 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 221, 24 September 2007 |
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Welcome to this year's 39th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! GNOME 2.20 is finally here and we can soon look forward to a range of releases from all the major distributions incorporating the new version into their products; Mandriva Linux 2008 is expected later this week, but openSUSE 10.3 won't be far behind. In other news: Fedora introduces a new desktop theme called Nodoka, Mandriva simplifies its product range before the upcoming release of version 2008, and Ian Murdock reveals some details about Project Indiana, Sun Microsystems' new Solaris-based desktop distribution. The featured story in this week's issue looks at the security and bug fix infrastructure in today's leading distributions, while those readers who were curious about DistroWatch's recent migration from FreeBSD to Debian GNU/Linux will find the answer in the "Site News" section. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (6.8MB) and mp3 (6.5MB) formats (many thanks to Jim Putman)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Editorial |
Security and bug fix infrastructures in distributions
In the world of open source operating systems, what exactly is it that differentiates the "big boys" from the "also runs"? Why is one distribution considered "major" or "mainstream", while another keeps being looked at as just somebody's "hobby project", irrespective of how many satisfied users it has? While there are many different criteria one could pick to demonstrate the differences between the two groups, there are two features that I believe are important factors that shape the user's perception about any distribution: its security and bug tracking infrastructure.
Security updates and security mailing list. Critical bugs, buffer overflows and other potential exploits are part of any software developed today and open source is no exception. Serious problems are regularly found in the Linux and BSD kernels, as well as many widely used Internet applications. As such, many distributions have created dedicated security teams responsible for promptly fixing all newly discovered security problems and for issuing security advisories. Yet, it's surprising to see how many of today's Linux distributions pay little attention to security and merrily provide their users with an operating system that doesn't get patched in case a vulnerability is found in one of its components! Any distribution worth its salt should have a dedicated, read-only mailing list that sends security notifications to the user's inbox (no, a desktop update notifier is NOT enough, since some users might not run X window on their computers or they might run it with the notifier turned off).
Bug trackers. Open source software has changed the way users interact with software developers. Many projects nowadays maintain a bug-tracking facility (Mozilla's Bugzilla is the best-known one, but there are others) that not only allows users to report problems with the software, it also enables them to see whether any action has been taken to resolve the issue and even provides a way to discuss the bug with the developers in more detail. They also show that the developers care about their users' problems, and are confident enough to maintain a facility that lists bugs in their software. Granted, bug trackers aren't the only way of reporting software issues and some developers prefer to use mailing lists, forums or IRC channels to communicate with their users; nevertheless, they have proven themselves as the most sophisticated method for tracking and fixing bugs in open source software.
So without further ado, let's take a look at the list of the top 25 distributions (as per DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking) and see which ones provide their users with dedicated security mailing lists and a public bug tracker.
Interesting reading. Some readers might argue that security updates and bug trackers are not really important in desktop distributions, where risks are comparatively low. Nevertheless, their existence (or lack of it) provides an interesting indicator about how complete and balanced a distribution is. Providing security fixes is a tedious, thankless task, much less glamorous than releasing new CD/DVD images with all the latest applications and countless new features. But this is exactly what separates the serious distro contenders from hobby projects. Finding time away from all the exciting work to provide their users with boring, but necessary work isn't always easy, but that shouldn't be an excuse for not doing it, particularly if the project cares about its users and if it wants to be taken seriously.
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| Miscellaneous News |
GNOME 2.20, Mandriva 2008 editions, Fedora's new Nodoka theme, Project Indiana
 The biggest event on the open source software calendar last week was undoubtedly the release of GNOME 2.20, a popular desktop environment. What's new in the latest release: "Improved support for right-to-left languages; desktop search integrated into the file chooser dialog; convenient new features in the Evolution email and calendar client; enhanced browsing of image collections; simplified system preferences; efficient power management and incredibly accurate laptop battery monitoring. Developers receive more help with application development thanks to a new version of the GTK+ toolkit, improved tools, and a great new documentation web site." As has become tradition, Foresight Linux was the first distribution to integrate the latest GNOME into their product; released almost simultaneously with GNOME 2.20 last week was Foresight Linux 1.4 (an installation DVD based on rPath Linux) and GNOME 2.20 live CD.
Foresight Linux 1.4 - the first distribution shipping with GNOME 2.20 and OpenOffice.org 2.3
(full image size: 375kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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 Mandriva has published an official press release announcing the upcoming release of Mandriva Linux 2008. It will come in three editions: a commercial Mandriva Powerpack (available as a box set or download from Mandriva Store), freely downloadable Mandriva One live CDs (with proprietary device drivers) and freely downloadable Mandriva Free (a traditional installation CD set or DVD without any proprietary components): "After the 2007 Spring edition, Mandriva Linux 2008 is the next major new release of Mandriva to take advantage of the faster 6-month development cycle. With this new release, Mandriva is upgrading its commercial offer around a single unified product: Mandriva Linux Powerpack. It integrates a unique set of commercial packages and services to offer a whole Linux solution. The best-seller Powerpack is the commercial edition of Mandriva Linux and the recommended extension for users of the community version." The press release does not include expected release dates, but according to the distribution's development Wiki page, Mandriva Linux 2008 is scheduled for release in just a few days - on Thursday, 27 September.
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 The Fedora project has launched what they call a series of feature previews as part of the build up to the Fedora 8 release. The first among them is an introduction to "Nodoka", Fedora's new default theme: "We managed to create something that has a sense of 3D, it uses soft gradients, the look is pleasant, not too much shiny or glossy - that's what I intended it to be and I am glad that we managed to make it so. The Metacity theme is however another tale. It's simple and fast, but it seems that I went too far with the simplicity. There are still some hiccups that need to be fixed. I have already in mind some improvements to it and I hope I will have time to incorporate the changes before Fedora 8 is released. And yes, it seems to work well both with Infinity and Mist, though I personally think that the best icon set for the Nodoka theme is Echo - it makes it look warmer."
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 Ever since Ian Murdock (the founder of Debian GNU/Linux) has taken a project management position at Sun Microsystems, we keep hearing about a new Solaris-based desktop distribution that is referred to as Project Indiana. But details have been sketchy - until now. Last week, Phoronix attended a presentation given by Ian Murdock with the goal of introducing Project Indiana to the public: "Among the advantages of Project Indiana is that it will use Sun's ZFS as the default file system, and Project Indiana will be taking full advantage of its abilities to create snapshots and perform rollbacks if something with the system's software goes wrong. With Sun's past work with the GNOME project, GNOME will be the desktop environment in Project Indiana, said Ian Murdock. He had gone on to reiterate several other points such as the single CD installation with network-based package management (likely powered by APT). Project Indiana will also be easier to acquire, as it will be available through mirrors that do not need registration and will be distributed via BitTorrent. Another goal of Ian's is also to modernize the command line."
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| Released Last Week |
KateOS 3.6
KateOS 3.6 has been released: "The final version of KateOS 3.6 is now available. This new version contains hundreds of updated packages, lots of bugfixes, and many improved solutions. The most important new features in KateOS 3.6 are: software-driven system hibernation; a GUI installer (included in the LIVE edition); a new version of update-notifier; new start-up scripts which are accessible via the service command; better support for HP printers (via hplip); internationalization support in the whole system (using gettext); new French translation of the CORE installer and many system components; a new GUI network configuration tool; simplified CORE installer; several new packages such as Audacious and Pidgin; initrd has been replaced with initramfs." Visit the project's home page to read the full release announcement.
KateOS 3.6 - the live CD now comes with a graphical installer
(full image size: 638kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Foresight Linux 1.4
Ken VanDine has announced the release of Foresight Linux 1.4, the first distribution to feature the latest GNOME 2.20: "The Foresight Linux Project is proud to announce the release of Foresight Linux 1.4. Foresight Linux is a Linux distribution for your desktop that features a rolling release schedule that always keeps your desktop up to date; a revolutionary package manager, Conary; the latest GNOME desktop environment and an innovative set of excellent, up to date packages. Foresight is proud to be the first distribution to ship with GNOME 2.20. Foresight Linux 1.4 features the latest GNOME mentioned above, including updates to Evolution email and calendar, Tomboy notes, Power Manager, Epiphany web browser, the GNOME Image Viewer, Eye of GNOME and more." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information and screenshots.
Kaella 3.2
Kaella is a French Linux distribution based on KNOPPIX and localised into French. Version 3.2 is the first release that comes in the form of a live DVD, with 2 GB of supplementary applications (e.g. Amarok, Blender, Dia, Emacs, Evolution, Gramps, Inkscape, QCad, QEMU, Scribus, XMMS, games, etc.) and an integration of three free software projects - Dogmazic, GeeXboX and Compile Tux & Astux. Among other interesting software, Kaella 3.2 ships with OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, IceWeasel 2.0.0.6, IceDove 1.5.0.12, GCompris 8.3.2 and Tuxpaint 0.9.17. Apart from these new features, the distribution also includes the usual customisations, such as support for popular USB modems used throughout France and a number of Linux user guides and tutorials. Please read the complete release notes (in French) for further details.
BOSS GNU/Linux 2.0
The BOSS development team has announced the release of BOSS GNU/Linux 2.0, a Debian-based distribution with support for Hindi and Tamil: "BOSS version 2.0 successfully released. Finally our Indian GNU/Linux distribution is released on 17th September 2007 in the Connect 2007 program. Features: GNOME 2.18; Orca screen reader; Espeak; gDesktlets; Beryl 2.0 - an excellent 3D desktop; 2.6.21 kernel; on-screen keyboard support; OpenOffice.org 2.2 with support for two Indian languages (Hindi and Tamil), with plans to move to other languages as well; a pleasing desktop background and icons; enhanced BOSS presentation tool; complete Tamil and Hindi desktops; update manager for updating your BOSS to the latest packages." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details.
X/OS Linux 5.0
X/OS Linux 5.0, a distribution rebuilt from source RPM packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, has been released: "X/OS Linux 5.0 is now available for public download." From the release notes: "The X/OS Linux 5.0 package set for i386 systems is identical to the combined package sets of RHEL 5.0 Client and RHEL 5.0 Server, with the following exceptions: all updates released for RHEL5 up to August 7, 2007, have been included, this also includes additional packages, as well as the replacement of GAIM by Pidgin; the yum package has been updated to version 3.2.1, the version included with the RHEL 5.1 beta release, as the yum version (3.0.1) that was included with RHEL 5.0 contains serious problems; an installclass has been added to Anaconda, supporting various alternatives for installing X/OS Linux 5...." Read the release announcement and release notes for more information.
dyne:bolic 2.5
Denis "Jaromil" Rojo has announced the release of dyne:bolic 2.5, a multimedia live CD designed for media activists, artists and creative individuals: "After 6 months of development, this release stabilizes and updates the core system, also providing recent versions of most used software and some important new functionality. New features: writable NTFS support (ntfs-3g) now lets you save data and nest also on Windows NT formatted partitions, Firewire audio cards are now supported by Jack (Freebob); nesting capability is made even easier to operate as nests can be mounted without reboot; new software: Ekiga, Guarddog and Wireshark plus all the gtkpython and wxPython libraries; text console usage is enhanced by a fully functional mail setup with Mutt, msmtp, Fetchmail, Procmail, and SpamAssassin; graphical desktop repair button and a mount utility for SSH accounts...." Read the full release notes for more details.
Sabayon Linux 3.4 "miniEdition"
Fabio Erculiani has announced the release of Sabayon Linux 3.4 "miniEdition", a single-CD variant of the Gentoo-based desktop distribution: "We are happy to announce Sabayon Linux 3.4 'miniEdition'. Sabayon Linux x86/x86_64 'miniEdition' is a CD release of the latest Sabayon Linux x86/x86-64 DVD. The creation of this special edition, has been made with an automatic script that shrinks down the whole chroot jail by removing every duplicated, useless or server-oriented package. The multimedia features of this special edition are kept intact. Distribution updates: improved OpenGL configuration reliability; NVIDIA driver updated to 100.14.19; CompizFusion stability fixes (will be soon enabled by default on supported hardware); boot time 15% faster." Read the brief release notes for more information.
AliXe 0.11
Sylvie Migneault has announced the final release of AliXe 0.11, a SLAX-based live CD featuring the Xfce desktop: "It is my pleasure to announce that the CD of AliXe 0.11 is now finalized. AliXe v0.11 is a bilingual (English and French) live CD based on SLAX, including the Xfce window manager with GTK+ applications. In addition to the correction of bugs and package updates, the CD has had a major transformation and most of the modules have been re-created. This work had two goals: to facilitate the task of remastering the live CD and to write a comprehensive HOWTO. Changes: various problems with localization were corrected; xine, Totem and Audacious were removed, while MPlayer, Gnome MPlayer and Beep Media Player continue to be provided for audio and video playback; MPlayer audio bug fixed; upgraded Firefox 2.0.0.7, Pidgin 2.2.0 and Parted 1.8.8; added Dia 0.96.1." Read more in this brief changelog.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
From FreeBSD to Debian GNU/Linux
After last week's DDoS attack on DistroWatch.com and the subsequent server operating system switch from FreeBSD to Debian GNU/Linux, many readers have asked about the reasons for this move. Did I lose my trust in FreeBSD? Or were there other reasons that prompted the move? With such questions being asked both in the DistroWatch forums and in emails filling my inbox during the week, I thought it would be best to answer them here, rather than replying individually to each person who wanted an explanation.
First thing first: no, I have no problem with FreeBSD as an operating system. Ever since I started running DistroWatch on a dedicated server, I always used Debian - until November 2004, that is, when I switched to FreeBSD. The reason? I needed some features in PHP 5 which was not yet officially supported in the then stable version of Debian. With Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 "sarge" in perpetual delay, I decided to switch to what many consider to be one of the best server operating systems on the market - FreeBSD.
Then last week came the devastating DDoS attack. When the technician responsible for the server finally disconnected the server from all outside traffic, he found that no services were responding on the server. His solution was to bring in a new hard disk, install a fresh copy of FreeBSD and mount the existing hard disks to investigate the problem. That's exactly what he did, so finally I was able to connect to the server and start getting the web site back online.
And there I was - looking at a very basic FreeBSD installation. With my first priority being the need to get DistroWatch up and running as soon as possible, I was about to start configuring the system, installing the necessary ports, and restoring the essential services. Normally, I'd consider this a fairly enjoyable task, were it not for the fact that it was getting late and I was feeling increasingly tired. "Ah, if only it were Debian and not FreeBSD," I told myself, "everything would be up and running in a snap!" Then, rather than spending a better part of the night setting up a fresh FreeBSD installation, I decided to ask the technician to install Debian instead.
And that's the simple explanation for the switch: setting up a Debian system is just so much faster than setting up a FreeBSD system. Even if one would choose to run a binary FreeBSD (as opposed to taking advantage of FreeBSD's famous ports), it would still take longer than with Debian. An example: let's install the NTP server on both operating systems. In Debian, issuing "apt-get install ntp" not only downloads and installs the application, it also starts the NTP daemon, synchronises the system clock with one of the servers from the pre-configured configuration file, sets up logging, and sets up NTP to start at boot. Contrast that with FreeBSD where, after compiling NTP, you would have to do all these tasks manually - not a difficult job, but still considerably more time consuming than the same on Debian. This is just one example - there are many others.
At the end of the day, the decision between running a Debian server and a FreeBSD server is fairly simple: if you want to run the latest software and have the time to baby-sit your server (remember that on FreeBSD, most security updates require compiling the kernel or the userland or both), then choose FreeBSD. But if you want to set up your server and then pretty much forget about it, then Debian is a better choice. With not having any special reason for wanting to run the latest and greatest, Debian seemed to me like an ideal solution.
One final observation that might interest some readers: the daily Page Hit Ranking updates is generated from log files by a bash script, which is launched by cron every day just after midnight GMT (it counts the clicks for the previous day, then performs all the necessary additions and divisions on the data before generating the HTML tables). On FreeBSD 6.2, the script normally completed its run in about 40 minutes. On Debian 4.0, the same now takes about 130 minutes. You draw your own conclusions!
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New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- 7linux. 7linux is small, fast distribution built from scratch. Its main characteristic are: use of 7z compression, pkgtools from Slackware, Enlightenment and KDE desktops.
- Greenie Linux. Greenie Linux is a Slovak distribution based on Ubuntu. It is intended as easy-to-use operating system localised into Slovak and Czech.
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 1 October 2007.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Question for Ladislav (by anonymous on 2007-09-24 12:44:24 GMT from United States)
# Number of all distributions in the database: 548
# Number of all active distributions in the database: 365
# Number of discontinued distributions: 112
# Number of distributions on the waiting list: 194
The number on the waiting list continues to grow and grow, I was wondering will that number ever decrease?
2 • Thanks! (by afonic on 2007-09-24 12:51:17 GMT from Greece)
Thanks for the Distrowatch, excellent as usual!
However I find the time impact on your script huge when comparing FreeBSD with Debian. Is it positive that it is just the OS taking all that extra time or maybe some package used in the process is outdated / slower in Debian?
3 • GEUbuntu, Sidux, Arch, PCLinuxOS (by Lycan on 2007-09-24 12:53:38 GMT from United States)
My favorite :)
4 • Distrowatch server comments are interesting (by Mark South on 2007-09-24 12:55:41 GMT from Switzerland)
Ladislav,
Good to have DWW back on a Monday! Your comments about setting up and running servers were interesting because DW has a fairly long history on the net. Would you consider writing a summary review of your experiences with FreeBSD as a server for DW, and keep an eye on the possibility of doing a longer-term review of Debian as a server in a few months/years?
Thanks again for DWW,
Mark
5 • thanks (by bobo on 2007-09-24 12:58:33 GMT from Bulgaria)
ammm
is your script GPLd :)
can we have it?
6 • Security and bug fix infrastructures in distributions (by Bob on 2007-09-24 13:17:35 GMT from United States)
The third leg of the structure is a good automatic notification and easy means of updating the distribution. OpenSUSE fell down on this with ZENworks. Thankfully they have gotten rid of it in 10.3.
The mailing lists are OK, but I just want an icon that pops up and says "You've got updates". Then lets me click on it to install them.
7 • Indiana != Linux (by Fabian on 2007-09-24 13:20:00 GMT from Germany)
> we keep hearing about a new Solaris-based desktop Linux distribution
s/Linux/Unix/
8 • Thanks.. (by Ramana on 2007-09-24 13:21:15 GMT from Netherlands)
Thanks for the Distrowatch.
My favorite: Pardus,Kubuntu and PCLinuxOS.
Why Pardus: excellent packagemanager, easy configuration tools, multy languages and clean and fast distribution!
9 • dash (by Fabian on 2007-09-24 13:31:42 GMT from Germany)
> the daily Page Hit Ranking updates is generated from log files by a bash script
Ladislav, have you tried to run the script using dash instead of bash? It will probably run faster, but requires to be posix-compliant...
10 • Performance diff between Debian and FreeBSD (by Honaby on 2007-09-24 13:37:01 GMT from Philippines)
Maybe it has something to do with the default number of processes/services/daemons running on FreeBSD compared to the Debian?
When it comes to performance, there really is a lot of factors that needs to be considered.
Plus ofcourse, you can't compare a "binary distro" with a "compile everything(or most of the things) yourself distro" in terms of performance, because the latter usually performs better. But then again, you already know the advantages and disavantages of both.
11 • Importance of Bug Trackers and Mailers (by davemc on 2007-09-24 13:45:21 GMT from United States)
I think it should come as no surprise that PCLos lacks any form of a Bug Tracking system or Mailer because it is a small project that tries to act like its big in terms of support. It should also come as no surprise that those distro's with Corporations behind them have quite a bit. It all boils down to $$$ in the end. Its encouraging that Sabayon at least has a Bugtracker as it is basicly a one or two man show, yet the Dev's do keep up with things quite well. You do have a good point however. Any distro which lacks any form of Bug reporting/feedback system is really nothing more than a side project that really cant be taken seriously.
12 • Security and Bugfix Infrastructure: Arch Linux (by Snork on 2007-09-24 13:53:46 GMT from United States)
A good editorial. And an informative list. Let me add a comment about the Arch entry: it uses a rolling release system. One is constantly updating the system with the lastest released packages. Therefore, security updates are applied as soon as available. There's not as much need for notifications with this model. So, while at first glance the Security Mailing List red check may seem to be a fairly big deal, in reality it isn't.
FYI.
13 • FreeBSD binary updates (by Stephen on 2007-09-24 13:59:12 GMT from Canada)
freebsd-update seems to do a good job for me getting binary updates for freebsd 6.2.
14 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 14:06:52 GMT from United States)
Yet another example where PCLOS comes up a little bit short (the biggest, of course, is package availability).
Of course as well is that you should not point out weaknesses of PCLOS. If it's not in PCLOS, it's not necessary for anyone other than losers.
This is not distro-bashing (though the PCLOS guys will say it is). They don't have the infrastructure, but by golly, you better not point that out! Things omitted from PCLOS are useless extras of other distros, at least in their minds.
I'm just so tired of having to point this out to the PCLOS crowd. The sad thing is that you'll get a lame response rather than "yes, we know, we're trying to remedy that shortcoming". They can't admit a weakness of PCLOS.
15 • Bug and security (by CeVO on 2007-09-24 14:12:53 GMT from Spain)
I think it needs to be taken into account if a distro is derived or is an upstream distro itself. PCLOS, MEPIS, Mint, Sidux all get a lot of their sources from upstream distros (Mandriva, Debian, Ubuntu). So arguably, most bug and security handling will be done upstream. I do not feel left in the cold as a MEPIS user, since I know that most issues will be handled by Debian.
That being said, it would only be proper to have bug tracking in place for the components that are unique to the distro. So I second the opinion that each distro should have some mechanism in place for that, but I would not go so far as to say that a distro cannot be taken seriously if no tracking system has yet been set up. Providing updated pools and getting fixes out when they are available still is the most important part of the job for a distro maintainer. Moreover, I would rather rely on the programmer of whatever software piece to fix bugs and secuirty holes than on a package maintainer anytime.
16 • 2 questions , 1 @104 (by dbrion on 2007-09-24 14:18:16 GMT from France)
@104 : What is the "PCLOS crowd": the developpers? the leader? the looovers?
General (and naive) question:
Suppose one has a fav application A and a distr D. Both have a way of tracking bugs; Suppose one finds a reproductible bug and can be sure it is a bug (by fixing it, say).
What is the most efficient: reporting to A or to D? If I report to D, will they report to A? If I report to A, will A report to any Ds (not only mine)?
17 • No subject (by winsnomore on 2007-09-24 14:18:22 GMT from United States)
@# 14
With every distro putting out new release every week .. does it really need a separate security update/bug fix list and mechanism?
If I had the money to do a distro, this is one thing I won't support, unless I got to bed with some corp. wonks who think this is "support"
In the past 4 years, I just end up updating the whole distro a few times a year .. and this is truly a moot point
Servers have a slightly different requirement, my hosting company is still on 2.4. kernel !! they may need it .. but for desktop users --- nah !!
18 • Security Mailing Lists & Bugtrackers (by Chris Hildebrandt on 2007-09-24 14:22:05 GMT from Austria)
I completely disagree with Ladislav here.
The bare existence of a so-called security mailing list is no proof for a clever security team, neither does it say anything about the existance of security patches/packages in time. Let me add that most people today do not like reading mailing lists any more and prefer RSS feeds. Several of the distributions you marked with a red X do provide RSS feeds.
Personally I found that handling bugs via bug tracking software has advantages, but also pitfalls. Most of them look like graveyards after some months of operation. They are also often abused to avoid direct contact between developers and users. Many development teams therefore prefer other methods of bug tracking & handling, dedicated forums and IRC-cachels are just 2 of them.
While I agree with Ladislav on the importance of security for the Linux desktop, I suggesst to evaluate security and bug handling of distributions by actually running and using it for several weeks (better months).
Speaking for sidux I can confirm that we do not run a security mailing list, nor a bug tracker at the moment. We have evaluated both several times and did not find them fitting to the special situation for running most packages directly from Debian Sid repositories (where bug trackers to maintainers and upstream developers already exist). We handle bugs in dedicated forums, and users & devs are very happy with this solution.
We send security warnings via forums and RSS feed, which is by far the best solution in our bleeding edge situation. Most security warnings your receive for other distributions today are fixed already in Debian Sid/sidux since weeks or even months. We provide security related patches and bugfixes via our own apt repository, mostly faster than Debian or some upstream developers - and long time before other distributions are hit by the same package.
One could say that sidux is testing, reporting and fixing for most other distributions in advance, and a lot of stuff is fixed therefore already when it meets other distributions.
Greetings,
Chris
19 • Regarding the slow bash script (by PP on 2007-09-24 14:28:07 GMT from Bulgaria)
Ladislav, you might want to check out dash (http://packages.debian.org/etch/dash). It's compatible to bash, but much more lightweight, and also faster. It's been used by Ubuntu for some time.
20 • Security and bug fix infrastructures in distributions (by FastGame on 2007-09-24 14:29:51 GMT from United States)
Good to see that CeVO has more brains than the *Anonymous bla bla in #11 and #14
21 • Major and hobbyist distros (by Jared on 2007-09-24 14:31:06 GMT from United States)
Thank you for your editorial regarding Security and bug fix infrastructures in distributions. I have also wondered why some distros were still considered major distros and others regardless of how popular, were considered still hobbyist distros. Your explanation seems to make things fairly clear. This explains why I've always considered PCLinuxOS still a hobbyist type distro, even though it is a very good and popular distro.
The only distro that doesn't seem to fit the criteria is Slackware. I would categorize this distro as a major or core distro, but doesn't fully fit in your description of a major distro.
22 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 15:06:52 GMT from United States)
@17: You proved my point spectacularly.
PCLinuxOS is a distro that relies very heavily on others. It offers a few advantages in a couple of areas.
That's fine. Why then is the answer to every hardware compatibility issue, every newbie issue, really any issue, "You should be using PCLinuxOS! That's your problem, you were using a different distro."
If PCLinuxOS wants to be taken seriously, they're going to have to do some of this stuff. As I indicated, and to some extent Ladislav as well, it is a signal. It is just one thing PCLOS doesn't do that the adult distros do. PCLOS can't replace these distros, period. Someone has to do the tough work.
If you want to claim your distro is all things to all people (not that Tex has ever made such a claim) you better be sure you have the infrastructure to do it. You can't blame everything on Ubuntu users.
>> What is the "PCLOS crowd": the developpers? the leader? the looovers? <<
The group of idiots for whom every response is, "You should be using PCLinuxOS because it solves all problems." It's to the point that I hate going to a forum with one or more PCLOS users because I know that generic answer will come out as a response to any post.
23 • Security
Security mailing list and/or bug tracker as search criteria (by Alexandru on 2007-09-24 15:09:30 GMT from Romania)
Thanks for your DistroWatch weekly. As always, I enjoy reading it.
It would be nice if you put security updates and/or bug tracking system as search criteria for the distributions in the Search page. As far as i know, it isn't implemented yet.
24 • RSS feeds vs. email notifications (by Hallward on 2007-09-24 15:11:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sidux's Chris Hildebrandt wrote:
Let me add that most people today do not like reading mailing lists any more
and prefer RSS feeds.
As Ladislav's article indicates, those of us who choose to use their Linux box without an X server prefer email notifications over RSS feeds.
In any event, email changelogs facilitate easy comparison of distros' ability to track security updates. KateOS, for example, may or may not be as good as Ubuntu from the point of view of tracking vulnerabilities, but for want of an official changelog, Ubuntu users concerned with security don't have have much (informed) cause to migrate.
25 • Distro-bashing? (by Bryan on 2007-09-24 15:14:25 GMT from Canada)
@14: "...it's not necessary for anyone other than losers.
This is not distro-bashing..."
Actually, I am quite certain you are not distro bashing as you seem to indicate you are not a pclinuxos user and yet you made this statement apparently defending their package selection.
Without asking for completely highbrow and/or technical word choices, it may be wise to avoid disparaging words. Forums carry a much better discussions when people avoid insulting each other.
26 • There is another category than hobbyist/serious distros (by dbrion on 2007-09-24 15:27:42 GMT from France)
Live CDVDs à la Kaella (and likewise DSL and Puppy are mainly used as LiveCDs) are used either for maintenance or as demo, or as a convenient way to provide students/young children a working Linux without wiping off their parent's OS (they pay for, and sometimes use for professional work!). Installation/remastering procedures are unpleasant enough to avoid any misplaced creativity...
Security warnings/(up?)grades in such conditions and for such an audience are useless...
27 • 24 • RSS feeds vs. email notifications (by Chris Hildebrandt on 2007-09-24 15:36:32 GMT from Austria)
Although I spend most of my work time at server boxes without X, I know htat there are several console based RSS readers around. There are also RSS plug-ins for console based news- and mail readers. One nice example is Raggle http://www.raggle.org/about/.
Greetings,
Chris
28 • @15 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-24 15:40:17 GMT from Canada)
That only works if the distro actually ships the updates provided by upstream. AFAIK, PCLOS does not ship the official updates to Mandriva Linux 2007, on which it is based, and PCLOS expressly discourages its users from installing Mandriva packages unmodified. So although they are based on an upstream distribution which does provide security and bugfix updates, there's no approved channel for accessing these updates for PCLOS users.
29 • @14 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 15:43:59 GMT from France)
IMO, you message comes across as bashing anyday. Since you're "so tired of having to point this out to the PCLOS crowd.", simply give your pointing out a rest, is it that hard! :-)
30 • Does it support 64-bit? (by Duhnonymous on 2007-09-24 15:52:06 GMT from United States)
The only question about distros in my mind worth asking, and I think you'll find the answer is similar to the security question.
31 • From FreeBSD to Debian (2) (by Gabriel on 2007-09-24 15:52:39 GMT from Spain)
Hi Boss,
I as I see I was right about what was the reason that made you use Debian instead of FreeBSD: speed on setting up. However, I've been very surprised about the different time that the planned task takes now on Debian and how long it was on FreeBSD.
My be is time to compile different .deb you have used from source. Now you have all time of the world.
By other hand, from the side of the client, no difference :)
Cheers.
32 • RE 29 Je vous garantis que les adorateurs de PCLOS peuvent (by dbrion on 2007-09-24 15:54:25 GMT from France)
combiner l'arrogance et la stupidité crasse d'une façon remarquable, la première fois qu'on tombe dessus... Ils n'ont pas le monopole de ces pratiques folkloriques, les adorateurs de Mint étant très gratinés, eux aussi.. (je me souviens de Mint parce qu'ils criaient qu'ils l'aiiiimaient, qu'ils allaient le mettre dans le PC de leurs pauvres vieux parents, et, je n'ai pu recueillir qu'UN argument technique : "Mint is green!")
Ceci n'est pas de la faute des développeurs, mais lassant... et inciterait à davantage de férocité...
33 • The switch (by Amy on 2007-09-24 15:54:40 GMT from United States)
Thanks for explaining why you made the switch.
The server that hosts my site runs red had enterprise 4 and I would love to switch it to debian.
34 • RE: 15 (by Landor on 2007-09-24 15:58:38 GMT from Canada)
That is a good thing in theory but not in practice. There are many distributions that are based on a distribution that create their own bugs due to differing modifications.
A good example of this is, if say Ubuntu hadn't strayed as far from Debian as they have they could still enjoy more bugfixes than they do. But the distro is known as the one with the largest amount of bugs.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
35 • FreeBSD rocks (by Dino on 2007-09-24 16:02:54 GMT from United States)
So, I can conclude that FreeBSD does rock...it simply takes time to get it at that level?
Hmmm, then I will need to inspect this OS.
36 • PC BSD (by relativ at 2007-09-24 16:05:02 GMT from United States)
Nobody noticed that PCBSD 1.4 was released today???
http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/21/11/
I know what I'm doing tonight.
rel
37 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 16:09:02 GMT from France)
Ladislav's piece selects one criteria to judge the seriousness of a distro. It's interesting. And debatable: because different distros have different updating procedures and purposes, no single criteria of "seriousness" can cover the specificities of all distros appropriately. cf the points made by the guys from Arch and Sidux (#12 and #18), or #26. In any given topic, highlighting something doesn't have the "granularity" to embrace all the ground.
38 • PCLOS question (by Alberto Jimenez on 2007-09-24 16:17:59 GMT from Spain)
Can an only i386 only English distribution be number one?
Of course not. That might be a joke.
39 • RE 38 "Can an only i386 only English distribution be number one" (by dbrion on 2007-09-24 16:25:17 GMT from France)
For the localization, cf last week DW forum, where americanEnglish PCLOSS (and localization!) experts almost swore it had other language support (and someday/month/year/century, this support will come, at least from SAM).
For the 32 bits issue, I noticed that the ratio : download of 64bits/ donloads of 32 bits varied between 1/3 and 1/6, depending on the distr., if the choice was given as in BigPound, in Australia -very valuable stats-.
=> a majority of pple prefer downloading 32 bits options, for their old PC...
40 • Keeping up to date with security and bugfixes (by The Infamous Mark South on 2007-09-24 16:32:18 GMT from Switzerland)
Ladislav's characterisation is actually a useful starting point for understanding the different approaches adopted by different distros. But as #37 points out, there are granularity differences. A lot of the difference is down to the expected target market. Slackware and *BSD users are expected to be a lot more capable of understanding changelogs and selectively applying patches that they need than are users of the more newbie-friendly distros. Specifically taking an example, users are expected to read the changelog for -CURRENT and be able to take the necessary actions. Ubuntu (to take another example) does not expect all its users to be able to do the same.
What would be very useful (but admittedly a lot of work) is to categorise the distros according to how much expertise they require from a user, and the ratio of self-help to other forms that is assumed.
41 • @38 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 16:37:32 GMT from France)
Well, DW is an English language site: most clickers are native/EFL English speakers.
42 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 16:43:24 GMT from France)
And I, for one, never used a distro in my native language. If I used PCLOS, I couldn't report on its French locale.
43 • 40 Keeping up to date with security and bugfixes (by Glenn at 2007-09-24 16:53:32 GMT from Canada)
The infamous Mark South said.
What would be very useful (but admittedly a lot of work) is to categorise the distros according to how much expertise they require from a user, and the ratio of self-help to other forms that is assumed.
I like that... Good point.
When I recommend systems to people thats exactly what I like tocover. I like the systems to be sociable in the environment where they are intended to be used.
glenn
44 • Distributions/Security Alerts (by otoh on 2007-09-24 16:57:24 GMT from United States)
A good source for learning about security vulnerabilities and which distros have addressed them is:
lwn.net | Weekly Edition* | Security | scroll down to New Vulnerabilities
* the current LWN WE is subscriber only but previous ones are freely available.
Imo, all distributions should provide alerts/fixes for vulnerabilities that carry the most risk to desktop users on the internet, e.g. browsers, email/rss clients, etc. As the Linux user base grows, it becomes more attractive to the writers of viruses /worms.
45 • Localisation (by Landor on 2007-09-24 17:07:41 GMT from Canada)
Last week there was some discussion surrounding localisation and how since "KDE" has (insert language support of your choice) it every distro using KDE has it.
Languages again are indeed a bit of a lesser topic so far, and I would have to say that from many of the "localised" distros we see that indeed any "plug n play" fix is not really a true fix or so many distributions would not feel the need to make them perfectly setup to their language.
I personally applaud the efforts of such people because like creating fonts say, translation into the desktop is a truly time consuming labour, if it wasn't every language would be perfectly supported.
What did Ladislav say about taking the time for the boring parts of development...
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
46 • Security updates (by Jesse on 2007-09-24 17:08:33 GMT from Canada)
I'm a bit of a security nut, but I can see that security updates
would be a lower priority for desktop-focused distros. Ones
like PCLOS and Mint, for example. Of course, it depends on
your needs, but I'm not running any services on my computer,
so there are very few apps that need updating.
Actually, I've become a bit gun shy of security updates, because
I find they often break something on my system. I want security
updates to fix things, not force me to fix them!
47 • Q to the community- (by Steve on 2007-09-24 17:22:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
Looking for recommendations for a lite liveCD server - like Puppy or DSL is for the desktop, but aimed to be a server.
I want to slap it on an old P-III and do samba serving, NFS and such like (found a decent old machine to hang lots of PATA drives on, you see..)
Needs to be lightweight - got plenty of old ram here though!
Thanks :)
48 • Daily Page Hit Ranking script (by ssam on 2007-09-24 17:26:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
Does the Page Hit Ranking script run with bash or dash?
49 • Distrowatch Editorial (by Gigi on 2007-09-24 17:29:02 GMT from United States)
Thanks to distrowatch for coming up with this editorial. It provides a valuable insight into what is going on in the distro-world.
Most of the new age distros are good to use in the short term but fail to satisfy over a longer period. It all comes down to whether you will install a new distro every three months or if you will install one and forget it for years. If it's the latter, go for the one with security updates and bug tracking.
Note: IMHO, some (if not most) of the newer distros are famous because they come on single-cd and have the restricted multimedia/graphics/hardware drivers enabled by default.
50 • Non English localizations (by Bryan on 2007-09-24 17:31:30 GMT from Canada)
While I speak a smattering of Kannada, my wife is Tamil. She speaksand reads Tamil and Kannada with complete fluency. While she has been impressed every time I show her ubuntu's Tamil localization, or a specific distro like BOSS, she still prefers to use the English localization.
It reminds me of something I read a while back about languages...multilingual couples often continue to use whatever language they spoke when they met and fell in love. One author (an English linguist) noted her Swedish husband would rather talk to her in English, even though she had long since become completely fluent in English. I suspect that many people who originally used computers in English (techies included...or maybe especially) would rather just keep using it in that language.
Just a thought...
51 • languages (by Bryan on 2007-09-24 17:41:41 GMT from Canada)
Woops, I meant to say that the English linguist's Swedish husband continued to speak English with her, long after she had become completely fluent in *Swedish*.
52 • RE 50 / I agree that I sometimes prefer English (by dbrion on 2007-09-24 17:43:27 GMT from France)
for technical matters, but what about my mother? my nephew?
I can give my nephew Kaellas(when it rains), as they are fully localized (they are distributed by schools, too); from last week's changelog, I noticed that they removed KDE's help (as it was not _fully_ francised, if a teacher gave a CDROM with Miss Peelings,(s)he would be ridiculous)... Francisation is not the most complicated part of localization (I know 2 distrs with very strange Arabic at the starting menu)...
As computers seem to be used by other pple than techies, today, and as linuxers seeem to want to spread (and some linuxen are already able to spread, perhaps) localization issues may become much more important than today, where it is almost neglected (it was not neglected by Microsoft -sorry for the absence of any ritual typo-, 20 yrs ago... and the Redmond Sheitan keeps on being serious with localization)
53 • Non-English localisations - specifically Indic ones && FreeBSD --> Debian (by Naresh V on 2007-09-24 17:51:40 GMT from India)
Same here, Kannada but just ain't comfortable with the kind of localisation done on GNOME or KDE projects. They're way too sanskritised and not worth it. If their target audience is office-staff in government organisations I can only wish them luck.
--
I hope we get a more robust follow-up on the performance comparisons after you use dash instead of bash, Ladislav.
Thanks
54 • Bugtrackers vs. forum support (by pastored at 2007-09-24 17:59:59 GMT from United States)
Hmm...
Consider me inexperienced if you like, but I think that a well-managed user forum with good developers who listen to the community (such as Vector Linux) have a better turn-around time for bugs than a specific bugtracker. I have listed a bug with an open-source project on SourceForge, and it's never been looked at...
...but when I bring up a problem in a forum, I often have the answer for that same problem within hours.
It's my personal opinion (so take it for whatever *THAT's* worth) that Vector Linux's forums (and PCLOS forums for the most part) function as good as, if not better, than a dedicated bugtracker.
Well, everyone, have a wonderful day in Linux!
55 • PCLOS (by Sergiof on 2007-09-24 18:20:30 GMT from Portugal)
I'm a happy PCLOS user. If someone doesn't like it, don't use it. The choice is huge. Ahh..another thing: my last distro (before PCLOS) was gentoo. Used it for several years, but I got tired waiting for every package update compiling...
56 • Security 'n' stuff (by linbetwin on 2007-09-24 18:20:54 GMT from Romania)
First of all, I think most Linux _desktop_ users are not truly concerned about security. For them, a new (and preferably flashy) feature is worth ten vulnerability fixes. This is because you never hear about viruses or other malware on Linux forums, but new features are constantly needed and requested. In Linuxland, buggy or nonexistent drivers are worse than malware in Windowsland.
Secondly, localisations are not as great as distributions claim. Apart from a few widely-spoken languages (especially if they are spoken in countries with a strong F/L/OSS communities), localisations are clumsy and sound ridiculous. I never installed a distro in Romanian and even google.ro is translated ridiculously.
Thirdly, 64-bit distros are sadly underused compared to 64-bit processors. Is this because of Flash, drivers etc. ?
57 • Security updates (by hi-life on 2007-09-24 18:34:30 GMT from Germany)
"Finding time away from all the exciting work to provide their users with boring, but necessary work isn't always easy, but that shouldn't be an excuse for not doing it, particularly if the project cares about its users and if it wants to be taken seriously."
Agreed. Unfortunately about two thirds of Ubuntu packages, namely the "universe" and "multiverse" components, don't receive any official security updates because they're not supported by the Ubuntu security team.
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/components
58 • Security: Security Patches, Bug Tracking on Slackware (by werner at 2007-09-24 18:58:08 GMT from France)
In opposite to your report, Slackware, what Im using long time, has no problems with security: 1) Immediately, normally on the same day, have patches to programs, what one can download from the project's web page, mirrors, or/and other people (inclusive me) make imediately binary packages too; 2) The error reporting/treatment sistem on Slackware is the best of all: one send an e-mail to the Slackware man, and heself care the problem. Not this stupid sistems like bugzilla what other people using, and what is the reason that there I often desist to report errors
59 • 29, 25 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 19:03:53 GMT from United States)
>> IMO, you message comes across as bashing anyday. Since you're "so tired of having to point this out to the PCLOS crowd.", simply give your pointing out a rest, is it that hard! :-) <<
Saying that there is a weakness of a distro is not bashing. Saying the distro is a piece of junk is distro bashing.
Why should I not have a right to point out that there are weaknesses with a distro? All I see from certain nutjob corners of the Linux world is, "World hunger? Of course, they're not using PCLinuxOS! Terrorism? Of course, the security agencies don't use PCLinuxOS! Cancer not curable? Of course, you're not using PCLinuxOS, what do you expect!" I'd just be happy if it could properly set up my screen resolution.
I feel compelled to point out the truth given the number of crazy postings I see. It wouldn't be that hard for PCLOS fans to be honest. Honestly, I've never seen such a weird claim to perfection as I've seen with PCLOS fans.
>> Actually, I am quite certain you are not distro bashing as you seem to indicate you are not a pclinuxos user and yet you made this statement apparently defending their package selection. <<
I think you misread my message. I tried PCLOS and it didn't have the packages I needed. That's a huge problem if I try to convert someone I work with to PCLOS rather than Windows.
60 • 55 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 19:05:12 GMT from United States)
>> I'm a happy PCLOS user. If someone doesn't like it, don't use it. <<
If only it were so simple. If only there were three other PCLOS users who didn't treat PCLOS as a darned religion.
61 • 60 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 19:18:42 GMT from United States)
>three other PCLOS users who didn't treat PCLOS as a darned religion.<<
Seem pretty common in all distros to have enthusiastic users.
62 • The blessed distribution (by Bryan on 2007-09-24 19:26:47 GMT from Canada)
@60
You may very well be right, but that could have been a comment about ubuntu users if this was just distrowatch in 2005.
63 • Bug and security (by ceti on 2007-09-24 19:27:25 GMT from Brazil)
I hope clem, from Linux Mint, read the Editorial. In a unbelieveable move, the new Mint version, codiname Celena, won't have security updates anymore (actually won't have any kind of updates...).
From the release notes:
"5. Improved Stability
The Update Manager and Update Notifier were removed from Celena so users would not perform un-educated upgrades. With more than 2 releases a year and many modules affected by upgrades, stability was preferred to security in Celena. No more pop-ups telling you a new version of Ubuntu became available, no more pop-ups telling you to download the latest kernel... your system is stable, tested and it should stay that way."
Can you believe that???
64 • @59 (by john frey on 2007-09-24 19:31:18 GMT from Canada)
>>I feel compelled to point out the truth given the number of crazy postings I see. It wouldn't be that hard for PCLOS fans to be honest. Honestly, I've never seen such a weird claim to perfection as I've seen with PCLOS fans.<<
Come now. Certainly you've heard the Ubuntu fans. Particularly foolish is the claim that it is so much easier to install than other distros. "The Borg have conquered your planet? Of course, you weren't using Ubuntu." :-D
The one reason Ubuntu is so popular is marketing. What's the reason for PCLOS, I wonder?
65 • Distros and Politics, one in the same? (by Landor on 2007-09-24 19:36:36 GMT from Canada)
I see the fanbois ideaology in the same light as Partyism or Statism (for lack of more general terms, read on) in which that as long as "they" do not hear your contrary views they are happy within their belief that everyone follows the "line" of thought.
Which of course changes radically the moment some rejects those beliefs, similar to purges maybe?
Me? I'm partial to Red Hat because of knowing of the developer from my city (his mother lives, or lived about 15 mins from me) so loyaly to someone who made it out of a rough city to make his mark in the world with a fine product that stands the test of time is always a good thing. The other is SUSE, and now openSUSE (nothing even comes close to being that polished in all of Linux), a fine system right from day one IMHO. But rolling my own is my current desire as most of you have seen me type about, so no fanboi-ism here basically. :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
66 • Linux would look so much more appealing... (by h3rman on 2007-09-24 19:39:54 GMT from Europe)
Linux would look so much more appealing if people would respect other people's choice of distro.
Let's keep our disdain for other people's distro to ourselves, and start educate ourselves.
There is so much cool Linux/FLOSS technology to learn about, let's do that instead of endlessly blathering about PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu.
67 • 64 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 19:41:51 GMT from United States)
>>What's the reason for PCLOS, I wonder?<<
I guess you could go read the 6 pages of user testimonials on their forum for a helpful hint.. :D
68 • No subject (by Barnabyh on 2007-09-24 19:45:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Yet another example where PCLOS comes up a little bit short (the biggest, of course, is package availability)."
I wouldn't call 6893 packages currently in the main repository short, for most desktop home users that's probably enough. There are other distros that offer less, if we neglect dedicated community packagers who provide stuff on their own servers, or provide build scripts etc. Sure it's not Debian or dare I say it U* with about 19000 packages but seriously, if you want B use B, not C.
"I'm just so tired of having to point this out to the PCLOS crowd. The sad thing is that you'll get a lame response rather than "yes, we know, we're trying to remedy that shortcoming". They can't admit a weakness of PCLOS."
Hmmm, I've been using it now for a few months only since the 2007 version came out, it's nice. People obviously have reasons why they like it, and if it's only a slightly improved look over Mandriva (*Subjective of course*). And yes, everything works in my experience, even Ati prop. drivers, and is fast too.
Why do you care? Get a life man, use what you want to use, and let others do the same.
69 • re 63, upgrades in Mint. (by Clem on 2007-09-24 20:02:56 GMT from Ireland)
Hi Ceti,
There's no need to point your finger at us and say "look, look!! They don't take security updates". We do, it's manual through APT and Synaptic. There's an automatic way provided by the Ubuntu Upgrade Manager but it's definitely not an option for us anymore and we're implementing our own.
mintUpgrade will be ready in a month and in the meantime if you don't want to break your system we recommend you use APT rather than the Upgrade Manager.
PS: You make it look like we just didn't think and decided this out of the blue. We do understand the security problem, it looks like you don't quite get the stability issue. This is very well documented on the blog and in the forums, please read more about it and understand that everything we do is indeed meant to make Mint better.
dbrion: What are you talking about?? And why do you keep answering English posts in French? I'm referring to post #32. I usually don't understand your trolls but this one is about Mint so you got me curious.
oh and by the way, I do read distrowatch and appreciate it a lot. Security updates are indeed very important but not to point where they can break your system. The Ubuntu Upgrade Manager causes severe problems under a Linux Mint system and it was about time we did something about it. When mintUpgrade is ready we'll have both automatic security and a stable system, implementation is almost half finished and this tool will come in Mint 4.0 Daryna.
Clem
70 • look to the future (by tomc on 2007-09-24 20:03:08 GMT from United States)
Truly disappointed with Distrowatch and the posters here.
Can't believe that a mailing list is considered more valuable than an update notifier. For the vast majority of users? The users of the future? Unbelievable.
Can't believe that a sophisticated bug tracking system is always the best way to deal with bugs. Directly conflicts with my experience.
Can't believe this mentality... "If PCLinuxOS wants to be taken seriously, they're going to have to do some of this stuff."
To the great benefit of Linux in general, it's clear that the majors have been taking PCLOS, MEPIS, Sabayon, Mint and other user friendly desktop-oriented distros very seriously. These distros are leading the way into the future.
If these leaders become more like the majors of the past, well then Linux will have lost something very valuable indeed.
71 • PClos repositories (by Barnabyh on 2007-09-24 20:05:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Was quite surprised to see even 'Grass' in the repository - Geographic Resources Analysis Support System. Not bad.
Was already mentally prepared for a compile session, but not needed.
72 • Mailing List (by afonic on 2007-09-24 20:24:47 GMT from Greece)
@70: The mailing list is an important tool of every sysadmin. Hey, I am running CentOS (just command line) I no update notifier there, nor I can run "yum update" twice a day. However just by getting the emails I know when a security update for my system (and for a package I use) is out and hurry to install it. So yes, it in an invaluable tool for many users.
Running a system without security updates, even in desktop should not be allowed. Think about it, how can I take seriously a distro that doesn't release security updates on time? Would you run Windows without getting all the updates first?
Surely, you can say you don't care and it is unlikely that anyone would bother "attacking" you first, but for me a distro with unpatched security problems is not a serious distro.
About the bug tracker, I strongly believe that it is the best way to get all the bugs reported and assign tasks to people, however I agree that in distros with a very small dev team (hobby distros) it may not be needed.
73 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 20:44:48 GMT from United States)
>> You may very well be right, but that could have been a comment about ubuntu users if this was just distrowatch in 2005. <<
>> Come now. Certainly you've heard the Ubuntu fans. <<
It was definitely bad. Maybe it's selective memory, but I just don't remember it being as bad as this. Of course, I first used PCLinuxOS in 2005, unlike (apparently) everybody else who is just learning about it now.
A good distro, but not a special distro. It's to the point that I now consider a forum post with PCLinuxOS in it to be spam.
>> I wouldn't call 6893 packages currently in the main repository short, for most desktop home users that's probably enough. <<
Exactly what I said earlier. "PCLinuxOS is good enough". That's the Windows mentality. The extra packages don't exist by accident in the other distros.
Please stop defending everything about PCLOS. Tex and TRG are doing a great job, but they themselves do not seem to have trouble understanding that PCLOS has limitations. If only Tex could be the public voice of PCLOS the way Mark Shuttleworth is the public voice of Ubuntu...
74 • Server switch, others (by jack daniels esq on 2007-09-24 20:45:02 GMT from South Africa)
No problem with you switching, Sir - seems like a fairly natural, logical progression - actually missed your site whilst you were AWOL - as it were - it is always mind-breaking to me as to why some moron would even begin to hammer a site like yours/ours ?? It is not a challenge or threat to anyone - then again to a warped mind it might be.
PCLOS has been my #1 for about a year now - ex Mandriva - with all those cubes going I get 3 or 4 times more work done & havent used XP in about a year - even though I do have it as backup and share all data across a Fat32 D drive & for the odd game of Spider 4 pack which is excellent in XP - a bit sucky in Linux
Q&A What distro is best suited for laptops - Sony Vaio's per se??
BR>Jack
75 • PCLOS (by Chuck on 2007-09-24 20:47:03 GMT from United States)
I do not know about security updates or the size of the repository vs other distros, but the software that I use is always current with the Synaptic in PCLOS. I just updated to firefox 2.0.0.7 and Open office 2.3. With that in context on my ubuntu partition, Thunderbird is still at 1.5! I like both PClinux and Unbuntu, but for myself I found that the software (that I use) is more up to date in PCLINUX vs Ubuntu.
PS. I like and use both - I like that Ubuntu alerts me to updates and I do not have to seek them out.
I just set up an old computer - triple boot - XP, PCLinux2007, and Ubuntu 7.04. For what it was worth PClinux had 490megs of updates after the new install and Ubuntu had 180 megs of updates after the new install.
10 years from now we will look back at these distro fights and laugh
76 • Security updates (by voislav on 2007-09-24 20:56:59 GMT from Canada)
I think that people take this security updates thing too far. Let's face it, Linux is inherently more secure system than Windows, and properly secured it really doesn't need much updating. If you are sys administrator, you'll think hard before doing any updates, so mailing list is much more valuable, than a notifier that just tells you there is an update.
Desktop users are even less exposed, so a 3 or a 6 month update cycle is not unreasonable. Of course you should update the fresh install, but that has nothing to do with the update notifier, you can run that through the package manager on install. If you are a desktop user, is it a big deal to pop into your package manager every few months and perform system update?
I think people expects a bit too much from their software, it does require you to press a few buttons once in a while.
77 • Debian vs FreeBSD (by Jonatan on 2007-09-24 21:24:57 GMT from Poland)
Thank you for fast reactivation the pages!
Time is most important so you choise is good :)
One note about script working time: in that situation one of the most important delay-factors is the file system. You probably used UFS and now use Ext3, which is slow in comparision to other FS-es. Minor factor can be code optimization for architecture (Debian is compiled for i386).
Best wishes!
78 • Forums? What about forums? (by Branko Vukelić on 2007-09-24 21:26:17 GMT from N/A)
Hi, and thanks for another great read.
However, I have one comment on the Editorial.
See, not all distro devs think BugTracker is the most efficient way of finding out about problems and bugs users discover. Some might use Forums, some might use Forums in conjunction with extended presence on IRC channels, some may simply jam everything into a single mailing-list.
As for the separate Security ml... Some may provide RSS feeds on their homepages, some may present security announcements on their regular list, some may have dedicated secitons in the forums.
I think I've seen the use-forum-for-everything approach in the PCLOS community. Arch has all packaged updates (the security or otherwise) jammed into the regular update process, so basically its users don't necessarily have to track announcements. Those that do, may take a look at the dedicated forum section.
So, each has a different view of how those two issues should be dealt with. The above article should have also listed if there were dedicated sections in forums, etc. Not having the "standard" tools for the job, doesn't also disqualify a distro as not being major or, even worse, not caring at all.
79 • An Arch review ??? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 21:32:04 GMT from Canada)
I think you are ready for doing an arch review. Hence, you will see that archlinux does not need a security mailling list, because they repositories are always up to date (including security fixes). You will also discover that arch evolved a lot since your lastest review.
80 • @ 73 - Selective quoting is fun (by Barnabyh on 2007-09-24 21:40:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Please stop defending everything about PCLOS"
Nobody here is defending 'everything' about it, and I do not recall a post stating it does not have it's limitations. So do most if not all. Yet your religious fervour seems strange. What have 'they' done to you?
I mean apart from the biggest 6 or so distros most have limited availability of packages, many have less than PClos by far, although for ZW for instance you can use Slack packages. You can always go and get your fix somewhere else and try another .rpm (yes discouraged, but what the heck) or try compile it. I do not hear you say the same about Slackware, and that is far from a centralized unified repository, in fact Slack packages pop up all over the place. The default install and ftp, although huge by now, are far from all encompassing.
You are bitter from past personal experience and do not want to admit that for a lot of people this is probably better than just 'good enough'.
Disclaimer: I'm not a fan boy and will probably move on again in a year or so or when more time is at hand to customize a system this nicely, but this requires a lot more work in most vanilla types. Always running 3-4 different distros anyway, usually avoiding .rpm.
81 • The Spirit of Linux (by rtrj on 2007-09-24 21:51:17 GMT from United States)
I have followed Distro Watch for a long time now and I have watched Distros appear and climb and descend the ranking. I've tried the "easy installs",
the "a lot like XP", and of course the short lived efforts at something new.
I grabbed onto Ubuntu and the "KDE" in me Latched onto Kubuntu. Suse
was fun so was Dream. The forums were either Great or Awful, often times full of people full of knowledge and short on patience for Nobe's. I met some incredible
people, good and bad.
I really enjoyed the Spirit of Linux, trying something new, oftentimes put together by a group of people in their spare time on every corner of the globe.
I'm really getting a sense of snobbery on DW that really surprises me .PCLinuxOS
has been climbing the ranking for quite some time and it doesn't seem to well
received at DW. Their have been disclaimers that ranking doesn't indicate popularity. Now we see that "bug-tracking" is a way to differentiate the "big boys" from the "also runs". Perhaps you should list Vista in the list. What is wrong with small distros?
You sound jealous!
rtrj
82 • Ref #75 PCLOS [Updates] (by otoh on 2007-09-24 21:56:20 GMT from United States)
"For what it was worth PClinux had 490megs of updates after the new install ..."
Ouch! Actually, that information is worth quite a bit to dialup users contemplating trying PCLOS 2007; thank you.
83 • Other methods of sending security notices (by Caitlyn Martin on 2007-09-24 22:04:16 GMT from United States)
Ladislav: I only half agree with your assessment of what separates contenders. You require a read-only mailing list and/or a bugtracker. These are excellent tools but they aren't the only possible choices. Vector Linux failed on both counts by your standards. OTOH, VL offers a forum dedicated to security announcements and I believe it is available by RSS feed. That is certainly an acceptable alternative.
A lot of distros start out as a hobby project and develop into much more. Vector Linux is a good example of a distro in transition. In the past year it has gained developers. It has gone from having virtually no internationalization and localization to the point where it looks like the next release will be very good in that area. Vector recently began offering paid commercial support. It is now available preloaded just like the major distributions. The transitions have happened gradually. I personally believe Vector DOES have to do a better job in the area of security. As it gains corporate customers it will be forced to do just that to remain viable.
I also question whether your standards are fair for live CD distributions. It is awfully difficult to update a read-only filesystem, isn't it? The net result is that distros designed to be used either primarily or entirely as live CDs don't do the same level of security patching. They simply aren't as vulnerable. A distro installed on a read-only filesystem (frugal or poorman's installation) has the same advantage.
I would argue that the standards you set are almost appropriate for server and desktop distributions installed in a conventional way (read-write filesystem) on a hard drive or other writable media. That doesn't describe all distributions. I say "almost" because the key should be a reliable method of security information and patch distribution. The method of distribution is less important than ready availability and ease of use.
Respectfully,
-Caitlyn
84 • 82 (by Geoff on 2007-09-24 22:06:00 GMT from N/A)
There is always that disparity; cable connection = bigger (better?) distros/updates, etc?
Again, choices abound in the Linux world. :O)
Keep your skates on the ice, or on the sidewalk as the case may be,
Geoff
85 • Hey Clem :) (by Landor on 2007-09-24 22:13:40 GMT from Canada)
It's been a bit since you last posted in here. Work and Mint must be keeping you busy.
I have to disagree on one point though:
"Security updates are indeed very important but not to point where they can break your system"
Although not only security update related, when my son was building his Gentoo install he had wiped the drive clean and wanted an OS running until he got Gentoo installed with everything he wanted. Being a KDE fan, like myself, he opted for Kubuntu and at that point it was 118 updates. He asked me if I thought he should and I said, up to you but I wouldn't..lol Sure enough it broke the system, he reinstalled and broke it again. He opted for openSUSE with KDE for the third and final time.
I think one of the things that should've also been stated in the article and maybe something you could either consider, or have with your upcoming mint update, that security, or just regular updates should be considered to work cohesively with every update in the update queue. So when someone who hasn't used the version close to the release date, but months later might not have the breakage that occured like my son. Even maybe a warning via the updater that this is the case and your system may be potentially broken if proceeding.
Continued good fortune with Mint Clem
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
86 • 64-bit (by Doubleparked on 2007-09-24 22:25:47 GMT from Norway)
Re: #30 • Does it support 64-bit? (by Duhnonymous)
Yes, this is about the only question worth asking! :)
Really, in this day and age, why are so many distros neglecting 64-bit? Seems to me too many Linux aficionados are stuck in/with a laid back mental frame...
I could continue using PCLOS, but there's no 64-bit version.
I'd like to try Zenwalk, but there's no 64-bit version.
I like Wolvix, but I want a 64-bit version.
And on it goes...
DistroWatch should offer 32-bit and 64-bit search options.
87 • re:63 (by RR on 2007-09-24 22:29:14 GMT from Canada)
What are you saying is not completely true. Only the update notifier thing is gone. You still can get any available updates through synaptic. Btw. new Mintupdater is coming in Mint 4.0.
If you had visited Mint forum or read Mintblog you'd know that!
re:PClos. I tried it. It didn't like my video card and didn't connect to Internet out of the box ( and it needed a lot of convincing to work ). So I'm using Mint now, which is excellent!
But I'm not gonna bitch, wine and cry here that PClos is crap! Didn't work for me, big deal (not) there is plenty other good distros out there to try. I'm sure PClos works for a lot of other people, which make others interested and that's why PClos is #1 in DW. Peace
Mint user here people :-)
88 • RE: 83 (by Landor on 2007-09-24 22:37:37 GMT from Canada)
Hi Caitlyn
This line contradicts itself somewhat, but I understood what you meant and disagree:
The method of distribution is less important than ready availability and ease of use.
The method of tracking, dealing with, and then sending off any fix is very important. First and foremost the information needs to be gathered in structured manner and delegate out to team members who are versed in the specific areas. Then the final most important step is making the client fully aware that is there. This coincides with your premise on ready availability since in any operating system (general computer use at the end-user level) the majority of cases the people are usually unaware on how to deal with bugs, security issues and their respective fixes.
Now with that in mind if someone who maybe bought LXF for their first time because they heard of a free operating system and it had Vector Linux on it, so installed it and it had a major security issue would not know about the forum, nor the RSS feed generally. So in the case of Vector Linux though their options are a sound way of dealing with the issue in some cases it's still not an acceptable update system geared towards all users.
Maybe if the devs are watching they could incorporate their RSS feeds into the tray that notifies of securty alerts only until they do have something better, but even that doesn't give the users the means of installing the fix easily.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
89 • Security and bug fix infrastructures in distributions (by Don Cosner on 2007-09-24 22:51:17 GMT from United States)
I found "Security and bug fix infrastructures in distributions" to be very interesting reading. This editorial supports my beliefs that security updates are important and necessary.There seems to be a new school of thought that would suggest that security updates break things! Another myth is that "security updates are not thoroughly tested!
My thoughts are that we trust the development team of a distribution, after all we use it. How can we not trust the same development team when it comes to security and bug fixes?
This quote from the editorial sums thing up quite well.
"Why is one distribution considered "major" or "mainstream", while another keeps being looked at as just somebody's "hobby project",
Security updates and bug fixes are very important and should not be taken lightly.Problems with security updates are rare and usually promptly addressed.
Thanks for such an eye opening editorial! Also, thanks to all those that address these issues!
Don Cosner
90 • Vector Linux Security Advisories Sub-Forum (by Landor on 2007-09-24 22:59:43 GMT from Canada)
I just checked the Security Advisories Sub-Forum in Vector out of curiousity to see how they dealt with the security issues there. I found only 2 posts by the admin. I was quite suprised that there has been 0 information on security issues with Vector since July 08 2006.
How is that even possible?
I do not know about the RSS feed of course and what the feed is linked to (I hope it's not the forum), but the sub-forum is obviously not a viable alternative at all.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
91 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-24 23:24:12 GMT from Canada)
Re #83
Sorry but that is not accurate:
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?board=6.0
Joe1962 maintains that specific Forum header - Against my prior protests - only HE can post any advisories to there !
Unfortunately, there was next to NONE VL community discussions of any postings to it
(as new topics, not of course to be in the advisories header)
Most of the postings were verbatim feeds - dealing with incessant 'buffers/stack overflows"
discoveries - readily circumvented by use of such as "Pro-Police"
Such obsequious advisories do little to promote practical security observations for the home user.
Distro specific Forums are good - for their usability glitches in pre-supplied Apps-
few are capable of security flaw detections or how to best resolve
In end - it is up to user to keep abreast & "upgrade" ONLY areas of proven personal need
To that end - there are many excellant dedicated security sites
92 • Driver Support (Ubuntu and PCLOS 2007) (by Clint Canada on 2007-09-24 23:38:04 GMT from Philippines)
Hi there,
It is interesting to note that some driver authors have started to support Ubuntu and PCLOS 2007 in their proprietary (closed-source) drivers:
http://www.linux-projects.org/modules/news/
The SN9CXXX generic proprietary drivers are available for Ubuntu and PCLOS 2007 packages (I'm thinking OpenSuse also). These chipsets are used in quite a number of laptop webcams.
From the FAQ:
Q: Will you release the source code one day?
A: It's likely I will never release the source code, unless I have BIG
financial proposals. The best candidate is the manufacturer of these
controllers. If you would like to see this driver released under
the GPL, please send them a request. The more requests they will see,
the more they will consider this driver.
The manufacturer of these webcam chipsets is sonix.
To PCLOS benefit, all my webcams have been detected when plugged in the first time.
93 • Bashing (by Linuxuser on 2007-09-24 23:45:39 GMT from United States)
Well, I've been reading DW for a long time. Put on a few posts. Read every week. Looks like I'll have to take a break for a while. Keep on bashing distros. Have fun. I won't be a part of it. I run Windows XP and PCLinuxOS and enjoy them both. I will continue enjoying them both. However I have come to the conclusion that I don't need the "comments" section anymore...I don't need anybody's opinion anymore. Have fun everyone. See ya in about a year. I will, however, continue to read DW. This forum has turned into a big sh*tpile which to me doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever. Mr. Williamson, keep jumping in when you discover something lacking in PCLinuxOS. Go ahead, cause I won't be reading it anymore. Actually you are the person keeping me away from Mandriva. Have fun, Adam. Maybe someday your Mandriva will one day be at the "top" but don't bet on it.
94 • FreeBSD Configuration (by Paul on 2007-09-25 00:11:53 GMT from United States)
I have a whole new respect for Ladislav.
I decided to create a FreeBSD 6 box to run JBossAS 4.2. Getting the FreeBSD installed was easy and quite tidy. But I gave up on the project last week.
I know exactly where Ladislav is coming from when he talks about the configuration investment. I didn't have the chops.
I gave up somewhere after getting Java 1.5 JDK (required by JBoss 4.2) compiled from the Sun C++ source and the Linux 1.4.2 Sun binaries. I reached a point where I had no idea what I was doing (which doesn't take much). And I use both of these products everyday.
95 • Stuff (by Texstar on 2007-09-25 00:15:38 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS is currently set up as a rolling release disto which means bug fix, security and application updates are just part of the normal update process. This may change in the future depending on where the users want to take us. As far as bug tracking we initially set up bugs.pclinuxos.com for our developers but it really isnt what we wanted to use so we've been talking this past month with our hosting provider Enki about getting JBoss or Tomcat server set up. Devnet then can set up an official tracking system similar to what rpath is using. Sorry we're not there yet but kinda hard with limited financial support and no paid employees. Thank gawd for our community. They are learning how to package rpms, do localizations, remasters and all kinds of good things.
96 • re 85, mintUpgrade (by Clem on 2007-09-25 00:22:48 GMT from Ireland)
Hi Landor,
That's exactly it. The purpose is not to prevent the user from getting security updates but to show him/her more information about them, potential risks to his/her modules/display/hardware_support..etc and workaround if things need fixing after upgrade.
We're going to give each package a "safety level" from 1 to 5 (1 for our own after they've been through Romeo, 2 for updates we successfully tested, 4 for updates we think could affect the user's system, 5 for updates that we know cause problems, 3 for all others). We'll also be able to add information about packages and even warnings in some cases. Level 1, 2 and 3 packages will be selected by default, all levels will be visible.
To the user it will be as easy as using Ubuntu Upgrade Manager but level 4 and 5 updates will only get picked up if they're selected in the tool.. and with info and warnings accompanying them.
It's never been about restricting the user, quite the opposite in fact. It's about giving more information and having safer default policies. You'll still be able to update your kernel but you'll have to tick the box, that's it.
Clem
97 • 95 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 00:33:38 GMT from United States)
>> Sorry we're not there yet but kinda hard with limited financial support and no paid employees. <<
Thanks for stating that. I guess that we see how much the PCLinuxOS fans appreciate their distro. If 100,000 users each donated $20, that would be $2 million a year...what is stopping them?
98 • RE: 86 64-bit (by ladislav on 2007-09-25 00:57:19 GMT from Taiwan)
DistroWatch should offer 32-bit and 64-bit search options.
Please try http://distrowatch.com/search
99 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 01:05:25 GMT from Canada)
It is good to keep firmly in mind - the distribution "developers" of any platform -
must rely on original sources
If the upstream feeds for any App/utility are not advised - (or the binary maintainers were careless)
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6701
http://www.linuxselfhelp.com/howtos/Secure-Programs/Secure-Programs-HOWTO-5.html
-
Security flaws will always occur
Please note:
It is primarily lower level languages such as "C" that are most affected
"Interpreted" (I.E. just_in_time etal) higher level languages have newer memory alloc safe-guards
There is still many mis-conceptions to security in the Linux home-user mindset
But to be overly alarmed will add to Fudd needlessly
Security is always in 'catch-up mode" -> mostly a state_of_peace_of_mind rather than realities
How many users do you know of that were "rooted" vs non-stop own self-inflicted Duhhs ?
MANY caused by fears of their "security" so they "upgraded" without delving further
Just BECAUSE it was seemingly so easy - after all ("their distro) 'developers'_
had enabled "click & enjoy the magic" ?
Your distro flavour of the month may supply latest & greatest eye-candy _
They do not have resources to verify original sources
100 • @ 93 (by Whocares on 2007-09-25 01:38:08 GMT from United States)
Dont let the door hit you in the a## on the way out.
101 • 96, Clem and Linux Mint (by EduardoZ on 2007-09-25 02:00:41 GMT from United States)
I look forward to trying this. I've had a couple of systems broken by updates in the past few years. I like the look of Mint. I'm ready to give Gnome another shot. I'm currently using another well-done medium-density distro. It's great to have you guys around, and great to see increasing interest in your distros.
102 • Some distros deserve to be bashed (by Emilio on 2007-09-25 02:06:05 GMT from United States)
(read: pclos) for horrible customer support from their moderators
103 • 102 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 02:15:30 GMT from United States)
Some users need moderation because they can't play nice with others.
104 • Re: 69 (by Welkiner on 2007-09-25 02:20:02 GMT from United States)
Way to go, Clem!
You are exactly right!
Clem is the Man!
Burning Celena, even as we speak.
Thanks for your hard work and Great product.
Ladislav, you the Man too!
As always, thanks for all your hard work and Great job.
wb
105 • Ref #84 (by otoh on 2007-09-25 02:45:46 GMT from United States)
"There is always that disparity; cable connection = bigger (better?) distros/updates, etc?"
Actually, I think the average distribution has gotten smaller (and there are many more) as broadband has became more available. Broadband enabled the single/live CD distribution.
"Again, choices abound in the Linux world. :O)"
Well, no. It is possible to get updates/respository DVDs for some distributions, but generally dialup user's "choice" is restricted. Ironically, I find the everything but the kitchen sink distributions more practical because they (usually) give the user the choice of what to install. So I don't have to install (and update) a bunch of software I'll never use.
OH well, I'm sure there will be another trend along in a few years.
106 • This week (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 05:33:59 GMT from United States)
64bit = slower + More memory
I use PCLOS 06', check symantic weekly, never got a update for Acrobat or Flash. Guess that is why you put your data on a seperate windows partition so that you can reinstall instead of update.
Breaking packages usually occurs when you try to put two different linuxes on the same machine usually a Mandriva and a Redhat based one.
107 • RE 69 Satisfy your curiosity ... by youself. (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 07:00:32 GMT from France)
"
dbrion: What are you talking about?? And why do you keep answering English posts in French? I'm referring to post #32. I usually don't understand your trolls but this one is about Mint so you got me curious. "
a) Votre curiosité sera satisfaite si vous regardez les commentaires pertinents accompagnant la sortie de Mint en début de 2007..... Désolé de ne pas chercher plus avant dans la pollution intellectuelle.... qui n'est pas le monopole de PCLOS...
b) Ne chinoisons pas : j'en ai assez de voir critiquer mon Anglais par des américains et des Anglais à l'orthographe ..... intéressante... (alors qu'il y en a beaucoup d'autres qui ont des idées ou des informations _rééllement interessantes).Tant que mes posts ne sont pas coupés, je suppose que je ne bafoue pas les lois officielles de Taiwan...
108 • re 106 (by hobbitland on 2007-09-25 07:19:20 GMT from China)
64bit is not always slower. It does gobble a little bit more memory. I use Ubuntu 7.04 64bit and run both 32bit and 64bit apps coz I like the official 32bit Firefox and 32bit Openoffice. Ubuntu 7.04 64bit can now run 32bit apps without the need for a horrible chroot.
For me encoding XVID are faster in 64bit than 32bit. In AMD64 instruction set there are more registers. Most 32bit distros are still compiled for i386. 64bit apps can be faster or slower. Everythign for me works includign 32bit flash and 32bit Enemy territory.
109 • @102 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-25 07:21:46 GMT from Canada)
Given that PCLOS don't *sell* anything, it seems harsh (not to mention a logical impossibility) to knock them for bad "customer" support...
110 • Q where can one find a 64 vs 32 bits comparison? (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 07:54:23 GMT from France)
In terms of execution speed, memory greediness, and number of bugs of the supporting softs (I feel this point shyed away pple having _recent_ PCs from 64 bits)
Now, if 64 bits are better, when will there be 128 bits CPUs? Perhaps one should wait until a even more "superior" number of bits is achieved..
111 • Artistry? (by Steve on 2007-09-25 08:22:46 GMT from United States)
I'm getting tired of distros being reviewed based on their "look". Who are you? Picasso? Stick to usability, features, and support. We can change the "look" if it doesn't appeal to our dainty sensitivities!
112 • re 1907, dbrion's troll (by Clem on 2007-09-25 08:34:41 GMT from Sweden)
Sur un ton entendu vous avez encore une fois su ne rien dire. Ne chinoisons pas, comme vous dites, continuez a respecter la legislation taiwanaise et a snobber les anglophones. A defaut d'ameliorer votre Anglais vous aurez sans doute plus souvent le dernier mot, faute d'interlocuteurs.
Je vais de ce pas sur google.fr taper "commentaires pertinents 2007 linux mint". Merci d'avoir eclaire mes lanternes de facon justement si "pertinente".
Vous vous moquez du monde franchement!
Clem
113 • RE 111 I think you are right, except for 2 points: (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 08:38:35 GMT from France)
* one cannot easily change the look of life CDVDs, and it is a pity for demos.
* stylists are human beings, and totally ignoring their free work would be unkind to their ego/sensitivity.
You could add linguistic recognition to usability, features and support (which remain in the general case essential)...
114 • L'ordre vert de Clem... (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 08:55:16 GMT from France)
"
Je vais de ce pas sur google.fr taper "commentaires pertinents 2007 linux mint". Merci d'avoir eclaire mes lanternes de facon justement si "pertinente".
"
Allez plutôt dans les forums de DWW de debut 2007, pour juger, si vous en êtes capable, sur des pièces assez nauséabondes: je vous garantis que ça m'a fait passer d'une tolérance amusée vis à vis du "flashy/trendy/demagogic" à une profonde allergie...
Je ne snobe pas (un seul b) les anglophones, mais ceux qui ironisent sur mon Anglais _et_ ceux qui écrivent_ des hénaurmités.... (je lis/corrige du _bon_ Anglais toute la journée...).
115 • re 114 (by Clem on 2007-09-25 09:00:23 GMT from Sweden)
Avec mes remerciements.
/quit
Clem
116 • @ 109 (by Emilio on 2007-09-25 09:00:44 GMT from United States)
Uhhhhh, what?
117 • 64-bit (by Doubleparked on 2007-09-25 09:33:53 GMT from Norway)
Re: 98 • RE: 86 64-bit (by ladislav)
Thank you, Ladislav!
Found 36 active desktop OS'es with KDE for the x86_64 platform. Certainly not a bad result, with the 'major' distros included, but still...
After all, 64-bit is the future, and the future's been here for years now.
118 • French Forum? (by AW on 2007-09-25 10:11:26 GMT from United States)
It is very frustrating not to be able to understand the comments.
I actually thought this was an English forum.
119 • Chipping In For PCLOS... (by Doubleparked on 2007-09-25 10:15:38 GMT from Norway)
Re: 97 • 95 (by Anonymous)
You ask what is stopping e.g. myself from sending $20 to the developers in return for the fine PCLinuxOS 2007.
In my case the answer is Google.
For several reasons I am NOT going to set up an account with Google if I can avoid it. Why the guys behind PCLOS do not offer for example PayPal, at least as an alternative, is beyond me. Since mention of this has gone uncommented in the PCLOS fora, I conclude that money is not really a concern or even needed.
120 • Forum multilingue (by glyj on 2007-09-25 10:35:38 GMT from New Caledonia)
Hallo !
Ich glaube es ist auch ein deutsch-sprächiges Forum :-)
Schade daß wobo nicht mehr Mandriva Mitglieder ist !
Er tat doch sehr gute arbeit für Deutsche User !
Gucken Sie mal hier : www.mandrivauser.de
Bon, c'est vrai qu'il est dommage que certains ne puissent pas comprendre le contenu des messages, mais les traducteurs automatiques fonctionnent assez bien et permettent de comprendre l'essentiel.
In english : It is possible to call Ant google for an automatic translation. It's not perfect but you'll understand almost everything.
Tschüß !
121 • RE 120 (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 10:47:21 GMT from France)
Thanks for linguistic diversity (if I could find Italian, Spanish, Portugues , Arabic , etc... I -or my automatic translator- would be happy).
Wobos last posts I read (2 weeks ago, about DW rankings) seemed very intelligent and lucid. They taught me something...
Mandra pihaona (pas de traducteur automatique, même si ça demande quelques talents... pour le Malgache...)# bye
122 • Linguistic nature of DWW (by Mark South on 2007-09-25 11:00:08 GMT from Switzerland)
@ #120: Vous avez raison. :-)
@ #118: You wrote:
"It is very frustrating not to be able to understand the comments."
That applies to a large proportion of the comments written by apparently monolingual anglophones as well....
You also wrote:
"I actually thought this was an English forum."
It's a site run by a Czech with an RSA passport living in Taiwan. While the main site is in English, there are translations of parts of it available and I believe Ladislav's goal is to provide distro information to people everywhere regardless of their language. A number of the distros that are listed here don't even have English as an option.
The reason that some people post in other languages is probably for one of these reasons:
+++ They feel surer of expressing themselves accurately in their mother tongue
+++ They are making a visible point that not all Linux users speak English
+++ They want the distro maintainers who visit here to be aware that Linux has some very strong take-up in countries where English is rare as a first language.
All of these are valid points. For example, here in Switzerland I cannot promote to my friends and business associates any variety of Linux that does not provide at least English, German, French, and Italian installs, or that does not provide support for CH, DE, FR, UK, and US keyboards. This is regardless of what I use myself (I try to experiment with a new distro most weeks).
Learning Linux probably involved you in learning to think in new ways and be open to learning. Learning languages does the same thing. And it may help you to live longer according to a report on BBC news last week (GIYF :-)
BTW, sorry if any of my expression is not entirely clear. English is only my third language.
123 • Re: 122 (by slugger on 2007-09-25 11:42:30 GMT from N/A)
"While the main site is in English, there are translations of parts of it available and I believe Ladislav's goal is to provide distro information to people everywhere regardless of their language"
The Distro Watch Weekly at the top of this page is written in english so I expect to read the comments in english as well though english is not my native language.
"The reason that some people post in other languages is probably for one of these reasons"
Add the following:
+++ They want to play english-only readers for fools and make a laugh at them.
This seemed to apply to at least one of the regular users here...I started to selectively skip his french rants (and those in english as well) loooong time ago so I am not sure if it is still like that nowasays.
124 • Re # 123 (by Mark South on 2007-09-25 11:58:42 GMT from Switzerland)
"Oh, that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that."
-- Slartibartfast in THHGTTG
125 • language (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-25 12:23:55 GMT from Romania)
I choose Distrowatch because is a decent site, is about Linux & stuff and is in ENGLISH. Would you please cut the multilanguage crap?
And please don't take this as a offense to other languages.
126 • Kudos to Adam and Texstar (by Bryan on 2007-09-25 12:28:15 GMT from Canada)
Well, in the midst of yet another fractitious series of DW comments, let me extend kudos to Adam Williamson and Texstar for being informative and civil. I have long been in the ubuntu fold, but I really started my Linux experience with the wonderful Mandrake 9.2.
Texstar went above and beyond to be simply informative after so many attacks on pclos, which is of course a free, volunteer distro. I don't know if the pclos devs dream of towers of steel and glass like red hat has (who wouldn't?), but texstar describes their current situation well and even gives kudos to rpath, wanting to emulate some of the things they are doing.
Then we have Adam, always a voice of reason, pointing out that pclos hardly charges for their work, so getting huffy about their "customer service" is of course a little unwarranted. I will add for Adam (which he probably consciously ommitted) that if you would like paid support on a pclos-like system you might consider any of the various flavors of Mandriva, who will hold your hand for a fee, just like red hat or Suse (or even Canonical).
So I hope that people will realize that our Linuxen surely come from communities, from the massive debian, down to solo efforts. Some are massive corporations like Novell, others are large nonprofits, others are relatively disorganized small-time efforts. However, they are all linux. Keep a separate /home partition. If you get really huffed off at your distro, just reinstall and keep using your home partition. Maybe you could even comment on DWW comments, but why not make it informative, pertinent, and civil?
Adam and Texstar regularly get their own work roundly criticized and yet they have been very civil. What more do so many of the other critics have in the ring that they need to be so rude?
127 • Bashing (by GreyGeek on 2007-09-25 12:31:03 GMT from United States)
I've been using Linux since RH5.0 in 1998. I bought 22 boxed sets of SUSE starting in September of 1998. On Jan 1, 2000 I made Linux my only OS. When SUSE was purchased by Novel I moved to Mandrake and I was a Mandrake Silver club member for about a year. Then I tried Debian, KNOPPIX, Kannotex, LibraNet, XANDROS, Fedora, and several other lesser known distros. Then I discovered MEPIS, a marvelous distro that detected and installed all the hardware on my Gateway m675prr laptop. It was based on Debian, with 20k+ apps in the repository, and then it switched to Ubuntu, with 20K+ apps in its repository.
About a year and a half ago ago, while using MEPIS, an exellent distro, I discovered PCLinuxOS .p93, which installed perfectly on my Gateway laptop. But, alas, it didn't have several of the apps that I used in its repository, so I didn't switch. I kept my eye on PCLinuxOS and when PCLinuxOS 2007 came out I gave the LiveCD a try. It was a perfect fit on my laptop. And, to my suprise, every app I needed was in the repository. So, I switched.
I was in for another pleasant surprise; the PCLinuxOS Forum. It is a delightful meeting place where everyone, even Windows users, are treated with respect. In fact, a LOT of Windows users come to the PCLinuxOS forum to ask for help, and they are not turned away, ridiculed, or told to "switch to PCLinuxOS". You don't have to tell anyone to switch. If your own success and enthusiasm about it isn't enough then your advice will fail. All visitors are given kind, courteous help, regardless of their OS. Most Windows users who try PCLinuxOS switch to it, but some do not. Mostly because their hardware isn't compatible, or they need an app that is available only in Windows. When they leave their goodbye msg they usually are given a polite and sincere "come back and see us sometime!".
Occasionally someone new to the forum and not fully aware of its spirit will post a msg bashing another distro, or Microsoft, without giving specific facts. They are reminded of the forum rules. Most accept the moderation. Some do not, and they go to other forums and continue their bashing ways. And even less frequently, are the visitors who come to make war by picking arguments, claiming some personal slight, or flashing their gonads, or other egotistic actions. Self-aggrandizement is their goal, and they rarely find what they seek, so they go plague other forums.
The PCLinuxOS forum's spirit of cooperation, fostered by TexStar himself, is icing on a wonderful cake. Some of the candles on the PCLinuxOS cake are the PCLinuxOS Magazine, which is a 50 page document published every month by volunteers, TineyMe, a 248 mb version of PCLinuxOS using LXDE as the desktop instead of KDE. It's audience are those running older or limited hardware. There is also Lortal, LinFX and some wikis that focus on PCLinuxOs.
All of these positive attributes of PCLinuxOS are the reasons why it has climbed to the top of the DW pagehit parade and stayed there for the last 6 months. And no, there is NO link in the PCLinuxOS forum to the PCLinuxOS pagehit counter on DW.
I'm GreyGeek and I hang out at the PCLinuxOS forum. Drop by and visit sometime!
128 • RE 125 Follow 122's advice: selectively skip.... (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 12:35:54 GMT from France)
Is being monolingual a matter of decency?
In the google translation time? (of course, it needs some minimalistic skills!)
Be sure that I do not bash anyone because he is monolingual, but because
he has no ideas (just somewhat assimilated propaganda)
he does not take time to reflect, but posts tons of unthought clichés.
129 • Language and civility (by Mark South on 2007-09-25 12:39:59 GMT from Switzerland)
From #125: "Would you please cut the multilanguage crap?"
From #126: "Maybe you could even comment on DWW comments, but why not make it informative, pertinent, and civil?"
...!
130 • RE: 122 Linguistic nature of DWW (by ladislav on 2007-09-25 12:54:05 GMT from Taiwan)
It's a site run by a Czech
Correction: Slovak. Born in the same town as Martina Hingis ;-)
131 • language (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-25 12:55:35 GMT from Romania)
Ok, ok... sorry for the "multilanguage crap" but I speak only english (except my native language of course) and though I understand a bit some other languages, I feel more comfortable on english sites. As I have said, I choose Distrowatch because is in english . I do not mind using google translations (I,m not that stupid dbrion, please don't start again with your insults) once in a while but I like this site in english.
Sorry for the "multilanguage crap" again.
132 • RE 131 I want to learn English (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 12:59:26 GMT from France)
What does "crap" mean? you wrote it _again_ and _again_?
"please don't start again with your insults" Just give a DECENT (as you spelled it) explanation...
133 • DECENT ? (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-25 13:10:17 GMT from Romania)
I just wanted Mark South to know for what I'm sorry.
As for DECENT.....what is wrong with it?
134 • Cor 131 Si vous aimez l'anglais apprenez à l'écrire... (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 13:16:50 GMT from France)
s/ choose Distrowatch because is in english ./choose Distrowatch because IT is in English/
avoir
Sans vouloir déclencher une guerre mondiale.
Etes vous conscient que,
parfois,
des gens lisent DW pour avoir des infos?
Non des procès staliniens?
Non de l'argot de bas étage?
Non des crédos ridicules?
Et surtout pas les tout petits problèmes de dubgrassu? (quelle que soit leur fonte?)
135 • Apology for geographic error to Ladislav (by Mark South on 2007-09-25 13:18:47 GMT from Switzerland)
@Ladislav: Sorry for misremembering, at least you know I won't be able to accurately target your location when Google Nukes comes out of beta...!
Or, to put it another way, vergewe my, ek was heeltemaal bedonderd as ek dit geskryf het. In plek van geveg, laat ons liewer gaan bier drink :-)
PS Did I remember the "worked in RSA part correctly?
PPS I just blew Iceweasel's spellchecker's mind....
136 • give me a break dbrion (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-25 13:33:20 GMT from Romania)
Would you please stop with your english lessons? If you are so good at english why in the world you reply to my post in french? Why are you keep reply to ANYBODY in french if you are so good ? As for my english skills, yes I'm not that good, I'm no english teacher like you. But again, what is wrong with "DECENT" ? And by the way, you spelled my name wrong.
137 • No subject (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-25 13:35:40 GMT from Romania)
"replying"...sorry
138 • Just skip it, as you were advised. (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 13:36:42 GMT from France)
what is wrong with "DECENT" ?
The font
The hypocrisis.
139 • fonts? (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-25 13:44:44 GMT from Romania)
Are you serious? What is wrong with the fonts?
"Hypocrisis" ? What is wrong with you man?
140 • Something about Linux for a change :-) (by Mark South at 2007-09-25 13:47:48 GMT from Switzerland)
There tend to be a lot of discussion on DWW about distros that "just work", and it's really useful to know about things that work "out of the box".
However, quite a lot of us also like to tinker and to stretch the capabilities of Linux systems. For those who like to experiment, Niki Kovacs has put up an interesting page at
http://slackwiki.org/Linux_From_Slack
which describes how to put together a pretty minimal Slackware based system using the recipe list from Linux From Scratch. Of course, the Linux From Slack method makes the process a bit quicker by using pre-built packages at the expense of not optimising the builds, as can be done using LFS.
141 • RE 139 Reread anything _you_ wrote. (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 13:52:45 GMT from France)
And compare it with other posts, whatever their language...
142 • No subject (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-25 13:59:25 GMT from Romania)
I will advise you the same thing
143 • No subject (by CrashMaster on 2007-09-25 14:02:37 GMT from United States)
Je me demande ce qu'est votre problème ?
由於您不講中文？
144 • RE 143 : Thanks, Crash Master and (135) Mark (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 14:12:36 GMT from France)
As far as I am concerned, I was sad to only read English at work and at DWW fora (in the latter case, with a lot of slang and typos and sometimes with few ideas): with your generous help, my (boring) problem is going to be slowly solved.
BTW is it Swiss dialect or another language? I can understand it, but I do not know which language it is...
145 • Nevermind the French (by afonic on 2007-09-25 14:13:58 GMT from Greece)
As the title says. :P
For some reason most of them think that English language is evil. I remember when I was in Paris I used to order something to eat in English, they pretended they didn't understand, started talking French and finally bought my order EXACTLY as I ordered it in English. Obviously here too, they think it's too much fun when they know English, read your comment but reply in French to annoy you. It is very funny when they quote you but you can't understand what they are saying! I think its part of their plan for world domination.
But hey, I can do it too!
@130
Πήγα στην Σλοβακία πρόπερσι! Μου άρεσε αρκετά ώστε να θέλω να ξαναπάω. Καλή δουλειά στο DW!
j/k
146 • 80 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 14:19:04 GMT from United States)
and others that don't like my comments.
I will put out one challenge to you. You want PCLinuxOS to ride with the big boys?
I challenge you to raise $50,000 over the next 30 days for the development and marketing of PCLOS. Give Tex those funds and I will never again comment on PCLOS lacking infrastructure.
If you can't even raise a trivial amount like $50,000 in a month, how do you plan to take on Canonical, Novell, or Red Hat? Much less Microsoft? That's a drop in the bucket for them.
If that's too much, then you should never again promote PCLOS as an alternative for the masses. Either put up or shut up. In all of my comments I have indicated that PCLOS is not ready for what most of you fanbois claim. If it is ready, I encourage you to demonstrate that by doing something in 30 days that happens with one email with the industry leaders. Otherwise put your tail between your legs and leave me alone.
I will, of course, be laughing at you because nobody will give even $10.
147 • re post:105 by otoh (by Geoff on 2007-09-25 14:26:41 GMT from N/A)
You mean a dialup connection does not facilitate the download and installation of, say, Damn Small Linux as opposed to Fedora 8 or Suse?
I'm thinking about downloading and updating.
148 • Qu 146 (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 14:40:22 GMT from France)
" You want PCLinuxOS to ride with the big boys?
"
Did the PClos developpers want to "ride with the big boys"?
They seem more lucid and modest than that.... though there might be a big pressure from their _users_, as if they could accomplish miracles...
Must a distr be blamed because of her fan club short -mindness, as long as their devs/leaders remain lucid?
149 • re 145 (by Clem on 2007-09-25 14:45:23 GMT from Sweden)
"Nevermind the Trolls" would be more appropriate. Just cause you spotted one and he happened to be French doesn't mean we all are.
Replying in a different language is simply a sign of ignorance. France is full of ignorant people but I don't believe the proportion to be greater there than anywhere else.
I was answered in Catalan while visiting Barcelona. By the look of things the efforts I threw at Castillian weren't good enough. The guy was stupid but that didn't prevent me from meeting other people and enjoy my stay over there.
France is a proud nation and rightly so, with its fair share of idiots as in any other country.
Don't let them fool you. Their nationality's got nothing to do with it.
Clem
I can't believe I'm actually feeding this topic... Ladislav, when will you put a stop to trolls in here? Can't we stick to Linux instead of Godwining all the time?
150 • Never mind the ignorants (Catalunya has an official language) (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 14:59:44 GMT from France)
RE 149
"
I was answered in Catalan while visiting Barcelona. By the look of things the efforts I threw at Castillian weren't good enough"
Normal: speaking Catalan could lead to prison before Franco's death... It is a provocation w/r to > 50 yrs old pple.
BTW Spanish is taught as a _secondary_ language in Catalunya ... like English or French... that is an (ennoying, I agree) matter of
reading
a geography book.
Is asking about language recognition in PCLOS trolling?
answ yes or no, to make other more interesting posts appear.
Is asking abiout language recognition in _any_ Linux trolling?
Is reminding there are other knowleges than the Holy linux ones trolling?
151 • re 150 (by Clem on 2007-09-25 15:24:38 GMT from Sweden)
If somebody was asking me something in English or in any other languages I wouldn't reply to them in French, no matter where we are, in Paris or anywhere else. That guy did speak Castillian he just had to make his point, as you did, and refused to answer me. No big deal, I found another hotel and as he was probably used to being an asshole anyway it's not like it bothered him to much either.
If you ever come to visit Galway dbrion let's hope you don't bump on someone like you, telling you not to speak English within the Gaeltacht.
Ignorant has a different meaning in English, it's actually more of an insult than anything else. Nothing to do with knowledge... it's all about attitude.
Answering someone's post in a different language is indeed extremely ignorant.
Clem
152 • RE 151 (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 15:35:07 GMT from France)
"
Ignorant has a different meaning in English, it's actually more of an insult than anything else. Nothing to do with knowledge... it's all about attitude. #a
Answering someone's post in a different language is indeed extremely ignorant.#b "
Non: #b c'est simplement un moyen d'être sûr de ne pas faire de gaffes (ou d'en faire sciemment). ... comme vous me l'avez indiqué dans la phrase précédente #a...
Pour votre information, j'ai du plaisir à discuter (et à leur indiquer le chemin) avec des gens de _toutes_ nationalités, pour maintenir quelques connaissances... et voyager même en Irlande ne m'interesse plus du tout
Oh, vous avez
"
oublié"
de répondre à mes questions sur la reconnaissance linguistique dans le monde de Linux.... parlotter de vos voyages et problèmes relationnels en Catalogne est bien plus important?
153 • Re: 145 • Nevermind the French (by GL on 2007-09-25 15:47:33 GMT from United States)
I was eating in a restaurant in Milan when a French couple sat next to us. The Italian waiter refused to recognize their French, and the French couple refused to speak Italian. An international crisis was averted when the French couple placed an acceptable order ... in English! Like it or not, English is the "lingua franca" of the world today, and you can't fault the developers of a Linux distro who focus solely on English, or an international message board where "la langue du diable" predominates!
154 • RE 153 American English is not "Satans tongue" (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 15:57:54 GMT from France)
For technical matters, I use English, or Fench Canadian dictionaries....
For affective matters, I use French, to avoid blunders (or to make them in conscience!)
If there was a terrific Linux war, I would use slang French (though American slang seeems popular here)...
For choosing a Linux for a young child/ my mother, I am obliged to ask about _serious_ localization..
(some young French engineers think it is more "performant", as they say, to speak a mixture of French and English .... unless they are sent to Montreal, Canada, where they relearn French... (this happenned at least once!)
155 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 16:14:52 GMT from United States)
>> Did the PClos developpers want to "ride with the big boys"?
They seem more lucid and modest than that.... though there might be a big pressure from their _users_, as if they could accomplish miracles...
Must a distr be blamed because of her fan club short -mindness, as long as their devs/leaders remain lucid? <<
I don't know what the developers want, but the fanbois keep whining when someone says they can't. I definitely don't blame the distro, only the fanbois. They're the ones making the claims and spamming every forum. Yet they do little other than make claims and spam forums.
156 • anguagelay (by Ackjay on 2007-09-25 16:23:56 GMT from N/A)
Aybemay eway ouldshay efaultday ootay igpay atinlay..
Aitway.. otnay oodgay.
Eepkay ouryay ickstay nonay ethay ozenfray uffstay.
Ackjay
157 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 16:40:00 GMT from United States)
I think that Clem's unprofessional attitude on this forum speaks for Mint's status as a minor distro far more than the way Mint handles security updates. Could you imagine Shuttleworth getting in petty fights with DW forumites?
158 • @60 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 16:40:48 GMT from France)
The bashing wasn't in what you said about technical weaknesses, it was in what you said about the community.
You did it again in the next post:
"If only there were three other PCLOS users who didn't treat PCLOS as a darned religion."
159 • @dbrion (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 16:52:45 GMT from France)
- I may be wrong, but I don't remember seeing anyone criticizing your English here on DWW. Why do you take it on DWW readers that have nothing to do with your problem?
- In fact the only person here I see criticizing others' orthograph again and again is you...
- In any case, it is a matter of common sense to answer to a message in the language it was written in.
160 • RE: 130 Martina Hingis (by Landor on 2007-09-25 17:03:04 GMT from Canada)
"Born in the same town as Martina Hingis"
Lucky bugger!
(said with respect and 110% envy :-) )
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
161 • 159 You are obviously wrong... (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 17:05:47 GMT from France)
#
- I may be wrong, but I don't remember seeing anyone criticizing your English here on DWW. Why do you take it on DWW readers that have nothing to do with your problem?
#
cf post 151 in this weeks DWW forum......
#
- In any case, it is a matter of common sense to answer to a message in the language it was written in.
#
Sorry, but I am not interested in _slang_American (as the majority of the posts are written in that language)....
If things go affective, I prefer writing in a way I am sure I control my blunders....and Miss Peelings (fôtes d'ortograffe).
It is a matter of good common sense (and the time to understand my French (which is often better than some English)can avoid, if it happens with a reasonable man, useless fights).
162 • Languages (by Landor on 2007-09-25 17:11:18 GMT from Canada)
I have to agree with Mark about why people write in their own languages or think in them to be precise.
I meant a man from Chad who by all meaning of the words is a Linguistic Genius. He was able to speak nine languages and read and write in seven of them, all self taught (except for english, known worldwide as the hardest language to understand, think of Weigh, Whey, Way for just one example)
He would talk to me, the conversation would move faster and he would to have to run through those 8 other languages in his head to get it out in English, at least that's how he explained it to me. It amused me to see an accomplished linguist stutter, but for him it would've been far simpler to speak in 3 or 4 other languages minimum and sometimes he did just to finally get the thought out.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
163 • 156 • anguagelay (by Ackjay from N/A) (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 17:25:45 GMT from Malaysia)
That sounds like a translation of dbrion's posts - into English!
164 • re 157 (by Clem on 2007-09-25 17:30:01 GMT from Ireland)
Spot on. You're 100% right. This is my last post on DW.
Clem.
165 • 159 You keep on being obviously wrong. (by dbrion on 2007-09-25 17:32:46 GMT from France)
cf 163....
"
- In fact the only person here I see criticizing others' orthograph a
again and again is you..."
If a language deserves respect, why misspell it?
If it does not deserve respect, why use it?
166 • Re: Mandriva press release (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 17:35:06 GMT from Malaysia)
From DWW 221 'Miscellaneous News':
"Mandriva has published an official press release announcing the upcoming release of Mandriva Linux 2008."
The link to the 'press release' points to Brice Goglin's Blog (http://bgoglin.livejournal.com/12340.html) which has some interesting stuff about Debian and Xorg but nothing about Mandriva 2008. :-(
167 • Last post (by Landor on 2007-09-25 17:43:57 GMT from Canada)
Hopefully you'll see this though Clem :)
Thanks for the reply, and I have the KDE Mint installed on one of my many partitions. When the new version with the updater comes out I'll give it an install and a spin :)
Don't work too hard, and always remember, debates are natural, even heated ones, it just means we're all human enough to have a passion for which we speak. The thing that seperates you, dbrion, a number of others here and myself, we're respectful and intelligent enough to know it's the "issue" and not the person. A good thing no? :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
168 • rossetta stone (by hab on 2007-09-25 18:12:37 GMT from Canada)
In other news today, dww comments have moved from distro bashing to language bashing.
Hailed by some as an advance for linux users everywhere.
cheers
169 • 168 • rossetta stone (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 18:27:08 GMT from Malaysia)
esyay, mallsay tepsay orfay istroday atchway, iantgay eaplay orfay hetay estray foay suay.
170 • 169 • 168 • rossetta stone (by hab on 2007-09-25 18:30:54 GMT from Canada)
Ouyay etbay.
eerschay
171 • The english language (by john frey on 2007-09-25 18:56:38 GMT from Canada)
"what is wrong with "DECENT" ?
The font
The hypocrisis."
Yes the hippopotamus crisis is of great concern to me as well. It is certainly not decent. Correct spelling is hippocrisis FYI.
dbrion is an English teacher!!? Either he is a very bad teacher or his rants on DW are frequently meant to be confusing and nonsensical. He is atypically lucid in english this week. None of the usual gender usage where, in english, there is no gender assigned
172 • endergay (by Ackjay on 2007-09-25 19:12:18 GMT from N/A)
"..there is no gender assigned.."
Wwwwelllll... coloquialisms abound in English as well as every other language on Earth, I dare opine.
Genderisms are often seen in English: a ship can be "her," (she's the best tugboat in the seven seas, she is). ..etc.. :)
173 • Gender and English (by Landor on 2007-09-25 19:20:12 GMT from Canada)
That is inaccurate.
Gender is, and has been commonly used for a very long time.
Some examples:
Look at her lines (any man-made object, usually a vehicle but not absent from other objects such as buildings)
How'd she perform? (performance of object in question)
Does she go? (an old racing term for is it fast)
Where do you keep her (where do you store the object)
As you can see just by those few (there are many more) that gender is assigned in English.
I know you can tell me about dbrion's use of french, but could you tell me what the comments involved prior to that, that he typed about? Without looking? Something tells me no, and the point is moot after I click submit comment, but what does that say about someone's intent?
What I find is that some here stand firm on the issue of bashing being wrong, but abuse the issue and bash as well themselves. I guess it's easy to be of that belief and mock others when some wear an absestos suit themselves, possibly because of "ricochets"?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
174 • stoned rossetta (by hab on 2007-09-25 19:24:49 GMT from Canada)
The language thing grows a triffle tiresome.
Mayhaps we can move the discussion on to something more productive.
Like, oh say, the comparison of the relative merits of amiga os 3.1 vs windows vista.
cheers
175 • VectorLinux security advisories subforum (by Joe1962 on 2007-09-25 19:31:42 GMT from Brazil)
Regarding the VectorLinux security advisories subforum, I did maintain this to the best of my abilities for a very long time. The big job was actually filtering the security advisories to what was relevant to the VL releases and repository packages, as well as relevance mainly to desktop systems.
The current "emptiness" of the subforum is due to a recent unfortunate cleanup operation of older posts, plus the fact that due to increased work commitments, I have been unable to continue maintaining this service for some time now and no new volunteer has stepped up.
176 • An invasion of Slashdot posters? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 19:41:59 GMT from United States)
The S/N ration on this thread is getting so low it's worse than most Slashdot threads.
177 • Security and bug fix infrastructures in distributions (by Jaz on 2007-09-25 19:54:06 GMT from United States)
Seems like this is an area were people could help their community. I aways see "how can I help" posts in different forums, it would take time & effort and the distros' buy off of couse.
178 • Security and bug fix infrastructures in distributions (by Jaz on 2007-09-25 19:58:48 GMT from United States)
What is wrong with me? I can't spell cat without a dictionary!
179 • re#179 (by hab on 2007-09-25 20:12:07 GMT from Canada)
"What is wrong with me?"
Latent dailysex!
I sufer from that myself ;-).
cheers
180 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 20:13:31 GMT from Canada)
Fortutious Tychism ? - (just checked postings here)
Thnx for clarifying Joe - I was afraid of that > time constraints
In fairness, I never saw any discussions over your security advisory posts anyway
Bit of a pity - IMO - it had potential for becoming a valuable VL Forum feature
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re # 171
tanisi etweyan
Only in Canada eh
Do you really reside in Kan_a_ta :
http://canadaonline.about.com/od/history/a/namecanada.htm
Hipocrisy * alternates
http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hipocrisy
(Colloquia) - 'Aint' it a bitch' ?
181 • Security updates (by Stephen Wilson on 2007-09-25 20:17:43 GMT from United States)
While many of us change up to new releases often (myself included), the ability to move to newer versions can come to an end, making a good security update process critical. Sometimes we stick with a release long term out of choice... sometimes we are forced to. Here's an example.
I've used Ubuntu on my 2-year-old HP a1340n Media Center desktop since Dapper. Like quite a few GNU/Linux users, I have a boot error that reads: "MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC." (Just Google it and you'll see what I mean.) My bios is fully up to date and using "noapic" as a boot parameter simply freezes the system during boot up.
But it was never a real problem, because up to and including kernel 2.6.20, the "bug" has been ignored "bypassed" by the kernel and, after displaying the message, the system boots fine. However, starting with kernel 2.6.22, bootup results in kernel panic and a failure to complete the boot. No way out. As I said, the bios is up to date and the "noapic" solution doesn't work on my system.
Since no attempts to fix the "bug" have succeeded, I am now confined to using distros with kernels no higher than 2.6.20. So, I am anxious to ensure that I have good security updates for as long as I can. Eventually, when support for the distro stops, I'll be forced to buy a new machine.
182 • 167 • Last post (by Landor) (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 21:18:27 GMT from Malaysia)
"The thing that seperates you, dbrion, a number of others here and myself, we're respectful and intelligent enough to know it's the "issue" and not the person."
No offence to Landor but the thing that separates dbrion is that he's an intelligent troll.
183 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 21:29:23 GMT from Canada)
"I know you can tell me about dbrion's use of french, but could you tell me what the comments involved prior to that, that he typed about? Without looking? Something tells me no, and the point is moot after I click submit comment, but what does that say about someone's intent?"
If that made any sense I would try to answer it. As it is I just don't have a clue how to start.
Note: I did not say gender is never assigned in english. I don't believe that so I would not say it. In many past months of reading dbrions comments in I have seen him use gender, while writing in english, where an english user would not use gender. Maybe that is clearer. It could be he was using a colloquialism that I am not familiar with. That's irrelevant, I was using that as an example of one of the things he does in some of his rants that make them incomprehensible.
184 • @180 (by john frey on 2007-09-25 21:36:40 GMT from Canada)
I notice not one of those alternates was "hypocrisis". I take it that you were just confirming my point?
185 • Re # 184 'Gender Benders' (by Anonymous on 2007-09-25 22:37:52 GMT from Canada)
Correct (there is no "hypocrisis")
`Unless you were referencing the scarcity of the "speci/ous"
In an insouciant mannerism:
Try phonetics on "intentional mispelling of
Fort ut iuos
So to speak - beit by tongue , (would that be sciolistic cheek) ?
If the Canadianna URL is viewed - in 1791 the territory was divided
Politicians have been "dividing" Canadieins ever since to own ends !
Historically (as confirmed by Monty Python skits) there has been
ss/sibilant rivalry 'twixt the Franco & Anglasie on every continent
Incident /ly for the West coast - the Spanish empire expansionism had large influences
~ Until they were deposed by England - many colourful name places
survived
BRITISH Columbia:
Came in very handy when "excited states of " were repelled
& the 49th parallel defended (as was the Klondike trail)
http://www.themilepost.com/road_reporter/klondike_gold_rush.shtml
National borders were secured - but like software - the battles are never over
= Malware lives on in many guises & for - umms ?
186 • @166 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-25 22:52:08 GMT from Canada)
The press release is at:
http://www.mandriva.com/en/company/press/pr/mandriva...
unfortunately, no one sent it to me for proofing before it was published...
the executive summary is that we're killing Discovery and Powerpack+, and we will be emphasising One more than Free as the 'most standard' edition of 2008. So 2008 will come in One, Powerpack and Free editions, in that order of prominence (this is just a marketing issue, there's no downgrading in the status of Free on the technical side or anything).
187 • DWW Grandeur (by Landor on 2007-09-25 23:33:53 GMT from Canada)
I agree with some recent comments over the past few weeks that DWW has become a bit of a war zone. I also side with Clem on wondering why it hasn't been stopped, no offence to you either Ladislav. I can appreciate your possible reasons, not choosing sides, the toils of not only working but maintaining DWW, and of course a lot more. The personal attacks directed at the posters and nothing to do with actually refuting their comments is quite a sad thing.
I'll say in dbrion's defense there is rarely a week goes by that I "do not" see him either directly try to help someone, or assist them with a means of obtaining the help they need, something I cannot say the same for either all of, or most of his detractors. The man is quite intelligent, well versed in Linux or OS' in general, obviously well read and witty. I until recently didn't connect his name of UBU for Ubuntu with the play, which in past times would've been applauded as a masterful stroke of wry wit.
Maybe doing a bit more translating at google or freetranslation.com might help you understand the post, barring that, if you don't want to put in the effort to understand his posts, then why are they so important to attack?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
188 • non (by john frey on 2007-09-26 01:03:45 GMT from Canada)
I for one was not attacking dbrion. I was making an observation based on my reading of the comments section over many years. I have seen dbrion contribute to the dialogue here and I have also seen him contribute to the confusion and make comments that have little or no understandable content. Now maybe I'm missing some subtlety or cleverness. I'm sure that happens at times.
189 • @185 (by john frey on 2007-09-26 01:09:21 GMT from Canada)
Now you are a prime example of some stuff going over my head. Some of it is clever though.:-)
tanisi etweyan I take it that's an annagram of some sort. I never liked anagrams, unlike crossword puzzles which I love. Poor Anna Gram, unrequited and mixed up.
190 • Exigency ? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-26 02:13:30 GMT from Canada)
> All is hidden in (sic)plane view
"I.T." is a language:
Google ~ Ta'n(i)si e'twe'yan
(It is left to the reader's imagination to what constitutes the 'aerie' domaine of a 'fledglings nest')
"One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest ?
In (eau de) essence (wink) smells like the only commonality to an anagram
An_ a gramatical observation statement
awk -F: '{print $1 "," $5}' /etc/passwd | sort
How secure do you feel ?
191 • Civility on the comments & moderation (by Bryan on 2007-09-26 03:01:12 GMT from Canada)
I suppose a relatively unmoderated comments section is an invitation to the community to make the best comments possible, with civility, information, and maybe a little humor sprinkled together to make a useful addition to the DWW that Ladislav spends so much time putting together through a week's work.
I think Ladislav should leave the system alone for the time being. If he moderates it, he will only makes trolls (and the occasional misled soul) angry. Currently, they simply embarrass themselves in front of the whole Linux community. If we had a self-moderating system like digg or slashdot, it may instead become a raucous competition of ideas...which can be good and bad, but it is already being done over there.
192 • 187, 190 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-26 06:02:13 GMT from Malaysia)
"The personal attacks directed at the posters and nothing to do with actually refuting their comments is quite a sad thing."
Landor, posts like 190 are liable to personal attacks because the author seems to think he's being clever with his irrelevant and rambling posts.
In contrast, dbrion seems to be a genuinely intelligent person whose posts usually make some sense.
193 • Sneak Peeks at openSUSE 10.3: 1-CD Installation & Multimedia support (by Anonymous on 2007-09-26 06:02:50 GMT from Australia)
openSUSE 10.3 has seen a lot of changes with the media selection; the most prominent one being the new 1-CD installation for KDE, and 1-CD installation for GNOME. Multimedia support in the distribution has also been improved, with MP3 support out-of-the-box for Banshee and Amarok. Today we bring you a special double-bill covering these two stories, and we’ll be talking to Michael Löffler, the Product Manager of openSUSE, to give us a little more insight.
[...]
Multimedia Codecs
openSUSE is constantly trying to improve the out-of-the-box user experience for all users. To find out even more about how users feel, an openSUSE survey was started, and it was taken by over 27,000 people. The results were of course available to everyone, and they revealed that over 69% of users find multimedia support important, or very important. These complaints did not go unheard.
Amarok with MP3 Support
openSUSE 10.3 will contain Amarok 1.4.7In openSUSE 10.3, Amarok — the popular KDE audio player — will have MP3 support available to you directly from the non-OSS online repository, or will work out-of-the-box on the DVD. This is all thanks to the yauap GStreamer plugin available from Fluendo. It is a significant step forward for all KDE users or Amarok aficionados in openSUSE.
[...]
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=325
194 • more about the process of getting MP3 support via Fluendo for Amarok? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-26 06:07:41 GMT from Australia)
Could you tell us a little bit more about the process of getting MP3 support via Fluendo for Amarok? What did it involve?
The fact that most multimedia codecs require a licence, in Linux, plays a major role. Offering a distribution for free download means that you cannot afford purchasing licences for it. But Fluendo offers mp3 decoding support for free to the end-user but not to redistribute it like we do with a distribution. So, we got in contact with Fluendo and asked if they would give us the rights to redistribute their gstreamer plug-in.
Fluendo was very supportive to this request and the rest was done by the legal teams to sort out such a redistribution agreement.
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=325
195 • Ladislav, FW road map is changed (by alexej on 2007-09-26 06:40:14 GMT from Ukraine)
rc2 is due by Oct2, the release - Oct 13, or around...
196 • RE post # 192 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-26 08:43:46 GMT from Canada)
Liable ?
Gee sorry - You must be confusing terminologies once more
The word_of _the_day for you to learn would be to distinguish phonetics to your proclivities
In your case that would be ~ literal licentious "libel"
Unlike our friend with the 'Malaise'
I tried to be gracious last time he embarassed himself, tucked tail ~ swore to bow out
It is now evident he has returned -sadly still ill-equipped to converse with anyone who at least DOES "think"
Perhaps his level of Umm..... communication ~ is on 'higher levels'
Such as incantions of ritual 'piggy_grunts > Ala post # 169
Whilst mumbling to self "Its_gotta_be_a_cult'
~ then raises his finger normally reserved for scratching nether regions
It could be stated in Cree - but for benefit of Mr M
(who dislikes 'language' not understood)
Quote:
'Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes time and annoys the pig.
197 • Qu John Frey(171) (by dbrion on 2007-09-26 09:15:57 GMT from France)
What does proofing (cf 186) /proofchecking(?) mean...
It has nothing to do with teaching....
(it is like testing (vs coding) vs teaching in the software 'world')
If you want me to respect your language, just respect it.
If you are unsatisfied with my English, do not be surprised of my using standard (at least I hope) , easily to google-translate, French...
198 • DWW (by Vinze on 2007-09-26 09:25:09 GMT from Netherlands)
Clem, I hope you come back to this forum. And I hope this forum we become more serious abaut Linux and stop al the wining about Language and bashing.
199 • Mandriva 2008 techincal review (by killer on 2007-09-26 10:06:15 GMT from Italy)
take a look at this:
http://artipc10.vub.ac.be/serendipity/archives/38-Whats-new-in-Mandriva-2008.0.html
bye
200 • RE: 47 Q to the community (by Anonymous on 2007-09-26 10:46:01 GMT from Germany)
RE: 47 Q to the community
Take a look at FreeNAS. It can turn every old computer (>= Pentium1) with only 128MB RAM into a stable samba-server (CIFS, NFS, ...).
There is no need for a harddisk-installation. It runs from liveCD and saves its configurationfile on a floppy-disk or usb-stick. Release-update is done by simple changing the CD.
You can use UFS (the FreeBSD-Filesystem), Ext2 or Ext3. Do not use FAT, FAT32 or NTFS!!!
After the initial netconfiguration the box can run 'headless' without monitor, mouse or keyboard.
Read the setup-and-user-guide: http://www.freenas.org/index.php?option=com_openwiki&Itemid=30
And the Knowledgebase: http://www.freenaskb.info/kb/
201 • a bit of useful coding (by areuareu on 2007-09-26 11:39:17 GMT from France)
void comments_on_distrowatch(readers_comments)
do while not end_of_comments()
if comment_contains ("buntu") or
comment_contains ("PCLinuxOS") or
comment_contains ("PCLOS")
next_comment()
endif
enddo
202 • I suggest adding registeration for posting (by hobbitland on 2007-09-26 12:28:12 GMT from China)
Hi, I think this forum is beginning to get out of hand. I still like DWW but the comments are going a bit nasty.
I suggest all posters to have validated registered accounts to post. Also for other people to vote comments up/down. Comments with bad votes should be screenable. This is one way to get rid of children people from damaging the forum.
I believe this is a English forum. I also believe if someone poss in English, French, Italian, Chinese or any other langauges then replies should be posted in the same language. Otherwise it would be just plain rude.
203 • Qu 202 What do you mean by English? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-26 12:41:14 GMT from France)
a) English
b) English with typos from native speakers (and them laughing at non native speakers?)
c) Slang English?
204 • 196 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-26 12:56:51 GMT from Malaysia)
Thank you for your 'gracious' reply.
If you actually read my earlier posts, you may notice that I did not criticize dbrion for using French in some of his posts.
dbrion should have the freedom to reply in any language he wishes, just as I have the freedom to participate in this 'intellectual' discussion regardless of whether you or anyone else wants to behave like a schoolyard bully.
205 • Bleahh (by Andy Axnot on 2007-09-26 13:24:41 GMT from United States)
Clem is leaving, dbrion staying.
Bleahh...
Andy
206 • post #202 (by Jerry on 2007-09-26 15:34:48 GMT from N/A)
Language is an issue only if you don't read/speak the language at hand. I've gravitated to more and more Spanish language forums (and TV and Radio stations as well as paper publications) the more adept I've become with that language in my studies; so, if postings appear in here in English or Spanish, I'll be fine with that.
If there are exchanges in here in Afrikaans or Mandarin, I'll scroll past them as I do the French and German. What the hey.. no biggie...
207 • Server OS (by Karl V on 2007-09-26 16:49:05 GMT from Sweden)
Next time the server get's DDoSed or reinstalled I want you to install FreeBSD again.
208 • rosetta stone2 (by hab on 2007-09-26 16:49:36 GMT from Canada)
The lack of respect demonstrated for non english language users here is appalling. Picking on spelling/grammatical errors. Can we find smaller nits to pick?
Global village my ass!
Some folks really need to get a grip.
Bashing people for not using a favoured linux distro is minimally tolerable, we all have our prejudices but some of what passes for commentary here is a little beyond the pale.
I come to dw to learn about new/updated distros and to read (frequently) enlightened commentary. Not to read people slagging each other off over trivial crap
And no english is not my mother tongue.
cheers
209 • Non English speakers (by Bryan on 2007-09-26 17:18:07 GMT from Canada)
I agree with 208!
I have found the discussion regarding non-English language use on the comments to be a little discordant. While some disparage use of other languages, others (or maybe the same people) are also nitpicking people's English to no end. A typical, educated person may have a 50k-250k word vocabulary. A non-English speaker may have far less. If you would like to have people who do not speak English as a native language use it still as the lingua franca, I think we must accept some imperfection.
210 • re#209 (by hab on 2007-09-26 17:33:16 GMT from Canada)
Kinda makes ya wonder if these kinds of people really get the POINT of linux.
Sorta can't see the forest for the trees syndrome!
Linux has to be the most inter-national project that exits.
Maybe some folks come to linux for all the wrong reasons.
cheers
211 • RE 209 Add "tolerate other languages if they are in a standard form" (by dbrion on 2007-09-26 17:38:01 GMT from France)
With google translation, perhaps it is feasible (de facto, it is)
BTW, claiming a status of "lingua franca" for English is neither feasible nor very kind : as it was not written , it fully disappeared without any trace(it was a mixture of all the languages in the Mediterranean basin)....
212 • Other languages (to 211) (by Bryan on 2007-09-26 18:12:57 GMT from Canada)
Actually, I don't really mind seeing people post in other languages. I primarily know English (and a little Kannada), so the non-English posts just fly right over my head.
My point is to the English-only crowd. If they expect others to use English as a lingua franca, why would they nitpick others' English. That behavior can only discourage non-English people from posting.
As for whether a lingua franca could really exist....it will only exist depending on people's own behavior. I am sure people with far more linguistic and sociology background than myself could fill volumes talking about dominant languages, shared languages, and whatever. If the term lingua franca itself offends, I am sorry. I chose it because others (especially the English only group) seemed to already be using it, so it seemed the best way to communicate.
211, I doubt I really in any disagreement with you. I would also pose that there is only a loose idea of what is proper English. Several nations use it as their primary language, some with some striking differences in pronunciation, word choice, spelling, etc.
BTW, ನನ್ನಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಹ ಸೊಲಪ ಗೊತ್ತೂ =)
213 • Codecs and such for SUSE (by Landor on 2007-09-26 18:21:38 GMT from Canada)
I tried looking at more info regarding how the team (for anyone who read the anouncement) came up with a legit way to have the codecs redistributed and couldn't find anything. Maybe I missed something somewhere that would lead me to the exact solution, and if someone knows of a link to any info I'd appreciate it.
If it's due to their agreements in some form with MS, then my thoughts and point are moot. Which would certainly explain why it happened now instead of a lot earlier.
But I wonder if it was just the case of a legal team coming up with a solution that "Joe-Dev" wouldn't normally understand fully.
Also if that's the case, I wonder if openSUSE will pass that information onto the OSS community and how it will change the face of Linux.
Some people will be thinking, what? Change the face of Linux, is Landor out of it? Facts are though, some distributions like Mint or PCLOS enjoy a following partly because of the inclusion of support for things that are proprietary. I'm not saying that's the only reason, but it's a drawing card none the less. It makes me wonder if it is a simple matter of looking at the legalities a bit more and finding a loophole perse', then what will happen when some parts of what is proprietary is no longer a special inclusion in some distros since many can do the same legally.
As I said, I wish I knew why, it would be interesting if it's the latter reason to see how it unfolds for the community.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
214 • Thanks Ladislav Bodnar (by Clint Moffatt on 2007-09-26 19:14:52 GMT from Canada)
In this world of fast everything, sometimes we forget the most important stuff, sharing our gratitude for your hard work and your dedication to the Open Source community. Thanks Ladislav Bodnar!!! I look forward to Monday's so I can read Distrowatch Weekly. God Bless You & Yours.
215 • Proprietary is not the same as encumbered (by Mark South on 2007-09-26 20:10:48 GMT from Switzerland)
@Landor in #215:
Landor wrote of PCLOS and Mint that they are popular because of:
"...the inclusion of support for things that are proprietary."
Proprietary and encumbered are not the same thing. The codec and decoders supplied with PCLOS and Mint are free and open source software. The technology that is used in that software may be encumbered by patents in certain geographical regions (like the Frauenhofer patent in the USA) or by weird and whacky legislation in some geographical regions (like the DCMA in the USA).
A lot of PCLOS and Mint users are quite happily using those codecs etc with clear consciences because the relevant encumbrances do not apply to them. and so are many users of other distros who simply install the same stuff afterwards.
In contrast, the Opera browser is proprietary, but Opera are quite happy for you to install it on any system that you have.
Hope this clears up the distinction.
PS Landor, you've got mail.
216 • RE: 215 (by Landor on 2007-09-26 20:26:04 GMT from Canada)
Well, I didn't actually say it was the reason, but no doubt part of the reason, since it's more (I hate this term, it's so envogue) "out of the box" compatible with the major desktop mindset.
It's still a licensing issue though.
I saw the e-mail today (I haven't checked it for almost a week, a lot of replies to hit) and know of the last thing you asked, but can't for the life of me find it now, or in what context I used it..lol It's been stumping me and the reason for the delay in the mail and some of the replies I've had to do.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
217 • Re Codecs and such for SUSE (by Landor ) (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 00:37:59 GMT from Australia)
I tried looking at more info regarding how the team (for anyone who read the anouncement) came up with a legit way to have the codecs redistributed and couldn't find anything. Maybe I missed something somewhere that would lead me to the exact solution, and if someone knows of a link to any info I'd appreciate it.
I would say that Fluendo is making the MP3 codecs available for free in order to promote its commercial multimedia pack, no different to many other software makers. I notice that Mandriva is also offering Fluendo codecs in its commercial product.
------------
In openSUSE 10.3, Amarok — the popular KDE audio player — will have MP3 support available to you directly from the non-OSS online repository, or will work out-of-the-box on the DVD. This is all thanks to the yauap GStreamer plugin available from Fluendo. ....
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=325
Fluendo for Amarok? What did it involve?
The fact that most multimedia codecs require a licence, in Linux, plays a major role. Offering a distribution for free download means that you cannot afford purchasing licences for it. But Fluendo offers mp3 decoding support for free to the end-user but not to redistribute it like we do with a distribution. So, we got in contact with Fluendo and asked if they would give us the rights to redistribute their gstreamer plug-in.
Fluendo was very supportive to this request and the rest was done by the legal teams to sort out such a redistribution agreement.
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=325
Proprietary Multimedia Support in
Support for proprietary formats and codecs is not shipped out-of-the box in openSUSE. Please follow the links below for more information on obtaining the necessary software required to play proprietary multimedia content.
* Fluendo Webshop
Fluendo provides high quality codecs for the GStreamer multimedia framework.
* Community Information
Alternate codecs are available by following community instructions, but may require a license.
Further Information
For more information about why some formats and codecs are restricted and why they don't ship out-of-the-box on openSUSE, please read about Restricted Formats
http://software.opensuse.org/codecs
I recommend the following link/s: http://opensuse-community.org/Multimedia
http://opensuse-community.org/Multimedia
If you are using the KDE Desktop Environment: codecs-kde.ym
http://opensuse-community.org/codecs-kde.ymp
If you are using the GNOME Desktop Environment: codecs-gnome.ymp
http://opensuse-community.org/codecs-kde.ymp
218 • WoW (by Landor on 2007-09-27 00:39:45 GMT from Canada)
I just installed W2K to update my bios. I prefer to use the updater than mess around, anyway, what a piece of junk. I can't believe how slowwwwwwwwww it is, terrible. It's been a long time now since I was on it and it's horrible compared to even a live cd's lag time (for those that don't run in memory that is)
It's things like this, if someone made the switch and felt the comparison that would definately make them use any flavour of Linux over Windows more often than not.
219 • 213 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 00:45:56 GMT from United States)
Landor:
Unless I'm not understanding your question...
The only free codec is MP3, which Fluendo can distribute without a per unit cost. All opensuse is doing is pointing you to Fluendo if you want to purchase the other codecs.
I believe the license is only for one computer, so the cost would be prohibitive if you are like me and use six computers. Of course, that's one serious drawback of most proprietary software in today's world...
220 • @213 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-27 01:51:17 GMT from Canada)
landor, you may be interested to note that Mandriva Linux 2008's Powerpack edition will come with the complete range of Fluendo codecs. :)
As the others have said, there's no legal reason why these codecs cannot be redistributed by a Linux vendor. They just can't go in a distribution or repository which accepts only free / open source software, because they're not. So, obviously, you won't find 'em in Mandriva Linux Free. But it's perfectly possible to arrange a redistribution agreement with Fluendo to include some or all the codecs in an edition which accepts non-free software, as we (and apparently SUSE, to a lesser extent) have done.
221 • Re: 206 (by hobbitland on 2007-09-27 10:12:27 GMT from China)
Hi, I am not against somebody posting in non-English languages. However, it is plain rude to reply in a different language to what somebody has posted. For example, if somebody post in German and someone else replies in French then its rude. Why do you assume the German can speak French. Don't you think its rude in that case.
Some people are replying in a different language on purchase so as to out smart or confuse the original poster. What's the point anyway? perhaps all posts should be automatically translated via google to English. Maybe people can choose the language they want to view by using google translations. Google translations can cause serious mis-understandings due to errors. try translating something from Chinese to English and back to Chinese again.
I think DW needs to consider how to treat languages. My suggestion is for everything to be presented in English or translated as they are posted. Visitors can then choose which lanauge to view the forum. I bet this will cause lots of translational confusion.
222 • re # 202 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 10:51:34 GMT from N/A)
And another rule should be only two posts per day per registered person (by ip address?).
This "stick on the ice" guy is getting to be a bit much.
223 • hobbitland (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-27 10:57:29 GMT from Romania)
Let it go man, I don't think that DW should change in any way. It's fine the way it is.It's just about common sense. I talk to you in english, be polite and do the same.If you are unsure about your english use yourself a translation method don't force others to do it. I don't use romanian here and I don't see you using chinese even if it would be more easy for us.
cheers
224 • Quel anglais? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 11:13:30 GMT from France)
L'argot : avec les dictionnaires de Clem et de debigrassu
De l'anglais mal orthographié, même par les natifs ?? qui sont les premiers à ironiser
de L'Anglais?
tr
Slang (freely using d*** and Clem dictionaries)
Ill spelled english, even by native speakers (who are the first to laugh at typos)
English?
225 • can we just stop this? (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-27 11:37:02 GMT from Romania)
If my poor English language really offended you or others I do apologise. I'm doing the best I can in order to be understood by you or anybody else. If sometimes I fail to be 100% correct please forgive me. I learned english from movies and internet so yes, it's not as accurate as you wish. I still think that it is not so hard to understand what I'm saying. What else do you want more?
So would you please stop correcting my every single post?
Although it would be far more easier for me to use my native language I have the decency to make an little effort and post in English so that everybody understand.Can't you do the same?
226 • 225 Be concise. (by dbrion on 2007-09-27 11:50:48 GMT from France)
Be consistent with yourself... cf 131 among others and others.....
,....
BTW, it would be fine if you wrote Ruman if you have better/newer/any ideas, and if you feel clumsy in English, pple will manage.if they agree, they may translate....
227 • Small Typo on Latest Distributions list (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 11:51:07 GMT from United States)
Under opensuse is says "10.2-rc2 (live CD)", I believe that is actually the iso for "10.3-rc2 (live CD)"
228 • tower of babel (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-27 12:32:01 GMT from Romania)
No , it would not be fine .What if we all start to speak in our native languages? For example :Afonic in greek, bobo in bulgarian, fabian in german, ramana in dutch, cevo in spanish, naresh in hindi (?), I in romanian, ceti and sergio in portuguese, karl in swedish, jonatan in polish, doubleparked in norvegian, you in french(oh, sorry...you already do that) and finally ladislav in slovakian?
Would that be ok?
Those from above posted only this week.
229 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 12:34:12 GMT from Romania)
228 was for 226 sorry...
230 • RE 226, 229 People interested in other matters could skip (by dbrion on 2007-09-27 12:42:10 GMT from France)
Et ce serait loyal...
And it would be fair.
Et des gens verraient un peu de Roumain, tant que ce n'est pas de l'argot....
And somepeople could learn a little Roman, as long as they are not misled into slang.....
Et des guerres ridicules seraient plus lentes et contrôlables
And petty fighting would be slowere, easier to control.
Et chacun maîtriserait ce qu'il écrit...
And anyone would know what _he_ wrote.
231 • dbrion (by dubigrasu on 2007-09-27 12:59:28 GMT from Romania)
Finally...we agree, only that there is no need for others to learn some romanian, they can only stick to English.. thank you!
232 • Re # 226 - tutu much (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 13:09:38 GMT from Canada)
Mons _ dB
Combien de fois par jour ~ pour jamais ?
Jeter son bonnet par-dessus les moulins
In your 'case" DOES translate to
Il n'y a pas de quoi rire
You play the innocent - but the "cut of your jib"
clearly flies the universal flag well understoood by all who do float
Do you understand that 'lingua' mon ami ?
233 • RE 231 No (by dbrion on 2007-09-27 13:17:09 GMT from France)
Non, mais que, si vous voulez pinailler, faitees le en Roumain
et que, si vous voulez ne pas traduire votre pensée et vous couvrir longuement de ridicule, écrivez en Roumain et en Anglais
IfNot at all:
if you want to fight, fight in Romanian only;
if you want that what you thought not to be corrupted by some clumsiness you complainde about, use both languages, Roman (4 what you meant) and English (4 what you try to express)
234 • 222 (by hardy on 2007-09-27 16:22:30 GMT from N/A)
Ja. Dieser "Stock auf dem Eis" Kerl erhält, eine Spitze zu sein viel.
235 • Romanesque Sophistry ? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 16:30:17 GMT from Canada)
As Dr Dodgson penned:
Curiouser & Curiouser:
Parethentically ~ Not all Rhodes (AKA France's Enseignement Supérieur) "lede" to roam
Quote:
"Use both languages ~ Roman" !
AFAKnown ~ The 'Roman language' was Latin
The "progenitor" of English alphabet
Had the decendents of Khagan (G. Kahn) not inexplicably returned to their ancestral 'chanat'-
We might all now be speaking 'sum' variation of Mongolian dialects
Silly us - were under the implied impression -(it was never refuted) linguistic teachers were aquainted
to origins of most commonly used/known 'basal' derivatives ?
~ So to speak
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To return to DWW articled topic of security - would it be feasible to employ a 'honey-pot'for servers ?
Registering of users would not stop a determined cracker (think onion routers/rooted proxies)
R-DOS is bad enough -it also may be a ploy to test DMZ's in attempt to gain back-door entrance
Automated BOTS are readily availabe on-line - some quite sophisticated now
236 • 235 • Romanesque Sophistry ? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 17:52:46 GMT from Malaysia)
"linguistic teachers were aquainted
to origins of most commonly used/known 'basal' derivatives"
English is evidently not your first language but would your comment about 'malaise' qualify as sophistry too? Or is it just latent bigotry?
"Unlike our friend with the 'Malaise' ..." (196 • RE post # 192)
237 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 18:41:45 GMT from Canada)
Yes 'sophistry' (did bother you to look it up) to extent I have scant tolerance to willful ignorance -
Such as (on record) repetitive Cult-ural intonations in 'schoolyard' pig-latin
~ Or maligning anything you cannot understand yet castigate as irrelevant & rambling !
To elucidate ~ You have no way of knowing which language is my "first"
BTW the definition of 'malaise' is discomfort
Symptomatic causality is speculative however, past post partnum may explain ?
238 • Let's get back to distro discussion. How about Mandriva 2008 RC2 (by IMQ on 2007-09-27 19:38:40 GMT from N/A)
I installed the Mandriva 2008 RC2 on one of my PC and it's snail-slow when copying or moving files. While this happens I can't even browse the web.
At first I thought the default *ati* driver was causing "hesitating" movement when scrolling the screen. Changing to *vesa* did not help at all.
So I suspect the HD. I ran the *hdparm -tT /dev/hda* and it showed the thing something like:
:
Timing cached reads: 1614 MB in 2.00 seconds = 423.28 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 126 MB in 3.01 seconds = 3.11 MB/sec
The problem appeared to be the HD. So I tried to turn on the DMA but it was not possible.
Note that I also have other distros installed on the same PC without this problem.
Any idea?
239 • DMA (# 238/IMQ) (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 20:13:49 GMT from Canada)
Did you verify
code:
dmesg | grep DMA
I am certain Mandriva has default enabled it, plus your I/OUT results indicate same
Pls 1st try (top) & (free) to find if anything is hogging resources
Then check your x-server Cfg's &/or code:
tail -f /var/log/mess* (leave console shell open)
Before that occurs then try a copy
cd to /var/log folder & check if any x-server error Msgs were logged
/tmp also may hold data
Any backgrounded "polling" such as H.A.L. checking for removable media
or wireless net A.P.s (such as when a bit too far from router/modem to transmit/recieve reliably
HTH - your distros forums should be place to query
240 • @207 (by someone on 2007-09-28 00:38:45 GMT from Aruba)
First of all, that's a pretty arrogant statement. Who are you to decide what Ladislav should or should not install on his server? Secondly, why? Why should he wrestle with something which clearly takes a lot more of his valuable time than is necessary just to install an OS? Hmm?
241 • Aruba ? (#240) (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 03:23:38 GMT from Canada)
Quizás esto era el diffuculty en la traducción de en que él habla
¿Suecia? (15 versiones)
Como el ejemplo - dirigí ohe psters reploes por un transator-
Ellos fueron justamente exactamente expresados
Aún su propio inglés como traducido diferenciado enormemente
Usted no graniza de Antillas Menores -
~ Ningunos traductores para Papiamento
(BTW ~ I was facinated by the online book of :
http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/mayan/alone_contents.html
It dissappeared for a while, but now back
I had two more chapters to read - took my time to fully appreciate every word of that delightful chain of the "Lower Caribbes" Islands"
What an understatement ("windy") & undertaken alone in a canoe
242 • Thanks for the info (by Landor on 2007-09-28 03:39:06 GMT from Canada)
Thanks everyone for the info regarding the inclusion of codecs. It wasn't something I understood of course and something I had wondered about. I have it all working in Gentoo of course, but I just never understood the issue(s).
So if I understand this correctly. Anyone in charge of a distribution is free enough to say contact Fluendo and ask for the ability to include the gstreamer plugin which will ensure the playing of mp3s. The reason most do not is simply due to it being an agreement regarding a licensing issue, which would mean it's not truly OSS. So that being the case distro "A" which isn't bothered by the fact that it's not OSS would or can include it, based on the agreement, and distro "B" who adheres to strictly OSS wouldn't even attempt to include it "installed" based on their philosophy.
So it comes down to a licensing issue, free or not, and philosophy.
This is what happens when all you did was live on the cli forever then come back to Linux and find the desktop has evolved beyond your wildest dreams, I still have so much catching up to do. :)
Thanks again
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
243 • RE:222 and Stealth (by Landor on 2007-09-28 03:48:02 GMT from Canada)
The invisible man said:
"222 • re # 202 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-27 10:51:34 GMT from N/A)
And another rule should be only two posts per day per registered person (by ip address?).
This "stick on the ice" guy is getting to be a bit much. "
It's funny agreeing to someone's solution about registering yet you post anonymous and your location is N/A.
Also, on that note, how do we not know you don't post as much as anyone else, and no, I won't lower myself to count how many times someone posted as anonymous from an unavailable location.
From the desk of that keep your stick on the ice guy.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
244 • No particular topic (by Observer on 2007-09-28 04:38:32 GMT from N/A)
73 • No subject (by Anonymous ot United States)
.".. It's to the point that I now consider a forum post with PCLinuxOS in it to be spam.
Same here!!!
Please stop defending everything about PCLOS. Tex and TRG are doing a great job, but they themselves do not seem to have trouble understanding that PCLOS has limitations...."
Yeah,, I can agree to a point but the "Radically Simple" slogan seems to have created a "Frankenstein Monster" in attracting SIMPLE & RADICAL followers. You reap what you sow! :-)
-----------
On Matter of DW Forum Language issues
I am for status quo and dbrion gets my vote. He is by far on an intellectually higher plane than the average distro touts that sometimes flood this place.
Landor, keep you stick on ice and test drive some current live cds from the major distros.
245 • Rambling (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 04:43:12 GMT from Malaysia)
malaise
1 : an indefinite feeling of debility or lack of health often indicative of or accompanying the onset of an illness
2 : a vague sense of mental or moral ill-being
(from Merriam-Webster)
By the way, my first post this week was 163, NOT 156.
246 • Re: Rambling (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 04:48:29 GMT from Malaysia)
Sorry, 245 is for the 'gracious' one (# 237, 241).
247 • Yes you are rambling (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 05:11:27 GMT from Canada)
Next time - access the accepted medical profession terms
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=4253
Did you define "lede" or is (wink) yet another explantion required ?
248 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 05:54:04 GMT from France)
Hopefully next week's DWW comments won't be in the Worst 10 list.
249 • re#244,247 (by hab on 2007-09-28 05:58:56 GMT from Canada)
d'accord
mal-aise=dis-ease?
cheers
250 • "Ocilent1 Has been a great hero for this [PCL] community" (by Observer on 2007-09-28 07:46:45 GMT from N/A)
>Ocilent1: A thank you
>Posted by: nino
>ABSOLUTELY!
>Thanks so much for your work and I'm sorry to see you go.
>> smurfslover on September 20, 2007
>>We all gonna miss you ocilent1!
STOP THE PRESSES!! Cry Where oh where is ocilent1 going? What have I missed? Where is it written that ocilent1 is leaving the fold? Someone please enlighten me with the facts... Cry Cry Cry
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=31442.0
251 • re 250 - adding missing poster name (by Observer on 2007-09-28 07:50:18 GMT from N/A)
tuxalish
Full Member
***
STOP THE PRESSES!! Cry Where oh where is ocilent1 going?
252 • 247, 237, 235 and other pseudointellectual posts (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 08:25:10 GMT from Malaysia)
"Yes you are rambling" (247)
It's infectious. By the way, do you suffer from echolalia?
"Next time - access the accepted medical profession terms" (247)
Pretentious as ever!
"http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=4253" (247)
Disappointing. I would have expected you to recommend Dorland or Taber instead.
"Symptomatic causality is speculative however, past post partnum may explain ?" (237)
Confabulation. Good alliterative skills though - "past post partnum" (that one's worthy of Carroll/Dodgson or even Edward Lear).
"Not all Rhodes (AKA France's Enseignement Supérieur) "lede" to roam" (235)
I wasn't sure whether that was an intentional pun or just another poorly written post. I should add that this is not your fault - English is obviously not your first language.
"linguistic teachers were aquainted
to origins of most commonly used/known 'basal' derivatives ?" (235)
Perhaps you should post in your native language until you are able to express yourself in standard English.
253 • En passant (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 09:28:00 GMT from Canada)
Lede
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:LEDE&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
basal
http://www.answers.com/topic/basal?cat=health
Partnum
http://docs.hp.com/en/36216-90080/ch10s05.html
There are others - however, your proven observational proclivities pondiferously preclude plaudits
(other than pandering to ~ 'extant' is synonomous to posthumous ploys)
A play on words - would be (sic) 'incantions' - as a Canadian, shunning iterations of "EH"
(conversely, akin to tersity of colourful conjunctive adjectives - ala 'flutterby')
(That assumes you know the definitive terminology of 'sic"
But the proven need to expand your limited vocabulary verified the truth once more in the homily
'Why waste time' - you sing on naught divest of all but discordant divergent dichotomy
Thus Sprak Tharathustra ~ " Symphonic views of an Obelisk"_
Security is more a state_of_mind"
It is painful to state facts - but we know well wherein yours dwells sir
BTW I am a native speaker - logic the preferred '1st language' by choice
To try once more:
> Have any here used rkhunter from a stand-alone booted media_
To check a separate (non-booted) O/System - in chroot mode?
IIRC ~ Chkrootkit Docs noted their utility was not fully reliable unless run that way -
or conversely, run as a cross-check from static DB libraries known to be secure
TIA
254 • PCLOS denying again their Mandriva roots... (by Caraibes on 2007-09-28 11:27:00 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I could not believe what I read in the PCLOS forums, so I actually answered back, trying to defend the FACTS, but those guys have a strange attitude when it comes to PCLOS actually being (very) heavily based on Mandriva...
Check it out here :
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=32114.30
I quote one user (Caudell) :
"PCLOS was originally based on Mandrake (Mandriva) but PCLOS has since gone its own way and doesn't depend upon Mandriva anymore."
It is simply amazing to deny the facts... I don't understand, PCLOS is #1 at Distrowatch, the distro is good... Why hide that it is heavily based on Mandriva ???
255 • PCLOS does NOT hide it's roots in Mandriva (by JohnF on 2007-09-28 12:45:30 GMT from United States)
First, this has been talked about several times before, and it makes no sense to go over old ground. But for the record, let's look at what's in the "about us" of the home website:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=70
"PCLinuxOS was originally based on another distribution under the name of Mandriva and shares many features of Mandriva such as the Control Center and the Draklive Installer. Texstar and team would like to thank the developers, contributors and others associated with Mandriva who may have indirectly contributed to the PCLinuxOS distribution. In addition to Mandriva, PCLinuxOS would also like to thank the developers of the Gentoo, OpenSuSE, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu as we also use patches and bugs fixes from those distributions.
And what Texstar says himself (07/03/2007):
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=27145.45
"Last year we did a rebase against an updated Mandriva to get an updated code base to work from mainly gcc and glibc due to time and resource limitations. We haven't reached a point where we can hire people yet. I wanted to go to a Fedora base but others wanted to stay with a Mandriva base. So we did a rebase then started removing all the old epochs, code clean up, bug fixes, our own kde desktop, kernel and various unique applications etc etc. There is still a lot of original code from Mandriva and a lot of new code from us in pclos 2007 as well as many original packages from our team. As time goes on the split between the two will be more profound than it is today. We are still in the process of porting a lot of our applications from our old code base as well as grabbing srpms from various distributions whenever possible to complete our repository.":
For this sort of thing, it's always best to go directly to the source (official statements from the developer), don't you think?
256 • re: 255 (by Caraibes on 2007-09-28 13:11:54 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Hey John,
As stated in the PCLOS foruym thread, I wasn't in the mood of confronting anyone with anything until Caudell stated that PCLOS had nothing to do with Mandriva. I felt it wasn't right, that is why I posted back. Then, most posters were on the defensive. But I think KDulcimer and I are finding a common ground according to our last exchange...
Peace...
257 • PCBSD1.4 (by Z K Dabek on 2007-09-28 13:12:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
!!!WARNING!!!
This will trash your partitions and make everything unbootable!!!!
!!!WARNING!!!
258 • re: 257 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 13:38:19 GMT from United States)
I installed pcbsd 1.4 last night and it did not trash my partition table, nor did it make the other os's unbootable. If you have linux os's you want to boot use grub and not the freebsd bootloader. Else it can handle windows and bsd fine. I installed pcbsd right into the partition that I use for linux and it worked like a charm.
259 • 257+ re 258 (by Z K Dabek on 2007-09-28 14:17:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
I am pleased that PCBSD worked for you.
I used (hd1,0) partition (formerly XP) as ufs / without BSD bootloader installed
Then GRUB shell> root (hd1,0); kernel /BOOT/LOADER; boot; (;=CR)..no go.
tried various other options which I thought may bite (chainloader, (hd1,0,a)..usw
analysis with fdisk, parted, Gparted ertc showed (hd1,1) repeat (hd1,1) became amoeba (x93) (from linux x83); now no OS on (hd1) will boot any longer
Last boot time in future problem when fsck'd for all (hd1,n) n=2->14.
GRUB now hangs on all (hd1,n) sometimes after finding a kernel.
Any way this was only an experiment. Maybe I'll try again soon.
Thnx for your +ve feedback and Happy BSD'ing.
260 • re: 259 (by Caraibes on 2007-09-28 14:54:41 GMT from Dominican Republic)
To help ZK Dabek, try use the "SuperGrubDisk", it makes miracles !!!
Find it here :
http://geocities.com/supergrubdisk/
261 • re 260 (by re 260 on 2007-09-28 15:39:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thnx for your suggestion "SuperGrubDisk". I made a copy a few days ago just in case I had problems. Unfortunately I have so far found no solution using SuperGrub. I continue to read around the "murky waters" of booting, partitioning and filesystems. It seems that there is very narrow path for a system to work and a very big multidimensional universe for it to go astray. Robustness is not a feature.
262 • Thanks, Caraibes! (by JohnF on 2007-09-28 16:06:55 GMT from United States)
:)
263 • @241 (by someone on 2007-09-28 17:05:37 GMT from Aruba)
Huh? What the hell does your comment refer to?
264 • PCLinuxOS and Mandrive (by DrDOS on 2007-09-28 17:36:52 GMT from United States)
@254 On the home page PCLinuxOS makes plain it Mandriva roots, but people need to know that much has been changed and repackaged. Other distros packages have been used too. You can't go to the Mandriva repositories and use them for software without risking damage to your installation. Like many other forks pclos is evolving into a separate entity.
265 • @238 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-28 18:09:08 GMT from Canada)
It's a known bug in RC2 with a certain range of (very common) IDE controllers. It's already fixed in Cooker for quite a while, and will be fixed in the final release. The bug report is here:
http://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=33043
if you do a reinstall from current Cooker, or wait for final, it'll be fixed. If you just want to fix your RC2 install, you'll need to change it from using the generic IDE driver to using the correct one for your controller, I think there's info on how to do this in the bug report discussion.
266 • @264 and previous (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-28 18:11:10 GMT from Canada)
What Caraibes is unhappy about is the response of one user in the PCLOS forum, who did not accept that PCLOS 2007 is based on Mandriva Linux 2007, which is the case. But as far as I know caudell is not involved in PCLOS development, and it's not fair to hold PCLOS itself or its maintainers responsible for caudell. So Caraibes' complaint is legitimate but it's with one particular member of the PCLOS forums, not PCLOS himself. As I think we all agree, the PCLOS project and Tex acknowledge that PCLOS 2007 was built on Mandriva 2007, everyone is in agreement there.
267 • Linux and Wireless (by Landor on 2007-09-28 20:01:23 GMT from Canada)
We talked about codecs and stuff for a bit so I thought I'd add a new experience. lol
A little while ago my switch finally gave up the ghost and I have no need for a switch anymore and decided to go for just a router instead, wireless of course. It was a little redundant because I bought a wireless router and everything was wired after I set it up.
Which leads me to lastnight. I don't understand really why so many people have such a hard time with wireless, especially if they have a dual boot with windows.
Anyway, I bought two wireless cards as a start for our network here and low and behold, though the chipset wasn't supported, with ndiswrapper, and then configuring gentoo manually, it was a piece of cake. I basically duplicated the procedure on the other gentoo box and it worked perfect.
The reason I kept it wired for so long was because I was too lazy to want to put in the effort that it "seemed" to be like from all the issues I see with people and wireless. It's flawless and I have a 98% signal strength and I haven't seen a drop in thoroughput at all. I really don't understand why it's so hard for people.
Anyway, just another great thing about Linux, and another reason to stay away from the Redmond Evil.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
268 • re: 266 (by Caraibes on 2007-09-28 20:06:41 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I think Adam summed it all.
As of me, I have got plenty of respect for the PCLOS people. I have been using their distro on and off since p.0.91... I don't have a problem with them. I enjoy participating in their forum too, since many years...
I am mostly a Fedora user, but I think it is fair mentioning Mandriva when talking about PCLOS. The whole matter started because there was this thread about an eventual next release. I wrote that it would be a good idea to wait for the final release of Mandriva 2008, so then PCLOS would have an updated base on which building.
Then another poster (Caudell) stated this nonsense, this is what triggered my serie of posts...
I didn't mean to be unpleasant, as I enjoy reading all of you guys posts !
I just spoke my mind...
269 • Distro Diversity (by James M. Dyer on 2007-09-28 20:22:39 GMT from United States)
I think the diversity of Linux distros is good.
Like with cars, coffee, or books, the diversity serves to broaden the user-base, no single distro will satisfy everyone, so please stop fighting over which is the best, they are all good in their own way.
270 • 267 (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 20:29:52 GMT from United States)
It's true, most wireless is pretty easy to get going on Linux. I had the same fears as you, then a few months ago went to wireless with little difficulty. I even had one USB wireless adapter that was plug and play in Linux (Fedora, so there was nothing proprietary). Just plug it in and three seconds later you have access. Much easier than Windows, which requires a driver and rebooting and then on Vista has tons of disconnects.
The worst is probably Broadcom, but even that wasn't difficult once I found instructions.
271 • chart (by Vytas on 2007-09-28 20:47:34 GMT from N/A)
That sry but stupid chart about security is so misleading.
At all mesuring security with only 2 parameters is so lame. :(
And also let say Arch. Yes it has no security mailing list but who cares? It has huge FIRST part of forum for security qestions.
So it was just mistake to write those conclusions withong gathering deeped into things.
And at all with those news this site is talking good things about top 5 and last 50, and tries to mix with trash top ~5-20 distros on its list. WHY???
272 • @268 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-28 22:09:41 GMT from Canada)
Tex does not rebase against every Mandriva release. He's only ever based PCLOS twice: for the 0.9.x 'era', which was based on Mandrake 9.2, and the 2007 'era', which was based on Mandriva 2007. There were four releases between 9.2 and 2007, and there's already been one release since 2007 (2007 Spring). Tex has said he would have avoided rebasing against Mandriva 2007 if he could, but PCLOS's base was getting antiquated and he did not have the manpower to refresh it independently, so he chose to rebase against MDV 2007. Given that, I don't think he will choose to rebase against 2008. I think he intends to continue to develop PCLOS on the 2007 base. There will probably come a point in future where he faces the same problem again - the 2007 base becomes too antiquated to work with - and he'll have to choose whether to update it independently (which would, I think, be his preferred option if he has the development muscle by then), rebase against a different distro (Fedora or Ubuntu, for instance), or rebase against the newest release of Mandriva at that point.
I expect that time would come around the end of year 2008, maybe.
273 • Re post #263 Aruba (by Anonymous on 2007-09-28 22:35:56 GMT from Canada)
Sorry for confusion (my post 241)
As was I until checking further illustrated >
(Back translating attempts proved dBrion was correct) _
On-line translating 1 > 2 then back 2> 1
Showed:
~ So much for on-line 'translators" they output garbage.
---------------------------------------------
It was badly distorted; The English original in essence:
===================================================================
"Perhaps this was a difficulty in choosing a translator for Swedish languages -
there are 15 recognised
As an example - I ran one French posting through - (in French) they were expressed correctly
Yet his own translation versions varied (incorrectly)"
==============================================================================
You are from Aruba (Lesser Antilles)
(I found) No version to translate Papiemento (your official language since 2003)
A Spanish translation was tried _ in referrence to:
http://www.aruba.com/about/language.php
=============================================================
I contend - it illustrates why any 'mother tongue' may be used
if/when English is problematic to postings
For any people who deride & maliciously post they cannot 'understand' posts
in own correct English -> there will be no sonority nor cure for discomfort of mind
If Mr Bodnar had time/infinite patience then needed - and Modded to restrict submissions to focus on his articles -
It may still fail - Version specific forums often contain dedicated "Off-Topic" headers
Even they get out of control
The WEB itself is hampered by necessity to operate on "honour system"
Results speak for themselves
274 • Re: 272 (by Caraibes on 2007-09-28 22:52:49 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Well, thanks for the explanation, Adam ! I think no one ever explained the whole PCLOS history as clear as you just did !
Anyway, let me congratulate the PCLOS team for their #1 rank in DW, and let me then congratulate the Mandriva team for making that possible by providing a good base (2007)...
As stated somewhere else, I have a good feeling about the upcoming 2008 version from Mandriva. I plan to dual-boot it with my actual Fedora 7 work-horse, sticking to a 100% Gnome environment, so I can get to kick its tires and give some feedback...
I have been too busy between work, kids, and swimming to test any of the beta releases...
I have one of my Debian (Gnome/Fluxbox) boxes that has a partition waiting for a KDE only Mandriva 2008 (one has to vary the pleasures...).
275 • AntiX 7 RC 1, Sabayon 3.4mini, and Mint 3.1 (by Soloact on 2007-09-28 23:28:22 GMT from United States)
Doing some testing on an old Laptop with an AMD K6-2 CPU.
When testing these 3 different Distros, I got the following:
Mint 3.1: although a bit sluggish, it works.
Sabayon 3.4mini: tried this one because of the Gentoo-base that supposedly compiles per the CPU, but all I got was "Kernel Panic, CPU too old for kernel". Okay, I can live with that, as Sabayon wants to stay on top of the "cutting edge", so it doesn't work with the old lappy.
But
AntiX 7 RC 1, supposedly made to run on older machines, and even says that it supports old processors back to Pentium II, it showed me a nice little message at the start: "Kernel Panic, CPU too old for kernel." That one I won't accept, as it is touted to run with the old CPUs. Don't mention "not enough RAM" problems to me, as that lappy is maxxed at 256MB of RAM. Me thinks AntiX should live up to its' claims. SimplyMEPIS 7 betas give the same message.
Now I have to figure out how to tell the folks at MEPIS about this.
I'll probably just have to repost this in next weeks' DWW to get a response....
Funny thing, I can't get DSL 4 rc4 to run in any of my computers, except this old laptop listed above. Works fine with it.
276 • Adam, that's an interesting point (#266, #272) (by JohnF on 2007-09-29 02:44:05 GMT from United States)
Not only Tex may be facing that decision by the end of 2008. Is it possible that market forces may push the various Linux distros into rebasing on one common codebase (Debian, for example, or possibly Red Hat? ).
Obviously, it's going to be difficult, but I would think that in order to make the next step on the desktop, Linux as a whole is going to have to make it easier for commercial software companies in order to make that happen, and I can't see a lot of third party involvement until they only have to deal with making packages that everyone can use without having to taylor it for the various distros. I'm curious if that discussion has gone in inside of Mandriva as well.
277 • RE: 265 Thanks Adam! (by IMQ on 2007-09-29 03:01:18 GMT from N/A)
It's good to hear that it was a bug, not my hardware, and it's already fixed.
I will try Mandriva 2008 again when the final is out.
Thanks!
278 • Re277 Could this be your fix? (by Anonymous on 2007-09-29 04:08:15 GMT from Australia)
• RE: 265 Thanks Adam! (by IMQ
On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:24:57 GMT, Bit Twister wrote:
> >
> > Has anyone tried burning a DVD on 2008-RC2?
> >
> > On 2008,rc2 I get estimated write speed of 0.8x
> > On 2007.x I get estimated write speed of 4.0x
/etc/modprobe.conf
change install ide-controller /sbin/modprobe ide_generic; /sbin/modprobe atiixp; /bin/true
to install ide-controller /sbin/modprobe atiixp; /bin/true
alt.os.linux.mandriva
279 • @278 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-29 06:25:49 GMT from Canada)
That only applies if your controller is actually correctly handled by atiixp. As I recall, this bug affects several different types of IDE controller, so you must make sure you pick the correct driver for your controller, and adapt the line accordingly. :)
280 • @277 N/A ? (by glyj on 2007-09-29 06:36:15 GMT from New Caledonia)
Why do you hide where you are from ?
Does it has such importance ?
++
281 • Re 280...I think its the server here (since DW was rebuilt) (by Observer on 2007-09-29 06:56:38 GMT from Australia)
....that on occasions hides the origin of a poster. It has happened to me, too, and I have done nothing to hide.
282 • PCloss' origins (cf 254 et followings) (by dbrion on 2007-09-29 09:23:11 GMT from France)
are not hidden; However, as some industrials/ university pple may be very sharp on a mild/civilised form of intellectual property (ideas/softs may wander freely, as long as their origin is aknowledged) , PCloss loovers may be a nuisance to Pclos (and, by extension....). => during Holy days, it does not that matter, else?
Les origines de PClos ne sont pas cachées; cependant, connaissant la sensibilité des industriels et surtout des universitaires à une forme civilisée de propriété intellectuelle (les idées/logiciels sont libres de circuler , tant qu'on cite leur origine), l'amour irréfléchi de certains fanatiques de PCloss peut nuire à PClos (et par extension...)
Ceci n'a pas de conséquences pendant les vacances, mais le reste du temps?
283 • Translated (post 282) (by Anonymous on 2007-09-29 09:43:53 GMT from Canada)
dBrion (Plse excuse this & one time only - Hope you approve)
This is output of translator :
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The origins of PClos are not hidden; however, knowing the feelings of the industrialists and especially of academics in a civilised form of intellectual ownership (ideas / software are free to circulate, as long as they name their origin), the ill-considered love of certain fanatics of PCloss can harm PClos (and by extension...)
This does not have consequences during vacation, but rest of time?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PS - Backwards trarnslating -- above Fr _> English
scrambles content
284 • Bug in Mepis (by Bryan on 2007-09-29 10:43:48 GMT from Canada)
@275
While I suppose you could keep posting Mepis kernel bugs in the DWW forum, I don't think Ladislav is a developer for Mepis. Maybe Warren reads the DWW forum, but your better bet would be to post on the Mepis forums at either http://www.mepis.org/forum or mepislovers.org - You will probably get an answer faster that way...
285 • PCLOS rebase in the future (by davecs on 2007-09-29 10:46:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think the various posts have clarified how PCLOS got where it is today. For the future, it depends how long before the v4 compilers become too much of a problem. PCLOS managed to keep the v3 compilers for about 3 years, during which time each release was merely a snapshot and you could upgrade from one to the next. It's far too early in the life of the current compilers to predict how long it will be before source code will be incompatible with them.
As for PCLOS 0.4 to 0.93a, it was becoming impossible to keep up. I know that Texstar had to hack a few source files to get them to compile, and some wireless stuff, and the newer kernels were a complete no-go.
Anyway, the GPL being what it is, we are seeing a load of specialist (and a few general) distros now basing themselves off PCLOS and using its repos too. What goes around, comes around.
The real beneficiaries of all this are Linux users and Linux itself. The GPL makes all our (that is, all of us involved in Linux, all distributions) ideas available to everyone else, and all improvements/ideas can be adopted by any of us, and so the wheel turns and Linux can get better and better.
286 • @273 (by someone on 2007-09-29 12:59:39 GMT from Aruba)
Oh, I see where you're coming from. :-) So you're saying he's using an online Swedish-English translator which is why the sentence looks a bit like he's demanding something. Now I understand...perhaps you're right. I usually take people who respond like that as trolls, but in his case it's the online translator that's mangling what he's trying to say.
287 • Video Support (by MrCorey on 2007-09-29 15:33:05 GMT from Canada)
I love the way that things are going with x.org with all the 3D stuff and the composite support. And, I especially like that ATI is finally stepping up. Its too bad, though, that there isn't more work done with the R300 and RV350 chipsets. I'm stuck with using x.org versions 7.0 and before, as anything newer breaks something and the machine hard locks with something as simple as scrolling down a page in my browser. I don't think that a Radeon 9550 256MB is such an old card that it shouldn't get support too, but it looks like there's going to be a gap between the 9250 and the "X" series of cards. I hope that changes.
288 • RE: 278 (by IMQ on 2007-09-29 16:33:29 GMT from N/A)
My mainboard is a Asus A7N8X which I believe using nVidia IDE controller. I don't think your suggestion would wotk, but thanks.
Anyway, I already installed a different distro over the Mandriva one. For now. I will definitely try the final release when it comes out to see if the problem goes away.
Overall I think Mandriva is coming along nicely. I really like the new menu layout better than the default KDE. One level to access applications instead of 2,3 level deep. I prefer the single level menu like GNOME or XFCE, I think. By the way, I don't like the new KDE style menu like that of SabayonLinux. Eye-candy and all that but too many point-and-click, IMHO.
289 • @288 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-09-29 17:01:53 GMT from Canada)
I happen to have an A7N8X-E Deluxe in my HTPC. try this one:
install ide-controller /sbin/modprobe amd74xx; /bin/true
290 • PC-BSD, install booting with GAG (re 257 -> 261) (by Jan O on 2007-09-29 18:17:04 GMT from Netherlands)
Install PC-BSD into a partition, without bootloader.
Install GAG.
At booting the PC, select from the GAG-menu S (setup) and N (new), among the partitions the one with PC-BSD displayed, select it to be showed in the boot-menu, store (H for HD).
For Linux-distros, you need to install the GRUB-bootloader into the distro-partition. Then you can also use GAG to start them at PC-booting.
GAG offers a much simpler and safer (against GRUB-disasters) than GRUB. And PC-BSD shows it is possible to work without bootloaders like GRUB or LILO. (I hate GRUB and LILO because of the PC-disasters they gave me: (seemingly) no booting anymore in any OS (however untill now I was able to rescue/repair all).
I think GRUB and LILO disasters are a show-stoppers for the new/unexperienced Linux users.
Best Regards
Jan O
291 • PCBSD (by Z K Dabek on 2007-09-29 18:33:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thnx for the comments. I have to recover the partition table on (hd1) before I can boot anything. gpart gives my correct partition setup which I saved prior to installing PCBSD. I'm sure that I could boot with GRUB if the partition table were still intact. I will recover the partition table when I have time using fdisk or parted so that I can again boot. (could even use hex editor and patch the appropriate disk sectors. The big question is why did the partition table corruption happen... I'm not happy with that? hence my !!WARNING!!
Maybe GRUB is not so robust although I use it all the time and it should work according to the docs.
292 • Gnome is exellent (by David Short on 2007-09-29 21:47:32 GMT from Germany)
This new Gnome version looks very sleek and stable.
I think the improvements on RTL-support are very helpful indeed.
Thank you for sharing this great news with me !
293 • Distro for Web Site/Server (by James M. dyer on 2007-09-29 22:27:18 GMT from United States)
I am trying to find a distro that includes software/packages to run the following services.
BBS or Forum coupled with a Photo Gallery System.
- I like the looks of the Demonoid and DistroWatch Forums, clean, easy to read.
- Allows registered forum users to post their photos.
E-mail system.
- To handle my site's incoming/outgoing mails, NOT be a public e-mail service.
I know that many distoro's package list includes the Apache Web Server, PHP, Perl, MySQL, and 2 or 3 E-mail Systems, but I don't know the names of the major Linux-based forums or photo gallery packages.
Any help/suggestions are greatly appreciated.
294 • Back-issues of "Linux Format Magazine" in PDF? (by James M. Dyer on 2007-09-29 22:50:35 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know if the back-issues of the world's BEST Linux mag, "Linux Format Magazine" are available in PDF format?
295 • re: 284's reply to 275 (by Soloact on 2007-09-29 22:54:33 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the link, Bryan, that is what I was looking for, just didn't know how to ask for what I needed.
I went there, and found that it is a common bug that they're working on.
After all, I'm just an end-user, not a Linux expert.
Oh, and SimplyMEPIS 6.5.x loaded just fine on the old lappy, and is fast compared to the sluggishness of LinuxMint 3.0 KDE, so that's a good place for me to start.
Have a great today!
296 • Re: 295 LXF Back Issues (by Soloact on 2007-09-29 22:58:05 GMT from United States)
Hi James, you can check
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=4&page=1
where it gives you an International phone that you can call to ask them about the LinuxFormat back issues.
297 • RE: 296 (by James M Dyer on 2007-09-29 23:05:24 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the info, Soloact!
298 • hardware driver (by Anonymous on 2007-09-30 00:04:22 GMT from Germany)
missed hardware driver will be always a linux problem, now i am looking for new printer all-in-one printer of lexmark driver.
299 • RE: 289 --Question (by IMQ on 2007-09-30 01:13:50 GMT from N/A)
Hi Adam,
Tell me if I understand correctly: Am I to edit the /etc/modprobe.conf and add the line you suggested to it (all on a same line)?
I have never had this type of problem so I just want to make sure I understand it.
I can re-install RC2 and test out this suggestion because it stirs my curiosity to possible solution.
A quick question: Can I upgrade RC2 to final or do I need to do a clean install?
Thanks!
300 • RE: 289 --Follow up on your suggestion (by IMQ on 2007-09-30 03:35:01 GMT from N/A)
Hi Adam,
Well, I tried the suggestion and there is no change.
Here was the test result running 'hdparm' command:
hdparm -tT /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 926 MB in 2.00 seconds = 462.28 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 8 MB in 3.68 seconds = 2.17 MB/sec
Before trying the Mandriva, I ran the same test under BeaFanatIX 2006.2 R4 and the result is something like double for Timing cached reads (~800 MB/s) and "Timing buffered disk reads" approx. 60 MB/s
I hope the final will not have this problem...
FYI, the original modprobe.conf has this
alias eth0 forcedeth
alias sound-slot-0 snd_intel8x0
install scsi_hostadapter /sbin/modprobe usb_storage; /bin/true
install usb-interface /sbin/modprobe ohci_hcd; /sbin/modprobe ehci_hcd; /bin/true
alias ra0 rt2500
alias ieee1394-controller ohci1394
install ide-controller /sbin/modprobe ide_generic; /sbin/modprobe amd74xx; /bin/true
I changed the line
install ide-controller /sbin/modprobe ide_generic; /sbin/modprobe amd74xx; /bin/true
to
install ide-controller /sbin/modprobe amd74xx; /bin/true
then
install ide-controller /sbin/modprobe ide_generic; /bin/true
with the same result. (reboot with each change)
Strange problem I would say.
I'll wait for the final to give it another spin.
Thanks all for reading.
301 • Translation no help! (by AW on 2007-09-30 23:33:02 GMT from United States)
DistroWatch has been set as my browser start page for many years. I guess you could call me a DistroWatch groupie. Although I haven't changed distributions since Mint Bea (currently running Bea through Celena on various computers), I still read intently everything that I find on DistroWatch (including comments), with the hope of finding some new nugget of knowledge. Therefore, when I come across comments written in a language that I neither read nor speak, I naturally fear that I may be missing something about my beloved Linux.
It was in expressing frustration about this situation that I inadvertently set off a firestorm about language last week. Sorry about that.
So, taking Dbrion's advice, I Google translated all of his French remarks from this week, only to find out that I understood them just as well in French as in English.
302 • French, English, Spanish, German, etc. Happy watching! (by Fractalguy on 2007-09-30 23:51:45 GMT from United States)
"I understood them just as well in French as in English."
My experience also. I think it is best if dbrion uses google and if he finds it miss translated given his language ability, then he can fix it, and then post in English. Otherwise there will be a lot more ignoring, shrugs, rants, and fights. First thing needed, get the communication channel working. I have been using Google with my very poor language training to some success on some other forums. It does take patience.
Anyways, I've finally after searching for 4 years, just about made up my mind on my distro world: Debian and derivatives it is for me. So - until something new or interesting shows up, I'm settling in. Happy watching! :)
303 • Something new ? I've heard something (by glyj on 2007-10-01 00:59:54 GMT from New Caledonia)
The mandriva club could soon be dead and many things becoming free (of charge) : documentation, forums, blogs, knowledge bases, training course, etc…
link:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Flezardbreton.info%2Fblog%2F2007%2F09%2Fle-club-mandriva-est-mort.html&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=fr&ie=UTF8
actually, it's not official, yet.
added to that : Cooker is wider open to the community, ie : Contributors have more rights. (It's like that for quite a while now )
If I'm wrong, can someone correct me ? ( Adam W. ? )
regards,
glyj
304 • Re:302 (by AW on 2007-10-01 02:26:53 GMT from United States)
Agree completely with your distro choices.
I played with Debian back about 93, then I learned about the fantastic new package management system called RPM, so I switched to Red Hat. I even went to school at their Raleigh campus. After one too many times in dependency hell, I went back to Debian and derivitives. I won't say that Deb packages and apt-get with it's various frontends can't be beat, but so far I haven't found anything better. I do try anything new that comes down the pike, as I have time, but since 98 all my serious work computers have been Debian/Debian derivitieve based.
Guess we'll have new subject to discuss in about 8 houre (new DWW)
Happy computing,
305 • I tried suse Linux. I now use PCLinuxOs, Debian, Red Hat , Slackware. (by Distrowatch Reader on 2007-10-01 02:29:59 GMT from United States)
Groklaw Screams in outrage. "My opinion is that Novell offers MonopoLinux, if you will, which damages all other Linux vendors, users, and programmers. They are unabashedly making money from Microsoft's patent saber rattling, even while claiming there are no patents infringed. But the threat is there, and they are benefiting from that fear, by advising people to avoid the threat by using only their products. Shame._
306 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 04:51:55 GMT from United States)
"by advising people to avoid the threat by using only their products"
And if I said the tooth fairy would get upset if you use PCLinuxOS, would you care? What makes Novell an expert on IP issues beyond the expertise of the world's lawyers?
I'm so sick of this complete nonissue coming up.
307 • Cor 304 (by dbrion on 2007-10-01 06:21:32 GMT from France)
s/derivitives./derivatives/..... among many other typos ... dans votre langue que vous prétendez souveraine....
308 • Re;307 (by Welkiner on 2007-10-01 07:16:19 GMT from United States)
It's Official...dbrion is now the official spelling editor for DistroWatch Weekly.
Watch your p's and q's (I don't really know how to spell p's and q's, but I'm sure that dbrion will tell me.
...and who said anything about a sovereign language...I thought I read all the comments, but i missed that one.
Number of Comments: 308
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| • Issue 1000 (2023-01-02): Our favourite projects of all time, Fedora trying out unified kernel images and trying to speed up shutdowns, Slackware tests new kernel, detecting what is taking up disk space |
| • Issue 999 (2022-12-19): Favourite distributions of 2022, Fedora plans Budgie spin, UBports releasing security patches for 16.04, Haiku working on new ports |
| • Issue 998 (2022-12-12): OpenBSD 7.2, Asahi Linux enages video hardware acceleration on Apple ARM computers, Manjaro drops proprietary codecs from Mesa package |
| • Issue 997 (2022-12-05): CachyOS 221023 and AgarimOS, working with filenames which contain special characters, elementary OS team fixes delta updates, new features coming to Xfce |
| • Issue 996 (2022-11-28): Void 20221001, remotely shutting down a machine, complex aliases, Fedora tests new web-based installer, Refox OS running on real hardware |
| • Issue 995 (2022-11-21): Fedora 37, swap files vs swap partitions, Unity running on Arch, UBports seeks testers, Murena adds support for more devices |
| • Issue 994 (2022-11-14): Redcore Linux 2201, changing the terminal font size, Fedora plans Phosh spin, openSUSE publishes on-line manual pages, disabling Snap auto-updates |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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Your own personal Linux computer in the cloud, available on any device. Supported operating systems include Android, Debian, Fedora, KDE neon, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro and Ubuntu, ready in minutes.
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| Random Distribution | 
Red Office Linux
RedOffice was a Chinese office software based on OpenOffice. The developers have released a Linux version bundled with a complete operating system - RedOffice Linux 0.98.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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