 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 233, 17 December 2007 |
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Welcome to this year's final issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Yes, it's that time of the year when DistroWatch takes a brief look at the events that shaped the distribution world during the past 12 months. Who were the winners and losers in 2007? Which distributions impressed most? Were there any major surprises? Read more in our feature story. In the news section, Mandriva enters a new development process with Cooker Alpha 1, Max Spevack resigns as Fedora Project Leader, MEPIS updates its artwork for the upcoming release of SimplyMEPIS, Daniel Robbins announces updated "stage" tarballs, and Ulteo delivers the first of its online services. Finally, many thanks to all our loyal readers and best wishes for the festive season! See you all in 2008!
Content:
- Commentary: Distributions in 2007
- News: Mandriva enters alpha development, Fedora loses project leader, MEPIS updates desktop artwork, Ulteo announces online services, Daniel Robbins releases Gentoo "stages"
- Released last week: CentOS 4.6, LliureX 7.11, Litrix Linux 7.12
- Upcoming releases: NetBSD 4.0, FreeBSD 6.3
- New distributions: ChurchPup, DEFT Linux, EduPup, Keldix Linux
- Reader comments
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Commentary |
Distributions in 2007
It's that time of the year when DistroWatch looks back at the past 12 months and asks: what was it like to be part of the open source software community in 2007? Was it the year of Linux on the desktop yet? Were there any unexpected surprises? And did Linux or other open source operating systems help you accomplish your computing tasks? Or was there something that could have been done better?
Perhaps the most fitting description of 2007 would be "the year of increased polish of desktop Linux". While in previous years distributions seemed to concentrate on delivering exciting new features and grand enhancements, the last 12 months were somewhat more sedate in this department. Instead, all major distributions focused on incremental improvements of existing features, small usability enhancements, and general desktop polish. Ubuntu was the obvious trend-setter as it continued to attack the desktop, but Fedora also surprised a few people with its sudden dedication to impress users with desktop art. Most other distributions also made an effort here and the words like "beautiful desktop" are now a standard item on the feature lists of all major distributions.
Ubuntu continued its determined march towards world desktop domination. As it had promised, it published two stable releases (7.04 "Feisty Fawn" and 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon") and, towards the end of the year, it also started working on its second LTS (Long-Term Support) release, version 8.04 "Hardy Heron". Both of its 2007 releases were well received by the reviewers, although some end users still complained about various issues when trying to upgrade from one version to another. Quality control seems to have improved as well - the project has avoided the kind of bad publicity it suffered in 2006 when a simple security update rendered many computers unbootable. The popularity of Ubuntu was also reflected by an increasing number of derivative distributions.
The openSUSE project had a mixed year. It only produced one release (version 10.3), which was a definite improvement over the package management fiasco of some of the earlier 10.x releases the previous year, but the end users still reported a rather high number of bugs. Nevertheless, openSUSE remains one of the best-loved distributions on the market, which it demonstrated by finishing second (behind Ubuntu) in the annual DesktopLinux.com survey, while on DistroWatch.com it is the third most often used open source operating system (after Ubuntu and Debian).
Fedora was perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the year. Its two releases (versions 7 and 8) were well-received by reviewers and end users alike as it continued on its well-established, but highly innovative development path. Its new artwork team in particular deserves high marks for its work, but the effort spent merging the "core" and "extras" repositories before Fedora 7 and the growth of the volunteer developer community were equally impressive. The well-oiled Livna.org repository, maintaining a large quantity of non-free software and patent-encumbered media codecs, continued to deliver what Fedora couldn't. But despite all these positives, the distribution still fails to attract first-time Linux users who sometimes complain about the lack of a central configuration utility or the overly technical nature of the operating system.
Mandriva seems to have finally turned the page. For once, the headlines featuring the French company were less about the lay-offs and financial troubles and more about business deals and new products. Like Ubuntu and Fedora, it too published two new releases - Mandriva Linux 2007.1 was a minor update over its previous version, while its version 2008 was a brand new release. Concentrating less on features and more on polish, this latest release was a winner among the new and intermediate users, while the company continued to make advancements simplifying its web site infrastructure and product line-up. The old Mandriva Club that had split the community is all but history. Mandriva Linux, once a dominant desktop distro, made a major progress towards regaining the users' trust in 2007 and if it continues on this path, we might see some interesting distro usage shifts in the coming year.
Debian GNU/Linux had a quiet second half of the year after the release rush leading to version 4.0 "Etch" in April 2007. This was a major breakthrough for Debian as it was the project's first release defaulting to the 2.6 kernel series and the first one that included a graphical installer. On the negative side, despite the fact that all the bickering over the Dunc-Tank experiment subsided in the second half of the year, the excellent Debian Weekly News failed to return to life. Next on the project's agenda: Debian "Lenny". Scheduled for release in September 2008, talk about freezing the testing tree has already started. Will we finally see an orderly Debian release in 2008?
As for other main distributions, Slackware Linux continued its quiet existence - little changed during the 15 or so years since it was conceived. It made just one release in 2007 (version 12.0), which was reflected by the solitary(!) news update on its web site. Luckily though, the Slackware "Current" changelog keeps moving as fast as ever. In the meantime, Gentoo Linux had another disappointing year. It was the first time in the project's history that it managed just one stable release in a calendar year (assuming that no new version shows up before 31 December), while its news page offered only marginally more updates than Slackware's. The excellent Gentoo Weekly News was quietly abandoned in the second half of the year. Once a highly respected and rapidly evolving distribution, Gentoo Linux is now increasingly a niche product - technically excellent, but nowhere near as enticing as it was just a few years ago.
Which of the smaller distributions shined this year? Enough has been said already about PCLinuxOS, an unlikely distribution that ends the year 2007 on top of DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking statistics. Perhaps one distribution that arguably deserves most the "biggest mover and shaker" title of the year is Linux Mint. This unpretentious project achieved more in one year than many better established distros in several, especially in its ability to attract less technical computer users and convert them to Linux. Granted, Linux Mint is mostly Ubuntu with a new face, some desktop enhancements and a handful of administration tools, but the sheer enthusiasm of its developers and community make up for any shortcomings of the small project. The second operating system worth mentioning here is PC-BSD; like Linux Mint, it has grown by heaps and bounds in terms of work that turned an ultra-geek operating system into a real BSD desktop alternative.
And what about DistroWatch? We too had a decent year. The site kept growing, albeit at a slower pace than it used to. Despite that, it managed to break all records in October this year when it attracted 3.7 million visitors and served almost 72 million pages. The advertising revenue dropped somewhat in 2007; that however didn't stop us from setting aside US$4,200 for donations to open source projects. The readership of DistroWatch Weekly too grew rather nicely during the year, helped, no doubt, by a number of external writers who provided interesting content; many thanks to Susan Linton, Chris Smart and other contributors.
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This is the last issue of DistroWatch Weekly in 2007. The next two Mondays fall on the 24th and 31st December - the days traditionally associated with offline feasting and festivities (at least in the Western world), rather than online activity. As such, your DistroWatch Weekly team will also take a break. The front page will be updated as normal, but DistroWatch Weekly will only return on January 7th, 2008.
Finally, let us extend our season's greetings to all our loyal readers. We thank you all for your support throughout the year and hope that you have a happy and prosperous New Year! See you all in 2008!
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| Miscellaneous News |
Mandriva enters alpha development, Fedora loses project leader, MEPIS updates desktop artwork, Ulteo announces online services, Daniel Robbins releases Gentoo "stages"
 Mandriva Linux is the latest major distribution to launch a testing process leading to its next release, version 2008.1. However, unlike Mandriva's upgrade from 2007 to 2007.1 a year ago when the base system remained intact and only the more visible packages were upgraded, this time around it looks like all of its components are being pushed towards newer versions. A quick glance through the package list reveals that the first alpha of Mandriva Linux 2008.1 ships with Linux kernel 2.6.24-rc5, X.Org 7.3 and GTK+ 2.12.3. All of the major packages have been upgraded as well. Other interesting features that are being integrated into the system include new ATI and NVIDIA proprietary drivers and PulseAudio. Some early reports suggest that Mandriva's first alpha is fairly stable and relatively bug-free, which is unusual for what is essentially an early Cooker snapshot. The final release of Mandriva Linux 2008.1 is currently scheduled for release on April 2nd, 2008."
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  Max Spevack, the Fedora Project Leader since February 2006, has announced his resignation from the post: "After two years and four releases of Fedora, I would like to be able to do some other things related to Fedora and/or Red Hat while allowing someone else to assume the 'Fedora Project Leader' responsibilities. ... I also want to make it absolutely clear that all of this is completely voluntary - it is my idea, it is initiated by me, and I have brought the Fedora Board and other Red Hat VIPs into the discussion because a decision like this requires their input. It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve as the Fedora Project Leader. I am not going anywhere for a while, but I wanted to let the community know what is going on, and what to expect in the next few months."
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 It can't be long before the final release of SimplyMEPIS 7.0 shows up on download mirrors. As part of adding that last-minute polish, the MEPIS developer community has updated the look and feel of this user-friendly distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux: "Thanks to some very inspired and dedicated work by the MEPIS community, the look of MEPIS 7.0 has been updated. This is a whole new coordinated look for grub, splashy, and the desktop. To install the new look, just update from the MEPIS 7.0 pool. This update is not available for earlier releases of MEPIS." Also updated were a number of popular packages, including Mozilla Firefox (2.0.0.11), Digikam, KMPlayer and xine-lib. Will SimplyMEPIS 7.0 arrive just in time for Christmas?
SimplyMEPIS 7.0 - the new artwork
(full image size: 374kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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 Ulteo, a Linux distribution project led by Mandrake founder Gaël Duval, has announced the incorporation of an online edition of OpenOffice.org into the upcoming release of Ulteo: "The latest version of OpenOffice.org is now available using a browser with a single click of a mouse, with no download or installation process ('no install') of the productivity suite required. ... Ulteo's service also provides OpenOffice.org users with instant collaboration capabilities. A user working with OpenOffice.org on the Ulteo server can invite other people to work with him or her on a shared document in real time. Invitations are sent via email and allow access in either read-only or full edit mode, simply by clicking on a link in the email." The new service is part of Ulteo's philosophy of "connected desktops", where software and services are often delivered across the network, rather than through locally installed applications. Besides OpenOffice.org, Ulteo promises to provide similar services in the future, along with a few surprises.
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 Speaking about distro founders, here is a useful note from Daniel Robbins, the original creator of Gentoo Linux. With the distribution's upcoming release (version 2007.1) seemingly nowhere in sight, Robbins has released a set of fresh Gentoo "stages" for those users who want to install the latest Gentoo Linux without having to do to much post-install compiling: "Yes, even more fresh stages for amd64, i686 and x86 are available here. A new amd64 stage is building right now and will have a timestamp of 2007-12-10 when uploaded. Barring any build issues from upstream, I plan to offer fresh Gentoo stages that are no more than a week old, so the next time you need a fresh stage tarball, please give one of mine a try. It will save you quite a bit of 'emerge -u world' time." The Gentoo "stage" tarballs are designed primarily for advanced Linux users (or those who would like to become advanced in as little time as possible), to perform a highly optimised, custom Gentoo installation from scratch.
Still on the subject of Gentoo, Obsethryl's Lab has published and interview with Ciaran McCreesh, the chief developer of Paludius (an alternative to Gentoo's Portage package management infrastructure): "A lot of seasoned GNU/Linux users prefer using Gentoo in production, mainly because of Portage. Despite that, Portage does have a series of issues that hinder its further development; one solution that can substitute Portage and offer a viable and far more robust alternative is Paludis. ... Instead of presenting Paludis myself and why it is preferable to use it in a Gentoo system instead of Portage, I took the liberty of asking Ciaran McCreesh, chief developer among the Paludis team about a relatively gentle introduction to the Paludis world, why it became a necessity, its design and goals."
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 With the KDE 4 release date approaching fast, the developers of Kubuntu have joined openSUSE and Debian GNU/Linux in providing a live CD featuring the latest release candidates of the popular desktop environment: "The second release candidate of KDE 4 has been released and packages are available for Kubuntu 7.10. If you want to test KDE 4 without installing packages download the live CD (466MB). This CD includes a preview of the Konqueror Webkit engine." The latest KDE 4.0 release candidate looks considerably more polished than the betas; if you'd like to take a peek, you can download the Kubuntu live CD from here: kubuntu-kde4-rc2.iso (466MB, MD5). KDE 4.0 is scheduled for release on January 11th, 2008.
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 Finally, FreeBSD's Ivan Voras has announced the availability of a new FreeBSD live CD. Based on FreeBSD 7.0-BETA4, the live CD boots into an Xfce desktop and features a graphical system installer: "I've created a new livecd + finstall ISO image containing FreeBSD 7.0-BETA4. This release of finstall fixes most of the bugs present in earlier versions, and introduces only one new feature: file systems are created on glabel devices. It looks like I can now create a realistic schedule for 7.0-RELEASE. It will probably contain the following new features (i.e. in addition to those already in alpha2): ZFS; installing on already partitioned drives; some kind of rudimentary remote install." While the new release is still labelled as alpha, this is currently the easiest way to take an early look at the upcoming FreeBSD 7.0. Download the live CD image from here: freebsd7-finstall-alpha2.iso.bz2 (286MB). FreeBSD 7.0-STABLE is scheduled for release on January 14th, 2008.
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| Released Last Week |
LliureX 7.11
LliureX is an Edubuntu-based live DVD developed by the Council of Culture, Education and Sport at the Municipality of Valencia in Spain, designed for deployment in schools throughout the region. A new version, based on Edubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn", was announced yesterday. New features include: full support for Valencian and Spanish, with additional language modules for other regional languages of Spain, as well as English, French, German, Arabic, Russian and Romanian; improved hardware support and up-to-date software with two years of guaranteed security updates; GNOME 2.18 desktop, OpenOffice.org 2.2 office suite, Firefox 2.0 web browser and Linux kernel 2.6.20; new and more robust system of auto-configuration with a transparent installation of configuration files. Read the full release announcement (in Spanish) for further details.
LliureX 7.11 - a Spanish Linux distribution based on Edubuntu
(full image size: 1,591kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Litrix Linux 7.12
A new stable version of Litrix Linux, a Brazilian desktop distribution based on Gentoo Linux, has been released. According to the brief release announcement (in Portuguese) on the distribution's web site, Litrix 7.12 uses Linux kernel 2.6.22 and includes KDE 3.5.8 desktop, OpenOffice.org 2.3.0 office suite (called BrOffice in Brazil), GCC 4.1.2 compiler suite, Picasa image viewer, XSane scanner frontend, NVIDIA 100.14.19 proprietary graphics driver, and native support for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems. The distribution is optimised for i586 processors (Intel Pentium III and newer).
Litrix 7.12 - a Brazilian distribution based on Gentoo Linux
(full image size: 809kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
CentOS 4.6
Johnny Hughes has announced the release of CentOS 4.6, a newly updated version of the distribution's legacy 4.x branch: "The CentOS development team is pleased to announce the release of CentOS 4.6 for i386, x86_64, s390, s390x and ia64. This release corresponds to the upstream vendor 4.6 release. Also released in the updates repository for CentOS 4.6 are all updates through December 15th, 2007. Major changes for this version are: Samba has been updated to version 3.0.25b; Autofs5 is included in this release as a Technology Preview, it resolves several long-standing interoperability issues in multi-vendor environments; there is a technology preview of OpenOffice.org 2.0 included in the updates directory; a new yum included in CentOS 4.6 requires the installation of a metadata parser for yum." See the complete release announcement for additional information.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- ChurchPup. ChurchPup is a Puppy Linux derivative for Christians. It focuses on Bible study, office applications, Internet, and email, but also includes applications for multimedia presentation, audio and video editing, and musical notation.
- DEFT Linux. DEFT (acronym of Digital Evidence & Forensic Toolkit) is a customised distribution of the Xubuntu live Linux CD. It is an easy-to-use system that includes excellent hardware detection and some of the best open source applications dedicated to incident response and computer forensics.
- EduPup. EduPup, a light GNU/Linux distribution based on Puppy Linux, is dedicated to children and their teachers and parents. It includes the following educational programs: TuxType2, TuxMath, ChildsPlay, TuxPuck and TuxPaint.
- Keldix Linux. Keldix Linux is a distribution designed primarily for the Small business Office and Home Office (SOHO) market. It is a live DVD built on PCLinuxOS. Keldix Linux has the following features: Danish translation, Skype, Shorewall firewall automatically activated, automatic setting of synchronised time, login by password or SSH passphrase, dr.dk TV.
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 7 January 2008.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • No subject (by Jimbo on 2007-12-17 14:23:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
Happy Christmas Linux users!
2 • No subject (by mika on 2007-12-17 14:28:52 GMT from Italy)
merry x'mas
3 • Church pup (by mika on 2007-12-17 14:32:48 GMT from Italy)
We really miss!!
eheheheheheheheh
Mika from a vatican city extension (Italy) :-(((
4 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 14:48:06 GMT from Canada)
Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année à tous!
5 • MEPIS review (by CeVO on 2007-12-17 14:50:22 GMT from Spain)
I asked Ladislav in two separate mails to link to a nice MEPIS review, but apparently he missed it. Why was the review nice? Because I know the writer visited the forums for a couple of issues, so he really got his hands dirty before writing his piece.
For those interested: http://distrogue.blogspot.com/2007/12/mepis-70-rc2-see-fedora.html
6 • Happy Christmas (by Ringwraith on 2007-12-17 14:54:43 GMT from United States)
To all! Special Greetings to Ladislav. Thanks for all you do through out the year.
7 • No subject (by pete on 2007-12-17 14:56:50 GMT from Austria)
happy xmas and a happy new year from austria !
thx for all that interesting stuff provided here and see you in 2008 :-)
pete
8 • My Year with Linux ended in disgust (by Whitt Madden on 2007-12-17 14:57:36 GMT from United States)
I've been using linux for about 7 years, and to date this was the most disappointing year for me. I've tried all of the distros in the top 10 this year, with only 1 distro staying on my system for longer than 3 months. I've been an avid Ubuntu fan since its first release, but the switch to Gutsy was a very bad decision for me. My first and biggest complaint with Gutsy was the fact that it takes some 5 minutes after I send a document to print for it to actually start printing. No other distro that I have tried this year has had that issue. Compiz on Gutsy was another disappointment. I learned long ago with linux not to go the ATI route, and have been using Nvidia exclusively, but with Compiz enabled, whenever I use the switch user feature, the screen goes to a blank white. I can type a password on the blank screen and it will let me switch users, but this is the only distro that I have experienced this issue with. The other Compiz issue I had encountered with Gutsy, is the titlebars on my windows disappearing at random. I experienced several issues with OpenOffice not letting me change the page layout from portrait to landscape as well. The settings would show they took, but it never actually worked.
I had a very short affair with Fedora 8 this year as well. Fedora did not present the compiz bugs that Gutsy showed, but I found YUM to be extremely slow, and painful to use. Another downside at least for me, was the lack of available packages. Even after enabling community repos, Fedora has no where near the package availability of the debian based distros. The overall sluggishness of Fedora is the reason why I decided to try something else.
PCLinuxOS seems to be the talk of Distrowatch, so I decided to try it out and see what all the hype was about. Other than having the proprietary codecs pre-installed, and a pretty interface, I have been unable to determine what is so great about this OS. I can do all of the codecs, via one-click in other distros, and Sabayon also has the codecs pre-installed. PCLinuxOS seems to suffer the same package availability as Fedora 8. You may argue there are a lot of packages available, and yes I agree 7000 + is a lot, but pales in comparison to the 20,000 + packages in Debian-based distros, or even that of the Gentoo based distros. PCLinuxOS seemed to run fairly well, however, and was much more responsive than Ubuntu was for me. However I biggest showstopper for me was the fact that my digital camera didn't work. Other distros have no problem detecting my Kodak digital camera, but PCLinuxOS choked on it. My wife will tell you that it is has a lot of stability issues with Firefox, she reported that it crashed on her on her favorite sites, like MySpace and Facebook. I also ran into an issue running Azureus bit-torrent client, and for some reason, while I was running it, Konqueror would lock up, whenever I tried browsing my home folder.
These are just a few of my experiences this year with linux. As I said, I have been using linux for about 7 years, and for me this has been the worse year. Last year, I didn't have any of the stability problems that I seem to be experiencing this year. I still have a few others that I am trying. Currently I am using Sabayon Professional Edition 1.1, because their unstable 3.4f release was a nightmare for me to be able to update. The very first issue I had with it, came right after I installed and the sound was not working. I found a fix for it, and had to run alsaconfig as root in order to get sound working, and was told by many in the Sabayon forums this was a known issue. I ran the update-installer utility in Sabayon before installing, and found that most said that should have fixed it before the install, however it did not work for me.
Has the QA slipped through the cracks this year for Linux releases, or am I being too critical by expecting most things to just work? I don't want to use Microsoft at home. I simply want a distro that can do the things I want it to do, without having to spend days finding fixes for things that I think should just work. I want a distro that can print a document when I send it to the printer, be able to switch between two users on a system, with both users having the capability to download pictures from the camera, be able scan pictures, and not lock up, so that it should be rebooted at least once a day. Has stablility been an issue with these other distros, or is it just me? At first I thought maybe it was my hardware, but why should it be so different, for every release that I try? I'd really like to know from the DistroWatch users how this year has been for you using Linux. Have you had any of these issues? Do you think that QA has slipped this year as well?
9 • Have a good break (by Omari on 2007-12-17 15:06:27 GMT from United States)
I always look forward to the DWW on Monday mornings, so it will be great when you're back in the new year. Meanwhile enjoy a well-deserved break!
10 • KDE 4 (by Duhnonymous on 2007-12-17 15:09:38 GMT from United States)
I tried the KDE 4 rc2 Kubuntu, and it's pretty cool. All the same, it has a long way to go. I think I'll wait till 4.1 before I decide whether to use it full time.
11 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 15:22:56 GMT from United States)
Pretty good summary of the events this year.
Does anyone know what are the changes in the art work in Mepis? The shot above looks similar to the existing art work. Other than the Mepis logo in the bottom right corner, I don't recognize anything new.
12 • Linux in 2007 - Usable wifi! - KDEnlive sponsorship (by Dan MacDonald on 2007-12-17 15:23:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
2007 was an absolutely amazing year for Linux and FOSS- the best year yet, definitely but I was greatly disappointed that your summary of this years Linux distros made no reference to the greatest advance made in this entire field of interest in 2007 and that was Mandriva 2008's EASY, WORKING WIFI support!
This was nothing short of a revolution in my eyes - for years now the biggest reason I was not able to recommend Linux to 'normal' (ie the "what's Linux?" crowd) computer users was that they'd have to 'know unix' or read a whole load of guides and HOWTO's before they would even have a chance of getting their wifi working with ndiswrapper. Everybody needs internet these days (especially Linux users!)- its the main use of computers these days and many people want to use wifi or have no other option. I was SO impressed with the GNOME version of Mandriva ONE 2008 I did 150+ copies complete with instructions and covers and gave them out for free, leaving them in local shops etc!
Wifi support is still very poor is most other Linux distros it seems and I would often end up turning off any protection because it would be such a hassle getting wifi AND protection working- not under Mandriva! Compiz is cool and helps attract new users as much as anything right now but I'd be happy to see Ubuntu and the other distros wifi support achieve parity with Mandriva > 2008
I'd like to nominate KDEnlive for the next Distrowatch Donation, which leads my nicely onto my latest FOSS campaign :)
An open letter to Canonical/Novell/Mandriva/Red Hat etc.
On the whole, Linux multimedia is very good now, with one very important exception - video editing, which has long been a weak spot for Linux and this is frequently cited as one of the main reasons people have been unable to adopt Linux as their primary desktop platform; hardware incompatibility being the other but as we all know that is becoming less of an issue as more and more hardware vendors are supporting Linux.
Linux users really only have two serious choices for video editing- cinelerra or KDEnlive. Unfortunately, cinelerra has a complex interface which really requires a dual-display setup and it also has a steep learning curve, which leaves KDEnlive as the only real, usable choice for most users. Whilst KDEnlive has made great progress in the last year, it is still missing many important features (see its Roadmap on the KDEnlive wiki - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Kdenlive/Roadmap ) and unlike other key Linux multimedia apps such as k3b and Ardour it doesn't have any sponsors to assist with and accelerate its development, despite not being as feature complete or mature.
If one (or more) of the major Linux vendors would like to see a marked increase in desktop Linux adoption then there is no other strategy I could more highly recommend than sponsoring or helping to develop KDEnlive - it really is the most important, final big missing piece of the desktop linux 'puzzle'. If we can get a great KDEnlive 0.6 released in time for inclusion in Hardy for example it would do wonders for Ubuntu and desktop Linux overall.
Looking forward to a very exciting 2008, thanks to everyone who supports free software for making 2007 so good!
13 • Yo Larry Page and Sergey Brin (by MrMagi on 2007-12-17 15:25:49 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
14 • to Whitt Madden (by Tasos on 2007-12-17 15:29:16 GMT from Greece)
You have been using Linux for 7 long years and yet, you havent learned some basic things I believe.
You can customize all the distro according to your needs whether this is called installing codecs, DVD playability, GUI and eye candy or additional useful programs.
If you cant find the program you need, compile it! Or even make a package to contribute to the community. Or if you cant find a program for your task there is always the posibility of using wine/crossover office, virtualbox/vmware and other virtual machines.
Distro hopping is not the solution, believe me I followed this path and lead me to nowhere. The best thing to do is install a major distro like Ubuntu or if you dont like Gutsy with those new features you dont like there is always an alternative to try like Xubuntu (a much more lighter version). Or MEPIS (a really nice one).
What I really like is PCLinuxOS. It really has everything I need like most people do. What exactly you didnt like about it? It can do the stuff you mentioned! It just works!
I use now Arch (bedore PCLinuxOS) and its customized for the things I need to do.
Or at least try Mint. Its the best distro for people like you. I believe it has everything out of the box.
15 • KDE4 (by bretzel on 2007-12-17 15:30:59 GMT from Canada)
I cannot understand - KDE has been the most cool desktop window manager for me and dev cycles was long and ... serious. This KDE4 release schedule is not serious at all - very disapointed . RC2 looks more alpha2 - seriously. what 's pushing KDE developers in such a hurry and releasing unfinished stuff a la Micro$oft ???? I can Understand the later because they are very long to release versions especially when there are NO innovations at all but only copying apple and Un*x and Linux . ---
16 • frequencies of releases (by RipVanWinkle on 2007-12-17 15:36:16 GMT from United States)
in my most humble opinion i think once a year is plenty frequent enough for any distro's release schedule, any faster than that and it seems like it is just being rushed out the door, Slackware & Debian do releases in a slow & methodical way that always makes for a clean & almost completely bug free setup. [thats bug free, not free bugs] ;p
17 • Re :14 (by Whitt Madden on 2007-12-17 15:39:53 GMT from United States)
Tasos, I do know a lot of basic and a lot of advanced things about Linux. PCLinuxOS refuses to detect my digital camera, that works in other distros. I have tried adding it manually, searching the forums for an answer, it doesn't work. That and the other issues I mentioned about it locking up in Firefox are definitely showstoppers for me. I do use wine and crossover office for Photoshop and that works well enough for me. I'm fine with not having all of the codecs out of the box, as well, they are easy enough to find, the main issue I've found with the newer releases this year is the stability of the software. I've thought about trying Mint, that is on my list.
Thanks,
18 • KDE4, Linux boot/suspend comparison (by Dan MacDonald on 2007-12-17 15:54:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
I can't resist - I too have got to say how disappointed I was with KDE4 RC2. RC2? Sorry KDE guys but it's certainly not RC, not even beta quality yet. I tried the latest kubuntu with RC2 and konqueror wouldn't start unless I ran it from a console for a start. Then, every time I went to a new web page konq would open a new 'Downloading' window with progress bar for EVERY image on a page, so you've have 60+ windows opening and shutting. Another shocker was how SLOOOOWWW the widgets get drawn, especially when rotated! Like emulating Vista on a beefed up sinclair or a sloth in treacle in December. No, seriously it was like I was emulating a PC on a PC with no GFX accel to speak of, this is on a 2GHz/1GB RAM PC. Nor does it look that good yet, both e17 and GNOME w/ compiz look a lot more polished.
I've also got an idea for an article or feature- how about comparing distros just on boot/ shutdown speed and maybe also hibernate/suspend compatibility? Has anyone already conducted such a test??
Anyone here got a Brother inkjet printer running under Linux? Does it show you ink levels under the GNOME printer dialogue/tool? If it does I'm getting one- bah Epson and your lacking Linux support! Having to enter a password to check ink levels (if you're lucky that it works at all) is NOT the future of the desktop!
19 • Happy Holidays (by Roy at 2007-12-17 15:54:52 GMT from United States)
God Jul og Godt Nytt År!
20 • The Buntu's (by davemc on 2007-12-17 16:08:47 GMT from United States)
I started this year off as the Buntu's biggest skeptic. I finish this year with a Buntu install on every one of my home lan systems. Go figure. I tried Sabayon, which is an excellent distro despite its Gentoo roots. PCLos, which despite its claims of "just works", failed to deliver at all. PuppyLinux, which is a top notch distro that is second to none when it comes to the mini's. I will always carry it on my pen drives for business travel and keep it close. Fedora, which to me, seems to be second only to OpenSuSe when it comes to being lost and confused in the big bad world of Linux and which direction it should go. Both those Distro's can be the best of the best, yet they are far from it for what I think is a normal user (multimedia, wireless, etc). Their priorities seem to be set by Corporate whims, which is never a good thing for the Open Source/Free Software world. Or if not Corporate, then what does set their goals? Roll of the dice?.. That would probably be the better approach for them at this point. In any case, neither Fedora nor OpenSuSe will ever be allowed again near my systems until they learn to calm down and play nice. What else?
DSL. Great concept, good distro. Bag of mixed blessings. Is it just me, or is it the very bane of all mini distro's that installing is the hardest part of its usage? In any case, I never could get DSL to install to HD at all. Its a neato livecd though. Too bad it will never be more than that.
Gentoo. LOL!! Do people seriously use this distro for more than just curiosities sake and brownie point pride?.. I dont think so. Gentoo offers no advantages over a binary based distro that I can ascertain other than cosmetics. The .0000000000000001% speed increase is absolutely not worth the countless hours of compilations, hassles of world updates, USE flags, etc. I started this year off as a Gentoo fan, and end it completely disgusted with its uselessness and false claims. Lies! If anyone can offer some hard evidence and prove me wrong, please, feel free! Otherwise, I do believe the binary distro is the only viable way to go in the modern day world of computing.
Slackware. Wonderful distro... For the perfectionist, the Linux afficianado, this distro is a work of heaven itself. Love it.
LFS. The peak of Mt. Everest for Linux masters. Climb it, and you win! What? Dont ask me, I gave up lol!
Ubuntu. The king of kings for both expert and novice. Boasts and actually delivers on its claims, unlike all the other big boys. A pure joy to use, and despite its noobish ambiance, its a VERY seasoned and well put together piece of work. It delivers a Desktop experience unlike all others and offers free support that is simply unrivaled anywhere, anytime. The claim of "just works" much more accurately belongs to this distro.
Mandriva. Second only to the Buntu's. They are finally starting to "get it". The 2008 release was a major shift for them, but they are still obsessed with the mighty Franc, and so, will always remain squarely BEHIND the free Buntu's.
Have a great Holidays Linux lovers. Look forward to reading your comments next year!
21 • to Whitt Madden (by Tasos on 2007-12-17 16:09:24 GMT from Greece)
If stability is so importand to you try Debian or even Slackware.
Sit down and install an advanced distro like slackware. No distro could offer all things you like in one way at the same time. Since you like Linux you have to get things working.
A promising distro also distro is paldo. Or foresight. I am trying to suggest you something that fulfills your needs.
The other way is to purchase a commercial distro and have professional support.
22 • thanks for a great year! (by Jose on 2007-12-17 16:09:53 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Thank you for a great year and Happy Holidays to all!
23 • Re: 21 (by Whitt Madden on 2007-12-17 16:14:24 GMT from United States)
Tasos,
I may indeed try Debian. I don't know why I haven't tried it, when I've run through most of their derivatives. Thank you for your suggestions!
24 • @20 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-17 16:19:28 GMT from Canada)
France has used the Euro as its official currency for several years now, you know. :)
It's really a bit unfair to say we're 'obsessed' with it, too. Quite simply, as an independent commercial distributor (one of very few left, along with Xandros and Linspire that I can think of, and of course Red Hat is the big one) we have to at least break even to survive. Not in the long-term, aspirational, not-actually-publishing-any-numbers sense in which Canonical says it wants to be self-supporting, but on an ongoing basis. That means we have to sell *something*. I think there's very, very few companies out there who give you free access to more stuff than we do.
25 • glaedelig jul (by ray carter at 2007-12-17 16:20:46 GMT from United States)
I continue to admin nine Linux seats (public access internet) at the local library. There are also one xp and one vista. The patrons have accepted Linux without hesitation and without problem - currently running 4 rhel; 4 Ubuntu 7.04; 1 Ubuntu 7.10 - I'll be completing the upgrades in the next week or two.
Biggest improvements I've seen this year: several distributions include mad-wifi so my Dlink WNA2330 (atheros chipset) works out of the box; and them improvement of graphic card drivers. I was finally able to ditch the proprietary xig driver for the built in intel card on my Gateway laptop in favor of the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver; and apply the xserver-xorg-video-via driver on my wife's Everex desktop. Things 'just work' a lot more now.
26 • MEPIS Artwork (re #11) (by CeVO on 2007-12-17 16:29:03 GMT from Spain)
The new MEPIS artwork consists of:
- new logo
- new wallpaper
- new GRUB screen
- new splashy screen
- new KDM splash
- new KDE styling, theming and colours
Due to time constraints, icons and cursors have been left out, but work will continue.
Please note that the new looks are a community effort, and the first tangible proof of MEPIS' shift towards a community driven distro with Warren Woodford as leader and architect.
27 • To Whitt Madden (by Matt on 2007-12-17 16:29:16 GMT from United States)
I went through all of the Top 10 distros this year (and some others as well), and I keep going back to Mandriva. 2008 is an exceptional release and the best "all around" distro in the Top 10 IMHO.
Thoughts on the Top Five:
PCLinux OS - My thoughts are the same as yours. Where's the beef?
Ubuntu - I don't print from my Linux machine, so the slow print doesn't bother me. I liked Gutsy's features, but it runs like a dog with fleas on my P4 notebook (even w/ a Gig of RAM!).
openSuSE - 9.0 was my first real Linux experience, so I have a sentimental tie to SuSE. 10.3 runs nicely, love the documentation and community support, and they have the finest implementation of OpenOffice of anyone, but it's not ATI/AIGLX friendly, and I have to go Command Line way too much to configure it. Married w/ young kids = too little time to fiddle with openSuSE. Yast has been improved, but it's still cumbersome, cluttered and slow. One Click install is brilliant, though. I can easily see SuSE becoming the dominant player in enterprise Linux, as office-deployed Linux becomes more mainstream.
Fedora - F7 was the bomb and that stayed on my machine for most of the year. F8 is a dud. The initial logon scripts don't run for first boot account-setup (I have to log on as Root, and then manually set up the primary account) and YUM is locked up on first boot and requires re-scripting to get it work. Sorry--but the mighty Red Hat, which has innovated more for desktop Linux than any other company or distribution should have a better freakin' software manager than YUM. The fact that YUM necessitates alternatives (Yumex and that "fastest mirror" app), frankly, is embarrasing. And it's not an "RPM" thing, either. Mandriva's software manager is as snappy as Apt/Synaptic.
Mandriva 2008: Brilliant. It works out-of-the-box as well as Ubuntu, is very feature rich, and it's 586 optimised (sorry Ubuntu). It works, and works exceptionally well. It's great for beginners and doesn't bore more advanced users. Installation is easier than Ubuntu; Mandriva Control Center is quicker and much easier to use than Yast; and performance on my notebook is as good, or better, than Fedora. Oh, and for you Compiz lovers out there--3D is configurable for either AIGLX or XGL via single click from the Control Center. Take note everyone else (especially SuSE).
28 • Gentoo rant (by hdas on 2007-12-17 16:30:41 GMT from United States)
I still don't understand what has distrowatch got against Gentoo ;-). For a record, its the only worthwhile distribution of 2007 where *everything* works, *out of box* :D. (By out_of_box, I mean no adding 3rd party repos, and at most minimal tinkering with config files. Just search portage and install ! ) Just because its not too newbie friendly doesn't mean it has had a disapppointing year. Frankly, from a release point of view, there is not a real big reason to release 2007.1, given that things aren't really stable. The rock stable X is still 7.2, glibc is 2.5 and gcc 4.1.1 (talking of rock stability). Only the rock stable kernel has moved up to 2.6.22. So why on earth another release. The installation procedure anyway makes sure that you in fact do land up with the latest and greatest even if you start with 2007.0. (You can even start with 2006.1 or from anywhere behind you wish.)
Sooner or later, after all the distrowatching and distro-hopping, users will eventually settle down for debian/ubuntu, gentoo, slack or fedora :-). Power users will almost surely end up on gentoo/slack/debian.
Distrowatch, please do a little more research on gentoo other than just loitering around daniel robbin's blog and sabayon blog and gentoo homepage and trying out the gentoo livecd with its graphical installer (which no gentoo users use anyway ;). Do pay a visit to gentoo forums sometime :).
Merry X-mas holidays and happy new year! :)
29 • Linux Year (by Eudoxus on 2007-12-17 16:41:43 GMT from Latvia)
Thanks, Ladislav for your great contribution and happy new year!
I think that this was really great year for openSUSE. The latest release is definite progress and I am looking forward to the promising openSUSE 11. I was impressed by Mandriva 2008 too. Hope the next releas will be even better. I am not that positive about Ubuntu (despite or may be due to all the hype). How they can have broken Open Office package and and get along with it for at least two releases is beyond me. Too much bravado and too less substance. IMHO PCLOS is far better distribution for new linux users than any of buntus which lacks any decent administration tools (compare with SUSE and Mandriva). Although, it seems that to use PCLOS is a bit dangerous as it may cause some intellectual disorders. At least that is impression when one reads some PCLOS user posts.
Merry Christmas to all!
30 • Merry Christmas to all! (by IMQ on 2007-12-17 16:44:49 GMT from United States)
This was another good year for Linux on the desktop.
There were many good releases from all major players, and despite few glitches, these releases were in many small ways an improvement toward a more user-friendly Linux desktop.
I am looking forward to the year 2008. In addition to keeping an eye on the upcoming releases from the usual players, I am also looking forward to more interesting releases of Enlightenment DR17 from both gOS, Geubuntu, and Elive.
I also would like to say "Thank you" to Ladislav for all the hard work you did in making DistroWatch a pleasant place to visit.
31 • Gentoo (by RJ on 2007-12-17 17:04:08 GMT from Portugal)
Simples, transparent and refreshing. That's Gentoo.
Yes it does involve compiling, yes it does involve reading documentation, yes it does involve tinkering. But guess what? It does make sense, you know exactly what is in your system, how to configure and maintain it.
It presents unique tools and tasks as compiling a kernel, installing nvidia drivers and setting up bootsplash are unmatched in any other distro.
A working KDE install in Gentoo has something like 30 less processes running that in any other distro.
There is no need to disable services in Gentoo. Why? Because you can choose not to enable them if you choose so. The choice belongs always to the user.
As for 2007.1 not showing up for a rolling distro it isn't much pertinent. Fixed release cycle distros use release to set in place new version of typical packages when Gentoo just releases them as updates.
BTW I just started using Linux 9 months ago, and Gentoo is by far my favorite.
Summing up: not a distro for everybody but it is definetly the distro for those who like to be in full control of their PC.
32 • 23 (by Serge Matovic on 2007-12-17 17:11:48 GMT from Canada)
Hi Whitt Madden: I very much agree with your (di)satisfaction in experimenting with different distros. Just wanted to suggest to you to try Mandriva 2008.0. I'm *NOT* a fanboy for Mandriva, but their 2008.0 version is just fantastic.
Best luck, and happy Holidays to ALL !!!
serge.
33 • Years end (by Tony on 2007-12-17 17:17:51 GMT from United States)
First things first! Merry Christmas to everybody!!
I'll miss my weekly DWW, but I am more than glad the people who make DWW possible are taking some well deserved time off. Be safe, be happy, AND 'be back' in January 2008! ;o)
We have a tradition in my part of the world to make New Year's Resolutions. Part of my Resolution will be to visit more advertisers on DW. Simply put - I'll click on the ads at DW. As much as DW gives to us all, clicking on the ads is a small way of giving back...
Once again - Merry Christmas!
34 • Mandriva (by WG on 2007-12-17 17:40:46 GMT from United States)
I too tried the top 10 and then some on Distrowatch.
Mandriva will remain on my computer. It just works.
PCLOS - Don't see what all the fuss is about. Mandriva is way better even though PCLOS is based on Mandriva.
*buntu - Gutsy is buggy
Suse - Lasted 2 days
Fedora 8 Lasted 1 day
Debian - got knocked out by Mandriva
Mint - A close 2nd to Mandriva but based on Gutsy so it is also buggy.
Wolvix - IMHO if you like XFCE this is the distro to have. Much better than Zenwalk.
Foresight - Don't like the package manager at all.
35 • 24 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 17:44:20 GMT from United States)
Given the quality of recent Mandriva releases, particularly the latest, you guys might have a chance of staying profitable.
I believe Mandriva is now the best choice for Windows converts (a huge market) though I'm still concerned that it is difficult to remain profitable given the quality of the $0 distros.
36 • 34 (by serge on 2007-12-17 17:45:56 GMT from Canada)
Hi WG: Just wanted to ask you which Mandriva version do you have? I just installed 2008.0 and as I mentioned in the above post, so far it's just fantastic.
37 • Thanks For Another Year of Linux Info... (by Anon on 2007-12-17 17:53:46 GMT from United States)
I start every Monday with a trip to Distrowatch, and I always learn something. Thanks for all your effort.
P.S. @8, I use PCLinuxOS on 586 machines and have never had any browser problems - Java even works! I use Mandriva on 64bit machines, and you can forget about Java apps in Firefox, but that's a SUN Java problem, not Mandriva. Oh, by the way, for a package problem work-around, PClinuxOS has the SMART package manager available as does Mandriva. You connect to Mandriva's repositories via Smart (easy with http://www.mandrivauser.de/smarturpmi/ ) and pull down more packages for PCLinuxOs. Certainly doesn't work with all packages, but it does with a fair number. That's how I loaded Octave on my PCLinuxOS plus a number of editors and other simple programs. Oh, and just for the record I was a member of Mandriva Club for years - so I do support them - I'm not just a leech. Happy holidays to all.
38 • Thank you!! (by Fernando Gracia on 2007-12-17 18:03:42 GMT from United States)
Thanks Ladislav for your hard work through the year, without Distrowatch, we can not have all those wonderfull Linux distros in our machines. It was a wonderful year full of fun, testing all those Linux distros out there and I just want to say Thanks to the Linux community around the globe. Merry Christmas and Happy new (testing year) After all that fun my dear black box end the year with Vector 5.8 SOHO, Wolvix 1.1 and Puppy.
39 • My 2007 With Linux (by Justin Whitaker on 2007-12-17 18:06:40 GMT from United States)
Well, I have to say, my year with Linux ended surprisingly upbeat. Like Whit, I spent much of the year distro-hopping, trying to like Kubuntu, then trying Fedora, then dallying with PCLinuxOS, then trying...well just about everything.
The really funny part is that I have a subscription to Mandriva, just stayed away from it because I really did not like 2007.1, and frankly, I wanted more of a community than Mandriva was really offering at the time.
So, after spending a couple of weeks back on XP, I decided to break the seal on the 2008 Powerpack edition.
Wow.
Mandriva 2008 is stable, easy to use, as deep or as simple as I want it to be, and good looking.
Some apps I wanted were missing on the default install, but they were a quick rpmdrake or urpmi away...so that's not really here or there. Everything worked out of the box, without much fuss. The forums are not as fast as Ubuntu's, but just as courteous, and community members really jump in to help when you need it. The Wiki is pretty deep, and answers most of the obvious noob questions that I had.
So, here I was thinking this was the year I finally got a Mac, and gave up on Linux for good, and instead, I found a comfortable home on Mandriva.
Ladislav is absolutely right: if this keeps up, then Mandriva will find many converts this coming year.
And, to comment #35 above...I think Mandriva has the right approach. If you want to use it for free, go ahead, but I find myself thinking that even at 49 EURO (god, is it really that much in $ terms?), I will pay. Many other Mandriva users feel the same way.
It's a vote with your money, keeps folks like Adam employed, and helps keep the lights on. To my mind, that is a better approach than demanding $5 for a download, or demanding donations. The people that can pay, will, and everyone can contribute to the project.
It only works, however, if the product is good. So far, 2008 is shaping up to be a very good one for Mandriva.
Well done Mandriva team!
40 • 37 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 18:11:22 GMT from United States)
You wrote
begin{QUOTE}
I use PCLinuxOS on 586 machines
end{QUOTE}
Damn, you have too many machines. You have 100 more than other guys who said they have 486 machines.
Before anybody calls me an idiot, I know that the 586, 486 refer to architectures of machines. Merry Christmas to all from everywhere in the world from ANYONYMOUS
41 • #36 (by WG on 2007-12-17 18:11:52 GMT from United States)
Mandriva 2008.0
Last time I tried Mandriva I did not like it, I stuck with PCLOS. This 2008 release is awesome.
42 • @35 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-17 18:12:42 GMT from Canada)
I think Justin answered better than I could have :). We recognize now (and admittedly we really weren't recognizing until a year or so back) that you can't really have a paid product 'compete' with a free one of the quality available today, so that's not what we're doing any more. Our free-of-charge editions - Free and One - are complete distros, they're not demoware or crippled, and *those* are what we compete against the other $0 distros with. We're very happy for people to use 'em and do whatever they like with 'em. We now promote the paid edition, Powerpack, specifically on the basis of value-added stuff in it that you *can't* put in a $0 edition - stuff that requires commercial licensing - and the ancillary stuff like a nice printed manual. And we're also putting more emphasis on selling 'stuff', like the Flash (which has been very successful), and on our large-scale projects in Africa and other regions. It probably was a lot easier to make money in Linux a few years back when there wasn't such fierce competition at the $0 level, but it's still possible, we think.
43 • 586 Machines @ 40 (by ANON on 2007-12-17 18:17:29 GMT from United States)
Hur hur hur mi laddie - that be true - way too many machines! But, if ye be using a 486 I can only hope it is a good Christmas coming for ya! Weren't that 486 the first with an integrated floating point? Hur, hur, hur... 486
44 • #43 - integrated FPU (by ray carter at 2007-12-17 18:29:28 GMT from United States)
386 DX
45 • Merry X-mas in different languages (by Markus on 2007-12-17 18:31:35 GMT from Germany)
en: Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
fr: Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année à tous!
de: Fröhliche Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!
it: Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo!
es: Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo
pt: Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo
ru: Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva i s Novim Godom
he: Gute Vaynakhtn un a Gut Nay Yor
jp: Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
el: Kala Christougenna Kieftihismenos O Kenourios Chronos
46 • @ Whitt Madden (by Mike on 2007-12-17 18:34:47 GMT from United States)
I would also suggest Debian. I use Etch myself. I was using a mix of lenny & sid, but I need the stability more, so I moved onto Etch. Works great. You may have to tinker a lil for some things, but as you probably already know, Debian is not for the beginner, which you obviously are not.
If you do try it out, give it awhile and post back.
47 • 39, 42 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 18:49:14 GMT from United States)
Well, I certainly hope Mandriva can be profitable for the next few years.
This may sound strange, but I wish there were a donation option for the $0 versions of Mandriva, so that I wouldn't feel like a freeloader. I use it once in a while and would like to give $5 or $10 as I do with all distros that I use regularly. It just doesn't feel right to not pay anything!
48 • Mandriva 2008.0 (by michael King at 2007-12-17 19:03:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have to admit, that as an Ubuntu user, That Mandriva was the only main release this year that actually blew me away, It seemed significantly improved and fully thought out modern and functional...
There seems to be a time lag with ubuntu, as packages are updated i guess, alI know is I wouldnt want to update my ubuntu 7.04 desktop just yet like I did my laptop!!!
I still would recommend Pclinuxos to newbies when I know that they wont be wanting to add more to date programs...Mandriva 2008 however, is really great for that reason and just as easy
Well done mandriva!!
49 • wireless works on pclinuxos2007 and mepis (by steve on 2007-12-17 19:03:51 GMT from United States)
I, for one, am still disappointed with Mandriva's lack of multimedia.
The USA has determined that even though I purchase movies or music that I am not supposed to be able to use my material in anything except govenrment sanctioned os such as Microsoft or Apple is nothing less than repression in the land of the free.
Bribery (lobby) paid to elected American officials is acceptable to the DOJ especially when it is Republicans getting the illegal funding by the RIAA and MPAA. note: sony, which has been boycotted for years now, is a RIAA member but is not from America.
Lobby is illegal funding based on the very fact that American lawmakers have a yearly salary and perks way above the average working stiff and should be entittled to nothing more than that.
Think about it Senator Orrin Hatch, Ted Stevens, Joe Biden, Ted kennedy, Nacy Pelosi and other "privileged" crums.
PCLINUXOS 2007 and MEPIS has always been wireless friendly everything works out of the box.
MintLinux is the only Ubuntu linux I know of that is wireless friendly and everything works out of the box. MintLinux is a must for those who do like ubuntu.
goOS looks nice but is a wireless dissapointment. The snazzy effects of goOS are easily obtained through Granular Linux.
TinyFluxOS is a PCLINUXOS model and it works wonderfully. TinyFluxOS is very fast. Wireless is there and working.
Granular Linux (pclinuxos fork) is fantastic.
CentOS is solid and practical as an OS.
One can not forget that the slax software such as Wolvix and Simple are very nice too.
DSL and Puppy, as does TinyFluxOS, works on many older computers and not everyone can afford a new computer. Plus, not everyone finds the higher requirements, such as 750 watts or more needed for newer computers worth the power bill where the criminals in charge of energy are blackmailing everyone on earth through energy prices which have no parity with "working people".
All in all, it is distrowatch and www.jaos.org that rock!
50 • Merry X-mas in different languages (correction) (by img on 2007-12-17 19:14:59 GMT from Mexico)
In hebrew (he) is :
Hag Molad Sameach ve Shana Tova! (Merry Chistmas and Happy New Year).
You wrote it in Yiddish ( a German Dialect spoken by some jews).
Anyway HAPPY NEW YEAR!
51 • RIAA and Criminal Legislation (by RC on 2007-12-17 19:23:08 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
52 • Merry Christmas (by voislav on 2007-12-17 19:45:48 GMT from Canada)
The biggest thing for me this year is the emergence of the low-cost desktop/laptop, a trend that I'm sure we'll see take off in the next year or two. Windows cannot compete with Linux on the low end in terms of price and peformance so I think that desktop Linux has finally found a hole to make a grand entry.
I think that this year we saw the future of Linux where different distros are trying to outdo each other in terms of quality and performance. It's going to be interesting to see how KDE4 progresses in the new year, especially with its (alleged :) performance boosts that make it faster than KDE3.
53 • a little more on linux2007 (by steve on 2007-12-17 20:02:50 GMT from United States)
on pclinux2007 final edition i did have to go into firefox with the about:config and toggle off ipv6 for the brower to run. likewise in netscape.
in slampp ...it uses a program called xampp which is wonderful for the beginner to understand apache, php, etc database. when you press firefox you come up on https:localhost then you will see what i am talking about.
except for ubuntu, i can get wireless to work in most any linux given i have a cat5 connect to update mad-wfi, etc.
mepis shinning star has always been how it could handle a windows internal modem or winmodem. kanotix and knoppix does well on winmodems.
although i have been a strong kde fan, i now more go for fluxbox or enlightenment.
wine is fine but crossover office takes a bunch of problem solving out of wine.
i tried wine doors, it looks ok but not even close to the level of crossover.
wine is very useful for when you get to the occasional website that cannot function because it is internet explorer helplessly coded.
overall, there is no doubt but that Tex and his crew deserve the number one spot on distrowatch.
i have enjoyed using the webcam and singing on www.singsnap.com which is free online karaoke. listen, sing, the choices are yours there.
in mentioning the bsd's destopbsd and pc-bsd have done wonders and i have run wireless in both. once you have installed either, the boot manager is intimidating to those who can not function without "hand holding". all it does is takes getting used to. i found that in bsd products, should you have to choose between the emulated linux software and the same (such as firefox) in bsd native software...do yourself a favor and take the native software.
bottom line, i am typing this in Granular Linux running off the livedvd i just downloaded until i get around to installing it.
2008 might leave me behind as more and more is coded for the core dual, or duo core type processors. i am staying entirely away from those processors as the socket 478 still works very fine with less power consumption and there is no way ever that i will go to microsoft vista software. the wga has screwed me out of software on orignal factory computers i have, to go to wma11 you deal with wga. also, i tend to just go ahead and build my own computer that way i am the one that fixes it. for those who never tried ...it is not that hard to do, you just gotta take the plunge. pricewatch.com is a big helper for price and product searches.
54 • your summary is cool rc (by steve on 2007-12-17 20:11:13 GMT from United States)
RC, well put on the riaa and lobby. excellent summary.
i tried Mandriva One and it was useless to me. originally i started out on red hat 5.0 and went to Mandrake.
opensuse looks and feels pretty good but i still come down to Granular Linux.
i do find myself using a .deb linux often when i wish to get around always dealing with rpm.
55 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 20:17:43 GMT from United States)
Another year is coming to an end and the bogus Distrowatch page hit rankings are still there.
PCLinuxOS #1??? LOL... Thanks for the laugh.
56 • distros (by DeanL on 2007-12-17 20:18:50 GMT from United States)
First let me wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
Like others I have tried several distros this year. Some I liked and some I didn't. I am not a fanboi of any particular distro, I tend to see all Linux distros as being equal until proven otherwise. For anyone that has used Linux for some time knows, the distro you use depends on your preferences (software, graphics, management style, etc.) and your hardware.
For new users I recommend Mepis, Mint, and PCLinuxOS. Not because they are the best, but because they are easier for new users to use and find their way around.
Currently, I have Fedora 8 on a desktop and Sidux on my notebook. Both work very well for me.
I had tried to use earlier versions of Sidux but was unsuccessful. Either it didn't download correctly or it didn't burn to cd correctly but the latest version downloaded and burned fine. As most Linuxers know Sidux is based off of Debian (using the sid and Lenny) and as such I do not recommend it to newbies. If you haven't tried Sidux yet, you should give it a try.
I tried Fedora 8 shortly after it first came. I was very disappointed. Package management was not up to par, the system seemed sluggish. After 2 days I replaced it with PCLinuxOS. After reading some of the comments about Fedora 8 here on DistroWatch and a little research, I decided to give it another try (yumex was mentioned and I had forgotten about it). After I installed it again, I installed yumex (which satisfied my package management complaint) but it was still sluggish. After several updates, my main complaints have disappeared. Fedora 8 (after the updates) is a very good system and works very well for my needs and wants.
This year I have tried several different distros - Sidux, Fedora 8, Debian 4.0, OpenSuse 10.3, Mint, Mepis (RC only), gOS, geubuntu (Livecd only), Sabayon (3.4 and Pro 1.1), Vector 5.8.
This year many have criticized the PHR. The ranking list reflects which distros are looked at (they may or may not be downloaded and used) and I see it as such. Many times I use the PHR to get to the home page or to browse the particular forum of a certain distros.
In case it may help someone else I will give a brief description of my hardware -
desktop - (built myself not brand name)Gigabyte GeoForce 6100, AMD x2 3800+, embedded graphics, onboard wired Nvidia LAN, 2GB Ram Seagate Sata 320GB hdd.
notebook- Acer Aspire 3100 - ATI mb and graphics, Atheros wifi, 1GB RRAM, 60GB hdd, Celeron 1.8Ghz cpu.
57 • 2007 Distros (by shrek on 2007-12-17 20:35:49 GMT from United States)
I have ended up the year with SuSE 10.3 on my desktop, and RHEL 5.1 on the laptop. Redhat has had a pretty good year and their 5x versions seem solid. 5.1 has allowed my wireless card to work without ndiswrapper, (without a massive install) and its great.
Tried Fedora 8, Ubuntu (don't get it) and a couple others. These two are a great working combination for me.
Shrek
58 • Best thing about Linux in 2007 (by The Doctor on 2007-12-17 20:37:32 GMT from United States)
I have watched distro's come and go. I have watched distro flame wars. Today I have tried 187 different distro's and their updates. I don't think any distro is going to be the next great thing in Linux, even ubuntu.
Dell started to sell computers with Linux, ubuntu, installed. I wrote that I did not think this would make any significant dent in the user market, mostly because I thought that Dell Priced the computer way too high.
One day I would thought I would have some fun so I called the Dell tech support. I asked them which one of their Dell all-in-one printers would be supported by their ubuntu computer. I went through many techs and up several levels of assistance. I spent 4 1/2 hours on their nickel. In the end they went to the forums and still could not find an answer. I thought to myself this is really supporting ubuntu?
I wrote in previous posts, that there needed to be a price drop. I wrote that Dell could probably make a $300 computer that would outperform their $800 Windows Vista machine. At the end of one of my posts, I even pleaded, "E Machines, where is your Linux computer?"
Wal-Mart came out with a desktop computer for $200 that was using Linux, the Gos distribution. It was made by Everest. They put it in a full tower to try to convince the buyer they were getting a value.Wal-Mart sold 10,000 of the Linux computers in one week.
Another new product on the scene was the EEE PC. This came from Asus. It was supposed to come out at $200 but, by the time it was released it was $400. Yes, it booted up fast but it only had a 4 GB flash drive. There was no CD-ROM or DVD player. And yet, this 7 inch micro portable caused quite a stir in the computer market. But after they got into the marketplace, we started hearing about problems. It ran quite hot, even though it was only running on a flash drive. The heatsink was basically a metal panel under the keys. Also, people complained about the small and tightly spaced keys. There was also poor battery life. In order to upgrade the RAM, you had to completely disassemble the computer. You can watch a video showing how to take the computer apart to add memory at this link
http://www.cnettv.co.uk/technology/dialogue-box/episode-8-asus-eee-the-sequel-10000128.htm
Now, Everest, the company that brought out the Wal-Mart desktop is going to bring out the Cloud Book, a 7 inch ultra portable Linux with the Gos system. This computer will include a CD burner, a DVD player, and a 30 GB hard drive. Best of all, it will only sell for $400 to compete with the Asus computer.
In my opinion, it is these low-cost computers, that will have all of the performance as the high price Windows Vista computers, and probably run faster than the home edition, that really will bring Linux into the forefront.
59 • #49 (by David Howard on 2007-12-17 20:39:12 GMT from Israel)
"MintLinux is the only Ubuntu linux I know of that is wireless friendly ..."
The term "wireless friendly" is meaningless without reference to the chipset and the driver it requires.
I have four boxes using either Linksys WMP54G or Edimax EW-7128G, both of which use the rt61 driver or variant. No distro before Mandriva Spring 2007 ONE managed to set up wifi seamlessly, requiring only the insertion of essid and WPA passphrase. Feisty (and Mint 3.x) required creating one config file and editing another. They then connected automatically on login.
Gutsy (and Mint 4.0) require a wired connection to download the "restricted" driver, after which they connect, but require the insertion of the keyring (=user password) and WPA passphrase after every login. There is a workaround on the forums, which eliminates the need to supply the keyring and WPA p/w, but then requires a #/etc/init.d/networking restart. "Wireless friendly"? Hardly.
Mandriva 2008 ONE also gets it right immediately, with no need for a wired connection on install to download firmware or drivers. For common wifi cards and drivers there really should be no need to set up a wired connection for the live CD (or on install) solely to download "restricted" drivers to enable a wireless connection!
If Mandriva can get it right ...
60 • #58 - good things (by ray carter at 2007-12-17 20:52:26 GMT from United States)
I believe the company is Everex, not Everest.
61 • RE: 34 • Mandriva (by Béranger on 2007-12-17 21:02:30 GMT from Romania)
> Mandriva will remain on my computer. It just works.
That's true for Mandriva 2008.0, which works fabulously indeed. But... as with any other distro having a 6-month cycle, you may never know what will happen next. How will 2008.1 work? Major changes are already visible in the fresh Alpha1, e.g. PulseAudio. Note that Mandriva has/had the "fame" of having inconsistent bugginess between releases, and even for a given release, there are 3 different sets of bugs: the bugs of "One"; the bugs of "Free"; the bugs of Powerpack.
This is why you'll *only* find _real_ stability with distros like RHEL5 clones (CentOS, SL, StartCom), and also Debian stable. They have a much longer lifecycle -- especially RHEL clones.
> Fedora 8 Lasted 1 day
See? The "release me every 6-mo" syndrome. Otherwise, RHEL is very stable (but it lacks packages).
> Wolvix - IMHO if you like XFCE this is the distro to have. Much better than Zenwalk.
So very true!
62 • Re:51 (by octathlon on 2007-12-17 21:22:00 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
63 • 2008: Year of the Apple and the End for Linux (by MattS on 2007-12-17 21:27:53 GMT from United States)
Is the title overly dramatic? Yes. Far fetched? Maybe not.
The public’s appetite (tolerance, really) for MS Windows has finally softened, which has allowed the market for alternative operating systems to ripen. The titanic blunder that is MS Vista has severely damaged the Windows franchise and Apple’s brilliant negative ads have largely re-branded Windows—particularly with future consumers (kids). While Apple’s goal early on (and historically) was to convert Windows users to the Apple product—expensive PCs and notebooks with proprietary hardware—, witnessing the complete meltdown of Microsoft leads me to believe that a completely new, unforeseen avenue has opened for Apple: OS X for PCs.
It is my firm belief that Apple will release Leopard sometime in 2008 to run on PCs. The time is right and market conditions have reached critical mass to now allow this as a viable product change. In fact, the business model is so good for Apple to do this that it would be stupid from a business perspective to not do it.
Not only does Apple slay Microsoft—first in the consumer market, and then as the XP Service Packs expire (or until XP becomes laughingly decrepit--SP5, anyone?), in the small/medium enterprise market—but they negate the need for consumers to go to Linux as well.
Leopard is relatively cheap—$130 US retail (not free, but not exorbitant either).
Leopard is robust and secure—it incorporates elements of BSD and Darwin.
Leopard has polish that Linux distros can only dream of.
Leopard allows me to run MS Office, which, despite being Microsoft is still a damn good product and will remain a corporate stable for many, many years.
I gave Leopard a workout last weekend, and I’d switch to it in a heartbeat. The only thing that’s stopping me is that Apple computers are cost prohibitive, and I don’t want to chance patching my PC with all sorts of questionable code to make it a “Hackintosh”.
I’ve used Linux and FreeBSD for five years now. I’m telling you that I would ditch it all for Apple tomorrow if they released Leopard for PCs. As a hardcore Linux user for several years—not a Noob and not a Guru—this should prompt the average reader on this page to take note. I used to dismiss OS X as a fancy-pants Linux knockoff—and much of this characterization is still true—but seeing for myself how it works made me dismiss my biases and judge it solely on how it functioned. Yeah, many of the visual and functional elements are lifted right from Linux, but there are some brilliant, original design innovations. It’s also a joy to use and beautiful to look at.
A betting man would buy a lot of Apple stock right now. I’ll probably wait and see if they begin to create an enterprise certification infrastructure that shows them heading in that direction; but, by then, it will already be too late.
64 • #62 (by RC on 2007-12-17 21:37:36 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
65 • RE:51 (by RipVanWinkle on 2007-12-17 21:39:47 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
66 • #65 (by RC on 2007-12-17 21:46:59 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
67 • #65 (by RC on 2007-12-17 21:49:58 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
68 • Distros at 2007 and Gentoo rant (by Peter on 2007-12-17 21:51:03 GMT from Bulgaria)
None of the distros in 2007 did not surprised me well (talking of something distro specific... Drivers are not). On my lin systems I still use my old distro and I can't really see something making me change soon,
On Gentoo - I really admire Gentoo, but just for the record - contrary to an earlier post - 2007.0 CD installer is totally dysfunctional. It is broken and can not be used to install Gentoo (if you don't download additional stuff separately). I hoped to see a functional install CD in 2007, but ATM I acutally lost my enthusiasm to test new distros.
69 • Sorry Ladislav (by RC on 2007-12-17 21:52:28 GMT from United States)
Got off topic. I will quit now.
70 • 63 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 22:19:26 GMT from United States)
A few things you are overlooking:
Apple considers itself a hardware company. They make their money that way. You open up a large Pandora's box of problems when you try to make an OS for generic hardware, for everyone's needs, and that will be supported for years and years. Their profit also disappears, as they have incredible profit margins on the hardware.
You give reasons why individuals would rather use a Mac OS than Linux. I honestly am not turned on by the design of the Mac OS. Everytime I try it I just don't see anything special. Maybe others like the design, but I don't know that the pretty design is important enough. I also don't know that the open development model of the Linux world won't lead to artistic individuals showing off their talents in the Linux world.
For those of us who view the open source development model as superior, who like variety, who want to run an OS on old hardware, who want support for many architectures, who want to work with the same thing on the desktop and server, who believe money is not plentiful (think outside the US or for college students or low-income individuals), who want to customize our computing experience for pleasure or business reasons, or who just want to learn what computing is, value freedom, and want to participate as a full member in the community, it is hard to accept your arguments.
Yes, the polish of the Mac makes it the nicest-looking OS available right now. I'm not ready to say it will ever gain even 10% of the market, though. Just look at all the Windows 2000 computers still in use. Frankly, most users view the OS as something that lets them run their applications, and Linux is at least as good as the Mac in that regard. Would they pay even $100 extra for that? Maybe, but probably not.
But we'll see. It's easy to make arguments either way.
71 • RE #20 DSL (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 22:59:46 GMT from United States)
DSL does need to fix the IDE install, It gives you 20 questions with only one or two answers that work. It took me the better part of a week to get it to work and even now it would be a struggle to get you through it.
But, I do remember 2 keys. One was that you must have a CLEAN Linux2 partition with no boot loader on it and a swap. I never did get dual boot to work. Use a old copy of Zenwalk or a boot CD with a partition tool on it, do not use the partitioning tool in DSL the auto creates it by percents and you will run out of space unless you have a very large drive and do not need a lot of data space.
The other was that you must have a floppy drive on that machine and make a boot floppy and use the boot floppy option.
72 • PCLOS wish list (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 23:11:07 GMT from United States)
#1 Fix the flash audio so that myspace/youtube will have audio again in Firefox.
#2 Camera support, that includes web cams in IM. Video editing software.
#3 WiFi support
#4 Networked printer support (from the MFG.) (getting worse and not better)
#5 Workgroup and sharing bugs. Mysterious reads and no write, finding and not finding windows computers. Stripping case from workgroup names.
#6 Always having to double boot to get the internet (first boot don't loads).
73 • Mandriva 2008 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-17 23:22:52 GMT from United States)
Where is the Freespire version?
I've been burned by the club too many times, I don't want to go there again.
74 • RE:67 (RC) (by RipVanWinkle on 2007-12-17 23:32:31 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
75 • @73 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-17 23:52:38 GMT from Canada)
Go to www.mandriva.com.
Click on the big green button that says "Free Download".
We had a round table to come up with ways to make it easier, but using the orbital mind control ray was nixed on the grounds that we might get found out. Curses.
76 • @44 So wrong... (by Anon on 2007-12-18 00:03:02 GMT from United States)
Look it up - I was there - 386DX had memory mangement - 486 had integrated FPU. Youngins, think they know it all.. Probably still in diapers when the 486 arrived.
77 • @75 (by JustInterested on 2007-12-18 00:03:10 GMT from Australia)
Shouldn't that be... ncurses? mmmhuauhhauuhaaaa... *evil laugh*
Merry Christmas to one and all and the hope of a great New Year!
Look forward to more great stuff from ladislav/DW and some more priceless rantings on this page.
Now where is that stick?
78 • Merry Christmas Everyone (by john frey on 2007-12-18 00:15:03 GMT from Canada)
HO HO HO HO *cough cough*
aaaarrrgghhhh%*^$&@#
79 • Year of the Specs (by Anonymous on 2007-12-18 00:32:55 GMT from United States)
Perhaps the most fitting description of 2007 would be "the year of increased polish of desktop Linux".
How about the year that we saw a major video card manufacturer release specs to its video cards?
80 • Year of... (by welkiner on 2007-12-18 00:41:43 GMT from United States)
I juse hope that it is the year that Mepis 70 Final and Mint KDE Final finally come out. Anybody heard anything about when either of these will finally appear?
81 • Linux TV commercial (by Ultra on 2007-12-18 01:04:15 GMT from Canada)
Linux needs a TV commercial. Maybe someone should hack the Mac/PC commercial and add another character...a Linux dude. Put it on youtube. LOL, wonder what he would look like?
82 • Distrowatch- in a Word: Brilliant! (by Glenn Kaiser on 2007-12-18 01:17:30 GMT from United States)
This is a long overdue, simple Thank You for all you at DW do for so many in the Linux, Open Source and curious "other os" public.
I find your articles, reviews and of course links to fresh (especially live distros) brilliant- and that's the only word that I think fits your substantial work. I've lost track of the cds I've downloaded, burnt and used via your site in my quest for THE distro for various laptops and pcs for my and others' use.
Finally, it's a rare day that passes where I don't stop in to see what's new on DW, that's how much I appreciate and value your work for us all.
Merry Christmas, looking forward to Distro Watch in '08.
-Glenn Kaiser, Chicago
83 • Sick of ignorance. (by Sick of ignorance on 2007-12-18 01:18:27 GMT from Spain)
Why i'm using Fedora right now?: because it's one of the few distros that really innovates on every release instead copying all the work that others have done before (like Ubuntu).
Oh, another reason ... because without Red Hat, nowadays Linux (the kernel and the popular concept of Linux as an 'Operating Sytem') will be on the stone age. And that's a fact.
So, remember this, the next time that you praise 'copying distros' instead innovating ones ... "It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt".
84 • @81 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-18 01:47:17 GMT from Canada)
Novell already did it when the first batch of Mac/PC ads came out. Linux was female. Shock!
It wasn't badly done, actually. Should be findable on Youtube pretty easily I guess.
85 • 2007 (by LLover on 2007-12-18 02:23:44 GMT from United States)
I've also been a distro-hopper, and I, too am getting tired of it. So, what to do? I thought of going Ubuntu, but changed my mind. If they can't put out a fix for aumix until the next release, screw 'em. I started off with command line stuff with Debian 2.2, but now I don't have the time...like another poster said...family...a life. I am a child of Debian but I must say I was very impressed with Mandriva 2008 and finally have "forgiven" them for their past transgressions ("BUGS"). This may be the year for Mandriva and I'm happy for them. I wish for them to make a profit with Powerpack and I am considering jumping in. What puts me off with most distro's (even Mandriva) is the releases. I ultimately will find a "rolling release" distro. As I am tired of distro-hopping, I'm also tired of reinstalling with every release. What Windows user wants this? I don't. Kanotix looks good. So does sidux. If I had more time, I'd go straight to Debian but the documentation is geeky as well. Maybe when the Debian 4.1 Bible is published, I will try Debian again....get it installed and configured and update it!
Lastly, THANK YOU LADISLAV for making Mondays something to look forward to. I wish all the best to you for 2008!
86 • No subject (by hnettles on 2007-12-18 03:14:01 GMT from United States)
Comment no. 76, in reference to number 44, in reference to number 43:
386SX -- 16 bit memory addressing
386DX -- 32 bit memory addressing
486SX -- no integrated floating point
486DX -- integrated floating point
Stolen from Wikipedia:
Later in the i386's production run, Intel introduced the i386SX, which was meant to be a low cost version of the 386 line. The SX series of chips was 32-bit internally, but had a 16-bit external data bus (in much the same way that the 8088 in the original IBM PC was a lower cost version of the 8086) and a 24 bit address bus; therefore, the processor could only address 16 MB of memory. The original i386 was subsequently renamed the i386DX to avoid confusion. Neither CPU included a math coprocessor (most motherboards included a socket for an i387), though the naming would cause some head-scratching later when the i486 came in a DX variant that did include floating-point capability (which was physically present but disabled in early i486SXs).
87 • 3 weeks (by paul on 2007-12-18 03:14:49 GMT from United States)
without DW!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! The horror!!!!
Well at least we have the Christmas and New Years to keep me busy but the last week of withdrawl is going to hurt. It's hard to find print sources that aren't full of bull or trying to sell me something, even slashdot, thank goodness for DW. I know, if I party hard enough maybe I'll spend the last week recovering. I'll raise my red eyes to the new DW issue, they'll clear up faster than with visine, WWWOOOWWW. (visine commercial misquote).
Landislav,
Happy holidays, whichever ones you follow and see you in 3 weeks. It seems we all love your work, have a good time off.
Whitt Madden,
I've used slackware for nearly 12 years. You know its tough when it runs a file server for 6 years, survives a direct strike from the biggest tornado in the country, and keeps on ticking for the last 3. Examine the kernel version and modules that were running in the distros that connected to your camera and find out if they are in the current one your using. If the kernel is older or the modules aren't there then get a new kernel and recompile it to install the needed drivers. If you don't know how to recompile, (seven years of linux?), keep swapping distros and asking questions. Most of all be patient. (this is a blind method based on initial description, take it for what it is.)
If you need a password to access your printer cartridge levels then your account isn't in the same group as the printer driver. Examine the driver GID and edit the group file adding that group to your account, can be a security risk but often worth it. (fix is off the top guess at issue cause, can be quick and painless)
I also use freebsd. It works well. If linux keeps giving trouble maybe you should try PC-BSD.
If you need unix/linux command help, the freebsd and the slackware handbooks are good online references for the basics. There are others as well but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
88 • year in distros (by digger on 2007-12-18 04:25:04 GMT from United States)
Nice review Ladislav, you do us all a great service. I tried several this year: Ubuntu (7.04 and 7.10), PC-LOS, Sabayon (3.x), Debian (Etch and Lenny), Fedora (8), and Slackware (12), as well as FreeBSD (6.x) and PC-BSD (1.x). What has won me over in 2007 though is Sidux (2007.x).
I found the most recent versions of Fedora and Ubuntu to be unusable, as they boot to a black screen as did the latest Sidux, until a working video driver was available for my H/W (ATI garbage), and which could be installed in runlevel 3!. If Fedora and Ubuntu had an option to boot to runlevel 3, I missed them, Sidux definitely does, so my problem-child could be cured with Debian and Sidux tools.
Sabayon is beautiful, and very impressive in many ways, in fact it almost won me over, but was not stable on my H/W. The rest were mostly OK. One big disappointment was PC-BSD v 1.4, which kept freezing on my box even with the latest update, that was a first, as I have copies going back to at least 0.7, all of which worked without a hitch. Unfortunate, but I wish them and all the others the best. Sidux for me, for now.
Happy New Year to all!
89 • @85 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-18 06:51:26 GMT from Canada)
Any sysadmin who wants to wake up and find their systems running the same software they were running yesterday wants stable releases, and that's a lot of people. :)
Most distros that use the 'stable release' system for releases use a rolling public development distro in any case, so the difference isn't really that large. Just run the development version - Mandriva Cooker, Debian sid, Ubuntu 'whatever-the-next-version-at-the-present-time-will-be-called', Fedora Rawhide, OpenSUSE Factory. Most of them are about as stable as most 'rolling release' distributions anyway.
90 • Merry Christmas! (by awong on 2007-12-18 06:54:18 GMT from Canada)
The gift I received form the community this year was all these wonderful distros to try out and settle on one (I'm not telling which one ;) ) to actually use in place of M$ Windoze. I may actually take a healthy break during the holidays from trying out all the new distros in my VirtualBox setup and do more family related stuff... nahhh...
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! (leaves Silent Linux Night or 12 Days of Linux literary work for someone else to compose)
91 • Wish you the best to all of you (by Robert on 2007-12-18 07:40:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hey, people, I dont wanna comment or complain, just wanna wish all a Merry X-mas and Happy New Year to everyone.
Enjoy the last days of this year and lets see eachother for a more prosper year for Linux and Open Source - 2008
Bye bye!
92 • @davemc: The Buntu's (by dyle on 2007-12-18 07:50:40 GMT from Austria)
OMG! Yet another "My Distro is better than your Distro!" bullshit. Please stop that!
Gentoo is *not* all about speed. Got that? Ok?
Gentoo is a philosophy as well. Not to be found in other binary distros. (But maybe Sourcemage and such)
... and I've got my Gentoo Boxes now running for more than 3 years, without any need for reinstall(!) But I update them on a regular basis (weekly). Some of them are servers and do that automatically in the background. And they do fine! Very fine, indeed! Now, I guess not a single piece of software is original than was 3 years ago and I only need to reboot, if switch to a new kernel version.
Sure, binary distros have their advantages too.
So has Gentoo.
It's simply plain wrong, wrong, wrong to boil down Gentoo vs. other distros comparisons on the criterion of speed.
Please, people stop that. It sucks.
93 • BSD and Leopard (by Andrew on 2007-12-18 08:09:38 GMT from Canada)
The list of upcoming releases includes two versions of FreeBSD (6.3 and 7.0). What's up with that ? NetBSD has also fallen for that trick : they think that jumping from 3.1 to 4.0 means that they've accomplished something miraculous. Why not do as the OpenBSD team ? They don't use stupid marketing gimmicks : there's only one stable branch that's improved on a regular basis.
Granted, it's volunteer work but there's no need to try to impress *nix users. We know what the FreeBSD and NetBSD teams can do.
Somebody said that Leopard was a great operating system. I, too, dreamed for a long time to own a PowerPC and use Mac OS. But that desire evaporated after reading many websites dedicated to Apple dubious practices. Just check "The Mac Sucks" and "The Lame Leopard" blogs for instance to see what I'm talking about.
I played with Tiger on a friend's Mac Mini. I must admit I was very impressed by the small and silent computer. The operating system felt too fruity for my tastes. Also, missing in action were the virtual desktops, a Unix staple. Apple tried to rectify that omission with Leopard but, from what I've read, Spaces is an unmitigated disaster. Strange, considering that even Damn Small Linux implements the virtual desktops right.
When I read articles posted on OSx86 Scene, it's as if I was transported back to the 1980s when getting a PC to work reliably was a feat of engineering. It makes me wonder : why go through all that trouble for a botched OS like Leopard ?
Contrast that with Mandrake for example : the only problem I have is caused by an old scanner for which there are no linux drivers (the manufacturer filed for Chapter 11 a few years ago). Everything else works great. Then again, that's my personal experience.
94 • Re: • 84 + • 81 (by Web Ferret on 2007-12-18 08:37:21 GMT from Australia)
Novell Linux - Apple Ad Spoof (1st):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtp5gNhBZgo
The 2nd and others should be lasted in the Related Videos on right ?
But if they are not:-
Second Novell Linux Spoof Ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVOnFdMf0RU&
Novell Linux, Mac, PC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1RCg-Ccp0
Hope I got all those URL's correct ?
Also some may be interested in: Linux Code Breakers BBC (FOSS)
http://www.idkwtf.com/videos/latest-videos/linux-code-breakers-bbc
Happy Days
95 • Thanks Distrowatch for this great year!! (by Dante on 2007-12-18 09:32:50 GMT from Netherlands)
Thanks Ladislav for this great year and that u keep us posted with all newly presented updates and releases. I loved the year-reviews of the top distributions.
I think this has been a great year for Linux!! The competition between all top-distro`s presents us with great releases this year.
I tried definitely everything in the top-15 (and many more) and although my choice might not resemble like the rest of the world, they work best for my machines.
Sabayon, Mepis and Mandriva are my choices for this year. I give my `Christmas credits` to each of these three and I hope to see many more future releases on Distrowatch.com.
I wish every OS user (yes,.. also windows users :) and every body else a Merry Christmas and a happy 2008.
Cheers,
Dante
PS: Santa,… I hope for just a little less ranting in 2008. In the end we are all Linux users here. (or BSD, or something else but you get my point :)
96 • RE 61 Thanks reminding there are serious time scales... (by dbrion on 2007-12-18 09:57:08 GMT from France)
" But... as with any other distro having a 6-month cycle, you may never know what will happen next. How will 2008.1 work? "
Better, theoretically: the time lag between alpha and planned releases is greater than with the 2008.0, and there are not too many Holy Days during testing periods.
FYI, I am the only one at work to , occasionaly (testing some MS Windows-> Linux ports)use a Mandriva 2007.0 (and I had to fix her, and she is VMplayer potemkined). My colleagues intensively use Mandrivas 2007.1 Spring.
(Il y a une saison où des estomacs robustes détruisent leur foie avec du Beaujolais Nouveau, et une autre où les fleurs s'épanouissent...).
For serious work, they advise Debian or RedHat(/s clones, for testing)... (they test it with WhiteBoxen, as distro choosing was done in the reverse alph. order).
I noticed that Debian was more interested in long term, preread publishing (a GNU/linux magazine special edition was dedicated to Debian, they publish in Linux+ Magazine -the French version- how to get as small a RAM print (like DSL...) with a Debian:
all these papers are
commercial (they cannot afford being wrong/ridiculous : with lots of cellulose comes some responsability),
revised (typos and inconsistencies hunting)
and monthly publications (one skips weekly, and buys monthly ones).
Have a nice week/year/century
97 • RE 89 : Rolling releases. (by dbrion on 2007-12-18 10:06:22 GMT from France)
"Any sysadmin who wants to wake up and find their systems running the same software they were running yesterday wants stable releases, and that's a lot of people. :)
"
Add banks, and (indirectly) bank users : having anything (even bugs, except viruses!) reproduced can be a long term advantage....
This is real, even if there are no bugs introductions / regressions.
98 • Thank you for a great 2007 (by Iain Cheyne on 2007-12-18 10:25:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have really enjoyed your work this year. Thank you so much.
99 • PCLinuxOS unlikely? (by Kanwar on 2007-12-18 10:37:29 GMT from Australia)
I wonder why you say PCLinuxOS is an unlikely distribution? Is there something wrong with it? Or maybe its just because it has proved that KDE is a "usable" "user-friendly" desktop which, unfortunately, are adjectives people like to use, erroneously, for GNOME.
100 • re #59 (by AliasMarlowe at 2007-12-18 11:04:30 GMT from United States)
"The term 'wireless friendly' is meaningless without reference to the chipset and the driver it requires."
Exactly.
I have a Sony Vaio laptop, and wireless networking is automagically setup and working with just about any Linux. It's been on Ubuntu since Breezy (which recognized and set up the WLAN and 1920x1200 display), but I have tried several live CDs, all of which were successful with the WLAN.
101 • re #72 (by AliasMarlowe at 2007-12-18 11:28:04 GMT from United States)
"5. Workgroup and sharing bugs. Mysterious reads and no write, finding and not finding windows computers. Stripping case from workgroup names."
This is why I eventually removed PCLOS from the one PC it was installed on. In many ways, a very nice distro, but with a few nasty bugs (e.g. lost window title bars with compiz), as well as some merely annoying omissions (e.g. no gnu image finding tool in PCLOS repos, even though its KDE setup tries to invoke it).
102 • What was 2007 (and before) for me (by glyj on 2007-12-18 11:36:15 GMT from New Caledonia)
In terms of linux, it's the 7th-8th year without windows for me. The last windows system I had was Windows Millenium. I had'nt the problems I read on the forums, though. I first switched to mozilla & openoffice then I realized I didn't use any windows apps anymore. So I made the switch to a Linux system.
I had tried Red hat 5.2, and also a strange distro called "Geek's gadget" on my old amiga 1200 (with 68 060 accelerating card & 32Mo ram), but that was not for daily use.
I chose MandrakeLinux 'cause it was able to run quite easily my AIW ATI card: I could watch TV, and use my wireless HF ATI remote. Since then I always followed Mandrake, then Mandriva.
This year is for me a kind of switch because with the release of Mandriva 2008, I adopted the x86_64 Powerpack edition, my first 64bits sytem.
I have to admit that almost everything is working very good.
With 2007.0 I disabled the 3D desktop, but with this release, 3D is still there and I find it quite useful, and responsive, even video with kaffeine is Ok (but I have problems with vlc...) . Kaffeine is really a killer app in this 2008, I think.
I whish you all (and Ladislav of course !! ) anything you want for the new year, especially a good working linux system, as mine ;-)
103 • 101 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-18 12:35:48 GMT from United States)
Hope you've got your special pants on for all the flaming coming your way. You never want to suggest something is not in the PCLOS repos or that makes you a troll. Two weeks ago the reviewer of PCLOS said that and his review was trashed. I tried out the new PCLOS and found the same thing and received way too many comments in return. Here's what I learned.
PCLOS has everything you need, and if it's not there, that's because they're protecting you from unstable software.
Besides, there are several thousand packages in the repos. You don't use more than several thousand packages, do you?
This is obviously an obscure program that the average home user could never want to use. I don't need it, so it could not possibly have any value to the average Joe doing average things.
You're just digging around to find one useless package not in the repos so that you can bash PCLOS. You don't even use that program.
Okay PCLOS fans, I've hit him with the "answers". I probably forgot a couple of them, sorry, please don't flame me as well.
104 • Gentoo; distrowatch still doesn't get it. (by gentoo_user12001 on 2007-12-18 13:20:11 GMT from Netherlands)
Gentoo 2007 was reviewed by the well respected Linux Format Magazine and received a 9 out 10. It was the highest rated distro this year. Here's the ratings of some other Linux distro's by LFX in 2007
Debian 6
FreeBSD 6
Mandriva 7
Ubuntu 8
Fedora 8
Gentoo 9
The biggest site in the Netherlands (hyves.nl) runs on 2000 Gentoo servers. In short; Gentoo is alive and kicking and doing better then ever. We only could use some more manpower.
In closing I have no problem that you don't understand Gentoo. But please refrain from commenting on topics you don't understand. This might deter newcomers from trying one of the best distro's out there.
105 • RE: 104 Gentoo; distrowatch still doesn't get it. (by ladislav on 2007-12-18 14:44:52 GMT from Taiwan)
When I donated $500.00 to Gentoo Project, I received exactly 0 (ZERO) "thank you" email from anybody at Gentoo - not one from its leadership, not one from its developers, not one from its fans.
But every time I point out a few shortcomings of the distro, hordes of Gentoo fans come to complain, abuse and ridicule DistroWatch.
Yes, you are absolutely right - I don't understand Gentoo. But if YOU, a 100% unbiased Gentoo user, tell me that it's doing better than ever (despite all the obvious evidence to the contrary) then it must be the truth.
106 • re: 103 (by beany on 2007-12-18 14:49:45 GMT from United States)
I'm not sure why your commentary has been allowed to exist so far it is not beneficial to anyone who uses Linux or that is shopping for a distro, It just exists to ignite the flamers.
I hope you have your special diaper on cause you are acting like a child.
107 • Thanks (by Fred on 2007-12-18 15:08:11 GMT from United States)
Just a note to say I've enjoyed reading Distrowatch thruout the year, seeing the variety of Linux and even trying a few. Hope for an even better year for you and Linux.
From a Mepis user, thanks.
108 • RE 104 May I comment on topics I do not use? (by dbrion on 2007-12-18 15:27:59 GMT from France)
". But please refrain from commenting on topics you don't understand. This might deter newcomers from trying one of the best distro's out there.
"
* A cybercafé landlord (100 % Windows, as there is demand) choose for his book-accounting/ games developping (and storing) a Gentoo; he is happy with it; OTOH, I never saw a {simiesque UBU linux} user happy, though many tried it; nor did I see any PClol at all (removing language is soooo positive!).
* Some 32 bits UCs can be added a Linux kernel/linux tools which must be downloaded/compiled from scratch. The download sites, if they are not the originals'users, are, in the order of importance, Debian (the lazy ones, who have no more weekly letter!!!), Gentoo and RedHat (which contributes much more by Cygwin... but it is another point).
These Ucs are used to teach programming and HW conception to students, and fora are monitored by their teachers => one cannot hope to find trivial help (except for electrical safety issues : they are human...) => on can epect that pple somewhat indifferent to the polish (it is the first thing any user removes, whatever the OS and the kill) and the desktop comfort, will become interested in GNU/linux, not in "copy_and_claim_one_is_the_best" parasitic OSes.....
* Gentoo 's manual and users (even *here*) taught me much.
OTOH
a)I never will advise a beginner to have a compiled by oneself distr: some are in such an hurry....and so anxious everything is finished.
b) If progress were monotonous, rolling upgrades would be interesting, but the price one pays, specially with compiling, is too huge : one cannot know how long it may take, and the amount of disk space to give: if one has some preprogrammed tasks (crontabs), these upgrades should be forbidden (I did it 10 yrs ago, just becaus ethe ressources needed to upgrade were unknown, before I knew of the existence of regressions :....)
109 • re @89 Rolling releases (by Llover on 2007-12-18 16:42:10 GMT from United States)
True, Adam, to a point. I could be comfortable with a rolling Debian testing but I think Cooker is even scarier to run than sid.
I was running PCLinuxOS for a few years with no re-install. Could I do this with Mandriva? I just want to get it where I want it, and possibly install/try a few packages along the way. BTW, you're doing a great job here chiming in on the comments section and you're a good "ambassador" for Mandriva. Have a good year!
110 • @109 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-18 17:58:09 GMT from Canada)
Cooker's really not that scary to run these days, if you're reasonably competent and follow the mailing list. I've been doing it for many years now and it just doesn't break that often any more. But if you're happy with your PCLOS setup, then you're probably fine just to stick with that :).
You can run Cooker for long periods without a reinstall, yes. Doing it with stable releases is a bit trickier but can be done if you're careful (my servers started on 2007 and are happily on 2008 now, using urpmi upgrades). But as I said, sounds like you're doing fine with PCLOS, and as Cooker is a true development distro it is trickier to run than PCLOS (and a bit trickier than sid as Debian has experimental repos where the really bleeding-edge stuff is done).
111 • Gentoo (by Agrouf on 2007-12-18 18:01:57 GMT from France)
ladislav, thank you very much for the $500.
Anyway, the fact is that gentoo is a brillant meta-distro.
It is NOT for newbies.If you are looking for something that setup your browser, wireless and 3D desktop for you at install, you will be very disappointed.
In order to appreciate the value of gentoo, you have to get that it is *FLEXIBLE*. It sucks if you don't know what you want to do or if you make it sucks.
Now, what was the first distro (and the only one I know of) to run on the Xbox? It was gentoo. The possibilities are endless, but it takes a bit of learning. You just can't appeciate gentoo by installing stage3 and emerging firefox, it will compare very badly to say Mandriva for that specific usage. If you want a distro that do firefox, openoffice and pidgin on x86, please do use Mandriva or something like that, but don't bad-mouth gentoo because it doesn't install as fast as Mandriva! What do you say about LFS?
Gentoo is a fantastic distro and nothing come close to it for what it is designed to do. It's just the most flexible distro. LFS comes close but it is more for learning and the lack of package management makes it difficule to use. Yes you can install portage on LFS, but then you have a Gentoo. Now if you just don't have any use for it and are happy with easier distros that's fine but you never know when you'll need Gentoo, so please don't say like it's dying or useless, because it is very useful for a lot of people, including me.
112 • re #76 fpu (by ray carter at 2007-12-18 18:18:42 GMT from United States)
This from a person who is afraid to even post with his/her name. Yes, you are right and I was wrong. Call that a senior moment - I didn't recall the distinction between DX and SX as it applied differently to 386 and 486 - evidently not the first to do so.
BTW - no, I was not in diapers. I was in fact working as a mathematician doing scientific software support and development for DOD. I also recall when the 286 was release. And I have a dual floppy 8086 (yes, 8086, not 8088) Zenith laptop which still boots. FYI the second mainframe I worked on, at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in the mid 60's, still had regularly scheduled outages to replace vacuum tubes. Oh, and if you don't know what those are, I still have a good selection along with a Heathkit tube checker.
113 • re #76 & 112 (by whiteowl on 2007-12-18 18:51:30 GMT from United States)
Ray, your response is very classy. I for one appreciate your background and experience, and I'd love to know half the things you've already forgotten. Best to you - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
114 • @ladislav (by gentoo_user12001 on 2007-12-18 19:01:06 GMT from Netherlands)
ladislav your lack of professional journalism really shows here. I really wonder why LXF gave two pages in their magazine.
I think it is a pity that no none was so polite to thank you for your donation. This should not have happened. But this does not make Gentoo a bad distro.
You refer to me sarcastically as an "100% unbiased Gentoo user". First of all attacking the person who provides an argument, doesn't make an argument less valid. The matter of the fact still is that Gentoo is the highest rated distro as well as it's been in use successfully in several mission critical systems. Next time you reply; address these arguments first.
And while your add please add some evidence why Gentoo isn't doing well your opinion.
Here's an short overview of system running Gentoo:
This is a brief list of known clusters running Gentoo that have at least 32 cores. Please contact Donnie Berkholz if you know of one not yet on this list or have updated information for one already on this list.
* 5832 cores in 972 6 GFlops MIPS nodes in the SiCortex SC5832
* 512 cores in 256 Apple Xserve G5 nodes at the University of Maine
* 296 cores in 135 mixed nodes (2.8 GHz Opteron and 2.8 GHz Xeon) at the University of Delaware's Delaware Biotechnology Institute
* 268 cores in 134 2.8 GHz Xeon nodes at the University of Idaho
* 256 cores in 128 Opteron nodes at Indiana University
* 216 cores in 108 mixed nodes (AMD64, Pentium-4 and Xeon), being extended to 356 cores in 178 servers by Startphone Ltd for www.hyves.nl
* 200 cores in IBM xSeries rendering cluster at Attitude Studio
* 160 cores in 80 Pentium-3 933 MHz nodes at SUNY-Stony Brook
* 130 cores in mixed nodes (2.20 GHz Opteron, 3.00 GHz Dual Core Xeon, 2.66 GHz Quad Core Xeon) at Laval University in Québec City
* 128 cores in 3.0 GHz Pentium-4 nodes at Simon Fraser University-Surrey (TechBC)
* 80 cores in 26 mixed nodes (1.8 GHz and up) at Kansas State University
* 72 cores in mixed nodes (1.4 GHz and up) at the University of Edinburgh
* 68 cores at Tufts University
* 64 cores in 32 mixed nodes (27 1.4 GHz Athlon MP, 5 2.0 GHz Athlon MP) at the University of Edinburgh
* 64 cores in 32 nodes (IBM eServer) at the University of Manchester
* 54 cores in 1.2 GHz Athlon nodes at the University of Idaho
* 40 cores in 20 Pentium-2 nodes at the University of Trollhättan/Uddevalla
* 32 cores in 16 2.4 GHz Xeon nodes at the University of Pennsylvania Chemistry Department
* 32 cores in mixed MIPS nodes (25 R4400 SGI Indigo2 & 7 R5000 SGI Indy) at Simon Fraser University-Surrey (TechBC)
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/cluster/
115 • @111 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-18 19:53:47 GMT from Canada)
"Now, what was the first distro (and the only one I know of) to run on the Xbox? It was gentoo."
Oh dear - try again.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/3419.cfm
Earliest reference I can find to someone running full Gentoo on an XBox is in 2003.
Current Mandriva versions still actually have the XBox boot stuff, but I don't know if anyone's tested it lately...
116 • Re 112... Birds of feather. (by Glenn on 2007-12-18 19:57:14 GMT from Canada)
Hi Ray.
I've been there also, vacuum tubes, programming with jumpers, etc.
40 years in and am still going strong on the mainfraimes and others
Now our wristwatchs have 100x more power than those things we started on
.
40+ years of hell of a lot of fun.
My first pc was soldering the connections. :-)
Nice to know I have a brother in arms in here. :-)
Glenn .
117 • No subject (by plock on 2007-12-18 20:53:58 GMT from Sweden)
This years disto is Mandriva 2008! It's hard to beat a distro that everything works, have a proffesional look and works fast. It has a fantastic packagemanager, brilliant features and top class admintools.
Iv'e also tried Fedora 7, 8 Ubuntu 7.04, 7.10 and openSUSE 10.3 as well as Sabayon 4.3
Fedora 8 is the biggest disappointment. The artwork looks terrible, Yum is slow and it doesn't offer any new features. Just same old things. The say that quality is the most important point when speaking of Fedora but the disto has many bugs and is not as fast, errorfree and stable as Mandriva 2008. Why are people still using it?
118 • A HAPPY 2008 and good health everyone! (by BarnabyH on 2007-12-18 21:22:39 GMT from Germany)
Ladislav, it's nice to see somebody still also value time off-line and not just the world of computing and OS'es. Seems like the perfect season for this now to remind ourselves there are still other important things in life.
Happy holidays every body here, and looking forward to see you guys all again in 2008.
And please no more of this stuff as in #103. I thought we'd put that to rest. Of course it's not right for every body. We are all free to choose from the many distros out there. Peace.
119 • re: #112 (by Eyes-Only on 2007-12-18 21:41:33 GMT from United States)
Oh wow!! You've got a HeathKit tube checker! I remember those! A cousin of mine used to use those when building his own HeathKit radios, Tvs, and you get the picture... ;) That's awesome... but you and I are showing our age here amongst these youngsters. LOL! Oups... got to run as my grandson's calling for me. Ladislav? Thanks for a wonderful 2007 with all the distro reports, all the reviews your team has given, and the like. I look forward to each time I start my browser---DW is my homepage, and has been since coming to Linux 2 years ago. I see something new each time. So please keep up the great work one and all.
Bon Noel a tous et joueux nouvelle anne! Merry Christmas to all and happy New Year!
120 • Old Computers - Live CDs (by welkiner on 2007-12-18 22:01:33 GMT from United States)
What newer Live CDs work well on very very old computers in LiveCD mode?
From the reviews and comments, I thought AntiX might be the answer, but I can't get AntiX to boot live on any machines over 3 years old.
For HD installs Fluxubuntu Looks like it might be good. I'm downloading it now to give it a try.
For Live CDs, are Knoppix and DSL still the best choices? (want to stay with .deb package system)
Any other (new) suggestions?
Thanks
121 • @ 72 (by Jmiahman on 2007-12-18 22:42:32 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS does have a hardware database. A place you can submit hardware and rate it according. If hardware gets a 1 we look at it and see what we can fix to make that hardware work. If there's drivers out there we need to compile into the kernel or make a dkms package for. Because we use Madriva's ldetect-lst sometimes there's issues with the hardware not being recognized and we have to tweak things accordingly to make it work. However, last I went to the hardware database, I saw a lot of wireless cards that users are reporting work and a decent amount of working webcams. These even a few network printers that work just fine. Plus I've never seen any of the complaints you've listed on the forums. Flash seems to work fine for me on almost any page. You seem to represent a huge problem with the community here at DistroWatch. You would rather complain then actually help the situation. PCLinuxOS is community based and there's more then one person who would be willing to help you depending on if you ask in a respectful manner. Good Luck with any other Linux distribution sharing that attitude.
122 • Re #120 Old Computers (by glenn on 2007-12-18 22:53:37 GMT from Canada)
Puppy linux wiill. www.puppylinux.org
In the case of real ancient ones you may have to use an earlier release of it. Puppy 1.09CE. I would try 2.14 first though. .
I know It does not meet your criteria of being Deb based but you can use slackware installs for those packages that are not in the Puppy repertoire.
You may want to give it a look anyway and see if it is suitable for your purposes. I've set a lot of people up on old PC's using Puppy 2.14 and they are a bunch of happy people
Glenn.
123 • Distrowach Rocks (by WG on 2007-12-18 22:59:46 GMT from United States)
Thank you for all the hard word you put in all year. I personally think eveyone here does a wonderful job.
Merry Christmas!
I wish health and happiness to all in 2008!
124 • re 121 and 101 (by AH1 on 2007-12-18 23:55:22 GMT from United States)
Agree completely with the points you make. I've also been on the PCLOS forums, and if a problem does come up, if a person is patient, and keeps their cool, the problem will get resolved. Some people have no patience. The bashing here certainly starts first most of the time, almost every week. Posters like on 72 and 103 (if not the same person), do constantly seem to want to stir up trouble, every week they mention how terrible PCLOS is. Relevant or not to the weeks news. They talk of PCLOS fanbois being so bad, being a constant basher is certainly no better. One allowed to post here refers to PCLOS as PCLOL too, thinking they are being cute or something I guess, it certainly doesn't make them look very intelligent.
"This is why I eventually removed PCLOS from the one PC it was installed on. In many ways, a very nice distro, but with a few nasty bugs (e.g. lost window title bars with compiz)"
I had the same problem with Mandy 08, and several other bugs as well, I mentioned them a few weeks ago. Compiz problem was fixed quickly by Mandy devs, and apparently only affected a few people. Not every distro works perfectly for everyone on every system, some just don't seem to get that. Problems do come up, time is needed to fix any of them.
...patiently waiting for Mepis final here....
125 • antiX (by anticapitalista on 2007-12-19 00:21:07 GMT from Greece)
#120
Well the newest (Lysistrata) uses a .686 kernel and the previous one (Spartacus) uses a .586 kernel. One of them should work. If you have k5/k6 use Spartacus.
126 • 124 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-19 01:41:21 GMT from United States)
"every week they mention how terrible PCLOS is"
Where in post 103 do you see any criticism at all of PCLOS?
Read the relevant posts. Look at the treatment given to the review two weeks ago that said PCLOS has fewer packages in the repos than other distros. Look at the treatment given to my statement of facts about my experience with limited packages.
I was just summarizing (in better language) the criticisms of my post. The poor guy that posted #101 was going to get treated to the same delights that I was treated to.
Perhaps you should have tried to claim the moral high ground the previous two weeks, telling the PCLOS crowd to act like adults.
If Ladislav wants to delete this post, that is fine, I understand (and don't have any say in the matter anyway) but please at least delete post 124 as well. I don't think either this post or 124 deserves to be here, but I should have a right to defend myself.
127 • re126 (by AH1 on 2007-12-19 02:05:55 GMT from United States)
I detected "sarcasm" in 103 the first I read it, before and after the points you make, if you didn't intend it that way, sorry, that's just the way I read it. As to the points you made in between, more or less, true. Typical person, typical needs, not expecting perfection. If it doesn't suit you, move on (I'm not using it now either). The distro is aimed at a certain type of people, the ones that it doesn't fit, should move on, and not start a war about it, or try to make invalid/irrelevant points. Same with any distro discussion. The bashers are no better than the extreme fanbois, I don't see what's wrong with stating that here.
As to 101, known/occasional problem with other distros/compiz, not limited to PCLOS. Now that I'm thinking about it, I remember having that problem temporarily with Sabayon as well a few months back, almost forgot about it. There are a lot of posts here that seem to intentionally wish to instigate people, 101 is not one of them. Some people still don't see the difference apparently.
128 • 2007 and OpenSource (by tech2k on 2007-12-19 02:16:42 GMT from United States)
I feel this has been a great year for Linux and open source both distros and hardware and 2008 will be even better :)
You can actually purchase a "one laptop per child" pc.
Asus markets the super cool eee pc for only 400 bucks and there selling like wildfire which is great news because clones will soon follow and prices will drop.
Google announces the android mobile device project and puts the SDK online.
uClibc hits 0.9.29 and Busybox is getting better than ever.
Pclos hits the top of the charts on DW and holds on tightly *grin* ;)
Not really open but I got the ipod touch jailbroke with bash,ssh,wget and the works installed and its getting more like a mini tablet pc everyday.
Distrowatch is better than ever and I would like to thank Laislav for all his hard work and also thank all of you who post in these dw weekly comments.
I really enjoy reading all your comments and am glad everyone can give their 2 cents worth either positive or negative and not get deleted if some mod dont agree.
Many here really have patience helping a newcomer get wifi or something working thus keeping them looking more and more into tux.
Others flame and argue but I see it as entertainment and figure its as good as most local television shows.
And then we have mystery like the page hit ranking.
And drama like "will he get it working?".
Its great!
I remember just a few short years ago when the main "livecd's" almost the *only* ones were lnx-bbc,dynabolic and knoppix and I may be mistaken but I *think* knopper and his cloop was involved in all three.
Boy we sure had fun remastering knoppix.
Now almost all distros are on live cd/dvd and its easier than ever to try them all.
I personally run pclos on this lappy because it works for me when I want to be lazy and automount,point&click,etc.(like a windows box) but I wouldnt say its any better than its parent,the unbutu's,or whatever.
Pclos is really nice if your lazy like me and enjoy doing things like setting up a hard drive install with just the packages you want and typing "remasterme" then wait a few minutes to burn your new livecd.
Another distro I really like is Grml.
When I want to get some real work done I just chroot to a jail of lfs or a gentoo stage3 because for me the single live cd eyecandy distros give way to many failures when compiling source.
If you want to give your distro of choice a test try compiling a snapshot of busybox with a "make defconfig".
Try running buildroot and make a generic development system agianst uClibc.
If it fails try it with the lfs livecd ;)
Choice and freedom is the power of Linux and whatever works for you atm is fine.We are the lucky ones.
Sorry for this long winded post.Keep rockin on in 08.
Everyone be safe,dream big and have some happy holidays,
Ken
129 • 127 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-19 02:25:15 GMT from United States)
No intention on my part to be sarcastic or critical or anything. Heck, I _want_ to use PCLOS, for what it's worth. I just wish I could make a post and not have the response that others give. Certainly don't want to create any hard feelings with you either. I'm not looking for a fight but a fight sure seemed to find me. I'm a positive, happy-go-lucky kind of guy but sometimes online it is hard to act that way when you get replies of a certain sort.
Anyway, as for the Compiz problem, my experience is that this happens on every distro I've tried, and is one reason I don't use Compiz. I read before that sometimes there are issues with the nVidia driver, and, depending on your hardware and software combination, it can cause that and other behavior.
130 • @121 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-19 02:25:57 GMT from Canada)
Flash audio is a massive pain, and very unpredictable. The best results I've seen are using PulseAudio with libflashsupport (a Flash plugin for Pulse). This will be the default setup for Mandriva 2008 Spring, and I believe it's what Fedora 8 is on already. PCLOS devs might want to think about going to Pulse, if they haven't already.
131 • No subject (by JAG on 2007-12-19 03:49:31 GMT from United States)
RE: 8
Here's another suggested distro for you...
http://214r.minipc.org/pup214R-1.01.iso
http://214r.minipc.org/pup214R-1.01.iso.md5.txt
RE: 94
Great links...thanks!
132 • Christmas greetings to all... (by JAG on 2007-12-19 04:03:09 GMT from United States)
Here's some suggested reading for the holidays...
(Caution though, it is quite stirring and very controversial!!!)
http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/frame/
http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/calendar/calendar_contents.html
http://www.timehasanend.org/public/en_time_has_an_end_ch14.html
http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/numbers/chapter%201a.htm
http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/church/church_contents.html
http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/wheat/wheat_contents.html
http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/saved/hope_saved2.html
133 • @115 (by Agrouf on 2007-12-19 06:42:21 GMT from France)
My bad, sorry. Yes Mandriva is a fantastic distro. I have it installed and I use it often. It's the best at what it is designed to do.
Still, Gentoo is the best at what it does and will remain the best for the years to come.
I have several issues with distrowatch. One is the stupid random ranking that brings nothing but stupid competition between stupid fanboys. Another is the stupid biased reviews and how it tryes to compare the uncomparable and give random notes to distros. How can you say that distro is 9 and that is 6? I just don't take the opiniated reviews seriously.
Other than that, I really like this site. It keeps me informed of what is happening in the wonderful world of distros and it contributes a lot to open source. Thank you again Ladislav.
134 • re #120, LiveCD on old computers (by AliasMarlowe at 2007-12-19 08:02:33 GMT from United States)
"What newer Live CDs work well on very very old computers in LiveCD mode?"
One of our PCs at home is a 1998 Dell XPS (400MHz Pentium 3 with 128MB, ATI Rage Pro). It was upgraded to 384MB several years ago, and inherited an ATI 9250 and SB Audigy last year.
I have tried several LiveCDs on this PC, all of which worked OK: Mint Daryna, PCLOS 2007, Ubuntu Feisty, and Ubuntu Gutsy. I also tried Ubuntu Breezy, Ubuntu Dapper, and Ubuntu Edgy, LiveCDs before the sound & graphics upgrade, and Mint Barbara or Bea (I forget which, and whether it was before or after the upgrade).
Obviously, this PC is not a speed demon, and everything loads slower from LiveCDs than from a hard disk installation. However, all of these LiveCDs worked, including acceptably configuring the graphics card and sound card and setting up the wired networking.
Web browsing is quite usable from the LiveCDs, although some plugins etc might not be available. Multimedia playback is also perfectly acceptable. However, I would not attempt to load OpenOffice from a LiveCD on this machine.
FWIW, this machine runs Ubuntu Gutsy, and the kids use it for web browsing, modifying their web pages at various sites, and associated graphics editing (gimp).
135 • RE 134 : liveCDs (by dbrioon on 2007-12-19 10:22:36 GMT from France)
Have you thought of Slackware-derived ? Zen or KateOS could be VMplayed with less memory than 384M (and I am sure Zen has a live CD mode)... Austrumi has the gimp, if I have a good memory...
This month, I could almost comfortably qemulate (this is slower than VMplayer # ca 5-10 times slower)
GoboLinux, which has a liveCD mode.... perhaps you should wait a little with GoboLinux, because they are now in a RC phase (I am a bad tester, and noticed no flaws) .
Antix was very fast to start, even as a life cD (The HW detection is slow every time).
KaellaKnoppix (or just Knoppix) can be interesting, too (I could have them half working with 128 M; with 300 M, there is no trouble.
As installing on a Hd is very difficult and very hidden with Knopix (derived), one can lend them to kids....
One can even try Mandrivas Ones (or any other distr LiveCd) with 340 Megas, but it gets very slow.
136 • No subject (by San on 2007-12-19 11:30:25 GMT from Belgium)
Very good year for me too. I have happily used Ubuntu (and will keep installing the new releases on a spare partition), but I looked around for a lighter and faster alternative. I played around with Mandriva and was very impressed, but fonts didn't look that great, and I thought urpmi was a tad slow. It would probably have ended up on my PC anyway, if I hadn't found Arch.
It's not that easy to install (the first time), but it's well documented, and it works surprisingly well. There's quite a bit of configuration involved, which can be tiresome sometimes, but I haven't yet found something I couldn't fix.
Quite the little gem.
137 • Latest Packages (by RipVanWinkle on 2007-12-19 11:39:53 GMT from United States)
on the front page in the left hand column labeled "Latest Packages" you show the Linux kernel linux-2.6.23.12 but the URL in the link points to linux-1.6.23.11 (you might want to fix that)...
138 • 2007 (by PP on 2007-12-19 14:15:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
2007 was clearly a great year for Linux. Especially Ubuntu has been very prominent in the mainstream media. ATI released its specs for linux developers, BBC reversed its policy of windows-only iPlayer. Some cool linux-products are pushing up: Everex PC, EeePc, XO, and don't forget Ubuntu on Dell.
In my little world, I've installed Kubuntu 7.04 on my desktop and openSUSE 10.3 on my laptop. I'm really waiting to see how Everex Cloudbook turns out to be, and will probably either buy it or the EeePc early next year.
http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/333/C14037/
139 • re #135 (by AliasMarlowe at 2007-12-19 15:20:56 GMT from United States)
Actually, Ubuntu Gutsy is installed on the hard disk of the 9 year old Dell PC, and works quite well, even with some desktop effects switched on.
I regularly try Live CDs of different distributions, especially on our laptop, and only mentioned the ones used on the old Dell desktop in the earlier post #134, which was a reply to the question in #120.
All of our PCs tend to run the same distro most of the time, for ease of administration. For the past few years, they have been running Ubuntu in one form or another, since the beta of Breezy. However, one PC or another may get a different distribution installed from time to time, if a Live CD looks attractive enough, such as PCLOS and Mint. Although Ubuntu has some peculiarities and occsional problems, it still appears to be the best all-rounder, at least for me.
140 • Com 121 Les zhéros sont fatigués... et ne savent même pas copier (by dbrion on 2007-12-19 15:58:27 GMT from France)
"Because we use Madriva's ldetect-lst sometimes there's issues with the hardware not being recognized "
Normal, vous ne savez que vouus cacher derrière le travail des autres. Même Pershing (La Faillite, nous voilà) y est passé.... et il avait droit, en un autre milènaire, au titre de héros, pas de zéro....
"PCLinuxOS is community based and there's more then one person who would be willing to help you depending on if you ask in a respectful manner"
Commencez par respecter votre langue...
BTW, I read that PClol was going to become bilingual, from Emerican Anglish to British Anglish...
it is better thAn nothing...
Au fait, qu'avez vous fait du travail bénévole de traduction de l'original? Mis à la poubelle?
141 • #140 (by RC on 2007-12-19 16:19:33 GMT from United States)
Le seul zéro voici autour vous. Vous parlez du manque d'autres langues mais de vous peau derrière votre langue pour faire vos remarques stupides.
Et la seule chose que vous contribuez montre votre attitude d'élitiste et comportement lâche. Comment typique.
142 • RE 141 Your French is Radically Crappy (by dbrion on 2007-12-19 16:30:57 GMT from France)
"The only zero here around you. You speak of a lack of other languages, but you skin behind your tongue to your remarks stupid.
And the only thing that shows you contribute your elitist attitude and behavior cowardly. How typical."
Google translated, without cheating....
I note that :
a) removing the work of translation by competent volunteers is a positive thing
b Removing the developpers'headers (which make adding serious, well funded (see Octave or R thanks) softs easy to upgrade by onesself, without begging to fora) is a brilliant idea....
143 • #142 (by RC on 2007-12-19 16:35:25 GMT from United States)
I don't speak french. Babelfish isn't perfect, but neither is your english, although I have never pointed that out to you.
Point is....stop saying ugly things when you don't think others can understand them. Better yet....just stop saying ugly things. You don't like PCLinuxOS or TexStar. OK. You have made the point a hundred times. We GET IT! Can you please drop it and say something useful in your posts?
144 • There's the PCLOL guy! (by AH1 on 2007-12-19 16:45:22 GMT from United States)
Yep, looking intelligent as usual. Ladislav, is it ok for the rest of us to call distros names all the time too?
dbrion does this almost every week, Is this ok, or can something be done about it?
145 • 140, 142 (by Barnabyh on 2007-12-19 20:53:47 GMT from Germany)
Dbrion, what happened if we all started to post in our mother tongue? Everybody else supposed to use babelfish to translate all the time? Or are you just of the opinion French should be the most widely adopted language?
Somebody, probably the person running this show here at DW, made a conscious decision to use English as "lingua franca" (oh, the irony). We should respect it if we want to take part, otherwise we can always post on other sites that are more to our preference.
Back home(?) for the holidays.
146 • dbrion (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-19 21:25:28 GMT from Canada)
dbrion, it would be nice if you'd quit bashing PCLOS all the time.
It makes sense for them to use our ldetect-lst, and I say this as the guy who does the most work on it these days. Why duplicate the effort for no obvious gain? I submit my work to the upstream pciids project when I have time, too, in order to make sure everyone benefits from it. I just don't see who it would help if PCLOS devoted some of their sparse developer time to pointlessly duplicating the work I do trolling through NVIDIA / ATI device lists. It makes perfect sense for them just to take advantage of it too. I don't mind, it just means what I'm doing is all the more useful to more people.
As PCLOS are trying to achieve some well-defined ends with scarce resources - they just don't have enough people to maintain everything themselves - they have to take advantage of the work of other people in *some* areas. Given this constraint, I think hardware detection tables are a perfectly sensible area to do this in. It wouldn't help PCLOS or Mandriva if PCLOS took a developer away from working on KDE or the kernel or something and made him stare at PCI ID tables all day.
147 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-19 21:55:28 GMT from Canada)
I use pclos as my main os , it is fantastic - but a big problem is all these hangers on that texstar tolerates as part of his dev team.
They are a buch of neo nazis and thats putting it lightly .
For example - A guy trys to make his own remaster - didnt ask permission (wasnt part of the old boys club) and got run into the ground.
Pclos as many know has a testing repo . try explaining this to a newcomer and find your posts deleted as said neo cons dont feel that we can make our own decisions .
pclos may be good for new and experienced users a like but the behaviour of these is giving linux a bad name .
power corruptes
148 • Thanks (by Texstar on 2007-12-19 22:05:54 GMT from United States)
Thanks Adam for the work you did on the pci-ids. It took a couple of days to back port to older ldetect and drakxtools but was worth it in the end. Im not really worried what drbion says. Im enjoying Linux and sharing it with friends who might like it too. If I can convert one person from a MS world to the freedom of Linux then I've done my part.
149 • Latest Packages - Reply to 137 (by Dr. W T Zhu on 2007-12-19 22:32:16 GMT from Australia)
It's caused by a misconfiguration, and a few more packages will still be affected. Ladislav will fix this problem two days later or so. We are sorry for that.
150 • 147 (by Texstar on 2007-12-19 23:10:39 GMT from United States)
The testing section has a mailing list for discussion and is for advanced users who know how to manually revert to stable packages in the event something isnt kosher with a test package. I hope you can understand why we dont want to discuss said packages on the forum in front of newbies who are just now getting their feet wet with Linux. It is a support issue. On another note you dont have to have permission to remaster PCLOS.
151 • re #12 dull video (by Anonymous on 2007-12-20 01:07:23 GMT from Australia)
"video editing... has long been a weak spot for Linux "
Must agree here - video editors are scarce. And if they are available they sometimes don't work - or can't handle a file. And installing the apps (not via net) usually comes up with unresolved dependencies or some other error.
People forget that Windows also has a community of free software - not just Linux - and it's sometimes easier to get one of its free apps to perform a task. It is a mature platform and you are reasonably sure that things will work. Linux is not as mature yet, but maybe in 2-3 years time. When that occurs the frantic pace of releases will probably slow down (no need to improve on what already works).
Item to watch next year: a 10" subnotebook PC (for big kiddies)
152 • BIGPOND FILES LINUX REPOSITORY (by Anonymous on 2007-12-20 02:48:49 GMT from Australia)
BIGPOND FILES LINUX REPOSITORY
BigPond is pleased to announce the trial of a new service - a local Ubuntu Linux file repository. [ http://mirror.gamearena.com.au/ubuntu/ ]
The local repository will allow Ubuntu users to directly update their operating system and some applications from the BigPond Files files servers, providing fast, unmetered access for the latest updates to this popular Linux distribution.
The service is currently in beta and is being tested extensively, and we're interested in any feedback users have - please let us know what you think!
-- Service Information --
Currently we are mirroring the main, universe and restricted repositories for the 'Gutsy Gibbon' and 'Hardy Heron' Ubuntu distributions.
Clients are limited to two concurrent connections.
-- Contact Us --
http://files.bigpond.com/support/
153 • NEW: BIGPOND OFFICE - For Windows users, BigPond Office (by Another nail in MS coffin? on 2007-12-20 02:55:32 GMT from Australia)
NEW: BIGPOND OFFICE - For Windows users, BigPond Office is BigPond's alternative office suite.
All BigPond customers can check it out at the BigPond Office website.
BigPond has removed the OpenOffice software downloads for Windows users to support the release of this new product.
http://files.bigpond.com/
--------------------
BigPond® Office lets you create, edit and share word processing, spreadsheet and presentation documents from anywhere you can use the Internet, any time. Simply login and start working.
BigPond Office is BigPond's alternative office suite.
And best of all, it's all free* for most BigPond members.
http://www.bigpondoffice.com.au/common/main.tfo
154 • @151 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-20 05:38:03 GMT from Canada)
The Classmate PC is going to a 9" or 10" screen sometime in 2008, I think. It wouldn't surprise me if the eee did too.
155 • @148 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-20 05:39:22 GMT from Canada)
Tex, in case you didn't know, you can get the latest state of the ldetect stuff (and all other MDV apps and tools) from SVN:
http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/soft/ldetect-lst/trunk/
it's updated quite frequently between releases.
156 • Linux loves memory,-------- Use Memtest to check it. (by DistroWatch Reader on 2007-12-20 06:11:21 GMT from United States)
To comment Number 8 • My Year with Linux ended in disgust.
Sorry to hear that.
My Computer came with Windoze ME and 128 MB.
So unstable I tried to upgrade to WinXP.
I called the seller and was told this computer was too small to run Win XP.
Knoppix Linux was a blessing.
Then I got hit by lightning or a big surge.
Memtest showed some damaged Memory.
A 512MB stick was $60.00, I installed it myself.
My computer has runs every distro except sorcemage( I have tried Gentoo).
I use a HP digital camera, as well as many types of cheap cameras. No problems.
I use PCLinuxOs.
Mandrake started It.
Texstar and the ripper gang perfected It.
I use It.
157 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-20 08:27:41 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for the reply texstar - I still believe that people understand that testing is just that - many enjoy having newer packages and often fixing a problem helps you learn linux faster (commands etc)
I know that pclos is excellent for new users but linux is meant to be experimented with and no one needs to have decisions made for them for their own safety . freedom - viva la recolucion
158 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-20 09:38:09 GMT from France)
"dbrion, it would be nice if you'd quit bashing PCLOS all the time.
"
It would be nice, too, if I knew :
* why tens of language ports were *deleted* (I recommand Mandriva to a Tiffinagh reading (I hope at least) man, which has this NorthAfrican alphabet on .... MS Windows (this is the way PClol promotes Linux!!)
* why well funded applications (R, Octave and Grass) who have interesting new releases (I know pple having Mandrivas 2005.x, I recommand them to upgrade R, and to keep the old working stuff)
are considered as *marginal*, why someeones who wants to upgrade it by himself (everything is done for this in R) is considered as a troll. Thze First time he posted, I thought it was a joke , but I am obkliged to think that PClol is broken to a point I did not dare to imagine..
PClol users should learn
159 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-20 09:38:10 GMT from France)
"dbrion, it would be nice if you'd quit bashing PCLOS all the time.
"
It would be nice, too, if I knew :
* why tens of language ports were *deleted* (I recommand Mandriva to a Tiffinagh reading (I hope at least) man, which has this NorthAfrican alphabet on .... MS Windows (this is the way PClol promotes Linux!!)
* why well funded applications (R, Octave and Grass) who have interesting new releases (I know pple having Mandrivas 2005.x, I recommand them to upgrade R, and to keep the old working stuff)
are considered as *marginal*, why someeones who wants to upgrade it by himself (everything is done for this in R) is considered as a troll. Thze First time he posted, I thought it was a joke , but I am obkliged to think that PClol is broken to a point I did not dare to imagine..
PClol users should learn
160 • Suite (by dbrion on 2007-12-20 09:39:36 GMT from France)
languages and geography, instead of prarctising for tens of thousands of lines propaganda and intellectual crookery....
161 • Re 75 (by Anon on 2007-12-20 10:10:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well done Adam, an excellent example of why Mandriva's income statement and balance sheet makes me cringe when I look at it year on year. If you and the other Mandriva management begin to act with some professionalism and switch on your business heads (like Red Hat does, you know the profitable company dominating the market), then maybe Mandriva might end up in the black!
162 • No subject (by RE 145 on 2007-12-20 10:19:27 GMT from France)
"Barnabyh on 2007-12-19 20:53:47 GMT from Germany)
Dbrion, what happened if we all started to post in our mother tongue? "
As I read (among others and I do not claim to be specially intelligent) German, Netherlands, Italian and Spanish, nothing.
Est ce de la lâchté, comm RC ose l'écrire, de répondre ça?
If posts were in Chinese (which would be logical), I would ask a cybercafé landlord.
If posts were not pure propaganda (PClol is great because it works on my HW, everyone who disagrees is a troll) pple would be incited to read them. As normal human beings have shoulders and, above it,... they would learn other languages...
Now, what happens if a "distr" removes every translation, except English?
163 • Debrain (by Warp0 on 2007-12-20 10:54:06 GMT from United States)
Weihnachtsmann, möchte ich ein jahr frei von den idioten wie Debrain, das distros heftig schlägt, die sie nicht mögenIn; französischem keinem kleiner.
164 • RE 161 (by tasos on 2007-12-20 10:56:44 GMT from Greece)
If Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and 1000s other developers acted with this professionalism you are talking about, then there wouldn`t be a subject for discussions about distros.
Linux and FOSS are about sharing and fun.
Profit seekers have other options.
Thanks to Adam Williamson because Mandriva 2007.1 introduced me to this world
Thanks to Texstar because pclos 2007 suits my hardware better than Mandriva
Thanks to FOSS community (no reason to say why)
165 • 164 (by Anon on 2007-12-20 12:56:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Tasos
I was criticising a business, not an open source community, try not to compare apples with oranges! Adam Williamson is a remunerated employee of Mandriva, the company with the profit objective. As an employee, especially one in an important customer focused role, he should not be seen to be mocking potential users, bad customer service. The same bad customer service that put them into the red, although not that they will care, I reckon that the Mandriva management will happily "plod" along in the red for now, that is until their bad practices finally catch up with them and bite them on the backside!
166 • @159 (by memena on 2007-12-20 13:28:13 GMT from Philippines)
See, I think the quote below the comment box is put there for the likes of you.
"It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. (Mark Twain)"
167 • 165 (by tasos on 2007-12-20 14:08:41 GMT from Greece)
This is distrowatch (or distro wars if you prefer), the site for distro supporters and distro bashers.. (This site could be useful to some distro-curious people as well.)
It`s about fun
And maybe one could attract more "customers" by calling a fool with his name.
Any way, I am enjoying it !
BTW thanks Ladislav
168 • Re 166 :Est vous capable de raisonner par vous même? (by dbrion on 2007-12-20 14:12:04 GMT from France)
Do not hide behind ideas you could not find by yourself...
"Santa Claus, I would like a free year of the idioten as Debrain the distros strongly suggests that they are not mögenIn; French no less"
Freely and without cheating translated from Warp0: when translations will occur, linux will be great... and usable...
FYI , after one year in German, names have an uppercase : jahr -> Jahr and so on...
You brilliantly showed thar you cannnot understand any other language than Anglish as a ... pcwinner... hints(in hit mother language!) for the spelling..
I know that one needs only 2 neurons to learn other languages...
I know, too, that decent translations are worth much more than 300 big
sh(r)rinking
bucks (ca 220 Euros, now, -300 Euros in 2001- )...
169 • re dbrion (by Anonymous on 2007-12-20 14:59:01 GMT from United States)
I think disciplinary action should be taken against him. He constantly bashes, distro name calls (PCLOL (PC (laugh out loud))), makes fun of, criticizes (people and distros), sarcastically comments, belittles..., I'm sure I missed a few. Whether it be a stern talking to, or banishment, he is not an asset to this communtity, and I, and I'm sure others, are tired of reading, or having to locate and skip, his drivel. If this were a "regular" forum, we could modalert or something.
If anyone agrees that some sort of action should be taken (stern talking to by the mods, or whatever). Please kindly respond to this with a "yes" or "I agree" or similar. If not, then the opposite. Thanks.
170 • Re 161 (by dbrion on 2007-12-20 15:01:42 GMT from France)
"Adam Williamson is a remunerated employee of Mandriva, the company with the profit objective. As an employee, especially one in an important customer focused role, he should not be seen to be mocking potential users, bad customer service"
Monsieur l'Ânon
Adam {helps/tries to help} many users, here, on his *free* time (where he is not bound by loyalty to his boss : wages are for work, not slavery!). He often helped Fedora users, and, when he does not support a language destroying, header destroying "distro", is very competent.
When something is utterly stupid, he has a right (and even on paid time, at a given level) to be mildly ironic (and some people are very comfortably paid to be unmildly sarcastic, in the real world!)
As you seem to be very competent in (e)conometrics, could you give the algebric value of *removing* developpers headers rpms (they are in Rh, too) and freely contributed translations?
171 • Small Successes (by Dave on 2007-12-20 15:23:35 GMT from Canada)
Hi everyone. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
First success - installing Mint after three tries, but couldn't get other distros to start (PCLinuxOS, Mepis, PC-BSD). I suspect it's my hardware (compatibility), not the OSs. Got some new(er) HW, so I will try again later. I haven't tried Linux since 1995 - it sure has changed.
This was the first time I partitioned a hard-drive since the DOS days (and I didn't worry about dual boot back then), so it kind of felt like I was landing a plane without flight training.
Mint seems to run OK though. I don't quite have the hang of packages yet. Downloaded and installed Ace-of Penguins as a test, but I'll be darned if I can figure out where it went.
Successfully found (in the MS partition) and opened an Excel file too. Hope to have sometime to experiment over the holidays.
Hope Santa's good to you. Dave
172 • 171 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-20 15:42:49 GMT from United States)
Dave: I understand fully the concerns about partitioning. I always recommend to newbies to work in Virtualbox or some other VM first. Install two Linux distros and if you mess up the partitioning, it doesn't matter.
Even though you appear to have things set up, it can still give you practice. It should also cure the hardware compatibility problems.
173 • dbrion (by Andy Axnot on 2007-12-20 16:36:16 GMT from United States)
I think M. dbrion *should* post in French. Then those who are interested in what he has to say but don't understand French could use Babelfish or some such and have at least a small chance of understanding him.
I usually respect those who make the effort to use a language they don't really know, but his "Anglish", or French Anguish, is so bad it must be deliberate.
Andy
174 • @165 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-20 17:05:30 GMT from Canada)
As I've written elsewhere, I tend to act in whatever way is appropriate for where I'm writing. As has been pointed out, this is Distrowatch. This is not customer service. It's a casual discussion forum for fans of many distros. So I write in a fairly natural way here, the way people have been discussing things in this kind of internet forum for years and years.
And let's face it, asking how to download a product when there's a giant button labelled "Free Download" on that company's home page is a bit...head-scratching. :)
Obviously, when I am in *fact* doing customer service (which is also part of my job), I wouldn't write like that.
175 • Re 172 (by Dave on 2007-12-20 17:48:15 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for the suggestion on Virtualbox etc. It sounds like a good idea, I'll definatly look into it. Dave
176 • Re 174 (by Anon on 2007-12-20 20:13:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
Oh please Adam, you are a well know spokes person for the company, you link to your company email inbox. If you worked for a *decent* company you would have been handed your *backside* on a plate for that kind of behaviour, irrespective of whether or not you are acting in an official capacity. However given the recent behaviour of your CEO, public image isn't high on the company's list of priorities, should be though, as that is one of the building blocks that *real* businesses use to make money and prosper, two concepts that seem to be alien to Mandriva. You might want to consider brushing up your people skills before the company goes down the pan or is bought out (the letter is highly unlikely in my opinion, but I have seen stranger things). Your demonstrated level of tact is far from desirable and there's only so much venture capital can do to maintain liquidity.
177 • No subject (by Warp0 on 2007-12-20 20:18:03 GMT from United States)
Es kommt als keine Überraschung, daß Sie ein wenig Deutschen wie kennen, der am handlichen Tag kommen kann, als die Freiwilliger von der Einsparung müde sind.
Je parle français comme une vache espagnole. Je m'en fous, debrain, je parle la langue important.
178 • re #177 (by As Gaeilge, le do thoil on 2007-12-20 20:34:31 GMT from Finland)
"Je parle français comme une vache espagnole."
Ah, vous êtes d'Aquitaine!
179 • "linux" = crap, and you all know it (by Anonymous on 2007-12-20 22:12:51 GMT from United States)
third rate garbage with a 2% following of total home users of computers
"linux" started a long time ago!
and what is the result?
LOL!!
180 • Random Year-end wishes (by David Howard on 2007-12-21 00:30:08 GMT from Israel)
1. re #178: As Gaelainn? Go raibh maith agat !
That said, while I could write in a number of languages, as could Ladislav,
English is the common language here. dbrion please note.
2. More common courtesy. DW promotes criticism of distros, but constructively.
Sheer distro-bashing serves little purpose other than to ventilate spleen.
3. For 2008 - more posters like Adam Williamson - courteous, helpful, focussed.
4. For 2008 - an end to the endless religious war over PCLinuxOS. What is it
about ANY distro that stirs such visceral passion?
5. A long and happy holiday for a francophone troll.
A happy, peaceful and FOSSy 2008 to all.
181 • @176 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-21 01:46:05 GMT from Canada)
Okay, you're obviously just here to be rude, so I'm not going to bother any more.
182 • RE: 181 (by IMQ on 2007-12-21 01:58:26 GMT from United States)
Amen!
183 • re 182 (by AH1 on 2007-12-21 02:54:59 GMT from United States)
Double that.
181
Adam, I see your posts on various boards. As others have said, and others will agree, more should be like you.
184 • Thanks (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-21 04:05:20 GMT from Canada)
Thanks, guys.
Now, back to rebuilding obscure Enlightenment-based media centers, VOIP call generators and in order to try and emulators in order to remove all expat0 dependencies...ah, fun. :P
185 • No subject (by @169 on 2007-12-21 06:10:56 GMT from Philippines)
"If anyone agrees that some sort of action should be taken (stern talking to by the mods, or whatever). Please kindly respond to this with a "yes" or "I agree" or similar. If not, then the opposite. Thanks."
I agree, but considering that there's a tacit agreement that we mod each other since there's only one real mod (ladislav), it's upon us to give him a "stern talking to".
Well that could work if not for the fact that most if not all of it just flies over his head. The man has, uh, special needs. Let's not get too rough on him. Don't use big words.
Um, dbrion, BAD poster. No more click submit ok? Bad.
186 • Unbelievable this week is. (by Landor on 2007-12-21 06:37:27 GMT from Canada)
Now I know many do not share the joys and virtues of Christianity. You would think that during a celebrated time of the year such as this, even without personal belief many would show some form of restraint and decent behaviour out of respect for those that may.
I wonder what Mark Twain would coin for such during this period of the year and the ongoings here.
One person even offered solicitations for a wonderful holiday yet laced it with undo sarcasm towards a long time contributing user here. Then another figures someone should have a "stern talking to"? Is Ladislav the school Headmaster now? Can't we get past things for one or two weeks?
I do have to agree with some of the Gentoo users here Ladislav. As I belive you've seen me post, maybe not though, I found errors in your reasoning for the post in regard to Sabayon which ended up being redirected onto Gentoo. With all things being equal, after some thought of it. I don't think anyone doing an editorial would point a finger Debian for a folly in Mint, or Ubuntu, or even Mepis, nor should. They are completely different entities with their own goals and claims. Sabayon claims to be an easier desktop solution, taking the complexity out of Gentoo and bring that to the user. If that wasn't the case, which it wasn't of course with the information provided in your editorial, then Gentoo should not have been included simpley because they do not make such claims. On the conrary it is explained some knowled and effort is needed at first, but it will get easier as the learning curve lessens. .
Regarding the recent admission of a problem with Gentoo not even aknowledging the contribution if that is the case, and I'm not saying I disbelieve you, I know nothing of it other than what I read you post, then I agree it was inaprorpriate at the very least, and inexcusable at the worst. With that said, I know it's hard for any of us to swallow a slight and I hope it would be remembered that administration doesn't reflect a product's merits on a technical standpoint and shouldn't be a factor in "judging" a product technically.
I hope in the coming new year we see a continuation of support and supportive discussion, especially from people like Anticapitalista, Roadie, Glenn, Dbrion, Clem and quite a few others that I've left out that I believe have helped this little area of ours continue to be why we return, along with the content of course..
That said, Merry Christmas to all that celebrate it. Enjoy the holidays for those that do not and nothing but best wishes for everyone involved in Distrowatch and it's future growth.
Thank you for the time spent in 07
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
187 • Gentoo is as great as ever. (by BLN on 2007-12-21 08:18:54 GMT from United States)
2007 is the year I tried a dozen different distros; user-friendly ones like Mint and Mandriva, and power user distros like Arch and Frugalware. But still I'm sticking to Gentoo.
It's still the only distro I've found where 32bit binary compatibility on an amd64 system "just works." It's still the most robust Linux out there for technical users. As a Gentoo user, I'm as happy as I've ever been.
And Ladislav, THANK YOU for the donation to the Gentoo project. Your official thanks must have been lost in the bureaucracy, but I assure you, many people appreciated it.
188 • Free Software funding and contributions (by dbrion on 2007-12-21 09:52:16 GMT from France)
Insignificant packages like R (and Octave, which has very short [1 day-1month] developpment cycles, but seems to become more and more very pleasant to students who want to port from Matlab .... and consultants who want to make E$) should not be bashed...or treated with respect by ill-funded "distributions").
The
deserved
funding of R (about 800 debian packages this year, and one can build many others which are non-free!!!) is one or two orders of magnitude more than average, garage (même dans des étables... ) distributions (and the value of the skilled work is interesting, too).. It sometimes even comes from gratefull consultants (it is better than tax-paying, perhaps)..
The success of Grass (built 20 yrs ago by the DOD....) may be even greater....
Il ne faut pas s'étonner, ce qui va susciter des discours irréfléchis d'exclusion (en pôvre allemand et en français de mauvaise cuisine), qu'ils soient portés sous Windows et que des revues telles que Linux Pratique daignent, enfin (# 44, p 12), s'y interesser , au lieu de copier le classement de DWHPD (fournissent Foresight Linux, qui a un tout petit rang)....
OTOH what is the value of the HW PClol is so proud to manage with? Ask a pawnbroker/ a bank and you will get a massive derision laughter....
189 • RE 176 Strange letters / litters (by dbrion on 2007-12-21 10:11:22 GMT from France)
"You might want to consider brushing up your people skills before the company goes down the pan or is bought out (the letter is highly unlikely in my opinion, but I have seen stranger things)"
Monsieur l'Ânon (un animal de la crêche)
s/letter/later/
190 • Newbie: Discovering Linux this 2007 (by Beatnik on 2007-12-21 10:11:48 GMT from Panama)
My short Story with Linux
Well, like I wrote before, I was searching for the new version of Microsoft Windows "Vista" (This was on december 2006), then I found this site with 3 videos comparing the 3 OS:
http://www.abadiadigital.com/noticia1778.html
First I saw Windows Vista, then Mac OSX Leopard, and last Linux with Compiz. After watching Mac OSX I thought it was the most beautiful and best OS, but wait, I had to watch the Linux video, then it really BLOWED MY MIND, couldnt believe what I saw on that video. Since that day I started my research of Linux, reading how to get it and install it. The first distro I tried was around february this 2007, Ubuntu 6.10 (Gnome) and I liked it specially LIVE CD feature and even installed it without problem, but it didnt had Compiz/Beryl out of the box, Then I tried Mandriva 2007 (KDE) and to me was better than Ubuntu, but no 3D out of the box, then I discovered that I needed to install Nvidia drivers and a 3D acceleration graphic card capable.
Well, my third distro was SABAYON 3.26, this distro really blowed my mind, it came with Beryl 3D out of the box, and many apps LOVE IT. By the way, I had Sabayon installed on my fastest pc and Mandriva on my other pc, then I wanted to know about other distros and since then have tried around 20 Distros.
As I said I am a newbie (just 1 little year) but I Love Linux, Its like you have the option "to be slave of M$ or to be free with Linux, thats the question".
Well this was the "Year Of Linux Desktop", and Ubuntu was the winner, we cant hide the sun with a hand (it is everywhere, well Canonical-Dell deal helped a "little").
But in my personal opinion Mandriva, Sabayon, and PC Linux OS, had the best experience out of the box for a newbie like me and I am talking about not only 3D, but USEFUL applications.
Oh please, dont let me forget about Mepis, couldnt believe the many useful apps just on a single CD out of the box, great experience. Mepis uses KDE, others will like Linux Mint using Gnome (Liked the Bianca version, but having problems with the last 2 versions).
Well those were my favorite Desktop distros.
Forgot about 2 distros using Xfce:
Dreamlinux (Mac styled distro, they are working right now on a new version); and Sam Linux, great experience with both.
Best Multimedia distro: ArtistX
Best Small distros: NimbleX (installed the 98MB version with KDE on my USB memory with a really easy app included); Slax and Puppy Linux.
Conclusion: I am very glad of discovering Linux and to be part of this huge community, I will continue learning more about it, and if possible help others with my knowledge.
Well thanks Ladislav for all these distro news this year, and for helping many Linux projects with your donations, I really apreciate it.
Have a Happy Hollidays.
191 • 181 (by Anon on 2007-12-21 11:58:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Adam,
I am at no point trying to be rude, I am telling you the way it is in the *real* world. You would do well to take this criticism on board, rather than call me rude as some (dare I say it at the risk of sounding *rude*) pathetic form of defence.
192 • Linux Distro - 2007 - Kanotix (by Scodge on 2007-12-21 12:52:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sorry to see comments from people who have had a disappointing year - for me this year was the best ever! It started slowly with Suse 10.x - OK, very polished but a bit slow and flabby (though it improved after I killed Kerry Beagle). Then Debian Etch went stable and that was good - faster and somehow "cleaner" than Suse. Finally, I tried an old favourite that was my first love - Kanotix ("Thorhammer" release) - and it is now my productive distro. Stable, based on Etch repositories, and with full Beryl support out of the box (though I have to admit I very rarely use the spinning cubes). VirtualBox runs smoothly on it so when I need to go to the Dark Side (the company I work for is somewhere in the Pleistocene age when it comes to software and operating systems) there is no problem with M$ crud. It has everything I need. I even used it as a live CD on an old ThinkPad R51 craptop and it worked like a dream.
So, I just hope the good vibes continue in 2008!
193 • RE 171 (and compl. 172) There are -at least- 3 "flight" simulators. (by dbrion on 2007-12-21 15:26:27 GMT from France)
"This was the first time I partitioned a hard-drive since the DOS days (and I didn't worry about dual boot back then), so it kind of felt like I was landing a plane without flight training."
Or rather, PC simulators, which are very well compared in wikipedia [-> you can google-cross validate]:
* qemu, which is slow (the accelerator seems buggy) but very versatile. As it has a command line interface, and bash has an history mechanism, I find it very convenient....and go gardening/distrowarring while it installs an OS... Is is very easy to download/compile (at least, on a serious Linux!).
* virtual box, which is faster, GUI driven, but perhaps a little young and weird features are reported. It has a very nice, concise doc.
* VMplayer, which is very good, but needs editing / adapting config. files. If I am under XP, I use the site easyvmx to have virtual disks prebuilt, and a skeleton of a config. file. If you use Fat partitions, yo can manage to have virtual disks bigger than 2G (it takes 2,3, .... real files!)
I tried qemu, this morning : the 3 bash lines are the following to install an OS:
1018 dd of=w98.img bs=2048 seek=3000000 count=0
1019 eject
1020 qemu -hda w98.img -cdrom /mnt/cdrom -boot d &
Line 1018 formats a virtual disk with ca 6 G (play with seek= to have another size of the virtual disk.).
Line 1019 changes the CDROM
Line 1020 installs Windows 98, by booting on the CDrom (if you want to install a virtual Linux/BSD, just put a Linux/BSD installation CD/DVD instead of a Windows one; if you need more mem, add to the line -m 256 (here, I have just asked the default 128 M...))
(I recorded it with history>my_usb_key)
Anyway, whatever the simulator you use, you must add the consumption of the underlying OS , the memory you ask for and the memory ~10M qemu uses for itself : you cannot download RAM.....alas...
The virtual disk occuppies roughly the same space than its real size : you must have *real* disks, with enough room.
You can try to install a first OS, then repartition the virtual disk with another OS and see if it works, and many other things... without breaking anything....and then, without too many unpleasants tries when it comes real....
You can find links to at least 2 of these simulators in DW well kept databases (choose any distro, -except PClol- ask for the complete list of packages)
194 • Com 191 L'ânokln as Mandrivel's Minister of Phynances (by dbrion on 2007-12-21 15:32:28 GMT from France)
Monsieur l'Ânon,
Votre connaissance approfondie et très lourdement revendiquée du monde réel vous désigne tout naturellement comme le PDG de Mandriva......
195 • One more thing... (by Barnabyh on 2007-12-21 16:40:53 GMT from Germany)
Will Vectorlinux have a new version 5.9 out just in time for Xmas as they did last year with 5.8? We will know soon. Has it really been one year already?
And thanks to AdamW for all his positive contributions and explanations on this and other sites.
If I´'m not using ZW, Vector, Slackware or Debian proper it's usually PClos or Mandriva (again, since recently with 2008). Like it a lot, like I used to like the old 7.1 and 8.1 versions.
196 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-21 22:16:46 GMT from Canada)
Since everyone is giving their reviews of various distros I thought I'd toss in a little snippet myself.
I've ran tons of the releases this year, and a bit from 2006 when I first started thinking about returning to Linux after a long absence looking to see if Linux finally made it to the desktop in a workable fashion. I was happily surprised.
Here's a few things that stand out in my mind for 2007.
Debian Etch: A rock solid distribution that has all the power and richness you'd expect after so many years.
One of my all time favourites from years passed, openSUSE or to me still SUSE. It came as a shock that for the two releases I tried I wasn't very impressed with overall. I liked them, but I ran into numerous issues that I personally found unthinkable for a distro with such a fine past.
Fedora is a great product catering to the Ledacy that Red Hat has bestowed on this community. Maybe not a distro of choice for the new user but by far one of the more rock solid distributions doing anything you need it to with stability and ease.
Ubuntu, well I don't like the fact that they basically fire off a completely rebuilt from the ground up release each release, no foundation which means they carry way too many problems each and every time they do release.
Vector. Although some may praise it. I find it odd it gets so many kudos (and I'm Canadian!). They must have known about the problems with multiple entries in their package manager yet let it go as is as a final release. That leads me to wonder why. Possibly because they are more concerned in regard to their commercial product, or they just didn't care and said oh well, good enough. I might try it again some time, but not for some time.
NimbleX, one word, genius!
I'll wrap it up with Slackware. I had some of the slackers whack my little mini review of it hard which shows that when even saying you could only find two or three very minor things wrong with it and it's otherwise amazing in this community is like sticking your neck out over the chopping block, sad no? It was thee fastest running and most rock solid distro with KDE that I have used, other than Gentoo, and I've literally tested every single one that came down the pipe this year.
I guess it's obvious I favour the flavours that have a more hands on aspect to them so anyone giving this little blurb any consideration, if you like hands on and want some real power at your disposal, Debian, Fedora, Slackware, and my favourite - Gentoo are the ones to consider off the virtual shelf this year, imo only of course.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
197 • RE: #111 - XBOX (by Anonymous on 2007-12-21 22:48:36 GMT from United States)
Gentoo on a XBOX (Gentoox), I never felt so much like I was alone driving a dynamite truck on a bumpy narrow mountain road. That was on a hardware closed machine and I felt like I was going to make it worthless at any moment. So many partitions and some would wrap and destroy old data that was still in use. Try too many times to fix a problem and you will have more problems. No way to reinstall, or "recovery is possible" cd, no way to back up before you try. Very scary. Then you throw in the incomplete instructions, no live cd, mistyped emerge commands in the blog, and being left without a internet connection to fix it.
198 • re: #121 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-21 22:58:57 GMT from United States)
Webcam support. What application do you use with one in the repositories?
I also don't see anything in the system menu for webcam installation. I use the very common micro innovations webcam.
199 • dbrion and others (by Llover on 2007-12-22 03:34:00 GMT from United States)
It takes two to argue. The best thing for everyone to do is IGNORE the posters who's only purpose is to ruffle feathers. IGNORE dbrion. He is looking for a fight and obviously he knows he'll find one here in the comments section because people are FEEDING THE CREATURE. STOP FEEDING THE STRAY CAT AND HE WILL GO AWAY!
Now on with what I want to say..............................
Thank you Tex, Adam Williamson, Clem, Ladislav and all the curteous posters here on DW. It's the site I visit most often. Thanks for all your hard work for freedom's sake.
200 • RE: 112 (by Landor on 2007-12-22 04:31:13 GMT from Canada)
I must've missed your post. You made me bust right out laughing. I owned a Zenith too. It was one of the 2 complete systems I ever bought. It wasn't a laptop though, you may have seen it. It was when the 286 just hit the market. Zenith released a slim desktop version with the monitor attached to the unit. That was my second system.
I may not have the years you have, but my system was a true 8086 too. The desktop case was as big as a full tower and weighed more than a caddy..lol Geez, my full height drive weighed almost as much as my system now! :)
Oh that Zenith? It came with a record breaking 10 meg drive installed, and not just any drive would do, no. It was a hard card! lol Does it make you smile as much as me when some of the kids here like to assume things?
201 • 200 & others (by Tony on 2007-12-22 06:44:13 GMT from United States)
I thought I was the only one left that remembers Zenith computers? I had an old military surplus Zenith Z248. It never broke, I ended up giving it away to somebody after I got my first Pentium system. I even included an old dot-matrix printer too...
202 • OLD (by Anonymous on 2007-12-22 08:29:53 GMT from United States)
I don't know if this qualifies as old.......but my first PC was a Commodore VIC 20 with a cassette drive backup. I almost bought a Sinclair but backed out I think it was called a Z-81?. My favorite was a Commodore SX-64 which had a 5" color screen and 5 1/4" drive built in (no hard drive, of course). It basically was a 64 with a screen and drive built into a suitcase with a handle and the keyboard was the top cover. Played good games for it's measly power and ram (64 KB)..not MB. I loved writing basic programs on that thing. Taught me a lot. I never was a fan of the Radio Shack TRS-80 for some reason.
203 • Old Geezers (by The Ancient Welkiner on 2007-12-22 08:33:56 GMT from United States)
Since we've got old geezers talking about the bad old days, I can't resist jumping in too.
In the mid to late 70s I would drive 50 miles just to buy a computer magazine. (remember "Byte")
My first computer was Zenith Z80 kit that I bought from HeathKit. No Drives
My first store-bought computer was a TRS80 Model 1 Level 1 from Radio Shack with an external cassette tape drive that actually worked once in a while.
Then on to a Commodore 64 with a CPM module and an external 1541 5 1/4 FD. (a floppy floppy)
I've still got that one in a closet somewhere.
About 85 I got my first laptop. A Toshiba with dual 1.44 floppies. No HD.
We've come a long way, Baby!
204 • 2007 was the year of Polish (by dbrion on 2007-12-22 16:12:16 GMT from France)
or at least of a new magazine, Linux+, which began... as funny (at least in French) translations of papers written by brilliant (I suppose it saved them) students| professionals. At the end of this year, it comes in a good French, with many interesting articles which make travelling by train so pleasant (do not try with cars) -> linux users (newbies has no meaning) should ... take the train.
Distros are shipped with it, and the KaellaKnoppis has a very nice 3 pages presentation, full of ideas, as Smart, Monsieur Bodnar and Madame Linton can do [Linux+, 12/2007, pp6-9].
The only exception on the increasing quality of this magazine was ... a green
polish oriented distribution (called Celena : 13 very difficult to understand jargoning lines , p 10, with at least one typo....).
205 • @152 Re: BigPond (by [soŋtsɛn kampo] on 2007-12-22 16:18:43 GMT from Malaysia)
"BigPond is pleased to announce the trial of a new service - a local Ubuntu Linux file repository."
Why would anyone (other than a BigPond subscriber) be interested in a BigPond press release when ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/linux/ , ftp://mirror.optus.net/ (and others) offer free downloads?
206 • Re: Mandriva (by [soŋtsɛn kampo] on 2007-12-22 16:23:58 GMT from Malaysia)
@161, 176
"Mandriva's income statement and balance sheet makes me cringe .... public image isn't high on the company's list of priorities, should be though, as that is one of the building blocks that *real* businesses use to make money and prosper, two concepts that seem to be alien to Mandriva."
Perhaps Mandriva should follow the example of Novell and subvert a project like Gnome in order to "make money and prosper".
@156
"Mandrake started It.
Texstar and the ripper gang perfected It."
That's a pretty extravagant claim! Wouldn't it be more realistic to say that Tex has successfully adapted Mandriva for a target audience of novice users who speak English and have little interest in compiling programs like R.?
207 • memory lane (by ray carter at 2007-12-22 16:24:07 GMT from United States)
Glad I started some reminiscing (sp?). I recall Byte magazine - it was a fine publication in it's day. Compute magazine comes to mind also - it came it different varieties for various computers, I think. First one I ever bought was a C64 - with cassette drive. Typed in many programs from magazines - my wife still recalls the rudimentary word processor. I still have the C64 and a C128 and C128D (desktop unit with built in floppy drive and external keyboard). I collected a number of CP/M programs for the 128 - and helped develop the graphics module for C128 CP/M Comal. The C128 was quite a machine - two processors - the 6510 and a Z80. It ran CP/M natively and understood quite a few disk formats - I hacked it to add several more as I came across them. I used to use a database from an Osborne disk to balance my checkbook - later used quicken on MS and now gnucash. I also, sort of, fondly recall Wordstar. The CP/M version was quite nice.
208 • Cynical Answ to 205 (by dbrion on 2007-12-22 16:26:18 GMT from France)
"Why would anyone (other than a BigPond subscriber) be interested in a BigPond press release when "
Perhaps because BigPound subscribers are rich... [this was a criticism of BP based statistics...] and might??? be influent in some future....
209 • What I have, what I tried, bit of a ramble. (by Glenn on 2007-12-22 18:39:47 GMT from Canada)
Hi...
For what its worth here is what I did this year.
WAIVER.
Any comments or complaints I may employ are restricted to the environment I run and are not necessarily applicable to yours. I list my hardware here for point of reference. Like my opinion, it is subject to change without prior notice.
I have the following systems.
A. AMD64 Gigabtye SLI dual, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (not cross fired yet), 2 SATAII HDDS, Samsung 206B widescreen, Raylink 2500 wireless
B. AMD64 Asus M2AVM dual, SATAII HDD, ATI Radeon 1250, Samsung 710n, Realtek 8111/8168, Linksys WUSB54Gv1 USB wireless
C. Lenovo Thinkpad T60, ATI 1400, 120 gb hdd, dual,
D. 2 PII 600 & 700 mhz systems, ASUS, ATI Rage, Realtek and 3com network adapters.
E. IBM Thinkpad 760 (1996 vintage), Mwave. 80mb ram, 2x10gb hdds.
Network is
LINKSYS WRT54GS Router (Hacked),
Use VPN for business purposes.
Here is what I have on those systems
A. Running Linux Mint, Ubuntu 710, Puppy, geubuntu (Ubuntu is primary)
Use Abiword, Lotus notes, Firefox, Lotus Organizer(under Wine), bunch of corporate stuff.
B. Running Linux Mint, Mandriva (wife prefers Mandriva), Backup to A. I cross update them so always in sync
C. Running Linux Mint Ubuntu 710, geubuntu (Ubuntu is prime) Tertiary business system and in sync with A.
D. Running Debian.. Servers
E. Puppy Linux. Perfect match. Had to use diskette to install however. Linspire also will run on this system but will not recognize the PCMCIA slots.
Distros Tried this year.
FEDORA
Successful on A, would not install on C. Hung on booting the DVD. Slow. I find it has a nice professional feel to it and would appeal to corporate types. I would have a slight hesitation in recommending it to newbies unless they had a more seasoned Linux person helping them configure their operational system.
SLACKWARE.
Successful on all.
Not for newbies who do not want to become Linux gurus... Well that is exaggerating it but it does require more than what those people, who consider configuring their digital clock a major engineering feat, are prepared to do.
SABAYON
Installed on A & C successfully. Would not recognize Realtek adapter on B. Slow. I am of two minds on this. Esthetically it is very pleasing and certainly it has a lot of packges etc. Nice piece of work.. For a newbie I am not sure if i would recommend it.
KUBUNTU.
Tried it, I prefer Ubuntu then adding KDE. Anytime I have tried Kubuntu I have run into problems installing or configuring it, usually something missing in it. Anyway, why bother ... Get Ubuntu and add KDE. Use Alt install if you do use Kubuntu... For newbies,,, not bad.
GOS
Tried it on C. Installed ok. Did not like it. Would not install on A. I would not recommend it in its present state for newbies. If all you want to do is what it is offering you in its current icons then fine. Customizing it. Nope. It is far outclassd by geubuntu. This is my personal feeling and may be wrong. I was not favorably impressed with it at all nor was the family who are non techies.
MEPIS
Tried it on A, B, C. On A it defaulted to 640x480 screen resolution,. Was difficult to work past it on the live CD. Other 2 systems not a problem. Excellent starter system for newbies however. Easy to install, recognized my hardware(except for ATI 2600 on A), easy to update. Its obvious a great effort has gone into this distro to maintain and improve its high quality over the 5 years or so of its existence.
XANDROS 4.0
Tried it on A and B. Could not get CD to boot properly, It did not like the SATAII drives or the AMD 64's . Tried reburn,, same problem. Not worth continuing to play with it.
MANDRIVA.
Tried it on A. Had problems because of ATI 2600... Got past that and after install i ran into Kernel Panics. It installed on B and c fine and is still there. Wife really likes it. Performance is really good. Excellent starter system for newbies I'd recommend this distro anytime if asked. I would not have done that before this release.
MINT 4.0
I installed on A,B,C. No problems installing or with drivers. This is an excellent starter system for newbies. I like Clems touch with Mint Installer that you run from the browser. That is certainly user friendly. If he keeps up this momentum I suspect Mint will approach or hit #1 on the DW rankings and therefore be a prime target for arrows and barbs. Dig out your hard hat if that happens Clem. Ha ha ha ha I think this is a really nice piece of work.
PCLOS.
Installed it on A and C. No problems basically except I had to manually edit XORG on system A. Excellent starter system for newbies migrating from windows. It certainly evokes a lot of emotional responses amongst its proponents and opponents however. My opinion. Great piece of work that shows the dedication and hard work that Texstar and its developers put into the shaping and customizing of it.
UBUNTU 7.10
Installed it on all systems and like it. No problems with drivers, runs really very well. Great starter system for newbies,
PUPPY.
I discovered it this year and fell in love with it.. It is on all my systems including my old Thinkpad 760ED. I have it on a USB stick and use that also. I have put this on quite a number of peoples systems and they are happy with it for what their PC requirements are. They prefer it to their windows. Great starter system for newbies and oldbies alike.
SUZE
Installed it on C and was happy with the hardwre discovery etc. It was a bit quirky I found a few busg post-install and i also found it was rather slow. I gave up on it but will try the next release.. i cannot say i gave it a fair shake but I did not feel like it at that time.
GEUBUNTU...
Love it... Its Ubuntu with a twist and a good one at that. Nicest XFCE desktop I've worked with estheticlly and especially functionlly. Even with its quirks it is great and a reasonably stable distro-remaster? I like to use it when giving presentations. For newbies? Hell why not? It is easy to use, great at HW recognition, and a significant departure from Windows and those Linux systems that try to look like windows so the the newbie will really feel he/she is exploring new and exciting territory that they can actually handle pretty easily. Left mouse button click on the desktop and you get a complete menu of your apps.
So here is what I am using currently.
Linux functions in our home are
Business Ubuntu 7.10
Family LINUX MINT although wifey will often use Mandriva, she really likes it.
Me. Puppy whenever I can
Upcoming year I hope to be focussing more on the packages available rather than distro hopping
My first Linux was Slackware when you could only get it on diskettes in a book store. I got used to and still prefer LILO for boot manager although i do use grub also
I then tried Redhat and was not won away from Slckware.
Next up was Mandrake... I loved it and that was my distro. Then they hiked the price and you had to join a club. i saw no advantage to the club so i went back to Slackware.
Finally I went to Debian and that is my preference. Debian or its derivatives. This drives my servers and my desktops in one form or another.
Favorite Programming Languge is Assembler, least favorite is C or C++ although I prefer it to Java for some things. Java I only use when i have to and under protest at that...
Well, thats it... For those of you that may have read it through I can only say boy you must have a boring life ha ha ha ha ..... Happy Christmas to all who celebrate it and to those that do not I wish you the best compliments of this, our festive season. For the astronomers. Happy winter solstice.!!
Glenn
210 • Holliday Miracle (by Anonymous on 2007-12-22 22:04:25 GMT from United States)
#72 got his wish #1 granted.
Thank you Adam Williamson in post #130, installing libflashsupport fixes flash audio in PCLOS and SAM 2007. I just fixed 4 different machines with the same problem.
211 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-22 22:43:49 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know how to boot Mandriva 2008 with the VESA driver? There's no information anywhere about this.
One drawback of automatically using the nVidia proprietary driver is that it doesn't work for older nVidia cards. No matter what I do (options passed when booting) I get the blasted nVidia driver, and my computer locks up.
Mandriva 2008 Free is 701.4 MB, making it 1.5 MB too large for a CD. Those extra 1.5 MB must be valuable. I burned it to DVD, but my machine can't boot from a DVD (don't know why, it just doesn't for any distro). I checked the .iso for the Free edition, and it boots on every other computer just fine, but not this one.
212 • Re: 209 Geubuntu and other distros (by Beatnik on 2007-12-22 22:57:23 GMT from Panama)
Just wanted to say that Geubuntu which I also tried is not using Xfce, instead it is GNOME + ENLIGHTENMENT, and yes it is good, but it was slow at boot and in general, dont know why (Dell Inspiron Pentium 4 2.66Ghz).
Hey I notice you like Slackware and small distros, have you tried NimbleX and Slax?
By the way, I also tried this year Fedore 8 KDE whick I didnt like, I felt it buggy and not polished, maybe I should have tried their Gnome version (maybe their stronger side)
Also tried Open Suse 10.3 DVD: Great Distro, I liked Yast as a package manager, but had little problems installing codecs, and after installing Compiz Fusion it wasnt working, but in general it was very responsive and speedy, many packages available on that DVD.
Berry Linux 0.87: Very polished japanese distro (when booting you have the option of starting on english version) it impressed me with their caring for details, KDE desktop, everything working ok, except when activating Compiz Fusion, it freezed. Shame because I liked it, I am sure they will solve this. Oh and something strange there is NO REBOOT OPTION, just Shutdown, strange?.
Have someone tried this Berry distro, what do you think?
213 • Linux Gadgets Year? (by Beatnik on 2007-12-22 23:12:27 GMT from Panama)
Hey, dont you think this 2007, could also be remembered as the BOOM of the Linux gadgets and hardware powered by linux?
Some examples are Asus EEE and Dell notebooks with linux preinstalled.
Hey, I am waiting in 2008 for the Openmoko phone with touchpad, the Everex Cloudbook (imagine an Asus EEE but with 30 GB of hard drive, oh and they are planning to release a version with touch technology.
Another interesting project for 2008 is the Office Suite by IBM called Lotus Symphony, right now it is on a beta phase, for Windows and Linux, but they warned about the need of 512MB RAM minimum.
Hey by the way, I am glad for Ulteo exploring Web desktops, and that of having Open Office available on internet is great news.
214 • Multimedia distros (by Anonymous on 2007-12-23 00:50:46 GMT from Australia)
Multimedia distro roundup: just testing install/boot and desktop functioning on an old P4 celeron - not heavy app usage.
* 64 Studio (Debian)/Gnome - easy install; feels uncluttered and stable; some apps wouldn't launch; could not access partitions.
* Apodio (SAM) - not tested
* ArtistX (Debian)/Gnome - stable live DVD; huge range of apps; some apps wouldn't launch; cannot access partitions by default; no install option.
* Dyne:bolic (LFS)/Xfce - good hardware detection; innovative docking system instead of install; add-on app modules available; past editions have been prone to freezing at times; in this latest edition Cinelerra would launch but nothing on it would work.
* Jacklab (OpenSuse)/KDE/E17 - hung at end of install and didn't configure hardware; system did not detect partitions, but the bootloader did; desktop actions were jerky.
* Musix 1r2 (Knoppix)/Icewm - good hardware detection; separate desktops for office, audio, video, etc.; has "old world" style images on desktops; good range of apps; some apps wouldn't launch.
* Ubuntu Studio (buntu)/Gnome - easy install; Gnome error message after booting into desktop; they took out most of the standard buntu apps for a good range of mostly audio apps, but no high-end video editors included; did not detect all partitions and had trouble accessing the ones it did.
Summary: ArtistX (app range) and Musix (completeness) were the standout distros. Gnome was the standout desktop environment. Partition detection either lacking or troublesome in most distros - except Musix and Dyne:bolic. Some awful wallpapers (64 Studio, Ubuntu Studio). Dark themes in ArtistX and Ubuntu Studio look nice but it's hard to see the sidebar in the windows. Only Jacklab has the Kdenlive video editor, and only Apodio has the LIVES video editor. Several distros have Cinelerra.
All-in-all, the development of multimedia distros looks very promising. But at the moment - aside from Musix - it is behind the development of the standard distros.
Has anyone tried Apodio - any comments on it?
215 • small distros the way for 2008? (by anticapitalista on 2007-12-23 02:00:24 GMT from Greece)
As this is the last distrowatch of 2007, I'll chime in on my thoughts.
It seems to me that there are 2 directions in terms of size and features in 'new' linux. Those distros such as Sabayon heading towards a full experience in a dvd size download offering everything and others with minimal downloads offering the basics plus extras ie my own antiX.
I want to concentrate on the (relatively) minimum distros (again!). I'm not going to mention DSL, Puppy, and other very lite distros, not because they are not worthy (they certainly are), but because we have seen a spate of distros aimed at the 'semi-lite' end of the spectrum ie PII 200 with anything from 64MB RAM (minimum) but mainly aiming at 128MB RAM.
eg antiX, PCFluxboxOS, TinyMe, Fluxbuntu, Wolvix, BeafanatiX (now called Debris Linux) and others I have forgotten, as well as the more established Vector, Zenwalk.
I think that we will see even more derivatives of lite distros in 2008, and I also think that their popularity will increase. Not just as a 'niche', but also for users coming from another well-known OS (can't remember the name but it begins with W...) as these new kids-off-the-block are trying to be as user-friendly as possible, without 'dumbing down'
We'll see,
as Orwell says "The future belongs to the Proles"
216 • #214 Multimedia Distros (by dooooo on 2007-12-23 02:57:34 GMT from Jordan)
Have you tried Debian with the debian-multimedia repo ?
217 • RE: 212 About Berry Linux (by IMQ on 2007-12-23 06:59:45 GMT from United States)
I have tried out Berry Linux as live CD practically every new release. I installed it a few times just see and it was OK. I think of it more as a live CD than an installation CD.
The creator was very responsive to comments I sent him. In fact, in early versions, there was no programs for viewing pdf file. So emailed him, and the next release and there after kpdf was included.
I also suggested including support for WPA since wireless was becoming popular in recent years. And it was included, I believe, in many recent releases.
Over all, Berry Linux is a nice looking desktop with most if not all the basic programs included: multimedia, office suite, web browser, etc.
True. There is no reboot option. The system just shuts down. Even if I tried *reboot* as root. I think it still does that.
218 • Re #212 (by Glenn on 2007-12-23 08:09:18 GMT from Canada)
Where the heck was my head. You're right. Gnome and Enlightenment for geubuntu. Thanks....
Nimblex. Yup tried it. It is really good... I liked it... I did not want to put all the distros I played with in that post. i figured it was large enough.
Thanks for catching my boob.
Glenn
219 • Re #211 (by Glenn on 2007-12-23 08:21:10 GMT from Canada)
Hi..If I remember right you do the following.
Hit ctl-alt-f1 when your cd stalls on the vid stuff.
you'll go into text mode.
At request to logon , logon as root.. You do not need password.
then type init 3
Once in init 3, messages stop appearing then type XFdrake exactly like that..
use the menu to set your video.
at end of it, type init 5
I think thats it.
Hope it works for you.. .
Glenn
220 • @213 : Perhaps there is a BOOM of gadgets, but it is linked to long term..... (by dbrion on 2007-12-23 14:34:37 GMT from France)
undemagogic
work...
"
Hey, dont you think this 2007, could also be remembered as the BOOM of the Linux gadgets and hardware powered by linux?
"
The Fox-etrax board (used as a camera/ burglar detector/router/ etc...) has been used for years and is a training tool in France (and Italy )since 2005 *at least*. GNUlinux Magazine has 10%, 20% of its contents dedicated to exotic HW since ....2004... Amateur electronic magazine are beginning to discover linux, though they have 50% of their source GPLd , but for ... Windows (sorruy for no ritual misspeeling) ..., as kernel development cycles are thought too short ....and as a vast majority of readers uses Windows...
ARM based cards can be found in Canada and Italy (and other places I do not know) since 2005.
OLPC started in 2004, and was soon announced in general purpose newspapers (Libération) and amateur electronic ones.....
Moko is still in a beta stage => if it is linked to a BOOM, it wonot be this week....
221 • 219 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-23 16:39:25 GMT from United States)
Thanks, Glenn! I don't think I'd have found that by myself. :)
That worked, except that it's necessary to hit ctl-alt-f1 as soon as the nVidia logo shows up, otherwise everything locks up tight. It detected my geforce2 as geforce3.
222 • Re #212 Geubuntu and other distros (by Glenn on 2007-12-23 18:44:32 GMT from Canada)
Hi Beatnik
Darn you. :-) ..You got me going and I am now playing with Vector. I was not planning to do any distro tinkering this weekend.. So far Vector is looking good. I like it .
Now Warren has made Mepis 7.0 available and I can see my day is shot all to hell.
You and Warren must have conspired to kill off my day and get me in trouble with the wife. Nice guys. :-)
Totally off topic. Love the coffees from your country. I home roast my own beans and really go for the Boquete, La Berlina and Lerida when I can get them
glenn
.
223 • RE: 222 (by IMQ on 2007-12-23 19:33:46 GMT from United States)
Hi Glenn,
In your previous post, you mentioned having a Ralink 2500. Would that be a Linksys PCI card wireless by any chance? If so, does the new Vector support it out the box?
I ask because I just burned a freshly downloaded Vector 5.9 STD and contemplating on installing on a PC located on another floor. This PC only has wireless access via Linksys RT2500-based PCI card, so I am curious before giving a spin.
Thanks.
224 • Re #223 (by glenn on 2007-12-23 20:50:48 GMT from Canada)
Hi Imq.
No, mine is gigabit.
I normally do not have problems with the newer distros recognizing it but I have not yet tried Vector on that system. I'm still toying with it on my laptop.
I'll let you know if I get working.
Glenn
225 • My present to you. (by rev on 2007-12-23 22:03:34 GMT from United States)
With Linux, everything runs so smoothly that I have time to watch the latest viral video on youtube without having the occasional interruption from the blue screen of death or whatever color it is that the M$ folks added this week. I have seen the red screen of death but I have heard an unconfirmed report of a white screen too....At least they are patriotic.
Anyway, here is a cute Christmassy vid to watch on your favorite distro while wondering how M$ users ever get anything done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9h-uVPLEu8
226 • how do you recognize distrohopper (by Dopher on 2007-12-23 22:23:31 GMT from Belgium)
He has at least > 10 unlabeled burned disks on his/her desk
And when asking what's on them.. he/she mumbles something like.. " hrm.. not important anymore..mumble"
227 • Re: 222 (by Beatnik on 2007-12-23 23:37:50 GMT from Panama)
Hey Glenn, dont forget quality time with your wife, we dont want her saying to you:
"O.K. Glenn, tonight you will sleep with all those Linux CDs"
Just kidding.
Hey, you know what, I will be playing these last days of 2007 with:
1- Leopard Mac OSX86 Kalyway version (Have you heard of this project, running Mac OS on x86 genberic PCs; If I like it maybe I will be buying a Mac)
2- Mepis 7 (but after downloading Leo, I think my pc will have to rest)
Re. Off topic:
Hey, you know something: My Mother is from Boquete (that beautiful land in the Chiriquí Province), and my grandmother has coffee plantations. I havent been there in years, but now tourism has exploded on Boquete, it has european climate (Is not the same here on Panama city this is hot as hell!).
I want to go there on these days with my family, maybe on early 2008, I really want to see that place called "Valle Escondido" on Boquete.
And for general culture if someone is interested:
Boquete is a beautiful place in the country of Panama (on Central America) famous by the Panama Canal, the main languange is spanish (this is my native language so please excuse any errors)
228 • re #216 Debian multimedia repo (by Anonymous on 2007-12-24 01:02:31 GMT from Australia)
I use CD/DVDs and they don't often include the high-end video apps. That's why I tried the multimedia distros.
I found a year-old review of Apodio, and it is similar to Dynebolic. So that would make ArtistX, Musix, Apodio, and Dynebolic the pick of the multimedia distros:
http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:GRxd4S4mSYoJ:www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000096+apodio+review&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=au
229 • Re #223 update (by Glenn on 2007-12-24 01:12:12 GMT from Canada)
Hi IMQ.
Nope. Vector did not recognize my Raylink out of the box.
Dang.
Glenn
230 • RE: 229 Thanks for the update (by IMQ on 2007-12-24 01:23:32 GMT from United States)
Hi Glenn,
I notice that most of Slackware based distros don't support the card out of the box. At least on the one I tested: Zenwalk, Slackware, Wolvix, etc. Nor did any versions of Frugalware Linux.
Thanks for saving me the disappointment from trying Vector on this PC. For now, the ones that support the cards are *buntu-based, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, Pardus, Parsix, openSUSE, Kuliax, Sidux.
Again, thanks for the update.
Have a Merry Christmas!
231 • Mepis is out - distrohopping fun times for the holidays (by Fractalguy on 2007-12-24 01:57:37 GMT from United States)
Should be interesting exploring Mepis, Crux and a few more recent releases. :)
@215, "BeafanatiX (now called Debris Linux)" I don't see Debris Linux. The BeafanatiX site still calls it BeafanatiX. Oh, now I see it.
You know, I really wish the download sites would give me more control on the download. The download button just pops up "download (yes/no)" and no option of the partition I might want to use. There are several distros that do this. Perhaps in the new year they could give us back some freedoms. OK, got it burned. :)
232 • Re 230. (by glenn on 2007-12-24 02:44:41 GMT from Canada)
Thanks IMQ.,
And have a Merry Christmas yourself.
Hope you have a great one.
Glenn
233 • #226 - distrohopper (by ray carter at 2007-12-24 02:50:40 GMT from United States)
I do not! - I always label them - well, almost always - and often so the label is really meaningful - well, sometimes, anyway.
234 • #230 Raylink driver (by glenn on 2007-12-24 04:19:24 GMT from Canada)
Link to build driver
http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:rt2xxx
Havent tried that one yet. I'd have to cable connect the system or hook up my Linksys USB wireless with ndiswrapper.
Also you can pull down the code from the CVS from serialmonkey. I've used it before and works great. Just a pile of fiddling if you feel up to it. It s holiday time and my energy just does not point in that direction. I'll take Beatniks great advice and try to stay in the wifes good books and away from driver compiling.
glenn
235 • No subject (by Alanon on 2007-12-24 04:25:08 GMT from United States)
Does anybody know why no Debian distro has ever incorporated the configuration tools from Libranet? Especially the part that lets you recompile a kernel from the GUI? I really liked Libranet. Ran great on an old Toshiba 166 I had. I compiled the kernel and took out everything I didn't need and loaded all the modules needed for the laptop into the kernel. Anybody remember these Libranet tools?
236 • Libranet (by Alanon on 2007-12-24 04:33:26 GMT from United States)
Sorry for two posts. I just thought of what it was called.
Adminmenu!
237 • Adminmenu (by Oithona on 2007-12-24 09:41:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
The Libranet admin tools were proprietry code. They were never released under an open source license as far as I know (although the license they were released under was never made clear).
Much of the adminmenu suite was scripted (perl or python, can't remember which) so is accessible. I guess the reason it's never been used is lack of knowledge or out of respect for the late Jon Danzig.
Daniel de Kok, one of Libranet's developers, has independently developed a tool similar to Adminmenu, called koala - see link below.
http://developer.berlios.de/projects/koala-config/
238 • RE 226. (by dbrion on 2007-12-24 10:04:37 GMT from France)
@dopher Thanks for funny commonsense.
I have no unlibeled CDroms, as I try with qemu, VMplayer *and* VirtualBox on HD images. If I see something fishy (lack of dev headers, lack of language support *OR (incl) * weird behavior....) I gain external drive space. There remains 1/10 distrs..
I buy cellulose and *already labelled, with nice colors* plastic support at the railways station. I noticed that Mepis (in Linux Identity Kit, baseed in Newark, US), since she add not too messy language support, quickly disappeared from the seller's shop, and thus was ... reedited.. and I buy Mandrivas *spring* editions for my friends (as Linux and Xp work on my PC, why reinstall?, wait till the PCs price seems at is lowest, or a laptop is broken)... and .. we remain friends.
239 • ASTOUNDING!! (by Geoff on 2007-12-24 15:08:13 GMT from United States)
I was yelling and getting angry. I was disrespectful of some helping me and trying to. I now apologise!
I've just completed a hard drive installation of the new Mepis 7!
I am now posting here using this remarkable linux distribution!
I had all but GIVEN UP on trying linux distributions; none would configure my network, and one that did, Sabayon, would not allow login to my bank account no matter the cookie or security settings (the forums there do not answer my queries about the problem!).
This new Mepis does it all.. I just PRAY that the Mepis developers do not change this! :)
I am happy! I now have Vista off my new laptop and linux on!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY HANNAKUH!
Geoff :)
240 • Re 239 • ASTOUNDING (by Glenn on 2007-12-24 15:48:35 GMT from Canada)
Congratulations Geoff and welcome to the Linux Community.
Happy Christmas, Happy Hannukah to you and yours also...
Glenn
241 • Re 240 TYPO (by glenn on 2007-12-24 15:52:07 GMT from Canada)
Sorry for the double post
.
I mis-spelt ..
Happy Hanukkah!
242 • Just one little twiggle.. (by Geoff on 2007-12-24 15:58:55 GMT from United States)
.. I cannot get sound to work.
Small thing compared to what was going on before, but I do need sound for many reasons.
I will go to the Mepis forums and see if it's been posted about no sound in Acer laptops.
Thanks for your good wishes and help.
Geoff
243 • RE 239 • ASTOUNDING (by IMQ on 2007-12-24 16:00:10 GMT from United States)
Hi Geoff,
Congratulations!
And Merry Chrismast to you and your family.
PS: You can create an image of MEPIS on that laptop for backup so you don't have to reinstall it if something goes wrong. Just restore from the backup image when that happpens.
244 • My year with Linux (by KimTjik on 2007-12-24 16:10:40 GMT from Sweden)
It becomes obvious that Linux great strength is its diversity. Too bad there has to be so much argument, because it more or less looks like everybody found something good during this year.
Personally my biggest regret is that I didn't give Arch a spin before this year. Arch is definitely the distribution making most sense to me. I also appreciate its low-key approach of not pretending to be the greatest, or the best for everyone.
Fedora 7 64-bit was in my experience also a great and solid release. Since multimedia stuff and 3D acceleration aren't the foundation of a great distribution, I believe it's irrelevant to compare Fedora to other distributions on those premises. My decision is to run Fedora test releases from now on, because I see that Fedora (Red Hat) bring a lot of useful solutions and new software to the community. Hence Arch stays as my main distribution, but Fedora will also stay as an "investment" for the future (making multimedia codecs easily installed is more of a "cosmetic" feature than a crucial part of a operating system).
Pardus deserves credit for being one of the few original distributions, not depending or being based on any other. Pardus might not be my cup of tea, but it for sure has potential of becoming something great. I wish the GUI front-end of Pisi would be less compulsory (it will, at least up to the 2007.2 release, force a total system upgrade for any addition or upgrade of software, which makes it less flexible if a serious issue is encountered), and that documentation would be easier to find (some documents prove to only explain certain functions superficially, but this could also just be because I don't understand Turkish). I did have issues with an ATi system, but on the other hand I've encountered a lot more problems of that kind in Ubuntu. So all in all Pardus could become real contender challenging distributions based on for example Ubuntu.
Gentoo: my impression is that its undeservedly trapped by the attitude shown by some few Gentoo advocates. Hence it gets too much general criticism, like everything is in a bad state, which isn't fair. Gentoo is technically a great alternative and might very well be the perfect choice for some, just as well as it would be a mistake by some Gentoo advocates to assume that Gentoo will be appreciated by every so called power user. To say that Gentoo is the greatest is a too bold statement; it can like all other distributions never be greater than a particular user view it. Like every other distribution and community Gentoo needs to improve; some issues are technically others community oriented. It's too early to predict the future for Gentoo. The phenomena of slightly tweaked and remastered variations of for example Ubuntu adds to the problem; a newcomer to DW will be flooded by a long list of distributions were most are flavors of the same recipe, making it difficult to distinguish the originals. Is it really fair to hail every little variation at the expense of the originals and unique?
Some short lines about other distributions:
- PCLinuxOS is probably a good alternative if you prefer English, but personally I tend to forget I have it installed; it's there but I don't use it.
- Wolvix is a really nice distribution, just as some others already have pointed out. It was also pleasant to see how Wolvix reached out for cooperation in exchange expertise with another distribution, which without doubt is a constructive solution.
- I've installed Mint for others, it's one of those distributions however that I only continue to use in case it just works and installs correctly; I don't know why, but I never found Ubuntu based systems especially friendly to tinker and troubleshoot (probably just me not getting it).
- ClarkConnect is gold worth if you ask me. If ClarkConnect meets your needs and don't see any point in building such a system by yourself.
- XFCE has become even better. It's more than a light version of Gnome or KDE which could be considered for low end computers.
- Dansguardian was a new addition in my tool-box. A solid solution for families or organizations who wish that their Internet connection isn't used for whatever purposes.
All in all 2007 has for me been the best Linux year so far. Many thanks to Ladislav and his team!
245 • 2007 through the eyes of a newcomer (by tangram on 2007-12-24 16:55:20 GMT from Portugal)
2007 marks the year I've started with Linux. From Ubuntu to Gentoo, I've tried loads of distros. Some just spinned the LiveCD others found a temporary home in my HDD and a couple have found a place both in my HDD and my heart.
What allured me into Linux was basically the terminal, I've always found it extremely alluring the though of typing something and magically a program/action/etc happens.
So I wanted something to get my hands dirty, something that involved using the terminal. I didn't want to use Linux the same way I've always used Windows. My idea of Linux was always cool terminals running amok. ;)
So... after close to 10 month of distro-hoping I've settled myself with Gentoo. I just love it. Everything makes sense and is documented. You are actually at the heart of the system and in control. No stupid GUI tool to make simples tasks as add a user to a group.
Thanks to Gentoo I've learned how to setup things that anyone who uses a "friendly" distro isn't aware. From compiling a custom kernel, installing Grub, using fdisk, creating filesystems to setup bootsplash.
Ladislav, thanks for the donation. ;)
Merry Xmas.
246 • 239 • ASTOUNDING!! (by anticapitalista on 2007-12-24 17:09:31 GMT from Greece)
Glad you are up and running, even if you can't hear anything, yet!
247 • thank you anticapitalista! (by Geoff on 2007-12-24 17:21:15 GMT from United States)
I got it running, it sounds great, especially with headphones!
The front speakers are meager indeed, but I also have some nice ones coming to me for Christmas I understand! :)
Everything works!!
248 • exploring debris. (by Fractalguy on 2007-12-24 19:12:54 GMT from United States)
That looks like I'm sorting through trash or rubble. :) But no, it is Debris Linux that I'm playing with this last day as a live CD. So far it is a nice follow-on to one of my favorites: BeatrIX. Adding the mountall cheat code let me access all my partitions and my "home" USB thumb drive. Since one can add software to the live sessoin, I added several programs like geany so I could do a little development. The menu was updated with the addition of Programming-> geany. Good.
I've run just about everything on the menu except Evolution and gFTP. On the terminal, I've run these to see what's missing: apt-get, wget, vim, gpg, top, python ran fine. I added mc and links2. Looking pretty good so far.
However, the newbie from Windows won't see one of the best features of Linux: the workspace switcher. I added it with my usual 8 workspaces to the single bar at the bottom (nice touch - I dislike the two bar GNOME layout).
My thumb has a folder with sub-folders containing about 60 ogg music files. I opened that top folder with Audacious so it is now playing through them all. No set up needed.
I had not heard of debris before yesterday (see 215 above) and don't see it anywhere here on distrowatch. I found it via google (http://debris.moonmind.net/) and for only 190 MB, wow. I'm adding it to my Labeled CD pile.
249 • 248 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-24 20:39:33 GMT from United States)
I tried Debris as well, after reading your comment.
An interesting distro, given the size and functionality. I'm going to test it on a rather old machine.
250 • 249 • 248 (by Anonymous) rather old machines (by Fractalguy on 2007-12-24 21:12:51 GMT from United States)
Keep us posted. I'm really looking hard at distros for very old machines. I have two relatives/friends using win98 on 32MB machines. These musty date back to win95. So far the only thing I can be assured of is dsl will run on 16MB. I was unable to test it on these, but I know puppy didn't boot.
251 • 248 • exploring debris. (by anticapitalista on 2007-12-24 22:10:43 GMT from Greece)
Glad you like it. Since I gave you the hint, fancy taking antiX for a spin?
252 • What a great way for the year to come to an end! :) (by Geoff on 2007-12-24 22:48:57 GMT from United States)
Now I have found a linux distribution that works on my Acer Aspire laptop machine, and Windows is off!
I still do not know how Mepis 7 did it, because all I did was go to the "Mepis Network Assistant" in the System menu and check off a few things.. I rebooted and my internet connection was being configured!
If you are a laptop owner you might want to consider trying Mepis 7! It is FAST and it works well on my laptop which many other distributions had trouble seeing the Belkin router or especially getting the Broadcom network interface to work.
Now I have a distribution to contribute money to, and all that is important now is learning more about why this works and others did not.
253 • 251 • 248 • exploring debris. (by anticapitalista) antiX (by Fractalguy on 2007-12-24 23:40:36 GMT from United States)
Yes, thank you anticapitalista. I have looked at antiX and found it had a lot of capability.
However, your antiX will not run on 32MB, according to info I saw. My tests of it on my main box (1GB RAM, 1.6GHz AMD, nVidia) showed two problems. 1) I ran synaptic and found nothing - no repos connecting, according to my notes. 2) it is very unclear how to install, even after going to the chat. Both of these items I'm sure you can answer. :)
I got some help there on installing, but didn't follow up since I'm not doing the install on my box. The target machines for my current study are 2 and 3 GB hard disk and very slow, maybe 233MHz. I expect dsl to perform much better than win98 (or even the original win95).
One can ask, why bother? But on of these is a cute Compaq Presario 1230 with CD. I see these listed on Google search...
http://www.epinions.com/pr-Compaq_Presario_1230_332302-053_PC_Notebook/display_~full_specs
so it is for me a novelty.
But people still have these old machines and try to us them.
254 • Re 252 What a great way for the year to come to an end! (by glenn on 2007-12-25 00:17:38 GMT from Canada)
Hi Geoff.
See what driver it loaded. Perhaps the other distros did not have that driver in their install package which would have given you that out-of-the-box usability which I believe was one of your criteria when searching for a Linux distribution.
I really did appreciate hearing that you want to send a contribution to the Distro development team. I like to do that also. It helps them pay their bills. A lot of distro developers contribute their personal time, skills and their own money to bring us the best they can produce. We, the users who benefit from their work, should at least send something along to reward them. They need to have money to continue their work as well as put food on their tables.
Really nice attitude on your part.
I myself will be sending contributions in January to the couple of distros that I have stabilized on this year as well as to a couple of applkications which I have come to rely on heavily.
Glenn
.
255 • To Glenn!! (by Geoff on 2007-12-25 00:32:48 GMT from United States)
You posted:
Hi Geoff.
See what driver it loaded. Perhaps the other distros did not have that driver in their install package which would have given you that out-of-the-box usability which I believe was one of your criteria when searching for a Linux distribution.
I really did appreciate hearing that you want to send a contribution to the Distro development team. I like to do that also. It helps them pay their bills. A lot of distro developers contribute their personal time, skills and their own money to bring us the best they can produce. We, the users who benefit from their work, should at least send something along to reward them. They need to have money to continue their work as well as put food on their tables.
Really nice attitude on your part.
I myself will be sending contributions in January to the couple of distros that I have stabilized on this year as well as to a couple of applkications which I have come to rely on heavily.
Glenn
Yes, I have contributed to (before I got this laptop) Vectorlinux and others.. my pc was quite a testing ground for a while until I settled on PCLinuxOS 2007, they got money, too.
Glenn, nothing could be downloaded from the other distros I tried with this laptop because I could get no connection in the first place. If you knew the situation here you'd understand: the router is a Belkin and it is on the pc with the PCLinuxOS on it, but that machine is very very busy in this house with many users.
My only hope was to find a linux distro that would work and find my network out of the box. Mepis 7 has done that! :)
You are one of the ones I am apologising to for my immature anti-linux rants when I felt so very bad about not being able to get a network despite your suggestions. :)
Geoff
256 • 253 • 251 • 248 • exploring debris (by anticapitalista on 2007-12-25 01:04:11 GMT from Greece)
If you can actually get antiX to install somehow, it will work with 32MB RAM (plus swap), but not very well. Other distros are much better suited for it.
Hope you find a distro that will succeed.
If you want to test it gain on a 'bigger' box ie 64RAM plus swap as a livecd will be ok, though slow, better 128RAM, pop into the antix forums (we haven't got irc yet) and we'll hold your hand to get you going. LOL
To Geoff, good luck with Mepis 7. and to glenn, a good point about how much users may not appreciate all the hard work that goes into producing a linux distro, however 'unsatisfactory' it may be for others. Lets hope that 2008 will see more positive comments and constructive criticism of distros and not endless garbage about "Number 1"
Happy holidays from a cold Greece.
257 • Re #255 (by glenn on 2007-12-25 02:30:59 GMT from Canada)
Hey Geoff.
I took it as frustration on your part and never took it personally.. Thanks for the courtesy though. I've walked that path all too often myself. :-)
What eats me is that a distro will slide in on two of my systems but not the third (main ones I am talking about). You've just gone thru the same scenario.
Mepis will not install on my Thinkpad T60 without a lot of tinlkering on my part. I mumbled a few sulphurous expressions myself... You would have been proud. :-)
Glenn
258 • Two more for the round file (by Fractalguy on 2007-12-25 06:55:31 GMT from United States)
Amazing, since Mepis was the second distro I installed to HD about 5 years ago, but the latest 7.0 won't recognize my 10 year old monitor nor 5 year old nVidia card. Even when I tell it what resolution to use. Shame! You know, sometimes taking away cheat codes only makes it harder when it fails on first pass. Cheat codes anyone? Please?? http://www.mepis.org/node/13049
Oh, and the second one is crux-2.4. What are we supposed to do at the login prompt (at init 3 even)? No help one the web site either. Oh wait, there is a handbook. Seems to me a better description of this CD would be useful in the announcement.
Oh well, I guess Santa has come and gone and I get only one new distro to play with - funny, it is named debris.
259 • 258 Mepis cheatcodes (by anticapitalista on 2007-12-25 07:18:12 GMT from Greece)
Here are cheatcodes for Mepis.
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/Cheatcodes
260 • Thanks, Glenn (by Geoff on 2007-12-25 12:12:59 GMT from United States)
For not taking my "sulphurous" remarks too badly. ;)
Anyway, yes, very good point about the differences between distributions and whether or not they'll install and work on various machines. Although I have the feeling just about any one will work with some know-how on tweaking and cheatcodes, etc. I mean, that's what is great about linux. It's just that some of us are not inclined to build our car (or bicycle or house or whatever) so much as buy it and then customize it. :)
261 • @210 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-25 14:11:02 GMT from Canada)
You're very welcome, glad I could help!
262 • @211 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-25 14:14:28 GMT from Canada)
There's no such code, you can't control the video card driver One will use via a kernel parameter (unfortunately).
Our card database is quite accurate, it should be using the correct driver for your card (nvidia71xx for TNT -> GeForce 2, 96xx for GeForce 3 - GeForce 4 (and 2MX), and current for GeForce FX and later; very old cards just use 'nv'). If your card is an unusual one which does not work even with the 'correct' driver, I could blacklist it to use nv or vesa, but I'd need confirmation that your card fails in other machines as well as your own (i.e. it's not an idiosyncratic issue of your particular system).
Cheat codes would be nice, too :. As MDV wasn't initially designed as a live CD distro (unlike, say, Knoppix) the infrastructure for them wasn't plumbed in, and it's harder to retrofit it. But I'll check with blino if anything can be done.
263 • 262 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-25 18:59:44 GMT from United States)
Thanks Adam, Glenn's info helped me to get it going. I've filed a bug report on this. I'm far from an expert on any of these things (though maybe more of an expert than your target audience), but it would definitely help to have some kind of "safe graphics" mode option.
It's a GeForce2 being detected as a GeForce3. The nv and vesa drivers work just fine when I change the driver with XFdrake. PCLinuxOS and Mepis also choke on this card. Fedora and Debian do not - both use nv. Ubuntu for some reason works but only boots up at 800x600 resolution using the nv driver.
On that basis I'm assuming it's specific to my hardware.
264 • FreeNAS 0.686 (stable) released (by Anonymous on 2007-12-25 19:00:33 GMT from Germany)
Waaaaahoooooo! It's stable:
Announcement: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=767699
265 • 262 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-25 19:05:49 GMT from United States)
By the way, it's now installed on the hard drive and is much faster on this five year old machine than several other distros that shall remain nameless. It's constantly moving closer to becoming my main work distribution.
266 • #264 - FreeNAS (by ray carter at 2007-12-25 21:39:01 GMT from United States)
I've been wondering - could you tell me what particular advantages there are to simply installing any garden variety distro and adding CIFS, FTP, NFS?
267 • 259 • 258 Mepis cheatcodes (by anticapitalista) - thanks (by Fractalguy on 2007-12-25 23:11:18 GMT from United States)
Thank you anticapitalista. And I got it booted for this monitor. Still not clear why Mepis fails to detect using the usual Debien/Knoppix technology. But, OK.
I've been waiting for MEPIS to release 7.0 (and not another RC), so this should be interesting. First impressions, the task bar is not the usual 100% width I see in many KDE distros, but it looks nice, reminds me of Xfce4. There is a strange blinking cursor in the upper left of the screen.
For general use, on this 1024x768 monitor I think some settings need to be changed. Newbies and delicate Windows escapees may not think of them. I like adding the desktop preview/pager to get the four workspaces (one of the best things about Linux, IMO). Also, I turn off Desktop->taskbar->show windows from all desktops, too crowded as is. Oh, and I make the taskbar size small, I need the screen for my apps. And I see there is MEPIS 7.0 MANUAL on the desktop, nice touch.
Looks like apt-get is disabled so live sessions can't grab a few more apps for temporary use. Bummer. There are about half a dozen apps I like to fire up to what little I usually do in Linux. When they (or there functional equal) are missing, the use as a live CD is reduced. In case one doesn't know how I work, I usually work from a live CD with my "stuff" on a thumb and/or HD partition. On old boxes like mine, USB flash is much more reliable. And I can easily grab my live CDs, thumbs and be off to demo/brag about Linux to some disadvantaged Windows user or another retired guy looking to escape to Freedom.
So quick look summary: MEPIS is not at the top of the list for me but makes the short stack. Hopefully, the annoying blinking cursor in the upper left would be gone on an installed MEPIS. I've used MEPIS as my HD install for some weeks way back when and do intend to keep track of it. Anyways, I've got Amorok playing some music while I continue exploring MEPIS. :)
Have a nice holiday.
268 • Mepis 7 (by Geoff on 2007-12-26 01:49:09 GMT from United States)
No "strange blinking cursor" on my monitor. :)
You can change the length of the taskbar in KDE properties by right-clicking the taskbar and looking around. :)
Apt-get is not "disabled." Maybe you need to run synaptic. :)
Live CD? Yuck.. maybe for a while, but installing always turns up better functionality, in my experience. :)
269 • Koala (by Alanon at 2007-12-26 02:47:29 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the comment. Looks like this project is two years old with little to no activity, but thank you anyway. Seems like respect would be PAID to the late Jon Danzig if somebody could hack it and use it. Maybe even put his name on it.
270 • Re 211 (by johncoom on 2007-12-26 06:13:48 GMT from Australia)
Anonymous wrote
QUOTE
Mandriva 2008 Free is 701.4 MB, making it 1.5 MB too large for a CD. Those extra 1.5 MB must be valuable. I burned it to DVD, but my machine can't boot from a DVD (don't know why, it just doesn't for any distro). I checked the .iso for the Free edition, and it boots on every other computer just fine, but not this one.
END QUOTE
A empty CD that is marked as 700 MB will actually be 704.xx MB in size.
So in your statment above about Mandriva 2008 Free, it will fit on a CD and it does not require a DVD.
About boot problems on some machine. Setup the BOIS to boot from the CD (or DVD) before the hard drive, problem solved.
271 • RE 264 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-26 09:26:32 GMT from Germany)
The main advantage for me is that i dont't have to install FreeNAS on the harddisk. It runs from liveCD and stores its configfile on a floppydisk. So i have all the 4 ideports free for harddisks. And it runs on very old PCs (>= pentium 1) with only 128 MB ram.
272 • correction of my post #271 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-26 09:58:07 GMT from Germany)
"So i have all the 4 ideports free for harddisks" is not correct, because on one ideport is the cdrom. But the other 3 ideports are free for 3 harddisks with no OS installed.
Updating the OS is simple changing the CD.
273 • Re 267 (by anticapitalista on 2007-12-26 11:08:25 GMT from Greece)
Choose the aufs option at the grub menu for livecd and apt-get. Default doesn't have the aufs option.
Have fun and happy holidays
274 • LOL (by Distrowatch Reader on 2007-12-26 11:48:52 GMT from United States)
I am not in any way associated with Texstar.
I got tired of Mandrakes BS.
Got tired of Mephis trying Umbunto.
Slackware is no fun either.
Gentoo, I prefer Freebsd.
Red Hat is now experimental Fedora?
Knoppix rules, Dont try to update it though.
PCLinuxOS just works.
For far longer than any other installed distro, in my experience.
GNOME
KDE
XFCE
ICEWM
FLUXBOX
These are my favorite desktop window managers.
I use them all!
275 • PCLinuxOS, etc.. :) (by Geoff on 2007-12-26 14:10:00 GMT from United States)
As Glenn pointed out up there, distributions work on some and not on other's machines.. and I am a good example, as he, because PCLinuxOS works great on my PC but won't even install on my laptop ACER at all because the Intel 945 graphics is not functionally recognized. I have been to the forums and seen SOME others with the same chip find success and others with the same chip go to another distribution and post back that the same measures that helped some didn't help them. VERY frustrating!
Eleven distributions later I found Mepis doing it all on my laptop! :) I want to post, "Mepis 7 just works," but I know that it may not for others. Plus I know that next year or after an "apt-get upgrade" it may not work anymore. :(
We'll see how it goes. :)
276 • 275 and Mepis 7 (by Tony on 2007-12-26 15:39:35 GMT from United States)
Thanks Geoff - I've been looking for a Distro that will work on both of my laptops. So far I may get a 'piece' of a Distro to work on either, but overall I've had dismal results. I'll give Mepis 7 a run. :o)
277 • RE 250 Have you thought of Austrumi? From memory, it might work. (by dbrion on 2007-12-26 16:01:58 GMT from France)
". I'm really looking hard at distros for very old machines. I have two relatives/friends using win98 on 32MB machines. These musty date back to win95. So far the only thing I can be assured of is dsl will run on 16MB. I was unable to test it on these, but I know puppy didn't boot.
"
Austrumi has a ca 20 Mb RAM print once started; If it does not need too much RAM at the beginning (to detect HW, etc...), it may be sufficient... (sorry, I could not test it as ...a new Christmas *stable* version of Octave appeared and I installed it on my qemu-images of Pardus , PCBSD and my new favorite qemulated distr... Mandriva 2006.0 supporting qemu without a flaw...).
278 • Mepis 7 (by Geoff on 2007-12-26 16:42:13 GMT from United States)
Please post back in here, Tony, about how it went with your Mepis 7.
Also please post about the laptops themselves: brand, graphics, network card, etc. :O)
279 • Mepis 7.0 (by Guy on 2007-12-27 03:06:44 GMT from United States)
Nice work guys. Running it on VirtualBox. Seems pretty fast. Can't wait to try a full install. Peace:)
280 • Arch (by Anonymous on 2007-12-27 05:15:59 GMT from United States)
Been playing with Arch for a little while now. Some things I've noticed that make it pretty close to my ideal distro are:
1. You can do a network install from a 30 MB CD.
2. You do a base install and add packages from there. This ensures that you get what you want, and not a lot of bloat (like having to uninstall mono because your computer is so slow).
3. It has excellent documentation to help with configuring things. All too often GUI tools are treated as a substitute for documentation. I don't mind editing a configuration file or two when I have documentation like you get with Arch. And unlike what some might say, you don't actually do that much more configuration than with other distros.
4. There's good support and documentation for alternative window managers. E17 is very easy to install.
5. There are a lot of binary packages available. Many of them are bleeding edge. I was blown away by the ease with which you can build your own packages, for instance, if you want to change something in an existing package, or if you want to build a new version from source.
6. Arch is designed for simplicity and control. What I have learned is that a couple extra hours setting up the system eliminates many hours fixing problems down the road. The tradeoff between setup costs and maintenance costs is seldom mentioned in discussions of distros.
7. It's not for newbies, but it's not that difficult, either.
8. It seems to be one of the most active distros, with a large user base and is far from being dependent on a single developer.
9. This is the first time I've ever been addicted to a distro. I didn't even know that it was possible to be addicted to an OS, but I guess when you have the power that Arch gives you, that can happen.
This was my first real encounter with Arch. Why? Probably because it doesn't get much press. Arch is every bit the equal of the big name distros. It has the package selection, the community, the documentation, anything you could want in a distro.
I like Debian, but it doesn't have the simplicity and control (particularly for package building) of Arch. I've tried Gentoo, but that takes a lot of time to get going, and I prefer binary package management. Arch might very well be the distro for me. Too bad it's largely a secret.
Now I will wait to see how long it takes to find out what's broken with Arch. :)
281 • RE 280 Quite a short time (by dbrion on 2007-12-27 09:57:48 GMT from France)
"Now I will wait to see how long it takes to find out what's broken with Arch. :)
"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because progress is not monotone: as some regressions may happen, you cannot advise them to banks... for example, because of their rolling update policy (I do not deny it works on the long term....).
OTOH, thanks for reminding there is a difference btw installation conditions (which may be hidden to the user : if you buy a PC with Linux installed, you have a choice btw a GUI installer , writing a check, or a text oriented (credit card) one), which are overinsisted in distro reviews, and maintenance/upgrade/development conditions, which are neglected, or even radically stupidly bashed...
282 • Eleven distributions later I found Mepis doing it all on my laptop! :) (by capricornus on 2007-12-27 12:02:52 GMT from Netherlands)
Well, 275, my first encounter of the third kind with Mepis 7 on my EasyNote was very pleasing. And then on my Sempron-system, same thing. Yesterday evening I broke my virtual teeth on a P4DualCore with ATI video, on which I finally managed to install Mepis 7 with minimal video requirements, and then the whole pc stalled by restarting. So tonight I can start all over, with Zenwalk or SAM, because they work 100% out of the box, on ALL 6 pc's in the household.
So let's stay critical, and let's share all these experiences on this site, I'd say: crashing without bashing ;-).
283 • "crashing without bashing" (by Geoff on 2007-12-27 12:47:49 GMT from United States)
Nice post, capricornus."
But I have to admit that I am paying most close attention to posts in here about laptop installs, being as how my (old!) pc is swimmingly joyful with PCLinuxOS 2007 on it since last Spring. :O)
I tried Arch (nice informative post up there about a successful install (post 280) and then Ark (weird coincidence in names) with big hassles for both on my laptop during the installation procedures. I'll give specifics in here off my notes if requested, and that's true of any distribution I've attempted to get going on this Acer.
Zenwalk, Mint, Sabayon, Mepis 6.5, Ubuntu and Kubuntu, Freespire, Xandros and PCLinuxOS 2007 (naturally).
None would detect my Broadcom network card, or at least would not find the network at all. Mepis 6.5 kept bringing back the correct info about the IP address and even the router name and model (how could my laptop detect the Belkin router but not use it to go on the internet escapes me entirely.. the forums brought me no answers about that).
Anyway, encouraged by the near-succes with 6.5, I downloaded 7 and here I am! :O)
284 • Mandriva one 2008 DVD GAMES by MIB Staff (by Killer1987 on 2007-12-27 14:46:47 GMT from Italy)
hi,
Mib staff (we don't belong to mandriva team) has release his first dvd live based upon mandriva 2008 one and full (60%) of the best opensource games!
download the torrent (2,9 GB).
285 • @263 (by Adam Williamson on 2007-12-27 15:48:31 GMT from Canada)
The detection's probably not actually wrong, then. It's a GeForce 2MX, right?
The problem is that NVIDIA suck. :) Or, the long version: oddly enough, the 96xx drivers support GeForce 3 and 4...and also GeForce 2MX, but *not* the higher end GeForce 2s (GTS etc). Higher end GeForce 2s only work with the 71xx driver.
This, as you can probably appreciate, is a pain in the arse to codify in the card descriptions, so I just choose to fudge it, and go with simple names for the groups which lead to the detection for 2MX's looking 'wrong'. The alternative is to have groups named "Riva TNT to GeForce 2 (but not GeForce 2MX)" and "GeForce 2MX, GeForce 3 and GeForce 4" or something. Ugly.
So the detection's only wrong if the card is actually a non-MX GeForce 2, and works with the 71xx driver but not the 96xx driver. Can you give me the number of your bug report so I can see if this is the case? Thanks.
286 • Where is Linux Mint 4.0 KDE? (by welkiner on 2007-12-27 17:57:23 GMT from United States)
Has anyone heard anything this week from Clem or Boo about the status of Linux Mint 4.0 KDE ce?
287 • 285 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-27 19:35:30 GMT from United States)
Adam,
The bug is 36318. I didn't give my hardware info, just explained what went wrong and how it was fixed.
I did lspcidrake -v and it shows
Card:NVIDIA GeForce 3 - GeForce 4 (96xx): nVidia Corporation|NVCrush11 [GeForce2 MX Integrated Graphics] [DISPLAY_VGA] (vendor:10de device:01a0 subv:0e11 subd:00a8)
so you are correct that it is MX. As I mentioned above, I've never been able to get either the new or the old nvidia driver to work with this computer.
288 • 277 • RE 250 Have you thought of Austrumi? (by Anonymous on 2007-12-28 00:11:32 GMT from United States)
Thank you dbrion. I do check in on austrumi from time to time. 1.5.0 would not connect to the Internet for me. Otherwise it has very little softs functionality compared to dsl. I also tried their version 1.6.5 at 85MB figuring it would have a few more programs. It got a fatal error trying to set up the video - not waiting long enough between setting tries. I do wonder if it will work for you if you set your virtual machine to have only 32MB. It looked to me that it auto-stored all into RAM, perhaps because I have enough. I was able to mount and use my thumb drive - that is good. But alas, these old machines I'm targeting don't even have USB, I don't think.
So they are using Metacity desktop, don't see that very often.
I'm going to take a look at what austrumi offered two years ago, when I first started tracking them. Releases 0.9.5a,b.
289 • Re #280 Arch (by rglk on 2007-12-28 06:36:55 GMT from United States)
Comment #280: Very fair and astute appraisal of Arch.
From my reading of the Arch forums, I get the impression that one of the most distinctive things about Arch is that just about everyone who finally winds up using Arch stops hunting for other Linux distros. The consensus appears to be: "No need to look any further ... this is the way Linux ought to be."
"Too bad it's largely a secret."
I also get the impression that the Arch developers are not at all unhappy that Arch is not hugely popular. This is not a distribution for the masses.
"Now I will wait to see how long it takes to find out what's broken with Arch. :)"
If your experience is like mine you'll have to wait for about 12 months. Given the fact that Arch is a cutting edge distro, I found it amazing that nothing ever broke badly in my biweekly full system upgrades. I never had to reinstall Arch in 15 months of using it. After 12 months of upgrades, finally 2 or 3 programs broke (nothing to do with Arch but issues with kernel 2.6.23) but even then workarounds materialized fairly quickly, keeping the aggravation tolerable.
290 • Austrumi and geany (by Fractalguy on 2007-12-28 07:05:40 GMT from United States)
Sorry for leaving off my nic (288 was mine) on my austrumi post.
I am impressed by the little review of geany "Thin Puppy Torture Test II: Day 14" by Steven Rosenberg:
http://www.insidesocal.com/click/2007/12/ thin_puppy_torture_test_ii_day_4.html (I split the link since it is long)
since I have been using it for a while on my sidux install on my HD. If I open my thumb stick where my files are, then geany will open the files I was editing last session. They are all opened in tabs which is convenient. I used to always use kwrite, but now I find I'm using geany instead. Steven Rosenberg's use pattern is rather close to mine, lots of editing, collecting, info gathering, etc. I find geany is a good addition to kompozer for my web editing.
291 • PCLinuxOS- Gnome edition (by Finally on 2007-12-28 08:44:23 GMT from United States)
Ken Dotson (Gnome Edition Release Manager) has announced the release of PCLOS Gnome Edition 2.21.2. Featuring kernel 2.6.22.15, Gnome 2.21.2, Gnome office apps, Firefox 2.0.0.11, Frostwire, Azureus, Xmms, Flash, JRE, a ton of multimedia apps, and much more. Complete package list here. Almost 2 gigs of software compressed on a single self bootable livecd that can be installed to your hard drive provided it is compatible with your system and you like the distribution. Over 7000+ additional packages available after hard drive install through our Synaptic Software Manager.
All new bootsplash, backgrounds, and really nice features, upgraded to a great looking operating system and the best out-of-the-box look, and user experience possible! I hope that you will be completely satisfied with this new PCLinuxOS gnome!
http://www.linuxgator.org/Gnome/gnome_page/gnome.html
292 • Re 288 Sorry, Fractalguy (by dbrion on 2007-12-28 09:36:40 GMT from France)
"I do wonder if it will work for you if you set your virtual machine to have only 32MB. It looked to me that it auto-stored all into RAM, perhaps because I have enough. "
So did it for me : it needs ca 90 M, else it starves under qemu (thus likewise in the real case) I could safely start yesterday.
It is a pity there are less and less linuxen with a small fingerprint : except from DSL, I see very little. And venerable (>10 years) PC may acquire value (except for sentimental one, and the one linked with the civic habit of not putting in the bin what was very useful and is not broken).
Your idea of looking at old versions might work, but, with Austrumi, you will get an unpleasant issue: the earlier versions (ca 2004 : the old PC I was looking a Linux for died before it became ennoying, as my friend tried to add RAM....)were /(are if they are kept) ... in Latvi and (perhaps) Russian ( I suppose the authors friend had a lot of rather old PCs with cyrillic keyboards)....
293 • New PClinuxOS Gnome version (by mikkh on 2007-12-28 10:50:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
I didn't know such a thing existed, but apparently Version 2.21.2 is released today (28/12/07)
http://www.linuxgator.org/Gnome/gnome_page/gnome.html
294 • Ooops (by mikkh on 2007-12-28 10:54:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
I had a quick scan to see if it was reported already
Looks like Santa forgot to bring my new glasses
295 • 288 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-28 12:51:39 GMT from United States)
Have you tried DeLi Linux? The main testing box for that distro is a 486 with 16 MB of RAM.
296 • The correct consequence of insatisfaction: I made my own distro (by werner on 2007-12-28 14:06:11 GMT from France)
In the past, in this forum and in another ones, I claimed that the most distros fail to satisfy certain basical needs, an d this is the reason of the rejection of Linux by the population.
As an example, Linux has thousands of internet tools. But how get a beginner (or changer coming from Windows) an internet connection ??? Almost impossible. With exception of Kurumin, there is visibly no distro what just ask for the user / password and then establish a pppoe connection. All more complicated solutions or wizards, people don't get through. Ubuntu ? I downloaded it and could not find such a tool, too. French distros like Mandrake omit any special support to french provider's modems.
I started now a distro, where I pretend to make all these things more esay.
One have to think practically. People what come from Windows, have already installed firmware, all infos etc in the computer. There would be adequade a simple program what explore these informations, so that, instead to ask, during the instalation the computer tell you your profile, such like name, birth and death date, weight, passwords, etc etc. I dont understand why nobody yet explore what was installed under Windows.
This things, me too not yet ready with programming. But at least the basical distribution working, and working good. During the instalation, it don't ask nothing. Searching alone space, shrinking partitions where necessary, this works already good.
Live CDs is the wrong direction. In the time that a live CD system starts, you install a true system, definitively, stopping with this 'barri titer' to hanging on Windows. My sistem during install nor ask if the person want Linux; it don't delete Windows exactly, but it's no longer bootable, however on the desktop a folder so that the person can use/copy all them things under Linux. That's the correct, consequent way, to throw the people in the warm water.
The instalation, of 10 GB progs, needs between 8 min (free space) and 20 min (have to resize partitions), the rescue system starts within 10 seconds, so fast W$-victims can see again them files lost with windows.
The most programs I patched, acelerated, compiled than. One first tool of the sistem itself (beside the install tools, which i programmed too) is a script what establishs an pppoe connection -- when the person had before Windows and pppoe is running in the modem/router, it nor needs to ask the person user/password, but just search the modem. So long. Everything is and have to be easy, also the name. SYS means, sistem, people who use computer, often ask for sys tools, the sys install cd etc. So that the best name have to be SYS.
The distro what I'm making is on http: or ftp: copaya.yi.org , whom want to try it. Its very stable and easy. However I have to find a mirror
297 • correction of the link (by werner , in Cayenne on 2007-12-28 14:15:37 GMT from France)
The distro what Im working out currently, is , correctly, on copaya.yi.org/tgz , there SYS_Linux-0.19.iso , (and a most recent release summary is on: http://www.copaya.yi.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10)
To be good accepted, its good too to have many video studio, games, but I put also everything for a server. The most packages are these I'm using on my own old mill.
298 • Dubious origins of Mandriva (by dbrion on 2007-12-28 14:45:39 GMT from France)
"French distros like Mandrake omit any special support to french provider's modems.
"
Ah, Mandriva has a French fired founder... and a French CEO (this would make Japanese cars such as Nissan French!!!..). But
*now* (not in 1917-1918)
the majority of the
* paid developpers is from nonEuro zone (makes salaries less high, for equal skills)
and I doubt the majority of the
*share holders are French (I am not interested in this aspect)...
What remains, then? A legend????
The infamous USB bug was French, I agree, it is *now* (not in 1942-1945) obsolete... and shamefully exported ....
As Mandrivel (it is politically correct to spell it like that, I suppose), when PClol cloning, omitted dubious drivers, this swindle was not included....
Moi mon colon, celle que je préfère, c'est la guerre de 14-18 ... (Brassens)
299 • Distrowatch comments area (here!) :O) (by Geoff on 2007-12-28 15:51:07 GMT from United States)
I would like to compliment the patrons here for keeping the discussion very civil and informative about different linux distributions.
We've seen differences from the past.
Maybe posts are being deleted? Just kidding.
I hope we always keep it this way because I now look forward to reading in here even if I have nothing to contribute.
Geoff
300 • Re: 296 • "I made my own distro" (by soŋtsɛn kampo on 2007-12-28 15:57:58 GMT from Malaysia)
"during the instalation the computer tell you your profile, such like name, birth and death date..."
Interesting concept. I suppose an installer that predicts the user's "death date" may be popular in some settings...
301 • debian install (by jack on 2007-12-28 16:10:00 GMT from Canada)
This sounds like a "power user's" dream
A very detailed, very long, very informative Debian install
http://www.computerbob.com/guides/my_debian_adventure.php
96 steps!
302 • 289 (by Anonymous on 2007-12-28 16:49:36 GMT from United States)
I should have said "Too bad it's largely a secret, otherwise I'd have probably tried it a long time ago, and not wasted time looking for the features of Arch in other distros."
I do like the focus of the Arch devs and the Arch community on putting together something that works, as opposed to hype and bling. It's a substitute for Windows because it actually works, but there is not (as far as I've seen) any attempt to be a drop-in replacement for Windows, or even much discussion of Windows at all.
It's definitely not for everyone, and it never will be. That's fine with me. I don't think any distro designed for the masses will ever be what I'm looking for.
@281: I believe that it would not necessarily be the best distro for something like a bank. If you need stability it is hard to beat Debian stable. I get the impression that Arch is similar to Debian testing, which is usually okay, but I would never call it stable.
303 • Arch a rolling release system & stability (by KimTjik on 2007-12-28 19:48:50 GMT from Sweden)
As long as the package manager of a distributions doesn't force a total system upgrade, but leave room for flexibility I don't see any real issue about stability. The only problem though might be that you can't find older versions of packages easily (that's why cashing current working packages is a good idea in case you need to roll back). Hence you start out bleeding etch, but how you after that choose to maintain the system is up to you as the administrator: do you really need to run "pacman -Syu" or might it be that your computer environment doesn't demand all of the newest features, like hardware support for all kinds of cool gadgets? If a distribution in a critical environment does what it's supposed to do, why upgrade? In a sense it doesn't matter how conservative a distribution is, it still isn't a good idea in such an environment to casually upgrade more than necessary. A rolling release opens up several options, instead of locking the user to follow a predetermined strategy: roll on if you so wish, or maintain what you have.
On the other hand many desktop users, including myself, appreciate the possibility of getting the newest and maybe greatest software available. Therefore distributions like Arch serves a niche and does it very well. It would though be wonderful if some other distribution would offer a similar solution as Arch: keep package management easy while still open for easy modification (pacman is a true blessing), and allow the user to choose what he wants or doesn't want to install. As a contender to Debian stable, it would be great to see something down the line of "Arch conservative". That though shouldn't be the priority of the original Arch project; it's not their duty.
304 • RE 302,303 Stability (by dbrion on 2007-12-29 09:14:01 GMT from France)
First thank for the info about Arch
Some parts need to be stable, and some others need to be at the latest (and perhaps buggiest : but how can one know whether one's favorite application and maybe its free concurrents is/are in a buggy state?).
If one wants to test new software, and, more, if one wants to write software, it seems wise to have the remaining environment in a quite reproducible state. This is a different need than a bank's one (banks are paid, I hope, to be conservative...).
305 • debian, ?????? (by werner , in Cayenne on 2007-12-29 12:00:04 GMT from France)
@301: In the time since Linux came up I'm using it. Debian I tried to install about 20 times, but only 1 time I had success. All other times, during the instalation process, I came in any loop where I didnt came out again.
Such a bad proportion between atempts and failures I had with no any other distro. At the same time, it is the worsest proportion between the big number of 'qualified' ? people working on a distro and the weak results.
An opposite is Slackware. That's easy to install, to maintain, and is working always. The only what could here better, is a better security against/for the stupidness of beginners. Ex: a wizzard what establish a pppoe connection, asking (in the worsest case, when pppoe not already running in the modem-router from a previous windows instalation) username / password.
As I'm repairing computers, normally gratis for friends, neighbours, but more and more also for others to which i was recomended, and use any oportunity to substitute W$ for Linux, I see in the practice what are the problems for beginners using Linux. And as often it's in vain to suggest maintainers to change these items, meanwhile i make my own distro, where I try to make definitively easy exactly these itens, cf #296
306 • PCLinuxOS Gnome (by Guy on 2007-12-29 14:23:42 GMT from United States)
Very nice. Everything seems to work. Although I usually prefer KDE , this one might convert me:). Thanks guys.
307 • QU 305 : Stupidity of beginners, W$ removal and Debian unqualification... (by dbrion on 2007-12-29 16:22:46 GMT from France)
"At the same time, it is the worsest proportion between the big number of 'qualified' ? people working on a distro and the weak results.
"
Debian maintainers are not only working on a distro: they are responsive for one package :
a) if they are developpers, too, everybody -even parasitic "linuxen" directly profits of that, if they care to give their users recent debugged versions.
b) if they are "just" maintainers, they contribue to the overall quality of the GNU as their modifications are known...
c) FYI, Debian is the main source of source (sorry!) packages among other distributions (from T2 list of downloads and other compiled Linuxen; then come Gentoo and RH).
d) Last year, a friend of mine tested (fully, as far as strategic softs were concerned)ca 7 distr (Fedora, MDV,Debian, UBU linux, Mepis and Slackware; sorry for my bad memory): Debian came first -and it was not his "profession" to install OSes : we have sys'admins"/tyrans to do it).
"the stupidness of beginners"
your opinion of beginners is quite ironic : my friend never installed anything else than Mandrivas .... and when I reread your post, I recommand a consistency check.
"substitute W$ for Linux"
Two points :
a) If someone buys Windows, removing it would be like burning some 50E$ bills... even if there were not personnal work/ interesting work inside (sometimes thanks to cygwin, a bright idea of ....RedHat).... Nobody with something over his shoulders would do it.
b) With some PC taxes, Microsoft -sorry for *no* ritual misspeeling- has begun to hire the best developpers (it happens to young French engineers, among many others; salaries are interesting). Every *new* piece of soft is reread by two different people from the writer :
==> the natural question is : 'how many independant competent people did reread the patches *you* made' for your distro? '
308 • No subject (by werner , in Cayenne on 2007-12-29 17:47:37 GMT from France)
I would like to can write better about Mandrake. This was a good, inovative distro, which I liked before, even if I always kept Slackware better. But - and this is unquestionable - after V. 10.2 lot of things didn't work more correctly. I 'm continuing to watch Mandrake , download and install all new CD's, but things unfortunately improve. Of the 2008.1 spring edition, during instalation opens a completely unformatted, much to big screen with a lot of other problems -- no comparison like Mandrake was before.
My own distro birth from a very simple, practival reason: in the praxis installing Linux for other people, it are always again the same lacks about which people reclaim (and, not corrected, because of which they dump finally Linux and return to Windows). However it's in vain to get the maintainers of distros to change this. Plenty times I mailed to Mandrake to make at least working the frenco modems, which gives orange, wanadoo, outremer-telecom . In vain, nothing improved.
At that time, everybody with justice in the head, comes to the conclusion, that it's not necessary nor good for nobody, to make too much efforts to convince maintainers about things what they don't want to do. Instead, one should make his own distro. JUST THIS IS THE GOOD ON LINUX AND OPEN-SOURCE, THAT EVERYBODY, BY MEANS OF A OWN DISTRO, CAN REALIZE HIS OWN IDEAS, and don't depends on comercial people, them ideas, them interests. So long !
The politics of my distro will be very easy. I don't justify problems with my distro, indtead, I try to abolish them, and also everything what I have to explain with many words - and what thus is not obvious for beginners - I change, in a manner that to a next person I don't need it explain again. In this manner, I hope, it should be possible to get a desktop-year, everybody -Linux.
My SYS Linux meanwhile runs on about 20 computers here. I wait reports what don't work on the automatical instalation, and improve this imediately. At least it's the only distro I know what don't ask nothing during instalation.
The program what, grabbing informations from a previous Windows instalation, and instead to ask plenty, tell the user many during instalation, still has problems in guessing the hair color: at this problem I'm working, trying early webcam drivers
309 • ASUS EEE HACKED FOR TOUCH SUPPORT (by Beatnik on 2007-12-29 21:53:43 GMT from Panama)
Another example of the ASUS EEE hackability:
This man could install a touchscreen on his asus eee pc.
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=3VaerIGpO5Q
How to:
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=N8-BbOWVgXg
310 • No subject (by werner , in Cayenne on 2007-12-29 22:25:57 GMT from France)
I would like to can write better about Mandrake. This was a good, inovative distro, which I liked before, even if I always kept Slackware better. But - and this is unquestionable - after V. 10.2 lot of things didn't work more correctly. I 'm continuing to watch Mandrake , download and install all new CD's, but things unfortunately improve. Of the 2008.1 spring edition, during instalation opens a completely unformatted, much to big screen with a lot of other problems -- no comparison like Mandrake was before.
My own distro birth from a very simple, practival reason: in the praxis installing Linux for other people, it are always again the same lacks about which people reclaim (and, not corrected, because of which they dump finally Linux and return to Windows). However it's in vain to get the maintainers of distros to change this. Plenty times I mailed to Mandrake to make at least working the frenco modems, which gives orange, wanadoo, outremer-telecom . In vain, nothing improved.
At that time, everybody with justice in the head, comes to the conclusion, that it's not necessary nor good for nobody, to make too much efforts to convince maintainers about things what they don't want to do. Instead, one should make his own distro. JUST THIS IS THE GOOD ON LINUX AND OPEN-SOURCE, THAT EVERYBODY, BY MEANS OF A OWN DISTRO, CAN REALIZE HIS OWN IDEAS, and don't depends on comercial people, them ideas, them interests. So long !
The politics of my distro will be very easy. I don't justify problems with my distro, indtead, I try to abolish them, and also everything what I have to explain with many words - and what thus is not obvious for beginners - I change, in a manner that to a next person I don't need it explain again. In this manner, I hope, it should be possible to get a desktop-year, everybody -Linux.
My SYS Linux meanwhile runs on about 20 computers here. I wait reports what don't work on the automatical instalation, and improve this imediately. At least it's the only distro I know what don't ask nothing during instalation.
The program what, grabbing informations from a previous Windows instalation, and instead to ask plenty, tell the user many during instalation, still has problems in guessing the hair color: at this problem I'm working, trying early webcam drivers
311 • PC Linux Gnome: development release? (by Beatnik on 2007-12-29 22:50:10 GMT from Panama)
Hey Ladislav,
I think this Gnome version of PC Linux is NOT a development release, instead looks like a final gnome version, but community driven instead of the official KDE by Textar and team.
312 • PCLOS----> Much, Much More Mandriva then the rippers will want to admit!!! (by including the BUGS! on 2007-12-30 03:08:47 GMT from Australia)
If this Gnome Community Remaster is NOT (according to their forum admins) officially supported by the PCLOS team, how come it is listed on Distrowatch as a Pclos release?
I downloaded this Cd and took it for a spin on my Acer 1640 (1280x800 screen) series notebook and was surprised (should not have been) to find EXACTLY the same xorg (gdm) bug as Mandriva 2008 (gnome). To me, it looks like PCLos "devs" waste time in trying to marry Mandriva 2008 packages to Mandriva 2007 base and are unable to code anything on their own. :-( IMHO, they should improve on efficiency (stop pretensions of FORK distro) and just remaster the current Mandriva release at the time of their own release.
313 • PCLOS Gnome 2.21.2 - has its own website and support forum (by GPCLOS? on 2007-12-30 03:47:26 GMT from Australia)
Forums: http://linuxgator.org/forums/index.php
Website: http://linuxgator.org/index.html
314 • RE: 311 PC Linux Gnome: development release? (by ladislav on 2007-12-30 06:40:54 GMT from Slovakia)
The reason I put it down as a development release is the fact that it ships with a beta version of GNOME. Since GNOME appears to be its main feature, I think it's only fair to warn people that they'll be running a beta quality code on their desktops.
315 • RE 310 : Mandrivas big sins and civilized ways to sell PCs. (by dbrion on 2007-12-30 15:05:38 GMT from France)
"Mandrake. This was a good, inovative distro".
Mandriva *remains* a good innovative distro (FYI : I use Mandriva 2006, which is likely to be the worst Mandriva dared to release .... and , as long as I can use devel. rpm (*.h, for compiling without too many trouble), it works OK.) Friends of mine (installing is neither their job nor their hobby) are satisfied with Mandriva 2008.0, though I find it early... and my PC is likely to have not enough RAM for
Nepomux... (I saw demos linked with different hierarchies 2 yrs ago, and it may be usefull). This point, based on facts, answers your pretention that MDV is not innovative.... The other innovative aspects are mitigated : light 3D desktop, though shiny and soooo beautiful, make one of my colleagues very rude when he browses the web and answer the phone at the same time ... though he is very civilized with traditional 2D desktops... The inclusion of VMplayer, VirtualBox *and* qemu allow people to chose other OSes, when needed/felt ...
My disk seller (he will be my PC seller when PC get at their lowest... or when I break one of them) seems to decide to sell pple (ca 5%) with the Linux *they* (not he!!!) choose, preconfigured, and with a single or dual boot:
people get what they want, and not what a PC fixer/seller decided, without asking any questions....... and this makes the install easiness no more a matter of choice (except economic : the time spent to install can be different, and is part of the price like anywhere in the real world....) There remains the ease of use and the presence/absence of bugs...
316 • RE 308 : Is Mandrivas work to support *any* hardware? should be SantaClaus's (by dbrion on 2007-12-30 15:27:33 GMT from France)
from 308-310
"Plenty times I mailed to Mandrake to make at least working the frenco modems, which gives orange, wanadoo, outremer-telecom . In vain, nothing improved.
"
What a repetitive task.....and, if you mailed Mandrake... it was lost....
Is it wise to ask for support to obsolete HW? The wise way would be to ask orange, wanadoo, etc ... not to swindle their users (some of these Internet "providers" are likely to be being sued.
317 • No subject (by werner, cayemme on 2007-12-31 00:59:43 GMT from France)
@315-6 We should try to stay in the reality. Mandrake objectively falled many, with this everybody agree. Linux has problems to be accepted by the population (although, on the other hand, are completely mad also often questions by reporters like 'is Linux already dead ?'). Like almost all hardware and service producers, so also the most providers don't give any support to Linux and the Linux users or comunity have to help itself.
It's important to think, how to react to situation, and also to reflect, what we finally want.
When Linux on one side is too dificult for stupid people, but we want that it's be used, as we can not change the people we have to change Linux: make it more easy, in a certain sense, adapt it to stupid habits of the persons. That's exactly why Windows growed. And to do the same, is absolutely nothing against the free or open-source principles.
And, as that problem is going slow-slow already sinc years, it's also correct to go forwards a little more rigorously. Does M$ asking if the people want W$ ????
318 • ARe your post generalities, unfunded Mandr** / Debian bashing or? (by dbrion on 2007-12-31 07:29:07 GMT from France)
RE 317:
" Mandrake objectively falled many, with this everybody agree"
NO
I do not agree. Neither my neighbor. Neither some of my friends.
Could you define "many"? it is soo imprecise it does not mean *objectively* anything.
"When Linux on one side is too dificult for stupid people, but we want that it's be used"
Windows, too, is difficult... (viruses, etc...) but popular and is getting some quality insuranse (as has Debian, *you* bashed as non productive). There is a vey simple way to have a Linux pre-installed and pre-configured : it is to ask one'sPC *trusted *seller to install it. But, as I want my freedom to be respected, before all if I pay, I may ask for
* a dual-boot (Free , OpenSourrce softwares are meant to be portable => some ports are better under Windows.... today)
* the distrib I choose.
BTW, I do not know whether your points are
a) for bashing Mandriva (oooin, they do not support obsolete, exotic HW)
and Debian (fii: volunteers, often working, are not efficent)
b) for hiding the fact that your "distr" has not been cross validated by competent pple (empirical evidence based on ...20 persons is one million less convincing than XP, if you trust empirical evidence)
c) to get some downloads, without specifying (among many others)
c1) whence the sources (if any) come
c2) if it has a quality policy
"go forwards a little more rigorously."
Oh oui......... Even infinitely more, in the real world, is usefull...
319 • Re: 314 (by Beatnik on 2007-12-31 08:50:48 GMT from Panama)
Ladislav, thanks for your explanation, thats a fair point about Gnome PC Linux.
Hey, I see you are now on Slovakia.
By the way, I wish you a Happy New Year to you and all distrowatchers.
320 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2007-12-31 17:30:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just tried the Vector Linux Live edition, what a waste of space. You're presented with a login box with the choice of 'root' or 'VL' but there's no clue to the effing password!
Come on VL, play the bloody game!
****
321 • RE 320 (by KimTjik on 2007-12-31 19:43:27 GMT from Sweden)
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3018.0
I'll take a look when I get home, but I would be surprised if this piece of information wasn't included in text file. It's at least a good practice to check the CD itself for information before booting it up.
The information (which took me 30 seconds to find):
Both have the password "vector" (this is quite common among Live-CDs to use the distro name as password).
322 • No subject (by werner , in Cayenne on 2007-12-31 22:52:33 GMT from France)
Yes, VectorLinux is great, also AmigoLinux, both full of inovations, each in its own manner. However, very unfortunately, the both fail in the most easy , small but basical things for beginners -- f.ex. to get imediately a working pppoe connection. A problem with VectorLinux (and some other distros) is that to have a password on a live cd is anyhow mad -- for what ??? Worser even, that on VectorLinux you didn't know that password. Already with this passwd problem, VectorLinux anyway failed w.r.t. the problem to get "beginner-friendly" distros, about this is not any excusion nor discusion. The same password stupidness had also with ALTLinux and SuSE, where (at least in past versions) after about 1 hour of instalation because passwd and pam problems one could not come in the newly installed system ... Things have to be like in Slackware (or in my SYS Linux) that there is no password. A similar stupidness is that on some distros (f.ex. Kurumin) one cannot login into KDE as root ...
#315-6,8: I have no determined 'intention'. Often I set up, gratis, for friends and neighbours broken computers, and then normally try to substitute W$ by Linux. Sometimes also search me firmas, to which someone recomended me, but as themselves ocupation is run behind money, I see no reason not to bill them something too. However when at the same time I have to setup a computer for friends gratis, or for comerciantes payed, I do first the first one. So, I'm far away being 'seller' etc as suggested in these comments.
On the other side, I'm the opinion that Linux is going forwards much to slow, and we see also the tricks and means the comercial system's sellers using -- inclusive desrespect what the people want and wrong-information . Thus I think there is nothing wrong to treat these practics and them system a somewhat rawly, too. By me, the people get installed a good working Linux sistem, and then, on the base of correct information, they can decide what's better and what of the alternatives they want.
What aprovation or certification of my system, by whom ? By the industry, comerce, or directly by M$ ??? Comments like this are so strongly missing the principles of Linux and distros, and desqualifying whom write them, that I nor enter into discuss this.
323 • No subject (by werner , in Cayenne on 2007-12-31 23:22:39 GMT from France)
I feel a need to add still: I'm sincerely very sorry to have to reclaim certain things about distros which Iself -- not being beginner -- like and apreciate, and I would prefere very, instead of this - instead of my critics, and instead of making an own distro - to could see that these distros would correct these itens. I even mailed to their maintainers corresponding suggestion - inclusively here in this forum since long time I'm reclaiming that Mandrake has no tool easy enough with which beginners get working an pppoe connection and no at all for certein french USB modems which use ppp via atm. But, very unfortunately, these lacks are not corrected, and I see that the simple people which are even willingly to try out Linux, finaly have to dump it and return to W$, because of these 'little' problems. After some time, you see that you have to make your own distro to bring this forwards. Thus, my SYS_Linux birth from the resignation w.r.t. the existing distros and from the need to have something which works in the praxis and whats easy.
I suggest that everybody who is insatisfied or see problems with the existing distros, make a new one, realizing his individual, own ideas; this is the nature of open software , alias, independing of being 'aproved' or 'certified' by some industry lobby (or registred by any distro forum), because this is part of the Human Right of individual realization, expression, opinion, being, live for its own and not for others or for them interests
324 • 2008 (by Tony on 2008-01-01 04:14:51 GMT from United States)
To one and all - have a Blessed and Happy 2008!
Remember to have fun with Linux.
325 • Vector Linux Password (by Andrew on 2008-01-01 04:21:52 GMT from New Zealand)
Can't people read???
The password is stated clearly in the lines of text above the Command prompt!!!
Andrew
326 • BeaFanatIX-Debris? (by Welkiner on 2008-01-01 07:47:17 GMT from United States)
What is the going on with BeaFanatIX and/or Debris? On the Debris Linux website they have an anouncement dated May 27, 2007, stating that BeaFanatIX is now Debris...but on the Bea website they have an anouncement of a new BeaFanatIX release dated September 27, 2007.
Which is it? Or, is there some kind of disagreement going on?
327 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-01-01 11:48:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re 325 . I didn't get a command Prompt. Just a blue screen with the choice of Root or VL, as users. There is nothing else on the screen to hint at what the password might be.I tried root, toor, otor,orot,vl, and guest. Nothing!
Re 321. If you can't get into the operating system you can't get to view the forums or anything else!
All it would take is for the programmer to tell the user on the page (it's a live CD) the info. Just "password = vector" is enough. But he didn't think of that!
328 • Gobolinux file structure! (by Geoff on 2008-01-01 15:49:17 GMT from United States)
This is amazing:
http://www.gobolinux.org/?page=at_a_glance
329 • READ THIS: The greatest threat to Microsoft's dominance (by Anonymous on 2008-01-01 15:58:23 GMT from Panama)
What is the greatest threat to Microsoft's dominance: Google Inc. or open source? The answer is both, especially when they're working together.
"Open source is a software capitalist's supreme tool," says Matt Asay, vice president of business development with Alfresco Software Inc., an open source enterprise content management company. "It enables vendors to align closely with their customers and prospects while simultaneously undermining competitors' efforts to charge license fees for their own products. It's one that Google has been using to good effect in toppling 20th-century software business.
Article:
http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?editorialsid=2395
330 • 328 (by Anonymous on 2008-01-01 16:29:41 GMT from United States)
I like the concept that Gobolinux is built on, but have put off playing with it because it seems to require compiling much of the software I might use. It's my next adventure, though. This is IMO the type of innovation you would only see in a smaller project. Maybe in five years it will be adopted by the major distros.
331 • RE: 330 (by IMQ on 2008-01-01 17:24:48 GMT from United States)
I agree with most of what you said except the last sentence. It will be a very long, long time before you see any major distros adopt this concept. If EVER!
I don't see what GoboLinux does is being better. It's just interestingly different. I have no problem with what all the current distros have, even though there are small differences among them.
Also, don't forget a huge number of books have been written with the traditional layout of directory tree.
GoboLinux, if it survives the long haul, will remain to be an interesting niche among the jungle of Linux distros.
BTW, I did tried out GoboLinux a couple of times: one with the final 013 and one with the 014 preview. I will soon give the final 014 a spin. When I last test-drove it, I ran into problem getting stuff to compile, so I put it aside for later.
HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!
332 • Re #31 (by glenn on 2008-01-01 17:49:52 GMT from Canada)
Hiya IMQ
I pretty well agree with your take on gobolinux. .
I did try this latest version and got a Kernel Panic on bootup Nutz!
I issued some sulphurous expressions that Geoff and I spoke so highly of and giave it up for now.
Its probably a bad burn but I really don't feel like playing with it...
For amusement I'm still entranced by geubunbtu and having a lot of fun with it. Same with Vector Linux.
I also decided to bite the bulltet on Mandriva One and fit my corporate VPN tunneling and applications in and got them working with not much problem.
Oh well.. That ended off my 2007 Linux year.
.
Happy New Year to you also
Now where did I put my bottle of Wild Turkey??? Ah there it is!.
Bye for now. duty calls... :-)
Glenn
333 • OOps....#332 is response to #331, not #31.. (by glenn on 2008-01-01 17:52:46 GMT from Canada)
sticky keyboard
334 • RE: 332 (by IMQ on 2008-01-01 20:00:32 GMT from United States)
Hi Glenn,
Happy New Year!
It wouldn't be long before we see before we start seeing headline all over the net "This is The Year of Linux on the Desktop". Again! :)
It did a quick booting of GoboLinux 014 and it seem to boot OK. I thought it had a cheatcode but I haven't been able to find it.
I am looking forward to this year with more fun with Linux and with some hopefully more news on the Englightenment-based distros like Geubuntu, eLive, etc.
Take it easy on the Wild Turkey :)
If not, keep your hand of the wheel, wouldn't you? :) :)
335 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-01-01 20:25:22 GMT from United States)
My adventure with Gobolinux was rather short. I booted into Virtualbox and got a kernel panic. A search revealed this is the usual behavior in Virtualbox.
@331:
At least to me, it seems that it is better to have all of the files to run a program in one directory, rather than scattered throughout the hard drive. That said, I also don't know that it is a major innovation. I wanted to try compiling with it. Supposedly it is easy to use their "recipes" and get new/customized software.
336 • KANOTIX-2007-RC7 - Careful with that sound (by Alter Ekko on 2008-01-02 01:56:13 GMT from Norway)
This evening I downloaded and tried (as a live-cd) KANOTIX-2007-THORHAMMER-RC7.
It's startup 'melody' played VERY LOUD and VERY DISTORTED
on my HP laptop, and there is no way of instantly stopping the noice
in most linux distributions that I know of. (SAM linux 2008 RC1
however can use the volume and sounds-off buttons on the HP.)
When I reduced the volume (in the mixer) and tried playing
some music videos they also sounded distorted. I guessed that
the internal speakers were damaged. But in 'another OS' they
luckily played just fine.
If I shall ever try Kanotix again (in a later version) I will plug in some
external speakers that mutes the internal ones.
337 • Re #336. KANOTIX-2007-RC7 (by glenn on 2008-01-02 04:34:06 GMT from Canada)
Hi..
I also tried Kanotix on my laptop Thinkpad T61 and I had no distortion in the sound from my internal speakers at all. It also recognized my volume control buttons.
BUT, I did however have problems with Kanotix recognizing my Radeon 1400 card and i had to use the Cheat Codes so I could get a reasonable presentation and not 640x480.
I have not given this distro a fair test yet but from what I have done iwth it I do like what I've seen so far. As a further comment, I notice that it booted up rather quickly. i was surprised.
Glenn
Glenn
338 • Complements 331..332 (by dbrion on 2008-01-02 07:43:38 GMT from France)
"will be a very long, long time before you see any major distros adopt this concept. If EVER!
I don't see what GoboLinux does is being better. It's just interestingly different. I have no problem with what all the current distros have, even though there are small differences among them."
It is just derived from the way users are obliged to do if they want their sys"ads" to upgrade/install new/interesting softs. .. and convince themselves, then the sys"ad" boss these new softs (versions) should be upgraded/ installed... This way has been formalized and made automatic..;
"BTW, I did tried out GoboLinux a couple of times: one with the final 013 and one with the 014 preview. I will soon give the final 014 a spin. When I last test-drove it, I ran into problem getting stuff to compile, so I put it aside for later."
With the qemulated 013 (I hate "greek_lettered" versions, one cannot draw any conclusion from) I could compile the traditional way by making executables all the subdirectories gcc (and g77/gfortran, they are gcc frontends) has subtasks in.... Then it worked for R, gnuplot, Octave, Scilab -which means many headers are there, as I was not obliged to cut some functionalities in R...).
What surprised me was that KDE consumed less RAM than usually ... and it retaught me a little Portuguese...
Have a nice, bissextile year....
339 • RE 310, 322 : Mandriva'alpha sins, blabla about open source and gerand amateuris (by dbrion on 2008-01-02 08:11:34 GMT from France)
"
What aprovation or certification of my system, by whom ? By the industry, comerce, or directly by M$ ??? Comments like this are so strongly missing the principles of Linux and distros, and desqualifying whom write them, that I nor enter into discuss this.
"
* By *competent* rereaders of the patchs *you* claim they work.... as do the kernel developpers (what an irony w/r to your lengthy hiding behind Linux ununderstood principles), and every professional coder if he can....
* By stating whence the sources come from (i.e : 99.99 % of the work you make big, unprecise posts about)
BTW, basing conclusion from Mandriva 2008.1 (post 310)..... in an alpha state, reveals that you are interested in such values as intellectual honesty, fairness ....in an interesting, trust deserving way.
The Sagem USB modem you whine about over and over and over (Oh, Mandriva is a cruel distro!!!! ooooooin) is considered as obsolete and , either
a conception error,
or
a pure crookery.
When my neighbor and friend (FYI he is neither a professional installer, nor a distro hopper....) asked me what to do with it, I answered "change it"... he is now very satisfied with Mandriva 2008.0 (he installed by himself).... and we remain friends...
340 • Linux Mint Experiments (by Welkiner on 2008-01-02 18:47:29 GMT from United States)
Now announce yet, but Linux Mint 4.0 Debian alpha and Linux Mint 4.0 FluxBox beta are available on their download servers!
341 • #340 Correction (by welkiner on 2008-01-02 20:13:08 GMT from United States)
Should be "No anouncement yet"
342 • No subject (by werner on 2008-01-02 23:10:51 GMT from France)
@339: I agree insofar that any USB modem is a conception error. However it's reality, people have it, it's running under W$, so that when we install Linux and it's not working then they dump Linux saying that it's not working. And, nobody want to waste about 60 Euro to buy a next modem when he have one working under Windows.
@340 On my computer, the Mint live CD needs almost a half hour for boot ... :(
343 • Re:337 KANOTIX-2007-RC7. Plus The MEPIS antiX 7.01 (by Anonymous on 2008-01-03 02:44:37 GMT from Norway)
Glenn 'had no distortion in the sound from my internal speakers'.
Glad to hear that! It seems that it is a peculiar behaviour of my HP then.
Now a recommendation: I got the new MEPIS antiX 7.01,
310MB, version yesterday (not the smaller base version on today's
Distrowatch frontpage.)
It has its peculiarities, but I like its support for every sound and
videofiles I tried.
I have only known the www.stage6.com site with
its vast collection of videofiles (in much better quality than
Youtube) for two weeks. But I visited that site with livecds of
5-6 different distros this evening, and Anti-x was the only one
equipped with a browser plugin needed to play the divx
videos on stage6. The other distros couldn't (and the site
offered only a Windows divx-player download !?)
This is probably just a problem with livecds; my installed
Ubuntu on the laptop plays the stage6 divx-files just fine.
344 • AntiX (by Welkiner on 2008-01-03 03:11:16 GMT from United States)
AntiX looks great, but I've had problems with it on most of my attempts to use it.
On today's release I noticed a caviat about AMD processors. The vast majority of computers that I work on run AMD processors and most of the old computers that I am trying to recycle also are AMD.
Anybody know what AntiX's problem with K5, K6, etc. is?
345 • RE 342 USB swindles and consistent conception af common sense (by dbrion on 2008-01-03 09:03:53 GMT from France)
": I agree insofar that any USB modem is a conception error. "
thus, supporting a conception error (there are boycotts, courts for not supporting that conception error in a consistent way) is either
- a grand waste of time, when no money is implied
- a pure
, conscious ,
swindle, if some money is implied ....
I suppose I go on "missing the principles of Linux and distros"(cf *your* post 322)
"However it's reality, people have it, it's running under W$, so that when we install Linux and it's not working then they dump Linux saying that it's not working."
Some exctracts of the reality you are so fond of:
* The purpose of one's life is not installing linux anywhere (I would be very surprised if xx virgins came after 2 Linux installs)
*Today, in small towns in the North of France, linux install parties consist mainly in ... installing nice Windows ports of Free Open Source Software, as very few people can be happy with the destruction of something they paid, they based their work on and which works (and is often reliable in this century......)
* An ex-colleague (she switched to a bank) is authorized to have a dual-boot with Vista and Suse: I asked her about Suze, and she told me she *never* used it (though she had a nice Linux installed for 4 years before) , but Cygwin, + an R port, as I had advised to install these useful applications to have a nicer Windows....
" And, nobody want to waste about 60 Euro to buy a next modem when he have one working under Windows."
My friend and neighbor is an *existing* human body and knows the difference between obsolete hardware an better one, as he has some common sense......
346 • 344 • AntiX by Welkiner (by anticapitalista on 2008-01-03 13:59:25 GMT from Greece)
"Anybody know what AntiX's problem with K5, K6, etc. is?"
antiX uses the Mepis 2.6.22-14-smp i686 kernel so it won't boot old AMD k5/6. It works just fine with newer AMD (or at least it should)
The next stage in antiX's development will be to use a kernel that will boot old AMD, probably a i586 kernel similar to the one used in antiX "Spartacus" that DOES boot k5/k6.
347 • #346 (by welkiner on 2008-01-03 17:55:35 GMT from United States)
Thanks!
I'll give it a try.
348 • sabayon-review in german (by Anonymous on 2008-01-03 20:30:59 GMT from Germany)
Here is a sabayon-review in german:
http://stonie.homelinux.net/linux/linux-distributions-test-nr-3-sabayon-34
349 • MIB LIVE Games rocks! (by Marcello on 2008-01-05 12:22:13 GMT from Italy)
it has been released the new MIB LIVE GAMES DVD! it works fine and it has a lot of packages!
try it out:
http://mib.pianetalinux.org/2008/01/04/mib-live-games-10-2/?lan=english
bye
350 • SYS Linux (by werner , in Cayenne on 2008-01-06 00:01:47 GMT from France)
For my distro what I mencioned before, I'm glad that several people will make mirrors in the next days, the first of them is this:
http://dtag.gw-lsn.lieso-net.de/mirror/SYS_Linux.html
As said before, in my distro I try to correct/avoid all these things what I reclaimed before on other distros, and to make it most easy usable. I suggest everybody do the same.
351 • PclinuxOS MiniMe 2008 (by johncoom on 2008-01-07 03:34:47 GMT from Australia)
For BT see http://linuxtracker.org/torrents-details.php?id=5101&hit=1
The ISO + md5 are already on most PCLOS mirrors for download
Happy Days
352 • Page Hit Rankings during Holidays (by Geoff on 2008-01-07 11:51:04 GMT from United States)
I have noticed the "30 day" phr red "down" arrows for most of the top 25 and further down.
The "7 day" phr also, but that seems to be expected.
Overall, the phr seem down in general but with even more red arrows than previously, it seems.
Is there now a general trend of some sort? Or does this have no meaning at all?
Number of Comments: 352
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Linux Kodachi
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