DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 243, 10 March 2008 |
Welcome to this year's 10th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! This week belongs to the fans of GNOME. The brand new version 2.22 of the popular desktop environment is scheduled for release on Wednesday and everything suggests that we can expect another great set of improvements that will grace the upcoming releases of all major distributions. In the news section, we'll take a quick look at the new features and applications in Mandriva Linux 2008.1, follow the development of the Xfce spin of Fedora 9, pass on a request from Theo de Raadt to test the upcoming OpenBSD 4.3, and link to the freely downloadable DVD images of Yellow Dog Linux 6.0. Finally, while we all await impatiently the first beta release of Gentoo Linux 2008.0, we take a look at some of the exciting new features in the upcoming release of the Gentoo-based Sabayon Linux 3.5. Happy reading!
Content:
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Featured Story |
Entropy - a new package management toolkit for Sabayon Linux
Judging by the project's release activity, the development of Sabayon Linux has slowed down considerably in the last 12 months. The distribution's current stable version (3.4) came out in July 2007, but since then -- apart from a couple of minor updates and the first beta of Sabayon Linux 3.5 in December last year -- seemingly nothing much has happened. Fortunately, the drop in release frequency doesn't correlate well with the actual level of activity at the project. While the development of the next stable version is indeed proceeding at a slower pace than it used to, much behind-the-scenes code, intended to make the upcoming release of Sabayon Linux stand out from the crowd, continues to be written daily. One of these little subprojects is Entropy, a new package management toolkit for Sabayon Linux.
Entropy is described as a package management system that combines the best of Portage, Yum and APT to provide a fast, intuitive and trouble-free solution for Sabayon Linux users. It consists of several tools. The text-mode client called "Equo" was already available in a previous Sabayon Linux release, but the graphical client called "Spritz" is expected to make its first appearance only in version 3.5. Other tools that make up the Entropy kit include "Reagent" and "Activator", which are server applications.
Equo works in a fashion similar to "apt-get" or "yum" when used in a terminal window. One can update the package database with "equo update" and install a new package with "equo install <package-name>". There are also commands for managing package repositories, searching for packages or manipulating the installed package database. Just as with Yum, the Equo package database is powered by SQLite, but it also includes a number of interesting features; as an example, one can install multiple packages inside an archive with a single command or convert Sabayon packages so that they become compatible with Gentoo Linux.
Spritz is work in progress. Not much information is available at this time, but the package is already available in the Sabayon Linux repository. A number of screenshots were recently published on the Planet Sabayon blog, showing the user interface, search function and various dialogs that provide package information.
The Spritz package manager (more screenshots available here)
We should know a lot more about Entropy later this week when the second beta release of Sabayon Linux 3.5 shows up on the mirrors. Fabio Erculiani, the founder of Sabayon Linux explains the reasons behind starting Entropy: "I've been busy for about 13 months working on it and now we are very close to have something that could really change the way users see a Gentoo-based distribution - the Entropy stack. There are still some secondary things missing, like the package masking interface and the Gentoo Linux Security Advisories (GLSA) interface. Non-free licenses will also pop-up and require users to accept their terms. Another cool thing is that I already implemented an "equo security" interface with the promise of creating an official team and a web page dedicated to security within the next 12 months."
Entropy is not the only new feature that the upcoming beta release of Sabayon Linux will deliver. Major improvements to the system installer, a new update notifications applet for the taskbar, support for more wireless network drivers, the new Elisa media player and Compiz Fusion 0.7.2 are just some of them exciting stuff that will be present in Sabayon Linux 3.5. Furthermore, Fabio Erculiani also promises several "secret surprises" - just to whet our appetites.
All in all, there is a lot to look forward to in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here are some interesting links for further reading on Entropy and other Sabayon Linux topics:
Package database: http://packages.sabayonlinux.org/
Entropy manifesto: http://www.sabayonlinux.org/sabayon/press/entropy_manifesto.pdf
Entropy Wiki: http://wiki.sabayonlinux.org/index.php?title=Entropy
Entropy documentation: http://www.sabayonlinux.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=11871
Spritz screenshots: http://planet.sabayonlinux.org/?p=85
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Miscellaneous News |
What's new in Mandriva Linux, Fedora Xfce spin updates, OpenBSD pre-release testing, free download of YDL 6.0
The upcoming release of Mandriva Linux 2008.1 is just a few short weeks away. As such, the development team has updated their 2008.1 What's New page, listing the most important features of the new version. Besides the usual hardware compatibility improvements and package updates, much work has been put into streamlining the Mandriva package management infrastructure. Many of the graphical package update dialogues have been modified, some redundant ones removed and the entire system made noticeably faster and more user-friendly. Some new applications have made their first appearance in the distribution - the unusual Elisa media player and image viewer is one package that could find a decent fan base, while the Avant Window Navigator, a highly configurable Mac OS X-like taskbar, offers some interesting effects to compliment the distribution's other 3D desktop features. And those readers lucky enough to own an ASUS Eee PC will be pleased to know that Mandriva Linux 2008.1 has been tweaked to work on this low cost laptop out of the box. There is a lot more, so do take a look at the upcoming features and improvements in Mandriva Linux 2008.1.
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The Xfce community spin of Fedora 8 has been a great success, but some users expressed disappointment over the missing Fedora artwork from the spin. Luckily, things are about the change and the Xfce edition of the upcoming Fedora 9 should have full integration of all Fedora artwork, desktop icons and other features: "As you can see, Xfce now inherits the same default background as GNOME and KDE and uses the Mist icon set which is also the default in GNOME currently. The hard dependency on xfce-icon-theme from xfce4-panel and Thunar has been dropped in Rawhide. I believe we are supposed to be getting the Nodoka theme but that doesn't appear to be the case yet. There have been some discussions about the default panel layout and there is a lot of different possibilities including a GNOME like layout but we are likely to go ahead with some changes by including the trash, mixer applet in the default top panel. If there is a preference for a specific layout, let us know what (include screenshots preferably) and explain why."
The Xfce spin of Fedora 9 will inherit the project's artwork, theme and icon set (images courtesy of Rahul Sundaram, full image size: 951kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Still on the subject of Fedora, here is nice interview with Max Spevack and Paul Frields, the outgoing and incoming Fedora Project Leaders (FPL) respectively. Paul Frields: "The secret of this job is that there isn't one. I don't think the FPL should go off in a back room, single-handedly invent an amazing new vision for Fedora, and then go around convincing everyone to follow it. I think the FPL is supposed to listen to the contributors who are already leading Fedora in new directions, and figure out how to better build community around those efforts. And of course the FPL should always be doing this in the context of maintaining Fedora's commitment to free and open source software, for everyone, now and always."
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Theo de Raadt, the founder and lead developer of OpenBSD, has announced the availability of a pre-release build of OpenBSD 4.3: "Right about now is a great time for our user community to jump in and do some install and upgrade tests. The 4.3 release cycle is fully in swing, and I hope that I can get it over with soon so that the developers can start work on the bug fixes and new work that can't make it into 4.3." This is the first time the OpenBSD project released testing CD images prior to the final release and solicited beta testers on a public mailing list. If you would like to help, here are a couple of links to the installation CD images for the i386 and x86_64 architectures: i386/install43.iso (207MB, MD5), amd64/install43.iso (222MB, MD5). Happy testing!
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Terra Soft Solutions, the only Linux distribution maker focusing exclusively on developing Linux products for the Power architecture, has released Yellow Dog Linux 6.0 installation DVD as a free download. Originally announced on February 5th 2008, Yellow Dog Linux 6.0 is based on Fedora 6 and includes the Linux kernel 2.6.23, X.Org 7.1, GNOME 2.16, Enlightenment 0.17, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, Firefox 2.0.0.5, and other popular open source applications. The product has been optimised to work on Apple PowerPC G4 and G5, SONY PlayStation 3 and IBM System p. For more information please visit the company's product pages. Download the Yellow Dog Linux 6.0 installation DVD from here: yellowdog-6.0-DVD_20080207.iso (3,799MB, SHA1).
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Released Last Week |
Linux Mint 4.0 "KDE"
Clement Lefebvre has announced the final release of Linux Mint 4.0 KDE Community edition: "Linux Mint 4.0 KDE released. Daryna KDE is nearly as 'minty' as the main edition now. The packages are (safely) up to date and the kernel is the Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon kernel 2.6.22. Mint applications: mintInstall, mintWifi, mintUpdate, mintAssistant, mintUpload. Minted versions of Firefox, Sunbird. Changes since the beta release: fixed the HAL USB NTFS problem; changed some Compiz default settings to make it more 'KDE-ish' and fix a known bug; added a Linux Mint user agent to Konqueror and pre-added some sites to use the Mint user agent. This helps people know Linux Mint is out and about." Read the rest of the release notes for known issues, installation instructions and upgrade notes.
Linux-EduCD 0.9
Linux-EduCD is a distribution developed by Poland's SIMP Studium Techniki, with focus on education, graphics, office and multimedia software and designed for deployment in Polish schools. The newly released version 0.9 is the project's first build based on PCLinuxOS (previously it was based on Ubuntu). This version includes new graphical configuration tools, an option to create a custom live CD/DVD or an image for USB storage devices, improved support for WiFi cards and HP printers, and a range of educational software. The distribution is built on top of a Linux kernel 2.6.22.15, while the desktop is KDE 3.5.8. Also included are OpenOffice.org 2.3.1, PVM, Octave 3, IBM OpenDX 4.4, Firefox 2.0.12, Opera 9.25, WordPress 2.3.3 and VirtualBox 1.5.2. Please visit the project's home page (in Polish) to read the full release announcement and to see a handful of screenshots.
Kiwi Linux 8.03
Jani Mosones has announced the stable release of Kiwi Linux 8.03, an Ubuntu derivative tailored to Romanian and Hungarian users: "The second and last release of Kiwi Linux to be based on Ubuntu 7.10 is ready for download today. Since 7.10 there are a few changes: German language packs are added in addition to English, Romanian and Hungarian; Medibuntu repositories are activated by default, thus Skype, Google Earth and other packages are installable via Synaptic; bug-fix and security updates from the 7.10 archives are up to date; there's a Zenity-based tool on the live CD that helps with restoring the GRUB menu; Inkscape was removed because of lack of space." Read the full release announcement for further information.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- Ophcrack LiveCD. Ophcrack LiveCD is a specialist Slax-based live CD containing Ophcrack, an open source Windows password cracker that uses rainbow tables. The graphical program included on the live CD is reputed for being able to crack alphanumeric Windows passwords of up to 14 characters in usually just a few seconds.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- PA-RISC Linux. PA-RISC Linux is a Debian-based distribution, a native port for Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC architecture.
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 March 2008.
Ladislav Bodnar
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Granular Linux 1.0 Preview (by Chris Zurawski on 2008-03-10 10:45:07 GMT from United States)
Ladislav,
How are you, I e-mailed some notes to you about the upcoming preview release of Granular Linux. The expected date is going to be Friday the 14. But it seems to have been missed. Is there anyway to get it added, or did we submit to late. It is a beta release, but I don't think that matters too much.
Thanks in Advance,
Chris Zurawski
2 • Spritz (by Eric on 2008-03-10 11:25:05 GMT from Canada)
I've been following the package manager Spritz for a few weeks now and Entropy for quite a long time, its is definately an amazingly little piece of work. The way Conary should have been done with all the strengths of source or binary packaging and package version control. It tempts me from sid and FreeBSD, I've been using ophCrack for at least, 1.5 years Ladislav, and it does quite well using rainbow tables for password recovery.
Happy Monday !! ;)
3 • MINT SCREENS+REVIEW, +SABAYON (by moondowner on 2008-03-10 11:31:26 GMT from Macedonia)
Indeed, the development of Sabayon has slowed down.. Considering that it is based on Gentoo, it is obvious why is that so.. I'm not bashing gentoo, my point was only that, when a distro is forked from another one, all the posibilities must be considered.
Anyways, I made a nice review of MINT 4.9 KDE CE, and I posted a lot of screenshots, so if anyone is interested, here is the link: thanks!
http://mklinuxos.blogspot.com/2008/03/news-linux-mint-40-kde-ce-released.html
4 • Sabayon (by Anonymous on 2008-03-10 12:32:44 GMT from United States)
Sabayon with binary packages? Don't you kind of lose the advantages of being based on Gentoo?
As a rule, you should normally use either source or binary on a distro with only a little mixing. Is that true with Entropy?
I've never received an answer so far about where Sabayon fits into the Linux distro world if it is a binary distro. Most of those excited about Sabayon were Gentoo users who started with an easier base than with Gentoo. I installed Sabayon and worked with it for a few days, but finally gave up because I could not see what was the advantage over a distro like Mandriva.
Of course this will be seen here as bashing Sabayon, but I'd really like to know.
5 • Entropy (by dooooo on 2008-03-10 13:27:56 GMT from Jordan)
Interesting article about "Entropy" . I hope It's as good in practice as It is on paper .
6 • Mandriva (by wam on 2008-03-10 13:44:11 GMT from United States)
Mandriva keeps getting more awesome with each release! keep up the great work!
7 • Derivatives (by Anonymous on 2008-03-10 14:21:09 GMT from Norway)
#4, Anonymous, wrote: "I've never received an answer so far about where Sabayon fits into the Linux distro world if it is a binary distro. Most of those excited about Sabayon were Gentoo users who started with an easier base than with Gentoo. I installed Sabayon and worked with it for a few days, but finally gave up because I could not see what was the advantage over a distro like Mandriva.
Of course this will be seen here as bashing Sabayon, but I'd really like to know."
A pertinent question indeed! Sabayon, Mint and a number of other distros are just Yet Another Way of Nibbling at known code (YAWN). Mint might have been a handy substitute to Kubuntu but for the unfathomable decision *not* to produce a 64-bit version...! (Yes, in this day and age.) Sabayon does offer 64-bit, but why would anyone choose a Gentoo *binary* derivative??? A very good question; belonging to the class of rationally unanswerable ones ;)
8 • Entropy (by Sam on 2008-03-10 14:24:12 GMT from United States)
I really don't see much of a problem if a Gentoo-based distro forks significantly down a road towards being a binary distro. If Gentoo users want an active... well perhaps a bit more active distro than Gentoo proper... distro that provides a "pre-setup" version of Gentoo, why not VLOS?
I am looking forward to Sabyon Beta 2 -- could just e the first version of the distro that will actually boot on any of my systems. We'll see.
P.S. Anyone else having problems with CSS formatting and PHP scripts in IE 8? Typing this comment took forever....
9 • Sabayon + Gentoo (by davemc on 2008-03-10 14:24:13 GMT from United States)
"Sabayon with binary packages? Don't you kind of lose the advantages of being based on Gentoo?"
Yes. What precisely is wrong with that?
"As a rule, you should normally use either source or binary on a distro with only a little mixing. Is that true with Entropy?"
Says who? Who made this "rule"? Explain please, why this should not be so.
"I've never received an answer so far about where Sabayon fits into the Linux distro world if it is a binary distro."
Why would anyone give you an answer to such a question? It makes no sense! Sabayon WAS (and kind of still is) based on Gentoo (Source based), but they have forked into a new way of doing things (Source AND Binary). This is how new innovations become the new norm. Fabio has always struck me as someone who wants to take things in a new direction and he has always striven to include bleeding edge techs in the Sabayon releases. Entropy is certainly no surprise to anyone, as he announced it over a year ago. So, what exactly is the problem? Gentoo is, and I suspect, always will stay the same as they seem incapable of change, because that is what pure Gentoo users want. Portage is there for the Gentoo die-hards, and Entropy opens the doors widely for everyone else.
10 • So what about.. (by davemc on 2008-03-10 14:49:41 GMT from United States)
To add to my post #9 above, this whole Source vs. Binary thing is a moot point anyway. Its not like I cant compile source on a binary distro any time I want. I use Ubuntu mostly and compile source on it for about 30% of everything. Simply ./configure, make, sudo (or su) make install, and its done! I have now compiled from source precisely the same as on Gentoo minus the FLAG tweaks. I can do that on Fedora. I can do it on OpenSuSe. Gosh, I can do it on every Binary based distro! How about that?
But I forget that whole, "But compiling from source gives you an extra 0.0000000002% performance boost!" that Source based Distro's give you. I do believe that is true btw. But, I am more than willing to give that up for the ease of use that Synaptic, or YUMEX, or Adept, and now Entropy, gives me!
11 • Mandriva, yes (by Barnabyh on 2008-03-10 14:52:27 GMT from Germany)
An old Mandrake user happy that Mandriva is picking up again. Even deserted my Debian and Zenwalk for it, and I thought I´ld never use .rpm stuff again! Good work. Thanks and all the best.
(BTW, what about hd encryption?)
12 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-03-10 15:04:30 GMT from United States)
>>> Says who? Who made this "rule"? Explain please, why this should not be so.
Because you will end up with problems if you customize things too much. If you only want to compile a few applications you will be fine. This is advice that I have gotten from among other places the FreeBSD forums.
>>> Why would anyone give you an answer to such a question? It makes no sense!
Okay, so I guess you are saying that because it's a new distro we should flock to it, without asking what we gain from doing so. When you're the new kid on the block you need to explain to potential users what you bring to the table.
Sabayon offers a lot of hype, but I'm going to ask where's the beef. Sabayon offers a unique default setup, but beyond that, they still need to explain why we should use their distro. Binary package management is hardly innovative. I can understand the appeal to Gentoo users; I see no reason for anyone else to care.
13 • Small correction (by Adam Williamson on 2008-03-10 15:11:18 GMT from Canada)
On the Mandriva What's New page - Avant and Elisa aren't actually appearing in Mandriva for the first time, though I'm glad my PR-speak was successful in tricking you ;). The page doesn't say this anywhere. They've both been in the distro since around 2007 Spring. Elisa didn't work in 2008, though, for obscure reasons. I wanted to use the space of the What's New page to a) highlight some neat, fairly new applications, b) emphasise that Mandriva does have good packages for this kind of non-mainstream-but-nevertheless-cool application, and c) keep on promoting /backports, which is perfect for this kind of package.
Both apps are significantly *better* in 2008 Spring than they've been before, though. a-w-n has a lot of new features and Elisa was really only borderline useful even when it worked previously; the new release is a lot more 'useful application' and a lot less 'neat tech demo that breaks when you try and do anything useful with it'.
14 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-03-10 15:28:44 GMT from United States)
"Because you will end up with problems if you customize things too much."
Never had any problems and I compile source quite a bit on Ubuntu. It is completely unnecessary to do this, but there are some apps where there is no .deb, and for some other things, I just prefer to compile. I dont think its even possible to "end up with problems" doing it this way except that you need to understand HOW to use the compiler properly.
"Okay, so I guess you are saying that because it's a new distro we should flock to it, without asking what we gain from doing so. When you're the new kid on the block you need to explain to potential users what you bring to the table."
Never said anything like that. Not sure how you could take that meaning out of my posts as they seem pretty strait forward. Sabayon is not a "new kid" anymore. Fabio is certainly no "new kid" either, although he is young. If you dont want to try Sabayon, then dont. I certainly wont twist your arm.
15 • Fear of comparison? (by Davey on 2008-03-10 15:49:12 GMT from United States)
It's always interesting to read about new package managers and such, but I'm left wondering what Entropy offers to tempt me (or developers) away from, for example, apt/synaptic. Seems like the distro partisan mentality might be taking its toll by discouraging reviews that do point by point comparisons of the advantages and disadvantages among apps, especially new ones vs old standbys. There is nothing in the review to tell me why as a contented user of apt/synaptic I should be interested in investigating Entropy.
16 • Re: Fear of comparison? (by Anonymous on 2008-03-10 16:04:09 GMT from Norway)
#15, Davey, wrote: "There is nothing in the review to tell me why as a contented user of apt/synaptic I should be interested in investigating Entropy."
Precisely. We read socalled distro "reviews" which go on and on about new GUI themes, new apps, improved apps etc., but seldom, if ever, get to hear opinions about why *exactly* one app may be preferable to another. Or, preferable in a certain scenario. Having read all the reviews and presentations, the (potential) user is then left to his own devices - i.e. reading up on kilometres of manuals, info and help files and/or installing the application in order to get answers to, often trivial, questions.
Somebody, that is we all, should sharpen up.
17 • #15 - comparison (by ray carter at 2008-03-10 16:06:25 GMT from United States)
I think you miss the point. The package manger development in Sabayon is not intended to "tempt you away from apt/synaptic" - it is an attempt to make management of a Gentoo based distro a little less intimidating. God knows they need it! A few weeks ago I installed the latest Sabayon and it would not do an update without a major incantation. They are definitely in need of improving it. I queried some of the Sabayon forums and was told that the current gui manager is pretty well broken. I manage my own Gentoo system without major difficulty - from the command line, BTW.
18 • Entropy (by Snowman on 2008-03-10 16:23:36 GMT from United States)
I've been using Sabayon for nearly 2 years now. Sabayon offered me everything I needed in a distro so I stopped hoping since. Entropy has worked well for me, been using it for only a few months now. I had gotten used to using portage and Equo (Entropy) is very similar, it does work faster than portage and offers a better way of doing "global" updates. The single fact everyone needs to remember is: everyone thinks their distro is the best, there will always be someone who tells you it's not for some obscure reason. So what? If a distro fills you needs and you can work with comfortably then use it, if not find one that suits your needs. Distro bashing is the sole refuge of the un-enlightened.
19 • Metalinks for ISO downloads (by Ant Bryan on 2008-03-10 16:26:17 GMT from United States)
Some distributions are using Metalinks to list mirrors & download info in a format used by download apps, so their ISO downloads are more distributed and have error correction.
http://www.metalinker.org/
20 • gentoos 0.0000000002% are not bad, but (by freexenet on 2008-03-10 16:53:07 GMT from Germany)
i tried gentoo and several other "non binary" distris. and yes, it seemed to me that they all have been "a bit" faster than debian, which i otherwise used. not neccessary to mention, there are also some very "slow" distris, using them feels like chewing on leather, for example suse. but the fastest thing i've ever seen on my box (core2duo6600) is: sidux. what these (maybe a dozen) guys release is plain awesome. i also learned, that unstable could mean some debian devs, but certainly 'not' debian sid ;)
btw right now im using another very interesting (mostly) debian sid based distro: grml
21 • Re: 4 on source vs binary (by Anonymous on 2008-03-10 17:17:53 GMT from United States)
There is nothing wrong with mixing binary and source based package management. In fact both FreeBSD and Gentoo mix them (yes you can get binaries from portage) up and they still work fine. It doesn't really matter if you compile on your system or outside as long as the package manager keeps track of where the files are installed to.
22 • Sabayon and Packaga Management (by Landor on 2008-03-10 17:39:57 GMT from Canada)
For those that want an easy effortless install it's quite easy to do in Gentoo with a live cd dvd (which is loaded with apps as you'd guess) and the installer without the vaunted Wizard's Cap and Wand coming into play.
I would have liked to have seen something in comparison since in the article it does take a stand that it's making Sabayon far more simple than Gentoo and using portage. Kuroo is a based front-end to portage for KDE users which does make package management a lot easier in Gentoo. I used it twice I think, and my son a few times more than that, though we both prefer portage on the CLI. There's a number of others as well. GUI's for packagement management is nothing new and I find it odd that someone is lauded for reinventing the wheel as a brand new innovation that is actually already there. Shrugs
This is where Linux faulters heavily in my personal opinion. If Sabayon wanted a GUI package management system why not go to the devs of Kuroo, or any other and work with them on improving the current one? No insult to any North American Aboriginals, this is like the old saying "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians".
#20
You're absolutely right. Sidux is blazing fast distro and works very well. Two of the distros I have been most impressed for the last 6 months have been Sidux and NimbleX.
What keeps me with Gentoo is the fact that as a KDE user I can install single apps that normally are bundled with other packages for KDE, and do so with ease. I've yet to find a binary based distro to do the same and I don't like getting 4 or 5 things when I only want 1.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
23 • Just a quick correction (by Fabio Erculiani on 2008-03-10 17:54:23 GMT from Italy)
Have a look :): http://planet.sabayonlinux.org/?p=104
Unfortunately, it was my fault. I wasn't able to answer the DW staff in time :)
24 • re: 22 • Sabayon and Packaga Management (by Landor on 2008-03-10 17:39:57 GMT fr (by cameron on 2008-03-10 17:57:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
>>This is where Linux faulters heavily in my personal opinion. If Sabayon wanted a >>GUI package management system why not go to the devs of Kuroo, or any other >>and work with them on improving the current one? No insult to any North >>American Aboriginals, this is like the old saying "Too many chiefs and not >>enough Indians".
What I'm not sure you're understanding is that Sabayon has the option of using either portage or entropy. For portage package management, there's already access to kuroo, and (IMO) the far superior portato. Entropy is an entirely new facet which allows you to have binary package management for Sabayon. In the same way that kortato and kuroo are gui's for portage, spritz is the gui for entropy - spritz is NOT a new gui manager for portage. Entropy is still usable under command line through the command equo. As far as going to the developers of Kuroo - I disagree. A) Kuroo is portage specific, B) Who better to create a GUI for a NEW package management system than the creator of that package management system.
25 • The truth may not be so clear (by Landor on 2008-03-10 18:19:23 GMT from Canada)
#3
You thought and typed and injected "not as bashing". That could easily be noted as you were well aware you were more than bordering on it with:
"Indeed, the development of Sabayon has slowed down.. Considering that it is based on Gentoo, it is obvious why is that so" (and no, I'm not fanboi-in' it :) )
I really wonder why so many comments are made here about Gentoo's faults with little research or understanding of the actualities of the topic.
Fabio could have easily pulled all of the stable packages he needed to create a current release of Sabayon from Gentoo stable at any time. As I've said before, I could easily have a let's say Gentoo 3.10.2008 version of Gentoo today by doing the same thing. The only differences I would probably incur are not getting anything specific that the devs are including in the 2008i specific release that are in testing. Which is just what Fabio is doing, building specific things, specific goals for the latest release.
From where I sit other than package management and system layout/configuration (and the package management is about to change in the future) Sabayon is it's own distro and vastly different from the Gentoo that I use.
I've truly come to wonder about the credibility here at DWW as of late. I've seen a lot recently and in the past that has caused this. We read an article regarding Ladislav's use of Sabayon and he didn't mention that the fact that Sabayon's make.conf file has almost every use flag in it making compiling times horrendous. Then Ladislav further went on about not wanting to read all the documentation to have to compile a program or two with specific functionality in it. But also, last week I remembered that Ladislav ran BSD for the longest time and so could only guess was perfectly willing to read and understand the documentation regarding flags in the make.conf. Someone used the subject for a post Potkettle.
Not to mention facts that there are GUI's for portage that work. The multiple corrections in the security article.
I could go on but I take things with a grain of salt here now. Just like those should with my posts. If you want to know about something, all the information is there for us to realistically base our own opinions on.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
26 • @ 15 fear of comparison (by Lars on 2008-03-10 19:03:32 GMT from Germany)
That would be a good idea for a DWW, making a packet management system comparison. I tested lot of systems like apt/synaptic, yum, urpmi, portage, pacman/abs , conary. Would like to know all of them perform in comparison. For me, pacman "feels" faster. But that isnt really a objective review.
27 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-03-10 19:05:40 GMT from United States)
>>> I dont think its even possible to "end up with problems" doing it this way except that you need to understand HOW to use the compiler properly.
Yes, it is. If you only compile applications that do not serve as dependencies for anything else you are fine. If you customize something that is a dependency you can end up getting yourself into trouble. You only avoid problems if you compile the dependencies and everything that depends on them and resolve problems as they occur.
That, of course, was not the point of post #4. I've used Sabayon and seen interviews with the lead developer. He certainly has a high opinion of himself vs. all other Linux developers, but that doesn't answer the important question. What does Sabayon offer? Apparently some like to give offensive responses without actually reading the post...I did use Sabayon intensively and saw nothing different about it other than package management. Binary Sabayon brings nothing to the table. I said it. If you want to respond, please offer some facts rather than just trolling. (I wish we could get some adults commenting here.)
28 • "What does Sabayon offer? " (by dbrion on 2008-03-10 19:21:32 GMT from France)
* In a perfect world, where everyone were rational? I do not answer... but is this word so perfect?
* For people who are proud of having a new PC (some of them made it themselves) with 64 bits, a very fine screen, graphic adapter and who are afraid to have things compiled in a consistent way (because they do not know what occupies the machine during such a long time : compiling times are at least 1000 times longer than unzipping , untaring and copying in the right places...) : if they are happy, like one of my neighbors, why not??? => I suppose Sabayon makes some people happy... to show their brand new, expensive PC without having to wait for a long time. As far as package management diversity is concerned, there are not that many (much less than distributions, which are too numerous) but even cars have at least 6 wheels : if you get a flat tyre upon a stone , anail, a root or... you can be very happy with redundancy. Suppose some patents become like nails, bugs like cutting stones, weird delays like roots.... and one can be very happy there are so many package formats..
29 • Karoshi 5.2b released (by technosaurus on 2008-03-10 20:39:40 GMT from United States)
Some amazing improvements in the new release from Karoshi based on PCLinuxOS. The new gui web controls look great. Some really good tweaks to the server setup wizard that allows from a single server setup to a complete distributed network. Although it is designed primarily for schools the system could be used in any number of situations to implement an extremely quick server setup.
30 • Mandrake is great (by Myster Foo on 2008-03-10 21:03:11 GMT from Canada)
I came from Slackware and made quite a few tests before I chose Mandrake. Once the firewall is configured, default security is top, much better than Debian and Ubuntu. It works great in every aspect but now, I'd rather go for KDE than GNOME.
31 • linuxmallorca (by jollyx on 2008-03-10 21:26:51 GMT from Spain)
Hello, Ladislav, I´ve found a distro that looks interesting but there is not too much information on their website. And aside that everything is in català. And it is not listed on distrowatch. What about contacting them and putting that distro on distrowatch?
http://www.linuxmallorca.org
32 • Mint 4.0 KDE (by Soloact on 2008-03-10 22:20:29 GMT from United States)
As an end-user, and still learning, LinuxMint 4.0 KDE version is now my Distro of choice. That's not with KDE 4 desktop, as Mint's site states. Mint 4.0 KDE version "just works", including wifi "out of the box", on all of my different PCs/Lappys. I do wish, however, that there was an option for KDE classic menu instead of Tasty Menu. At least the classic menu includes all of the applications where Tasty Menu doesn't. Just to note, LinuxMint KDE replaces SimplyMEPIS as my Distro of choice.
33 • Mandriva eeePC Support (by Anonymous Coward on 2008-03-10 22:36:02 GMT from United States)
Whoppee! Can't wait to load Mandriva 2008.1 on my eeePC and get rid of Xandros. Tried the last beta and still had to use the ndiswrapper for wireless, so I hope they have that ironed out!
34 • RE: #2 (by Anonymous on 2008-03-10 23:24:36 GMT from United States)
Eric,
You need to re-examine conary if you think there is no binary package support my friend. When I look at Entropy...I see them clammoring to become what Conary already is. They also could have taken packagekit and used it as it is already maturing at a rapid pace and is package agnostic. Instead, they re-invent the wheel.
Take another look at Conary, your comments make it seem as though you haven't looked in quite some time.
35 • Sabayon (by ShakaZ on 2008-03-11 01:44:31 GMT from Belgium)
As i've said here before the only problem i had with Sabayon was it broke everytime i tried doing a full upgrade. So a good binary packet manager will be a blessing for users like me who want the good stuff from Sabayon but aren't Gentoo literate enough to not mess up the system when world-updating.
I see only advantages here, easier and faster updates and all the power of gentoo if needed for example to speed up some critical parts. I won't regret not losing 8 hours or so to compile OpenOffice...
I agree with those mentioning the speed of Sidux, it is indeed blazing fast on this 5 years old laptop since i installed it about a month ago. All those i've convinced to try it have reported the same thing... faster than Windows XP or any other linux distro they had tried on their machine. The Sidux team did a very good job, their User Guide is very helpfull as an introduction to their distro. And their smxi tool is one of the best things i've seen yet, it has already fixed the system quite a few times without needing to lose hours searching for a solution on the interwebs.
36 • Banner Ads? (by Ub-noob on 2008-03-11 03:33:32 GMT from United States)
Is it me, or has anyone else seen Trend-Micro banner ads on this site? Isn't Trend-Micro under a boycott, from the open-source community, for filing a lawsuit against Barracuda Networks?
For all: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/boycottTrendMicro.html
And to Ladislav, please don't allow Trend-Micro ads on your otherwise terrific site.
37 • @32 Linux Mint Daryna KD$ (by welkiner on 2008-03-11 05:16:58 GMT from United States)
It does include the classic KDE menu. Just right-click on panel and choose add to panel. Scroll down until you see the menu you want and click on it. Now you have the classic menu. You can have both! In the Main "Gnome" edition I keep MintMenu on the bottom panel and MainMenu "classic" on the top panel, because each have somewhat different functionality. But in KDE, I agree with you. I much prefer the KDE menu to the Tasty menu, so I always change it first thing.
38 • RE: #34 (by Eric on 2008-03-11 07:18:35 GMT from Canada)
Sorry about my wording, "The way Conary should have been done with all the strengths of source or binary packaging and package version control." meant "The way Conary should have been done. Spritz has all the strengths of source or binary packaging and package version control." It does have those features but they are split statements, and not combined to refer to Conary itself. I mentioned Conary simply from a lack of package database stability from a recent review, I have also not tried it since 1.0 and I have definitely strayed more towards the KDE centric distro's as well. I am slowly getting into the "awesome" window manager instead of a full KDE, but I am still very much in transition. Truly sorry for my wording and accidental implication of relation beyond the stated correction.
Hope I have clarified my intended meaning a little more than the 1st attempt lol. :)
39 • No subject (by joost_op on 2008-03-11 07:57:42 GMT from Netherlands)
#28 You totally missed the point here.
You can see Entropy as a pre-compiled part of portage. The serverside application (reagent/enzyme) work on our build server and can trigger a revision or version bump. Most stuff in there is directly taken from portage, but some packages/ebuilds are taken from our overlay. So all the compiling is done for you on the other side of the internet-line.
Entropy and portage update eachtothers local databases. This means if you are on the portage path in Sabayon, and want to quickly install e.g. deluge portage is aware of the changes made by entropy.
What about use flags? Well both databases hold them, Entropy knows, portage knows. The difference is that ofcourse the entropy packages aren't build against your local use flags (make.conf ). They are build against the "mother-ship-chroot make.conf" in other words, the branche.
.
Another cool thing besides Spritz will be an update notification-icon in the notification area. This will from post-install lead to Spritz/Security update installing.
40 • RE 39 "#28 You totally missed the point here." ...And I go on.... (by Anonymous on 2008-03-11 08:53:43 GMT from France)
"So all the compiling is done for you on the other side of the internet-line. " Does it mean a) it is precompiled (and what is the difference, for an end user, with a bin. distribution?) OR b) the compiling is done dynamically, according to your demand, on a remote server? And what happens, then, if 10 people ask for compilation on the same server? Is it, in thie former hypothesis, ten times faster than compiling locally (and the compilation times can shy away people, rightly -I saw it ... whith a life CD of a former version of Paldo : to read a how to, parts had to be compiled ... every time.....- or wrongly) ? Are the upgrade/adding times predictable? Are there never failures in the holy IT connections (that is a cause of ISP boycott ), and does it never lead to inconsistencies? Then, it must be very great...
41 • Re: #40 (by joost_op on 2008-03-11 09:14:59 GMT from Netherlands)
Ofcourse its not build dynamicly on demand. Wasn't i clear it was build against the branche make.conf?
(o:
The diff? You CAN choose a path. You can go the portage/Gentoo way and use Sabayon as pre-build Gentoo. But you can also use the rich repositories that provide bleeding edge software.
42 • Qu 40 Is being bleeding edge a sign of richness? (by dbrion on 2008-03-11 09:28:35 GMT from France)
"But you can also use the rich repositories that provide bleeding edge software. " * In the nineties, it _was_, as there was more bug corrections than creation/reintroduction ( courageous sys ads who changed propriatory Unix tools to GNU equivalents had always two versions, the latest and perhaps less buggy aand the former, which did not too much despair their users). * But now? is it a pure maketing slogan (and even that can make some users happy : having a wolverine coat is "thought" better, though not warmer, than a rabbit/nylon one) , or can you prove/hint there are some improvements???
43 • No subject (by c0nv1ct on 2008-03-11 09:36:34 GMT from United States)
I'm pretty sure he said "rich repositories that provide bleeding edge software" and not "repositories that provide rich bleeding edge software" a repository being rich doesn't imply bleeding edge is rich.
44 • slackware packaging (by marlon on 2008-03-11 16:11:09 GMT from Italy)
Since 8 years I'm using linux in my business but I can not go too far from debian based distros especially due to apt-get... I would really like a great package manager for slackware too. This is still is main point to compare distros on a daily use..
45 • package managers, boot loaders, and overall uniform Installation (by scott on 2008-03-11 18:06:34 GMT from United States)
Hi,
I love distrowatch and have a few hundred variants of Linux I've accumulated over the last 3 years. I understand Linux is about choice, which is why there are so many different distros to choose from, but what I would like to see is some uniformity in the installation process. It seems like each distro has to have its own installation process some are text based and some are graphical but it usually ends with the same result of either installing Grub or Lilo on the MBR. What I would like to see is some uniformity in the Installation process. Most distros automatically detect if Windows is on the system and create an entry in the boot loader, but few detect other Linux Distros which is just odd, especially when it is not uncommon to have multiple distros on one machine.
As far as package managers go each distro has its own way of handling software installation. Entropy sounds promising for Sabayon and Gentoo fans who want to cut down on the compile time, but is it Yet another YAST? I mean when it comes down to it, it is basically a graphical tool for people who are intimidated by the terminal.
Since package managers are more distro specific it may be difficult to have any uniformity across distros, but when it comes to boot loaders and installation I don't understand why each distro has to reinvent this process. Actually package managers could be uniform too if they would just stick to the old fashion tar ball and make routines instead of .rpm, .deb, etc....
46 • RE 45 : I agree that it is somehow weird (by dbrion on 2008-03-11 18:32:58 GMT from France)
that installers do not recognize other GNU/linux portitions, while re$pecting M$ Window$ one$... but are so many linuxen useful?
Mandriva claims she respects, *now*, other linuxen. But what about BSDs | Solaris portitions, which begin to be popular (and * the price of Vista and * odd safety announces, the way safety is treated in the Linux world, (Linux is as steady as a rock or a Titanic, so why worrying about safety? : it was the main argument 2 weeks ago *here*) and the time lag (> 1 year) to detect some bugs
may lead to increasing popularity of open -non linux- Unixes, at least as multiboats] ...
FYI you want "old fashioned" *.tars, but ... -) *.rpm 's are cpio -based (cpio and tar are almost functionnaly equivalent, AFAIR) and -) *.deb' s are ...ar + gzipped tars based (ar -x TRUC.deb and you will get some tar.xz....) The "only" addition is a way to put them in the right place, and to have the other ingredients installed (and to make the removal process easy, too), but you can extract by hand from rpms or *deb, and do what you like of the libraries/executables.. it sometimes works, at ones own risks and for simple softs, of course...
47 • entropy is rebranded yumex? (by Bobby Hunter on 2008-03-11 18:55:25 GMT from United States)
Has anyone else noticed that entropy looks like a rebranded yumex? I hope they improved on the speed, because yumex is the slowest package manager GUI available. I can't think of a worse choice.
48 • RE: 37 • @32 Linux Mint Daryna KDE by welkiner (by Soloact on 2008-03-11 22:49:01 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the info! It works, but not as well as it would if it was a "default" option for the classic menu. So I have them side-by-side. Cheers!
49 • Frugalware 64 bit f*** up (by mikkh on 2008-03-12 00:39:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
I love final releases that act like alpha bodge ups !
Did anyone actually check this thing? Ghostscript conflicts with ( whatever it was) exiting installer !!
I don't like the tedium of picking individual packages, but if it helps getting it to install..... Removed the conflicting package (the top one)
different problem this time - one wasted DVD heading towards the bin
well done guys
50 • @ 47 (by nobody on 2008-03-12 02:25:40 GMT from Canada)
I haven't tried yumex but it can't be slower than yast. That's because nothing is slower than yast. And Suse in general, is so slow, there is no OS out there slower than that.
51 • Testers needed (by mellosonic on 2008-03-12 04:07:33 GMT from United States)
RocXshoP is a PCLinux live CD based audio production distro with an emphasis on ease of operation, updated USB and Firewire connectivity, and the latest open source Audio/Midi offerings available...We are in need of Testers - whether your new to Linux or an Open Source guru, if you like to create music on your PC then we need you! Go to the website and sign up in our forum to get the latest test iso and updates - thanks in advance - mellosonic
52 • re #47 (by joost_op on 2008-03-12 08:23:26 GMT from Netherlands)
Spritz is forked of yumx.
53 • FrugalWare Kalgan (by capricornus on 2008-03-12 14:39:19 GMT from Belgium)
Again a pity of my download limit: the OS installs easily, the dound booms from your system and my standard PS/2 mouse is not recognized on a very standard system. What a shame, what a loss of time and effort. Another throw away CD.
BTW, I don't like OS' s with kindergarten drawings on the screen.
54 • MilaX 0.2 release (by Bogus on 2008-03-12 15:37:06 GMT from Russian Federation)
DamnSmallSolaris now named as MilaX. Version 0.2 released (http://www.milax.org)
55 • re: 49 and 53 (by DVDRW on 2008-03-12 16:18:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
Have you ever heard of rewritable DVDs and CDs?
56 • Re: Frugalware (Kalgan) (by Anonymous on 2008-03-12 19:03:29 GMT from Norway)
Many thanks to posters 49 and 53!
I had planned to test Kalgan, but you saved me a dubious effort. Sometimes posts in this forum are actually useful ;)
57 • RE 51 : Very primitive tests of RocXshoP : (by dbrion on 2008-03-12 19:20:18 GMT from France)
As I have no musician skills, I did not test her for music production (neither has my computer : it has no speakers...) but I could VMplay her without any trouble : the memory print was 220 M (memsize = "220"), which is rather nice for a modern linux (some need > 350 M to start, and what is left to the user? if he has not a modern computer??).
The Gimp worked (I had issues with it on another linux), the starting menu was static, which give people time to decide and understand (timeouts are not cool at all...) I felt that the possibility of editing the starting line (removing the ACPI, say [ setting the keyboqrd to an exotic one is done after...] would be nice.... but I had some chance with the ACPI. The Belgian and Swiss keyboards were not forgotten.... Perhaps you might think that anyone, (even a musician???), can have to type texts : giving something not too resource greedy, such as abiword, would not be unuseful (RXS-Test2.iso has ca 470 M : there remains room)... Hard disks (at least, virtual ones) were recognised, too, without sufferings... and (comm.49, 53) I did not burn *any* CDROM!!! (for judging (and whining whithout any decency) the presence -if was not the case, here - of broken packages or of ugly, oh ugly drawings, is it *that* necessary)
58 • Frugal Effort @ 55 (by capricornus on 2008-03-12 20:36:57 GMT from Belgium)
Yes I've heard of CD-RW, but even then: % GB download costs me 5 EUR, a CD-R only about 30 EUR-cents. I intend to keep good things, and Frugal Stuff was announced as being good stuff. What a disappointment again. I think only GOOD stuff should be announced as GOOD STUFF.
59 • distrowatch.com/ututo outdated (by Ariszló on 2008-03-12 22:00:36 GMT from Hungary)
The latest Ututo release listed at http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ututo is Ututo 2006.0. There have been two newer releases since then: Ututo XS 2007 and Ututo XS 2007.1: http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu+linux-distros/ututo-e/?C=M;O=D
60 • @50 (by Anonymous on 2008-03-12 22:21:30 GMT from Italy)
"nothing is slower than yast"
Try smart. It is similar to apt, from many points of view.
"And Suse in general, is so slow, there is no OS out there slower than that."
In which century did you try SUSE for the last time?
61 • SUSE bashing (by Ultra on 2008-03-12 23:29:43 GMT from Canada)
It seems a lot of people hold the view that SUSE is slow. In terms of package management I agree, Yast is slow especially when you add several internet repositories. But how often are you using the package manager? And if you want a faster solution than Yast, try the Smart package manager. Does that mean SUSE is slow? In terms of application startup and response I have to disagree 100%. I've tried several other KDE based distros and none compare to how SUSE has optimized KDE. When I click the konqueror button in SUSE, konqueror appears. This how I judge "fast" in a distro. Others such as kubuntu lag for a second or two and then konqueor fires up. Startup time is not too shabby in SUSE either, but I would argue that you can't really compare distros based on startup time unless each has a similarily configured kernel, is configured to start the exact same services and load the exact same modules.
my $0.02
62 • suse (by nobody on 2008-03-13 02:41:15 GMT from Canada)
I stoped using Suse (10.2) about one year ago. There were updates, usually 2-3 packages about two times a week. When that happened it took about 2-3 hours to update the packages on a system that features a 3.5Gz processor with 1.5GB memory. That is definitely not ok. The processor during this time (2-3 hours) was at 100% and my computer was slooooooow. Besides that beagle is a pest. Beagled helper used to start and never stop. My processor used to run at 100% until I killed the beagled and beagled helper. I know beagle is not part of the distro itself. It is not even beagle's fault. It is the mono libraries that are messed up. But is Suse's fault for installing and enabling that pest by default. I switched to another distro (I'll name it if you really want to know) and I find it more user friendly, easier to setup, more customizable and the package manager may not be the best in the world but it is certainly fast and easy to use. Despite all that pain I didn't leave Suse because it was slow. Just like the Vista users that refuse to change it for a faster OS. I left Suse for making a deal with Microsoft. That is something people should not forget. There are better options out there.
63 • RE: 58 Frugal Effort (by ladislav on 2008-03-13 04:30:52 GMT from Taiwan)
I installed Frugalware 0.8 on my test machine (i686 edition) and have had no problems so far. In fact, it's running very nicely indeed :-)
It's always like that - a distro might run perfectly well on one person's box, while at the same time it could be a complete diappointment on another's. If it doesn't work for you, try something else.
64 • RE: 59 distrowatch.com/ututo outdated (by ladislav on 2008-03-13 04:33:57 GMT from Taiwan)
I know. But it's such a mission to extract the package list from Ututo! If you have it installed, please email me the package list and I'll update the page.
65 • #61 (by dooooo on 2008-03-13 11:05:02 GMT from Jordan)
Please , Post your hardware info .
66 • @62 (by Bobby Hunter on 2008-03-13 13:12:29 GMT from United States)
Agreed. Suse's leadership commited treason and should be punished for that. Don't use Suse or any other product from Novell.
67 • #66 novell treason (by ray carter at 2008-03-13 18:20:06 GMT from United States)
1) I do not consider signing a non-agression pact as 'treason'
2) OpenSUSE != SUSE
68 • DistroBash =( (by zed82es on 2008-03-13 20:01:15 GMT from Spain)
#62 I had openSUSE 10.2 in my box, but it wasn't slow at all. To achieve that, you should have read info on forums and guides round internet (like one should do with any distro, also with *buntu). If you had done it that way, you would have known that you shouldn't install rug, zen-network, beagle and mono, you would have used the best package manager for that version (which was Smart), and so on.
openSUSE 10.3 is faster on boot time (than previous versions) and package manager through the command line (zypper) is faster too.
That deal with Microsoft is something Novell signed not openSUSE (which is a community distro). If you don't like that pact don't use Novell products, but don't discourage people from using a community distro which has nothing to do with that.
Like Landor usually says: keep your stick on the ice ...
Distrobashing doesn't help anyone.
69 • bashing suse (by nobody on 2008-03-13 22:29:05 GMT from Canada)
@ 67 A non-aggression pact in not treason, but collaborating with Microsoft is. OpenSuse != Suse. True but Novell is using the community to build the commercial product. The community is helping Novell by submitting patches, testing, reporting bugs, translations. etc. And Novell is helping Microsoft promote its crap in Linux world. I am talking about Mono (C#), Silverlight (Moonlight), OOXML, the patent deal, dll files etc. Every time there is news about Microsoft products in Linux world, Novell is behind it. There is a fable by LaFontaine with a woodcutter that had an axe without handle. He went to cut the forest but he struggled in vain. Then he attached a handle made of wood to his axe. And using the wood he destroyed the wood. Wake up! Let Novell know that it is not ok to collaborate with Microsoft. And I think the best way to do this is by boycotting any Novell product. Suse is still one of Novell's assets. @ 68 It is a positive thing in Linux world to discourage people from using Novell products (OpenSuse included) and to bash any distro that collaborates with Microsoft (Xandros, Turbolinux etc.)
70 • SUSE & MS (by U2 on 2008-03-13 23:56:29 GMT from Canada)
Presumably we all agree that GNU/Linux and OSS are great things...right? If that is true then one day the rest of the computing public will realize that too. And maybe the world's servers and desktops will eventually be dominated by Linux based systems. If that is so, then what will you think of the Novell deal with MS at that time? Did it help or did it hinder? What if we take Novell and SUSE out of the equation now. Will Linux dominate faster or slower. I would argue that it would happen slower. Novell provides a valuable service to the Linux world and give the lay public exposure to Linux. Heck they even have Linux commercials. I haven't seen any Debian or PCLOS commercials...not their fault but unlikely to happen either. Don't be so close-minded about Novell and try to punish them for their deal with the 'devil'. openSUSE is Linux, it is GNU, it is OSS just as much as Debian or PCLOS or *buntu or any other distro. Novell is in the business of making money just like MS, and they are trying to do it using a mighty fine piece of software. Can you imagine them trying to market Linux using a command-line distro...be realistic. Those types of d's are fine in their own right but they will likely always cater to a more specialized/technical market.
If you don't like something about suse, fair enough. But for every one who has a problem with *any* component in SUSE, you can easily find someone else who has a problem with a some component of Debian or PCLOS or whatever distro! No distro has figured out how to work out of the box on every PC and satisy the fancy of every user. But I bet one of the reasons that the top 4 or 5 distros are in those spots is because they manage to work on a lot of PC's and are cool enough to turn the most heads.
71 • @70 (by nobody on 2008-03-14 00:38:47 GMT from Canada)
The thing you don't understand is that it is not true that Novell promotes Linux in Microsoft world. In fact Novel promotes Microsoft in Linux world. Can you see the difference? Linux will not become mainstream, or at least, not faster because of Suse. If you want a business model where a company makes money and plays a clean game take a look at Canonical, RedHat, Mandriva, Debian, etc. I am not closed minded but I have a feeling that Microsoft's intentions with Linux are not good at all.
72 • Who cares what "nobdies" think? (by Read the Real World news! on 2008-03-14 04:05:09 GMT from Australia)
More than 750,000 served: openSUSE is growing nicely http://zonker.opensuse.org/2008/03/05/more-than-750000-served-opensuse-is-growing-nicely/
The dogs bark, the caravan passes! :-)
73 • Re 61 (by Happy openSUSE User on 2008-03-14 04:41:05 GMT from Australia)
61 • SUSE bashing (by Ultra from Canada) I am no expert on Yast because I mainly use SMART package manager, but disabling auto refresh for the repos (at least for the majority of them, with possible exception of the the openSUSE updates repo) might help, IMHO.
And if you want a faster solution, try the Smart package manager. I fully agree! Though I have not tried them, there are other package manager options as well - Yum, Yumex, apt, Synaptic.
Does that mean SUSE is slow? In terms of application startup and response I have to disagree 100%. I've tried several other KDE based distros and none compare to how SUSE has optimized KDE. When I click the konqueror button in SUSE, konqueror appears. This how I judge "fast" in a distro. Others such as kubuntu lag for a second or two and then konqueor fires up.
Well I have been using openSUSE 10.2/10.3 for 18 mths plus and would agree that it is not slow or slower in comparison to other distros. As for Konqueror starting up fast, it is preloaded into memory and thus the reason for quick startups.
Startup time is not too shabby in SUSE either, but I would argue that you can't really compare distros based on startup time unless each has a similarily configured kernel, is configured to start the exact same services and load the exact same modules. my $0.02 Exactly!!! Also, preloading Konqueror into memory as well as loading and setting up the firewall by default, which many other distros ( *buntu, PCLOS, etc) do not do, are just a couple of such scenarios.
74 • Suse Creamcheese (by hab on 2008-03-14 08:07:49 GMT from Canada)
Both sides of the suse/novell/ms deal/debacle? debate have merit. It is still however really just another gnu/linux/kde distro. I prefer not to use suse because it is not particularly to my taste.
The real point though is that opensuze can survive without novell. I doubt the reverse is true.
cheers
75 • I need help (by DBruns on 2008-03-14 12:40:53 GMT from Germany)
Hi, I'm new to this site and I wonder what's up with the popularity ranking on this site. I'm using GNU/Linux since 2000 now -- mainly in a commercial environment -- and I never heard of PCLinux OS, Mint or Sabayon and most others. Amazing.
Anyway, I'm looking for a distribution suitable for a few low-end (900MHz P3M, 256 MB RAM) desktop PCs for a kindergarten (ages 3 to 6) and I wonder what distribution would offer me easy full GUI administration, learning tools and not bog the target machine down to a crawl. It doesn't have to be beautiful looking, but German localization is a must.
Privatly I'm using Debian and think it would be useable but I know that the responsible adults are overwhelmed by it. I took a look at SuSE, Centos, Ubuntu and Fedora but all are too heavy for the PCs. I know this are harsh conditions, but maybe you know something suitable?
Thank you.
76 • Re #75 Need Help (by Glenn on 2008-03-14 13:30:56 GMT from Canada)
Hi. My interpretation of the page hit ranking you see on this site represents curiosity more than actual use of the distros. People will often use those links to redirect them to the distro they are curious about or interested in using at some time. For your use I could suggest Puppy Linux which is small and geared towards older systems. There are many spinoffs of it , many targeting exactly what you plan to do. It may be worth a bit of your time to see what they are doing. I personally think puppy version 2.14 is the one I would start out with. I am not sure of the German component of it but i do not that there are some translations made.
Another you may want to try is NimbleX where you can tailor your distro before downloading it. You can make it as fat or as lean as you like. It is a pretty good concept and fairly good implemtation. I've tried both and they do not disappoint. These a re two suggestions for you to investigate. I hope others will respond to your request with more and probably even better ideas. Glenn .
77 • 76 typo correction (by glenn on 2008-03-14 13:34:07 GMT from Canada)
sorry typo. read "but i do not that there are some translations made" as "but i do know that there are some translations available"
78 • #75 (by dooooo on 2008-03-14 14:25:30 GMT from Jordan)
Give Vector Linux a try .
79 • No subject (by energyman on 2008-03-14 14:27:32 GMT from Germany)
@davemc, comment 10:
>To add to my post #9 above, this whole Source vs. Binary thing is a moot point anyway. Its not like I cant compile source on a binary distro any time I want.
after you installed three douzend 'devel' packets because the binary distros are too cheap to waste one mb of disk space for the headers.
> I use Ubuntu mostly and compile source on it for about 30% of everything. Simply ./configure, make, sudo (or su) make install, and its done! I have now compiled from source precisely the same as on Gentoo minus the FLAG tweaks. I can do that on Fedora. I can do it on OpenSuSe. Gosh, I can do it on every Binary based distro! How about that?
Gosh, you completly missed the point!
Everybody can do configure&&make&&make install. But how do you get rid of the files? All of them?
And that is where the packet manager comes in.
And how about the hassle of setting 10-30 configure options every single time?
Let me ask you something: what is the point of binary distros? They install a lot of crap nobody really needs, but at the same time miss essential things.
>But I forget that whole, "But compiling from source gives you an extra 0.0000000002% performance boost!" that Source based Distro's give you.
that was never really a point. Besides - if you have something like an i686, packages compiled for i686 are indeed A LOT faster than the same ones compiled for i386. And don't forget the P4 - crappiest cpu of all times ....
80 • No subject (by energyman on 2008-03-14 14:30:37 GMT from Germany)
I installed opensuse 10 something on an OLD acer travelmate 6 weeks ago.
After the installation I installed/updated roughly 50 packages.
In less than an hour.
81 • @75 (by john frey on 2008-03-14 15:01:52 GMT from Canada)
I second the already mentioned Puppy Linux and Vector Linux. You could also check out Damn Small Linux, Slax, Sidux (Debian based) and Deli Linux. I have tried all of them and each one is good. Which one is best for you depends on your usage.
There is also a search link at the top of the Distrowatch page. That will let you customize your search to find what you want. You might want to check out education based distros in addition to distros geared towards older machines.
Welcome to Distrowatch. :)
82 • RE 75 Did you try ...Skolelinux? (by dbrion on 2008-03-14 15:17:02 GMT from France)
"I'm looking for a distribution suitable for a few low-end (900MHz P3M, 256 MB RAM) desktop PCs for a kindergarten "
From memory, it is called also Debian-edu => you wonot change your habits... and her name is not that appaling/shying away, even in German. I tried under VMplayer in July, 2007 (and I did not give her that much memory : I have a somwhat old PC and Windows and VMplayer need som RAM for going on working) and found her easy to configure and very pleasant to install (I am rather biased in favor of rpm-based or source based OSes ) and add my fav. packages => if I break one of my laptops, or if the prices of PC risk to stop getting lower and lower, , she remains one of the candidates for the next one (as teachers may be fully computer illiterate- : it is not their job-, Skolelinux was likely made very simple)..
BTW, as Glenn pointed it out -I hope I do not too much betray /twist his thought- , DW Page Hits ratings are not at all an indicator of quality, of suitability for a (any, if one wants to be somewhat unkind I*My* O) given purpose (Skolelinux is not even among the 100 most curiosity provoking distros, but is in DW well kept databases).
83 • #75 'low end' distro (by ray carter at 2008-03-14 16:05:46 GMT from United States)
IMHO 900 mhz is not that bad. I have half a dozen machines slower than that all running Ubuntu quite nicely - though they all have at least 512mb RAM. Increase the memory a bit and you can run pretty much any Linux distro you want.
84 • about Suse (by nobody on 2008-03-14 16:42:50 GMT from Canada)
The point is not about Suse's survival. Suse was fine before Novell bought it. I'm sorry for the Suse community but their distro belongs to a company that collaborates with Microsoft. As long as Suse remains Novell's property I suggest that Linux users should boycott it just like they should boycott any other Novell product.
85 • #84 - collaborate (by ray carter at 2008-03-14 16:46:55 GMT from United States)
I your intent is to boycott every company that does business with MS, you must have rather slim pickings. Consider: Dell, Gateway, HP, Apple, Intel, AMD, VIA . . .
86 • boycott Suse (by nobody on 2008-03-14 17:10:07 GMT from Canada)
Yes, boycott them all if that's possible. If there are hardware companies that don't collaborate with Microsoft then buy from them. If all companies collaborate with Microsoft then buy from the ones that collaborate less. If there are distros that do not collaborate with Microsoft then use them.
87 • @85 (by john frey on 2008-03-14 17:20:20 GMT from Canada)
You're being ingenuous. None of the other companies you mentioned are software companies like Novell. They are all hardware companies. Novell and all their products should be avoided by anyone interested in software freedom. Open API's and technical specs from the companies you mentioned are still too few but it's getting better.
Microsoft's method of operations is well documented and particularly well described by the term "embrace and extend". That is when they don't simply by a company to stop development of a competing software. That would not work with Gnu/Linux of course so we can anticipate all manner of illegal and unethical tactics to emanate from Microsoft. Anticipating anything less, from a company that is convicted in many courts of law for anticompetitive and monopolistic abuses, would be foolishness in the extreme. We know how they operate and we don't get in bed with them.
My apologies to all opensuse users out there. I know it is a good distro and I sympathise with your plight.
88 • @84 (by energyman on 2008-03-14 17:27:07 GMT from Germany)
please also boycott all projects who are supported (financially, man power or both) by Novell.
Like the linux kernel, glibc, gcc, gnome, kde, Xorg, ATI drivers, ....
not much left to use....
Your 'boycott this and that' is stupid. MS is a big corporation with shady ethics.
Newsflash: they all are. Dell, IBM, Sun, they all have a less than flawless history.
At least Novell gives something back to the community. Unlike Ubuntu which is only a parasite.
89 • Low-End Computing (by DBruns on 2008-03-14 17:32:19 GMT from Germany)
Thank you all for your recommendations.
A quick perusal of the suggestions isolated some promising distributions, among them Deli Linux, Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux. Damn Small Linux seems to offer the best GUI tools for configuration, Deli Linux seems to be the slimmest of the bunch and Puppy Linux a happy medium. I'll try all of them over the next few days, thank you again.
RE #83 The PCs in question are refurbished Compaq Presarios donated by a local lawyer bureau and I'm chipping in the time to set-up these machines. There is neither money nor the required RAM slots in the machine to upgrade them. Also, most notably, while adults bear the sluggish behaviour of their machines, little children seem to be far less forgiving. Therefore, the quicker the OS reaction, the better.
90 • @ 88 (by nobody on 2008-03-14 17:46:53 GMT from Canada)
The few good things Novel does do not cover the bad ones. And there are others like RedHat that contribute more than Novell. And I didn't say "boycott the projects supported by Novell", I said: "boycot Novell and its products". There is a difference between products and supported projects. Do you notice it?
91 • @90 (by energyman on 2008-03-14 18:33:52 GMT from Germany)
so, boycott compiz, which was a Novell 'project'. XGL, Mono, NetworkManager, the new ATI drivers. And maybe gnome.
btw, your world view is pretty strange. One little contract that hurts no one, makes Novel business users sleep well and is a juristical trap for MS is 'bad'? So bad that it offsets the hundreds of thousands, mabye millions, Novell spent so far on Linux?
Really, you are funny.
92 • boycott Suse more (by nobody on 2008-03-14 18:50:39 GMT from Canada)
Yes boycott them all if they are projects initiated and developed by Novell. That contract is not a little one, because it justifies Microsoft claims! Novell should have stayed its ground like RedHat, Canonical, Mandriva, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo and the others. By caving in Novell creates a precedent. That's a huge step back because Novell is one of the first to do so. If they were the last ones to accept the deal, then no problem. But they are the first big Linux company to do that. That is not acceptable. Novell didn't spend not even one cent for Linux. Novell spent for itself. And is using OpenSuse for itself, for the commercial Suse.
93 • #75 Distro for older machines & german localization (by Anonymous on 2008-03-14 20:19:40 GMT from Germany)
Try SAM-Linux !!
94 • to Adam Williamson (by Killer1987 on 2008-03-14 20:40:48 GMT from Italy)
"c) keep on promoting /backports, which is perfect for this kind of package."
maybe you think in a different way about backport repositories from your colleagues, buy your team has to make a decision. a backport update of intel driver has broken my (and many other) systems, i opened a bug report but after a week none was happened. people said me that backport repositories weren't officially supported, but in the while other systems were corrupted. i had to write an e-mail on cooker mailing list to remove that package. if you promote backport repositories you have also to manage them and to resolve problems when they happen
good work for 2008.1 release
Marcello
95 • Novell/SuSE/Ubuntu (by @88 on 2008-03-14 21:01:57 GMT from United States)
I don't feel Ubuntu "leeches" off of anything - one thing Ubuntu did VERY well was bring Linux to people who may have never tried it otherwise, due to it's sheer popularity. Is it my favorite disto? No, do I use it, yes! I use it's quicker for me to set up and maintain - I'm at the point I just want/need to use my PC, not be fiddling around w/ it all the time. Ubuntu works very well for me - I know Debian, and I know Ubuntu and I do anything I want, and tweak anything I want quickly and easily.
Suse on the other hand does "leech" it "leeches" the very life out of my PC - It's the only distro I've ever tried that I litterally think of in the terms of "bloated" - and this is on an AMD64x2 w/ 4GB of RAM - Ubuntu flies, Suse drags - wonder why? Not to mention if I want to install a small package, it will end up taking 10 min to install a 500k file - that's nuts!
96 • 95 (by Ultra on 2008-03-14 22:31:53 GMT from Canada)
Obviously your rig is of a configuration that SUSE just doesn't work on. Like was said before, not all distros work on all h/w. My machine is a $68 1.2MHz Mini-ITX board with 1GB ram, no hard drive, I have SUSE installed on a 4GB USB Sandisk Cruzer and it flies. I baptized the same rig on Ubuntu because I thought it might be a leaner choice for the 4gb drive, but Nautilus kept randomly freezing my machine up solid. So I installed SUSE, trimmed the packages being installed (to less than Ubuntu's payload btw) and have a super sharp diskless, noiseless PC that suits my needs.
97 • No subject (by energyman on 2008-03-15 05:13:33 GMT from Germany)
redhat was in talks with MS itself - and only stopped after the outcry by the groklaw crowd became too loud. Btw, they only suspended the talks, not scrap them. Novel itself said that they don't accept MS claims. And the business users like it. And to be honest - a bunch of ubuntu using home users can scream all day long. Novell in the mean time gets new opportunities like in France.
And Ubuntu? It IS a parasite. How many kernel devs are paid by Ubuntu? glibc? gcc? X? kde? Ubuntu is known to not send their patches upstream - bad behaviour.
Face it, Ubuntu is a very bad citizen. And flooding linux boards with idiots doesn't really help linux.
98 • @97 (by Anonymous on 2008-03-15 09:12:30 GMT from United States)
Apparently it isn't only me who hates Ubuntu with a passion: it is absolute crap as an OS, every release worse than the previous. And it has been a very bad citizen from the beginning, forking Debian, taking everything and giving absolutely nothing in return. But the worst bit are the M$ n00bs who try Ubuntu and then say: "I tried Linux but it was crap", as if Ubuntu were the only Linux.
99 • @97 I almost agree with you (by dbrion on 2008-03-15 10:09:12 GMT from France)
"And Ubuntu? It IS a parasite. How many kernel devs are paid by Ubuntu? glibc? gcc? X? kde?" But what about UBUlinux support for ....kde??
UBUlinux is not user oriented (unless they are very skilled, to fix it) but , like advertising junk papers you can find in a classical mail box, to be told about ... thus, many releases, to keep the web buzzing... There are even paper linux journals (Linux Pratique, in France ...according to one last year front page -I did not go beyond-) who *sell* Betas versions of UBUlinux (the implicit assumption being there is no difference with the final one... Hourrah, cornes au cul, vive le Père Ubu (Jarry, ca 185 , la chanson du décervelage).
100 • @97 (by john frey on 2008-03-15 18:54:43 GMT from Canada)
I am another one who doesn't care to argue with what you say about Ubuntu.
I'm going to pick on your version of events regarding Red Hat. The Groklaw crowd did not start screaming until after the MS-Novell agreement came out. RH had already "suspended" talks at that point.
There is a point at which deals with MS by Linux distros will be acceptable. I would argue that we still have not reached that point. When MS is at the same level on the desktop as they are on servers then we can start making deals. Until then all these deals seem to do is provide Linux backends to Windows desktops/Office/Exchange. There will be no change to the monopoly if we can't break into the desktop.
Let's see how the XP eeepc fares compared to the Xandros eeepc in the next year. If they can compete then we might be on the way to breaking the monopoly. Once we do that freeing software will still be a long struggle but it will happen for sure.
101 • @94 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-03-15 23:47:42 GMT from Canada)
I already organized the removal of that driver from /backports.
The intent of /backports is not that you should blindly install every package that's sent there, but that you should enable it, install a specific package you want, and then disable it again. That's what the official Wiki says and that's why they come disabled by default. If you graphics card was working fine, why update the driver?
102 • Dreamlinux Install (by Chris on 2008-03-16 04:11:42 GMT from United States)
I ran into a problem during the initial update of dreamlinux. ( new version, version 3, rc 3 ) Twice I was asked whether to use the package maintainer's version of a configuration file or to keep the version written during the original install. The words 'XML' and 'parsing' were used in the description of the config file. I must have answered wrong, because the next day I had to run 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' and the error message used the words 'XML' and 'parsing'. The install was useless. I installed Mandriva One Gnome 2008 over the dreamlinux partition. chris.
103 • @97 energyman (by anon on 2008-03-16 04:12:07 GMT from United States)
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no "ubuntu fanboy" - I do happen to run Ubuntu on my rig simply because it's a widely used distro, and to me anyway, it's like debian only with more polish and updated packages (don't shove sidux down my throat, I'm a GNOME guy, and sidux is far from GNOME oriented, and don't tell me GNOME sux, use KDE, because I'm not going to switch).
Now - that said, Jonathan Ridell is very involved in KDE, actively submits back to KDE, and is the project leader for Kubuntu, plus Canonical provides monetary support to the KDE project. Same goes for GNOME, Ubuntu has been a long time sponsor of the GNOME desktop project, and check out the blogs of folks on Planet GNOME, and see just how many of the GNOME developers are running Ubuntu - also check out some of the interviews on the GNOME journal and the People behind KDE series, and see how many of the GNOME and/or KDE developers on those two sites are running Kubuntu and/or Ubuntu.
Why? They aren't trying to be geeky by using some obscure distro that only the 1337 h4x0rs know about, and they need a system that just works, plain and simple. They don't have the time nor the desire to constantly tweak and work on their rig to get their work done.
There are plenty of folks on Suse, Fedora and Mandriva - those are all fine distro's, I cut my teeth on RedHat/Fedora, moved to Slackware and finally fell in love w/ the .deb and apt so I won't be going back to Suse, Fedora or Mandriva simply because I personally have been bitten by RPM hell in the past, and I'm not going there again (don't try to convince me otherwise).
Just remember there are people out there that use their computer, not their operating system, and they just want it to work, and they want to be free, and Ubuntu fills that bill for a lot of people.
YMMV. I'm wearing a fire suit, so your flames will not harm me :-)
104 • @103 (by Anonymous on 2008-03-16 05:52:30 GMT from United States)
"I do happen to run Ubuntu on my rig simply because it's a widely used distro, and to me anyway, it's like debian"
That is exactly one of the problems, Ubuntu is not like Debian at all, It is a mockery of Debian.
"(don't shove sidux down my throat, I'm a GNOME guy, and sidux is far from GNOME oriented, and don't tell me GNOME sux, use KDE, because I'm not going to switch)"
Who told you to use Sidux? Why not use Debian Proper (Lenny) instead? It is stable now and and bleeding edge.
If you want a Debian, Gnome based distro, try Parsix, it is what I use.
105 • @ 101 (adam williamson) (by Killer1987 on 2008-03-16 13:38:28 GMT from Italy)
because i think that if those packages have been ported it means that there are relevant advantages to update them. backport repositories are meant to provide users the newer packages to keep their system always up to date, not to resolve previous problems. for this tasks there are already updates reposiries, or not?
106 • @104 (by Anonymous on 2008-03-16 15:43:02 GMT from United States)
Seriously, I just started reading the comments here recently, and I have to ask - is everybody that posts here 12 years old?
C'mon - I don't care if you use Parsix, and I'm not going to try it just because that's what you use - do you think you are a Linux god or something? I sure don't!
Trying to use Lenny is a mess (or any variant of Debian Testing), and if you knew ANYTHING about running a Debian system, you would know that. It's always better to run Sid, as Testing is seldom "complete" - Sid, is always complete, yet you have to be careful with upgrades.
I ran Debian Sid for years, until I started running Ubuntu, and Ubuntu made things so much easier it isn't funny.
Who flippin' cares what distro someone uses? Ubuntu made Linux popular again, that's what counts. It doesn't matter what distro someone is using, and you shouldn't go around knocking it - that's as bad as the PCLos guys that show up everywhere trying to get people to try their crap distro - nobody cares - just use linux, shut up and be happy!
It's like you are trying to validate your choices - who cares! Use what works for you and let others use what works for them.
107 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-03-16 20:02:23 GMT from United States)
"Trying to use Lenny is a mess (or any variant of Debian Testing), and if you knew ANYTHING about running a Debian system, you would know that. It's always better to run Sid, as Testing is seldom "complete" - Sid, is always complete, yet you have to be careful with upgrades."
Oh, it is me who knows nothing about Debian! Debian STRONGLY advises AGAINST using Sid, it is TOTALLY UNTESTED. As to Debian Testing being not complete, that is the case only in the first months after a release, but at least it has TONS fewer bugs than Sid, having gone through a round of tests.
"I ran Debian Sid for years"
And I ran Debian Testing for years, since the early Libranet years (Libranet WAS based on Testing). Now I have no reason to use a (poor) imitation. But you do as you please, of course.
108 • RE 106 : UBU linux arguments.... (by dbrion on 2008-03-17 07:40:41 GMT from France)
"Ubuntu made Linux popular again, that's what counts" And Micro$oft Windows made "computing" popular; Does popularity *really* count?? Not offering bugs seems more important.
"just use linux, shut up and be happy! " What about BSD derived (Macs, say); Solaris derived? (they could work for years without needing to "up"grade? safety linked bugs were detected in due time). One is more likely to be happy with such OSes, once HW is recognised (and they make progresses : what seems to "work" (and MS Windows works.... for many people, not for a long time as bugs appear....) to day may become sooner or later obsolete, which makes "paragmatic" arguments a short sighted intellectual wreck).
"shut up" is likely the most interesting conception of the UBU world...
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• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
• Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
• Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
• Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
• Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
• Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
• Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
• Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
• Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
• Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
• Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
• Full list of all issues |
Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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Random Distribution |
Protech
Protech was a specialist, Ubuntu-based live and installation CD designed primarily for security technicians and programmers, but it can also be used as a day-to-day Linux operating system. Among its most interesting features are the inclusion of a great variety o security tools and a well-designed, light-weight Fluxbox desktop.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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