 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 222, 1 October 2007 |
|
Welcome to this year's 40th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! PC-BSD is fast becoming a highly usable alternative to Linux on the desktop and the project's latest release, version 1.4, is the most feature-full desktop FreeBSD ever. But can it stand tall against Linux? Read our review to find out. In the news section: openSUSE begins uploading the 10.3 CD images, Mandriva abandons its "Club" subscription service, Clement Lefebvre defends multimedia codecs in Linux Mint, Sabayon promises more bleeding-edge features in version 3.5, and Ubuntu closes on the upcoming "Gutsy Gibbon" release with a bunch of interesting new features. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the DistroWatch.com September 2007 donation goes to Damn Small Linux. Happy reading!
Content:
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
|
| Reviews |
First look at PC-BSD 1.4 (by Susan Linton)
PC-BSD 1.4 was released last week and I was quite anxious to test it. I had looked at a couple of earlier versions and I was always quite impressed at the work this small development team was doing. PC-BSD is based on FreeBSD and this release is built using 6.2-STABLE. FreeBSD can still be a bit intimidating to some users, but PC-BSD works to eliminate that. In fact, PC-BSD is so user-friendly it might be considered the Ubuntu of free BSDs.
PC-BSD always performed very well on my home-made built-for-Linux desktop, but how would it support the hardware of an off-the-shelf "Designed for Windows XP" HP Pavilion laptop? Many a Linux have failed this test to some degree or another, so it was with great anticipation that I booted the first of two install CDs.
Installation
The installer is very much like many of the Linux installers I've used. It's basically a graphical wizard that gathers important information needed, such as drive selection, package choices, bootloader preference, and user account details. As no real partitioner is included, it took quite a bit of fancy fdisk footwork before I could get past the drive selection step. My laptop had Windows XP on an NTFS partition on the first 20 gigabytes of the drive and the remainder was an extended partition containing various Linux installs and a FAT32 system restore partition at the end. I didn't need 20 gigabytes for Windows and thought I could resize that to 15 and use five gigabytes for PC-BSD. To make a boring story short, I ended up deleting my whole partition table and remaking it so that new partition would be sda2 and sda5 for FreeBSD. It was then that PC-BSD could find its new home.
The remainder of the installer is as easy as one could get. One of the more interesting aspects is the package selection. It's simplified and not overly extensive, but it offers the opportunity to enhance your system. The basic PC-BSD system is installed without any options for the user, but one can then choose to install extra components such as Firefox, Opera, K3b, Games, KOffice or OpenOffice.org, Software Development Kit, Source Code, and Ports tree. Once you make your selections, a nice slide show displays while your system is being installed. As with my desktop in earlier tests, the installation on my laptop with a SATA hard drive completed with no problems or errors.
The boot screen offers several boot choices such Default, with no ACPI, Safe Mode, Single user, and run Display Wizard. I usually use the default option, but choosing the run Display Wizard option does just that. Upon first boot of your system you will encounter a display setup wizard that asks which resolution, bit depth, and driver you'd like to use. For my NVIDIA chip, I tried the three proprietary NVIDIA graphic driver options, but none would work for me. I ended up using "nv" and setting the resolution to 1280x800 as desired. Choosing the second option of no ACPI and the third, Safe Mode, resulted in rebooting the machine.
The desktop
At the desktop we have a full KDE 3.5.7 decorated with a nice gradient blue wallpaper with a white PC-BSD logo in the lower right corner. It's a tidy arrangement with only a few icons on the desktop, three icons in the quick launcher, and I had five icons in the system tray. The applets in the system tray consist of Klipper, Kalendar, Kmix, Network Manager, and for me a battery monitor. The quick launchers include Show Desktop, System Menu, and Konqueror. The window decoration used is Crystal and the style is Lipstik. All together we have a pretty and tidy desktop.
PC-BSD desktop with Online Update Manager
(full image size: 266kB, screen resolution: 1280x800 pixels)
Primarily KDE applications occupy the menu, but there are a few other entries such as the tools in the Settings menu and whatever extra components chosen during install. There seemed to be a bit of lag in the menu operation sometimes, but most applications opened in average or above average time.
Some of the applications found include Kcalc, Kate, KSpaceDuel, Kview, Kopete, Kontact, Amarok and Kaffeine. The Firefox version available for easy installation is 2.0.0.6, Opera 9.23 is available, and the OpenOffice.org version is 2.2.1. Under the hood we find X.Org 7.2 and GCC 3.4.6. As shipped, PC-BSD multimedia support is very good. I could watch Google videos, Apple Quicktime trailers, and other Flash movies, although streaming DIVX didn't work. I could enjoy various file formats stored locally such as .avi, .bins, .mp3s, and .mp4s, as well as watch encrypted DVDs and listen to audio CDs.
Software
PC-BSD developers are doing everything they can think of to make installing software easy for the user. There are several routes one can take. The first method starts with an icon on the desktop labelled Download PBIs. Click on this icon to open a browser at the PC-BSD pbiDIR. Listed here are many packages in which users might be interested. These include World of Warcraft, Chromium B.S.U., GIMP 2.4.0rc1, Google Picasa 2.2, and many more. There are several categories such as chat, development, multimedia, graphics, and themes. Just navigate to the desired application and download it. Click on the file to open an install wizard, very reminiscent of the self-extracting installer used in the Windows world. I tested several of these and they all worked very well including putting an icon in the menu. Just be careful to notice if the application is current, as I found some that were for older versions of PC-BSD.
Another method for installing software is found in the Settings menu. It's called Add / Remove Software and it is used to install or remove those installed from the CDs. Again, this worked really well for me. I tested it after install to add the source code and Ports tree.
The Ports tree is another method for installing software. It contains software ported to FreeBSD and includes many applications, some of which are already included in PC-BSD. It includes games, system/user commands, cryptography code, and some system tools and utilities. There is a README in the top level of the Port directory with more information on structure, how to use them, and where to get further information. The little I tested of this process worked well.
Another method is using pkg_add, pkg_delete, and pkg_info at the command line. These are very similar to apt-get or urpmi. pkg_add downloads packages from remote mirrors (with the -r switch) and installs them. This is probably my favorite method and it too works really well.
Also found in the Settings menu is an Online Update Manager. It checks to see if your system is up to date. Mine was, but it appears that if any updates were available, it would list them and give the user a chance to choose their updates. In addition, there is a PBI Update Manager as well. Similarly, it checks if any of the packages installed through the PBI system are out of date and updates them if needed. Again, all mine were current, so I didn't get to test the full functionality at this time.
Tools and utilities
Other types of handy tools are also found in the Settings menu. One such is a firewall configuration application. It allows for starting or stopping your firewall, setting it to run at boot, and advanced options such as which ports to open or what kind of traffic to allow. Also found is a system Services Manager, which allows you to set what services start at boot.
Another useful utility is the System Manager. I found it to be the most interesting. One function it performs is generating a snapshot of your system which it saves to a text file. It contains all your hardware details, partitions and mounts, and some of your system settings, services, and processes. Another function is allowing some kernel choices. One can change their kernel, DMA setting, and boot delay. In another tab you can run cvsup to populate or update your Ports tree. And in the last tab you can choose to show a boot splash and in what language.
There aren't any graphical hardware configuration tools. PC-BSD's philosophy is if your hardware is supported it will be automatically detected. If it's not, you need to write a driver.
Hardware detection for this laptop was fairly good. The display worked as configured, the sound worked upon login, my touchpad was accurate and responsive, and my USB mouse was operative. The wired Ethernet chip worked out-of-the-box and a connection was made "automagically" upon boot or at plug-in. Inserting removable media brings up the KDE media dialog and icons appear on the desktop. I found that it could read NTFS and FAT file system just fine, but it didn't have support for Linux partitions at the ready.
However, the item of most interest to me is the wireless chip. Granted it is dependent upon a Windows driver and requires NDISwrapper. Occasionally I run across a Linux distribution in which it will not work. Yet I still had hopes for PC-BSD. Free BSD clones use an application known as Ndis for this purpose. Although the process is very similar to what I use with Linux, I consulted a couple of HOWTOs in my attempts before giving up and plugging in a 25-foot Ethernet cable leading to my router. While Googling, I saw where some folks had success with similar chips to mine, so it may not be entirely impossible. I just didn't have any luck.
Hardware support
I was a bit disappointed that neither the included NVIDIA 3D graphics drivers nor the one listed on the PBI page would work with my NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 chip. I even tried the drivers straight from NVIDIA's site with no luck. I've used NVIDIA graphic drivers with free BSD clones before, so I was a bit surprised. As a result, I didn't get to test the included CompizFusion 0.5.2.
Also a bit disappointing was no support for notebook battery power saving features. There are some components in the Ports tree and one could rebuild the kernel if so desired. But as default, don't expect any CPU scaling or suspend options.
There are resources for those that might like support. The first element is the Quick Guide icon on the desktop. This opens a browser with lots of links to helpful topics. These guides range from where to get help to network configuration, installing applications and adding hardware. There are also guides for setting up a firewall, adding new users, and troubleshooting. If your need further assistance there is an online Knowledge Base & FAQ, an active support/discussion forum, and several mailing lists.
Conclusion
So, all in all pros minus cons, PC-BSD is an amazing project. It allows many to experience the benefits of BSD clones who otherwise might not be able to. On the desktop it would be a wonderful alternative for the experienced and inexperienced alike. Additionally, it could possibly work out on a laptop for users who are willing to get some virtual dirt under their nails. PC-BSD is probably the best opportunity to experience "personal computing - BSD style."
|
| Miscellaneous News |
openSUSE 10.3 ready for download, Mandriva closes "Club", interview with Clement Lefebvre, PC-BSD and Sabayon Linux updates, Ubuntu "Gutsy" new features
 We'll start this week's news roundup with an exciting piece of information: the ISO images of openSUSE 10.3 have been quietly released to download mirrors over the weekend. The official release announcement should follow on Thursday, but it's nice to see that the download infrastructure is being set up several days in advance to prevent any bottlenecks when the great download rush starts. Just remember that if you have fast Internet connection, you no longer need to download the large openSUSE DVDs; instead, just get the single-CD installation media with either KDE or GNOME for basic installation and add any software packages you need in a post-installation step. openSUSE 10.3 is the project's first release in nearly 10 months; it comes with Linux kernel 2.6.22, X.Org 7.2, a KDE desktop that is based on version 3.5 but includes applications and elements from the upcoming version 4.0, GNOME 2.20, OpenOffice.org 2.3.0, and a long list of other cutting-edge software applications (here are the release notes). All in all, openSUSE 10.3 should be a very interesting release - once you try it out, let us know what you think!
openSUSE 10.3 live CD is a new, experimental feature of openSUSE's latest release
(full image size: 299kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
 Another major distribution with a new stable release out this week is Mandriva Linux. Adam Williamson has emailed DistroWatch to update our readers on the status of the product; pending any last-minute show-stopper bugs, the CD and DVD image generation should start early this week, with "early seeders" likely to receive links to the torrent files as soon as Tuesday. The Mandriva community manager believes that Friday, 5 October, could be the date of the official release announcement. In the meantime, those readers who are interested in finding out more can read all about the new features and improvements in Mandriva Linux 2008 in this article entitled What's New in Mandriva 2008. Finally, one more piece of excellent news for the Mandriva user community: according to this forum announcement (currently in French only), the commercial nature of Mandriva Club is all but history; from now on, anybody interested in Mandriva Linux can simply create a free account at my.mandriva.com and gain access to all available resources, including documentation, ISO images, forums, etc. at no cost. The Mandriva Linux user community is being re-united once again!
* * * * *
 Clement Lefebvre, the founder of the increasingly popular Linux Mint distribution, spoke to Free Software Daily last week. He touched on a wide range of subject, including the ever so controversial topic of multimedia codecs in Linux distributions: "The presence of the codecs is definitely not an innovation, it's a necessity. People do watch DVDs and they do listen to MP3s. There is no out-of-the-box experience without codecs. They need to be installed by default. There are some legal obstacles in distributing them but that only affects a few countries and for the people who actually live in these countries we have a 'Light Edition' without the codecs. The legal landscape is different in every country and to be honest it's more of a user matter than anything else. When users are in doubt we recommend they install the 'Light Edition' but as far as we're concerned it's 100% legal for us to do what we do where we do it. There's a lot of FUD and bullying related to software patents, something that simply has no legal standing where we are and it's time people realize that there is no legislation in the world which is going to prevent us doing anything where that legislation doesn't apply."
* * * * *
 PC-BSD, the first desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD, is rapidly becoming a viable open source alternative to Linux on the desktop. Last week, InternetNews published a brief article covering the release of PC-BSD 1.4 and giving space to project founder Kris Moore. What are the major improvements in the new version? "Our new GUI tools will greatly assist in setting up networking, such as wireless connections, something which had been rather difficult in the past. The X.Org GUI tool also allows the user to easily set their screen resolution, and driver with 3D support on the first boot." On the subject of future plans, Moore has this to say: "We try to have a new release out every six months or so. With 1.4 it took closer to nine months, with several of those months going towards implementing a whole new build process. Now that it's in place, the next release may be closer to the six-month mark, depending upon the release schedule of FreeBSD 7, and KDE 4 of course."
* * * * *
 Speaking about future releases, here is an update on Sabayon Linux, a Gentoo-based distribution renowned for being one of the most progressive and bleeding-edge desktop operating systems available today. Fabio Erculiani: "Things are going well on the Sabayon side, we released a nearly perfect miniEdition last week and that's a good thing from the QA side. Talking about future releases: we are going to have a Professional edition (yeah, the Business edition changed its name) with new artwork soon; we are going to have a new 'Loop' release cycle (3.5 Loop 1) in less than one month with a huge amount of features (Entropy alpha stage included); we are going to publish the new artwork stuff and re-work the whole Sabayon theme that will show up in the upcoming releases." Besides giving us a glimpse of the future, the founder of the project also talks about the state of the relationship between Sabayon and Gentoo Linux. An interesting read!
* * * * *
 Only one short month separates us from the new stable release of Ubuntu, code name "Gutsy Gibbon". What can we expect? A web site called "Tolero's tech notes" has published an excellent summary of all the new features: "Yes, it has finally happened - CompizFusion is now enabled by default on all supporting platforms in Ubuntu 7.10! Now it is labeled as stable, and is believed to work fine just out of the box, or after a proper driver configuration, which in my case was a simple activation of a checkbox in the 'Restricted Drivers Manager' tool and reboot of the computer. There are three pre-configured levels of special effects settings: 'No effects', 'Normal effects' and 'Extra effects'. You can select one of them at the 'Appearance' dialog in the 'Preferences' group of the 'System' menu. To get additional interface with a much greater tweaking possibilities, you have to install a 'compizconfig-settings-manager' package, which is located in the 'universe' repository." Also covered by the article: screen and graphics card configuration, desktop search, printing changes, Firefox 3.0 alpha, GIMP 2.4, OpenOffice.org 2.3 and new features in Linux kernel 2.6.22.
|
| Released Last Week |
Linux Mint 3.1
Linux Mint 3.1, code name "Celena", has been released: "This is Linux Mint 3.1, codename Celena, based on Cassandra and compatible with Ubuntu Feisty and its repositories. New in Celena: mintAssistant - a first-run wizard and lets the user fine-tune the system; mintUpload - allows the user to upload any file smaller than 10MB on the Internet; new artwork; print to PDF; improved stability; improved performance; new tools and upgrades - Firefox was upgraded to version 2.0.0.6, Pidgin to version 2.1.1, mintMenu and mintInstall were upgraded to the latest versions; Tomboy Notes was fixed in order not to show the start note the first time Linux Mint is run, AptOnCD is now installed by default to let the user backup his selection of packages, a new apt command which provides all main features from apt-get, apt-cache and aptitude...." Read the comprehensive release notes for a full list of changes and updates.
Linux Mint 3.1
(full image size: 942kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
PC-BSD 1.4
PC-BSD 1.4, an easy-to-use desktop operating system based on FreeBSD, has been released: "The PC-BSD team is pleased to announce the availability of PC-BSD 1.4. This release is made available via the efforts of many developers and testers, who have spent the past months refining and improving upon the core PC-BSD experience. PC-BSD 1.4 retail editions are now available to be purchased via our store provided by FreeBSDMall.com, or it may be freely downloaded on the 1.4 download page. This release of PC-BSD includes several notable highlights: moving the FreeBSD base version to 6-STABLE; X.Org 7.2; KDE 3.5.7; CompizFusion 0.5.2; support for Flash 7 in native BSD browsers. (Konqueror, Opera, Firefox); official NVIDIA drivers to simplify activating hardware acceleration." Read the release announcement, release notes and changelog for more details.
Asianux 3.0
Asianux 3.0, an enterprise Linux distribution developed jointly by China's Red Flag Linux, Japan's Miracle Linux and Korea's Haansoft, has been released. Some of the new features include: "Support for various hardware platform including IA32, x86_64, IA64, and IBM p-Series; Support for he latest technologies of Intel 32/64-bit Quad-Core, AMD Barcelona, IBM OpenPower; Redcastle, a new and unique kernel-level security function; integrates OpenDrim, the first open source project sponsored by CJK (China, Japan and Korea) governments which provides a distributed resource management environment; first distribution supporting EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) on both IA32 and IA64 platforms; will be certified by main software and hardware vendors such as BEA, CA, Dell, EMC, Emulex, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Oracle, SAP, Symantec, SWSoft, Virtual Iron, VMware." Read the full press release for more information.
Freespire 2.0.3
An updated stable release of Freespire 2.0, with an updated CNR software installation plugin and minor bug fixes, has been released: "Freespire 2.0.3 released including an updated CNR plugin. Key changes: configuration files updated - sources.list (commented out Ubuntu repository sources resolving apt-get upgrade issues); packages upgraded - CNR client (new and improved CNR plugin - version 0.1.2600), Flash 9 plugin (updated to version 9.0.60), KNetworkConf, KNetworkManager, KPlayer (updated from 0.5.3 to 0.6.3), KUser, Sun Java 6 Java Runtime Environment; packages removed: NVU (limitation of space on CD)." Read the brief release announcement on the distribution's user forums.
Pioneer Linux 3.0
Technalign has announced the release of Pioneer Linux 3.0, an Ubuntu-based desktop and server distribution: "Technalign, Inc. has announced the release of the Pioneer Basic Linux 3.0 distributions that include the Basic workstation, MigrationSERVER, and Stagecoach, the combined workstation and server. All Pioneer products are being maintained by Technalign for a period of 7 years. The 7-year life cycle will provide companies a stable release of the operating system for many years to come. All Pioneer Basic products run off a live CD that allows individuals to load the CD and test the workstations and servers before installation. As with all current Technalign operating system releases, each operating system includes a KDE desktop. Those wishing to remove the desktop on MigrationSERVER may do so at will." Read the rest of the press release for further details.
Pioneer Linux 3.0
(full image size: 1,198kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
NimbleX sub100_1
Bogdan Radulescu has announced the first stable release of NimbleX sub100, a Slackware-based live CD that takes less than 100 MB on the CD, but still manages to fit in the KDE desktop. The highlights: "USB installer (slightly better than the one in 2007v2); added K3b so you can burn CDs and DVDs; added support for PDF files; more than 240 webcam models are supported; remote desktop for RDP and VNC protocols; added a modified version of Quax's kweb2mod to use software from the Internet; wizard to create the nimblex.data file to easily save changes; added Parted, iptables, Guarddog, wget, xfsutils, dosfstools, GRUB, gawk, less, unarj and nano." Read the full release announcement for more information.
Absolute Linux 12.0.6
Paul Sherman has announced the availability of an updated release of Absolute Linux, a light-weight modification of Slackware featuring the IceWM window manager. From the changelog: "Midnight Commander, Dillo and Ggradebook added to default packages; XDM updated for nice graphical login, when desired; IceWM update to include menu item to switch between graphical or text-based login, checkers menu item changed for better display; etc package now includes script that switches login type; DevTray - pulled AlsaAudio card handler, this originally had a bug with SB Live cards, takes up memory, and does nothing Absolute does not already do. Also new DevTray icon and tooltip, to avoid confusion; PyAlsaAudio and alsamixergui removed; GIMP updated to 2.4.0rc3; updated handler for GIMP in SendTo for images and PDFs; GQView downgraded to version 2.0.4 due to CPU usage maxing out...." See the full changelog for further info.
Red Flag Linux 6.0
Red Flag Linux 6.0 "Desktop", a Chinese distribution based on the recently announced Asianux 3.0, has been released. As with any past releases, Red Flag Linux 6.0 continues to focus on providing an easy-to-use desktop that resembles the Windows user interface as much as possible and includes a number of Windows-like utilities. New in this release is the inclusion of 3D desktop features with Beryl, updated package management infrastructure with APT for RPM, automatic dual-boot setup, and multi-language support. The distribution uses the latest 2.6.22 kernel with modules for a large number of modern hardware devices and wireless network cards, as well as read/write support to NTFS file systems. On the desktop, the system is built around X.Org 7.2 and KDE 3.5.7, now with automatic mounting of storage devices, and OpenOffice.org 2.2. For more details please see the product features page (in Chinese).
Red Flag Linux 6.0
(full image size: 421kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
|
| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Musix GNU+Linux 1.0R3, 1.0R4, 2.0
The Musix GNU+Linux project has published a roadmap, outlining the likely release dates for the upcoming revisions of the current 1.0 series and also for version 2.0. The next revision, version 1.0R3, is expected on 10 October 2007, while the next major update, Musix GNU+Linux 2.0, is scheduled for release in April 2009. For more information please see the complete roadmap.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
|
| DistroWatch.com News |
Meet Jim Putman, the DistroWatch Podcast guy
 Those readers who enjoy listening to Linux podcasts must have noticed the recent revival of the podcast edition of DistroWatch Weekly. This was made possible by the tireless work of Jim Putman, your new podcast host. I had a pleasure to meet Jim last weekend when we sat down to have a few beers and to talk about Linux and other open source topics. Jim, an electronics engineer, grew up in Wisconsin, USA; after graduating from college, he spent some six years working for Intel, but he left the well-known hardware vendor about a year ago to work as a CTO for a small start-up (Touchmedia) in Shanghai, China.
What made Jim to re-start the DistroWatch podcast? "I was highly impressed with the work of Shawn Milo," says Jim, "and I was disappointed when he announced that he no longer had the time to continue this excellent work. So I decided to step in. I really enjoy DistroWatch and Linux in general and this is my small way of contributing to the community. I do a lot of coding at work, so coming home and recording the podcast is a fairly relaxing activity." How long does it take him to create the podcast?" Right now, it's about four hours, but I hope I can reduced this to around two in the future. The quality of the podcast is not always the best, but I hope that most listeners find it acceptable."
Jim welcomes all feedback, so if you have any suggestions, please send an email to "linuxcaster at gmail dot com" and let him know!
* * * * *
September 2007 donation: Damn Small Linux receives US$350.00
 We are pleased to announce that the recipient of the September 2007 DistroWatch.com donation is the Damn Small Linux project. It receives US$350.00 in cash.
Damn Small Linux was launched in 2003 as a remastered edition of KNOPPIX, reduced to less than 50 MB in size. The release was an instant hit - it succeeded in bringing back to life many an old computer with a light-weight desktop and a bunch of excellent configuration utilities. The more recent versions are also available for installation on USB storage devices and even as specialist images that run inside Windows - no reboot required. However, Damn Small Linux isn't only about software; the project's principal developers - John Andrews, Robert Shingledecker and Christopher Negus - have also written an excellent book entitled The Official Damn Small Linux Book: The Tiny Adaptable Linux That Runs on Anything (published by Prentice Hall). Damn Small Linux is a great project that has enriched the Linux world by giving us a small, but highly usable distribution designed for (not only) old hardware.
As always, this monthly donations programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch and two online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software - LinuxCD.org and OSDisc.com. These vendors contributed US$50.00 each towards this month's donation to Damn Small Linux.
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NdisWrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a PowerPack competition), digiKam ($408) and SabayonLinux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350)
Since the launch of the Donations Programme in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$14,840 to various open source software projects.
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 8 October 2007.
Ladislav Bodnar
|
|
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Ladislav- 366 distributions in the waiting list? (by anonymous on 2007-10-01 09:45:43 GMT from United States)
Will this number ever decrease?
2 • @1 (by txHarleyMan on 2007-10-01 09:54:55 GMT from United States)
Not in the foreseeable future. Why do we have all these distros when Debian is available? :-)
3 • Small guys (by Lobster on 2007-10-01 09:58:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Good to see DSL gain a well deserved award. Puppy Linux 3.00 will hopefully be available today. The small KDE based NimbleX was released last week and well received. Small and tight code from the little guys. The whole Linux community benefit.
4 • RE: 366 distributions in the waiting list? (by ladislav on 2007-10-01 10:03:06 GMT from Taiwan)
No, only 193.
5 • SuSE 10.3 is ready for download from some mirrors... not (by William Barath on 2007-10-01 10:34:21 GMT from Canada)
AFAIK this announcement is incorrect, I could find no 10.3 directory populated on a mirror server. *Please* prove me wrong ;-)
6 • New Month's Resolutions (by Mark South on 2007-10-01 10:35:40 GMT from Switzerland)
A Happy October to all my fellow DWW readers and to those who wear their typing fingers out to keep us entertained.
I would like to suggest that we all make a collective resolution to be nice, pleasant, and civil to each other this week. To that end, I suggest that everyone, instead of raving about their own distro and how superior it is to all the others (#2, you know who you are! :-), should resolve to try one new distro (at least a liveCD one) and try to see its good points.
Over the weekend I tried the newly released AntiX liveCD and was very favourably impressed, it ran so nicely on my troublesome old Toshiba laptop that I installed it there. And I liked the login manager it uses (slim) so much that I installed it on my experimental Lenny box too (no more "startx" for him!).
Have fun everyone, Mark
7 • @6 (by txHarleyMan on 2007-10-01 10:38:34 GMT from United States)
Wow, I didn't realize I said all that.
8 • Thanks (by afonic on 2007-10-01 10:46:52 GMT from Greece)
Great DWW as always!
This month looks like it will be a very interested one. many major distros releasing new versions. If only we had KDE4 too. :)
9 • @5: Opensuse 10.3 GM ready for download! (by stefan on 2007-10-01 10:50:51 GMT from Germany)
the images are (among others) available here:
ftp://ftp.tu-ilmenau.de/mirror/opensuse/distribution/10.3/iso/
http://suse.inode.at/opensuse/distribution/10.3/iso/
i've dowloaded both the x86 and the x64 dvd's and all is well.
now to decide if i am going to run it, stick with Arch or wait for Ubuntu gutsy Gibbon............ Aaargh what to do.
good luck!
stefan
10 • openSUSE 10.3 (by Joaquim Gil on 2007-10-01 10:54:17 GMT from Portugal)
openSUSE 10.3 GM. Most definitely I'll give it a try. Thanks for the news. :)
11 • Damn Small Linux (by fos on 2007-10-01 11:06:09 GMT from United States)
DSL is a great choice for a donation. Thank you for supporting them.
12 • SuSE 10.3/@6 (by William Barath at 2007-10-01 11:06:37 GMT from Canada)
@9, well, forbidden on the HTTP, password on the FTP, so I could neither confirm nor deny.
@6, thanks for tip re: NimbleXsub100, I gave it a spin, it's very responsive, installed on my usb flash under qemu. Note that it requires -m 384, or it suffers from sporadic lockups.
13 • AntiX (by Peter on 2007-10-01 11:14:06 GMT from Netherlands)
Since I replaced PCLinuxOS with Mepis7 beta on my laptop, I've become more and more enthusiastic about it. So I think I'll do what Mark (#6) said and download AntiX and install it on the old PC I will get Wednesday to see how it runs.
Mark, thanks for the suggestion and positivity!
14 • Qu 12 Which does suffer from sporadic lockups? (by dbrion on 2007-10-01 11:14:34 GMT from France)
You cascaded qemu + Antix, and I was very glad to swich from qemu-0.8 to 0.9,as it was less shaky. I could "quickly" test (the accelerator is a prerelease RCx, AFIK) Kaella-Knoppix and DSL this weekend.
15 • Distro season is open ! (by Caraibes on 2007-10-01 11:15:16 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I am delighted that we enter distro season again ! I can't wait to test Mandriva 2008, and I'll also download OpenSUSE 10.3, Gnome CD, to try it as a live-cd.
I also welcome Puppy 3.0. That is always good.
Things are looking great !
16 • Linux+PCBSD (by Z K Dabek on 2007-10-01 11:23:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Beware partition table "corruption" and data loss.
I have suffered from partition table corruption installing PCBSD (which is recoverable using testdisk (in etch and elsewhere)). If there are logical partitions on disk after the *BSD install partiton (slice in unix) then it is very likely to result in data corruption on the following linux logical partitions because of the way the "unix slice partions" are handled. Furthermore, if one, y luck, or good judgement manages to achieve correct uniqueness in partition handling, then it is very likely that any further slice/partition changes will maintain correct correspondence to each installed OS without very careful partition manoevering. To be sure of correct functioning for both linux and unix OSes therefore do not use logical partitions at all, only the four primaries on each hard drive. Safer still, but not essential, it would be better to avoid mixing unix and linux OSes on the same hard drive. Google "linux and BSD" for more detailed explanations.
Z K Dabek
17 • @14, AntiX w/ qemu (by WIlliam Barath at 2007-10-01 11:27:02 GMT from Canada)
currently running Antix using qemu 0.90 and kqemu 1.30 which I believe is an RC but the klog doesn't reflect this.
I had problems building qemu under sidux/x86-64, but the x86-64 system emulator built fine, so I'm running Antix in the qemu-system-x86-64 emulator with kqemu, but without -kernel-kqemu which unfortunately locks up every distro I've tried...
Anyhow, to your question, I found that Antix was unusable with KDE desktop and 128M of ram, despite the sub100 name. In fact it hiccups with 256M of ram, so I gave it 384 and it purrs like a kitten then. Intalled to HD with some swap, I'm sure it would be fine in 256 or even less.
The hiccups are aggravated by the fact that I'm running it in qemu without -kernel-kqemu, which means that when it pages in programs it drops to 14% speed for the block decompression... it pages constantly when there isn't enough RAM, hence the lockups.
18 • @13 re: Mepis/AntiX (by Mark South on 2007-10-01 11:28:21 GMT from Switzerland)
In #13, Peter wrote:
"Since I replaced PCLinuxOS with Mepis7 beta on my laptop, I've become more and more enthusiastic about it. So I think I'll do what Mark (#6) said and download AntiX and install it on the old PC I will get Wednesday to see how it runs."
Good luck with that. I have AntiX on a PII 233MHz with 160MB and 6GB disk. I gave it 320MB of swap and the install took about 1GB. This machine has an old 12" 800x600 screen so I edited the dpi setting in /etc/slim.conf from 96dpi to 72dpi which makes better use of the screen area.
"Mark, thanks for the suggestion and positivity!"
Glad you liked it :-)
19 • New "intel" graphics driver has caused some problems for All distros... (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 11:34:22 GMT from N/A)
....that have pioneered its implementation. For my hardware (915GM board), I can name several of them; fedora 7 ( now fixed in F8 -T2), Pardus 2007, Sidux, openSuse 10.3 (now fixed in RC2), Mandriva 2008 RC2 (minor issue), and latest is Ubuntu 7.10 Beta (several minor issues). I have only tried the live cds of the above distros.
Here is a workaround for openSuse 10.3, should you have any issues:
Older Intel Graphics Chips
Older Intel graphics chips are supported by two drivers ( "i810" and "intel" ). The intel driver is the default on openSUSE 10.3 due to the high demand for features like native mode setting (no longer VESA BIOS based) and RANDR 1.2 support.
When updating to openSUSE 10.3, the i810 driver is not exchanged with the intel driver. Use "sax2 -r" to switch to the intel driver.
The intel driver is still not as stable as i810; use "sax2 -r -m 0=i810" to switch back to i810, if you encounter problems that did not occur previously with the i810 driver. In those cases, consider to open a bug report against the intel driver.
http://www.suse.com/relnotes/i386/openSUSE/10.3/RELEASE-NOTES.en.html
I would also not mind workarounds for switching intel drivers for Mandriva 2008, Fedora 7/8 and Ubuntu 7.10, too. Feel free to post here (brief procedure).
20 • "UbuntuME" -- unfortunate history to that name ... (by just john on 2007-10-01 11:58:05 GMT from United States)
While I wish all the developers and users of Ubuntu Muslim Edition all the best, might I remind whoever came up with the name the disaster that was WindowsME?
21 • re: 12 and pcbsd (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 12:09:31 GMT from United States)
re: 12 [suse downloads]
Try the second link, and then try the torrents. I waited for quite awhile and almost gave up but then I got into the torrent and my download rate is perking up. I don't see any seeds on the torrent I'm on (dvd i386) but that should hopefully change, it had to have started with seeders anyway.
re: pcbsd
A little pet peeve I have with the pcbsd release is that I think that it would be cool for them to automatically give you flash if you install the pbi for firefox or the linux version of firefox. They made it sound in their description as if it was already installed but it wasn't. And of course they are still in flash 7, shouldn't they just so the heck with it and use ndiswrapper to run the latest flash instead? Whatever it's not that important.
22 • Let the testing begin! (by voislav on 2007-10-01 12:22:59 GMT from Canada)
Great read, especially interested in the PC-BSD. This Linux thingy is becoming too popular, time to move on to something more obscure :)
It's really going to be an interesting season with all the new releases coming out. I just have a little comment regarding Clem's interview, it's amazing how few people it takes to maintain a Linux distro these days, derivative and all.
23 • about mandriva and 'club' (by pawel on 2007-10-01 12:37:11 GMT from Poland)
The commercial nature of Mandriva Club is all but history...hmmm, that's great:-)))
24 • No subject (by Seatux on 2007-10-01 12:39:12 GMT from Malaysia)
While in the subject of being nice this week, there is about 2 weeks left in Ramadhan if i am not mistaken. So the opportunity is longer than it seems. Why Ubuntu ME has to be soo green?
25 • waiting list (by Elven on 2007-10-01 12:43:00 GMT from Slovakia)
just 3 months, and the world of open source software will be changed forever... Greenie Linux is comming :D :D :D
26 • @9 And things about Mandriva (by Kensai on 2007-10-01 13:39:01 GMT from N/A)
@9 stefan, I recommend stick with Arch Linux, it is so much better to have a rolling release than a slow pace security only fixes if you run a home desktop. I have been using Arch for sometime and finally decided to stay with just Arch Linux, I even got rid of Windows Vista, the biggest MS failure after Windows ME, well it is worse than ME.
Nice move for mandriva to be more community friendly, now if I ever have to use an easy desktop or install it to a friend, Mandriva no doubt will be my choice because it offers enterprise like products and has no deals with MS.
Nice DWW as always. Thanks for reading.
27 • Mark South and ME (by Tony on 2007-10-01 13:45:40 GMT from United States)
Thanks Mark for the suggestion and the specs on the machine you have AntiX installed. I'm hopefully going to get my old computer back from my son very soon and it is a 233 as well.
just john - My thoughts exactly with using the "ME" and that shade of green. To each their own...
28 • Ubuntu ME (by Moataz Ashraf on 2007-10-01 13:46:24 GMT from N/A)
Looking forward to using it, together with the new openSUSE, Ubuntu and Mandriva.
And about the Mandriva Club news, that's a good move!
29 • Debian and FreeBSD (by Luis on 2007-10-01 14:15:40 GMT from Spain)
Hi Ladislav,
I thought that after you posted last week about the big difference in the time it takes to run the statistics script between FreeBSD and Debian someone would point you to a solution. Any news? I do think this could be a bug, or if not a bug at least something that should be solved.
Maybe you can download the raw logs to your local machine and try to reproduce the problem (like running the script locally in Ubuntu and PC-BSD and see if the big difference remains). From there you could investigate if it's a bash problem or a kernel problem (I/O related or something else - you could also try ext3 vs. reiserfs, to mount the filesystem with noatime, etc...). I'm sure that someone in LKML would be interested in helping you to solve the issue.
Regards, and thanks for DWW!
Luis.
30 • Most important release (by Light Rider on 2007-10-01 14:16:26 GMT from United States)
this month will be Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. It dwarfs everything else.
31 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 14:28:25 GMT from United States)
>> might I remind whoever came up with the name the disaster that was WindowsME? <<
I think the problem is more the "Windows" part of the name than the "ME"!
32 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 14:30:52 GMT from United States)
>> this month will be Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. It dwarfs everything else. <<
Unless you happen to use Linux, or happen to be interested in Linux, which is what this site is about.
33 • What is next? a distro for every religion. (by Kensai on 2007-10-01 14:31:30 GMT from N/A)
As far as I see I believe every religion will have a distro soon as well, so be prepared for almost 5,000 entries of different distros :D . Since there is an estimate of 4,200 religions in the world. Just some random thinking, if they want to do it go ahead it does not bother me. But I find it funny none the less.
34 • Looking forward (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 14:32:58 GMT from United States)
to the upcoming releases of the heavyweight distros. That will lead to somewhat better comments. It will be the end of PCLOS vs the world, Ubuntu vs the world, and the world against annoying fanbois. At least for a while.
Can't wait. Especially hoping we don't have dumb discussion of languages for a long, long while.
35 • someone has to say it (by EduardoZ on 2007-10-01 14:51:54 GMT from United States)
@3 Good -- looking forward to Puppy 3.0.
@34 The anti-"fanbois" schtick is getting old. As often as not, it's just bias disguised as virtue.
Keep your schtick on ice!
36 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 14:59:03 GMT from United States)
"As often as not, it's just bias disguised as virtue."
Well, whatever the case, this "my distro is better than all others" gets annoying. There's no reason to put down other distros just because yours works well.
Keep the ice on your stick...
37 • #34 (by RC on 2007-10-01 15:08:55 GMT from United States)
Can we not leave the PCLOS/Ubuntu whining out of this for just one week!! Last week was what I hoped would be the zenith of egos and arrogance and things would calm down. I am new to Linux, less than a year. At home I have Mint and PCLOS on my PC's and Puppy on an old laptop. My son has Sam and Puppy on his PC's. I put Sam on my 70 year old mother's and PCLOS on one friend's PC, Ubuntu Christian on another ang Puppy on yet another friend's old laptop.
It seems that many view Linux like a crescent wrench...one wrench (distro) for every job. People like me see it as a tool box with many tools (distro's) and you choose the best one suited for the task at hand. And we will disagree over which tool is best because we all have different viewpoints and preferences. The bottom line is that mine are EXACTLY equal to everyone else's. No more important and no less.
It is ridiculous that everyone that says something good about their choice in distros is a "fanbois" and that everyone that says something negative about someone else's is a "troll". Can we not play like big boys and let everyone read the "non-inflammatory" comments and decide what they want to use? That is what I did. I learned a great deal by the positive and negative comments of individuals and narrowed down my choices, then tried them out. It worked.
Not everyone is going to choose what we choose ourselves...so what! Some of us need to get over ourselves. Many would be Linux users are going to get turned off by the childishness being displayed here. As intelligent individuals and adults we should be able to "disagree agreeably" over these issues and be a positive resource for new people. Not a war zone that will drive them away.
38 • @19, small Mandriva correction (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-01 15:23:33 GMT from Canada)
For #19, there is no workaround for Mandriva, we are only shipping intel, not i810. In our testing (which has been quite extensive, we introduced the new version of the driver right after 2007.1 went out, and quite a lot of maintainers have Intel cards), we've seen no regressions from i810, so there seemed little point shipping that driver too.
Small correction to Ladislav's post: what's happening to the Club is that it's becoming explicitly a download subscription service - i.e. we're splitting off the bit of the Club that has real value (commercial ISO and package downloads) from the bits that don't. All the more 'community' stuff associated with the Club will now be free, and the paid side of things is explicitly simply a one-year subscription to download commercial Mandriva editions and packages.
39 • Ah Distro Season (by Sam on 2007-10-01 15:24:37 GMT from United States)
Looks like I'll have to dust off the testing laptop. Distroseason kinda crept up on me this year!
*openSuSE 10.3 - yay! I've been using the release candidate since it hit the download servers. Other than the suspend to ram issue on my Dell Inspiron laptop, everything I need is working great. I'd been a SuSE user since 9.1 and was EXTREMELY disappointed in the package management quagmire introduced in 10.1. I've honestly been floating around distros ever since and have suffered SUSE withdraw. Glad to be home again :)
*UbuntuME - Alhamdu'illah! Added to the database just in time for Ramadan. But honestly brothers, do we need another linux distro just to distribute Islamic software? Would the world be better served by creating some script-based installation kit that adds all these Islamic packages and maybe some Islamic wallpaper to a standard installation of Ubuntu? Same question goes for the Jesus Fish distro.
*PCBSD - nice distro with some even nicer oxymorons. A BSD for beginners? A beginner's distro that requires fiddling with fdisk? Starting with testing version 1 of PCBSD I gave up on trying to let it rework my partition table -- rely on Partition Magic now for creating a blank partition for trying out any BSD.
40 • PC-BSD (by Sig on 2007-10-01 15:29:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
One of the neat things about v1.4 is the competent upgrade it performs - not all distros can do this. None of the old settings, apps. or files were adversely corrupted or omitted. Do most of my banking with BSD - career criminals as well as the world's wasters are less likely to tangle with such a minority offering. Anyway, it has its own firewall to supplement my router's SPI.
41 • Mandriva Club (by Justin Whitaker on 2007-10-01 15:32:16 GMT from United States)
Well, it's great that the Club is going away, but what are they going to do with us Club members that have money debited from our account each month? Last I checked, Mandriva still wants my money, but there is even less reason to give it to them now.
42 • @41 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-01 15:46:09 GMT from Canada)
see my post above - we're basically just accepting the reality, which is that the only thing that most Club members really pay for is the commercial ISO downloads. The paid side of the Club is becoming explicitly an ISO download subscription, so that's what your account will be for.
43 • Small Linux distros (NimbleX sub100, Damn Small Linux, etc...) (by Caitlyn Martin on 2007-10-01 15:51:35 GMT from United States)
I've been evaluating a number of the small distros for a project I'm working on. NimbleX, both 2007.2 (200MB) and sub100 (100MB) are excellent. I did have to manually edit the /etc/xorg.conf to make them work on two of my Toshiba laptops and that seems to be a common thread with Slackware and some Slackware based distros. (Notable exceptions that just work: Wolvix, AliXe.) Other than that I was very impressed with this little distro. sub100 run completely in RAM is one way to experience a very fast KDE on older hardware. It should also be pretty easy to customize.
Damn Small Linux, with appropriate cheatcodes at boot, works on very old, limited hardware indeed. Frugal installs are fine on any machine with >=48MB of RAM and a hard drive install is happy with 32MB. You can't beat the small size for a download and the fast pace of development and the responsiveness of the developers to reported bugs are both outstanding. DSL is an excellent choice for your award this week. I prefer something with a newer kernel and software on systems with >64MB, though.
Another great choice that fits on an 8cm (3") mini CD-ROM is Slax. Slax 6rc6 has the same issue as NimbleX with X configuration but it's simple for me to solve. GoblinX Mini is the prettiest small distro out there and it's mulilingual. It, too, has X issues on some hardware.
It's nice to see so many small distro choices that work well.
44 • 37 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 16:04:45 GMT from United States)
> Can we not leave the PCLOS/Ubuntu whining out of this for just one week!!
Umm...did you actually read the comment? Here it is for you:
"That will lead to somewhat better comments. It will be the end of PCLOS vs the world, Ubuntu vs the world, and the world against annoying fanbois. At least for a while."
Maybe we should have English requirements in order to show you understand the comments before posting a response to them.
45 • PCBSD future (by dbrion on 2007-10-01 16:06:31 GMT from France)
" But can it stand tall against Linux? " ('it' == PCBSD.)
It already does, for three reasons:
a) the prestige of the university they come from, and where, during years, they tried to extract the free Unix parts. Some middle aged (not students putting some 'flashy/treendy/demagogic OS' on their old parent's PC) with some money may become appealled by this fact.
b) the fact that Apple copied it, without hiding where MACOS comes from.... (form sporadic comments in last weeks DWW, and in june/july DWW ...........)
c) the fast 'evolution ' of linux, where conservative distrs are ignored.
The absence of mindless races (there is a distro season for linux, as every TV channel broadcasts a western at the same time, thus depriving western lovers of their films: one cannot seriously test all the distrs which release during the same month).
Minor flaws (no radio) can be today neglected, as wireless networks are not that used and this technology seems unstable...
Credits My knowlege of the present existence of BSD is due to DW and to GNU/linux magazine. I heard of it with great hope (one would get good quality cheap OSes some year) ca 15yrs ago.
FYI I have been using Mingw+Cygwin under XP,
and , with great satisfaction, Red Hat derived (professionnaly and at home)
46 • Open SUSE (by tom on 2007-10-01 16:06:37 GMT from United States)
I have tried the Beta and must admit I have been very impressed.
It looks as if this is a major overhaul :)
47 • @44 (by EduardoZ on 2007-10-01 16:11:21 GMT from United States)
No, you miss the point. The mere mention of this supposed "fanboism," and the implicit elevation of the posting party as holier-than-them is a troll, plain and simple.
Keep your schtick on ice!
48 • Why try BSD? (by Davey on 2007-10-01 16:13:11 GMT from United States)
The review was interesting, but for me it didn't answer the main question: what does BSD have for the satisfied Linux User, other than satisfying idle curiosity? If we bother to download and install it, what will let us know that this is something we haven't experienced before?
49 • What is a "satified linux user" cf 48 (by dbrion on 2007-10-01 16:19:35 GMT from France)
To day, it looks like a future Windows user.... or , sometimes, a user who has longer time scales than short release times...
50 • @Adam Williamson (by john frey on 2007-10-01 16:25:23 GMT from Canada)
Looks like the Mandriva web site does not yet reflect the changes. When can we see what the subscription costs will be?
>> might I remind whoever came up with the name the disaster that was WindowsME? <<
>I think the problem is more the "Windows" part of the name than the "ME"!<
LOL That's true. WindowsME meant Millennium Edition (not Monkey Enterprise, although I understand how one could make that mistake). Since we are now well past the millennium the association with windows should not occur.
It's interesting these religious editions of Linux. I guess if there are enough maintainers and developers then, why not? On the other hand if maintaining a separate distro becomes too much, making a web site with information about software of interest to that community, along with a repository of distro specific packages may be more manageable.
51 • @ 46 (by someone on 2007-10-01 16:29:08 GMT from Aruba)
Agreed! OpenSUSE 10.3 is very impressive indeed, regardless of what some people have to say. Novell and every developer involved created a wonderful distribution that I'm sure will be installed on many desktops across the planet.
52 • @50 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-01 16:33:14 GMT from Canada)
changes to the sites should be happening over the next couple of weeks.
53 • RE 50 Your common sense remark.. (by dbrion on 2007-10-01 16:36:19 GMT from France)
"making a web site with information about software of interest to that community, along with a repository of distro specific packages may be more manageable.
"
FYI UBUlinux Muslim Edition was a procedure 3 months ago (as is LFS): a howto download and install specific packages..., exactly as you described it....
54 • Changes to the Mandriva Club (by Bryan Siegfried on 2007-10-01 16:42:19 GMT from Canada)
I am also glad to see the changes in the Mandriva Club. Maybe we can see more involvement in the formal discussion groups on the 'club'. Something like ubuntuforums.org for Mandriva. I know Mandriva had extensive options for forums before, but having the Club forums divided the community...at least that is how I felt as a Mandrake/Mandriva (9.2 -> 2007) user.
I for one will be checking out Mandriva 2008. Maybe...just maybe I will think about switching back from kubuntu. Mandriva is getting back to community support. I hope their commercial side is doing well enough that they no longer need the club.
55 • 47 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 16:53:04 GMT from United States)
"No, you miss the point. The mere mention of this supposed "fanboism," and the implicit elevation of the posting party as holier-than-them is a troll, plain and simple."
Again, a lack of English skills and common sense in action. Let's get off this. Do you really think anyone is interested in reading your comments, or my response? Total nonsense that is wasting everyone's time. Get a life, please.
56 • opensuse 10.3 torrents (by fanboy on 2007-10-01 17:08:40 GMT from Austria)
http://suse.inode.at/opensuse/distribution/10.3/iso/torrent/
keep it seeding!
57 • @dbrion (by john frey on 2007-10-01 17:17:29 GMT from Canada)
and I thought I had such a brilliant and original idea :-/
58 • @37 (by txHarleyMan on 2007-10-01 17:19:56 GMT from United States)
I agree with RC. If I can refrain from commenting how horrible PCLOS forum moderators are ( read: customer service ) surely we all can refrain for a week.
59 • At the starting gate! (by Landor on 2007-10-01 17:20:44 GMT from Canada)
Racing towards the new releases has begun and I have my tack ready as well.
I'm currently downloading openSUSE 10.3, it should be here in about 2 days..lol I've been waiting for this one though. 10.2 kind've left me a bit ho-hum, though as polished as it was. I've been watching the 10.3 closely and I can't wait to see this final, a big change from 10.2.
RE: 43
I find it quite strange that you now tout the small distro flag, and of which some are very small teams. Wasn't a part of one of your recent articles or blogs about how you think these garage distros are garbage, or is it because the majority of those small distros you mentioned are Slack based? Trying to pump up some HP's maybe?
"The Stick on the ice guy"
Landor
60 • GEUbuntu, Sidux, Arch, PCLINUXOS (by Lycan on 2007-10-01 17:22:56 GMT from United States)
Yea GEUbuntu is very nice !!! Gnome + e17 its so smooth !!
Sidux the best Debian sid distro
Arch who ever likes simplicity / lightweight no bloat
PCLOS prefer this rather than Kubuntu
61 • Opensuse 10.3 (by Arijit on 2007-10-01 17:33:53 GMT from India)
I've got the torrent. But no seeders! :-(
After evaluating 10.3-RC1 for few days, I must admit opensuse is back with bang! yes, gutsy will face a stiff competition.
no doubt ubuntu has lots of fanboys and they will surely download and use it.
But to me, I'm switching to opensuse 10.3
62 • openSuSE 10.3 (by Eudoxus on 2007-10-01 17:45:40 GMT from Latvia)
Running 10.3 RC1 for a week. Except suspend to ram it seems that everything works like charm. I must admit that even RC1 is far more glitchless than 10.2.
I believe that this release will be a success in spite of all the FUD about Novell (sorry for raising that issue, but to call the Novell - Microsoft deal 'satanic' is complete idiocy, to say the least).
Thanks to SuSE devs for excellent work and to Ladislav for his efforts.
63 • 62 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 17:50:12 GMT from United States)
Agreed. Maybe we should start a new distro called AntiMicrosoft, which is exactly the same as opensuse, but not distributed by them. It's all free software, isn't it? Then what difference who is the source?
64 • #47 (by RC on 2007-10-01 18:10:30 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the effort EduardoZ, but we are obviously "tilting at windmills".
65 • @54 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-01 18:11:22 GMT from Canada)
The official Mandriva forums, at http://forum.mandriva.com/ , have not required a Club subscription for anything for a couple of years now. All you need is a my.mandriva.com account to post. Part of my job is to run the English section of the forums, which means I moderate it and also read every post, help where I can, and pass on suggestions and feedback as appropriate.
66 • OpenSuse 10.3: nowhere near RC3 (by Yogi on 2007-10-01 18:23:01 GMT from Canada)
I've tried OpenSuse 10.3 RC3 Live-CD. It's nowhere near RC3.
It seemed to detect my screen definition right, right from the start: 1280 x 1024. Then, when I booted, "out of range" appeared and the screen remained blank. Quite a few old CRTs might be scrapped this way.
I chose french as a language and never got it. Why is Postfix installed by default? Why isn't there an icon available in the taskbar to change the screen definition? I couldn't configure the printer because it said... err, don't remember exactly, problem with su. That's where I gave up.
Otherwise, yes, it's nice distro with lots of bells and whistles... and a steep learning curve. Smells like Utah. Remember WordPerfect and the thousands of pages doc that came with it? Pretty much seems like this to me. PCLinuxOS won't be disturbed one bit by OpenSuse.
67 • Mandriva club clarifications (by Mark South on 2007-10-01 18:25:52 GMT from Switzerland)
@ Adam Williamson:
Adam, thanks for the clarifications that you've given about Mandriva and the changes to the Club structure. I had 10.1 on my main workhorse desktop for over a year and was pretty happy with it, but switched to other distros when the whole Club thing became the centrepiece of the Mandriva business. I simply found the constant mailings too annoying. It sounds like that is all set to change for the better.
Maybe I'll give 2008 a try when it's released...?
68 • #66 (by RC on 2007-10-01 18:35:56 GMT from United States)
LOL...we are still trying to stomp out WordPerfect here. I am still trying to come to grips with the OpenSuse issue. While I agree with the previous poster that the deal with Microsoft isn't "satanic", I still struggle with what is really going on. I have made my living in the IT field for a couple of decades and started out on a Vic 20, so I have watched the rise of Microsoft from close range. They intend to overcome anything they view as a competitor and they tend towards a "salted earth" policy. To believe they have any positive intentions towards Linux is a very long stretch. My concern is that Novell and others are trading short term financial gains for long term extermination efforts by their "partner". I don't see how it could destroy Linux, but on the other hand....MS has a lot of money and a lot of lawyers.
69 • seeding OpenSuse 10.3 GNOME CD (by Peter Kotrčka on 2007-10-01 18:45:22 GMT from Slovakia)
i am seeding an iso from suse.inode.at...
it is too slow to download from this server, so please use torrent on:
http://linuxtracker.org/torrents-details.php?id=4678
70 • MuslimEdition & package selection (by PastorEd on 2007-10-01 18:45:39 GMT from United States)
Congratulations on UbuntuME - sounds like a fine idea.
I agree with one of the earlier posters - it would be an excellent idea to create "meta-packages" with all of a particular religions' customizations all in one install: specific religious text examination, calendars & clocks if appropriate, additional artwork, webblocking.
Doesn't Debian have something like this already? I seem to remember the initals CCD - Customized Content Distribution or something like that...
Anyway, welcome to the world of Linux, UbuntuME. Glad you're here...
GBYLBT, PastorEd
(or should that be ABYLBT for the ME users? grin...)
71 • BREAKING NEWS: ARCH LINUX LEADER RESIGNS. (by Kensai on 2007-10-01 18:55:21 GMT from N/A)
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=38024
"This has been a very successful project, and I'd like to stay in it in some facet, but not as the leader. Arch has met all my hopes and goals from way back in 2001, and I think it's in a ripe position for someone else to extend those goals and to map out a future for the distribution."
"I've given it a lot of thought, and based on the state of things, all-round competencies, initiatives, and willingness, I would like to pass this leadership role on to Aaron Griffin, also known as Phrakture on IRC and the forums."
I think this will mean a good new future for Arch.
72 • @67 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-01 19:17:31 GMT from Canada)
I hope you will :)
73 • Small distros, large distros, and half-baked distros (by Caitlyn Martin on 2007-10-01 19:43:24 GMT from United States)
"I find it quite strange that you now tout the small distro flag, and of which some are very small teams. Wasn't a part of one of your recent articles or blogs about how you think these garage distros are garbage, or is it because the majority of those small distros you mentioned are Slack based?"
Lovely personal attack, Landor (#59). Let's address your points:
1: There are too many half baked distros and that does hurt Linux adoption. I stand by my January article and my opinion has not and will not change. However, you completely misread or misunderstood my article if you think I said "garage distros are garbage". My comment was about quality not about the size of the development team. If you have read my blog you know I've been harshly critical of Fedora, for example, but have had praise for Wolvix and Vector Linux SOHO.
2. The Slackware based distros based on the Linux-Live scripts do seem to work best right now. I did, however, praise Damn Small Linux which is Knoppix/Debian based. I also liked Feather Linux (Knoppix/Debian based) and Flash Linux (Gentoo based) but development on both of those seems to have stopped. Neither have had a new release in a very long time. Again, it's all about quality, nothing else, and certainly not what large distro a small distro might be derivative of.
Perhaps you need to read what I write in detail before attacking next time. Perhaps you should take your own advice about sticks and shticks.
74 • @73 (by john frey on 2007-10-01 20:30:22 GMT from Canada)
I don't know why that quote sounds like a personal attack to you. I guess I'm being sexist or something if I say you're oversensitive but... you're oversensitive.
75 • Re: OpenSuse 10.3: nowhere near RC3 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 20:32:20 GMT from Germany)
> I've tried OpenSuse 10.3 RC3 Live-CD.
Strange - as there was never released one. Anyway, the installable Live-CD is the experimental stuff - you can't judge the distro after it.
PS: The Live-CD is English only by definition. And the su bug is listed as one of the most annoying ones and marked as fixed.
76 • RE: 73 (by Landor on 2007-10-01 20:50:48 GMT from Canada)
This is an exact quote from your comments section, by you.
"The last thing we need is more poorly done distros out of somebody's garage."
Do you know how much of today's big market share software started out in someone's garage and was bug infested/poorly written at the onset? You consider yourself educated in Linux, Computing/Software but to make such a comment, especially in regard to Opensource Software, where each individual developer brings a unique contribution and undeniable growth to it is pure tripe.
And I have read all I need to read of the message you send. You do little to investigate actualities, like last week where you were totally inaccurate in regard to Vector, and the developer had to come and set your comment straight. Again, as this week, all about slackware and it's forks. I have seen you state numerous times about "some project you are working on" or "specific criteria", I have to wonder if it is just boosting slack based hits wherever.
Whatever the case, I find your bashing forks and one man development teams of "garage" based distros insulting to the very essence of what Open Source is about, and would like to see you make a clear cut contribution the likes of which any single one of them has in code.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
77 • suse 10.3 torrent (by fanboy on 2007-10-01 21:16:56 GMT from Austria)
the gnome single cd torrent is downloading nicely. should be done in a few hours. i'll keep this baby seeding, i think the servers will be quite slow once 10.3 is officially released.
78 • @73 (by john frey on 2007-10-01 21:32:31 GMT from Canada)
OK, so he was making an attack. I guess I don't know the history between you two<:-)
79 • OpenSUSE 10.3 Torrent (by EP on 2007-10-01 21:44:41 GMT from United States)
Re: 77,
I concur, it is downloading pretty well. I started the downloads from FTP this morning before I went to work, then came home to find out something went wrong about 10 minutes after I left from the looks of things. Anxious to give this a go.
80 • Another tirade? (by Caitlyn Martin on 2007-10-01 21:46:47 GMT from United States)
#74: I didn't quote the part that was a personal attack. Please read his whole statement and his follow up and you'll see that I am anything but oversensitive.
#76: Landor, you are really good at personal attacks and twisting my words. Let's see what you have to say again:
"This is an exact quote from your comments section, by you.
'The last thing we need is more poorly done distros out of somebody's garage.'"
Yep. I stand by that statement. That is the last thing we need. It says we don't need more poorly done small distros. That is what the majority of small distros are but certainly not all.
"Do you know how much of today's big market share software started out in someone's garage and was bug infested/poorly written at the onset?"
Not a whole lot, actually. Do you know how much? Enlighten us. Share some numbers and provide sources to back up your statements. I'd bet you can't do that.
"You consider yourself educated in Linux, Computing/Software but to make such a comment, especially in regard to Opensource Software, where each individual developer brings a unique contribution and undeniable growth to it is pure tripe."
How does anything I've said conflict with "You consider yourself educated in Linux, Computing/Software but to make such a comment, especially in regard to Opensource Software, where each individual developer brings a unique contribution"? Show me. I also wonder if each and every developer contributes something useful. I'd say that depends on the time devoted and the talent involved in each individual. The rest of the sentence is a personal attack again.
"Again, as this week, all about slackware and it's forks. I have seen you state numerous times about "some project you are working on" or "specific criteria", I have to wonder if it is just boosting slack based hits wherever."
I have no interest in Slackware over any other distro. What is your agenda? What do you have against Slackware?
"And I have read all I need to read of the message you send."
Translation: you haven't read much of what I have to say, read something you didn't like, and flew off the handle in a tirade. Not convincing at all.
81 • @ #68 & 75 (by Yogi on 2007-10-01 23:12:59 GMT from Canada)
@ #68
> LOL...we are still trying to stomp out WordPerfect here.
It would be a bit late, but their doc was overblown, in a word, spatly rotten.
> I am still trying to come to grips with the OpenSuse issue. While I agree with the previous poster that the deal with Microsoft isn't "satanic",
What's wrong with satanic?
@ #75
>> I've tried OpenSuse 10.3 RC3 Live-CD.
>Strange - as there was never released one.
You seem to know a lot about Suse! Maybe you know about a site called Distrowatch. You should check links there.
> Anyway, the installable Live-CD is the experimental stuff
Oh, now there's an installable CD!
> - you can't judge the distro after it.
When I use Knoppix or PCLinuxOS, I judge the them after it. If the Live-CD isn't at a RC3 stage, it shouldn't be called so. They just make people waste their time with obvious bugs that should have been fixed long ago.
> PS: The Live-CD is English only by definition.
You've got a point here. So the Live-CD shouldn't ask to choose a language.
> And the su bug is listed as one of the most annoying ones and marked as fixed.
They might list it as marshmallow or caramel as they wish, but it's definitely not fixed. As I said, Suse is a waste of time. If they can't afford to put out a Live-CD, they shouldn't. That's it. It's definitely a rotten organization.
82 • 80 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-01 23:58:04 GMT from United States)
"I also wonder if each and every developer contributes something useful."
I've got to disagree with this and in general your writings about how there are "too many" distros. You are certainly not alone in that opinion.
It is next to impossible to determine if everyone working on Linux distros contributes. What they are doing might not have an immediate impact, but then in the future it turns out to be important. Or they are learning a set of skills that will help in the future. I bet Van Gogh's first painting was not a masterpiece either.
The best reason to support these small distros is that it is a lot easier to introduce new features that way than to try to convince an existing big distro to adopt those new features. I know from experience.
As far as the downside to additional distros, I don't see much. The top 25 distros are used by almost all newcomers. Newcomers don't even hear about many. Software proliferation is a part of the open source world, whether others see that software as valuable or not.
That's not to say that some projects are not hyped up junk. But those are usually big projects, like OOo. (Not even the ability to open a text file in Calc).
83 • Linux Mint is great (by Darcy Allen on 2007-10-02 00:06:43 GMT from Austria)
I really liked hearing the comments by Clement Lefebvre, the founder of Linux Mint. "Way to go!"
He is absolutely correct: these days, playing multi media is necessary. All my family's home computers run Mint. Even at work we use Mint.
I have always hoped I would hear the good Mint folks say they will keep in all the codecs etc. and my wish came true this evening reading Distro Watch.
Life is good.
84 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 00:29:15 GMT from Canada)
Although I believe I was right in what I said in my comment I would like to apologize to the readers for posting my last comment here. Althought it was "flying off the handle (a little dramatic) it should have been done somewhere other than here.
The issue is one I feel strongly about. I started out in the telecommunicating community around 24 years ago now, we all worked together, and had a great belief in everyone being essential. So I believe that each and every individual who is part of a whole that works towards helping many, or even one, in whatever fashion should be applauded for their efforts. They shouldn't be looked down upon, or criticized for their efforts. Who is the one to judge what one person's contribution means. I believe that any contribution is one more step in cementing the good of what that is all about, and open source is one of the greatest world wide projects, where Joe Schmoe in 3 room apartment pounding on his keyboard makes Linux and opensource it just as great as the Shuttleworth's, no matter what others see his abilities as.
Maybe it's just my socialist Canadian beliefs, if so, I'm glad I have them.
I won't continue this topic, and again, sorry for getting a bit passionate.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
85 • intel driver and Mandriva 2008.rc2 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 01:43:53 GMT from Australia)
38 • @19, small Mandriva correction (by Adam Williamson
For #19, there is no workaround for Mandriva, we are only shipping intel, not i810. In our testing (which has been quite extensive, we introduced the new version of the driver right after 2007.1 went out, and quite a lot of maintainers have Intel cards), we've seen no regressions from i810, so there seemed little point shipping that driver too.
I just booted the Live-kde-i386-2008-rc2 cd and it has a few issues that you would want fixed before it ships. I hope you found them in time and rectified same.
For hardware testing, live cd production needs to be a priority for development stage of all distros, imo. As far as I am aware, Mandriva produced the live cd
a bit too late in the development cycle to be of much use in testing by ordinary linux users.
Anyhow, the main graphics issue is that it boots to the configuration stage (where language, local zone, keyboard, etc are selected) in an unsusable state, ie ovezsized font window where only "Please", "CA" and "NEXT" are visible. Pressing "Control+Alt+Backspace" seems to fix this and I was presented with selection window for language with normal size fonts.
MCC graphics utility seems to be reading xorg.conf and is telling me that my resolution is set to 1024x768 at 16bpp color depth whilst the kde display config tool is showing that it is set to 1280x800.
Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "Intel Corporation"
BoardName "Intel 810 and later"
Driver "intel"
Option "DPMS"
Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "1"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "device1"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultColorDepth 16
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
EndSubsection
86 • openSuse 10.3 (by Chris on 2007-10-02 02:08:49 GMT from United States)
The final version seems to be at the mirrors.
Links I found here:
http://en.opensuse.org/Mirrors_Released_Version
But you can't access it yet.
I settled for version 10.3 RC2,
which is dated Sept 25, pretty recent.
Nice.
Fast install.
The repositories, including multimedia,
can be added with a few clicks
-no need for the GemReport anymore.
I discovered this when I tried to get Amarok to work.
87 • For AW (Mandriva) (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 03:21:14 GMT from Australia)
RC2 Live-One CD Firefox issue
As I am typing here, I discover that it is set to use Portugese language by default and is showing me all I type as spelling mistakes. :-)
All my settings are correctly set to use English.
88 • Re 87 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 03:25:22 GMT from Australia)
I just discovered that it is only the Firefox spell checker that is set to Portuguese by default.
89 • Mepis and AMD K6 CPU (by Soloact on 2007-10-02 04:36:16 GMT from United States)
SimplyMEPIS 6.5 works fine on an old laptop with an AMD K6-2 CPU, but neither the AntiX 7-rc nor the Mepis 7-rc work. "CPU too old for this kernel". Bummer, as it seems that folks are installing it easily to old Pentium and pre-pentium computers.
Still watching their forums for a fix, but so far no go. This is the same message when trying to run other, up to date, distros. Mint 3.0KDE and 3.1 booted on the machine, but was sluggish. Mepis 6.5 booted on the machine and was faster than Mint. PCLOS wouldn't boot.
As an end user, I just want something that works across the board, "out of the box", that I don't have to go get this codec here, or that codec there, or recompile everything.
The only thing that PCLOS has over Mepis is that access to NTFS partitions works right away without having to fiddle with anything, same with WINE.
Well, I'll continue to see if the kernel problem gets resolved. I know I'm not the only one with a K6-2 CPU in the world.
Cheers everyone!
90 • @85 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-02 04:40:42 GMT from Canada)
for the first issue, yes, that was reported and fixed already.
for the second, drakx11 *writes* xorg.conf. 1024x768 is its default resolution if you change nothing and one is not auto-detected from your monitor. I suspect it defaulted to 1024x768 - and wrote that into the xorg.conf file, as you see - but the Intel driver, being smart, noticed that your panel's native resolution is 1280x800 and actually chose that resolution, ignoring the xorg.conf setting. It's a bit hard to know for sure without seeing Xorg.0.log , though.
Behaviour in the final release may be different, we've changed the Intel driver's mode selection logic a bit. But I'd say what happened is in practical terms quite good, as it seems the native resolution of your display was used, which is likely what you'd want. It might be a bit tricky to have drakx11 reliably report the 'selected' resolution as the one that a driver has autodetected...have to poke Pixel about that.
91 • @87 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-02 04:43:48 GMT from Canada)
heh, interesting...if it happens all the time I'm surprised no-one's reported it before, but I have a clean install of RC2 in a virtualbox that I can check. did you install just the English language files during installation, or more languages?
92 • Re post #80 > DOESt "Matter" ? (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 05:00:37 GMT from Canada)
Why do I know this post will be regretted:-
The old truism - (The "best" composed letter.....may be the one never sent)
Is all just the usual DWW 'Tempest in a P-pot" ? Ms Martin - YOU decide: (then please, let it die)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Oversensitive" - appears to be your "point of view" -
It is all a matter of record ~ Re your published journalistic commentary
Are all good readers who DO read & carefully reflect on content -then ponder all statements:
~ To then_ in good faith - must believe all as facts beyond reservations -
Such behaviour may be ignored from those not in any I.T. field
You are accountable to different standards:
~ Fact: You took pains to publish elsewhere, you are "qualified" as a "specialist" in I.T. profession !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OTOH, if accuracy is requested please consider:
Quotes:
"There are too many half baked distros and that does hurt Linux adoption. I stand by my January article and my opinion has not and will not change.
The last thing we need is more poorly done distros out of somebody's garage.'"
Yep. I stand by that statement. That is the last thing we need. It says we don't need more poorly done small distros. That is what the majority of small distros are but certainly not all.
(how many) -> (sic C.M.) Not a whole lot, actually ~ Enlighten us"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Those comments beg closer examinations:
Without even trying, we can all recall many "pet-projects" that started as a hobby & quickly gained FOSS attention
DSL - Puppy - Vector - Absolute - Mint - (as a sampling)
L.Torvalds - S.Jobs -D. Robbins, then in the realm of non-full distros (To name just a few, more note-worthy)
C.Kolivas (kernel patches)- H Reiser (Reiserfs) - even Jason Woodward (Slapt-Get)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFAWK, The whole history & existence of such as SourceForge was to abet developmnet of worthy projects
Projects that cannot be pre-judged, defamed/noted by anyone as "half-baked" & certainly not when ill-qualified
& without the grace to at least having the capability or...... taking the time to properly assess all code !
Please consdider:
- Without prejudice or wishing ill -will :
Do you really expect or NEED a fuly documented Biblio of examples (of small worthy projects that needed)
MUCH further debugging. consequent re-coding/polishing, of original content ?
Indeed- whenever development research is terminated - or then released/proclaimed as "rock-solid"
that is when all OSS stagnates.
To publish such hasty remarks seems both derogative & un-worthy of a "professional journalist/security expert"
(as your own Web resume ... "informs")
By now - it is hoped you have had 2nd thoughts prior to "painting" any with such a wide tainted brush
If is contended - (although you may have not intended do so so) - such remarks do a diservice to all
If any "project" doesn't live up to your expectations- why publish it as 'fact"?
Nobody requested you pre-approve or lend aid to their "half-baked" attempts
Respectfully, I submit: "Quality, given half_a_chance - WILL surface/grow".
May this topic rest in peace:
93 • downloading opensuse 10.3 (by Arijit on 2007-10-02 05:35:03 GMT from India)
thanks for pointing me to the latest torrent... #69
94 • MEPIS and AMD K6: Antix to the rescue (by CeVO on 2007-10-02 06:20:37 GMT from Spain)
My guess is MEPIS won't come out with a kernel for older CPUs, but Anti is working on it as I write this: http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/showthread.php?p=79217
95 • For AW - check your email (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 07:11:00 GMT from Australia)
90 • @85 (by Adam Williamson)
for the first issue, yes, that was reported and fixed already.
Very good! These are things that might put off new users if not fixed.
for the second, drakx11 *writes* xorg.conf. 1024x768 is its default resolution if you change nothing and one is not auto-detected from your monitor. I suspect it defaulted to 1024x768 - and wrote that into the xorg.conf file, as you see - but the Intel driver, being smart, noticed that your panel's native resolution is 1280x800 and actually chose that resolution, ignoring the xorg.conf setting. It's a bit hard to know for sure without seeing Xorg.0.log , though.
I managed to change it to what it should be using MCC - drakx11, plus some manual hand editing. All OK now but it would be better if it was auto-detected and setup, imo. I sent you the relevant files and you can look at them at your leisure. Also, you might consider adding this LPL screen to your harware database, as openSUSE now does.
91 • @87 (by Adam Williamson)
heh, interesting...if it happens all the time I'm surprised no-one's reported it before, but I have a clean install of RC2 in a virtualbox that I can check. did you install just the English language files during installation, or more languages?
It happened 2 times (2 clean reboots) that I tried. I only ran in default live cd mode and chose "English (au)", Australia, Sydney, English US kbd, etc. (Mandriva is well mannered when it comes to choosing my country, language and location, I would even say its the best, IMO!).I only discovered this while posting here on DW. :-)
Cheers
96 • Oops missing/bad tag (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 07:12:03 GMT from Australia)
This should fix it.
97 • AMD K6 (by capricornus on 2007-10-02 07:16:33 GMT from Netherlands)
@ Soloact. I know your problem: had the same. Try Wolvix 1.1.0 Hunter and please report. It's a distro I think feels complete and grown-up (no dog barking, no infantile buttons or so) and looks up to date, installs on older CPU's and runs swiftly without making them sluggish or so.
98 • Suse torrents (by Joni on 2007-10-02 08:47:53 GMT from Finland)
Please seed the torrents, can't see any seeders now. :(
I'm stuck at 28,9% in 10.3 x86_64 DVD.
I once used Suse, maybe 9.x. But then went back to windows because of the games. Now I'm looking a 64bit OS for my Boinc cruncher computer, hoping it will increase the performance. Not sure if it will.. And if it's a good distro I will install it also on my main comp. ;)
99 • 39, 50, 53: Ubuntu ME (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 08:53:37 GMT from Malaysia)
Ubuntu derivatives now include Edubuntu, Elbuntu, Fluxbuntu, Kubuntu, Medibuntu, nUbuntu, Ubuntu CE, Ubuntu ME, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu....
Most of these appear to be the base Ubuntu distro with alternative or additional packages (desktop environment, educational or religious content etc).
Do all of these qualify as stand-alone distros? Is Fedora actually two distros ("Gedora" and "Kedora")? Would the addition of multimedia codecs result in a new distro ("Medora")?
100 • Re: #99: Naming and grouping of Ubuntu and derivatives (by Mark South on 2007-10-02 09:17:00 GMT from Switzerland)
Comment #99 makes a good point. There are a lot of Ubuntu derivatives listed, and Distrowatch is inconsistent in the way it presents them. For example, Debian offers Gnome, KDE, and XFCE versions of the install CD, but these are not listed separately as Gebian, Kebian, and Xebian.... By and of itself, a different desktop environment of window manager does not a different distro make.
It seems (to me at least) that it would make sense if the officially supported and endorsed Ubuntu sub-distros were all united under the Ubuntu label and only independent derivatives were listed separately.
If I understand the Ubuntu policy pages correctly, any distro with "ubuntu" in its name has to be officially supported or endorse by Canonical, since that is a trademark of theirs. That may help to make the cut between official and independent variants.
Does this make sense to anyone other than myself and Anonymous form Malaysia?
Keep the ice in your glass,
Mark
101 • How to programe a linux and what distribution is the best (by Pablo Ventoso on 2007-10-02 09:21:20 GMT from Spain)
Hi, I live in Spain and I would like to know what is the best linux distribution (In spanish), wher I could get software to use windows/MAC programs or virtual machines of those sistems,where I could learn to program my oun distribution and what is the Linux's language.
please send an E_MAIL respomd
102 • Re 94 & 97's replies to 89 (by Soloact on 2007-10-02 09:30:19 GMT from United States)
Thank you CeVo! I tried to find something like that per a suggestion from last week's DWW, but didn't know how to word it to find that someone was working on the problem. I'm assuming that Mepis upgrades might work, as a direct upgrade from 6.5 to 7.0, when the time comes. I do prefer KDE. But perhaps I could install AntiX 7 final on the lappy, then just install KDE after that. I'd like the same thing on all of these computers. CPUs are as follows: 1 AMD K6-2 lappy, 2 P3m lappys, 1 K6-2 desktop, 3 P3 desktops, 1 Athlon64 desktop, 1 Eden MiniITX for a media player, and 1 C7 PicoITX as an UMPC. So far Mepis 6.5 works across all of them, PCLOS works on most of them, and Mint 3.0KDE works on most of them. Thank you for pointing me to that forum post!
Thanks Capricornus, for the suggestion. I have tried a few Slackware-based mini Distros on the lappy, some worked and some didn't. I am a fan of KDE, and the easy use of Synaptic FM with .deb for installing/updating software. PCLOS is okay using Synaptic with .rpms, but those servers are always crawling.
Actually DSL worked on that old lappy, but I wasn't really satisfied with it. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great Distros out there, I just have some personal preferences. I guess everyone has their personal preferences, for that matter.
Have a great today!
103 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 10:19:06 GMT from France)
"
Do all of these qualify as stand-alone distros? Is Fedora actually two distros ("Gedora" and "Kedora")? Would the addition of multimedia codecs result in a new distro ("Medora")?
"
As far as know, UBUlinuxME was exceptionaly fair ca May 2007 in what makes her differentUBUlinuxMe from UBUlinux.
The cause of my interest in UBUlinuxMe was that I saw Arabic writing pple trying to draw their emails in a cybercafé (as the landlord had not thought that Windows is very often decently localized ; they sent mails to their old parents/ wife they had given a PC) : the idea of having a life CD , with language and religious support was appealing).
In fact, it was a bad idea, as there is no text processor in UBUlinux ME (it would be unnecessary or worse for reading sacred texts...) as I could find in DW very useful database...
The idea of having separate distrs for each religion (and think of the many flavor of Christianism who could lead to stable Linuxen) is that Microsoft is sometimes in a suing mood: that would be a great profit to (alph order) lawyers and linux.....
OTOH Adios linux makes separate CDs (it is smarter than installable linuxen, as one c
104 • suite 104 (by dbrion on 2007-10-02 10:22:09 GMT from France)
as one can show them, even on PCs with some work and expensive OSes installed) for business men, children, developppers and engineers (alph order).
105 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 10:46:47 GMT from France)
I'm eagerly waiting for UbuntuMDE290280Edition (standing for Martin Dupont 29Feb1980 Edition) so that I can receive an automated e-Birthday card at my own name on my birthday.
106 • Opensuse 10.3 (by flebber on 2007-10-02 10:53:30 GMT from Australia)
New Suse is good install of 1 kde CD was easy but then you expect that from Suse. First impressions are all good, there is a few missing dependencies for a few minor things but I guess I expected that seeing as how its not even released yet.
107 • Kudos to openSUSE for graphics support and their new livecd (by Joe on 2007-10-02 13:59:23 GMT from United States)
I stopped looking at new livecd linux distros recently because none of them supported my old i810 graphics chips at 1024x768. Along comes openSUSE to say that they will support i810 right out of the box. If you want something, then just add our better driver.
This approach really makes sense to me. It does not matter how bleeding edge your distro is when your potential end user cannot load it in a resolution that makes sense the user's desktop. Start with the most basic driver and let the user customize to their needs. Good job, openSUSE!
To be honest, I have never looked at openSUSE because of the daunting job of downloading multiple cds or dvds. With their new livecd, I am definitely going to take a look, but why change the name of cdrecord? Maybe I can find out now..
108 • openSUSE 10.3 ready for download? (by Roberto Roggiero on 2007-10-02 14:42:17 GMT from Ecuador)
Regarding your announcement about openSUSE 10.3 ready for download, I see nothing but the 10.2 version (not the 10.3) in the final download mirrors. Can you verify this information please?
109 • 80 (by areuareu on 2007-10-02 14:43:23 GMT from France)
Too many distros has an upside:
it gives work to Ladislav
it has a downside:
it gives work to Ladislav :o)
110 • Deli (by areuareu on 2007-10-02 15:08:13 GMT from France)
I am surprised nobody has yet mentioned Deli, it works well on pretty old hardware, has good hw detection, fast install and very small footprint, it suits to my needs better than Antix.
111 • Yeah! Ride ON Baby (by whocares on 2007-10-02 15:10:50 GMT from Finland)
It seems Mandriva is going to make movement to the right direction. Whach out *buntus. It seems very interesting ver. Im ready to get it (last version was Mandrake 9.2)
112 • Schadenfreud ? (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 17:00:27 GMT from Canada)
It may be of passing interest to DWW readers to note:
Caitlyn Martin has her own "non-review" of Puppy on her O'Reilly
hosted Bleh- oops, BLOG :
http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/09/why_i_havent_reviewed_puppy_li.html#comments
To better assess how "impartial" a reviewer she is - (contrary to Mr Bodnar's UN-BIASED approach) ~ two posts were deleted -
Neither were as derogatory as her own ( which are never 'qualified' as to which version) Re Puppy
Her biggest hang-up - I questioned her professionalism & heaven forbid - used the term 'literary licentiousness"
My prime contentions:
User enthusiasm does not verify technical critique assessments
Casual useage (even over a period of severarl months) does not verify any distro as so badly flawed to be unworthy of further use.
It MAY reveal I.E. the install probes are glitchy - to the exent
'some users may be unable to continue (without help)
Example - I am very well aquainted to Gentoo - yet myself tried Gentoo's liveCD installer, both the GTK & graphical versions
~ In an attempt to assess latest (liveCD) version.
Finally gave up - yet the text -based 'stage3 install' was as ever, no problem whatsoever.
According to VL forum users - they have similar glitches.
Puppy itself IS unique, not the first nor only to implement running in RAM or saving user Cfgs for later boots
I found it unsuited for own use, & deplore the use of their own
"super user model" as a full hard drive install
There are other reasons, but in fairness.... possibly few of value to others.
So much for 'unbiased professionalism" ?
113 • @95 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-02 17:11:52 GMT from Canada)
I didn't get your mail : maybe my spam filter ate it, it can get aggressive...was it in HTML, sent from Lagos, and including a Viagra advert in the sig? :)
To add the monitor to our database we need the EDID info from it. You can get this for us, it's easy. Just run this command as root:
monitor-edid --MonitorsDB
you should get something like this:
ACR; ACR AL2016W; ACRad64; 31-84; 56-77; 1680x1050
just file a bug at http://qa.mandriva.com/ and include that output, and we'll be able to add it quickly. Probably not in time for 2008, though, unfortunately.
114 • Excellence (by tomtoo on 2007-10-02 17:34:05 GMT from United States)
This excellent issue demonstrates why DistroWatch is a leading Linux web site.
115 • Another lovely (if somewhat incoherent) personal attack (by Caitlyn Martin on 2007-10-02 17:42:09 GMT from United States)
#112: What an amazing attack! Let me respond just a little:
1> The article was tagged as "opinion". That, by definition, implies bias. As it turns out I have no bias against Puppy other it doesn't work.
2> I am not a professional reviewer. I am not paid by O'Reilly to write the blog. My professional work is as a Linux/UNIX systems administrator and security consultant. I am not a professional journalist, either.
3> Calling by blog "literary" is a complement even if you don't like it. Thank you. I personally wouldn't consider it literary but that's me.
4> I have tried every version of Puppy since 1.08. That's years, not months. It simply won't run on 5 of the 6 machines in my home. Other commenters have had similar experiences. That makes Puppy truly useless for quite a number of users.
5> I have made many distros with "glitchy" installs go. I couldn't with Puppy and found nothing about Puppy compelling enough for me to invest more time.
6> There is NOTHING unique about Puppy. Name one thing Puppy has that no other distro has. You can't.
7> One e-mail I received called Puppy users "fanatics". I guess you've proven him right.
8> I am in no way obligated to keep personal attacks on me posted on my blog by people who don't even have the courage to sign their name and stand behind what they write. You didn't quote the most... ahem... scathing parts, did you? So yes, I deleted your second comment. (The first comment is still there, BTW.)
If Puppy works for you (and it does work on my one surviving desktop) then more power to you. I stand by my article, which was decidedly NOT a review, but merely pointed out that I couldn't review Puppy. Your foaming at the mouth won't change that, but it does give me further reason to avoid that distro. The community, as previously described in an article here on Distrowatch: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070625#feature
116 • @100 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 17:47:29 GMT from United States)
Ladislav has clarified (several times) that he lists distributions as the maintainers list them. Ubuntu explicitly maintains different "products" - Ubuntu, XUbuntu, KUbuntu, etc. UbuntuCE and UBULinuxME are not officially part of the Ubuntu family.
117 • 116 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 18:33:28 GMT from Malaysia)
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/derivatives lists Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu and Ubuntu Server Edition as "supported" derivatives.
Elbuntu, Fluxbuntu, nUbuntu, Ubuntu CE, Ubuntu ME and Ubuntu Studio are listed as "other" derivatives (along with Gnoppix, Mepis, gNewSense, Pioneer, Mint and several others). Geubuntu is not listed (yet).
Would it be accurate to interpret your comment as a suggestion that the "supported' derivatives should not be listed separately on Distrowatch because they ARE "officially part of the Ubuntu family"?
Perhaps some Ubuntu derivative 'distros' are actually the equivalent of Medibuntu (a package repository for Ubuntu).
118 • Too many distributions (by Nonny Moose on 2007-10-02 18:49:19 GMT from United States)
Not to worry. Once Microsoft completes its mission of retaining ownership of the kernel, etc, just two or three altogether: Linspire, Xandros and Novel/Suse.
119 • 116 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 18:58:41 GMT from Malaysia)
One point of view: http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/01/so_many_distros_so_little_time.html
The author seems to be available on DWW forum this week for further comments. :-)
120 • The "impartial one" Post # 115 doth protest (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 19:14:41 GMT from Canada)
Thank you, It is nice to note you finally observed grammatical sentence construction -
( it is appreciated for readability. Esp to old eyes)
Everyone is "biased" the alternative is to have no oriiginal thought
Bias does NOT imply un-justified
Apropo time for one more definition?
http://www.conservative-resources.com/definition-of-bias.html
http://www.cheetah.net/jafo/define.html
I conscientiously intended 'literary' to be taken as a compliment ('literary' licentiousness )
Sadly . you obviously never looked that up either
To off-handledly 'Laise Faire" dissmiss any distro because it has problems installing -
would be to castigate most - at least at one time or other
As stated - that may well be a 'stopper' for many (sans help) as not worthy of further attention
To your credit, you did state Puppy was used on one box for further evalualtion
Why does "unique" equate to you - as "sole" ~ it was not stated as such - you 'presumed'
'Foaming at mouth" = now we have it in open- the real CM takes a bow !
BTW did you miss -> I am not a puppy user -i fairly evaluated & found it not to be suitable as I had hoped - for MY own useage goals
Lastly - now that your dander is up, please take note of your typos &
incorrect garmmar -ir may help you in further literary attempts
In fairness. your more technical blogs are far better contructed
& yes i agree, your Linux credentials are 'impressive' -even if you do say so
(Nothing like a bit of 'hot-blood' to see the 'real person' emerge from
public facade ? )
121 • 118 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 19:30:47 GMT from United States)
Hmm...no idea what you are talking about...how will Microsoft or anyone else "retain" control of the Linux kernel? Perhaps you ought to stop reading that boycottnovell website and read up on the GPL.
122 • OPENSUSE 10.3 (by Frank on 2007-10-02 20:32:54 GMT from United States)
WOW!!! fantastic , my new favorite ,this will be next year #1!!
123 • @117 - Ubuntu "supported" distros (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 20:37:07 GMT from United States)
Actually, I'm not suggesting anything, merely explaining my understanding of why Ladislav lists so many *buntu's. In my opinion, his approach is appropriate, in spite of my poor wording before.
As you said, Ubuntu lists supported diriviative distributions - they are treated as separate distributions. Hence, Ladislav lists them as separate distributions. If Ladislav were to start "grouping" distributions, many would disagree with his criteria for grouping. Is the difference between Edubuntu and Ubuntu any greater than the difference between Absolute and Slackware?
124 • opensuse 10.3 torrent (by fanboy on 2007-10-02 20:40:36 GMT from Austria)
@69: thanks for the link, works much better
http://linuxtracker.org/torrents-details.php?id=4678
everyone who wants to download opensuse 10.3 (gnome cd) please use this torrrent
125 • @121 @118 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 20:42:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
@121 ... I read @118 as quite tongue-in-cheek, not as a conspiracy theory. all @118 was missing was a ;-) and the end of the post.
126 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-02 22:04:10 GMT from United States)
the legal definition of 'retain'
not the web mind-loss definition, perry
127 • The Beast Within or RE: 115 (by Landor on 2007-10-02 22:43:01 GMT from Canada)
"If Puppy works for you (and it does work on my one surviving desktop) then more power to you. I stand by my article, which was decidedly NOT a review, but merely pointed out that I couldn't review Puppy."
That is in itself quite the contradiction. Would you care to elaborate and be a bit more explanatory on how Puppy works on one of your boxes but you stand by your article that you could not review Puppy because you could not get it to work, nor would try to because you didn't find reviewing it just cause enough to put in the effort to get it to work?
Another contradiction was last week, which rolls into comments this week and pertains to your blog:
"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."
I wonder if Vector Linux started out flawed, which would be noted by "some's" standards as half-baked".
Could you verify what, other than time, effort, long nights of coding though reviewers (who are not professional reviewers by their own admissions) call your ideas half-baked, would make a hobby project develop into much more from such a humble beginning?
I ask you this because of a simple thought. The ideas, roadmap and future plans for a distro that is in it's infancy are virtually unknown to anyone other than it's immediate developer base. So what makes that distro half-baked at the onset, without time and effort to introduce it's singular or collective vision, than any other distro that you claim to be a great hobby project that evolved into it's transitional stage. Does that not denote that all "half-bake" "ill-conceived" projects are not truly half-baked, nor ill-conceived since they too need the time to evolve, to come to a transitional state where they have grown in Linuxen Adulthood.
By your standards humanities revolutionary steps (though you would not find me as an ardent supporter of humanity being revolutionary in the broadest sense in this context) would be many rediculous at best.
This will be very "male" of me, but I find that your offhanded remarks about everything being a personal attack against you quite natural for a woman on the defensive to do, to divert and control the situation from the real issues. Then use terms such as flying off the handle or foaming at the mouth. A common tactic of diversion as I said, to be dramatic and point the finger at a male who is showing "Alpha or Agressive" tendancies towards a female. Keeping it to the facts would prove more worthy of debate, instead of pointing a slurring finger in an attempt to gain secure footing.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
128 • OpenSUSE 10.3 Torrent (by EP on 2007-10-02 23:52:57 GMT from United States)
woot! I'm now a seeder!
129 • OPENSUSE LINCK (by Frank on 2007-10-03 00:19:03 GMT from United States)
super fast link for a great Distro!!!
http://ftp.uni-ulm.de/pub/mirrors/opensuse/distribution/10.3/iso/
130 • RE: 100 Naming and grouping of Ubuntu and derivatives (by ladislav on 2007-10-03 00:35:21 GMT from Taiwan)
Distrowatch is inconsistent in the way it presents them.
I stated a number of times previously: if a distro derivative has its own web site and domain name then it's treated as a separate distribution. If it doesn't, it's treated as an edition. Plain and simple.
131 • 126 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 01:26:50 GMT from United States)
Unless you have a, shall we say, "unique" definition of retain, there's no way comment 118 makes any sense.
Understanding GPLv2 helps to understand why. Microsoft can pay everyone and it wouldn't lead to any restrictions on my rights. Code released under the GPL is under the GPL, sort of a simple thing to understand, I think. Even the guys who originally wrote the kernel can't do anything about the GPL'd code in it now if it has already been released.
132 • Actualities vs Philosophies - realities expanded RE post132 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 02:22:32 GMT from Canada)
http://www.msversus.org/microsoft-versus-open-source.html
If I may be allowed to expand slightly on above:
As the above (One of many such articles) shows, Microsoft has many strategies to curtail OSS
The first freedom lost when Gvt's are persuaded to invoke restrictions in the guise of 'National Security' - is truth.
All nations have used this.
Human rights are ignored, "suspects' held without trial or recourse to legal rights, even as defined by all signatories to the Geneva Convention
The ageless " Might is Right" of all recorded human history.
While looking at the outcome to Microsoft adverse legal rulings - it has done little to curb their world-wide attacks on multiple fronts.
Redmond's corporate goals epitomise the "Ugly American" to eyes of the world Re U.S.A.
However, that is common to all, only one portion to what is 'ugly' to majority of universal (capitalist marketing) principle concepts:
Neither invented by nor restricted to N.America/English speaking nations (British Empire & Commonwealth partners I.E.)
Fighting for freedom is a battle never over.
133 • 132 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 03:27:54 GMT from United States)
What you say might be completely true, but it has nothing to do with control of the Linux kernel. Linux is GPL software and nothing will change that. You can make Linux illegal, but it will still be GPL software and not Microsoft, not anyone else can tell me what to do with it, not even Linus himself, provided I comply with the GPL.
134 • Re: 112 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 03:34:14 GMT from United States)
You're right, her blog was unprofessional, even the way that she wrote if any puppy user can reply without flames was just trolling. She wasn't interested in learning about Puppy, she was only interested in seeing if she could piss people off. And then her reply to your post (115) showed her immediately insulting you in the title! Incredibly bad form.
I don't see the point in saying "I am not going to write about X Y Z because if I did this is what I would say..." you don't get cute points for that, you *did* write about it, so own up to it.
135 • re 113- AW (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 03:48:29 GMT from Australia)
# hwinfo --monitor
> hal.1: read hal data
29: None 00.0: 10002 LCD Monitor
[Created at monitor.93]
Unique ID: rdCR.xxxxxxxx
Hardware Class: monitor
Model: "LGPhilipsLCD LCD Monitor"
Vendor: LPL "LGPhilipsLCD"
Device: eisa 0x0000
Resolution: 1280x800@60Hz
Size: 330x210 mm
Detailed Timings:
Resolution: 1280x800
Horizontal: 1280 1328 1360 1440 (+48 +80 +160) -hsync
Vertical: 800 802 808 823 (+2 +8 +23) -vsync
Frequencies: 71.25 MHz, 49.48 kHz, 60.12 Hz
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
#
136 • The 7 Most Influential GNU/Linux Distributions (by Observer on 2007-10-03 05:52:20 GMT from Australia)
The 7 Most Influential GNU/Linux Distributions
September 24, 2007
By Bruce Byfield
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/11070_3701421_1
137 • @ 112, 115: Definitions (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 06:15:20 GMT from Malaysia)
Just to help the combatants save some time:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Bias
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=literary&go=Go
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=licentiousness&go=Go
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Incoherent
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Foaming_at_the_mouth_and_falling_over_backwards
Keep your eyes on the dictionary.
138 • @135 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-03 06:44:46 GMT from Canada)
That's no use. I asked for monitor-edid --MonitorsDB . that's the output that's needed.
139 • AdamW, thanks for your attention/patience.... (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 07:15:31 GMT from Australia)
Well, I emailed lots of files yesterday and I will not bother (or bother you) further. My attention/patience has now waned a bit. :-) As long as my screen doesn't get fried, I will work my way around minor obstacles in any distro I choose. I should be more prepared for next distro season (first half 2008) and, as long as the major distros release live cds early in the development cycle, will try to do some hardware testing then.
I wish success to All the upcoming major distro releases!
Cheers
140 • Thank you (really) (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 08:16:54 GMT from Canada)
It does offer a seldom proffered glimpse of humour befitting
the oft un-appreciated dry Brit witicisms (aka drabritischisms)
(Those URLs containing 'non-defined' colloquia confirms many suspicions Re idioms)
You may have single-handedly elevated the term unabridged to a new status -
Culminating in what even eventually constitutes an art-form of modernistic errata.
Now expand that vocabulary to include 'ones'
before it 'goes extinct'
Sub- titled: Delectable Definitive Dalliances
You may take further comfort in now knowing fits of discomfort are seldom terminal - so to speak
And the moral of that is, said the Dutchess............
"Be what you would seem to be' -- or if you'd like it put more simply --
Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might
appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them
to be otherwise.'"
141 • OpenSUSE 10.3 (by EP on 2007-10-03 08:28:24 GMT from United States)
Running now and it is running very well.
142 • Ugly American (by otoh on 2007-10-03 09:35:56 GMT from United States)
The "Ugly American" was the "good guy" in the novel of that title that popularized the phrase. "Ugly" referred to his appearance (as compared with "handsome"), not his behavior.
143 • OpenOffice.org forked ? (by linbetwin on 2007-10-03 14:06:10 GMT from Romania)
Looks like Novell forked OOo. See http://go-oo.org and the news on /.
I don't know if this is official, but I think it's bound to happen sooner or later.
144 • Re post #142 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 14:22:42 GMT from Canada)
This, other Web hits & varied political media coverage state otherwise:
http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall98/uglyamerican.htm
Quote:
"First published in 1958, The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing exposé of American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia."
145 • I'm struggling here (by Anon on 2007-10-03 14:40:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
To understand what the fuss is about with the Mandriva Club announcement. All I can see is that is features like the forum are no longer being marketed as exclusive benefits to subscribers, because they haven't been that exclusive for a few years now. I don't see nothing new in that announcement, nothing major changes, just a pathetic attempt to bolster their appalling corporate image in the face of the linux community (what is surprising is the fact that people can not see past it).
146 • Re 143: Forking OOo (by Anon on 2007-10-03 14:48:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
A bad move in my opinion, too many versions of software lead to confusion, given that the majority of Windows home users are poorly educated when it comes to choice of computer software, they will be put off by an office suite that comes in 57 different varieties, Instead of forking their skills should be focused on supporting upstream development. OOo is the key open source application that will drive open source applications to the masses, everyone should be doing their best to support it, not fork it, for the benefit of opensource as a whole. Like I said, OpenOffice.org is key to opensource adoption, forking in this case is prohibitive & selfish!
147 • @143 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-03 15:13:51 GMT from Canada)
go-ooo has existed for years. it's not really a fork, just an alternate, bleeding-edge build of the source.
148 • RE: #129 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2007-10-03 15:17:29 GMT from Italy)
Thanks for the link, Frank, it is very fast indeed :)
149 • openSUSE 10.3 (by IMQ on 2007-10-03 15:43:46 GMT from United States)
Where can I find the downloaded rpm packages when using the Software Management?
Thanks.
150 • openSUSE 10.3 (by PP on 2007-10-03 15:59:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Another mirror that works decently
ftp://ftp.tu-ilmenau.de/mirror/opensuse/distribution/10.3/iso/cd/
Just got my i386 KDE cd from there!!
151 • Voluntary restraint (by David Howard on 2007-10-03 16:06:34 GMT from Israel)
With NO preference, viewpoint or interest in the details of the ongoing bickering between Caitlyn Martin and Landor, I believe that I must be far from the only forum reader who believes that this exchange had no place on the forum in the first place, and has long since worn out its welcome.
After the language war last week, and the dbrion saga, I'm left with the sinking feeling that the forum of late is hosting some of the toxic exchanges which bedevil certain other forums and mailing lists. The dying days of the Libranet mailing list, originally superb, suffered from similar symptoms, but at least on a mailing list it was possible to apply filters. So far as I know, forums offer no such possibility, other than moderation. As I hate the notion of censorship of freedom of expression, would it be too much to ask of the flamers to take the arguments to private e-mail exchanges, and thus free the forum from essentially private disputes?
152 • 146 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 17:30:02 GMT from United States)
"OOo is the key open source application that will drive open source applications to the masses"
If that's true, open source is screwed. It is inferior in many ways to MS Office. Just as one example, Calc doesn't even come with a text to columns option. Adding it is a nightmare for non-nerds being targeted by OOo. This is not meant to promote Office, but rather to state a fact: if we want to offer a true alternative to Office, we need to fix our weaknesses, and the lack of a true Office alternative is a big weakness.
So I welcome any and all forks. Fix the interface, add the necessary functionality, and show the masses why the open source approach is superior.
153 • Sorry (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 17:31:46 GMT from United States)
152 should say "...if we want to offer a true alternative to Microsoft's offerings, we need to fix our weaknesses..."
154 • RE 145 Le futur ronflant de OpenOffice et les masses.... (by dbrion on 2007-10-03 18:01:13 GMT from France)
"OOo is the key open source application that will drive open source applications to the masses, "
Cher Anon,
OO consists on (correct me if I am wrong)
* an excellent and unpopular drawing program.
* a database, which is not that useful for 80% .
* a formula editor ( but tex/LyX is better, as publishers often ask for TeX and are helpfull with tex).... Hm.....for the masses?
* a spreadsheet, and spreadsheets are little used, meseems.
* a slow text processor (and a gain of 30% makes it remains slow).
In the free world, the drawing program is unknown, but the GIMP is known.
If one is interested in current typing, Abiword is excellent (and is used in many cybercafés, beside one version of Microsoft Word).
I cannot figure out how someoen who has bought MSWord and Photoshop could accept to switch to the Office suite (it would be like burning some 100£ banknotes in his spirit), whatever OO's technical qualities=> having 57(0(0)) OO forks does not matter at all....
155 • Re:152 (by Anon on 2007-10-03 18:21:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
[blockquote]Just as one example, Calc doesn't even come with a text to columns option. Adding it is a nightmare for non-nerds being targeted by OOo.[/blockquote]
Sorry, but that is far from a "pivotal" function, remember calc compete's with Excel, it is not Excel!
156 • 155 (by Anon on 2007-10-03 18:23:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
ooops, should have been:
Just as one example, Calc doesn't even come with a text to columns option. Adding it is a nightmare for non-nerds being targeted by OOo.
Sorry, but that is far from a "pivotal" function, remember calc compete's with Excel, it is not Excel!
My bad ;)
157 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 18:54:24 GMT from United States)
'Sorry, but that is far from a "pivotal" function, remember calc compete's with Excel, it is not Excel!'
Not sure what you are referring to here. Many, many, many Excel users rely on that function. Copy and paste of data into Excel is extremely common. I know at least four people who have tried OOo and found lack of text to columns to be an unacceptable shortcoming.
'a formula editor ( but tex/LyX is better, as publishers often ask for TeX and are helpfull with tex).... Hm.....for the masses?'
I believe there is export to latex in the recent OOo versions. I know, they fought against its inclusion for a long time, wanting to make sure OOo didn't have functionality not found in MS Word.
'an excellent and unpopular drawing program'
Unpopular, for sure, but my experiences were not excellent. I used many dirty words in my experiment.
'a spreadsheet, and spreadsheets are little used, meseems'
For many spreadsheets are a necessity. Certainly for business users. One area that OOo Calc could shine is by connecting in an easy fashion to R and its graphics capabilities, but thus far I have not found any way to do that. Calc would easily blow away most of the data analysis capabilities in Excel if they connected with R.
'a slow text processor (and a gain of 30% makes it remains slow)'
Definitely.
158 • openSUSE 10.3 (by Landor on 2007-10-03 22:10:15 GMT from Canada)
I took the KDE version of 10.3 for a spin and although I like the looks of it and a bit of their choice of software I couldn't help but notice a few problems that made me think, well, maybe it's not as polished now as it was, or should be.
I found no way to setup wireless that wasn't "automagically" recognized, which would mean it would be configured anyway. Sure I could, and did install ndiswrapper, but I found no functionality for configuring wireless in yast. With so many wireless systems out there, especially lappy's, you would think that would something of importance to have configurable by some means.
Also, I found the menu lagging, even after switching to my preference of the classic KDE menu. The same goes for launching of programs, the delay time (at least to me) is significant. This could very well be to me being used to Gentoo and how quickly it performs.
Some of the choice of software wasn't to my liking, some was as I said, and of course that's normal basically for almost any distro.
I'll be watching openSUSE closely though and see what the next release brings. Though I can only see the lag of some things increasing as the need for more resources to run each new innovation grows.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
159 • open office etc. (by beany on 2007-10-03 22:28:43 GMT from United States)
I don't know why people who compare Open Office Suite to MicroSoft Office never include the price comparison as well. The same could be said of Gimp to Adobe PhotoShop. The open source alternatives may not stack up in every aspect but they certainly surpass in some. One of the most important is that these programs offer cross platform usability and for many hundreds of dollars less. Thanks open source!!! I cannot afford to not love you!!
160 • No subject (by Donald B on 2007-10-03 23:10:49 GMT from Belgium)
Just tried ubuntu gutsy gibbon
We are in 2007. Everybody knows that it's terrible when your laptop get's stolen, or lost. But it sucks even more knowing that some individual is going through all your data. (email, internet browser data, pictures, financial data).
Why the hell don't they offer installation on encrypted partitions??? It's a basic security every OS should offer. And some do, like debian (allthough it's not so flexible). You just cannot install ubuntu on a laptop without this basic security feature.
161 • correction (by Donald B on 2007-10-03 23:30:11 GMT from Belgium)
sorry, appearntly i was wrong. it is possible from the alternate installationdisk. Only There is a bug with LVM and encrypted partition.
162 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-04 00:45:49 GMT from United States)
"I don't know why people who compare Open Office Suite to MicroSoft Office never include the price comparison as well."
Because
(a) It's incredibly obvious and very well-known.
(b) It doesn't matter - people use their computers to get things done. The goal is to provide better, not cheaper, software alternatives. Wordperfect has been cheaper for a long time. What you say is (unintentionally) insulting free software, "It's free so don't complain that it stinks!"
A 100 Mhz Pentium with 8 MB of RAM is much cheaper than a computer built in the last six months. Why do people not go with the Pentium? Because they want to get their work done. The price of MS Office is trivial compared to its value to many users. Stallman or Sun or others certainly would not use the "it costs less" excuse for poor quality.
I'm a believer that free software should be better, not cheaper.
163 • openSuse 10.3 - linux-man.co.uk (by Dave Luckhurst on 2007-10-04 02:32:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
linux-man has had them available for the last 48hrs. Sent me the DVD in the post this morning, had it installed in 30mins and bloody good it looks too. Cant wait to get home from work to have another play. Well done openSuse for another great release (and on time as well)!!
164 • RE: 162 (by Landor on 2007-10-04 02:59:09 GMT from Canada)
I must disagree here. Yes, a newer system can get their work done on a more expedient basis in some, but not all areas. The key reason we see people buying newer computers is the push of technology. The Redmond Freight Train keeps steaming on and pushing further and further into areas that max out the majority of computers and software (especially their own).
That is the main reason people keep buying newer and faster computers.
The next reason is the majority of the newer generation believe that you have to pay and pay dearly for anything you want. A belief our ancestors did not hold. Our ancestors would have looked for a viable alternative to the outlay of large funds since they understood value is in a dollar saved and getting by, than to replace something with a newer model, refurbishing mainly. I know many people who have called me in regard to replacing their systems and I installed Linux on it instead and they are stil using them and getting their work done.
For a commercial or corporate application I would agree, but for the most part, as I said, it's due to unrealistic resource bloated and poorly optimized commercial software, then those just conditioned to the modern acceptance of credit, spending money, and not knowing of other alternatives.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
165 • "Ugly American" (by otoh on 2007-10-04 04:35:47 GMT from United States)
"he book's title is deliberately ironic. The "ugly American" is Homer Atkins, a smart, hard-working engineer with no patience for diplomats and other fools."
166 • "Ugly American" (by otoh on 2007-10-04 04:45:17 GMT from United States)
"The book's title is deliberately ironic. The "ugly American" is Homer Atkins, a smart, hard-working engineer with no patience for diplomats and other fools."
http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/ugly_am.htm
167 • re: 162 (by beany on 2007-10-04 05:56:45 GMT from United States)
Howdy Anonymous...I thank you took me wrong i.e. (It's free so don't complain that it stinks!")
I have had access to student versions or bootleg versions of the very expensive Microsoft Office suite and Adobe PhotoShop. I would prefer to use open source friendly alternatives coupled with a friendly donation. Both Gimp and Open Office are amazing tools and I quote myself, they " may not stack up in every aspect but they certainly surpass in some."
So without the price issue these open source tools win for me...but you cannot just discard price as an issue when comparing . When I first considered Linux as my OS, disdain for Microsoft Windows and the cost of becoming a Mac user played into the formula. Now that I have fallen in love with my Linux Os and all its Open Source Apps, I will never turn back.
I was recently given a Macbook with Office and other apps by a friend and I became bored in within days. I spent more time using a Live Ubuntu Disc than I did with OSX10. I donated the Macbook eventually to a college teacher and never regretted it.
168 • RE 158 • openSUSE 10.3 (by Landor) (by Observer on 2007-10-04 06:45:51 GMT from Australia)
YaST Survey Started
Monday, October 1st, 2007 by Andreas Jaeger Digg!
We have just published a survey on YaST, our systems management and installation framework.
If you use any of the distributions openSUSE, SUSE Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, I encourage you to participate in our survey to support us improving YaST. The survey will be online until mid November and the results will be published on openSUSE.org.
Click here to take the survey.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=EqU6HJdC3Lq9gJp_2f_2fBE7HA_3d_3d
By the way, if you would like to know more about YaST, visit the openSUSE YaST wiki page.
http://en.opensuse.org/YaST
Thanks for participating in the survey - and a big THANK YOU to Anica to design this together with quite a couple of different stakeholders in YaST,
Andreas
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=405
BTW, which version did you take for a spin? I have not seen 10.3 GM Live CD yet, you would think its the first thing they would put out....they have a lot to learn from Ubuntu (and the other Live CD masters)!
Cheers
169 • RE 159 Inclusion of price matters (by dbrion on 2007-10-04 06:45:59 GMT from France)
"I don't know why people who compare Open Office Suite to MicroSoft Office never include the price comparison as well. "
Landor described the way rational individuals should behave, but individuals are not fully rational:
if someone has MSWord installed, removing it would be /felt/ as burning some $100 Banknotes.... for a slower text processor.
The speed of OO was a concern in institutions (# isolated individuals); first AFAIK, cascading wine+MSword was used....
then, diversity (OO for the final document, Abiword for comfort, antiword for reading /printing [text -only, read-only]) worked around this speed concern.... (and , if one loses say 1mn for every document, reads 20 docs a day, one can multiply this loss of time by some hourly wage and make it a price matter...)...
170 • openSuse Mirrors Missing Live-Install CDs (by Observer on 2007-10-04 07:10:49 GMT from Australia)
Parent Directory -
[ ] MD5SUMS 30-Sep-2007 07:04 625
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-Addon-Lang-i386.iso 26-Sep-2007 17:24 617M
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-Addon-Lang-ppc.iso 26-Sep-2007 17:25 617M
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-Addon-Lang-x86_64.iso 26-Sep-2007 17:26 617M
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-Addon-NonOss-BiArch.iso 26-Sep-2007 17:32 476M
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-Addon-NonOss-ppc.iso 26-Sep-2007 17:30 136M
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-GNOME-i386.iso 26-Sep-2007 16:02 665M
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-GNOME-x86_64.iso 26-Sep-2007 16:08 678M
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-KDE-i386.iso 26-Sep-2007 16:02 695M
[ ] openSUSE-10.3-GM-KDE-x86_64.iso 26-Sep-2007 16:02 691M
-------------------------
Makes you wonder why BIG companies like Novell have such difficulties in producing a simple Live CD that small "garage" distros have been churning out effortlessly for years. What is the problem here? :-(
171 • About post#165 > The good/s (Re bad, ugly) (by Anonymous on 2007-10-04 07:14:20 GMT from Canada)
The original post referencing the term "Ugly American" merely emphasised how "ugly" became synonomous to
political/economic inter-national policies
The movie (as are many Hollywod products) was a poor attempt at emulating the (fictional) satire of events
According to archives, the book material itself was accurately researched
Once more, Hollywood attained movie rights, of well known popular content,
then 're-wrote history" for box-office profit.
Quote:
"Critics mostly agree that the film is uneven and does not convey the book's message clearly"
The book was so successful/accurate, the title itself became a political comment.
The term, still widely used after 49 years, played a large part to reshape Eisenhower's foreign polices
Time for another book ?
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=the+ugly+american&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
I don't know how some people define "Professional Journalist" but in sports, you loose
"amatuer status" if ever paid to display talents (whether competent or not)
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=ethics+of+responsible+journalism&spell=1
Perhaps they equate "virgin" to "just a bit pregnant"
172 • Re: 157 (by Anon on 2007-10-04 09:19:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Many, many, many Excel users rely on that function. Copy and paste of data into Excel is extremely common.
Care to quote a source, or is that based on your expert opinion?
If this function is so great, why have I never had to use it up until now, in the 11 years of my academic & working career in which I have used Excel almost every day. All I can see here is someone trying to hype up Excel on a minor feature for people who could not be bothered to manage their data properly or use software that exports data in a format that works well with Excel. Hardly a USP, nor a good argument for discrediting OOo Calc.
173 • Re: 172, 157 Excel Text to Columns Feature (by rac on 2007-10-04 11:46:56 GMT from United States)
"If this function is so great, why have I never had to use it up until now, in the 11 years of my academic & working career in which I have used Excel almost every day. All I can see here is someone trying to hype up Excel on a minor feature for people who could not be bothered to manage their data properly or use software that exports data in a format that works well with Excel. Hardly a USP, nor a good argument for discrediting OOo Calc."
Just because you don't use this feature doesn't mean that other people don't. I use this feature of Excel nearly every day, and I know plenty of others at my workplace who do as well. You don't always get to pick the format of your data source. I love OOo Calc and use it at home, but if I tried to deploy it at work as a replacement for Excel I would end up in the unemployment line.
174 • Instead of whining (by Duhnonymous on 2007-10-04 12:25:38 GMT from United States)
You guys who complain about "missing features" in open source programs should just simply take the five minutes or so it takes to code those features yourself. Cut and paste is a showstopper? Are you serious?
175 • 174 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-04 12:33:44 GMT from United States)
Five minutes? LOL!!!
Besides, it's still the OOo project's choice of whether it goes in there. It's a well-documented weakness, they know about it for sure. I would be _very_ surprised if they would include the feature even if I did code it.
My complaint is that OOo is hyped so much and it gets people laughing anytime I get them to try it. Rather than taking the "write your own spreadsheet" route, I just use Gnumeric, which works great for this sort of thing.
176 • RE 174 There are cases one cannot avoid /copy/ and paste (by dbrion on 2007-10-04 12:39:40 GMT from France)
If one is interested in maps, and if some positions are given in free text (ex:" Lagos is situated at 3N and 35' E; Niamey is 700km more in the North, Gao is 250 miles at the West of Niamey)"
coding would be clumsy (and, in the real life, most people interested in maps cannot code). Copying (and the use of a text processor to extract such info is dangerous : I would recommand lighter, safer tools such as antiword, which read-only) and pasting and making the necessary conversions as they are needed is faster.
177 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-04 13:57:10 GMT from United States)
"in the real life, most people interested in maps cannot code"
No kidding. Besides, who is going to switch from Windows/MS Office if they have to write their own office suite to do so?
I think some posters do not understand the concept of "appealing to the masses".
178 • Qu 177 What is your definition of masses? (by dbrion on 2007-10-04 14:20:52 GMT from France)
And is there /any/ definition? ( that would make the difference between a slogan [cf post # 146 ] and a conceipt)
BTW, a more current example of the necessity of copying and pasting would be a business man trying to know, from newspapers free text, whether he has more money or less, as meseems you anonymously posted. perhaps he is too nervous/computer illiterate to code (and it is not a 5 minutes task...)
179 • "Ugly American" (by otoh on 2007-10-04 16:26:19 GMT from United States)
The fact remains that the Ugly American is a novel (not non-fiction) and Homer Atkins, the "ugly American", is one of the authors' "good guys". That was my sole pont.
(Yes, I did read the book when it was published, but didn't see the movie.)
180 • RE: 168 + 170 (by Landor on 2007-10-04 17:23:58 GMT from Canada)
Normally as of late, if I see something that is so obviously wrong with a "Mainstream Distro" I normally don't go to them about it as I'm almost certain most have, since it would be quite an important inclusion. I will in this case and thank you for the info.
I took 10.3 GM for a ride. I did the full install, had it write grub to root, copied over the entry to my running grub menu.lst and went from there. I ASSumed that it was going to be the live cd, of course since that was the case and all things being just and equal, I was wrong..lol
Maybe with the progression of the big boys getting more and more resource needy we'll start to see more lite distros based on them, antiSUSE, tinyFEDORA..lol But in all seriousness I could see it as a future problem. I for one decided that when I built this current box it was going to be the last for some time. I've said that for the 20 years I've slapped together my own boxes though so who knows :)
It's a shame like you said that they just can't get that live cd going, and unimaginable on why it's not the first, especially when they pump out KDE lives to no end. Couple that with no wireless configuration option in the new release and you have a good reason to be wondering if such a legacy distro is under full sails. :)
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
181 • RE: 174 (by Landor on 2007-10-04 17:35:45 GMT from Canada)
"You guys who complain about "missing features" in open source programs should just simply take the five minutes or so it takes to code those features yourself. Cut and paste is a showstopper? Are you serious?"
My sister deals with data all day long in a lab. For all of the people there, from what I've seen of them handling the data they are working with, if an option of something as simple as copying and pasting wasn't included, then yes it would be a showstopper and they would be forking out the funds fast to get something that does.
These are real world applications of products in real-time. Let's use this as an example. A woman at a 911 call centre has to type out infromation from one screen to the next, taking 1 minute per time she has to use. Could 1 minute cost someone their life? Put children in danger? Allow a major crime to be completed?
Or would the woman go wait! I'll phone Amazon and have them send me over a book for coding in C and I'll read it over coffee and donuts and add the option during break. That's not realistic at all in a real-time real-world situation is it.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
182 • re 172 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-04 18:15:58 GMT from France)
I use that feature nearly everytime I use Excel. You can't always choose the software that exports to excel.
I can't give you figures, but I know several people around me that use that function often.
I don't think the target of OOo are coders. If OOo is to expand its user base, it will have to do with "normal" office workers/home users, and with the "unproper" softwares that leave them no choice but to use Text2Columns in a spreadsheet.
183 • Re Excel vs Viable (or not ) Alternates (by Anonymous on 2007-10-04 19:57:55 GMT from Canada)
I think we can all agree, there are few applications, whether they be Proprietary or OSS
~ that totally fill all needs.
In many cases, the work environment itself dictates which are even allowed.
In most the "best tool" is not a matter of choice, but even when it is _
Practicality often resolves 'best' as -> the one at hand & most familiar
(Seems to me - it's sort of like, which O/System is used)
Efficiency is like beauty - who is to judge ?
Hell sirs - we have all seen posts where the user on some distro-forum says:
Your (sub variant of choice) stinks ~ " It MUST have a calculator/dictionary/spell checker ?
Guess they are so caught up in 'high-tech'- that pencil/paper is SO passe - they are suddenly of no use !
History is never learned, each generation selectively ignores ~
The greatest insights of all human sciences evolved from observations without benefit of any "tools" other than logic.
And the moral of that is......
"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy.
If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."
Oops, wrong one _
"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only (try to ) make them think.
Socrates
This remarkable person (Albert) had it pegged:
(I often wondered if he penned his conclusion, after being shocked
~ His calculations were fundamental to leading Openhiemer to the atomic bomb ?
"A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem".
Albert Einstein
184 • openSUSE live CDs (by Chris on 2007-10-04 19:59:32 GMT from United States)
The Suse release announcement says that
the live CDs will be out 'in the next couple of weeks'
You can try the live CDs now by
downloading from the Suse 10.3 RC2 directories.
The iso's are dated Sept 25
185 • The microwave society (by Landor on 2007-10-04 20:42:13 GMT from Canada)
"Guess they are so caught up in 'high-tech'- that pencil/paper is SO passe - they are suddenly of no use !"
As some have noticed I always relate things to general life experience and this one I am in thought about a lot.
I had a Pen Pal and enjoyed it immensely and over time it just stopped. I was very young when I first started with the Pen Pal. I think it was from school. I can remember how happy I'd be when I got a new letter from someone so far away, someone that I got to know from their writings of their inner self.
Today it's not as common as it was a couple or a few decades ago, as it wasn't a few before that, and a few before that. Sadly for today we have instant gratification, something that really bothers me about our technological microwave society. Society for the most part will measure everything by the amount of "time" it takes it to happen. There are some things still worth waiting for, like a letter instead of an e-mail (which the latter I have a few of those to reply to, to be finally caught up), something that someone took the time to put pen to paper for you. It will be a sad day when our technological community expands so far that it has phased out anything written by hand. Not to mention the art and beauty that is in some people's penmanship
The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us gain our equilibrium - Norbet Platt
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
186 • Einstein (by Duhnonymous on 2007-10-04 20:45:32 GMT from United States)
Einstein was a genius for making things make no sense and had nothing whatsoever to do with Oppenheimer's achievements. Einstein got it wrong and spent the last few years of his life trying to figure out where he screwed up.
187 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-04 21:07:31 GMT from France)
Don't remember where I read (actually I think it was on the radio) that "Einstein's EPR" paper had no references and became the most cited one (at least of that journal. Physics A IIRC).
Many people spent years well after his death figuring out that he got it wrong. Not the paper itself, far from it, only the outcome he'd expected.
#186 was speaking about something else though.
188 • Hmm (post #186) (by Anonymous on 2007-10-04 21:18:14 GMT from Canada)
( Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice Doggie!" till you can find a rock)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former".
Albert Einstein
http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3054&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
EINSTEIN AND THE BOMB: THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Quote:
"The theoretical link between their collective endeavours and the ultimate destructive application was based on AlbertEinstein's
great work on special relativity in 1905 and, in particular, his famous equation linking mass and energy, E=mC2.
In the process of certain nuclear reactions, if some mass is destroyed, it will be transformed to a level of energy beyond any other human source; the destroyed mass (m) is multiplied by the speed of light squared (C2),
where the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.
Thus, compared to conventional high explosives, this energy is many million times greater.
Einstein said of this revolution in physics:
With the splitting of the atom, everything in the world changed except our way of thinking.
Now we are drifting to unparalleled catastrophe.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a lighter note: This rocks
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000317
189 • Excel / OOo (by glyj on 2007-10-04 22:19:16 GMT from New Caledonia)
I personly would recommand not to use Excel, because with all those MS products, It's like if we were put in an artificial "biosphere" and can't get out of it. It's the end of freedom without being aware of it.
If a company really needs that fonctionnality, then they simply should hire a coder for It. They should do everything but buying MS products.
Example: The french government needed a CMS : They chose SPIP (http://spip.net ), and hired some guys to fit the product to their needs, and of course gave the code according to the GPL license. (http://www.agora.gouv.fr/ )
190 • #173, 182 etc: OpenOffice Calc Data Import (by Mark South on 2007-10-05 08:00:00 GMT from Switzerland)
Regarding OpenOffice Calc and its ability to accept columns of text as separate columns. The allegation is that OO Calc does not do this and that it is an absolutely essential business function.
We have seen various replies such as "code it yourself instead of complaining" or "why do you use that?, don't use that!"
Facts are often helpful in arguments like this, so I thought I'd take a look.
I opened OO Calc. I opened a terminal, and did "ls -l". I then highlighted the output and selected "copy" (Gnome terminal has an edit menu.) I then went to the OO Calc window, right-clicked on a cell, selected "paste special" and checked the box for "delimiter: space" and clicked OK. It worked perfectly.
I have never used this function before and hardly ever use Calc. It took me about 30 seconds to work out how to do it.
Those are the facts. My opinion is that most of the people who come in here alleging that only Microsoft products work are being rewarded in some way for making slurs on the functionality of Linux distros and their applications. That's just my opinion. But anyone else can feel free to share it.
191 • Nominal Gnumerics ? (by Anonymous on 2007-10-05 09:22:18 GMT from Canada)
Leave it to the Swiss, Hi-mark ~ they always did keep an Aye on the clock
"I sent a message to the fish:
I told them 'This is what I wish.'
The little fishes of the sea,
They sent an answer back to me
The little fishes' answer was
'We cannot do it, Sir, because -- -'
" Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."
(Is that fair ? ~ spoiling a prefectly good 'diss-cussin'
by employing emperical equations :>)
192 • RE 189 Office issues : one needs money to hire a coder.... (by dbrion on 2007-10-05 09:57:50 GMT from France)
"If a company really needs that fonctionnality, then they simply should hire a coder for It. They should do everything but buying MS products.
"
Does "anything" goes as far as "going bankrupt?"
What happens if they have /already/ bought MS products? and if they are satisfied? (with no warranty that the successor will be satisfying)?
What happens if they spend much more time in testing GPLed products than in working? (suppose 10 companies hire coders / use their own, and then GPL.... that makes 10 tests : I[think of 10 governments with different priorities adapting spip...]).
I know that, with antiword (for read only texts : that makes 80% of the needs), Abiword (BTW, I am glad it has been debugged since 2003, and glad, too, that it is becoming more popular than OOwriter : as it has less fuctionalitied, it is faster... and simpler to use....) and OOwriter, one can be efficient, but I donot think "the masses" have time/{ limited experience} to choose between 3 ways of text processing (FYI I use OOwriter under Linux and XP).
As far as spreadsheets are concerned, it may be a "false friend" : they are very user friendly, but it takes much more time (and bugs!) in making automatic repetitive tasks than in coding from the beginning (with R , I assume every task will be done more than 2 times -> I get many scripts I can use 6 months later on other data... but other pple do not / cannot make repetitive things automatic....)
193 • openSUSE 10.3 and HP printers (by tao on 2007-10-05 13:46:28 GMT from United States)
I'm amazed that HP Photosmart printers aren't supported in openSUSE 10.3, that's just stupid.
194 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-10-05 15:10:40 GMT from United States)
"My opinion is that most of the people who come in here alleging that only Microsoft products work are being rewarded in some way for making slurs on the functionality of Linux distros and their applications."
Either that, or they actually have an interest in bringing good free software to the market.
That is not really the way text to columns is supposed to work. Nonetheless, I did try what you said. I copied some of the insults from your comment, went to OOo Calc, right-clicked and chose "Paste Special", and have two options: Unformatted Text and HTML. No boxes to mark, nothing.
So obviously it's not as easy as you say or as easy as in Excel. In Excel you choose the data you want to edit, then apply text to columns directly. And as I said earlier, Gnumeric does what it is supposed to.
When I made the original comment (drawing way too much of a response - didn't have any idea Linux types were so defensive about OOo) that was just one example. Another good one is to try opening a text file in Calc. Even if you have Calc open, Writer will open up and the text file will be in there.
Take this challenge sometime. Have a MS fanboy stand over your shoulder sometime while you use OOo. When the laughter gets loud enough that you need to cover your ears, you know OOo has weaknesses.
195 • Re: 193 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-05 17:59:43 GMT from United States)
Are the printers not supported in cups or hplip, or is at the kernel level? Could you explain more what you mean by not supported? Because printing services are pretty generic across the board for linux, unless it was a trivial problem, you think you would then see people having trouble with those printers on every distro, and I doubt that.
196 • Re post 193 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-05 18:37:33 GMT from Canada)
Hp printers are usually well supported by Cups/Foomatic/Gimp print
Look for the DB (ppd) files
Printer support is either modularised (most common) or can be added when not already supported,
as a module or compiled into the kernel by the user,
when the particular model is not default enabled by distro
Your 'question' is more of a rant - Esp when not including printer model data
But that is not a generic Linux query , Pls see your SuSe Docs,
vist distro speciic forums
Learn how to use Yast
Ver. 10.3 is new enough people here may still be finding their way through changed features
Also vist Linux Print.org &/or DB lists
http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi?make=Anyone
When Cups is available - as root, use browser~ code
localhost:631
HTH
197 • Is elive dead? (by Anonymous on 2007-10-05 19:11:26 GMT from United States)
They came out with 1.0, which was nice, and now nuttin'.
198 • 197 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-05 19:50:09 GMT from United States)
Maybe the 'donations' were not large enough. He wanted to make a million dollars a week, so he gave up.
199 • RE: elive dead (by Anonymous on 2007-10-05 20:34:27 GMT from United States)
Is that an oxymoron?
200 • Word processing?? (by h3rman on 2007-10-05 20:35:22 GMT from Europe)
Word processors?
In what century doest thou live?
Latex and Emacs all the way!
201 • Yet another PRO responce ? (by Anonymous on 2007-10-05 20:57:54 GMT from Canada)
DWW is well recognised for taking great care to impartiality of distribution
reviews, either as an article or brief summary of releases
In startling contrast, Caitlyn Martin's Blog:
( titled - '' Why I Haven't Reviewed Puppy Linux')
http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/09/why_i_havent_reviewed_puppy_li.html#comments
This was posted ~ She deleted it:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CM
When you state (didn't boot) is that as a liveCD , frugal install or (very questionable choice) as a full install to the hard drive ?
What is it about the term "unique"- which is non-esential to actual use, that disturbs you so much?
It is applicable to one, or used colloquially as a member of any grouping category
I.E. ~ they are unique to most others of the genera in some form
Constant references to the J. Murga hosted Puppy forum individual experiences is neither 'unique'
to Linux 'communities' nor essential to use of Puppy.
BTW, contrary to your 'feet_of_clay comments:
If you were ever paid for writing articles - competent or not, you are a 'Pro' journalist
Pro ranks in all walks of life abound with examples of careless
incompetents unworthy of the implied associations of 'Pro'.
The term 'Willful sloth' springs readily to mind to those (sad cases)
Any (to use or not) challenge is yours to resolve, Pros are realisticly expected
to just get the job done in professional manner, not blame their tools
To have ocassional hissy fits is one thing & normal-
Any public display is quite another
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If any potential Puppy user is interested, it is hoped
they read other salient reviews that exist, decide for selves
Mr Bodnar is to be deservedly applauded for his unceasing efforts in
providing his valued resource for the benefit of all Linux community
Best regards to all
202 • Mandriva sounds promising @ Adam williamson... (by Mallik on 2007-10-05 21:33:59 GMT from India)
I think mandriva has taken the right step towards the community.
I will give mandriva a try...just bcos adam wiliamson has gone through the pains of explaining all the issues here in DW .not just in their forums.
I am installing mandriva hoping that the rest of their team is as responsive and helpful.
Cheers
203 • http://www.mizuhoradio.com/personal/caitlyn (by Caitlyn Martin on 2007-10-06 03:42:59 GMT from United States)
Yep, I don't allow personal attacks on me to be posted on MY blog. 'Nuff said.
204 • Distro listing by system requirement? (by Art on 2007-10-06 05:13:08 GMT from United States)
I am just starting using Linux, and am doing so with the idea that I can resurrect old hardware that people have discarded (I'm stunned how many people will discard a 5 y.o. computer because it won't boot anymore...no effort to reload the OS at all, I guess they think it's a goner). Then, I'll donate the computers to those that need them, free. Bonus: I'll get to try out lotsa different distros! Plus, it'll keep me off the streets at nights. Problem: I want the best Linux distro for each computer, but by best one I mean the best one that will work for that system (based on processor, memory, etc.). Many of the computers I am dealing with so far are pretty light on muscle. I like Puppy Linux (the only one I've tried so far), but I want to try others. So? Well, I'm amazed how hard it is at the websites for some distros as to the system requirements for their particular distro. WTF? You'd think that would be front and center. Why not have a distro list that lists them by system requirements? This way, if one had an old computer that one wanted to keep out of a landfill, one could easily narrow down the possible distros to try before settling on the one they wanted. Anyone know of such a list?
205 • RE: 203 (by Landor on 2007-10-06 06:04:58 GMT from Canada)
" Yep, I don't allow personal attacks on me to be posted on MY blog. 'Nuff said."
I guess the only ones allowed are by the author of it.
What I do notice though is you avoid more traffic than a UPS driver.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
206 • Pen Pals (by Anonymous on 2007-10-06 08:00:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
Following Landor's sage quote of
The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us gain our equilibrium - Norbet Platt
May I suggest that Landor and Caitlyn swap adresses and write to each other offline -- using pen and paper so they have time to developed well-reasoned replies -- so that the rest of us can read and write about LINUX rather than personal attacks -- please?!?
207 • RE: 206 (by Landor on 2007-10-06 10:55:26 GMT from Canada)
The one and only "true" "personal attack" I did do in relation to which you speak, (if it could even be considered such, I wouldn't call it that) I would say more akin to a rebuke on a topic I was passionate about, and I see many here do far worse, was post # 76.I was mature enough to realize it wasn't the proper place for such a post, and apologized for it in post #84, something I might add, other than myself, I have only seen a very small number of others admit to the same here.
Since that time I have called her on her constant contradictions here to posts by others here to her. some of which, yes coincide with her blog, but that doesn't matter, since the posts are here, made by her, are they not to be discussed? Debated? Is each post to be ignored to satisfy everyone's disinterest (on whatever level) in that topic?
Not to be rude, but what if I asked you to e-mail, or pen-pal your comment in 206 to everyone else here that you want to read it, so I don't have to read your complaining about my posts? (and no, don't say that's different! :-) )
What I do find exciting and uplifting (in a all-knowing sense of "self-right?-eous" upliftedness) is that you contribute by commenting about what you don't like, and yet, when I contribute about what I find wrong, it's, well....different, right?
"Many of us believe that wrongs aren't wrong if it's done by nice people like ourselves." - Author Unknown
But, from now on I won't play a party to these comments by "nice people", I'll post in a decent manner as I normally do until Ladislav himself tells me something's wrong.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
208 • Re # 206 Treat -ease (by Anonymous on 2007-10-06 13:32:11 GMT from Canada)
Sir:
On surface, in more moderate/d climes your 'pen-pals' advice is sound
Disclaimer: The following isn't all about Linux, but may aid deciphering code
As is Patrick McManus's ~ "A Hunker is not a Squat"
(How to parley disputes)
http://www.amazon.ca/Grasshopper-Trap-Patrick-F-McManus/dp/081614043X
However ~ it is felt Landor would be ill-advised to accept your suggestion.
Given some journalistic en-devours , & (thnx to prior supplied URLs)
origins of some reviewers is now better understood
" I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it"
Frank A. Clark
To wit: (The abreviated form, is best left unstated)
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Literary_Criticism
As one who has "steppedinit", the 'Cow_pastures_of_Life'
gave new appreciation to the folly of saying
"I always walk the straight & narrow"
To get back on the path ~ This URL may help others, as it will me to 'avoid slipping_in_it' ?
http://wooledge.org/mywiki/BashPitfalls
209 • The Best Linux (by Osgood Heep on 2007-10-06 13:45:18 GMT from United States)
This is an interesting meta discussion, but I just have to post her to mention the Greatest Linux Distro out there: (fill in the blank).
I just can't believe everybody is not using (fill in the blank) and so many crappy distros like (fill in the blank), (fill in the blank) and (fill in the blank) are still ranked high in the page hit rankings here.
Before I discovered (fill in the blank) I was always trying to get my (fill in the blank) to work properly and my (fill in the blank) to at least (fill in the blank) let alone (fill in the blank). Now, everything just works! I've even decided to contribute several dollars to the developer(s) of (fill in the blank) even though I can't afford it with my part time job as a (fill in the blank) at (fill in the blank), but at least it is a token of my (fill in the blank).
For those of you who have not yet tried (fill in the blank), I urge you to go to www.(fill in the blank).com and download the iso and let the magic begin.
(fill in the blank) for President!
210 • Who? (by landor on 2007-10-06 14:00:43 GMT from Canada)
(fill in the blank) for President!
Flip Wilson? Geraldine?
"The stick on the ice guy"
211 • Application's degree of baking (by dbrion on 2007-10-06 14:43:43 GMT from France)
I saw that there are 'half baked distributions, born in a garage".
I suppose this notion of baking is valid to applications, too.
What is the degree of baking of Abiword (as it has less functionalities than [alph order ] MS word / OOwriter, I suppose it is less baked).
Is it born in stable, on 25/XII/xxxxx?
I fear that the OO suite is getting more and more overbaked for ordinary users....
212 • Answ 210 "Who for president?" (by dbrion on 2007-10-06 14:52:16 GMT from France)
Madame K. Martin : as she seems smarter than many political (wo/)men, at least in places I know, why not? And for her, it would be a change from trying for years to have immature distrs working.
213 • # 209 ~ Expletives expunged (by Anonymous on 2007-10-06 15:28:05 GMT from Canada)
For a filli 'n tha' blank -eddy blank- blanX ?
That would save time, but dubious she would relinquish joys of bashing pitfallsmen
For Linux users who enjoy games:
This may do wonders for expanding ahem ......'languges'
http://www.pythonchallenge.com/
214 • @209 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-06 17:57:25 GMT from Canada)
Best DW post ever? has my vote. :)
215 • @214 re #209 (by The Infamous Mark South on 2007-10-06 18:40:21 GMT from Switzerland)
I'm voting with Adam. Ladislav may not be so happy, because having that post there will reduce the traffic to the comments page by about half :-)
216 • Excel and OO calc - paste into columns (by KimTjik on 2007-10-06 18:45:07 GMT from Sweden)
I'm surprised to see how some make unfounded claims about OO Calc. As Mark South already commented, this function works perfectly well in OO Calc, giving you the option to format the chunk of text in a lot of different ways. Instead of making such negative claims it could be useful to first ask whether anyway else knows if we're dealing with a lack of functionality or limited user knowledge.
...
Post 209 was a good one. On the other hand the diversity of Linux is both a pro and a con. MS could serve as an example of a developer who's simply forced to deal with and solve certain incompatibilities, whether the fix is smooth or ugly, because most of their costumers don't see any alternative to the MS "distro" (which is a pity). With Linux you could loose patient sooner with a distro and jump on to another which might "just work". Good in one way, but bad in view of how neither developer or user of the failing one getting to know why it didn't work and eventually solve it. I might be wrong, but sometimes I get the impression that some flaws get inherited because of frequent distro-jumping, leaving some developers unaware of some issues; unfortunately some users then use these short experiences as a basis for unnecessary harsh criticism.
217 • 215 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-06 20:43:03 GMT from Malaysia)
"I'm voting with Adam. Ladislav may not be so happy, because having that post there will reduce the traffic to the comments page by about half :-)"
209 is brilliant. It would probably help a lot of DWW forum users if Ladislav could put it up as a form on the Comments page. :-)
218 • re: 209 • The Best Linux (by Anonymous on 2007-10-06 21:26:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
You said "I urge you to go to www.(fill in the blank).com and download the iso ..."
Clearly an affront to my favorite distro called (fill in the blank) which is not on a .com but on a .(fill in the blank) domain!!!
:) :) :)
219 • Alternate uni-verses - The String Theory" (by Anonymous on 2007-10-07 01:40:36 GMT from Canada)
Sorry gents; Good facts. Wrong theory
To extrapolate an indeterminate & then interpolate the denominate_
Post 209 clearly violates Alberts' 2nd equation of general relativity:
" If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
Albert Einstein
Conclusion: (Hereby nominally to be referenced as ...(fill in the blanks)
Un-defined ubiqitous blankety_blanks cannot be formatted
and then be posted as pastings of excellent calculators
Alberts formulative facts preclude pre-dominate proclivites
Ex: When M accellerates "SEE" @ the speed of light ten times over_
the sheer mass of past-post participles become linked dicts
Please reference :http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=define+dicts&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
In particulates, it has been articulated as:
"Eguational Proof Procedures Using Matching"
To contact (fill in the blank) please see (fill in the blank)
of (fill in the blank) found on (fill the blank)
Cautionary Warnings prior to use are, but not limited to:
Blank fills are filtered
220 • Re: 209 (by DrDOS on 2007-10-07 03:21:13 GMT from United States)
Best laugh ot the day, and best post of the week that I've been reading the comments.
221 • 140 • Thank you (really) (by Anonymous on 2007-10-03 08:16:54 GMT from Canada) (by Anonymous on 2007-10-07 04:39:45 GMT from Malaysia)
Am glad you enjoyed the 'definitions'. Wish I could learn to write like that!
222 • @ #221 ~ Thank you again (what a #pleasant word) (by Anonymous on 2007-10-07 06:00:03 GMT from Canada)
(Aknowledgments, E.S.P. gratuities & all bribes are readily accepted)
Sadly, just when I was formulating a lengthy treat-tease on
the dangers of linking takfiriyeen to H.U.P.:
~ Istrop mercenaries intervened - to extant, DWW posters are forced to equate "brilliance"....as blank spaces
To illustrate, that last remark-
Jonahess in the wail can't ignite the spark
So - AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE the posits-ive, 'eLumine'-ate the negative
Just when eh-very thing lurks dark:
& never mess w/Mr in between
Sensory overload:
http://www.phppatterns.com/docs/develop/extending_php_classes_with_overload
223 • Comnt 216 : frequent distr hopping may lead to superficial knowledge" (by dbrion on 2007-10-07 14:20:08 GMT from France)
" I might be wrong, but sometimes I get the impression that some flaws get inherited because of frequent distro-jumping, leaving some developers unaware of some issues; unfortunately some users then use these short experiences as a basis for unnecessary harsh criticism"
I do not think you are wrong :
I suppose fairly testing a complete distribution needs some weeks/months/(lives in the general case). But then why do major distributions release at about the same time? In the same month, anyway? and at short, _scheduled_ time lags (Microsoft never did that after the infamous Millenium| Monkey Edition launch....)
Is it because of concurrency among free linuxen?
Is it because of some kind of irreflected loyalty w/r to greedy users, who want the latest HW support?
Is it because they cannot do otherwise (one month or two after the holy days, where many contributions may arrive? share holders?).
I really do not know.. but I fear that too many distrs , releasing at the same time (and with the gooal of releasing in due time rather than being fully tested) may lead to some saturation....
224 • re 220 (by Osgood Heep on 2007-10-07 16:00:39 GMT from United States)
Thanx, Dr. Dos.
225 • RE:209 • The Best Linux (by Osgood Heep) (by Tervel on 2007-10-07 16:48:24 GMT from Austria)
This was very precise said.
Osgood Heep for President! :)
226 • re 223,216 (by Anonymous on 2007-10-07 17:31:21 GMT from France)
"I suppose fairly testing a complete distribution needs some weeks/months/(lives in the general case)."
I agree, and that's why I find many reviews useless: comments on the splash screen, the multimedia codecs and the package selection. Great. I can get that info in less time than it takes to read the review by checking out the distro's website.
"Is it because of some kind of irreflected loyalty w/r to greedy users, who want the latest HW support?"
I don't know why those users who want the latest HW support should be called "greedy".
227 • @66 (by Steve Bergman on 2007-10-07 18:11:24 GMT from United States)
"""
[q]PCLinuxOS won't be disturbed one bit by OpenSuse.[/q]
"""
The PCLinuxOS "phenomenon" is entirely restricted to Distrowatch. Ladislav has looked into the matter. And whatever they are doing, it's more clever than the other, more blatant, attempts that we have seen to manipulate distrowatch statistics.
Google Trends is somewhat harder to spoof:
http://tinyurl.com/2q64l6
PCLinuxOS is not even a blip on the radar in the real world.
Distrowatch statistics are quoted enough around the web that a more thorough investigation of the reason for the orders of magnitude disparity between that and Google trends, whatever it is, should probably be launched.
Imagine if Microsoft IIS suddenly shot up past Apache in the Netcraft statistics for no apparent reason. That is how I am eyeing PCLinuxOS here, today.
228 • @ 227 (by Jmiahman on 2007-10-07 22:22:39 GMT from United States)
I guess you have never tried it then. If you had you would understand why they are number one, at least on this site.
I really don't think the Developers at PCLinuxOS have the time nor the resources to cleverly mastermind a better way to skew statistics on a community site such as this. I don't think Ladislav would agree that they are in any way cheating. In fact there's no reason for them to cheat. They are not backed by a company, there's no investors or quarterly goals to be met. It's just a few guys doing what they Love and sharing it with the community. If anything the attitude over there is please respect the other distributions. There's truly no competition, or goals related "beating" another distribution in any rank, just a little animosity towards users and Linux organizations that just don't seem to get the fact Linux is for users, at least their particular version is. There's no political FOSS issues, they offer Binary (Nividia, ATI) because they work and that's what most users want, something that works. For them it's not about ideals and political software movements it's about what users need. That's something I stand behind and whether people want to fight it our not, it's not cheating that brought there hits up, it's the mentality of putting the user first.
229 • @228 (by Steve Bergman on 2007-10-07 22:55:37 GMT from United States)
If I had to guess, I would not put the blame upon any of the PCLinuxOS devs. Probably some very clever PCLinuxOS fan. Or maybe just someone who hates Ubuntu. A Debian zealot, maybe? Or perhaps there is a very innocent answer to the question of why the Distrowatch and Google Trends stats differ by orders of magnitude. Who knows?
In any case, I still think that we would all benefit from a more in-depth investigation. After which we would, hopefully, know what the reasons were for that *huge* discrepancy.
PCLinuxOS is no doubt a decent distro. Insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But likely a decent distro with a mostly decent user base.
230 • No subject (by anticapitalista on 2007-10-08 00:26:52 GMT from Greece)
"Or maybe just someone who hates Ubuntu. A Debian zealot, maybe?"
"Insignificant in the grand scheme of things." post229.
What stupid comments.
You like Ubuntu (so you fix the figure s for Ubuntu), someone else likes Debian (so he/she fixes it for debian), person number 3 likes PcLinuxOS and blah blah blah blah blah and we all fall asleep once again... yawn yawn....
Look at post 6 guys n gals, and open your eyes and brains and try out something different. You choose what you want to try out, but do it with an open mind.
231 • @229 (by Steve Bergman on 2007-10-08 02:43:39 GMT from United States)
"""
What stupid comments.
"""
You're not off to a good start with this.
"""
You like Ubuntu (so you fix the figure s for Ubuntu),
"""
I prefer Fedora for my desktop. CentOS makes most sense for my customers' servers, and so that is what they get. I find that Ubuntu works well on my laptop.
But how, exactly, is typing "PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu" into the Google Trends search "fixing" the numbers for Ubuntu?
Sorry, but the sudden and sharp jump in the PCLinuxOS numbers here, for no apparent reason, accompanied by a sharp increase in the use of distrowatch numbers to "prove" assertions that PCLinuxOS is the most popular Linux distro ever, paired with the fact that Google Trends disagrees by, literally, *orders of magnitude*, is cause for some pretty significant suspicion, comment #6 or no. It deserves an explanation.
Comment #6 basically says "Don't worry, be happy" not "Don't worry, be complacent". So I really don't see why you think it is even relevant here.
232 • RE: 231 (by ladislav on 2007-10-08 02:57:17 GMT from Taiwan)
I keep saying it so often that maybe I should create a script that automatically posts this comment every time people discuss PCLinuxOS and the page hit ranking. So here it is again:
The fact that PCLinuxOS is at number one in DistroWatch's page hit ranking statistics DOES NOT mean that PCLinuxOS is the most popular distribution. It simply means that more people visited the PCLinuxOS page than any other page on DistroWatch during the past six months. Please don't take the rankings for more than they are!
As for possible manipulation of the statistics, I have logged every visit to the page during the past several months and regularly reviewed the logs for any sign of abuse. I found no evidence of any illegal or suspicious activity. Anybody who wants to review the logs, please send me an email and I'll let you download them so that you can look for yourself.
233 • @232 (by Steve Bergman on 2007-10-08 03:09:00 GMT from United States)
But that is how people *use* the numbers in the real world. You could auto-post your comment as many times as you want and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.
Perhaps you should simply stop publishing the deceptive and much abused numbers?
234 • Re 220...Maybe you will not think its so funny (by when u realise maybe.... on 2007-10-08 03:20:20 GMT from Australia)
>>220 • Re: 209 (by DrDOS on 2007-10-07 03:21:13 GMT from United States)
Best laugh ot the day, and best post of the week that I've been reading the comments.<<
...it is your (fill in the blank) distro he is talking about!? :-)
Not only that, I am sure the Distro Touts can see themselves here, too.
quote: [Fill in the blank] forums:
"...For over a year now i have been shamelessly pumping [Fill in the blank] on various forums every chance i get...." Then followed a chorus of "me too"!!!
235 • http://distrowatch.com/ (by ladislav on 2007-10-08 03:27:01 GMT from Taiwan)
But that is how people *use* the numbers in the real world.
No, that's how _YOU_ (and a handful of others) use the numbers in the real world. I am confident that the vast majority of readers here are capable of taking the figures for what they are, rather than misrepresenting them for something they are not.
236 • @235 (by Steve Bergman on 2007-10-08 03:32:13 GMT from United States)
No. I try *never* to use Distrowatch figures as a measure of relative distro popularity. But if you think that there are only a handful of people out there who do... you need to take your blinders off.
237 • Re DistroWatch's page hit ranking statistics (by Anonymous on 2007-10-08 03:32:56 GMT from Australia)
Ladislav: "...Anybody who wants to review the logs, please send me an email and I'll let you download them so that you can look for yourself.."
Ladislav, that is a good and responsible offer!
I hope that there are some expert analysts with some time to spare that will take up your offer and post back their scientific analysis.
Cheers
238 • @Steve (by Adam Williamson on 2007-10-08 05:27:13 GMT from Canada)
You haven't given any reason why anyone should trust Google Trends any more than they trust the Distrowatch stats. Google Trends mostly reflects what goes onto Google News, which in turn is dominated by press releases sent out by wire services. Whoever sends out the most press releases wins Google Trends. It has as little to do with actual *use* of any given distribution as do the DW charts.
239 • PHR and other non-useful information (by Landor on 2007-10-08 05:46:43 GMT from Canada)
Adam made a fine point here, and earlier in this section someone else did as well. It might even give more infromation on what Ladislav explains. I'll expand on all three.
I came back to Linux to find the desktop evolved greatly, so I figured it was time to give that a try instead of just a cli, and yes, I lived under a rock for years waiting for this to happen. Anyway, although I did have some favourites from the very onset of Linux, Redhat and SUSE in particular, I looked at "news items" and did searches, which to maybe some's chagrin pointed me to here, then the comments section :).
To make a long story short, most people will find out about Linux Flavours via news related items, magazines, books. The "majority of new people will seldom read anything of the smaller distros until they stumble across sites that have a review our anouncement of said distro. Now if they come here, maybe read Ladislav's articles in LXF what will they click on? The mainstream distros that they've read about that have tons of articles written about them.
Couple that with growing interest in distros, and also the "constant" debate of PCLOS here and it's obvious why PCLOS, or any other distro (aside from the debate factor) are in the top spots.
As it was said, doesn't mean it's the hottest distro, just one that has drawn enough attention for many to take a look.
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
240 • RE 226 : Greediness of welfare linux users... (by dbrion on 2007-10-08 06:22:56 GMT from France)
**greedy users, who want the latest HW support?"
I don't know why those users who want the latest HW support should be called "greedy".
***
Because,
a) the latest HW is often a toy which looses fast of its initial value.
b) to have some support, it leads to fast developpment cycles, without being sure softs have been tested. This practice is being abandoned by Microsoft.
BTW in the former century, Linux was recognised for the quality of its code ... but it was ... a century ago.
c) Putting the pressure on such or such distr ("it sucks because it does not recognise my expensive card" ) is like a little rich baby whining. By "rich", I do not mean this young individual earned any money by his own skills... It distracts developpers from developping/testing before releasing.
241 • 240 (by Landor on 2007-10-08 07:03:06 GMT from Canada)
I run bleeding edge basically, but the hardware I run on my main box hasn't been bleeding edge since the day after I bought it :) I agree totally. I was happy, maybe lucky? My hardware works (to some degree) with some tweaks. I didn't expect it to, nor would I have complained if it didn't, because I expected that from the start.
I have seen some people take offense to the fact that their hardware is unsupported totally and I find that absurd, and ignorant at best. Like you also said, the stability of code was, and should be now, paramount, and pushing isn't going to make that happen.
On the other side of the coin, I have seen a lot of people tell newbies that if they are not happy with their hardware not working "automagically" with Linux then buy hardware that does. That's all and good for people who intend to run linux on a "new" box when they buy it. For people who want to try it out and it's not working on something they already own, it's most likely not going to be a considered option by the user. I've also seen comments to the newbies that they should "just go back to windows then". Both are absurd and rude comments to say to someone just coming to Linux.
We've got a lot of smart devs in the Linux world and I'm pretty sure if someone really wanted to they could find a way via a program, or a program and scripts, similar to ndiswrapper to be able to install proprietary drivers built for windows for all hardware. I agree with the whole belief of OSS/FOSS, but from a stand point of either being better, or just happy with where you're at, a lot of the attitude towards proprietary drivers for hardware should be changed and an exception made in that area. Linux could really benefit from a program like that, and make things far more simple for developers and support alone.
The whole don't buy from manufacturer A because they don't support open source drivers is very unrealistic from the end-user's chair because they are going to buy whatever fits their budget or needs, and as we know most manufacturers of prebuilt systems build their boxes with windows in mind, not Linux, and that's the larger market. I'm sure (and revenues justify this reasoning) that any business they've lost from the OSS community hasn't done much to change their perspective.
Anyway, just my view of things :)
"The stick on the ice guy"
Landor
Number of Comments: 241
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| NovaCustom |
NovaCustom PrivacyGuard Laptops - Escape from Big Tech
The NovaCustom PrivacyGuard Laptop is ideal for anyone who prioritizes privacy. Comes with Dasharo coreboot open source firmware and Zorin OS Pro, free from influence of Big Tech.
|
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1176 (2026-06-08): Redcore Linux 2601, the problem with minimal system requirements, Red Hat account linked to compromised npm repositories, COSMIC to get frosted glass effect, openSUSE shows off system extension manager, Origami merges with RakuOS |
| • Issue 1175 (2026-06-01): PineTab2 with various distros, less common words of wisdom, Canonical shutting down Ubuntu's Pastebin, Murena nears 100k users, DistroWatch turns 25 |
| • Issue 1174 (2026-05-25): Solus 4.9, Linux tablets, Haiku boots on Apple M1 machines, Fedora drops Deepin packages, Mint improves Nemo performance |
| • Issue 1173 (2026-05-18): Sylve on FreeBSD, the benefit of BleachBit, Debian commits to reproducible builds, Debian publishes updated install media, Haiku introduces SMP support on ARM64 processors, Rocky Linux creates opt-in security repository, Fedora reconsiders AI tools, KDE receives generous donation |
| • Issue 1172 (2026-05-11): Fedora 44, dealing with extra fonts, Fedora plans to provide AI tools, problems with Ubuntu's new coreutils, TrueNAS extends its development cycle, postmarktetOS improves the boot splash screen, Redox ports tmux |
| • Issue 1171 (2026-05-04): Xubuntu 26.04, extending memory with VRAM, Ubuntu plans AI features, Devuan developer forks GTK2, Mint introduces hardware enablement builds, Linux running on a PlayStation 5, local kernel exploit found in Linux |
| • Issue 1170 (2026-04-27): ENux 5.2.1, picking a second distro, AlmaLinux expands CPU support, FreeBSD publishes Status Report, Ubuntu MATE skips 26.04 release |
| • Issue 1169 (2026-04-20): Lakka 6.1, free software and source-based distributions, FreeBSD Foundation publishes compatible laptop list, Debian holds Project Leader election, Haiku progresses ARM64 port, Mint to extend development cycle, Linux 7.0 released |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Full list of all issues |
| 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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
DEKUVE
DEKUVE is a Linux distribution based on Debian's "Stable" branch, featuring a customised Xfce desktop. Some of its features include a custom launcher for finding applications, browsing files or running commands, a performance-control applet that provides real-time control over the computer system's energy profile, a custom themes tool with an ability to transform the look and feel of the entire system, and out-of-the box support for Flatpak packages.
Status: Active
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
