 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 219, 10 September 2007 |
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Welcome to this year's 37th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Enthusiasm for Linux and open source software is clearly growing; with last week's announcements about Lenovo's preferred Linux distro poll and AMD's opening up its ATI video drivers, things have never looked this exciting on the Linux-supporting hardware front! But some questions remain: do we really want every major PC manufacturer to support Ubuntu only? And will other distributions be able to catch with the increasing dominance of Canonical's operating system? Read more in our editorial. In the news section, openSUSE shows faith in KDE 4.0, Puppy Linux launches a major upgrade, and StartCom announces a new release of its workstation for audio enthusiasts. Finally, if you live in or near Toronto, don't miss the upcoming Linux conference called Ontario Linux Fest. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (6.5MB) and mp3 (6.2MB) formats (many thanks to Jim Putman)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Editorial |
Ubuntu on ThinkPads?
 Will Linux pre-installed on desktop and laptop computers finally become a reality? Following Dell's successful launch of Linux computers in several countries, it seems that Lenovo, the world's third largest computer manufacturer, is the next company that contemplates selling Linux notebooks. Mark Kohut, Lenovo's worldwide competitive analyst, explains the reasoning on the company's official blog:
"We're spending way too much time on the enterprise market and not enough on the enthusiast market. Enterprises have been, and will continue to be, slow to adopt Linux for some of the reasons I outlined, but there are nonetheless a LOT of people running Linux out there, especially on their ThinkPads."
Kohut continues his line of thought in a later paragraph:
"We're not anti-Linux and I'm not anti-Linux. Like other vendors we're trying to figure out what our strategy should be. You all know that I can never comment on anything unannounced, so I took an extreme stance to stimulate discussion."
Attached to the blog entry is a poll asking readers what Linux distribution they would most like to see supported on a ThinkPad? The choices offered are comprehensive (and extensible), ranging from many user-friendly Linux distributions, including PCLinuxOS and Linux Mint to the more difficult ones, represented by Slackware and Gentoo, and even some non-Linux operating systems, such as FreeBSD or OpenSolaris. The results of the poll are rather predictable; those of you who don't like Ubuntu will be shocked to learn that, at the time of writing, just over half of the 17,000+ voters have chosen Canonical's flagship product, while Debian GNU/Linux (11.2%) and Fedora (5.3%) are distant second and third.
This is the second time that a Linux distro poll was conducted on a hardware manufacturer's web site and the second time that Ubuntu is walking away with most of the votes - by a substantial margin. Now, those of you who read DistroWatch Weekly regularly might remember a discussion we had in a recent issue. There, answering a question about the popularity of Linux distributions, we quoted Fedora project leader Max Spevack as saying the following:
"You know, I don't like the competition to see who has loudest fanboys. I have wanted to make Fedora cool, to make it work and make it good. This aligns with Red Hat's larger marketing belief that we're just going to make this software and eventually people will notice it's the best out there on merit. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about where we rank on DistroWatch or whatever."
You have probably guessed where I am heading with this. Yes, Spevack is right - if doesn't matter which position Fedora occupies in DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking or any of the distro polls regularly conducted by Linux web sites. However, when a similar survey is carried out by a major hardware manufacturer, it does suddenly matter. A lot. Because Dell is now selling computers and laptops pre-installed with Ubuntu, not Fedora. And if the Lenovo poll continues in the same manner as it has so far, ThinkPads booting into Ubuntu, and not Fedora, might soon be available from the computer stores near you. If that does not make Spevack at least mildly jealous, then I don't know what does.
But is the fact that Ubuntu has the "loudest fanboys" (or let's just say "loudest fans", since the word "fanboy" carries a negative connotation) necessarily a good thing? If each of the major computer manufacturers conducts a Linux distro poll and Ubuntu wins every one of them, will this give us much choice? Sure, we'll be able to choose between Windows and Ubuntu (as opposed to having no choice at all), but wouldn't it be nicer if we could choose between Windows, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and Mandriva? Since computer manufacturers are naturally reluctant to support several Linux distributions and since it's impossible to stop all the Ubuntu fans from promoting their favourite distro in online polls, what can be done to ensure a greater choice of Linux operating systems?
The first step would be for Spevack (and other distribution project managers) to admit that Ubuntu has done something right. The second would be to recognise that popularity isn't "fanboyism." It's all very nice to say in an interview that "our distribution is the best and that people will eventually notice." The uneasy truth is, however, that people aren't choosing Fedora, Mandriva or openSUSE, they are choosing Ubuntu. And while it's great to see so much enthusiasm for a Linux distro, I feel uneasy about the growing dominance of one sole project, no matter how good, user-friendly or innovative it is.
In the end, it isn't Ubuntu's fault that it tries to be the best. But if the Fedoras, Mandrivas and OpenSUSEs out there don't take action now, they will soon find themselves marginalised and out of contention by both the end users and the hardware manufacturers. And that doesn't sound like a good thing.
Mandriva Linux 2008: will it be offered and supported by a major hardware maker?
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| Miscellaneous News |
AMD frees ATI drivers, openSUSE and KDE 4, Puppy Linux and StartCom Multimedia updates
Besides Lenovo's unexpected distro poll, one other item drawing the attention of many Linux web sites during the past week was growing speculation about AMD open sourcing its ATI video drivers. While licensing and some other thorny issues have yet to be ironed out, many Linux users and developers were excited by the news. Ubuntu's Jonathan Carter: "This is real big news, considering that, if you ask most Linux enthusiasts what the biggest problems in GNU/Linux distributions are, it normally comes down to the few extra proprietary software that people have to install, which are usually Java, Flash, drivers and binary firmware blobs." Among them, the video card is probably the biggest issue, since it's unreasonable to expect computer users to be satisfied with a very basic driver powering an advanced video card costing hundreds of dollars. Now, the question is: does this mean that the next video card you'll buy will be an ATI, rather than an NVIDIA? As for me, I'd answer this question with a most definite YES!
* * * * *
 We reported last week that, due to a delay in the delivery of the upcoming KDE 4.0, Fedora has decided to remove the new version of the popular desktop from the feature list of Fedora 8. In contrast, openSUSE has indicated that it will go ahead with its original plan. Stephan Binner: "The unchanged plan is to install a selection of KDE 4 applications by default on the KDE desktop of openSUSE 10.3 (some games, krfb and krdc), also from the single i586 install CD. The openSUSE 10.3 repository will have the latest possible KDE 4.0 snapshot available. In the KDE:KDE4 Build Service project we will continue to have packages of weekly snapshots and the release. And of course, we will have more KDE Four Live CDs." On a related note, here is a self-explanatory link written to intrigue all openSUSE and 3D desktop fans: Sneak Peek at openSUSE 10.3: Compiz and Compiz Fusion.
* * * * *
 Barry Kauler, the founder and lead developer of Puppy Linux, has announced that the next release of Puppy will be version 3.0, rather than 2.20, as indicated earlier: "Puppy 2.20-alpha will be followed by a beta on about the 16th of September. Considering the enormous changes, a completely new 'init' script, just about every package upgraded, even a new kernel, I have decided that the final release will be v3.00." The blog post hints at the possibility of Puppy Linux 3.0 being released shortly before 29 September, depending on how buggy the betas will be at the time. Some of the changes in the first alpha include a new kernel 2.6.21.7, GCC 4.1.2, a completely updated base system, and even some unusual additions, such as the NetSurf web browser. Keep a close eye on the author's blog if you are interested in beta testing the upcoming Puppy Linux 3.0.
* * * * *
 Here is an interesting piece of news for all Linux audio software enthusiasts. Eddy Nigg, the developer of StartCom MultiMedia Linux, has announced that the project's upcoming release, version 6.0.6 (based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5), will be released shortly: "In 2004 StartCom released the first add-on CD, which was a complete set of audio production software to be added to the then StartCom Linux version ML-3.0.3. Announced by Desktop Linux with an article titled "Israeli Linux software transforms PCs into music recording studios", this was the first complete Linux-based operating system which offered this capabilities. Since then, both our distributions evolved parallel to the ever advancing audio related software produced for Linux by the various software writers and projects. ... Today we are expecting the newest version ML-6.0.6, which will be already the fourth release of the MultiMedia Edition."
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Finally, two community items that aren't quite distro related, but hopefully some of you will find the information useful or interesting. Andrew Cant from Ontario Linux User Group has emailed us to announce an upcoming event - the Ontario Linux Fest, a one-day Linux conference to be held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Saturday, October 13. While the primary purpose of the conference is to present compelling topics of interest to users of Linux and open source software, it is also a social event designed to network and socialize with like-minded enthusiasts. All interested Linux users are most welcome!
The second item is a link an article at Linux.com written by yours truly and entitled A Linux user group in a Pacific paradise. This is a brief account of my meeting in Nouméa with the founder and several members of the Linux User Group of New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific: "What springs to your mind upon hearing the words 'Tahiti' or 'Fiji'? White sandy beaches? Spectacular sunsets? Blue lagoons with colorful marine life? While natural beauty is indeed one of the most attractive aspects of the South Pacific, you might be surprised to learn that on some of these paradise islands there are active Linux user communities and even officially registered Linux user groups (LUG). New Caledonia, which I had the pleasure to visit last month, is one such place." Enjoy!
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| Released Last Week |
Absolute Linux 12.0.4 and 12.0.5
Paul Sherman has announced the release of Absolute Linux 12.0.4, a light-weight, Slackware-based desktop Linux distribution: "Pardon the rapid-fire release, but the kernel source was misconfigured and the kernel size was too large for older PCs. Also, the source code for ROX was altered for nice interface additions, NTFS read-write was implemented, and K3b now works for user accounts without any extra configuration." Some other interesting items from the changelog: "Updated IceWM, added background color change menu item to 'Settings'; added mime-type to ROX to handle .mp4 audio files (m4a and friends) with Audacious, if not encrypted they will play; updated AbScreen; added nvidia-settings to main menu." See the release announcement and the full changelog for a complete list of changes.
SystemRescueCd 0.3.8
The SystemRescueCd Team has announced the release of SystemRescueCd 0.3.8, a Gentoo-based distribution designed for hard disk partitioning and data rescue operations: "Version 0.3.8 (stable) of the SystemRescueCd project has been released. Changes for version 0.3.8: updated the kernel to Linux 2.6.22.6 with Reiser4; updated ntfs-3g to 1.826; updated PartImage to 0.6.6; updated TestDisk to 6.8; dm-raid 1.0.0-rc14 (device mapper tool); added serial communication tools (minicom 2.2, GTKTerm 0.99.5, C-Kermit 8.0.211); improved the welcome screen (removed images for serial console); updated Oscar (French tool to backup computers)." See the project's changelog for a full list of updates.
Pioneer Explorer 1.1
Technalign has announced the final release of Pioneer Explorer 1.1: "Technalign, Inc. announced today the final release of Pioneer Explorer 1.1. The final release of Pioneer Explorer now provides a functional Ubiquity installer. Pioneer Explorer 1.1 is the community edition of Pioneer and runs as a Live CD allowing users to try before installation. Pioneer Explorer 1.1 includes an expanded Programs folder that allows for individuals to open a simple folder on the desktop, install what they want when they want it easily. The programs folder will continue to be expanded, but currently includes applications most requested by users. The Programs folder includes VM and Innotek virtualization tools, CrossOver Office Standard and Professional, and difficult to install applications. Codecs have also been included." Read the full press release for further details.
Pioneer Explorer 1.1
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Sabayon Linux 3.4f
Fabio Erculiani has announced the release of Sabayon Linux 3.4f, the latest revision of the distribution 3.4 version. From the changelog: "Live boot is now 3 times faster thanks to our improved OpenGL configuration tool; Beagle only runs on-demand; Portage has been updated with performance patches; Entropy stack has been updated to the latest SVN; dependencies resolution code completed; multiple source download support completed; installer updates (Vim is on the Core Install along with groff (man pages issue fixed), better release handling, initial Entropy integration; Bluetooth stack updated; ext4 support improved (new e2fsprogs); ATI video drivers updated to 8.40.4." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Gibraltar Firewall 2.5
Rene Mayrhofer has announced the release of Gibraltar Firewall 2.5, a Debian-based firewall distribution: "It is our pleasure to announce the release of Gibraltar version 2.5. After over a year of intensive evaluation, development, and testing, this is our best release so far. This release introduces major new features: web filtering based on dynamic content inspection in addition to the usual blacklist-based approach; SSL-VPN - an HTTPS portal to Intranet services with the SSL Explorer community edition and some of its extensions; captive portal, e.g. for WLAN hotspots, based on Chillispot; an OpenVPN module in the web administration interface; a unified user management based on OpenLDAP and FreeRADIUS, user authentication for the HTTP proxy, SMTP, IPSec user certificates, IPSec/L2TP, PPTP, OpenVPN, and the captive portal is now done via a single user database." Read the rest of the release announcement for a detailed explanation about new features.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
- Damn Small Linux 4.0-rc3, the changelog
- Frugalware 0.7-rc1 "MacBook", the release announcement
- NetBSD 4.0-rc1, the release announcement
- MEPIS antiX 7.0-beta2, the release announcement
- Mandriva Linux 2008-rc1, the release announcement
- Linux Mint 3.1-beta, the release notes
- openSUSE 10.3-beta3, the release announcement
- ClarkConnect Gateway/Server 4.2-beta1, the release notes
- FreeNAS 0.685-rc1, the release notes
- Shift Linux 0.5-rc2, the release notes
- Kaella 3.2-rc1
- ADIOS Linux 7.6
- ParallelKnoppix 2.7.1
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
OpenBSD 4.2
The OpenBSD project has announced that its upcoming release, version 4.2 scheduled for November 1st, 2007, is now available for pre-order. What can we expect from the new version? "New or extended platforms (sparc64, hppa, alpha); improved hardware support, including native Serial ATA support, pciide driver, lm driver...; new tools (cwm has replaced wm2 as a simple-looking low-resource window manager, zless, mount_vnd - a utility to configure vnode disks from fstab); new functionality (FFS2, the updated version of the fast file system, pkg_add has been vastly improved, ftp-proxy is now able to automatically tag packets passing through the pf rule with a supplied name, the i386 boot loader can now load amd64 kernels...)" Please see the newly created OpenBSD 4.2 page for a detailed list of new features. The official OpenBSD 4.2 CD images can be ordered through the project's online ordering system (US$50.00).
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- Kiwi Linux. Kiwi Linux is a modified Ubuntu live CD for the i386 architecture. It includes Romanian and Hungarian localisations, multimedia codecs, encrypted DVD support, Flash and Java plugins for Firefox, PPPoE GUI for accessing local Internet services (Clicknet and RDS) and write support for NTFS partitions.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- FaunOS. FaunOS is an Arch Linux-based live DVD/USB (with a hard disk installer) optimised for the i686 architectures and containing over 570 pre-installed packages.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 September 2007.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Withdrawals (by Tony on 2007-09-10 15:16:19 GMT from United States)
I was going through my end of the week / beginning of the week withdrawals concerning DW and low and behold - it's here! Thank You!!
2 • Ubuntu laptops (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 15:24:02 GMT from United States)
If the hardware is fully supported by Ubuntu, it will be fully supported by other distros as well (unless manufacturer's start releasing proprietary drivers to Ubuntu only, which would be an ugly scenario), so it will always be possible to install something else. Getting people to try out any GNU/Linux, if they're held back by difficulty of installation or lack of support (or just lack of awareness) is a Good Thing! And no doubt some will become interested in trying out other things, like the real thing: Debian.
3 • ATI drivers (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 15:25:13 GMT from United States)
YES!
4 • One Distro to Rule Them All... (by Sam on 2007-09-10 15:33:25 GMT from United States)
I've always seen the free market environment of Linuxland as a kind of evolutionary playground for OS and software development. If one distro, Ubuntu, has greater reproductive success than other denizens in the market, so be it -- ideally that distro will have been shaped by market demands to a far greater extent than its big league competitors from Redmond or Cupertino. I suppose if Ubuntu stops evolving and corporate backing becomes "corporations propping up a soft and unresponsive-to-its-market product" let's turn our spears on it then. In the mean time, if Ubuntu continues to be market sensitive and exhibit a continuing high fitness, why should we try and cannibalize linuxland's success story?
5 • pre-installed Linux (by ray carter at 2007-09-10 15:35:50 GMT from United States)
I second the comments in post number 2. If I can buy a computer with a Linux distro pre-installed, I can be pretty damned certain that whatever I want to install will work. For me, as an individual, it does not matter much what it is. I recognize that for a large segment of the user populace that is not true, but if a person is well enough versed to shop on the basis of what particular distro is installed, then they are probably capable and more or less willing to install what they want. I'm just happy to see Linux beginning to come pre-installed with major players. Now if they would actually ADVERTISE the fact . . .
6 • Ubuntu on ThinkPads (by ejh13m on 2007-09-10 15:37:09 GMT from United States)
While I think it may be a good thing that a couple of major manufacturers may offer open source operating systems, this may not be so good if Ubuntu becomes the de-facto open source operating system. All of their peripherals will of course work, settings, etc. but Ubuntu is only somewhat related to Debian. What of the other distros? Will all of the drivers, etc be made available to everyone else? This could narrow down the field quite a bit in a few years. Then what?
7 • No subject (by Dr.Saleem Khan on 2007-09-10 15:39:38 GMT from Pakistan)
Ladislav Bodnar,
Hi,
I am downloading Pioneer Explorer 1.1 & their server stays down for days on and then comes alive agin.
I was looking for the difference between Pioneer Explorer 1.1
& other Pioneer distributions e.g Pioneer Basic & I can`t clearly understand what`s different between the two.
DW was very delayed today, I kept looking for it since afternoon.
8 • OK for Ubuntu (from a Fedora fan) (by Luciano on 2007-09-10 15:42:04 GMT from Italy)
It seems that Ubuntu is the one that best matches beginners' needs, so it's OK for me to see it preinstalled on Lenovo PCs and laptops. For me, it's enough to see that a PC is Linux-compatible and that I don't have to pay Windows when I buy it. Then, I can easily replace the distro with Fedora, and I think that this is true for all Linux fans.
9 • re: One Distro to Rule them All (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 15:42:08 GMT from United States)
What makes you think that's ANY better than "One OS to Rule Them All" as Redmond has achieved? And why wait until they become unresponsive?
If there's anything that CAN be done about Ubuntu's growing market dominance, something SHOULD be done. I just don't know what that something is. But this sort of complacency, when we know that markets do NOT yield the most responsive products (witness again, Redmond), is ridiculous.
10 • Ubuntu Laptops (by Eddie Wilson on 2007-09-10 15:44:40 GMT from United States)
People should not get so upset that Ubuntu may be the choice to be installed on the Thinkpads. It doesn't really matter. It would be a simple thing to remove Ubuntu if a person didn't want it and then to install their own distro. That is whats so great about the linux world. I've used Ubuntu for years now and its my main os, but I've also tried other distros and use other distros. There are a lot of really good ones out there. We each need to use what we like the best. There's no need to get upset, mad, scared, or whatever if your favorite distro is not preinstalled. Just install your favorite and then everyone will be happy.
Good Day, Eddie
11 • Re: Ubuntu on Thinkpads (by Ken Yap on 2007-09-10 15:47:33 GMT from Australia)
Re #6, if a kernel driver exists in Ubuntu, then it will have to be in the GPL kernel sources. So yes, if the hardware runs with Ubuntu, it will run with other distros, with slight variations due to kernel versions etc, which eventually get sorted out.
That's the good thing about a GPL kernel. Distros are not competing on secrecy of kernel code, they are competing on user features. And maybe effectiveness of the user community and word of mouth marketing.
12 • better ISO downloading (by Ant Bryan on 2007-09-10 15:48:05 GMT from United States)
What do you think about the improved reliability/error correction that downloading ISOs with metalink offers? More info at http://www.metalinker.org/
13 • re:9 (by Eddie Wilson on 2007-09-10 15:48:43 GMT from United States)
What???
14 • Re: Kernel sources (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 15:49:55 GMT from United States)
yes, because no one runs a kernel with proprietary drivers in it!
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight
Have you never heard of Nvidia drivers?
15 • ATI for President! (by Sigi on 2007-09-10 15:52:12 GMT from Austria)
Guys, you rock!
16 • RE: 2 & 5 (by ladislav at 2007-09-10 15:54:38 GMT from Taiwan)
Guys, the editorial is not about you and me - we can install anything we want on our laptops. But think about the others, the thousands, if not millions, of future Linux users who will only ever know Ubuntu, thanks to it being the only choice offered by hardware vendors. Is that a far-fetched scenario? Wouldn't it be nicer if there were several Linux distributions to choose from? Or don't you care?
17 • Which Distro Shall Be Pre-Installed? (by Chris Hildebrandt on 2007-09-10 15:57:47 GMT from Austria)
While I'm well known known for being an active & addicted "fanboy" for sidux, I really think that Ubuntu (which I don't like for many reasons) actually is a good choice for pre-installing it on OEM machines. Ubuntu concentrates on delivering a "no-brain" operating system, often more simplified than any Microsoft ever was. That's a good thing - they will catch those millions of unhappy users and show them some first impressions of the powers of Linux.
It is however up to us other distributions to be present, vocal and understandable enough in order to show those people the real power of FOSS & Linux: Choice!
Meanwhile a applaude every hardware manufacturer who decides to base a part of his business on bundling his products with Linux. This definitely will lead to better BIOSes, better drivers - and better hardware as an indirect result of it.
Greetings,
Chris
18 • 16 regarding choice (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 16:02:03 GMT from United States)
I posted #2 but also #9. I definitely want there to be choice and I definitely don't think Ubuntu dominating the market is a happy prospect. Post #2 reflects the fact that, right now, an GNU/Linux pre-installed on laptops is a good thing, but #9 reflects the fact that we need to keep our eyes open and look for ways to ensure that GNU/Linux remains a diverse field.
That said, I remember people who thought "Red Hat" and "Linux" were synonymous. I remained a Debian user then and continue to do so now.
19 • non-GPL drivers (by Ken Yap on 2007-09-10 16:12:47 GMT from Australia)
But surely the point is that if Ubuntu chooses to make it possible for users to install non-GPL drivers, the same technique is available to you even if you use another distro. This is not hypothetical, just look at all the cheat sites that spring up for people who are less ideologically inclined.
Only if Ubuntu were to make a devil's pact with the hardware manufacturer, but that would be roundly condemned.
So I think the Ubuntu fearers are overreacting.
(Not an Ubuntu user by the way, except casually.)
20 • Great Editorial Ladislav (by rexbinary on 2007-09-10 16:13:54 GMT from United States)
I've always thought, while not always intentional, that Linux is about choice. And I would like to see more choices other then Ubuntu on new pre-installed PCs.
As another poster pointed out, we can just install whatever distro we want, BUT even though we buy a Dell Ubuntu machine and put Fedora on it, but it still gets counted as an Ubuntu machine.
Also, I can't help but to also agree that I would rather see Ubuntu out there on everything other then no Linux at all.
I like Fedora a lot, but I think Fedora is at a point where they need to decide if they are going to continue to be more of a test bed, or compete for a spot on your desktop against the other distros.
I think they want to be an end-user's desktop, and extending the lifespan of Fedora to 13 months is a great step in that direction. Live CDs with install option was also a good move, albeit a late one. They still seem more complacent then competitive. More like, well we have to do this because the others did it, rather then leading the charge.
It could be that Red Hat holds Fedora back in fear of companies running Fedora rather then RHEL. If so, maybe it's time to make Fedora a real Red Hat product if that's the case. Offer a paid support option, as I doubt you'll see Fedora pre-installed on any mainstream hardware until that is in place.
21 • Ubuntu's success does not harm other distributions (by Peter Cruickshank on 2007-09-10 16:14:36 GMT from Canada)
Why would it be a bad thing if Ubuntu were the standard distribution installed on pcs? As long as the manufacturers have drivers for ANY linux distribution (such as Ubuntu), you will be able to use them on the other distributions. And besides, if they are making linux driver deb packages for Ubuntu already, it's not much more work to release it as an rpm or whatever as well.
Furthermore, the Ubuntu team has earned a bit of my trust. I think they will continue to push for open source drivers, including them by default and warning users when they enable binary drivers. This allows for companies to make something work in Linux for the short term with a binary driver, but it encourages them to commit to opening it up if they want to be taken seriously. Hopefully manufacturers will follow this path, just as ATI has recently followed it.
And if that happens, all distributions will benefit equally from the hardware support that Ubuntu will be clearing the way for.
22 • one good thing (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 16:16:19 GMT from United States)
About the choice of Ubuntu is that, since Ubuntu doesn't generally add much software to Debian and Debian doesn't use proprietary tools, Lenovo's "support" for Ubuntu will be readily adapted to other distros.
What do I mean?
Okay, consider SUSE (when YAST was proprietary especially). Suppose Lenovo supported SUSE. So their support staff, whenever you have a problem, says "Okay, open up YAST..."
Anyone running another distro would be totally lost.
Just reminding people that it could be much worse.
23 • Linux dominance (by Basilio Guzman on 2007-09-10 16:16:49 GMT from Puerto Rico)
As we advance in our Linux skills, we develop a preference for certain Distros. But speaking about widespread the OS to new converts, Ubuntu has done several things right. The documentation for the distro is superb, only compared to Gentoo highly detailed documentation. But looking from a systems integrator point of view, it is far easier to maintain one or two distros than several ones. Ubuntu is easy to use, and easy to maintain (Hey! they are Debian at its roots). I am myself a MacUser, but make my living from DOS poor people looking through their Windows. And I see how day by day Linux is making its way to more and more desktops. I can give another credit to the Ubuntu people: they promote the use of OTHER open source software for Windows users on their FREE shipped CDs. This set them in front of other distros that only promote themselves. Long live Ubuntu!!
24 • Ubuntu (by jg on 2007-09-10 16:23:25 GMT from United States)
I'm one of those people who thinks there are far too many Linux distros out there. It doesn't concern me that a number of them may die off as certain distros gain a significant advantage from increasing commercial (read: PC seller) support. In fact, a reduction of pointless forks could cause developers to consolidate their efforts to a more productive end.
I'm also an Ubuntu user. But, I've recently begun to reevaluate that choice. I think that the Ubuntu community has become too preoccupied with "fanboy-ish" promotion and advocacy, at the expense of development. There appear to be lots and lots of Ubuntu folks talking about the distro, but a whole lot less action in the way of development. The other major distros seem to be making much more significant and fundamental changes lately than the recent Ubuntu releases have. It's almost like Ubuntu is where Debian stable used to be -- each new release is simply a refresh of packages (and not even the latest releases like with many, more adventurous distros), and otherwise nothing that distinguishes Ubuntu from the numerous other distros out there (nor even the previous release of Ubuntu). It has become a very conservative distro, plagued by a community that seems far too fanboyish rather than productive, innovative, and serious. Take a trip to the Ubuntu forums to ask a question and you'll get more responses than any other distro's forums. But out of say, 30 responses, 10 of them will contain incorrect/misleading information from people who obviously lack the experience to answer, 15 of them will be off-topic "drift" from fanboys who just "play" with their OS and have nothing better to do than search out and engage in pedantic arguments (mostly advocacy of some sort), a couple responses from people who post little more than google keywords (ie, essentially tell you to go elsewhere to get your answer because they can't be bothered to take any time to answer), and maybe one, informative response if you're lucky.
Ubuntu may be getting a lot of "action" in polls, reader comments, and forums, but when you look deeper, it seems to be lacking a substantive, productive direction lately.
I'd prefer PC sellers to look to distros that don't necessarily have a lot of people responding to polls, but rather, have a lot of serious, experienced, productive developers behind it. Those are the distros that will provide needed updates, bug fixes, and enhancements, and ultimately generate more new customer satisfaction.
25 • Is Ubuntu more popular than Jesus? (by fanboy on 2007-09-10 16:28:31 GMT from Germany)
With Ubuntu's ever-growing popularity I began to wonder if Ubuntu has already become more popular than Jesus? Well, let's ask Google Trends and see:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=Jesus%2C+Ubuntu
26 • Ubuntu dominance is no problem and not the same as Windows dominance (by Patrick on 2007-09-10 16:31:05 GMT from United States)
I don't see the problem with Ubuntu being the dominant distribution. The situation is totally different from Windows dominance, because we're talking about open source here. Some people seem to forget that.
If something is made to work with Ubuntu, everybody can grab it and use it for their favorite distro (or that distro's developers can do any conversion needed). Even binary drivers, in case they would be made for a certain kernel, should be no problem. Since Ubuntu is open source, everyone can see what the kernel requirements are and what patches are used to make the driver work.
I think it is a great thing for Linux adoption if Linux has one common face to Joe Average User - that is what they are used to and makes them feel comfortable. Once they are familiar with Linux, they can find out for themselves that there are other options, and that -to their great surprise- they can switch back and forth without any compatibility issues with their favorite software or files.
27 • Ubuntu (by parkash on 2007-09-10 16:40:22 GMT from Germany)
Oh, well... Congrats Ubuntu!
On the other side: I also have this feeling that there are other distros out there.. I myself don't like Ubuntu at all! (as a matter of fact, I find myself very uncomfortable with any debian-based distro)...
I'd rather see Fedora in these big markets... But then again, Red Hat is already very big and all...
Oh, I don't know. I'm just very happy there are so many distro's for one to choose. :-D
28 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 16:40:31 GMT from United States)
First of all, a proprietary license can be used to forbid (doesn't stop it but for those of us who obey the law) using the binary blobs with a non-Ubuntu kernel.
Second, it's also possible to set up hardware to only boot a particular kernel. (This is Tivo's way around the GPL.) I can't see anything in it for Lenovo to do such a thing but it is possible.
And I am sure there are other ways to subvert choice that haven't occurred to me.
Remember Ubuntu's promises are all about "free beer". Remember also that Ubuntu's actively pushing software developers to use the proprietary Launchpad.
Ubuntu is a fair weather friend to Free Software defenders and we should not take anything on trust with them.
29 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 16:46:12 GMT from United States)
Personally, I think Ubuntu does a good job of representing the Linux community. Other distros try to explain away the success of Ubuntu, but Ubuntu just keeps doing good things.
I don't use Ubuntu, which is another reason I like it being so popular: it's an almost completely free OS. Thus it is easy to install my preferred Linuxes, Debian and Fedora, with few problems. Unfortunately some of the other Linuxes like including proprietary drivers, so I'm not interested in that. And yes, if you know what an OS is, you can install most major Linux distros. It's just too easy.
A significant victory if ATI follows through. For all the credit nVidia gets, their drivers have big problems.
And to all the Eric Raymond fanbois who think an OS is incomplete without being larded up with proprietary software, all installed by default, and that only after we unfree Linux will hardware manufacturers open their drivers, here's a rag to wipe the egg off your face.
The ATI and Lenovo announcements are just further evidence as to how misguided this strategy is, how it would have ruined Linux, and how it is yet another example of ESR's goofiness - the guy just isn't very smart. If we had thanked ATI for their scraps, and included their drivers in all Linux distros by default, we would not have seen this.
Let's thank Stallman, the FSF, and the rest of the free software nuts out there! Now we can have drivers that _actually work_. Open is always better, so let's get buying ATI cards.
30 • RE 25 UBUlinux dominance may be worse than W$ dominance (by dbrion on 2007-09-10 16:49:01 GMT from France)
After the 2000 Millenium fiasco, Microsoft did a great (and expensive) job linked with quality: most pieces of soft are reread by at least 2 other programmers, their release cycles were longer and they were courageous enough to delay some releases?
What about UBUlinux quality asssurance?
Did anything be done after 20 Aug 2006 epidemy of Blue Screens of Glory (to be politically correct) linked to automagic updates?
What is the ratio : { devellopers / maintainers}/ chorus leasers/PR
in the UBU word? in the Fedora word ? in the Debian word (the thing UBUlinux takes glory of by pumping, pumping and claiming they are the best)?
If UBUlinux gets popular among manufacturers, I see two scenarii:
a) they donot begin some useful work (not propaganda work), and it will lead (after each bug introduction) to an increase of Microsoft popularity (the number of pple [reinstalling another serious linux/having reinstalled by friends ] is small, though it not that difficult to find tens of serious linuxen!!!). This is the most likely one.
b) they increase technical (or even, by an infinite factor, innovating ) work , but I do not feel optimistic.
Hourrah, cornes au cul, vive le père UBU (Jarry, 1895, la Chanson du Décervelage).
31 • 29 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 16:49:57 GMT from United States)
Yes, I intentionally intended to offend some people in post 29. Exactly the same group that always comments about how I am naive about hardware companies opening their specs.
The problem with the ESR fanbois is not as much their ideas as it is their "in your face, go suck eggs" attitude.
32 • ANY Linux is better than paying Windows tax (by Patrick on 2007-09-10 16:52:52 GMT from United States)
For crying out loud people, we are talking about finally just getting a foot in the door with hardware manufacturers, and some of you sound like you won't be satisfied unless they support a whole slew of distributions, right now!
Excuse me, but these companies are used to supporting ONE operating system. It is a HUGE step for them to even consider supporting TWO operating systems. Isn't it enough for you that they want to give you the option to buy a computer with Linux on it instead of Windows? That's what we all want, right? Who cares what distro it is: they're all LINUX.
33 • 32 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 16:57:28 GMT from United States)
I am not disturbed by a company supporting only Ubuntu. I am disturbed by the prospect of several companies supporting only Ubuntu. Do you see the difference?
That said: YES, it is still than the Redmond tax.
34 • Pre-installed Linux (by DG on 2007-09-10 17:00:28 GMT from Netherlands)
After hearing an advert on the radio, I was somewhat surprised to see
a Dutch consortium offering a ready-to-use Linux box based on Gentoo!
Not a worldwide supplier, but not Ubuntu either. The software specs are
at http://www.simpc.nl/specificaties/opensource (in Dutch).
I have no connection with SimPC or Gentoo. [I'm a Lunar Linux user]
35 • ATI first... (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 17:03:24 GMT from United States)
then nVidia hopefully not far behind. If these two video powerhouses get behind supplying open source drivers, it will mean a major step forward for Linux in general.
If this does hold true, things are really starting to look up for the future of Linux...
36 • RE 33 (by Patrick on 2007-09-10 17:08:14 GMT from United States)
I don't see squat difference in one or several companies supporting only Ubuntu. It will expose many less technically inclined people to the greatness of Linux. Ubuntu is a good choice for that as it is aimed at less technically inclined people.
Consider this: up till now we had the situation where several (read: all) companies only supported Windows. Now we're starting to see several companies supporting Linux. Why? Because Windows is a nightmare and people are starting to see it and want something better (=Linux).
If Ubuntu would be the dominant consumer OS and they would go haywire, there would be a better alternative waiting and companies would start to support it, just as companies are starting to support Linux in the form of Ubuntu now. Quality will always float to the top.
37 • People don't know or are ignoring Novell SLED 10 SP1 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 17:09:10 GMT from United States)
I was using openSUSE 10.2 for nearly a year before my hard drive crashed. However, because the company I work for uses AutoCAD and Windows exclusively. I decided to build a new system with mostly high-end components and the intention of running Windows Vista. Needless to say that only after one week, the system locked up and went directly into a blue-screen every time I tried to reboot.
My original intention was to install a Linux distribution as the host OS for VMware Workstation 6 and install Windows Vista Ultimate as the guest OS. Unfortunately, I decided to install Vista directly (without virtualization), which ended horribly.
I decided it was time to follow my original plan. I tried Ubuntu, then Fedora 7, and even Linux Mint, but none of these distros configured to my liking. Back in October 2006, I tried SLED-10, but quickly switched to openSUSE 10.2 because it had more features that I was interested in at the time.
I recently read about the latest SP1 and decided to give SLED-10 (64-bit) another try. This did the trick. This latest release has all the funtionality I need, not to mention that the only customizing I've done so far is to install the latest nVidia drivers.
I've been a die-hard SUSE user since version 5, and no matter how many times I try switching to another distribution, I still find myself reverting back to some form of SUSE distribution (either Novell or openSUSE).
Even though I paid for a 1-year subscription to Novell's SLED-10, it's still a better value than paying 4-times as much for an OEM version of Vista Ultimate. My time is valuable, and I can't afford to sit around modifying configuration files in order to get the OS to work with my hardware, I need that functionality immediately and I get that from SLED-10.
We all have a choice when it comes to which OS we decide to go with. My choice for now continues to be in the SUSE corner.
Keep up the excellent work Distrowatch.
38 • Any number is better than 1, but 1 is better than 0 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 17:10:18 GMT from France)
Yes, present linux users would feel warm if every manufacturer preinstalled a panel of distros, but as ladislav mentionned, installing a distro isn't a problem for those who actually care about them. And as others have pointed out, support of distro X pretty much equates with support of distro Y.
Regarding the OS illiterate buyer, too much alien (ie non MS/Apple) diversity may be more confusing than anything, but, more to the point, the shop's clueless vendor's 2 liner won't tell him much about what the differences between Fedora/openSUSE/Mandriva/Ubuntu/XYZ mean to him. The fact that he gets a chance to try out linux is a great step, and at this stage this is good enough IMO. If he's happy with linux, good for him. If he becomes curious about linux, it won't take him too long to start exploring/becoming OS literate.
So, to me, the question is something like: is a de facto monopoly of a single distro within the preinstalled distro offerings detrimental to the other distros ? In the middle term, would their user and developper base really shrink?And eventually, as Sam (#4) would put it, would it be detrimental to the overall linux ecosystem?
My feeling is that, while it may not be ideal, I can't imagine it would be worse than the current situation.
So yes, even though I'm not enthralled by the the prospect of having a single distro dominate the masses linux market, I do rejoice at the prospect of having a distro out there in the masses market, rather than none.
39 • RE 38 The way it could be "detrimental to the overall linux" (by dbrion on 2007-09-10 17:28:40 GMT from France)
is the following:
a) a majority of pple would associate a (demagogic, wellfare) distribution with GNU/linux in general.
b) If, in the meantime, Microsoft hires (as he does, to day) good developpers, and if UBUlinux crashes (while the neighbors M$ does not crash), pple will think any (among them, many are serious) linux is crap.
c) other distributions developpers might feel happy, anyway, with the monopoly of propaganda against technical/innovation skills...
40 • Ubuntu and computers (by Snowman on 2007-09-10 17:29:52 GMT from United States)
Let the manufacturers offer Ubuntu on their computers.
You don't like it? Buy one and install another distro. That's what I do now except the computer comes with Windows pre-installed.
The goal is to show the world and Redmond that Linux has a great following worldwide. Let's take a chunk out of MS's marketshare first and worry about which distros should be offered second.
41 • re:36 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 17:30:14 GMT from United States)
First correcting my previous typo:
That said: YES, it is still BETTER than the Redmond tax.
You're inability to see the difference between one company supporting only one and several companies supporting the same one strikes me as disingenuous. But I'll spell it out: it may make quite a lot of sense for a company to support one distro. It's a matter of efficiency and we have no reason to question that. However, for several companies to support only Ubuntu is a trend, the sort of trend that has a tendency to snowball. You said "Ubuntu is a good choice...", and I'd tend to agree, given what's available. But Ubuntu is not THE only good choice and for its present momentum to create the impression that it is can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I'm not saying we should nag companies to support a dozen distros. I am saying that companies should consider whether they should all offer the same one choice as their competitors.
So, there is a difference.
42 • Ubuntu & Levono (by afonic on 2007-09-10 17:31:51 GMT from Greece)
I don't think the real reason a company like Levono would choose Ubuntu is just the votes in some public poll.
If you think about it Fedora Core and openSuse are not real choices. Redhat and Novell do not support them. If you want support you have to go with RHEL or SUSE Enterprise Desktop which do cost money and would increase the laptop's price.
In the other hand, distros like PCLinuxOS and Debian have their own issues. PCLinuxOS is developed by just a few people, doesn't have a company backing it up. Its more like a hobbyist distro than something you can count on for having responsible enterprise class support. Debian in the other hand is build on a solid foundation and is very stable, however again to offer support Levono would need to create a Linux support department. (or something like that)
Ubuntu however looks like the perfect choice. It is the most popular Linux desktop, it does have a massive community that can provide support and it is increasingly user friendly. And as for professional user support, Levono would just connect users to Canonical support after making a deal.
So I'd say we should not thing a huge company like Levono would make such a decision based on votes or the "loudest fanboys" but remember the more important issues.
43 • 41 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 17:32:17 GMT from United States)
Should say "Your inability"
44 • The Redmond tax (by David Howard on 2007-09-10 17:33:29 GMT from Israel)
One thing which (to me at least) isn't clear about the Dell and Lenovo offerings of a pre-installed Linux distro is just how this works with their existing OEM contracts with Redmond. In other words, are they still contractually compelled to bundle Vista or XP with every new laptop, thus offering at best a dual boot setup? If so, we'll still be forced to pay the Redmond tax anyway.
45 • Ubuntu (by voislav on 2007-09-10 17:42:32 GMT from Canada)
It's a storm in a teacup. Like Dell before, Lenovo is just starting to test the new waters of Linux retail, so it would make sense to offer only a single distro to start with. Once it's proven that you can sell Linux to the masses, I think that they would expand the offering.
I think that financial clout that Canonical has gives it the edge over other distros, especially when it comes to support. Dell had a good experience leaving support to Ubuntu community, so it wouldn't suprise me if Lenovo goes down the same road.
46 • 42 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 17:45:22 GMT from United States)
Afonic makes excellent points.
The only large company I can see offering Debian is HP, because they have a long history of Debian use in-house and supporting it in a range of applications. For them, the infrastructure and expertise to support Debian is largely in place.
One further point needs to be made: long-term support. If someone can't install a different distro, the question whether they can upgrade to a new release also arises. I am guessing they'd go with the long term support version of Ubuntu. People will want to get security updates for as long as possible. Debian stable also tends to have a good lifespan. Many other distros: not so much.
Smoothing out the upgrade path will also be an important step. That's one reason we won't be seeing Slackware on laptops from major companies any time soon, but even with Debian and Ubuntu, there are hiccups.
47 • 42 • Ubuntu & Levono (by afonic) (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-10 17:49:41 GMT from Romania)
Just curious; what about Mandriva?
48 • re distro supremo (by hab on 2007-09-10 17:51:58 GMT from Canada)
I don't think that any particular distro rising to prominence at this juncture in time is
neccessarilly a bad thing. Please understand i have no particular allegiance to any distro, i just use whatever works best for me now. I have used many linux flavours and will continue to so. The only thing i've ever really been concerned about is carrying my home directory forward.
On the contrary i think that fambuntu/LINUX reaching public awareness is a good thing. I think that many more recent (con/per)verts to the penguin side of the force have some fantastically unrealistic expectations regarding linux uptake. It sounds like they expect a tsunami!
What i see happenning, in a dozen years on linux is more like a steady rise in sea level. You don't really notice it much in the beginning but after a while it gets hard to ignore. And it doen't go away!
I look at fambuntu/LINUX awareness as the thinish edge of the wedge. Any thing that raises the public awareness of linux is a gain. Regardless of how much we slag off on peoples choices, the great unwashed masses uncannily make the right choices when given the opportunity. When the public becomes aware of fambuntu/LINUX it will lead many more to explore linux.
Patience. The tide is rising.
cheers
49 • Ubuntu (by Jesse on 2007-09-10 17:52:32 GMT from Canada)
I've long been a fan of Red Hat and Fedora, but this past
weekend I burned a copy of Linux Mint. Poking around with
the LiveCD made me realize why Ubuntu and its spin-offs
are so popular. I'm not ready to switch yet, as my current
Fedora install does everything I want, but I'll definately
start recommending Linux Mint to new Linux users.
50 • No subject (by Qexecotal on 2007-09-10 17:56:48 GMT from United States)
Re #25 - - are you old enough to remember when the Beatles were more "popular" than Jesus? Where are John & George now? How often does the ave. 16 yo listen to Hey Jude? . . . . just another dumb - shallow comment from Germany . . . .
51 • bad argument (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 17:57:20 GMT from United States)
"But some questions remain: do we really want every major PC manufacturer to support Ubuntu only?"
That is kind of a bad argument, while I'd rather not touch anything that is based on Debian Experimental due to constant breakage, as long as the OEMs don't add DRM it shouldn't matter as any GNU/Linux flavor could be installed just so long as the kernel supported the hardware.
What should be frightening, however, is what if companies start porting their proprietary software solely to the latest "stable" Ubuntu based on its "popularity" ignoring distributions with older (and more stable) glibc, libgcc, and libstdc++.
52 • laptops and linux (by winsnomore on 2007-09-10 18:00:12 GMT from United States)
It's hard to imagine it's that it's not just marketing.
I doubt this is going to be a significant play.
Linux is good for geeks .. who can find ways to make their stuff work .. the productivity tools like OO are pretty pathetic; not usable for more than a home work project.
Online tools with backing of google/zoho/others -- might level the functionality field in a few years but have security issues.
For those with short memories might reflect that a decade ago apple practically gave away it's MAC's to schools, hoping once hooked the kids will stay with it. But without useful software most learnt to use windows or linux :-)
So in the Corp. Env., Linux will stay below 1-2% for a VERY long time .. not much different from MAC. Mac had a niche in publishing, Linux in web-servers - neither is in the same position anymore.
ciao
53 • About "Choice" (by Juan Camilo Rozo on 2007-09-10 18:01:38 GMT from Colombia)
I don't really understand the opinion of many people here... Yes, Linux is about choice, but too much choice does not really work for many "typical users"... I mean, most of us will just install our distro of choice anyway... I don't really care which distro it comes with because I'll just go ahead and install whichever distro I want. But we do have to acknowledge that us, distrowatch readers, are not precisely "typical users", and "typical users" don't worry too much about choice; they just want their computer to work, and they want to be able to use it without having to read a manual. And ubuntu is great for that!
Having Ubuntu (or any other, for that matter) is great not because of choice, but just because it means typical users will get more in touch with the fact that they CAN have a choice... Whether it's Ubuntu, Open SuSe or Gentoo is irrelevant. Now, those people who say "I'd prefer if Lenovo offered laptops with whatever distro I wanted" are completely out of their minds; manufacturers simply can't give support to every single distro out there, they have to choose one (yeah, maybe two or whatever) and stick to it because of support costs, and simplification of assembly, etc... Anyway, let's be realistic; do I (personally, for me) really care what distro it comes with? NO! Probably cause I like to install my own distro and tune it the way I want it. So I don't really care, what I do care though, is that they DO sell laptops without Windows, and with a Linux distro in it. We shouldn't care so much about which distro it is, or if it is only one, even if it's only one it's a great win as it shows "typical users" that there is life beyond Windows (and then, once people begin to get that we can worry about showing them that there's many other "versions/distros" out there)...
54 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 18:03:01 GMT from Canada)
Great article DW - to promote thinking about the FOSS movement in Toto:
Thoughts
It would be nice for those who wish - to be able to purchase a computer without any O/System pre-installed
And be assured the hardware is compatible to relative ease of enabling any use
The OEM computer Mgr would not need to support the O/System beyond only generic considerations
Think vehicles - they have own various engine choices (4 cyl- v6/v8) (Win_xx/Bsd/Linux)
Tires & all accessories are supplied/warranted for suitablity by other Mfgrs
We all dream of universal cross-platform _ install it works - instead of fighting
what "should work" but either doesn't = or is a PITA to enable !
Ea. distro/chipset Mfgr's ideas of what is "best" or dominance of market to THEIR standards ?
Think Intel GPU chipsets - a headache for all O/systems
Or DVD - plus vs minus, dual layer, - then comes MEDIA that Ea optical seems to "prefer"
"Proprietary" Drivers ( MODULES) !!
They will plague all until hardware Mfgrs fully support the FOSS standards
To use or not is often out of our hands - Esp if hardware already has been purchased
under the impressions: All will (hopefully, hands-off) Just_damn_well_ work " !
Wifi/Audio/Modems/Printers, anyone ?
The not_so_great parts:
"ATI rules" > give it a break - that firmly qualifies as one of most blatant ill-qualified
(FanBois) statement yet promulgated ~ gives lip service only & belies the supposed ~
DW goals of > 'promoting ' objective evaluations' !
Begs the questions > What was the intent
> to inflame yet more "Religious Wars" ???
Are articles with highly contentious/confrontational 'themes' only to promote conflict of self-interest items -
A questionable way to merely increase readership ?
Is DW itself turning into a personal Blog site -
Weren't we encouraged to believe ~ DW was a valued 'one-stop resource' to objectively evaluate what is available ?
(Actually - IMHO, it still is - the choice of 'lead articles/comments' section - not so much)
We can expect user enthusiasms to 'colour' subjective opinions on distro specific fourums sites
NOT to be confronted with similar behaviours endlessly by any trusted reporting media
Brings to mind:
Believe under 50 % of what you may hear -
1% of most all that is 'published'
Especially if the 'bottom-line' of any resources is
> Carving up own captive shares in commercial markets
If we hadn't been so best-bang for buck conscious
Perhaps China would not supply 90% of manufactouring goods that should be >
OUR Gross National Productivity ?
Oil resources hell - who authorised our Gvt's to "Give away the Farm" !
55 • Ubuntu laptops (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 18:14:05 GMT from United States)
While I'm glad to see computer manufacturers finally offering linux, I find it disturbing that they have chosen such an unreliable dumbed down distribution. This is a bit of an insult to those of us who are willing to learn, or have a bit of intuitive understanding or experience.
I have tried both ubuntu and kubuntu. After recommended updates both failed to boot. I have seen many similar cases and have to wonder why so may are rabid fans. I also have to seriously question the polls. I suspect that there are community notices asking ubuntu fanboys to visit poll pages and vote for ubuntu.
I would not buy a computer with ubuntu. Manufacturers who offer windows only, or a choice of windows or ubuntu... no thanks. I'll build my own.
56 • Pioneer (by Anthony on 2007-09-10 18:15:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref previous post (No.9?)
Had the same problem, did finallt get it downloaded, but didn't do me any good. Installing to the hard disk, stops at around 82% with a 'Bad Mirror' error and the only way out is a hard reset.
57 • 55 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 18:26:18 GMT from United States)
You'll build your own laptop? Kewl!
58 • but can they install Fedora? (by Jason on 2007-09-10 18:40:46 GMT from United States)
I really don't care which Linux it comes with, I'm going to install my own, even if it comes with the one I'm going to install. The issue is if the hardware is going to make it installable. The issue with Ubuntu is that it includes non free drivers, meaning that my all free Linux may not being able to install on an Ubuntu laptop. Thus this Ubuntu fan swell unfortunately might have the side effect to hurt our chances of getting hardware that is free software compatible. Although I will concede that their would be nothing to insure they would use a vanilla distro and not add non free drivers to it.
59 • Is Slackware that hard? (by roadie on 2007-09-10 18:52:02 GMT from Canada)
Good article ladislav.
I think it would be great if more computers came with Linux preinstalled.
However, I do wonder about the comment about Slackware being a "difficult" distro, along with Gentoo.
I don't understand the "difficult" aspect of Slackware's reputation, I'm assuming it's because there is no GUI installer, because really, Slackware has always worked well for me as far as detecting hardware and such.
Slackware was the only distro that would install when I was a Linux nubee, actually a computer nubee. Mandrake, Debian and others all failed. I have never tried Red Hat and the only Gentoo I've looked at was a Live CD, disapointing at best.
I realize Gentoo may be somewhat difficult, but I really don't believe that Slackware is in that class, especially with the excellent derivatives that are available. Slax is a well built system when installed and rock solid. I'm very impressed with NimbleX, based on Slackware and using the very excellent Linux Live scripts, it's a very light, fast system.
roadie
60 • 59 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 19:04:57 GMT from United States)
I certainly did not mean to knock Slackware, but we're talking about people who wouldn't even be able to install Ubuntu (or Window$) and the prospect of those people upgrading to the next release when security updates expire. Even 'dist-upgrade" has its difficulties, but the procedure for upgrading Slackware to its latest version is quite a bit more involved.
Too hard for people who know a bit about their system? Of course not! But for people who would also be intimidated by the simplest graphical installer (and there are many of them), yes, Slackware is a non-starter.
61 • ubuntu dominance? i don't care and i think you are wrong! (by bernstein on 2007-09-10 19:07:47 GMT from Switzerland)
hello ladislav,
actually i think ubuntu's "dominance" is a good thing. why?
because if dell's poll had shown a result of 20 distros each at roughly 5%, they might not have gone forward with linux at all or certainly not as fast as they have. and then lenovo wouldn't contemplating supporting a second linux distro. now they can capture 50% of linux enthusiasts with one distro.
secondly i wouldn't be so fast to say that ubuntu dominates... it might be true that ubuntu dominates among the enthusiast's but it is certainly not the case for enterprises. this is whole different world. it is where red hat and suse dominate and ubuntu is in comparison nonexistent. so what we are seeing is actually that there are now three supported linux distribution among the large vendors. (dell is more rhel while lenovo prefers sled - in enterprise)
62 • Computers with linux pre-installed (by Anonyme on 2007-09-10 19:19:48 GMT from France)
Why pre-install an OS? It's illegal (at least in France: "vente liée") and why not let choosing the user?
@26
"I don't see the problem with Ubuntu being the dominant distribution. The situation is totally different from Windows dominance, because we're talking about open source here. Some people seem to forget that."
Hum... as you want but Ubuntu is the Windows of Linux world ;-) (schematically)
And the open source is rather in a "sorry state" currently...
63 • Any Linux (by Ty on 2007-09-10 19:22:07 GMT from United States)
As long as Ubuntu stays linux (Meaning they don't do something funky to make it so other versions of Linux don't work) then it's all good. If I like PC linux OS (Which is SWEET by the way) then I can just go install it! No big deal.
Any Linux popular on the desktop means more Linux friendly machines and more reason to use LINUX!
64 • Lenovo & Ubuntu (by Claus Futtrup on 2007-09-10 19:27:17 GMT from Denmark)
It is highly appreciable that Lenovo seriously considers to offer a preinstalled Linux setup. It means their hardware will be extensively Linux tested, and special features of the Laptop are likely to be supported.
At the moment it seems predictable that Ubuntu wins the Lenovo ballot, which I think is OK. I wish that as many users shows interest for the Lenovo ballot because it gives Lenovo more interest in the Linux field.
I don't think it is a problem that the big players (Lenovo and Dell, maybe others like HP) offers Ubuntu.
I also believe that brands with smaller market share may choose to use a different distro than Ubuntu. This differentiation will serve as a further differentiation of their product, and their hardware may be of particular interst to certain groups of users, e.g. more IT technical users, more graphical users, sound studio users, etc. - anything not focused on general purpose desktop usage.
Best regards,
Claus Futtrup
Zenwalker
65 • ATI (by Claus Futtrup on 2007-09-10 19:30:23 GMT from Denmark)
Would I choose an ATI card if their Open Source driver is better than what's available from NVIDIA - YES! Looking forward to see what actually comes out of this initiative.
Best regards,
Claus
66 • re: 42 • Ubuntu & Levono (by afonic) (by Pragmatic Man on 2007-09-10 19:32:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
Congrats Afonic,
I believe you are the only one who looked at Lenovo's distro selection from the HW supplier side. I'm only disappointed that your post beat mine, because I wanted to say pretty much the same thing as you.
With Ubuntu, Canonical has set out to make a reasonably consumer-friendly desktop AND has funded a commercial support company. Whether you and I like this distribution or not is irrelevant. Dell and Lenovo and the rest are in the *business of making money*, and supporting customers without the experience and infrastructure to do so is hard to do, so they need to make the right *business* decision to get what they need to be successful. There's a limited pool of us techno-geeks out there who can pick and install the distro we want. There's a huge pool of people there who use their PCs to "do stuff" and couldn't give a monkey's about whether or not it's the "best" distro ... remember, most these people have been running Windows for their entire computing life, and have no idea about root or command line or whatever else gets this community excited.
So, if you want your favorite distro to have a chance of being preinstalled, you need to help them on their business support model.
Follow the money, people.
And before anyone accuses me of being an Ubuntu fanboy -- I have tried it, it wasn't right for me, so it's not on my hard drive. I have two other distros (won't say which, as my choice is different from yours) plus XP on my machine.
67 • Kiwi Linux (by E Graham on 2007-09-10 20:07:09 GMT from New Zealand)
I don't know what the distro is like, but do not think calling it after another country's national symbol is acceptable.
68 • Ubuntu miracle (by Eudoxus on 2007-09-10 20:11:03 GMT from Latvia)
Ubuntu's popularity started to seem miracle to me as far as I installed and tried it (this, by the way was my first linux distro, which I choose after reading some excited reviews (damn them all!!!)). I cannot swallow how it can be that such a mediocre distro can be that widely accepted. I fail to see how it outperforms, say, Mandriva, PCLOS or SuSE in terms of user-friendliness and stability. I run ThinPad but my box will never seen Ubuntu on it.
69 • Fedora has no reason to be jealous. (by Paul Stauffer on 2007-09-10 20:25:37 GMT from United States)
"ThinkPads booting into Ubuntu, and not Fedora, might soon be available from
the computer stores near you. If that does not make Spevack at least mildly
jealous, then I don't know what does."
Why do so many people seem to want the distros to be jealous of each other?
Ubuntu is doing their thing. Fedora is doing their thing. Those things
aren't really the same thing. They each have their niche in the Linux
ecosystem, and the successes and contributions of each distro are on the
whole good for all the other distros too.
If Fedora's user base never grew by a single additional user, but the
project continued to make valuable contributions to the Linux community, and
continued to push the development of quality open source software forward,
then the project would still be a resounding success. Ubuntu's numbers have
absolutely nothing to do with Fedora's success.
- Paul Stauffer, Fedora Ambassador
70 • 67 Kiwi Linux (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 20:27:15 GMT from United States)
Would Eagle Linux be unacceptable? Tiger? Lion? Zebra? Condor? Beaver? Squirrel? Dragon? Bear? Wolf? Lynx? Bull? Buffalo?
National symbols all.
71 • Typical users in the work-place (by PM on 2007-09-10 20:40:49 GMT from United States)
When it comes to using a desktop OS, it seems as if all the distributions are doing what they can to emulate Windows. When it comes right down to it, it's all about functionality and being productive.
With my experience within a corporate environment, the end user generally is not concerned with what OS they are using, they just want something that works well, fast, and is capable of getting the job done in a timely fashion.
However, they also want to utilize and interact with various multi-media technologies such as Flash, MP3, WMV, etc. And, in order to achieve this level of functionality, most users within a corporate work-place don't care what these technologies are, they just expect everything to work automagically.
A majority of the work-force is still stuck in a Windows world, which makes it an even more difficult task of getting Linux in front of the masses. So, it doesn't really matter which companies are offering systems with whatever Linux distro installed, because I can honestly say that out of all the users within my department who have purchased new PC's and laptops this year (18 so far)... every single one of these users were only interested in buying a Windows systems. Why? Because that's all they know.
Sure, you and I know there is a difference, but it's a sad reality when you sit down and really think about how many people don't know the difference.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my belief that businesses play a vital role when it comes to the average desktop user. If a business (no matter how big or how small, and for whatever reason) decides to switch to Linux, the people within that organization will more than likely appreciate Linux and want to switch at home too.
What it all boils down to is education. People and organizations alike need to be educated about Linux. They need a better understanding of it's strengths and weaknesses. They also need to know what applications are included as well as what tasks they are capable of performing.
There seems to be a gradual number of businesses, organizations, and governments, that recognize the potential of Linux. It will be a matter of time and patience before we see this trend increase even more.
72 • Is it really that bad if Ubuntu becomes stronger? (by Daniel R. on 2007-09-10 20:51:38 GMT from Germany)
I don't see the problem, when Ubuntu becomes stronger in the international IT market. Isn't it Mark Shuttleworth who says that it has to be the whole system which convinces the people, and not one killerapplication? And what about the german "freiesMagazin", a monthly newsletter that is made by Ubuntu users AND Fedora Users? And aren't there also other distributions on launchpad.net? Ubuntu uses software made by Novell and RedHat (or Fedora) and so on, and it is possible for everyone to use Ubuntu's code as well. We should pay attention that we don't get to the situation that nobody trusts the next in the Linux world.
Daniel
73 • 72 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 20:58:34 GMT from United States)
RedHat frees their code. Novell has recently started to do so. Ubuntu has no intention of releasing the code to Launchpad (or Rosetta) any time soon. Whether or not others can USE Launchpad is immaterial to the fact that it is closed source and proprietary.
74 • Ubuntu fears (by Steve Brennan on 2007-09-10 21:05:30 GMT from New Zealand)
I remember when similar fears were raised about Red Hat many moons ago. It seems to me that whenever a distro becomes successful commercially a whole lot of people within the linux community start putting that distro down. Which is a shame, because just because a user starts using a particular linux distro doesn't mean they'll stay with that distro for life. I've lost count of the number of distro's I've used since I first installed linux way back when Red Hat 5.0 was the latest and greatest.
Also, as noted by other posts, once hardware companies such as ATI and Dell start making their hardware Linux compliant, it wont matter what distro is preinstalled on their system. Don't like Ubuntu, want a linux compliant system, buy a Dell system with Ubuntu preinstalled and then install your favorite linux distro on it.
As a side note, my next video card upgrade will be an ATI one, unless Nvidia decide to follow ATI's lead and open source their drivers.
75 • for Anonymous (by karellen on 2007-09-10 21:11:25 GMT from Romania)
you do have a lot of time to spare on this matter...
76 • Is it really that bad if Ubuntu becomes stronger? (by Daniel R. on 2007-09-10 21:13:08 GMT from Germany)
I don't see the problem, when Ubuntu becomes stronger in the international IT market. Isn't it Mark Shuttleworth who says that it has to be the whole system which convinces the people, and not one killerapplication? And what about the german "freiesMagazin", a monthly newsletter that is made by Ubuntu users AND Fedora Users? And aren't there also other distributions on launchpad.net? Ubuntu uses software made by Novell and RedHat (or Fedora) and so on, and it is possible for everyone to use Ubuntu's code as well. We should pay attention that we don't get to the situation that nobody trusts the next in the Linux world.
Daniel
77 • Ubuntu as the desktop choice (by Ed Hodge on 2007-09-10 21:54:20 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu being the flavor of choice is not a big deal. If you are not savvy with Linux, you can get a Linux preinstalled and guaranteed to work with the hardware included. If you are savvy with Linux, you can install your favorite distro and be almost positive everything is going to work. I've used Mandriva (Mandrake) since 8.2 on several configurations of hardware, including 3 Thinkpads, and have had very few hardware problems. I'm pretty sure I could buy a Thinkpad with Ubuntu installed and put Mandriva or PCLinuxOS or Suse or Fedora or Slackware or name your distro on it and it will "Just Work".
78 • Canonical has a vision (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 21:55:05 GMT from Finland)
"Canonical believes that in the near future, GNU/Linux users that are currently spread among a plethora of distributions will be concentrated around 2 or 3 main distributions."
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/guadalinex
I really hope that Canonical is wrong. No, I didn't vote for Ubuntu in the Lenovo poll.
79 • BTW Ubuntu (by Ed Hodge on 2007-09-10 21:58:35 GMT from United States)
BTW, Ubuntu in my opinion is the least user-friendly option of the ones I listed in my previous post. I have tried it several times and have always run up against an issue that was a PITA. Again, if it works with Ubuntu, it is almost GUARANTEED to work with any other distro.
80 • Mixed bag: "Shotgun style" (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 22:06:19 GMT from Canada)
Re #65
Who wouldn't use whatever > is PROVEN the better performer:
With AMD throwing their considerable weight behind ATI -
we can only wait & hope for the best !
http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html
OTOH - ATI has has not been very supportive to Linux/OSS in very recent past
Many prior promises have been stated - not implemented (by many Mfrs)
Best - for what use - at which market target - high-end gamer or more plebian home desktop user needs ?
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/07/12/geforce_and_radeon_take_on_linux/
We get the picture - all_of_sudden - we are presented with lots of "ifs/ors and buts" ?
Ever get the feeling ~ OUR "butts" are the first casualties of industry near-missives "
UNTIL proven otherwise - ( & all: OLD as well as newer card$ ) proprietary secrets are fully
released to world-wide OSS communities
-
AND if not too prohibitive to many existing licensing pacts:
One thing is for certain- the profit margins have dwindled significanlty in all computer hardware areas.
= Follow the money - if market shares demand a change in Mfr. attitudes - the consumer (MAY) benefit
As to which is "best" - Amd/Intel, Nividia/ATI
Changes almost daily
If 'product supperiority'; was ONLY determining factor -
Linux would have supplanted Win_xx use long ago
(Isnt' that much the same for 'distributions') ?
NOTE: the home-user market is a fringe market ~ compared to 'vital use' of computers in world deployment
The vast majority of software/hardware is enabling computer-enhanced productivity & world communications
IT all spells out Information Technology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology
Dept of DISS- information:
Subject to restrictions - (rational or not) to national security overrides.
The first casualty to freedoms - is truth !
Typical TOP-ical ? (RE #67/70):
Speaking of "National Symbols"
WTH - -is the Olympics organization allowed to "copywrite" that word ???
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=olympics+copywrite+restrictions&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
A (modern) version of Romanistic domininance ~ of Gvt dictates from on high ?
Answer - money talks - (gee who'da_thunk it ) < P:(tongue)
Bet the far-sighted "Founding Fathers of the Nation' - would be cryng in frustrations
to see present "enlightened policies"
What does THAT 'symbolize' -to ALL
81 • Lenovo to offer SUSE Linux Preload on ThinkPad Notebooks (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 22:07:34 GMT from Germany)
> it seems that Lenovo, the world's third largest computer is the next company that contemplates selling Linux notebooks.
Strange statement as Lenovo has already announced last month that it will preload SUSE Linux: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7900847200.html
82 • Re: Ubuntu's dominance (by Andrew Poelstra on 2007-09-10 22:10:15 GMT from Canada)
I disagree with the idea that Ubuntu's complete dominance of the desktop user market is a problem: Ubuntu has a clean, simple, easy-to-use interface, and from an IT perspective, is much easier to support than, for example, Sabayon.
Users don't know that they have "Ubuntu" or "Fedora" or "Gentoo". They know that they have Linux, if they even know that. When I'm getting tech support calls from my users, I want to be able to start up my Ubuntu VM and walk them through exactly what they have to do, comfortable in the fact that their system will function the same way that mine is.
On the other had, the real Linux users, the guys who contribute, who have been here since the beginning (or not), the ones who don't need to call technical support, these guys know how to install a new system. They have no problem buying a Ubuntu computer and installing Sabayon or Arch on top of it. In this respect, Max Spevack is correct: the users who actually matter to the future of Linux will see which is the best, and they'll use it. It really doesn't matter what the masses are using, because they aren't cutting code, contributing ideas and filing detailed bug reports.
I, personally use Sabayon because it has the best wireless support, it supports Compiz incredibly well (shutting up those lookit-my-pretty-computer Vista fanboys), and it networks beautifully with my Windows computers, my server, my router and Mac. NetworkManager works superbly, and I like the interface.
Arch Linux users have expressed similar love for their distribution. They aren't going to stop contributing just because Ubuntu is bigger.
On the other hand, I use Fedora for my server, both because I grew up with the Red Hat style of system administration, and because it combines bleeding-edge software with almost Debian-like stability. I'm certainly not going to think, boy that Ubuntu's popular!, and brick my server with funny Xen configuration programs, proftpd and silly library names.
Despite all that, when people come to me and say "I want Linux" (and the number of these people increases every year!), I hand them a Ubuntu CD and say "go fly".
83 • You guys are noobs (by Jimbo on 2007-09-10 22:12:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
Its like when your favourite obscure rock band becomes popular with all the other kids at school, you kinda stop liking that band as much.
"ZOMG Ubuntu is popular with regular people, now I dont like it anymore, I wanna be quirky and different"
Get over it. Ubuntu going mainstream means more people will use Fedora and Suse and everything else out there. Because hell 5% of a huge pie is better than 25% of a small one.
Even if Ubuntu was to take over 98% share of the desktop market that is great, because it means Open Source won. Dont you get it guys? It doesnt matter at this stage what specific applications or distros becomes popular, the crucial thing is open source becomes popular.
Open source being adopted wildly will make the world a better place. Suse having 5% more market share wont.
84 • No subject (by Euoxus on 2007-09-10 22:21:14 GMT from Latvia)
I do not think hat it is irrelevant which distrbution will be installed on ThinkPads because normally thinkpads come with some ThinPad specific additional software and I am not sure that one will be able to use that after replacing preinstalled OS with his/her OS of choice. However, there is a possibility that all this talk about Lenovo and Ubuntu means nothing as quite soon (by the end of this year in fact) we are going see ThinPads with SLED. That's what one can gather from Novell's home page.
85 • circular reasoning? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-10 23:14:49 GMT from United States)
Spevack says that he doesn't consider popularity on websites like DW to be the deciding factor in the distro.
The article's rebuttal is to say that it is important, so Spevack has to recognize it as a first step in admitting that he has a problem, I guess before he heads into Linux Anonymous meetings or something. lolol
Everyone here can see that's not a good rebuttal, because it's a refusal to accept what Spevack said and argue starting at that point. It's the equivalent of saying "no you're wrong. You can start improving once you admit that." Okay that might be your opinion, but that's not article worthy.
If you could report on something that's great. Interview somebody so you have a dialogue, that's better. Take one comment and then ridicule the person that said it-- that's simply tacky. If DW is just a big site and you take yourselves seriously and considers yourself to be professionals, then start writing like professionals.
86 • RE: Ubuntu on ThinkPads? (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-09-11 00:36:25 GMT from Italy)
"Sure, we'll be able to choose between Windows and Ubuntu (as opposed to having no choice at all), but wouldn't it be nicer if we could choose between Windows, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and Mandriva?"
Exactly. Having just one distribution chosen by all manufacturers is against the true spirit of Linux.
"But if the Fedoras, Mandrivas and OpenSUSEs out there don't take action now, they will soon find themselves marginalised and out of contention by both the end users and the hardware manufacturers."
I don't know what they could do more than they are already doing. OpenSUSE 10.3, for instance, looks as if it is going a killer distro. Maybe more aggressive propaganda is the answer (I'll start a personal one once openSUSE 10.3 is released).
Anyway, do they want to put Ubuntu on every Linux laptop? Who cares. I'll immediately erase it and replace with openSUSE.
87 • No subject (by Distro_Who on 2007-09-11 00:40:51 GMT from Puerto Rico)
For me, simply the Desktop PC market are begining to search more seriously for alternatives for windows and the time will tell (not distro hopper's wars) is linux is mature and/or ready for that. if not simply will be seing solaris or bsd's in the laptops in the future.
88 • 85 • circular reasoning? (by ladislav on 2007-09-11 00:53:53 GMT from Taiwan)
Nah, we are not professionals and we don't take ourselves seriously. Still, we expect that people who choose to comment here actually read the articles carefully, rather than just skim over them.
89 • Seriously ? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 01:23:57 GMT from Canada)
Quote:
'Nah, we are not professionals and we don't take ourselves seriously.
Still......"
{Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either).
Albert Einstein
{Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public}.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Respectfully >
(1st a caveat - few & ESP. me - would ever have the skills or courage to undertake Ladislav's
delicate balancing demands of this site:
Populist Publishing:
~ Prejudice is a great time saver.
You can form opinions without having to get the facts:'
unknown
Ethics:
~ Ethics ARE undeniably, hard to live by - Esp. (sic) When under pressures of the fickle public & daily demands:
~ Credibilty WILL suffer if rigorous standards are dissmissed.
Professional standards:
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
90 • re: 29 - ad hominem arguments and the fallacy of the excluded middle (by jrminter on 2007-09-11 01:28:15 GMT from United States)
I tire of comment like that in #29: "And to all the Eric Raymond fanbois who think an OS is incomplete without being larded up with proprietary software, all installed by default, and that only after we unfree Linux will hardware manufacturers open their drivers, here's a rag to wipe the egg off your face."
First, this is both an ad-hominem attack and an example of the fallacy of the excluded middle. Both fallacies are the sign of a weak argument. i am quite happy with the CHOICE of whether to use an open source driver or a gratis closed-source driver. I have tried both the open source and vendor supplied drivers for my Nvidia graphics card. i get much better OpenGL performance with the vendor supplied driver. I am quite happy with the Open source Python modules I use as well as MANY other tools. So, in reality, i am better off given a large choice of tools to use.
My tongue in cheek response to to post 29 is to remind the author that there are decaffeinated drinks that are just as tasty as 'high test.' Life is too short to spend it excoriating others for their software choices. Computers are like business suits - one size does not fit all. Choice is good. Be happy with yours and let others be happy with theirs. Give suggestions if others ask for a better combination.
91 • OK (by For the record on 2007-09-11 02:43:21 GMT from Australia)
1. Lenovo is already committed to selling Thinkpads with Novell SLED preinstalled.
2. SLED is based on openSUSE. Thus any enthusiast will easily be able to install and run openSUSE on these machines.
3. Lenovo is canvassing the Linux "ENTHUSIAST" (NOT NEWBIE) user base for a second choice of Linux DIstro!
4. If Lenovo installs Ubuntu (or Fedora, Mandriva, openSUSE, Debian) and uses open source drivers, then there is no problem for any enthusiast to install his/her distro of choice in addition to, or over the top of, the Lenovo preinstalled distro.
@42 • Ubuntu & Levono (by afonic from Greece)
I don't think the real reason a company like Levono would choose Ubuntu is just the votes in some public poll.
If you think about it Fedora Core and openSuse are not real choices. Redhat and Novell do not support them. If you want support you have to go with RHEL or SUSE Enterprise Desktop which do cost money and would increase the laptop's price.
FYI: Novell does sell support for Boxed versions of openSUSE!
92 • Linux on the laptop (by Masked Penguin on 2007-09-11 03:09:47 GMT from Canada)
I have been running linux on my laptops long before Dell embraced it. While I enjoy Ubuntu, I don't necessarily believe it is for everyone. However, there are still many "curious" potential converts that still think Linux is a single entity like Windows. When I explain that there are many distributions, and that they differ I get the deer in the headlights look from them. (It's like the years of MS brainwashing has really paid off!) However, the idea that Dell has adopted Ubuntu, and Levono is considering Linux is great for Linux. It gives these would be converts an easy means to take a test spin, and check out the functionality. The best part for a newbie is that it all should work out of the box. I can remember years back in the beginning days of Redhat, and early days of Slackware how frustrated I was. I must have tried getting everything to work at least 2 or 3 dozen occasions. I would pick it up, and put it away. I look back on those days with fondness as I learned a lot about computers. Windows frustrated me so much I converted to OS/2. But it wasn't really until about 7 years ago that I really found a distro I really liked, Libranet. (and then eventually I moved to Ubuntu) Not every would be convert would fart around with all sorts of software that didn't make a lot of sense to them, especially when most of the free world is running something out of Redmond. Not everyone is going to sit at their computer for hours trying to get their wifi up and running, or their video card setup using Nvidia divers or ATI drivers. Because Linux requires a little effort, people shy away, as some people fear change. For those people, this is a good thing. While I would never by a Dell solely for the reason they offer Ubuntu as an option (I have other reasons for purchasing their laptops), I think that this move may add a few more members to our user base. Eventually we all outgrow the distro we first started with. I have tried at least a dozen distros. If it wasn't true, and we were content with what was on our screens, we'd all still be running MS Windows.
93 • You are correct Ladislav (by Landor on 2007-09-11 06:18:27 GMT from Canada)
It is a time to worry. Many distros should be doing some form of image damage control right now. Trying to find out what they are doing wrong and Ubuntu is doing right.
Personally, and yes it's preference, I can't stand a Gnome environment. I could possibly live with a Kubuntu install on a box that for some insane reason I thought a factory mass producing for me was a good thing.
I would much rather live with openSUSE as the alternative, with KDE. I think by far, when it comes to polish, style and flawlessness (a lot of people forget that last one in naming their flavour of the month) openSUSE is thee premier distro out of the Big Boys (and as many know I run Gentoo).
I find it disturbing that we might find an earthy brown bug ridden system running rampant in the retail stores, with no other alternative "off the shelf" than Redmond or OS X.
And for those that talk about how it doesn't matter, oh it does, it really matters due to drivers and such. Trees in the forest that have a jump on other trees blot out the sunlight and stunt their growth. We can learn a lot from nature.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
94 • Ubuntu vs. Fedora (by Steve Carr on 2007-09-11 06:23:09 GMT from United States)
Forgive me, for I am a mere user. I've been using Ubuntu on my home desktop and laptop for over a year, and I like it a lot. I have also tried Fedora 7. While I can make Fedora work, there is no advantage to switching from Ubuntu. Getting proprietary multi-media drivers was much more difficult with Fedora. Also, there doesn't seem to be much in the official Fedora repositories. I can handle the command line, but using yum is a pain. At home I still use a modem, and Ubuntu will tell me the file size and the time remaining when I download updates. Fedora does not...and this matters when using a very slow connection.
95 • why so much hoopla on ubuntu (by manmath sahu on 2007-09-11 06:48:38 GMT from India)
i wonder why you and other linux portals make ubuntu a linux news in most the editions. because pclinuxos is also riding high on popularity. had there not been that shipit and canonical thing, pclinuxos would be adulated.
i request the linux community to change the spotlight to pclinuxos.
96 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 06:54:59 GMT from Australia)
@94 • Ubuntu vs. Fedora (by Steve Carr United States)
Getting proprietary multi-media drivers was much more difficult with Fedora.
"Livna" repo is a good start for mm stuff! It is also very easy to set up, I don't know why you are complaining. Unless you are on a cheap smear campaign against Fedora?
Also, there doesn't seem to be much in the official Fedora repositories.
What is it that you want and that is missing?
I can handle the command line, but using yum is a pain.
I only recently used Fedora 7 for about two weeks, but you have plenty of gui package manager options available - Yumex, Smart, and the default one (Pirut?).
For those that can use it, Yum is probably a most efficient way for package management.
NB: If you need help with Fedora, I would say the Fedora forums would be a good place to look for it!
Cheers
97 • Even one distro will open many to GNU/LINUX and FOSS! (by Clint Brothers on 2007-09-11 07:05:15 GMT from United States)
This is such good news! The average computer user will see the benefits of FREEDOM by downloading OSS packages from repos and then tell everyone they know about this FREEDOM. After using synaptic users will be introduced to KDE, FLUXBOX, XFCE and then try other distros. WORLD DOMINATION comes next! CURIOUS we all are.
98 • Ubuntu on Thinkpads? (by Mike Newton on 2007-09-11 07:05:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
come on guys, let's get this in perspective. Microsoft still has 90%+ market share of the desktop and you're worried that this or that distro isn't represented?
We should be celebrating the fact that LINUX is making inroads into the OEM market, and Ubuntu deserves huge credit for setting the standards which will entice the computer manufacturers to preinstall LINUX.
99 • Linux Distros (by Serenitude on 2007-09-11 07:43:53 GMT from United States)
As has been the case for at least a decade, the rabid elitism and fanboi attitudes turn as many people off to Linux as ignorance of it's existence. For every 2 people I can convince to try it, 1 will read FUDy, bashing, carnivorous, jealous e-peen crap like this and just go back to Windows.
Sometimes it makes me wonder why Microsoft tries so hard - if left alone, Linux users will always eat their own, and on the whole, be their own worst enemy ;)
I think having any Linux installed is great. One as initially uncomplicated to the new user as Ubuntu is even better. Some will stay with it and stay in our Linux world. Others will get curious and move on to other (better? maybe) products. Either way, they're HERE, not THERE.
In the end, why does it inflame people so if they're distro of choice this month isn't #1 on everyone's map? Why do people care if Ubuntu takes away most of the config and pretty much just works, and shields the new Linux user from borking themself? Why?
I thought Linux was about Freedom. Freedom to be just as right in the distro that fits you as the next guy. Freedom to have everything set up for you, or the freedom to run from the command line.
It seems most Linux users TALK the talk about freedom, but in the end they only want their version. 'Distro X' pwns, your distro suckx, if you use it you're an idiot, etc.... And they wonder why some people just go back to Windows after reading this crap.
I don't use Ubuntu myself, but even I can see that what's good for Ubuntu is good for Linux, and vice-versa. It's just supply and demand, and at this snapshot in time, Ubuntu is the demand. It's not a slap in the face of your personal distro. It's just the best shot at opening doors.
You'd think we'd all, as GNU/Linux users, be happy about these things, but the typical, decade and a half old, holier-than-thou fanboi flamefests just refuse to die from the snob crowds. We should think of ourselves as one, not many, but with many flavors.
Because that's what we are. Regardless of wether you have Suse, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo, Fedora, etc... on your PC, WE ARE GNU/Linux! Only together do we stand a chance to make this more than a geek/hobbyist project - which it still is, but we're on the verge of something bigger.
Unless we continue to consume ourselves from within.
100 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 07:51:02 GMT from Australia)
missing < /i>
This should fix the italics in the posts, I hope.
101 • Linux, Standards, and Ubuntu (by Draca on 2007-09-11 07:56:34 GMT from United States)
"We should be celebrating the fact that LINUX is making inroads into the OEM market, and Ubuntu deserves huge credit for setting the standards which will entice the computer manufacturers to preinstall LINUX."
The problem is that Ubuntu is not Linux because Linux is a multiplicity of distributions, not just one distribution. To mistake any one distribution as Linux is, effectively, to transform open-source Linux into a proprietary operating system of one company. Keep in mind that Ubuntu is not even a community distribution but one funded by a corporation, Canonical.
If we want to give people Linux, then we ought to be giving them a strictly community-based distribution. If we want to give people Linux, then we should expose them to multiple distributions as a tangible exhibition of choice and freedom.
As for Ubuntu setting standards, Ubuntu largely coopted the work of older companies such as Red Hat, SUSE (the original company, not just Novell), Mandriva (formerly Mandrake), and Slackware (yes, it is a company). Debian is not a company but functions like one as far as enterprise customers are concerned. Admittedly, Ubuntu put its own spin on things, but as far as I know, they have not set any standards.
We should not forget our history.
102 • linux préinstallé (by alain guerreau on 2007-09-11 08:18:33 GMT from France)
+ si l'on veut que linux marche vraiment bien, il faut qu'il touche le grand public, donc il faut des linux préinstallés sur des machines vendues dans les supermarchés.
+ les constructeurs ne se lanceront pas dans cette direction aussi longtemps que linux restera synonyme de jardin zoologique : il *faut* une distribution représentant au moins 60% des utilisateurs.
+ il est facile de voir qu'ubuntu est la distribution la plus efficace, en particulier du fait de la richesse sans égal des repositories: quelle autre distribution propose 23000 packages précompilés ???
>> dans ces conditions, dire "je n'aime pas ubuntu" est simplement une réaction, pas un raisonnement...
103 • Boxed = Paid (by afonic on 2007-09-11 08:32:38 GMT from Greece)
@91: FYI: Novell does sell support for Boxed versions of openSUSE!
Sure they do, thats exactly what I said. I said that Novell DOES offer support but for their commercial Linux versions (SLED) or boxed versions of openSuse. However this may be cheaper than Windows but its not free of charge like Ubuntu, thus it increases the laptop price.
Now if you ask me which distribution I think is the best for new Linux users, and by new I mean people that want to have their work done, not enthusiasts, I'd say Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop. It is much more polished and far more usable than any distro out there, it even has better cross system support (for example VB macros for OpenOffice for better cross suite support). And Novell offers support and the somewhat extra "security" that the patent deal with Microsoft offers (not really important for the home user but the businesses it is a positive point).
And to answer another comment, Mandriva is out of the question imo. They advertise support but they don't really deliver it (at least from my experienced as I've bought their products). Not not mention that many of the their stable versions are very buggy and less stable than even forks of their distro (PCLinuxOS). Lets hope they improve with their new versions.
104 • RE 102 UBUlinux fait du chiffre, (by dbrion on 2007-09-11 08:38:26 GMT from France)
Certainement pas du travail de vérification (fût il élémentaire) ou d'innovation : c'est "je copie et je clame haut et fort que je suis le meilleur"
"richesse sans égal des repositories: quelle autre distribution propose 23000 packages précompilés ?
"
Effectivement, Debian n'égale pas UBUlinux, puisque, en plus de les stocker, il :
a) teste ses packages
b) les maintient voire les améliore....
FYI ; l'an dernier, un collègue (spécialiste de Mandriva) a testé les linuxes les plus populaires pour un usage professionnel dans les trois prochaines années, en listant, testant et "valgrindant" les applications en ligne de commande jugées stratègiques:
Il recommandait en priorité Debian (il n'y avait pas de préjugé de sa part..), OpenSuze , des RedHats clonées et Mandriva (en version stable) venaient ensuite sans qu'il puisse trancher. La conclusion la plus nette était : d'éviter UBUlinux....
Cette façon de procèder est parfaitement rationnelle, et n'a rien à voir avec un fanatisme de majorette, ni avec des procès d'intention ou de l'émotivité....
105 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 08:42:25 GMT from France)
39: <<<
a) a majority of pple would associate a (demagogic, wellfare) distribution with GNU/linux in general.
b) If, in the meantime, Microsoft hires (as he does, to day) good developpers, and if UBUlinux crashes (while the neighbors M$ does not crash), pple will think any (among them, many are serious) linux is crap.
c) other distributions developpers might feel happy, anyway, with the monopoly of propaganda against technical/innovation skills...
>>>
I've never even tried any *buntu/spin off so I'm not here to defend it.
Regarding b):
My preconception is that, in the wolrd of MS-to-linux-migrants, users that stayed most similar to MS users are found mostly within *buntu 's user base. Therefore I can hardly believe that for them *buntu crashes more than MS OSs.
Of course, MS may start releasing a shining OS, but it should take some time, no matter how many world class developpers, managers and what not they employ. Unless Mother Teresa elects MS as the place of a second miracle ;)
Anyway, Dell and Lenovo interest in linux is an encouraging sign. It could have no short term concrete impact if it's not advertised at all though. Or if Lenovo and the chosen distro's developper community don't work hand in hand in making the offering as friendly as possible to the general public. Or if, despite everyone's best efforts, the linux desktop experience isn't ready for the masses after all..
Regarding the commercial support factor: #91 says that openSUSE has it as well. What about Fedora and Mandriva?
Too bad no major distro with corporate backing chose a rolling release system à la Arch. There would be no need for things such as "LTS release".
106 • ubuntu, kiwi (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 09:08:49 GMT from New Zealand)
Canonical has always sought to drive Ubuntu as a trailblazer for open source. Remember that Ubuntu is still Debian, so any headway it makes should benefit other distros in the long term. The ongoing Ubuntu campaign for fully open drivers should also suggest that having hardware companies adopt Ubuntu as their default distro is a good thing.
And re 67: The kiwi in Kiwi Linux seems to refer to the fruit not the bird, looking at their logo. So they are obviously health conscious, responsible developers and not wildlife poachers.
107 • RE 105 Is it that bad? (by dbrion on 2007-09-11 09:17:07 GMT from France)
that "no major distro with corporate backing chose a rolling release system à la Arch"
The underlying hypothetsis of such a system is that progress is monotone; this would imply pple maintaining soft would 100% of their time intelligent, which seems inhuman....
A very strict quality assurance policy may perhaps limit the harms such automagical "up"grades can sometimes generate (and A. Williamson has Mandrivas automagically upgraded since 2 or 3 yrs). But pple who buy linux (as my boss does, sometimes) prefer stable, fully tested applications, and that changes are limited , controlled (the situation of "yesterday, it worked; to day it does not work-nobody knows why-, tomorrow, this regression will perhaps be fixed" in the worse one can imagine).
108 • drivers might be a problem on thinkpads (by Daniel R. on 2007-09-11 10:08:22 GMT from Germany)
Well, I've read a lot of comments here and thought about the whole thing twice. I am a kubuntuuser myself, but I am always trying new distros - well, there hasn't been any that convinced me yet.
I'm glad that Lenovo got so many votes for Ubuntu, for sure. But I'm also scared about that there might be drivers only for Ubuntu. That would be very worse, because I think that there must be the choice for the single user - and the choice shouldn't be intended by the vendor, Lenovo.
I would embrace if Lenovo offers a "Linux-Laptop", that works good with Linux itself.
And to introduce Linux, it provides Ubuntu Linux. For those that have never tried any distro and don't want to discover every distro theirself it's a good choice.
By the way, Kubuntu is communitydeveloped.
We should take care that we don't see Canonical as the main problem that is the enemy of our freedom, but Microsoft with Windows.
Work together instead grudge each other!
109 • Too many Linux distros? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 10:16:22 GMT from Finland)
"Some choice is better than none. But it does not follow that more choice is better than some."
-- Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice (Talk at TED 2005)
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/93
110 • drivers might be a problem on thinkpads (by Daniel R. on 2007-09-11 10:29:21 GMT from Germany)
Well, I've read a lot of comments here and thought about the whole thing twice. I am a kubuntuuser myself, but I am always trying new distros - well, there hasn't been any that convinced me yet.
I'm glad that Lenovo got so many votes for Ubuntu, for sure. But I'm also scared about that there might be drivers only for Ubuntu. That would be very worse, because I think that there must be the choice for the single user - and the choice shouldn't be intended by the vendor, Lenovo.
I would embrace if Lenovo offers a "Linux-Laptop", that works good with Linux itself.
And to introduce Linux, it provides Ubuntu Linux. For those that have never tried any distro and don't want to discover every distro theirself it's a good choice.
By the way, Kubuntu is communitydeveloped.
We should take care that we don't see Canonical as the main problem that is the enemy of our freedom, but Microsoft with Windows.
Work together instead grudge each other!
111 • ubuntu, standards? (by nobuntu on 2007-09-11 10:35:06 GMT from Germany)
@101: What "standards" are you dreaming about that *buntu has set?
112 • Ubuntu Desktop Dominance - means death of choice?? (by Russell Cook on 2007-09-11 10:36:26 GMT from Australia)
You raise a very interesting and serious point re: potential Ubuntu dominance of the desktop. It's a real two edged-sword.
Without dominance of one distro flavour, it's hard to be taken seriously outside of geekdom. With dominance, there is the real risk of reduced choice.
The computer industry is historically worse than the car industry, (at least there's a top 10 global players in the motor industry), for the dominant player squeezing everyone else out (look at Wordperfect, Netware, Quattro, Lotus, Borland, Groupwise etc for examples of how small the no. 2 player is).
The question as I see it is: How do we promote mainstream acceptance of Linux without losing choice with a single distro dominance or fragmentation causing confusion if there's still 100 "viable" distros?
I don't know the answer, but watching the industry over the next 2 to 5 years is sure going to be interesting!
Russ
113 • Choice? (by dbrion on 2007-09-11 10:50:42 GMT from France)
Maybe UBUlinux is THE good choice in the antimonopolistic war against the Redmont Sheitan, but there are hundreds of better choices :
for those who are not horrible outfashioned geeks, Skolelinux (which is meant to be installed by teachers, who may be very isolated and computer ignorant - I know many, software installation is not their job...) seems very good : lots of games for children, every app I tried had a working manual/tutorial.
I choose Skolelinux because it is a retested and customized Debian, and Debian is sometimes laughed at as not being up-to-date....=> From the users they aim at and the way it is maintained, it was likely to be easy, useful and stable.
If I wanted a CLI, LFS seems perfect (and it is a good book).
Thanks to DW and others, choice can be effective without great efforts(now, I download very little and everything I download can be used...)
I however understand that intellectually lazy UBUlinux fanboys claim there is too much choice. This shows an interesting conception of FREEDOM (sorry for the ritual upcase) and war against an ugly monopol.
114 • re: 88 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 11:49:03 GMT from United States)
If you take yourself seriously then don't write articles that are basically "nah ah" whenever someone that's actually important in the linux community marginalizes the importance of DW. You don't contribute anything but to show that you're not professional and do not see what you're doing as something that should be taken seriously. You might as well just use a myspace profile instead if you're going to take that approach.
And don't do the childest "next time read the article" thing. What does it sting when it's correctly summarized in a sentence? If you want DW weekly to be a newsletter and not just a personal blog, then you need to step up.
115 • ubuntu=linux (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-11 11:51:47 GMT from Romania)
What I really dislike about Ubuntu is not the distro itself but the fact that so many people outside Linux think of it (Ubuntu) as the Only Linux.Is easy to understand why is that, is good, is famous, is number one in top and I have nothing against IT or its users, but read this: --http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT8875946056.html-- and you will see what I mean.
116 • re: 115 (by herman at 2007-09-11 12:02:16 GMT from Europe)
Is that Ubuntu's fault?
This used to be what people thought of Red Hat ("linux=RH").
Sure, I wouldn't be enthusiastic about Ubuntu having a huge marketshare if that would marginalise the others. And I'm a Fedora/CentOS user myself. But come on, what is linux market share on the desktop?
Ubuntu cannot lock you in. I see many thing to worry a lot more about than Ubuntu market share. Does everybody drive the same car brand? Not even in Korea. Once Ubuntu is so mainstream that it stops being cool, people will start using Mandriva, Debian, a BSD, etc.
117 • @88. (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 12:34:42 GMT from France)
Obviously you and ladislav don't agree on what the gist of what he wrote this week is.
I could add -it's easy enough- that if DWW isn't what you want it to be, feel free to start your own."DistroWatch Weekly is a weekly opinion column [...]"
118 • 114 re: 88 (by ladislav on 2007-09-11 12:42:28 GMT from Taiwan)
OK Mr. Anonymous, I'll take up the challenge. Where exactly do I say that DistroWatch ranking are important, as you claim in your "correctly summarised sentence"? As a matter of fact, I agreed with Mr Spevack that they were not, but this is the part that you conveniently missed. Furthermore, I've always downplayed the importance of the DW ranking as nothing more than a fun attempt at measuring what's hot among the site's readers. Just ask any of the regular readers around here.
But of course, I can't remind you to read the article carefully next time because that would be childish, right?
I am not a professional journalist. I am also often wrong and I don't expect everybody to agree with my views and opinions that I sometimes present here. But I do expect that those people who decide to criticise the writer of an article at least make an effort to read it in its entirety. Is that too much to ask? How would you feel if somebody accused you of saying things that you've never said and which you can easily prove? Now you know how your comment made me feel!
One more point - I have nothing but the greatest respect for Max Spevack. I don't believe that any part of the article can be interpreted as "ridiculing" him. However, if it did come out that way, rest assured that it wasn't intended.
119 • Divide & Conquer ? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 14:19:58 GMT from Canada)
In the words of Hamlet _ Quothe the Raven:
NEVER MORE !
http://sigcarlfred.blogspot.com/2006/03/raskalnikov-does-hamlet.html
This weAks' leading_us_on article, conveniently ignores:
No single Linux VARIANT distribution will ever have the resources in funding
nor manpower to "dominate" nor weaken advances in deployment of FOSS
The home-market enthusiast is only a SMALL - in corporate enterprise need -
portion of computer usage -
MOST is to power robotic manufacturing & ALL scientific modeling analysis
Weaponry & mechanisms - commercial flight/all guidance, satellite communications
There is ostensibly - no limit to end uses
Why are we even here ?
Beacause - proof to contrary not yet presented:
WE - are just relatively "home-tinkerers"
Take your hobby seriously - if so inclined, why not
Viewing opioniated subjective conclusions as fully informed - NEVER !
Consider :
Linux is the kernel ONLY - it took the combined efforts of love of a world wide 'community'
of enthusiasts to provide the functions we all share
No hard-core enthusiast would ever be content to limit themselve, let alone
own creativity "bent" to any one distribution base
Nor are any content to limit their tools at disposal to any one code language base
Those same devotees - are highly individualistic thinkers - satisfying THEIR own creative urges -
NOT elistists - not "GEEKS" > undeserving of derogatives that try impune characters of all so engrossed in pursuits
Guru- NuB -Geek - are favoured terms of social S---t disturbers - the same types who have an alarming NEED
to malign anything they don't WANT to understand
Pandering to pupulist mis-conceptions to full-fill own marketing ploys
Esp justified in guise of "informing" the unwashed public followers -
is playing a dangerous political game
Sooner or later - those who do not adhere to mob mentality - will say_
Enough already - such behaviours is trash talk at best ~ all credibility has been blown
It was already clearly, accurately stated :
The article topic presented is ONE possible business reality concept
The true hard-core hacker - may not even be a FOSS advocate - is very much misunderstood,
a "loner' outside his/her realm of interests
They "LIVE" mostly only to improve own skills & (most) delight in sharing hard-won results
Software 'Proof of concept' > Hard to understand why businesses would risk their livelihood by
adopting anything vulnerable to simplistic "virus" or DDOS attacks ?
At the same time locking themslves into extremely expensive ECOB licensing contracts
Or - why Gvts of all stripe - waste resources, tax monies plundered from pockets of working class employees
http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/ibvstudy/gbs/a1027248?cntxt=a1000401
In a way - it is a pity Linux progressed so rapidly -
At one time NATURAL SELECTION (individual quirks?) weeded out those unwilling to devote energies
to any hobby pursuits
Technology advances make all SEEM easy - but it was not nob-twiddlers that advanced
cutting -edge research breakthroughs of electronics
Now we have I.E, digital cameras
Ease of use has not yet produced new crops of "Ansell Adams"
Nor has synthesised instruments spawned new Mozarts or DeBusseys
Paint_by_-dots ring any bells ? -
Promoting "thinking" of our favourite hobby -is admirable-
Alluding to being "spokesperson" for the "average joe" - is self-delusional
Let alone trying to suss world-wide enterprise marketing analysis
Hell -who would deny - even the stock market movers & shakers can't get_it_right, most of the time
For the record - I don't wish to deny Ladislavs' inherent right to publish his own thoughts -
But do question the logics
Chicken-little public cries of {IS - the sky falling down? }
are not IMNSH (highly_biased opinion)......the paradigm of responsible journalism
Like it or not - public forum site owners have the PITA onerous task
of maintaining a higher set of standards
As guests in those forums - the users must respect "house-rules" at least
IS the pen "mightier than the sword = you betcha
Eny GeeK will tell you one line of sed > -gawk !! < Grok this
(OTH who_the_hell ken (wink: under) stand it
120 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 14:40:30 GMT from Germany)
I'm glad Ubuntu is doing so well. Hey, I voted for it, too. Although personally I run Kubuntu.
But while diversity is great, compatibility must be maintained, otherwise it's not a strength but a weakness. Let's remember that, no matter which GNU/Linux distribution, it's pretty much the same kernel (Linux) and base system (GNU) underneath. So if some hardware is supported by one distro, it should likely work with all the others, if only they include the proper software.
Thanks to free or at least open source software, that shouldn't be a problem. So instead of struggling amongst each other, we should celebrate together. And hope that distros keep copying the greatest bits from each other - after all, that's the greatest strength of free software/open source software: Any free/open advancement achieved by one benefits them all.
Well, that's the theory, in practice that kind of sharing isn't all that widespread yet. A lot of distros keep diverting their energy by reinventing the wheel again and again. It's a pitty, but probably the price of such freedom, but eventually the best distro will be the one that takes the best from their competitors/collaborators and provides the best all-around experience. At this time it's definitely Ubuntu. And if it keeps it up, it will continue to stay there.
Good luck and happy hacking!
121 • Qu 20 : What does sharing mean? Is it pumping ? (by dbrion on 2007-09-11 15:02:14 GMT from France)
How many useful lines of Free Source did UBUlinux create?
How many good ideas sprung from UBUlinux's brains (in the last century, RH inventefd Cygwin; that was a bright and useful idea)
How many risks/ courageous decisions did UBUlinux take? (in this century, RH keeps on supporting the software part of the OLPC).
I know UBUlinux takes, takes, takes (without too much choosing...) Else, apart PR, what do they do?
Il n'y a pas de problème auquel une absence de réponse n'apporte de solution (Balladur, Le Bébête Show, 1995).
122 • On Ubuntu Monoculture (by Henry on 2007-09-11 15:09:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
For Ubuntu to "win the desktop" would be a very good thing for widepspread adoption and support of Linux. Instead of being a moving target, as has often been a complaint before, Linux would become a very big, easy to hit target. And then, once people start making stuff en-masse aimed at Ubuntu, it's a hell of a lot easier to port from Ubuntu to Fedora than it is to try to kludge a Windows-only app into working under WINE.
So we as users get to keep our beloved freedom of choice, and the remaining Windows-only shops get a nice easy Windowsy Linux distro to ease their inevitable transition to being cross-platform.
123 • @ 121 about Ubuntu (by afonic on 2007-09-11 15:18:48 GMT from Greece)
Don't you forget Ubuntu is a distribution that just in a month will complete just 3 years in the "market"? How can you compare it to Redhat which is an established in 1993 and has over 10 years in the bussiness?
Lets be serious.
Besides all Ubuntu improvents (upstart, easy codec, bulletproofX etc) are released under the GPL so that anyone can use them or alter them. And the man that made Ubuntu (Mark Shuttleworth) is funding many open source projects.
124 • RE 123 Lets be serious (by Re 123 on 2007-09-11 15:32:58 GMT from France)
"Besides all Ubuntu improvents (upstart, easy codec, bulletproofX etc) are released under the GPL so that anyone can use them or alter them. "
How many GPl projects exist? 10000? that make 0.03% (ce n'est pas maigre, c'est squelettique)...
How many pple use these "improvements"? Find them usable, after alterations???
"And the man that made Ubuntu (Mark Shuttleworth) is funding many open source projects.
"
Oh yes, I forgot some credit card handling (which is removed from taxes)....
125 • to 120 (by Eudoxus on 2007-09-11 15:42:37 GMT from Latvia)
"'m glad Ubuntu is doing so well. Hey, I voted for it, too. Although personally I run Kubuntu."
This is really ridiculous! What's the difference? Do not pretend that another desktop environment makes another distro. If one runs Kubuntu it means, in fact, that hes IS Ubuntu user.
126 • RE: # 121, 124 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-09-11 15:53:30 GMT from Italy)
I love you French people for being so frank, lol.
(For those who don't know: France, from Franks)
127 • Even ONE improvement , widely used or not _ is a gain (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 16:44:07 GMT from Canada)
Sorry folks - Ladislav's intent was not to question Ubuntus' suitability or IF/whether - their developers feed-up to mainstream sources:
Unless mistaken - it was to promote thoughts Re ~
Would any such like market strategy lead to the demise or weakening of competing distributions ?
The question must have been rhetorical -
How would any Linux distros home user base - long term harm others ?
Let alone 'drive' module code support of hardware
Has any entrant into the Linux home market spectrum ever been the main cause of other's failures ?
Would a shrinking of numbers significantly alter the base of coders' output -
If anything - it MAY spur on more focused code development !
Less attention to GUI eye-candy - to meet
"We must make Linux mainstream to achieve critical mass"
= HYPE !
If proven (U.S.A. Dept of Justice) criminal, strong arm tacics of REDMOND _
Couldn't stop Linux code base improvements -
How in the ever luvin - would Lenovo/Ubuntu market shares
adversely affect users ?
Focus on "home-user desktop" forks - did not hurt sources -based
versions
INABILITY to support economies of scale towards ensuring quality
will - & has
(witness el-cheapo off-shore DIY woodworing tools/machinery)
In-fighting or squabling over "market shares - popularity contests" ~ even more so:
At one time Rockwell/Dewalt/Stanley etal - signified home-grown quality products
World globalization marketing - initially lowers prices -
But quality itself was the sacrifice
There again - if price too high or product lacks needed reliablity
The "talented amatuer" must step up & make own tools
ANY :lowering of standards - beit bad code - or any cavalier non-pro approach - is ultimately self-defeating to all
128 • Request to Ladislav + more nonsense about Lenovo/Ubuntu (by Penguin Strangler on 2007-09-11 17:04:04 GMT from Germany)
Thanks for another nice DWW. As so many others, I check it out in the beginning of the week as kind of a ritual. However, it'd be nice, I think, if the default display mode when I open the weekly page would be "Both DWW and Comments". I frequently find myself clicking the front page link to the comments anchor, only to arrive at an empty space on the bottom of the page, and then I have to click one more time to actually get to the comments. Kind of clumsily formulated; hope my point is coming through.
Now for the rant:
Liked the editorial. I also think that those who really want or need a specific distro will also know how to install it, and that the hardware issue is what makes preinstalled Linux a good thing.
I don't use Ubuntu myself, but it's what I'd recommend most new users (who are not linux savvy, but want to do semi-complex stuff, and most likely in a GUI). For the proverbial grandmother, though, I'd rather install Debian stable. Why? In my experience, Debian is slightly faster and less buggy, and more importantly, it has a longer release cycle. I think most of us (geeks who read sites like DW and get watered mouths whenever our favorite windows manager comes out with a new release) don't savour the full meaning of the fact that "normal" users are used to running the same windows release for years at an end. It's more important to have working software than the latest and greatest, and doing a dist-upgrade twice a year, while exiting to a geek, is just a hassle to most people. So I'd say that to the vast majority of computer users, a slow release cycle is actually a boon. The thing that people constantly diss about Debian may be a killer feature to some ;)
Also, I've found that Ubuntu makes frequent and sometimes possibly unsound upgrades to their stable release. My example: A friend of mine recently complained that the sound had stopped working. It turned out the automatic upgrade notification thingy (which in itself is the only element on the desktop she finds a bit annoying -- "reminds me of Windows") in Feisty had actually pulled a newer kernel, and X had to be reconfigured. Blah blah. Anyway, I like Ubuntu, and I'm really happy to see that vendors are actually starting to ship PCs with Linux on them.
129 • Re: 118 (by kirios on 2007-09-11 17:04:22 GMT from Malaysia)
"I've always downplayed the importance of the DW ranking as nothing more than a fun attempt at measuring what's hot among the site's readers."
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070827
Editorial: "Granted, the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking doesn't mean all that much and we have been saying this for years."
Ladislav, is it possible that the Page Hit Ranking could be a bit misleading for new users who are trying to choose a distro? Being featured prominently on the home page and all ...
130 • compiz fusion (by linux user on 2007-09-11 17:27:55 GMT from Canada)
compiz fusion is now available in the pclinuxos repos and it works great
No additional repos or command line instructions to make it work .
This is the best out of the box compiz fusion yet
131 • I think It would be great! (by Ubuman on 2007-09-11 17:35:25 GMT from United States)
I think it would be great to standardize to deb packages!~ linux needs a universal installer to become more of a competitive alternative to windows. And I'm sure there are people that can make the debs work with other distros!
132 • RE 131 The beginning of UBUlinux triumph in the Free Open Source (by dbrion on 2007-09-11 17:58:51 GMT from France)
word will be by making binary packages installers a standard.......
I begin to see the exact innovation abilities of the UBUlinux word..
What is a standard?
BTW, the microlinux book (http://www.u - linux.org )explains how to convert *.debs and *.rpms into installation instructions and binaries.... This is a very old , very classical (and very unclean) way of forcing binary installs..
133 • @105 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-11 19:47:55 GMT from Canada)
Ask absolutely anyone who actually *needs* a stable supported operating system whether they want a distribution which uses a rolling update system and they will look at you like you just sprouted several extra heads.
The very definition of a stable system is one that *doesn't change*. Given the exigencies of the modern computing environment, this is generally modified to one that changes the absolute minimum possible required to fix the inevitable bugs.
A rolling update system is the exact polar opposite of this. Rolling updates are great for people who do not actually care very much if their system works today the same as it did yesterday, and would rather have the latest coolest stuff all the time. This is why distros which use rolling updates are exclusive popular among Linux geeks. This is also why no one who runs anything serious on Linux uses Debian sid, Ubuntu's development branch, Mandriva Cooker, SUSE Factory, Red Hat / Fedora Rawhide etc. When you update things constantly - even supposedly 'stable' updates - stuff breaks. Or, not even breaks, just *changes*. This is not compatible with a true definition of stability.
If you, as a home geek, like the rolling development method, there are many distributions - including all the major ones - who can cater to you. But don't mistake it for a method that actually works for people doing serious stuff.
(Personally I run a constantly updated Cooker on my main machine, as someone above mentioned. This is because I'm good at fixing stuff and I'm involved in Mandriva development. You wouldn't catch me dead running it on my mail or web servers, though. Or any *other* rolling development distro.)
134 • @105 again (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-11 19:50:10 GMT from Canada)
and yes, commercial support is available for Mandriva. You can buy it on an incident-by-incident basis from the store, and we arrange full support contracts for major corporate / public sector clients.
135 • Pre-installation of Ubuntu (by Kevin Murray on 2007-09-11 20:25:09 GMT from Canada)
Mark Kohut, the Lenovo analyst, doesn't get it. As long as a piece of equipment has quality open source drivers, who cares if Lenovo pre-installs Ubuntu instead of another OS ? Those who dislike Ubuntu will just replace it with their distro of choice. Kohut should stop wondering about this kind of stuff. All open source users want is to buy quality computers without having to pay the Microsoft tax or resorting to other tricks (eBay, warehouses, etc.).
On a lighter subject, is FreeBSD missing in action ?
136 • Re 133 (by A. Nonymouse on 2007-09-11 20:36:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Isn't Windows a rolling update system? Look at the problems that system has.
137 • Pre-installed Laptops (by Matt Showman on 2007-09-11 22:51:04 GMT from United States)
I feel like it would be nice to have a company that sold linux compatible laptops (rather than me having to check several companies for compatibility and what i want in one of their models) but allowed you to choose the distro you wanted to pay for...i feel i would much rather pay for the distro im going to use than for one that i know i will not use.
being an archlinux user i can understand why ubuntu holds the strength it does, hell if i was just converting and i bought a comp with arch on it, you can be sure that it is going right back to the store. ubuntu is the best choice for switchover.
**unless**
unless the laptops are coming with ubuntu but ubuntu isnt seeing any of the money...in which case my hang up is no longer an issue and i'll shut up :-P
peace love and linux
138 • Re #135 Hmm - (by Anonymous on 2007-09-11 23:11:00 GMT from Canada)
I tried unsucessfully to find a business Bio of MATT Kohut
& like the name error, it's highly dubious a well respected business analyst with IBM ties_
Was UNAWARE of modularization concepts for dynamic Linux kernel interfacing
If HE "doesn't get it" what is our impression RE distro specific developers themselves -
Who advise newusers > "use modprobe" then can't understand why it "fails"
(They negleted to check OWN pre-supplied .config support
> the xx.ko was compiled into the kernel !
Example nfs
(No shirley - that isn't NT's file system , honest )
What was "not gotten" seems to be - IBM/Lenovo wanted to verify, prior to any toe-dipping excursion
into Linux markets - which variant might have best chance to be profitable sans probhibitive support costs.
It seems reasonable to conclude: They were well aware of other attempts (WallMark, etc)
Conversely, it appears that informal survey was not a hasty fishing expedition
I would think it was to feel out the Linux community pulse
~ Before commiting - In case Source-Forge contributors etal were
reluctant to further develop pet projects that might impact all distro suppliers
Many advanced coders - are unwilling to commit to any project that
is linked to commerce sales of Linux
Why else include sources-based variants in that survey - if for the home market?
Unlike IBM - Lenovo doen't have a huge coterie of skilled coders to shuffle around.
(Wonder if D. Robbins might be coerced to comment who better to advise, since
he was one of lead IBM Linux strategists/contributors in LPI certification courses
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=d+robbins+ibm+lpi+courses&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
However - as is the case of this topic ~
All is nothing but hasty speculation - perhaps there was insufficient time for homework before publishing ?
And we ALL have been there
(Thnx for patience)
139 • @136 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-12 00:26:46 GMT from Canada)
No, Windows uses a 'stable releae' system. They develop just like most Linux distros, actually: they have a rolling development tree which they freeze periodically for stable releases.
If they used a 'rolling updates' system, then if you installed XP and did all the official updates, you'd have Vista. Which is, obviously, not the case (though some critics would say it's quite close...).
Windows' problems stem from places other than its release philosophy :)
140 • RE: 128 Request to Ladislav (by ladislav on 2007-09-12 00:43:18 GMT from Taiwan)
it'd be nice, I think, if the default display mode when I open the weekly page would be "Both DWW and Comments"
That's the default only if there are fewer than 50 comments. The problem is that nowadays we are often getting 200+ comments, so it would be a waste of bandwidth to load them all (as well as the main article, which often contains heavy screenshots), especially since many readers are only interested in reading the weekly, not the comments.
A simple solution is to click on the "Comments" link in the main navigation bar (right on the top of each page), which will take you to the comments page (without the DWW).
Are there any other suggestions? It's easy enough to change the defaults, although I'd prefer to maintain some sort of a compromise between convenience and bandwidth requirements. It's obvious that most readers visit the DWW page on Mondays and Tuesday, but after that most of those who load the page are only interested in the comments section, not in the main article - hence the reason for separating the two.
141 • RE: 129 (by ladislav on 2007-09-12 00:52:02 GMT from Taiwan)
is it possible that the Page Hit Ranking could be a bit misleading for new users who are trying to choose a distro? Being featured prominently on the home page and all
Yes, no doubt about it. But what's the alternative? An alphabetical list of 500 distributions? I somehow doubt that it would more helpful. As a matter of fact, I think that the current list based on page hits is useful to new visitors; we are seeing the rise of user-friendly distributions like PCLinuxOS or Linux Mint which don't yet have much mindshare outside of this web site, but which might be better first-time Linux choices than some other, more famous distros out there.
Besides, we've had the ranking in place for over 6 years and although it does create controversy from time to time, it also attracts attention. I like to think of it as a feature of DistroWatch ;-)
142 • Re 140...Are there any other suggestions? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-12 01:42:17 GMT from Australia)
meta name="keywords" content="linux, bsd, distribution, distributions, comparison, distro, distros, mandrake, fedora, suse, knoppix, debian, gentoo, slackware, mepis, pclinuxos, xandros, linspire, red hat, freebsd"
------------------
My suggestion, if possible, please update your meta tags to reflect the current 12 or so major distros. I would replace mandrake with mandriva, add ubuntu, sabayon, mint, etc., and remove xandros, linspire.
thanks
143 • ATI? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-12 01:51:01 GMT from United States)
I'm still waiting for ATI to release their promised Diamond drivers. This could be nvida FUD, for people to think about buying a ATI card instead of a nvidea card for their next linux machine.
Ubuntu and PCLinuxos last release has been a bust, I'm sticking with .92 PClinuos and xbuntu is the only buntu that was any good the last time around.
144 • No subject (by Eudoxus on 2007-09-12 02:02:59 GMT from Latvia)
Here it is, for those naive posts bubbling that what is good for Ubuntu is good for linux. Now Dell has issued customized Ubuntu ISO images, with special fixes. The question is - how that helps linux in terms of introducing new stuff which is for everybody?
http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/09/11/
145 • @111: ubuntu, standards? (by Draca on 2007-09-12 03:10:02 GMT from United States)
My point was that Ubuntu has not set any standards as far as I know. Some other post asserted that Ubuntu had set some standards. The idea of that post bewildered me as much as it apparently did you.
The assumption appears to be that because Ubuntu is so popular, it must have set some standards. I do not buy into that assumption for a second.
146 • Post 144 (by Serenitude on 2007-09-12 05:21:20 GMT from United States)
What is the point of this red herring?
NOWHERE in the article does it say that anything on the CD is not currently unavailable to the Linux community, let alone proprietary. It ONLY states that several of the steps require one to go to the command line.
Additionally, if there WERE "extra" code in a Dell Ubuntu CD, you have yet to demonstrate that it would not be open source instead of proprietary, and again, this would be beneficial to everyone.
It's this kind of FUD that makes these arguments divisive and worse :(
147 • Sun hopes perception is reality! (by Distro Watch Reader on 2007-09-12 06:34:32 GMT from United States)
Sun hopes perception is reality. The product hadn’t changed, just the perception of it.
http://gowest.blogs.fortune.com/2007/09/06/sun-hopes-perception-is-reality/?section=money_technology
A technology generation ago Sun Microsystems extremely successfully convinced investors that it put the “dot into dot-com.” It was a brilliant marketing campaign. The product hadn’t changed, just the perception of it.
Now Sun is playing the perception game again. It will do a reverse 1-for-4 stock split in an effort to convince investors it is not a loser company.
Sun says it can stop the questions about the company’s staying power if essentially ignorant customers stop seeing a sub-$10 stock price.
One company screeches Developers Developers Developers Then it screws them Developers.
One Company cries it is not a litigation machine , But just wants to get paid for other peoples work.
.Now Sun calls to
"essentially ignorant customers,
essentially ignorant customers,
essentially ignorant customers"
that Sun is not a Loser Company.
In fact, a reverse split usually is a sign of desperation.
Last week Sun also dropped its long-time stock symbol, SUNW, in favor of JAVA, which is the name of pioneering software Sun developed. ????
Sun or Kodak?
Kodak sued Sun paid.
Sun accounting Boo Boo's
http://news.com.com/Sun+delays+results%2C+cites+new+accounting+software/2110-1014_3-6206152.html?tag=nefd.hed
Sun Microsystems will release its fiscal first-quarter results on Nov. 5, later than usual for that period, due to complications in installing a new computer accounting system, its chief financial officer said Wednesday.
CFO Michael Lehman said at Sun's financial analyst meeting in New York that the company wants to make sure the complex system is working properly before it releases results for the quarter. "It doesn't mean the quarter is bad," Lehman said in a presentation.
148 • RE 146 : A simple convincing way of knowing whether UBUdell (by dbrion on 2007-09-12 06:37:13 GMT from France)
specific developpmants are opensource or not would be to link to their source.......
I suppose this is concise, common sense, not division, FUD, etc, etc (one can make hundreds of lines of bazar "psychology", cf @99) .......
149 • all GNU is good (by felipe alvarez on 2007-09-12 06:41:41 GMT from Canada)
I don't use Ubuntu. Seems a little too childish for my tastes. I did, however, recommend it to my dad. I don't really mind pre-installed Ubuntu on desktop/laptop whatever. What I do mind is if they make drivers for Ubuntu ONLY. Boy! That would piss us ALL off!
Also, I don't want Ubuntu's success to go straight to Canonical's head. They'd better stay cool, stay smart, keep playing the 'free software' ethos, and EVERYBODY WILL LOVE THEM EVEN MORE. Let's go Canonical -- do the right thing for the community and you will be rewarded by a loyalty unmatched anywhere in the free (and proprietary) software world!
150 • @148 (by Serenitude on 2007-09-12 09:24:56 GMT from United States)
True - the best test would be seeing the source code.
On "bazar" psychology - I note you don't refute my statements, just make a drive-by ad-hom. I'd like you to show me where I'm wrong, instead of a flippant insult. Otherwise, I'll have no choice but to consider you incapable of doing so by omission. BTW, as a general aside, I challenge you to explain to me why unity in the *nix/bsd community is a BAD THING.
151 • Qu 150 "the best test would be seeing the source code" (by dbrion on 2007-09-12 10:46:12 GMT from France)
2 questions
a) Does THE source code exist? (answ yes or no)
b) Where? give an IT link.
" I challenge you to explain to me why unity in the *nix/bsd community is a BAD THING.
"
Unity around aan "open source" (I will remove the " if I_you_ caan find the sources) parody
which has
a) no ideas
b) no quality assurance (for an illustration, cf http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20060828)
c) has monopolistic pretentions
will lead the (formerly respected) GNU world to a disaster... It is now somewhat obscene w/r to hundreds of serious distributions...
152 • Linux users hate linux (by Viret on 2007-09-12 10:55:23 GMT from Italy)
I wanted to say just a little thing.
By reading time and time again the DWW comments, it has become clear to me that linux users... hate linux the most! Instead of hating Windows, nooo, they hate the other distribtions! Especially the popular ones.
Either that or the DWW comment section houses some of the least intelligent linux users of the world...
153 • @151 (by Serenitude on 2007-09-12 11:05:36 GMT from United States)
In response to 2 questions:
a) I can't answer yes or no - it's a trick question. I don't know if the source code exists or not. I was *agreeing* with you, in my post, that the best way to know would be to see the source code. I didn't write it. I'm not responsible for it. I don't know if it exists or not. I DO know that you put up a strawman that doesn't exist in the article YOU linked to, and I called you on it. Beyond that, it's not my responsibility to do your homework for you. In light of that...
b) See answer to a)
I realize that English is not your native language, so I'm going to respond to your vague second paragraph by quoting the Gieco Caveman:
"Yeah, I have a response. Um. What?"
Is the monopolistic enterprise the open source movement? If so, I find your statement absurd. Is the monopolistic enterprise Ubuntu? If so, I find your statement fanboish, hyperlolous, and handwaiving. How many distros AREN'T repackages with minor tool additions? You have presented no evidence for monopolistic pretensions on the part of Ubuntu that every distro does not share. Quality assurance - they have a bug tracking program, much the same as everyone's, although, to be fair, I've, myself, had more problems in Ubuntu than any other distro, but that's just me.
And no ideas? They haven't become the industry's 700 pound gorilla by being clueless.
Your remark on the number of distros is merely an opinion. Some are also proclaiming this the year of the tiny distro. Many are good. Many of the big ones are making small, indy distros easier than ever.
Again, I find no quality rebuttal, instead speculative handwaiving. Of course, you're entitiled to your opinion, as I am mine, but if you're going to call me out, I expect something of substance besides hysterical handwaiving and apocolyptic speculation.
154 • to dbrion (by pilpilon on 2007-09-12 11:45:18 GMT from Israel)
Hi ,
You've made some zillion comments there concernig some UBULinux
distribution I've neve heard of.
What it is all about? Where I could find information about it?
155 • RE 153 De vos explications longues et embarassées, il ressort que: (by dbrion on 2007-09-12 11:47:42 GMT from France)
On ne sait pas si les adaptations de UBUlinux à Dell sont propriétaires ou pas...
On va confier au grand public la distribution ayant le _pire_ contrôle de qualité que vous ayez rencontré.
. Ceci est cohérent avec les tests comparatifs que des collègues ont fait...
(" Quality assurance - they have a bug tracking program, much the same as everyone's, although, to be fair, I've, myself, had more problems in Ubuntu than any other distro, but that's just me. )"
"
And no ideas? They haven't become the industry's 700 pound gorilla by being clueless.
"
Les performances industrielles/économiques (et on fait mieux du côté de Microsoft) ne sont pas un argument technique/scientifique, surtout si on sait que le "travail" d'UBUlinux est manifestement basé sur l'achat, la copie et la propagande, aspect bien interessants du monde libre...
Quand aux centaines de Linux interessants : j'en ai testé une dizaine, après sélection sur la langue, et donné une vingtaine d'autres à des amis. Du fait que je n'accepte que le français, et qu'il ya de meilleurs testeurs que moi, on arrive facilement à 200.
Merci pour les 35 lignes pâssionnantes.
Gare au gorille! (Brassens, 1965)
156 • RE 154 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-12 12:02:06 GMT from France)
If you want to laugh and read French, google search "Jarry UBU Roi" (a parody of Macbeth) or "Chanson du décervelage". For a distr purely based on pure propaganda, I find it ironical...
157 • Freedom of Choice (by Draca on 2007-09-12 14:02:10 GMT from United States)
If GNU/Linux offers freedom of choice, I wonder why OEMs are so beholden to mimicking their competitors. Wouldn't it make more sense for each OEM to choose a different distribution to differentiate themselves from their competition? Why do people gravitate toward a monoculture in computing whereas they would not in any other area (for example, breakfast cereal, music, or clothes)?
I find it strange. Dell already has adopted Ubuntu. Why should Lenovo copy Dell? If they wanted an enthusiast distribution, why wouldn't they choose openSUSE since they already have announced adoption of SLED for their enterprise products?
I just would like these companies to stop being clones of each other.
158 • A big "WOW!" for Sabayon 3.4f (by Happy Sabby :) on 2007-09-12 15:56:01 GMT from United States)
Dang folks, on this particular machine (the needed caveat in any
remarks good or bad about a distro, imo), Sabayon is real close to
perfect! Wifi lit right up, plugins and browser tweaks work great
and even the hybernation and other power settings all work.
This one might stay on this laptop!
159 • Regarding Ubuntu on Thinkpads (by Tom Schenk on 2007-09-12 17:41:25 GMT from United States)
I don't believe that it matters one iota which distribution hardware vendors choose for a very simple reason.
If a machine runs Ubuntu and all of the hardware is supported by really free or freely available drivers, then it should be capable of running any other Linux distribution with a comparable kernel. So if I win the lotto next week and am suddenly in the market for a new machine, I may buy a new Dell or Lenovo system (or three) because I will have confidence that my distribution of choice (be that Fedora, Ubuntu, or something else) will run on it.
It has been my experience that people who start on Ubuntu, don't necessarily stay there. They quickly outgrow the new user phase and want something with a little more oomph. As a long time Linux user, I gave my daughter Ubuntu on her new shiny laptop because I like the ease of use of Ubuntu.
Personally I find Ubuntu stifling and prefer Fedora, but that is not because there is anything wrong with Ubuntu, just that I have used all versions of RedHat since they were founded and Fedora suits me.
My point however is that if it will run Ubuntu, then it will run Fedora too, so let Lenovo and Dell choose Ubuntu. It just doesn't matter because it will run Linux.
160 • RE: 155 (by Serenitude on 2007-09-12 19:08:51 GMT from United States)
I can't say that I don't share your pessimism, personally, about Dell's "quality control", typing this on a Dell now. But, for the record, I don't use the "gorilla" myself, although it was a good introduction. I soon, however, outgrew it, as I suspect many new users will ;)
161 • RE: 156 (by Landor on 2007-09-12 20:24:29 GMT from Canada)
I've always looked forward to the comments with UBU in them. I know of the play, well plays, but the first and it is ironical and hilarious to say the least. :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
162 • RE: 159 (by Landor on 2007-09-12 20:39:03 GMT from Canada)
"My point however is that if it will run Ubuntu, then it will run Fedora too, so let Lenovo and Dell choose Ubuntu. It just doesn't matter because it will run Linux"
Dell is already making a proprietary ISO for an "easier" reinstall of Ubuntu on their boxes. That would tell me a couple things. First and foremost for the Linux community that they are already making things specific to Ubuntu. What proprietary drivers are there?
Second, although I know even the hardiest of users can mess up any install, it shows that there has been "quite a problem" with Ubuntu on the end-user's systems that not only was the disc for reinstall made, so many had a problem they had to make a quick and easy ISO. Doesn't show too much for how well Ubuntu's fared on the end-user retail market for Dell. I'd love to know the numbers of actual systems sold with it on it. Then know the numbers of calls related to reinstalling Ubuntu.
Along those lines (as per the second reason) It would show it truly does matter what system is installed. A large part of the discussion is in favour of "just getting Linux out there". I disagree with this belief. Would we just get an Alpha out there? A Beta or RC? Everyone here would say no, and rightly so, because it would wreak havoc on the end-user and put all Linux on a whole in a sad light. If Dell is having such a problem with Ubuntu already, so many reinstalls, and so many not being able to take the steps to get drivers and such functioning that they release and ISO for it, that tells me it should matter. These manufacturers should be using something less breakable, more stable, and a longer history, or less will even consider using it as an alternative for their boxes due to Company A's problems by choosing a distro that isn't really ready.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
163 • Bullshit (by Some angry user ... on 2007-09-13 00:16:31 GMT from Spain)
"they will soon find themselves marginalised and out of contention by both the end users and the hardware manufacturers".
Vladislav ... BULLSHIT.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RedHatContributions
Without RedHat's (and of course DEBIAN's contributions), Ubuntu won't be NOTHING today. Give credit and respect where credit and respect is due. Don't forget it.
Btw ... "there are three kind of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics".
164 • Re: 162 (by Serenitude on 2007-09-13 00:22:33 GMT from United States)
Again, we don't know yet if it's proprietary or not. The article does not make reference to such.
Also, there is no reference to "special drivers" etc... There are only references to things that are already available, but would have to be enabled by installing extra available software, going to the CLI, etc...
The only thing that the article suggests is that Linux newbies even have trouble with Ubuntu, in terms of initial setup to read proprietary codecs, etc... Beyond that, the article says nothing. Every other "the sky is falling" argument, such as proprietary code, etc... is so far purely, 100% speculation.
I think it's important to adress the factual info in the article, and not invent strawmen and use them for an indictment.
If it does, indeed, turn out that the discs use proprietary drivers, etc... Well then, we do indeed have a different argument altogether, and I'll have an entirely different tune, and be the one complaining the loudest.
Until that point, however, most of the comments so far are simply FUD.
165 • hype (by anticapitalista on 2007-09-13 00:42:57 GMT from Greece)
Once again Mepis is bottom of the list (amongst other excellent distros ie sidux) when it comes to promotion on distrowatch reviews. Look at which distros are in fashion (not that they are 'bad' , but are certainly hyped) and get lots of reviews. Mepis is now beta4 and yet no-one can be bothered to review it from beta1?
The new (ie from beta1) Mepis has a lot that other 'hyped' distros have just included or are still behind.
antiX is also moving on, with or without reviews, and, on the whole, with satisfactory feedback from users (see Puppy forums for a couple of comments).
So, readers, don't just follow the flow (even the 'alternative' distrowatch one). Dig deeper and you will find 100's of distro's that will suit your taste and who cares if it will be 'competitive'
166 • RE: 164 RE: RE: 162 (by Landor on 2007-09-13 01:25:37 GMT from Canada)
If that is the point. The "factual" info, not "gleened" from the report states that Dell (due to requests, which anyone in the corporate sector would admit there'd have to be quite many to decide to do this) made an "easy as 1-2-3 install cd.
That being the factual info and not as per you saying this in regards to newbies, only an assumption:
"The only thing that the article suggests is that Linux newbies even have trouble with Ubuntu, in terms of initial setup to read proprietary codecs, etc..."
Also, as per your belief of representing facts:
"I think it's important to adress the factual info in the article, and not invent strawmen and use them for an indictment."
I say that developers out there should fear the facts of the warnings from many other developers regarding the "facts" that Ubuntu is basically a completely new build every release, which there have been many "factual" statements of. They should fear the "fact" that as per the article in regard here that Dell has had so many problems with "users" having to reinstall Ubuntu they had to create the 1-2-3 ISO. Those "facts", on a factual basis does not bode well for the Linux community, nor Linux on the open Market.
"As this is the factual case and until it changes, I will have the same tune and continue to be one of the loudest"
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
167 • Hope your website is back! We all missed you!! (by Bill Savoie on 2007-09-18 04:52:52 GMT from United States)
It was starting to sink in how much work you do to keep up on new releases!! I was using ncftp to search all the places where updates show up. That is a very big job. Hope to hear the story of what happened? Happy to pay others to keep my small website up and running, and mine doesn't change much. You have a much bigger task keeping all of us getting our constantly changing information.
Thanks ladislav.. Welcome back!
168 • Great to see DW again! (by Mark Berry on 2007-09-18 06:31:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
I guess I'm just one of the many thousands who enjoy reading DW but don't comment. Maybe now is the time we silent ones should show our apppreciation. Keep up the good work Ladislav!
169 • new meta tags - congratulations! (by That was a quick reponse! on 2007-09-18 08:02:17 GMT from N/A)
meta name="keywords" content="news, distrowatch, linux, bsd, distro, distros, distributions, ubuntu, kubuntu,
suse, opensuse, novell, fedora, red hat, centos, debian, mandriva, knoppix, gentoo, slackware, mepis, pclinuxos,
mint, sabayon, zenwalk, arch linux, puppy linux, freebsd, openbsd, vector, freespire"
100 % approval!
Good to see DW, after a nasty DDoS attack, back online with IMPROVEMENTS!
170 • Windows kills Linux Website (by Coffee on 2007-09-18 12:09:12 GMT from France)
Considering last weekend's DDoS attack on DistroWatch came from a botnet made up exclusively of Windows PCs, I wonder who is to blame for this? Certainly not the millions of hapless Windows users who's machines have been taken over by criminals without their knowing.
But isn't it about time someone held Microsoft to account for the economic damage caused by their operating system? After all, the standard configuration of Windows as supplied by Microsoft is extremely insecure. Neither BSD nor Linux nor Mac OS X machines have ever been known to be part of a botnet.
This week Microsoft has already been fined for the abuse of their monopoly by the European Court. Maybe the European Commission should investigate next the economic damage caused by Microsoft's lousy operating system?
171 • No subject (by sooth_sayer on 2007-09-18 15:03:33 GMT from United States)
@Coffee
I think you are grossly ignorant, there are linux Zombies in the botnet too ,, and by scores go read Bruce's blog. Read Steve Bellovin's book on security .. one of the earliest machines hacked were plain system v unix ..
Hacking gets done on what's available.
Regarding MSFT being responsible, yes, but the scale is so large that you really should be holding the moron's who click on every nudie or freebee offer that pops on their screen.
If my machine is hijacked .. and I don't know .. it's my problem too .. like your car .. you can't say car manufacturers are responsible for highway deaths.
BTW whatever your information is regarding the outage, I can bet you that the attack was launched by some linux freak .. look at the updated numbers.
It appears to me that someone was deliberately pumping EVERY distro except PCLINUX OS .. so what Distrowatch team appears to have weeded out all suspicious clicks In the past 2 months or so. The one distro to loose most clicks is Ubuntu (lost ~700 clicks/day!!!!) But I can't figure out how PCLinuxOS gained 200.
In the 3+ years I have watched the stats, I had noticed all of a sudden the totals went up .. almost overnight 100% and then 300%, this happened around Ubuntu launch, I couldn't believe that Linux was 300% more popular on one site within a few months period, I wrote in the comments section but Ladislav was too trusting and didn't believe it.
And I don't think it was a botnet attack, I think the site was taken down by webadmin to fix this statistics hacking problem .. but that's my guess.
172 • DistroWatch under DDOS attack (by Anonymous on 2007-09-18 15:50:54 GMT from Germany)
tuxmachines.org has some info and a message from Ladislav.
http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/20129
173 • RE 170 Microsofts fine is not that new.... (by dbrion on 2007-09-18 16:41:05 GMT from France)
"
This week Microsoft has already been fined for the abuse of their monopoly by the European Court. Maybe the European Commission should investigate next the economic damage caused by Microsoft's lousy operating system?
"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Microsoft has not been fined this week: a 2004-old fine has been comfirmed (cf Le Monde & Liberation) => Microsoft will have, some year, if this fine is again and again confirmed, slightly less benefits ....and thus less taxes..
The European Commission may be, in the long term, be competent .... in Europe... (else US And Taiwan inhabitants would be, for good reasons, very surprised..)
What is the legal definition (or even technical) of a lousy OS?.
(for a not too lousy car, which is a simple problem, the energy of a shock must be dissipated in the engine so that parts of the engine do not hit by accident the car passengers and drivers ...
A _new_ car cannot exist in Europe, meseems, if it does not respect ,in some reasonable limits (speed > 50km/h, say), this principle...
For an OS, it is more complicated ... or more arbitrary...]
174 • No subject (by Moe Sherman on 2007-09-18 16:59:48 GMT from Canada)
Was there no weekly report for 07/09/17 or am I simply not receiving it?
Thanks.
175 • Re 174: this week's weekly (by Anonymous on 2007-09-18 18:01:08 GMT from United States)
From the tuxmachines link listed in #172:
At this time, Ladislav labors away uploading files and updating the site. He hopes to have this week's DistroWatch Weekly published by Wednesday and states, "I'll do my best as always."
176 • From tuxmachines.org (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-09-18 18:30:58 GMT from Italy)
"Ladislav states that...the attack continues"
"We...are outraged by this selfish and heartless attack"
So of course the big question is: who hates DistroWatch and Ladislav so much, and why?
177 • EU Commission, or any other Governing Body (by Landor on 2007-09-18 19:37:10 GMT from Canada)
First off, thank you for the effort and toils Ladislav. As many have stated here, and no doubt in e-mail you diligence and care, which shines through even more in light of recent events is much appreciated.
Now, to Governing Bodies! :)
The sad part of a governing body like the EU or anyone else for that matter in a seat of power, is that their hands are usually tied due to indecision, global matters and personal objectives/goals. That being the case you see little in light of a truly just decision.
Everyone, especially those on the Commission, know that the blow in the way of fines by upholding the previous ruling wasn't even worth the paper it was written on, or the deliberation of the topic that ensued all this time. I have near to no doubt that costs involved in coming to that decision for the Commission over the whole period in which this started to be an issue until now is either close to, or outweighs the costs, especially when you factor in that other issues could've been dealt with, again ensuing more costs due to delays and such in their respective concerns.
What we need to see is a Governing Body like the European Commission, not only make a landmark decision, but carry enough weight with it's ruling to force individuals/companies, like Redmond to take notice and change policy.
Sadly, until personal goals or interests, global considerations, political factors are factored out of the equation we will continue to see ineffectual rulings, though landmark as they may be, do little overall than waste time and money.
Speculation to a degree, but based on Redmond's record, more than that, but who knows what tomorrow will show us.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
178 • DW hit counter (by Werewolf on 2007-09-18 19:43:48 GMT from Romania)
quote
It appears to me that someone was deliberately pumping EVERY distro except PCLINUX OS .. so what Distrowatch team appears to have weeded out all suspicious clicks In the past 2 months or so. The one distro to loose most clicks is Ubuntu (lost ~700 clicks/day!!!!) But I can't figure out how PCLinuxOS gained 200.
end quote
and to all those people who are more intrested in Hit Rankings on DW rather than new distros/releases:
Why are this Hit Ranks are so important to a person that is browsing DW in search for info?
If he is going to be influenced by those numbers rather than his own /other people experience (distro reviews, posts on forums) i'm sorry for him ..... because a distro , in my opinion , don't have to be installed only because it has xxxxxx hits on some counter.
Wouldn't be better if the actual number of hits would not be displayed and only the distro's name would be listed: plain and simple... . Maybe than, this "chase for votes", this perpetuum argue would end.
179 • RE: # 178 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-09-18 20:08:45 GMT from Italy)
"Wouldn't be better if the actual number of hits would not be displayed and only the distro's name would be listed: plain and simple... . Maybe than, this "chase for votes", this perpetuum argue would end."
In which order? Random? And don't you believe that newbies coming here for the first time have the right to know which distros are the most popular and that such a knowledge helps them in their first experience (hopefully together with more info)?
180 • EU Commission, or any other Governing Body (by Landor on 2007-09-18 20:59:28 GMT from Canada)
First off, thank you for the effort and toils Ladislav. As many have stated here, and no doubt in e-mail you diligence and care, which shines through even more in light of recent events is much appreciated.
Now, to Governing Bodies! :)
The sad part of a governing body like the EU or anyone else for that matter in a seat of power, is that their hands are usually tied due to indecision, global matters and personal objectives/goals. That being the case you see little in light of a truly just decision.
Everyone, especially those on the Commission, know that the blow in the way of fines by upholding the previous ruling wasn't even worth the paper it was written on, or the deliberation of the topic that ensued all this time. I have near to no doubt that costs involved in coming to that decision for the Commission over the whole period in which this started to be an issue until now is either close to, or outweighs the costs, especially when you factor in that other issues could've been dealt with, again ensuing more costs due to delays and such in their respective concerns.
What we need to see is a Governing Body like the European Commission, not only make a landmark decision, but carry enough weight with it's ruling to force individuals/companies, like Redmond to take notice and change policy.
Sadly, until personal goals or interests, global considerations, political factors are factored out of the equation we will continue to see ineffectual rulings, though landmark as they may be, do little overall than waste time and money.
Speculation to a degree, but based on Redmond's record, more than that, but who knows what tomorrow will show us.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
181 • Dupe Post and other things (by Landor on 2007-09-18 21:08:16 GMT from Canada)
Sorry for the dupe posting. After posting that comment I left the computer to do some work, while still on the comments page, which I have done before, and when I came back and hit refresh it duped the post, the first time it's ever done it, and there was nothing in the text of the box to submit a comment, a bug now maybe?
Also Ladislav. While I was anxiously waiting (and hoping) for the return of Distrowatch I saw a curious request on the knoppmyth page about everyone hitting a link there to spur on the hit rank of it here at Distrowatch. Oddly this coincides with the same period Distrowatch went down. Coincidence maybe?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
182 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-18 21:18:06 GMT from Canada)
Any ordering of listings is arbitrary:
"Rankings" is the most divisive method - serves no useful purpose except to promote
> ill will & fanBois retoric
Nor will popularity attract most talented coders to it's base OR 'marginalize' others
Random - hardly > Size & desktop (possibly via Window Mgrs used)
That might satisfy users who have a preference to I.E. KDE - Gnome - Ice - Xfce
At present, if looking for a small distro suited to older hardware-
there is no easy way to determine from the [i]'rank L ings' list[/i]
If E.G a development or audio specific dsitro sought
Why wade through lists of home-user clones ?
Next - alphabetically - like most other comprehensive comparative
resource
Popularity - are vehicles chosen that way ?
The "most suitable/comfortable fit " for YOU may be among least used by others -
Popularity is much like styles - they change monthly & are seldom based on intrinsic values
( Windows O/Sys or Rap music ring any warning bells ) ?
Any release announcements are advertising - the more seen the more "hits"
DW is merely ONE well known distro listings resource
NOT the industry standard to measure all worthiness !
183 • RE 179...."chase for votes" (by Anonymous on 2007-09-19 02:19:05 GMT from Australia)
>>179 • RE: # 178 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-09-18 20:08:45 GMT from Italy)
"Wouldn't be better if the actual number of hits would not be displayed and only the distro's name would be listed: plain and simple... . Maybe than, this "chase for votes", this perpetuum argue would end."<<
In which order? Random?
I think OP means to still use SAME PHR but WITHOUT DISPLAYING the actual numbers (avoiding the chase for votes/just hiding the numbers). I like the idea!
184 • Re: 182 and popularity (by Tim on 2007-09-19 02:29:01 GMT from United States)
I don't know...I think you could easily argue many of your points.
- I think popularity WILL potentially attract talented coders. Ask a kid in High school if they want to hang out with the popular kid or the kid that eats his own boogers and can recite every line from the Star Wars films. You may get a lot of different answers and they may find that the "popular" kids aren't very interesting to them in the end...but I would bet that many would be swayed initially.
- "Popularity - are vehicles chosen that way?"
Most certainly they are. Things like "this car scored the highest in initial customer satisfaction" and "highest safety rating of any car in it's class" are examples. Popularity doesn't MAKE something better...but it is often an indication that something is being DONE better (for the majority) and people are noticing.
As far as popularity changing monthly? It's a matter of perspective I guess. While the most popular Rap artist may change monthly, Rap music has certainly remained very popular for over 20 years.
Just my two cents.
185 • Popularity of distros or other things in general (by Landor on 2007-09-19 03:41:01 GMT from Canada)
I,like my brother in arms from Canada, don't really put much faith in popularity (it seems regularly have similar beliefs). We've seen over the course of the last century and the latest, popularity really means diddly when it comes down to actual performance, whatever form the product takes. Popularity only means for the most part that in general people are what many state the general populace to be, part of the herd, roaming to the greenest pasture until it disappears too.
For cars, I'm an old GM diehard. More to the point, Chev. I've had more muscle cars in my lifetime than 4 or 5 people have owned cars in their lifetime and almost always, it was a chev. I'm currently driving a chev too. For me it's about a couple things, loyalty to a product that's overall designed well, did me no wrong, and seen me through when the chips were down, when very few other cars did the same.
It's the same for me for Linux. I'm loyal to a command line, something I have to work for to get going, or I can tinker with, without having to exact a workaround to have a root account, etc (ie: the Ubuntu flavours). I like things well laid out, without a lot of clutter or distractions on the desktop. The menus lean, with only the right tool for the right job.
So when I see popularity,I see all the pomp and circumstance I basically ignore it, read the anouncement, the changelog, download the ISO, give it a quick spin via Vbox and if it appeals to me I burn it to a cd to go for a real test-drive.
I remember when old Slack was the king of the hill. Then RH and SUSE for it's time too. Mandriva came along and took it's place in the ranks as well. Today we see everyone speaking of (I have to type it once) UBU, or PCLOS, tomorrow what will be next.
Here's a line from a song by Bad Company called Shooting Star:
"And all the world will love you just as long.....as long as you are.....A Shooting Star.....Yeah"
Holds true, even for Linux
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
186 • PHR/HPD Therapy (by Anonymous on 2007-09-19 05:13:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ladislav,
Thanks for all the time and effort you put into maintaining this website. Good luck getting things up and running again.
Since so many people fail to read this in your FAQ
"It is a light-hearted way of looking at popularity of distribution. Since each distribution has its own page, I thought it would be fun to track the number of visitors viewing individual distribution pages. "
but instead obsess over the list as if it's some magical formula, maybe you could have some more fun by running a script that gives writers a bit of electroshock therapy every time they whine about the Hits Per Day status?
[OW! OK, I'll stop. Wow you put that script in quickly!]
187 • RE 186 • PHR/HPD Therapy (by DW PHR Is Popular Reading! on 2007-09-19 06:25:33 GMT from Australia)
PCLinuxOS is now Nº 1 in DistroWatch over 6 months!!!! (Read 1912 times)
Finally, PCLinuxOS gets to the top. :-)
-------
Texstar: "... Thanks to the Ripper Gang for all their hours of work. Thanks to Mandriva for letting us utilize their codebase for PCLinuxOS ... Linux market share wont come from a single distribution but from the entire Linux community. I'm glad there is a Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva, Fedora, Mint and Mepis as well as all the other flavors of Linux. It is all Linux and it is all good. So thank you again from the bottom of my heart for allowing us to be part of this wonderful revolution...."
Sal: "....An unbelievable accomplishment considering the size and wealth of the competition! I think this highlights the fact that we must be hitting our target for a Windoz desktop replacement that "Just Works"..."
bobpur:"...I see on www.distrowatch.com that PClinuxOS has bumped Ubuntu from the Number 1 spot. Way to go!!..."
Read-Beard: "..It's something a lot of us have been waiting to see. And yes it sure looks good..."
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=31577.msg242250#msg242250
188 • re 183 (by Werewolf on 2007-09-19 06:57:07 GMT from Romania)
quote
In which order? Random?
end quote
Distros should be listed by number of hits , BUT THOSE NUMBERS SHOULD NOT BE LISTED.
quote
And don't you believe that newbies coming here for the first time have the right to know which distros are the most popular and that such a knowledge helps them in their first experience (hopefully together with more info)?
end quote
As i said before, new users should know which distro's are popular and shouldn't be intrested in those numbers. Hint for new users : before choosing a distro READ as many rewiews as you can about that distro/other distros, try it in Live CD (if it is available) because only you know what's suited for you
189 • RE 179 "In which order? Random? " (by dbrion on 2007-09-19 07:00:31 GMT from France)
The reverse order should be more suitable, as Jesus said ("20.16: Ainsi les derniers seront les premiers, et les premiers seront les derniers" (Matthew, ca 45))
Besides, I see two advantages :
a) it would oblige pple choosing by a popularity criterium to have a look at other choices and to know they choose by a hit per day criterium.
b) Clones which distinguish themselves by a better language support than the original (and translation is a hard, often unrecognised work) would be detected, and pple whose native language is not american-English (and their number is growing faster than the number of DW in the States) would easier find a distr which suits their children/nephews/parents.
Number of Comments: 189
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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WOMP!
WOMP! was a micro Linux distribution focused on multimedia. It takes only 13 to 30MB depending on the selected options on a bootable CD, and allows playing a wide range of multimedia files (video/audio/image) without installing any software on the computer's hard drive. Additionally, WOMP! can also be installed on the hard drive - either to run in memory just like a bootable CD, or to run from a read-only loopback file which was interesting for machines with low memory. It can then be booted either by a floppy boot disk or by a bootable CD. WOMP! uses FrameBuffer for playing videos and X for interacting with the user. Hardware acceleration was provided by vidix. Cards that support vidix include nearly all ATI and Matrox cards, and more recent NVIDIA cards.
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