about it here on DW.
Most importantly, i believe by often posting something about AUSTRUMI, it will generate more user interest learning about this undeniably lightest and fastest distro to this date. And this, in return, may encourage the distro's blessed Latvian developers to keep coding and improving the distro all the time.
Similarly, wrting about AUSTRUMI as often as possible here on DW, as well as on other Linux forums, may eventually lift this unique distro from obscurity into mainstream distros' arena, therefore motivate its derivatives being developed by some good developers, after regular online encounters reading something positive about this unrivaling distro.
Meanwhile, i challenge anybody out there, who can point out another distro (lite or otherwise) rivaling AUSTRUMI when it comes to speed without comprimising system resouces like a hog.
I look forward to enjoy reading your opinions and contributions about this ultimately great challange in an increasingly slow and bloating Linux distros (550+)' environment, where they're about to outpass Windows in every negative way you can think of.
244 • Re: 241 (by davecs on 2007-06-02 20:24:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
Can you link me to your post at the forum?
245 • Re #240 - Running Austrumi under QEMU (by rglk on 2007-06-02 21:56:37 GMT from United States)
dbrion,
Thanks for running your tests on qemulating the new Austrumi 1.5.0 in Mandriva. Obviously it's working for you. I've been trying to run Austrumi 1.5.0 and other Linux live CD ISO's in qemu 0.9.0 (that's the most recent version) plus the kqemu accelerator module, with Arch Linux (kernel 2.6.18 SMP, 1 GB RAM) as the host OS. The live CD ISO images are all located on an external USB hard disk drive. Here's the command I've been using:
$ qemu -cdrom /mnt/sdb2/home/robert/distroname.iso -hda linux.img -m 256 -boot d -kernel-kqemu
Under these conditions, the following distros run without a hitch (and they run fast):
PCLinuxOS 2007, LinuxMint 2.2, LinuxMint 3.0, MCNLive-Delft, DesktopBSD-1.6RC2-i386, FreeSBIE-2.0.1-RELEASE, INSERT-1.3.9b-en.
The following distros have given me trouble (I've indicated the nature of the trouble in parentheses):
Austrumi-1.5.0 (boot process freezes with kernel panic a few seconds after start, with the same messages as Fedora)
Fedora-7-Live-i686 (i.e. Gnome) (boot process freezes with kernel panic a few seconds after start, final message: "spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7")
Fedora-7-KDE-Live-i686 (same behavior as the Fedora 7 Gnome live CD)
MCNLive-Toronto (boot process freezes after a few seconds with screen showing random pattern of gray and white and some color)
All four of these problematic distros run just fine when I boot them directly from their live CD's.
I'd really like to figure out why Austrumi fails to run in qemu. This is a terrific little distro that would be just great to run in an emulator alongside my main Linux work horse (Arch Linux).
It would be better still if one could put Austrumi along with the Windows version of qemu on a flash memory drive, using the procedure detailed at http://www.pendrivelinux.com/category/virtual-machine/ for Slax (which is another Slackware derivative).
I've followed the procedure detailed there for Ubuntu to put LinuxMint 2.2 on a 2 GB flash memory stick along with qemu + kqemu, all running in a FAT32 filesystem. I can stick this thumbdrive into any machine that's running Windows and then run LinuxMint within Windows without having to boot out of Windows. In fact, I can switch back and forth between the two OS's and even transfer files between them. It would be great if one were able to do that with Austrumi, too, so that you can switch to running a nice, fast Linux when you're sick of running Windows but circumstances prohibit exiting it.
Robert
246 • USB Pen Drive rescue systems (by davecs on 2007-06-02 22:18:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've got a couple of 32Mb pen drives and a 128Mb. As larger capacity drives for shunting files about are getting cheaper, I'd like to use one of these for a bootable Linux rescue system. Minimum requirements are partimage and maybe a minimal gui running gparted or a curses-based equivalent.
What are other people's experiences of this type of distro and what do you recommend?
247 • reply to # 244 (by pop_a_top or lost child on 2007-06-02 23:21:45 GMT from United States)
My 1st post was on 4-5-07 under "Net Working"/ cant connect to Internet.I remember a couple PPL trying to help, no luck .I tried your user guide "Appendix 2" = Setting up a Internet Connection. Still no luck ! I ask around some said it may be router related, next removed router, no differents! I've tried using the "cable" set up + I tried the "ethernet" set up . I did note that Mepics shows a eth1 not a eth0, but it works . So, you can see I wasnt just bashing PCLinux for NO reason.
248 • #246 usb pen drive (by hab on 2007-06-03 00:20:10 GMT from Canada)
@davecs
My wish list in this regard will be full filled when min. 8G pen drives hit the 20$ ca. price point.
Then i can put a 4G root partition, 1/2G swap and the rest for a home patition, on it. PCLinuxOS if at all possible. Walk up to any box that boot usb
and have your entire enviroment right there.
Imagine as bigger drives become cheaply available. At 128G were talking potentially packing your whole digital life around on a device smaller than a frickin' stick of gum. Whoot!
And people ask me why i don't like voleware and charge 35$ /hr. to aggravate
myself with that crippled, incapable, incapacitaded dreck.
cheers
249 • Re #245 - Running Austrumi under QEMU (by rglk on 2007-06-03 01:08:50 GMT from United States)
Problem solved: the culprit is the accelerator kernel module. When I remove '-kernel-kqemu' from the qemu command Austrumi and the two Fedora images boot and run fine in qemu. They just run a bit on the slow side. MCNLive-Toronto still hangs at boot time.
Robert
250 • usb pen drives (by hab on 2007-06-03 01:42:57 GMT from Canada)
Just sitting here watching the hockey game and partaking of recreational substances and got to reflecting on usb drives and pcs and and austrumi
(you have piqued my curiosity, gonna d/l it and run it in vbox or qemu) and storage and such.
Imagine a current level pc core duo/2G/512Gvid/lan/wifi/usb/firewire/serial/
parallel whatever i/o ports but no storage. No floppy/cd/dvd/harddrive.
Just lots of usb ports. Basically a thin client. Everyone who uses it boots from their own usb key. Need to burn a disk, plug in a burner. Has some rather significant security implications, both pro and con i think. Would
make a tidy little box.
Ideas anyone?
251 • Re #246 - Linux rescue systems on USB thumbdrives (by rglk on 2007-06-03 04:24:09 GMT from United States)
I've found the following to be the most useful compact Linux rescue tools. They can be burned to live CD's and installed on USB flash memory drives as well. The website http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ gives advice on how to do the latter.
1. PartedMagic v.1.7 (31 MB)
This may be the tool most suitable to your purposes. Developed by the originator of the GParted live CD (which to my mind is the best Linux partitioning tool). As of v.0.3.4, the GParted live CD is being developed by someone else. PartedMagic looks like a continuation of the development of the original GParted live CD. It's excellent. Good docs, too.
2. GParted v.0.3.4 (45 MB)
See above
3. RIPLinuX v.2.9 (71 MB)
Includes GParted, partimage etc. plus a lot of other stuff. Very nice specialty distro.
4. SystemRescueCD v.0.3.5 (116 MB)
Based on Gentoo. Good looking, fast and full featured.
5. INSERT v.1.3.9b (60 MB)
Based on Knoppix v.5.1.1. Has a ton of handy system diagnostic and rescue software.
6. UltimateBootCD v.4.1.1 (115 MB)
All of these are excellent Linux system and rescue tools. You might as well get them all.
Robert
252 • Virtual Linux - Distrowatch holding information - key to converting windows user (by Bill Savoie on 2007-06-03 08:38:10 GMT from United States)
Distrowatch is a wonderful website just as it is, but post #245 points to new Linux technology, running in layers of Linux. This is fun stuff. It would be nice if this technology could be linked into Distrowatch in some way. Imagine people who find their way out of windows. First they learn direct running Linux and then they hear about virtual running Linux. It is so easy to learn if we have the information. Robert is in a good place to give it to us. Robert, you have a lot of work done, it would be nice if it could become part of the underlying Distrowatch links! So it could be found by anyone, not just the faithful readers. Love the work you guys do. Many Thanks!!
253 • Re: 249 Running Austrumi under QEMU (by Chris on 2007-06-03 10:03:06 GMT from Netherlands)
@Robert.
The issue with MCNLive Toronto under qemu is a different problem. Nothing wrong with your qemu version.
It is /was the syslinux/isolinux package with the new vesamenu. An update to syslinux 3.56 solves it. Thanks for reporting.
--chris
254 • Qu 248 USB on pen drive? RE 243 ; qemu... (by dbrion on 2007-06-03 13:18:56 GMT from France)
hab:
Are you sure putting a swap file on flash disks is a good idea? (unless I mistranslated pen drive)? I qemulate images or installed systems (or VM pklay from Windows) from USB disks, where repeated writes are less dangerous.
partial answ to your post 250 :
I can do (at least simulate it) it, on a laptop (not enough inner disk) under Windows (by VMplaying, I try to migrate to [ GPL ]qemu when I have time) and Linux (qemu) with USB disks (ie :an USB to ATA| SATA adapter, plus an ordinary HD=> I think I have 1 To to day -I give disks to colleagues for archieving...-) The main issue is that it is less reliable than an inner disk (cascading) .
These external disks can be formatted by Mandrivas diskdrake(It should work with PCLOS, too) I have 1/3 VFAT (for Linux and Windows), 1/3 NTFS and 1/3 ext3 (big images/installed virtual systems).
Another issue is that , one day/year, these disks will be taxed, if our political (wo)men understand something in basic informatics... (that is why I bought many disks and adapters and not a new laptop...)
Roger,
I qemulated from Linux , without accelerator (this makes things slow, but at least I can understand...)
ADIOS Linux (it is the same family as Fedora) (the IDE live CDs, for developpers: they ship also as live CDs one ADIOS for engineers -I tested with peasure-, one for businessmen and one for their kids)=> I had no problem,
and could have GUIs started and read help files (it seems very java-oriented).
MCN-Toronto (started with 300M RAM, frommemory) and Scientific Linux (started with 200 M).. Both could start and give me menus...
BTW there is also an accelerator in qemu under Windows, but it is an alpha version: seems to work sometimes.. (I have scripts and I remove the accelerator if it does not work)=> I prefer using VMplayer when speed is a concern (testing compiling chains when/if I 'll buy a new PC: Austrumi, DSL, Toronto and SL are not meant for compiling - no gcc...-).
Thanks for 251 (Rescue CDs / USB thumbs will be someday useful for me, and are generally speaking very useful)
255 • Toronto : cor 254; very partial answ to 245 (by dbrion on 2007-06-03 14:42:48 GMT from France)
Roger,
Toronto live CD could be qemulated as an *.iso, but, at the very beginning, the screen was random black and white patches and lines: to understand what happened?, I hit and till it seemed more living...=> I got a wall paper with water (a lake?) and sky scrapers (Toronto?) + menus; there was top, which could be started from menus + typing, but no gcc.... => I decided it worked....
BTW qemus accelerator on Linux is a preversion, methinks (from her change log)...
256 • Re:242 Gracias (by Beatnik on 2007-06-03 15:05:49 GMT from Panama)
No hay problema amigo,
Estoy seguro que se puede resolver este problema, ya existe el driver, el link que me das ya lo conocía, el problema es que no me es fácil el proceso de instalarlo, ojalá fuera tan simple como instalar un archivo .exe.
De todos modos Gracias y Saludos
257 • cor 255 i hit -> i hit escape and carriage return (by Anonymous on 2007-06-03 15:10:28 GMT from France)
.....inf and sup symbols were eaten, with the field inside...
258 • Hey Ladislav what about having a FORUM in Distrowatch? (by Beatnik on 2007-06-03 15:15:50 GMT from Panama)
Ladislav, don´t you think with all the comments and knowledge written here by pros and newbies would be good to have a searchable forum, with questions and comments arranged in topics?
Wow, this could be something like an encyclopedia of distros and linux.!
259 • re#254 usb swap (by hab on 2007-06-03 17:22:12 GMT from Canada)
@dbrion
I honestly do not know much about swap partitions on flash drives but i have been futzing around with them a bit.
I have a 128 and 256m drives and have already booted gparted 3.3 from both of them. Very slick and quick. I tried the 256m kensington datatraveller as a swap partition for about a week with no apparent ill effects.
I believe that with machines with 1g and up of ram really don't use swap that much under typical home/office circumstances. My own box p4/2g 1g(since, 1.5g) ram didn't use swap much at all and actually ran the box without swap with no effect that i noticed.
This is my experience YMMV.
hab
260 • usb key/pen/flash drives (by hab on 2007-06-03 18:35:13 GMT from Canada)
Went back and reread rglk's musings in #251 and i have earlier versions of most of the tools he mentioned burned to disk. it got me thinking about an ultimate rescue drive.
Ok, take a say 4 g drive, set it up with a boot menuing system and appropriate tools/software and iso images of the images in #251.
Plug the key in, boot from it, it presents a menu with a selection for each of the images installed. Select the one you want to run and the iso image gets mounted and boots.
With a large flash drive you could pack around live/install isos for a dozen or more full blown distros. Like say the top dozen on distrowatch. And not just linux images but any of the other free oses... freedos, reactos, bsds etc.
Could make for some interesting scenarios.
cheers
261 • So many good distros... (by Caraibes on 2007-06-03 21:19:57 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I am very impressed by all those very nice new releases !!!
I test most as live-cd's... They all seem really up to the job !
The new hype ones are good (PCLOS, Mint, Mepis, *Buntu)
The classics are great (Fedora, Debian)
Good job to you all, the devs, & others helping out !
I haven't upgraded my FC6 box yet, but I was toying around the idea to switch it to Debian... Most my other boxes are already running Etch... If I am not happy with it, I'll go for F7... I guess I'll just back up all my stuff and play with those installs whenever I have time next week...
As of my older laptop, a nice and clean fresh install of Xubuntu Dapper with Fluxbox made it like new again... Because of that old RTL8180 wireless chipset, only Dapper makes it work...
Anyway, I am just very happy with the FLOSS community, it's a positive job !
262 • USB flash as swap (by Fractalguy on 2007-06-03 22:00:35 GMT from United States)
You know, swap can be turned on and off, but not on if there is none. It may be that you need some time for a little while. But otherwise, off to save the flash writes. Now I read that it is not good to have swap on flash because of early failure. But then I read flash is good for like 100000 writes easily, on any one portion. Well, that would map to fairly long use as a walk around Linux or rescue Linux. So I'd say, set up swap and turn it off as default. Here are commands I use to turn it on for a live CD when it is not on by default. This is for Mint on my box, labels of drives varies, so use fdisk to list the swap drive location.
$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda
then if swap is located on dev/hda5 (example), then
$ sudo swapon /dev/hda5
I'm almost finishing 3 days in Mint 3.0 LiveCD, 1GB ram, 2GB swap and I'm running up on 600MB used in swap. I'm doing editing with OOo, Firefox surfing, music, installed a few programs like kompozer and GNOME games. Sure, a quickie with a light distro won't use swap, but heavier use can use a lot. Like using any image editing or other media. If you have no swap and run out of RAM, you are dead. But with top watching memory use and some swap for "in case", you'll be better off, IMO.
BTW, before this run with Mint, I did a few days with sidux. It is pretty nice too, nice to have that Debian repo. LOL, can't wait for Mint 3.0 KDE. In the mean time, I'll be checking on austrumi, Mandriva One (GNOME and KDE).
263 • re:251 -- Thanks Robert (by davecs on 2007-06-03 23:12:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've cut and pasted your reply into a text file on my computer. I'll be trying it out in the coming week!
264 • Linux on flash memory drives (by rglk on 2007-06-04 00:05:37 GMT from United States)
The current generation of inexpensive NAND flash memory "drives" (around $15/GB) is really only suitable for Linux distros with live file systems that cannot be written to, i.e. the types of file systems that are used on Linux live CD's .
If a Linux distro were to be installed on a flash memory drive in exactly the same way as it is installed on a hard disk drive (this can be done, you could indeed set up root, home and swap partitions on the thumbdrive, treating it exactly as a HDD), the drive would be probably be dead in no time.
Why is that? Every time the OS writes to the flash drive, even if the erase/write operation targets only a few sectors, an entire cell of memory which encompasses quite a few sectors has to be flashed. And every memory cell can only be flashed a limited number of times before it begins to fail.
Flash memory manufacturers try to get around this memory fatigue limitation by shuffling logical sectors around the available flash memory cells so that frequently written to logical sectors aren't always placed in the same physical cell but rather are spread out and randomized over all of the available memory cells ("wear levelling"). The algorithms and firmware used for doing this are highly proprietary and account for some of the differences between good (long-lasting) and bad (dead in no time) brands of flash memory.
If I were to install Linux on a flash memory drive exactly as though it were a HDD (i.e. using a standard HDD install) and run Linux off that drive, the drive would probably fail in a rather short length of time. I have no idea how quickly it would die and wouldn't want to test it. A very wild guess would be perhaps a few months or less, if one uses Linux intensively for many hours every day, doing common kinds of tasks.
The live file system that makers of Linux distros that are flash drive installable put on these drives is never written to; it behaves in the same way as the file system on live CD's. All writes are done to a virtual disk in RAM memory. If the OS needs to be modified, e.g. by installing additional software modules, or if one wants to permanently store and read out OS customizations with every boot cycle or have a home directory for storing personal files, all of that is done in areas of memory located outside of the live file system and preferably loaded into RAM memory to avoid stressing the flash memory with excessive writes.
E.g. the OS bookkeeping associated with merely editing a small text file with repeated saves can involve thousands of write operations to the same logical sectors. A magnetic platter HDD can take this easily but NAND flash memory can't. Good USB thumbdrive installable distros (e.g. Knoppix, Slax and its derivatives, MCNLive, etc.) take all of this into account, and your thumbdrive will probably last a long time when you run these distros off such a drive.
On a side note, Negroponte's One Laptop per Child machine doesn't use a HDD, it comes with flash memory only. I don't know what kind of flash memory they use. Also, high capacity (>100 GB) flash memory drives are coming on the market now (e.g. from Toshiba, I believe) that may eventually replace magnetic HDD with moving parts in laptops. Again, I don't know what kind of flash memory technology these new laptop solid state drives use.
@hab
If you want to run a full fledged Linux distro off external memory with maximum flexibilty, I'd recommend a miniature external USB HDD. I quite like the Western Digital line of Passport drives that use 2.5 in. magnetic HDD and are powered off the USB bus. The highest capacity WD Passport drive currently available is 160 GB. It utilizes the new perpendicular recording technology. It's hardly bigger than a cigarette pack, weighs only around 100g and can be had for around $120 now.
I've put multiple partitions with FAT32, reiser3 and ext3 file systems on one of these 160 GB Passport drives with half a dozen different Linux distros on them any one of which I can boot into via a GRUB boot menu.
This drive can be carried around and plugged into any PC or laptop (provided it can deliver sufficient power via its USB bus - a few machines fail), and you can run all of these Linux distros on that host machine, as long as its BIOS supports booting from an external USB HDD and the machine hardware is adequately supported by the Linux distros on the mobile drive.
Robert
265 • Re #255 MCNLive-Toronto works in QEMU (by rglk on 2007-06-04 03:01:07 GMT from United States)
@dbrion
Thanks for inspiring me to give MCNLive-Toronto another try in qemu. You said that at the point in the boot sequence at which the OS hung with a nondescript low-res graphics screen, you hit ... (well, you forgot to spell out what you hit :-) ). I hit the ENTER key and that unfroze the boot process which then proceeded on to the Desktop.
MCNLive-Toronto without the accelerator ran very slowly in qemu, as most distros do. But even with the kqemu accelerator (which brings the other distros I've tested almost up to normal speed) MCNLive-Toronto still was rather sluggish, and even more so when I enabled Metisse.
Robert
266 • RE 264 Issues with WD_Passport (by dbrion on 2007-06-04 07:12:24 GMT from France)
There are two issues:
* it is not with external power supply; one must add a HUB + supply (or a mains-> 5V = supply) to operate 2 WD_Passports in parallel, on laptops. The HUB cascading lowers then reliability..
* it seems very robust, at it is covered with rubber, at least for early releases 40 & 80G) (so its very beautiful)=> it gets then handled with less care and I broke the inner disk on one out of 3 (not the interface electronics i could reuse: I wish it would have been the opposite).
=> I prefer using universal (S)ATA to USB adapters, and buy new disks(2.5" or 3.5") separately: these adapters are shipped with a power supply and can be used for data rescue, too....
RE 265 : I never use emulators to test 3D effects (they emulate, I suppose with a lot of the host's CPU, old graphic cards)... The way I unfroze Toronto was eaten, as I used the inferior or superior cars to enlighten what I tried, by the wild Internet...
Number of Comments: 266
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| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Tilix Linux was a complete, user-friendly distribution and live CD for Bulgarian-speaking users, based on Kubuntu. It was an easy-to-use operating system - hardware recognition was automatic and the distribution can be installed to a hard drive with just a few mouse clicks.
Status: Discontinued
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