 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 255, 2 June 2008 |
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Welcome to this year's 22nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly! One of the best-known and most widely-used features of FreeBSD, its CVS infrastructure designed to store all of the operating system's and userland's source code, was finally given boot last week when it was replaced with Subversion. What will this major switch mean for the FreeBSD user community? While on the surface not much will change in the foreseeable future, eventually everybody will need to get used to a new way of performing source updates. In other news, Novell reports better than expected revenue from its Linux business, Ubuntu plans universal connectivity in Intrepid Ibex, Fedora reports on the progress of integrating KDE 4 into the distribution, and BLAG's Jeff Moe explains why he continues to remove all non-free "blobs" from the Linux kernel. Also not to be missed, a first-look review of openSUSE's Zypper, probably the most advanced and comprehensive package management utility on the market. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the DistroWatch.com May 2008 donation is the FileZilla project. Happy reading!
Content:
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
openSUSE package management with Zypper
 Although openSUSE (and SUSE Linux before) has had a comprehensive package management infrastructure for years, a brand new package management option was introduced in openSUSE 10.3. Called Zypper, this command-line utility has all the ingredients of other successful package managers, such as apt-get, urpmi or yum. Not only is it much faster than any graphical tool can ever be, it has the additional advantage of being available for use in scripts. I tested the utility on the current development versions of openSUSE 11.0 by using it exclusively for synchronising an installed openSUSE system with the distribution's "Factory" tree in regular intervals.
The installed system was the third beta release of openSUSE 11.0, the i386 edition, installed from the standard installation DVD. I expected to be able to use the distribution's normal upgrade mechanisms for synchronising the installed system with Factory, but surprisingly, this didn't work as expected. The reason was that, unlike Ubuntu or Fedora which automatically configure their update utilities to point to their respective development branches, openSUSE's beta releases aren't set up to follow the development in this manner. Instead, the openSUSE update sources all point to an (as yet unavailable) 11.0 final update directory.
That said, it isn't particularly difficult to modify the relevant configuration in openSUSE in order to make it point to the Factory tree. First, remove all the existing repositories (type zypper repos to see a full list) with zypper rr alias. When done, adding the Factory repositories can be accomplished with the following commands:
• zypper sa http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source/ oss
• zypper sa http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/SL-Factory-non-oss/inst-source-extra/ non-oss
Now if you run zypper repos again, you should get an output similar to the one pictured below:
Zypper lists all package repositories in a nice tabular format.
Once setting up the Factory repositories is completed, updating the entire distribution to the latest development build is done with the following commands:
• zypper refresh
• zypper dist-upgrade
As is often the case with command-line package management tools, they come with a large number of options and arguments that can make the update process go so much smoother. As an example, if your installation includes non-free software, you will need to agree to their software licenses before installing (or upgrading) any such packages. This can be avoided with the zypper update --auto-agree-with-licenses command. Similarly, you can avoid having to confirm certain tasks with zypper --non-interactive update. Some of the other available options include searching for packages or exporting a complete package list into a text file in order to re-import it on another computer. Many of the commands come with extra options, which can be found in the program's comprehensive online documentation.
During my usage of Zypper over the past couple of weeks, I've learnt to appreciate the convenience it provides to the end user. There is not doubt in my mind that Zypper is the most powerful package management utility available today, with many useful options and arguments that do not exist elsewhere. While its apparent complexity could be seen as discouraging at times, once you take the time to learn the tool and to understand its intricacies you will undoubtedly appreciate the effort openSUSE developers have put into creating Zypper. It's an excellent tool for all those who wish to follow the development of openSUSE 11.0 without having to re-install the system after each alpha or beta release.
For more information:
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| Miscellaneous News |
FreeBSD moves to Subversion, Novell reports growing Linux business, Ubuntu plans universal connectivity, Fedora outlines KDE plans, BLAG and Granular interviews
  There can't be many FreeBSD users who are not familiar with the project's omnipresent CVS infrastructure, including its famous "cvsup" and "csup" commands. Times are changing, however. Last week, after some 12 years of usage and nearly 180,000 commits, the FreeBSD project officially switched to Subversion: "The day has finally come - FreeBSD is using Subversion instead of CVS for the base source tree! Congratulations to everyone involved, especially Peter Wemm. This move was discussed extensively during the DevSummit at BSDCan 2008; there have been many issues with CVS over the years, most of which are minor enough to be overlooked, but some of which are just nasty (the inability of CVS to move/rename files, bad handling of branching in the event of constant new development and additions to the directory tree, non-atomic commits) and have frequently required manual interventions in the CVS repository." Of course, the big bang switch to Subversion doesn't mean that "cvsup" and "csup" will stop working instantly, but those users who are just starting with FreeBSD or those who wish to move ahead with times should start learning about "svnsync" and other, more modern tools.
* * * * *
 Reporting the financial results for its second fiscal quarter of 2008, Novell announced that its Linux business was up by 31% when compared to the same period of the previous year: "Novell saw its Linux business top US$29 million in its second fiscal quarter of 2008 (US$30 million in total Open Platform Solutions revenue), up 31 percent over the same period a year ago, with other business units also seeing healthy growth. Only its Workgroup business unit continues to founder, down 1 percent in the period that ended April 30." In the meantime, the continued rivalry between Novell and its main Linux competitor, Red Hat, continued to generate some interesting exchanges. Replying to a question about Red Hat's exit from the desktop market, Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian remarked last week: "I wouldn't attribute any of it to them exiting the market because technically, they would have had to put a product out there to enter the market, which they never got done." Both vendors continue to focus on the established enterprise business, rather than attempting to develop offerings for a mass-market, commercially-supported Linux desktop for consumers, concludes InternetNews in its report.
* * * * *
 Barely a few weeks have passed since the release of Ubuntu 8.04, but ITWire has already launched a discussion about the likely features in Intrepid Ibex, Ubuntu's next release, due in October 2008: "Ubuntu, arguably the most popular Linux distribution today, came out with its 8.04 release last month, dubbed Hardy Heron. That's passé now; here's the low down on what the future holds this October with Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex." So what is likely to receive plenty of attention? Universal connectivity: "The intention of pervasive Internet access on trains and the like also suggests support must be included for increasingly-popular 3G modems. I struggled to make my Telstra NextG modem work with my ASUS Eee PC; it required a lot of 'modprobes' and recompiling of kernel sources. Imagine how tremendous it would be to replace the custom ASUS edition of Xandros with Intrepid Ibex and have a tiny super-light ultra-portable laptop that works anywhere."
* * * * *
 The KDE desktop implementation in Fedora has been a hit and miss in all of its recent releases, but never more obvious than in Fedora 9 where the only option is the feature-incomplete KDE 4.0.3. Luckily, the Fedora developers are aware of the problems and keep working on acceptable solutions. Rahul Sundaram: "The many interface changes bring their own set of problems. Icons and files on the desktop only have rudimentary support by design, yet there is no better replacement ready. You cannot drag and drop or copy paste files, nor can you use the context menu to open a file with a alternative program. When you delete icons from the desktop, they are not actually deleted but merely hidden for the current session and reappear on your next login. Panel widgets cannot be relocated within the panel easily. There is no way to remove the plasmoid handler from the desktop. With the Oxygen theme, the difference between an active window and the passive windows are too subtle."
* * * * *
 Finally, two interviews with the project leaders of two distributions which don't often find themselves featuring in the headlines, but which certainly have their dedicated followers. The first one is a talk with Jeff Moe, the founder of the Fedora-based BLAG Linux And GNU: "Jeff Moe is a 37-year old self-employed father. Better known as 'jebba', he is the main developer behind the 100% free distribution BLAG (for BLAG Linux And GNU). He is also leading a couple of other Free software projects." One of the special features of BLAG Linux And GNU is its kernel, specially modified to remove any non-free "blobs": "Q: gNewSense has just released a new version based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron. They chose to replace Ubuntu's kernel with 'linux-libre'. Has any other distribution (Ututo maybe?) shown interest in using your kernel? A: Alexandre Oliva (Red Hat compiler engineer) has shown interest in getting it into Fedora. I'm not sure what's up with Ututo, but dyne:bolic will almost certainly use it in their next main release. I talk to 'jaromil' from dyne:bolic and Brian Brazil from gNewSense frequently."
* * * * *
 The second interview is with Anurag Bhandari, the founder and project leader of the PCLinuxOS-based Granular Linux: "Q: What exactly is Granular Linux? What does the name Granular signify?A: Granular is an easy-to-use Linux distribution aimed at desktop users and newbies in the world of Linux. It can also be a good choice for regular Linux users. The name 'Granular' signifies one of the reasons behind the creation of this distro, that is, 'customizability'. Granular was intended to be able to get easily customized by the end user. An overall customization can only be achieved by customizing the individual components (granules). And for that, KDE is an excellent option, combined with the various options provided with Granular. Hence the word Granular." And a little personal info about the founder of Granular Linux: "I am a computer engineering student heading towards my fourth and last year at the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, India. I am pursuing my B.Tech degree there. I am a resident of Jalandhar, Punjab."
Granular Linux 1.0 preview offers a sneak peek at the upcoming version 1.0, due for release next month.
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| Released Last Week |
Bluewhite64 Linux 12.1 "Live DVD"
Attila Craciun has announced the availability of the "LiveDVD" edition of Bluewhite64 Linux 12.1, an unofficial port of Slackware Linux to the x86_64 architecture: "I am delighted to announce the availability of Bluewhite64 Linux 12.1 'LiveDVD' and Bluewhite64 Linux 12.1 'LiveUSB'. The new Bluewhite64 Linux 12.1 LiveDVD includes the stable SMP Linux kernel 2.6.24.7 with advanced features and performance. The LiveDVD is designed to bring a modern Linux desktop to the AMD64/EM64T architectures; it includes a modularized X.Org 1.4.0.90 (7.3) with Compiz, the award-winning KDE 3.5.9 in 65 languages, OpenOffice.org 2.3, Firefox 2.0.0.14 (Flash-ready) and Konqueror (Flash and Java-ready) web browsers, Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 and KMail 1.9.9 mail clients, Swaret 1.6.3 and Qtswaret 0.1.5 package managers, IA32 emulation to run 32-bit programs, and many more server and desktop programs and tools." Here is the full release announcement.
SystemRescueCd 1.0.3
SystemRescueCd 1.0.3, a Gentoo-based live CD designed for disk partitioning and data rescue tasks, has been released. From the changelog: "Updated the default kernel to Linux 2.6.25.4 with Reiser4; updated the alternative kernel to Linux 2.6.24.7 with Reiser4; switched from Unionfs to Aufs (another union file system); boot from network via PXE or with docache now works with as little as 256 MB of RAM; updated the btrfs file system support to 0.14 (kernel patch and utilities); updated the graphical environment to xorg-server version 1.4; updated NTFS-3G to 1.2506 (NTFS full read and write support); updated GParted to 0.3.7; improved fonts in the graphical environment (X.Org and Xvesa); added support for 256-byte inode in ext3 file system in GRUB 0.97; added a PDF viewer (ePDFView); fixed shell problem with the serial console."
Epidemic GNU/Linux 2.1
Epidemic GNU/Linux is an easy-to-use, Debian-based desktop distribution created in Brazil. An updated version 2.1 was announced yesterday. With this release, the project's developers focused primarily on bug fixes, stability and speed improvements, and general polish. Some the improvements include: Easy Channel, a graphical utility for installing proprietary applications and non-free media codecs; Enetwork, a network configuration tool; a new version of the Epidemic installer; integration of Compiz Fusion with several 3D plugins; an i686-optimised Linux kernel 2.6.24 with a number of patches for wireless network cards and other hardware devices; improved support for webcams; Aufs file system on live CD; read-write support for NTFS partitions; various artwork and theme updates. Please visit the distribution's home page (in Portuguese) to read the release announcement and to take a look at some screenshots.
Epidemic GNU/Linux - a Brazilian desktop distribution based on Debian's testing branch
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Foresight Linux 2.0.2
Ken VanDine has announced the release of Foresight Linux 2.0.2, an rPath-based desktop distribution featuring the latest GNOME technologies: "Announcing the release of Foresight Linux 2.0.2 GNOME edition. Some highlights: GNOME 2.22.2; GNOME Display Manager 2.22; 2.6.25.4 kernel; NetworkManager, more stable than ever; Mono 2.0 beta (now uses less memory); Banshee 1.0 beta. Foresight GNOME edition is a Linux distribution for your desktop that features a rolling release schedule that always keeps your desktop up to date; a revolutionary package manager, Conary; the latest GNOME desktop environment and an innovative set of excellent, up-to-date packages." Read the release announcement and release notes for further details.
DeLi Linux 0.8.0
Henry Jensen has announced the release of DeLi Linux 0.8.0, a light-weight desktop distribution designed for computers with as little as 32 MB of RAM: "DeLi Linux 0.8.0 is the next big step and the first release of the 0.8.x branch. The main focus of the 0.8.x series will be internationalisation. The biggest changes are: switched to UTF-8 as the default encoding; dropped GTK+ 1.x, switched to GTK+ 2.x (2.10); switched to the 'pacman' package manager (from Arch Linux); Netsurf or Skipstone as web browsers; AbiWord 2.4.6 with ODT plugin and Gnumeric 1.6.3; Linux kernel 2.4.36.4, now with LSI Logic support (important for VMware guests). Unfortunately, the hardware requirements had to be raised: for running the GUI at least 32 MB of RAM are recommended; a MMX capable processor is recommended for multimedia applications; a full installation with all applications requires about 750 MB space on hard disk." Here is the full release announcement.
Myah OS 3.0
Jeremiah Cheatham has announced the release of Myah OS 3.0, a complete desktop Linux distribution with Xfce and a variety of administration tools: "The long-awaited Myah OS 3.0 is here. 3.0 has been in development since 2006 right after the release of version 2.3. This release is a complete Linux solution for personal computers. It is created to do just about anything right out of the box without any hassle. There is full support for watching and editing videos. If you like music you can tune into online stations or even record your own. You can also write you own web pages or even use the IDE to start developing software. Myah OS also comes with a complete set of system tools to help with administration. Adding packages is a simple and easy task. Myah will also let you know when there are updates available." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Myah OS 3.0 - a complete desktop Linux distribution with excellent package management infrastructure.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
May 2008 donation: FileZilla receives US$400.00
We are pleased to announce that the recipient of the May 2008 DistroWatch.com donation is FileZilla, a cross-platform, open-source FTP client for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, released under the General Public Licence. It receives US$400.00 in cash.
Developed in Germany by Tim Kosse, the FileZilla client provides an impressive list of useful features, including the following: "Support for FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP); available in many languages; supports resume and transfer of large files (4 GB and above); powerful site manager and transfer queue; drag and drop support; configurable speed limits; file name filters; network configuration wizard; remote file editing; keep-alive; FTP proxy support." FileZilla is an excellent replacement for some of the traditional open-source FTP clients which are no longer in active development, such as gFTP. Linux.com published a good overview of FileZilla in August 2007.
As always, this monthly donations programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch and two online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software - LinuxCD.org and OSDisc.com. These vendors contributed US$50.00 each towards this month's donation to FileZilla.
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NdisWrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and SabayonLinux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
- 2008: VLC ($350), Frugalware Linux ($340), cURL ($300), GSPCA (Linux webcam support) ($400), FileZilla ($400)
Since the launch of the Donations Programme in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$17,683 to various open source software projects.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- BSDanywhere. BSDanywhere is a bootable live CD image based on OpenBSD. It consists of the entire OpenBSD base system (without compiler) plus graphical desktop (Enlightenment), an unrepresentative collection of software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices as well as other peripherals. BSDanywhere can be used as a productive UNIX system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system or hardware testing platform.
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 9 June 2008.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Yippee! (by Yasser on 2008-06-02 10:47:48 GMT from India)
Yippee! I'm the first one to make a comment here! :D
Uhhh..what do I say? Well I tried out opensuse 11 RC1 KDE4 live CD today and was a bit disappointed coz the live CD seemed bit slow on my PC (Intel Celeron 2.40 Gigs, 256MB RAM) and the installer took forever to load when I clicked on the installer icon on the desktop. I don't know why Opensuse isn't coming out with 1-CD INSTALLATION discs as with earlier releases. Because unless u don't reach the KDE4 desktop successfully, u can't install opensuse :(
The installation CDs and DVDs of opensuse always worked well on my PC....n it was such a pleasure to use opensuse 10.3 KDE, which on my PC was among the SNAPPIEST distros out there.....
I'm downloading the Gnome CD right now to see if it works....but it was really a disappointment coz i was awake almost the whole night yesterday just to download the KDE4 live CD and it took me 6 hrs....and I had to do that super-secretly lest my mom would come crashing on me ;) Wish I could download the opensuse DVD :(
Nevertheless I still have high hopes with opensuse 11. If im able to install from the Gnome CD, I'd be pretty content even though I prefer KDE(4).
And btw, Parsix Linux is an AWESOME distro....amazingly faster and with a better selection of apps than Ubuntu....which ran SO SLOW on my PC, including ALL its derivatives, even Xubuntu.
Heres hopin that the final opensuse 11 ROCKS BIG TIME :)
2 • No subject (by Michal on 2008-06-02 10:48:21 GMT from Poland)
Zypper looks nice. Hopefully it is the end of problems with package managment in Suse eventually.
3 • Zypper & openSUSE (by PP on 2008-06-02 10:55:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Another happy zypper user here.
Waiting for the June 19th.... There has now been so much talk about openSUSE 11 and KDE4 that expectations have been jacked up pretty high. I'm almost expecting "a new era" for Linux. I just hope the beef is there and it doesn't turn out a disaster.... (like openSUSE 10.1)
4 • The Wallpaper for Epidemic (by Alex Yang-Nikodym on 2008-06-02 11:06:54 GMT from Canada)
Good article Ladislav. But has anyone noticed that the Epidemic wallpaper is a shameless clone of the 'Element Linux' wallpaper? In fact, they just took it and slapped Epidemic on it.
5 • Myah OS (by Draca on 2008-06-02 11:14:25 GMT from United States)
It's good to see that Myah OS has finally finished version 3.0.
6 • Zypper (by DC on 2008-06-02 11:25:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
Zypper in openSUSE 11 testing releases is very fast and a pleasure to use. A Quick correction of the article above, zypper was also available in openSUSE 10.2, but its been improved a lot in openSUSE 11.
7 • Epidemic (by Scoundrel on 2008-06-02 11:41:18 GMT from Sweden)
Is there an English version of Epidemic ... ??
8 • Zypper?? (by mika hack on 2008-06-02 11:42:57 GMT from Italy)
Something like Sidux SMXI??
Too late baby!!!
;)
9 • openSUSE 11, Ubuntu 8.04 ... (by Thomas Powell on 2008-06-02 11:45:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
One package that I think is not included in most new distros is Wine-Doors, a much under used package that makes running windows apps incredibly simple. I played with it over the weekend and got photoshop cs3 working under linux, which would have taken months under normal wine. Could be the end of crossover...
10 • No subject (by Matias on 2008-06-02 12:02:15 GMT from Argentina)
"There is not doubt in my mind that Zypper is the most powerful package management utility available today"
I dont really see Typper being better than other solutions out there.
Dont forget that most of the things you mentioned is done by other tools like apt-get(Debian), pacman(Arch) and yum(Fedora) too.
11 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-02 12:07:14 GMT from Canada)
Epidemic is a very good distro - if they released a proper english version it would be up there with the best kde distros
wireless works
c/fusion works
good app selection
fast
stable
7/10
12 • Zypper? (by jrick on 2008-06-02 12:11:15 GMT from United States)
I still believe that Pacman in Arch and Frugalware is hands-down the best package manager available. PKGBUILDs are so incredibly easy to write.
13 • Kde4 is not ready (by Godhack on 2008-06-02 12:19:06 GMT from Norway)
#1 try Debian.
and kde 4.0 is unusable. I do not understand why fedora and now suse rushes to 4.0.
Maybe 4.1 or 4.2 will be usefull but still I will be happy old openbox user. *box wms at least have original elegant style not latest winDOS-like.
14 • Novell (by My Linux Page on 2008-06-02 12:31:32 GMT from United States)
It's nice to know that companies are making a profit with Linux and that it's not just proprietary software companies that are making money. Every time Red Hat, Novell, etc make money is a black eye for the likes of Microsoft who's pockets are not getting richer.
15 • Ultimate Edition on my Laptop (by Ronald L. Gibson on 2008-06-02 12:32:26 GMT from United States)
Another distribution besides Mandriva that works great on my Compaq R4000 laptop out of the box is the Ubuntu Ultimate Edition. The sleep mode with my external USB drive does not render my laptop unrecoverable from its sleep mode. I would need to turn the laptop off and back on to get it working again. Now I need to figure out how to enable more virtual desktops from the default of one. I'd like to see the desktop cube rotate.
16 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-02 12:33:53 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (troll).
17 • re: message #1:Yassar (by michael King on 2008-06-02 12:41:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
If you increase your Ram up to at least 512mb or better a whole Gig with which you will be able to run any of the Live Cd's with ease. I have two Pentiums of this age running fine.
With only 256Mb I would recommend the Crunchbang linux
Ubuntu variation which uses the gorgeous Openbox WM
18 • Suggestion for next donation : GIT (by Anonymous on 2008-06-02 12:53:51 GMT from Canada)
Git is an open source version control system designed to handle very large projects with speed and efficiency, but just as well suited for small personal repositories. This very good project is worth a donation !
19 • RE: 18 Suggestion for next donation : GIT (by ladislav on 2008-06-02 13:00:03 GMT from Taiwan)
Just a quick reminder: before suggesting a project for a donation, please check that it actually accepts them. Not all do.
20 • Bias (by infinitycircuit on 2008-06-02 13:04:40 GMT from United States)
Give me a break. "Also not to be missed, a first-look review of openSUSE's Zypper, probably the most advanced and comprehensive package management utility on the market."
What's the proof of this? "It can be used in scripts?" Name a command-line tool that you can't use in scripts. There is no discussion of the most important feature of a command-line update mechanism: 1) the reliability of its dependency management and 2) its tools to fix major breakage. The basis of a wrapper is to utilize the features in rpm. Without a serious consideration of rpm v dpkg the claim in this article's "feature" is nonsense.
21 • re: Kde4 is not ready (by Mark Wyatt on 2008-06-02 13:18:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
"and kde 4.0 is unusable. I do not understand why fedora and now suse rushes to 4.0."
Well, at least OpenSuSE gives you the old 3.5 series as an option - the default, I think.
And, as far as I am aware, neither SuSE nor Fedora have 4.0. Aren' t they both 4.0.3 or higher? (kdebase at 4.0.4 or 4.0.8 according to some site called "distrowatch", which is odd, unless kdebase numbers don't correlate with kde release numbers) Which is perhaps as well, as 4.0.0 must have been really rough.
Mind you, I still agree that 4.0.2, which I had a brief look at, was unusable. I had been hoping that 4.1 would be a pretty solid release, because I was looking forward to making the jump, but now I am not so sure.
22 • DeLi (by Anonymous on 2008-06-02 13:25:57 GMT from United States)
Anyone here used the new DeLi? Just wondering about the installation of additional software. Any luck with ports? It includes pacman, an outstanding package manager, but I can't seem to find any packages to use with it, beyond those on the install CD.
Just wondering if anyone has general comments about this distro.
23 • @ 8 (by arno911 at 2008-06-02 13:35:08 GMT from Germany)
i think you cant compare SuSE zypper to sidux smxi. smxi is not mainly a package management tool, rather a multitool/swissknive for all kinds of stuff from system maintenance over costumisation to cleaning up. AND it uses the package management - apt
b.r.
arno911
24 • RE: Bias (by LinuxJedi on 2008-06-02 14:00:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm with infinitycircuit on this one? Was DWW sponsored by Novell today or something??
25 • Novell (by voislav on 2008-06-02 14:11:14 GMT from Canada)
It's nice to see that the whole recession hasn't affected Linux vendors that much. I think it speaks volumes to the advantages of the FOSS model, where total cost of ownership is spread out over the lifetime of the product, rather than having a large upfront fee.
26 • re: Kde4 is not ready (by Sokraates on 2008-06-02 14:17:47 GMT from Austria)
Fedora uses (vanilla?) KDE 4.0.3, SuSE uses a homemade KDE 4.0.x/KDE 4.1 blend. If I'm not mistaken, SuSE's KDE4 is based on KDE 4.0.3 with features/bugfixes backported from KDE 4.1 and some proper changes.
KDE 4.0.8 is not entirely correct, it should be 4.0.80, which is the version number of the current KDE 4.1 Beta. So there are actually two versions numbered 4.0.x for the whole KDE4-suite.
27 • Novell - re 14 & 25 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-02 14:27:51 GMT from Canada)
It's nice too see Linux vendors doing well but it is even better to see Linux vendors that do not have a patent deal with Microsoft doing well.
28 • BLAG (by Verndog on 2008-06-02 14:37:00 GMT from United States)
"...The first one is a talk with Jeff Moe, the founder of the Fedora-based BLAG Linux And GNU..."
I guess I just don't get the full impact of BLAG. I read the interview and followed the path to the kernel listing of proprietary included listing. It looks as though they got permission to do so. It showed the hex listing and before that the permission to do so! I just don't fully understand its impact.
If this is going to impact how you can watch videos and listen to music, who would install it instead of their Fedora kernel?
=========
On another note, its good to see Gnucash has receives support from DW. It would take a lot for me to move off of the Wine supported Acemoney to start using Gnucash. Future maybe.
29 • Deli Linux 8 (by Alex In Austin on 2008-06-02 14:39:15 GMT from United States)
To #22, I downloaded Deli Linux .8 and installed it on my Pentium II 400 mhz (Dell GX1) with 512 megs of ram. Everything worked ok, but the delisetup program would not configure my network card properly other than saying it found it when probing for hardware. Also, picking the setup services to run at boot time menu would crash me out to shell every time.
I would love to be able to run Deli Linux, but this problem is obviously a deal-breaker. I had the same issue with .72 also. Alas, I am a Linux newbie and I don't know enough to try to fix the problem myself. I guess it's back to Anti-X. Anti-X works on this computer with no problems.
30 • RE: 24 Bias (by ladislav on 2008-06-02 14:44:28 GMT from Taiwan)
Ah well, here we go again. Can't say anything good about a Novell product without a few conspiracy theories popping up here. Is it Monday again?
I simply played with Zypper for two weeks and I liked what I saw, that's all. But don't let that stop you guys from believing what you want....
31 • Questions About Zypper (by IMQ on 2008-06-02 14:58:10 GMT from United States)
For anyone with more knowledge and experience, I have a few questions:
1. Where does zypper keep the downloaded the rpm files?
2. I did a quick scan of the Zypper Usage page but didn't see the option to keep the downloaded file from being delete after the packages are installed. Is there such an option?
With Debian or Mandriva, I get to know where the downloaded packages are kept and there is a way to create a local repo or to burn the packages to a CD or DVD so they can be installed on a local machines with no internet access, but I am at a lost when it comes to openSUSE.
32 • Review of Zypper: not much use (by Adam Williamson on 2008-06-02 15:18:31 GMT from Canada)
Okay, so the review of Zypper goes through a bunch of features that every command line package manager has and one that's basically pointless (the license stuff: if you can adjust something to never display the license you're supposedly 'agreeing' to, I don't think any court would consider that in itself to be agreement...), and then says: "During my usage of Zypper over the past couple of weeks, I've learnt to appreciate the convenience it provides to the end user. There is not doubt in my mind that Zypper is the most powerful package management utility available today, with many useful options and arguments that do not exist elsewhere."
Okay, so if it's the "most powerful" utility with options and arguments "that do not exist elsewhere", how about telling us what they are, instead of talking about stuff that's either basically meaningless or that every other such tool already has? I'd like to know what these unique features are...anyone?
33 • RE: 32 Review of Zypper: not much use (by ladislav on 2008-06-02 15:36:44 GMT from Taiwan)
I linked to the feature list on two occasions in the story, but specially for you, Adam, I'll link to it for the third time. Here you go:
http://en.opensuse.org/Zypper/Usage
Seriously though, take a look at it and you'll see that there is a lot of good stuff in there. Or even better, try it out. I had my doubts at first too - until I started using it. It isn't perfect, for sure, but it has many excellent features. Sorry, I didn't have the time for a more detailed story to try and convince the sceptics, but maybe I'll take another shot at reviewing it more thoroughly one of these days.
34 • RE: 32 Review of Zypper: not much use (by lezardbreton on 2008-06-02 15:46:19 GMT from France)
The syntax looks pretty fine to me and that's the "plus" of zypper. However, I did not find any feature that urpmi doesn't have : http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Tools/urpmi
Another review might be interesting so that everyone can progress.
35 • #5 Myah (by Sugar on 2008-06-02 15:50:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Pile of pants. No way to enter network settings - not even via the console with standard commands. Had to guess the default U/N & P/W. And that's just for starters. These guys don't even pass GO. Kindly leave the stage.
36 • @33 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-06-02 15:52:57 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for the link, but what's the point of writing the review if I have to go elsewhere to actually find any useful information? :)
"Or even better, try it out."
Don't have time, unfortunately. That's what people like you are meant to be for, why do you think I read this site? :P
37 • @33 again (by Adam Williamson on 2008-06-02 15:58:40 GMT from Canada)
Well, I skimmed the feature list, the only stuff I really see that looks possibly unique is the 'patch info' stuff, though you can get that from looking at the changelog on other distros (urpmq --changelog on MDV for instance). Er. Am I missing anything?
38 • BLAG Linux and GNU & dyne:bolic (by relativ on 2008-06-02 16:28:45 GMT from United States)
I am very excited about the next release of dyne:bolic... good to see these 2 project collaborating.
Does anyone know if the next dyne:bolic release will work on the xbox?
thanks,
rel
39 • About zypper (by IMQ on 2008-06-02 16:34:04 GMT from United States)
I have to agree with Adam here.
I would love to see a comparison whenever someone reviews a package management tool. Since zypper is new, it would be nice to see what features it offers beyond what commonly found in, say, apt or urpmi or pacman or other popular tools.
What are the things one can do with zypper that one can not do with, for example, Debian's apt or Mandriva's urpmi or Arch's pacman?
It would be nice to know how the unique features available nowhere else can help the users have a bettere experience.
It's fine to say that zypper is a newer and better package management for openSUSE. It appears to run faster than the older package manager, whtever that was openSUSE used to have.
That's my 2-cent opinion.
40 • Open Source & Linux (by Anonymous on 2008-06-02 16:45:53 GMT from United States)
Thank you to all of the open source and linux developers. For many of you, there's no money in it for you, you got long hours and get little sleep.
Thanks for all of your hard work. We finally have REAL choices and just O.S.'s and software with spyware and viruses from monopolistic companies.
Thanks,
Former M$ Slave
41 • Open Source & Linux (by Anonymous on 2008-06-02 16:48:50 GMT from United States)
Thank you to all of the open source and linux developers. For many of you, there's no money in it for you, you got long hours and get little sleep.
Thanks for all of your hard work. We finally have REAL choices and NOT just O.S.'s and software with spyware and viruses from monopolistic companies.
Thanks,
Former M$ Slave
42 • No subject (by NSXS on 2008-06-02 17:29:38 GMT from United States)
I don't understand why Ladislav can't express his opinion with out a bunch of people bawwwing about it. So it was made by Novell, so? Get over it. I keep hearing people preach about how there ZOMG CHOICES!!!!11one in the OSS world, so if you don't like Novell or their product then choose to use and support something else. If you disagree and want to express your opinion as well, theres nothing wrong with that. It starts to be a problem when there are accusations of bias and comments like "was this DWW sponsored by Novell lawl" This adds nothing useful to the discussion and only encourages flaming and trolling.
I'm not intending this to come across as a Novell fan boy speech, I'd just like to have the comment section of the newsletter actually be a nice place to discuss it for a change.
43 • #37 (by dooooo on 2008-06-02 17:41:51 GMT from Jordan)
apt-listbugs
Lists critical bugs before each apt installation .
apt-listchanges
package change history notification tool .
these tools are fully integrated in the apt-get installation process . They are very useful specially in a non-stable release .
44 • Epidemic (by NSXS on 2008-06-02 17:47:37 GMT from United States)
I kinda wish there was an English translation of Epidemic. I've always been kinda curious about it but I'd get lost pretty fast. It looks like an interesting distro, any one here use it?
Also does anyone know what the side bar off to the right is in the Epidemic screen shot?
45 • Zypper (by daniel on 2008-06-02 17:48:44 GMT from Germany)
I agree with @39
I would be interested to see a nice comparison between Zypper, Urpmi, Pacman, Apt and others.
I think that one of the most important thing about a distro is its Package management system.
I only know Apt(in debian) and Pacman/ABS(arch). I really like how fast pacman is. Of course this is a subjective opinion.
46 • The new Anti-X 7.2 Mepis (by DrDOS on 2008-06-02 18:04:31 GMT from United States)
I just put the new Anti-X on a P-III machine with an se440bx Intel board, 450mhz, 192mb and 20gb hdd, and it's very sweet. Did an update too with apt-get, very smooth. One of my favorites for older machines. Huge improvement over the Win95 it was running. Way to go anticapitalista and company.
47 • @43 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-06-02 18:24:16 GMT from Canada)
Yes, as I said: "though you can get that from looking at the changelog on other distros"
48 • @42 (by texasmike on 2008-06-02 18:38:26 GMT from United States)
When you say 'discuss it', you mean under /your/ definition of discuss?
49 • #47 (by dooooo on 2008-06-02 18:47:59 GMT from Jordan)
I wasn't disagreeing with you . I just wanted to give an example of a package management system (apt) that already has those *advanced* features .
50 • @48 (by NSXS on 2008-06-02 18:59:15 GMT from United States)
Not under anyones definition of discuss. I admit in my annoyance I probably worded that post poorly. What I was getting at was a discussion with out the fanboyism and Novell conspiracy theories. I also admit that that probably came across troll like, which is the opposite of what I wanted. I'm just tired of having to hear how evil Novell is for the last I don't know how long.
I apologize for letting my irritation get the best of me.
51 • MyahOS (by Nickispeaki on 2008-06-02 19:17:43 GMT from Ukraine)
Very nice Linux! May it have some from childhood, but it's very funny and it's not so hard serious Linux like many other! I like it! And MyahOS find my videocard! It's great! Cuz. i have Ati 2300 HD (acer 5710zg) and i have so much problems vith X! :-(
Why does MyahOS have password/login?! It's bad for beginner! I logined after ten password.....
Login/password: myah myah.
52 • DeLi (by Paul Neubauer on 2008-06-02 19:19:58 GMT from United States)
I've installed DeLi on a Compaq Armada 7800 (PII-266) and had to do a bit of tweaking. The X11 directory did not exist and the config tool did not create it, so it had to be made manually. The config tool also didn't get the pointer right, so the xorg.conf file had to be edited to use psaux for the PS/2 pointer.
I haven't gotten networking going yet, but so far I've tried the Cisco Aironet 350 wireless card, not a wired card. If there's any sort of wireless network manager such as Wifi Radar I have yet to find it.
It's very much a distribution that 10 year old hardware can run with. The old laptop is almost snappy and is quite responsive. But it is also a bit like doing things 10 years ago: some simple things will need hand tweaking.
53 • @31; Zypper: downloaded rpms (by sd on 2008-06-02 19:50:20 GMT from Germany)
This will help you:
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2008-04/msg00096.html
Citation:
"'Keep packages behavior is enabled/disabled by repository. Add 'keeppackages=1' to .repo file.'
Above quote from zypper-devel list 14th Feb. Simply set keeppackages in the appropriate .repo file in /etc/zypp and rpms stay in /var/cache/zypp/packages in the repo's cache directory. "
54 • RE: 29 (by JAG on 2008-06-02 21:08:06 GMT from United States)
Hey Alex!...
Have you tried Puppy...
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=puppy
Check it out,...you might like it!!!
55 • Re: 32 • Review of Zypper (by Anon. on 2008-06-02 21:11:25 GMT from Norway)
Adam Williamson wrote: "I'd like to know what these unique features are...anyone?"
Sorry, I don't know and probably never will. I'm happy with Synaptic/apt-get and pacman and I ask again: Who decided that every distro must reinvent the wheel and make its own package manager!? What a waste of scant resources!
56 • Re. 35 & 51 Myah Pro 3 is OK on my PC (by Richard S on 2008-06-02 21:18:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
This morning, I switched on the PC and then went to make some tea. When I returned, the PC looked rather different to normal - I'd left the Myah Pro 3 LiveCD in the drive overnight: Myah had booted up automatically in its default mode.
I'm impressed by this LiveCD. It seems to boot in my VirtualBox 1.6 and also on the actual AMD64 PC. So far, all of its applications seem to work properly. Myah found my video chip, sound chip and Ethernet NIC. It also mounted my hard drives (actually, I would prefer to have been given the option). It automatically detected & mounted a USB flash memory device. After booting, the update tool flashes, suggesting that you check for updates.
Myah's Firefox seems ready & able to access common web media, including Flash, MP3, Real, Windows Media and the BBC's video iPlayer.
Some problems: Apparently no firewall, apparently no GUI language nor keyboard setting tool.
In Virtualbox, I had to use the Safeboot Vesa mode; there was a problem with the mouse (probably something odd in Virtualbox); after shutdown, the CD drive wouldn't open - which is why the CD was still in the drive this morning!
The accounts and passwords are listed on the Myah web site.
So on my AMD64 PC, Myah simply booted and "just worked" :-)
57 • RE: 53 Zypper (by IMQ on 2008-06-02 21:26:54 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the tip.
I will look into testing the tip later when I want to install more packages or test it on a new install.
58 • React OS? (by Scottish Dave on 2008-06-02 21:49:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Not sure if you have heard of this.
http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html
I think it is a great idea purely for what it could do for business pcs using CAD stuff etc that only runs on windows. Not Linux or BSD at all but still seems to have the right good spirit. It would be nice if it was listed somewhere here (no idea where yet :p) to garner some more interest.
Dave
59 • React OS? (by Blah on 2008-06-02 23:50:38 GMT from United States)
Bah... find an alternative for Autodesk's overpriced products ;-)
http://www.tech-edv.co.at/lunix/CADlinks.html
60 • re:55 (by shrek on 2008-06-03 00:20:14 GMT from United States)
why does each distro make its own package manager? Well, each distro is competing for your use. They would want to make the easiest/ best product possible. I have never been a fan of apt-get and the only other package manager I have used has been Redhat's yum. (its kinda slow).
Microsoft's "package manager" seems to work seemlessly. Newbies need the same thing for their linux box.
Shrek
SLED 10 lover and user.
61 • RE: 36, Zypper review (by ladislav on 2008-06-03 00:33:03 GMT from Taiwan)
You are right, my "review" of Zypper was indeed a little superficial. Next time I'll make more effort and I'll include some comparison with other package managers, I promise ;-)
62 • RE: #46 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-03 01:39:57 GMT from United States)
Antix was too slow like xubuntu. Tiny me 2008.0 was much faster. It was a PIII 650mhz with 256mb.
63 • RE: Bias (by infinitycircuit on 2008-06-03 04:42:36 GMT from United States)
It appears that people have set up my comment as a strawman "attacking Distrowatch for supporting Novell." That is nonsense. I listed two key features that are necessary to evaluate a package manager. The Novell documentation that was linked to does not clarify this. In particular, there appears to be no equivalent to the command: "apt-get -o Debug::pkgProblemResolver=yes dist-upgrade" which is critical to resolving broken library syncs, a problem that occurs independent of package manager.
With that being said, I appreciate that ladislav is willing to go more in depth in a later article. It's a shame that package managers are so complex and similar that any attempt to compare them will inevitably result in flame wars.
64 • zypper --help ----> For those who have no Suse install and want to compare (by features on 2008-06-03 04:58:19 GMT from Australia)
linux-cbwh:~ # zypper --help
Usage:
zypper [--global-options] [--command-options] [arguments]
Global Options:
--help, -h Help.
--version, -V Output the version number.
--quiet, -q Suppress normal output, print only error messages.
--verbose, -v Increase verbosity.
--no-abbrev, -A Do not abbreviate text in tables.
--table-style, -s Table style (integer).
--rug-compatible, -r Turn on rug compatibility.
--non-interactive, -n Do not ask anything, use default answers automatically.
--xmlout, -x Switch to XML output.
--reposd-dir, -D Use alternative repository definition files directory.
--cache-dir, -C Use alternative meta-data cache database directory.
--raw-cache-dir Use alternative raw meta-data cache directory.
Repository Options:
--no-gpg-checks Ignore GPG check failures and continue.
--plus-repo, -p Use an additional repository.
--disable-repositories Do not read meta-data from repositories.
--no-refresh Do not refresh the repositories.
Target Options:
--root, -R Operate on a different root directory.
--disable-system-resolvables Do not read installed resolvables.
Commands:
help, ? Print help.
shell, sh Accept multiple commands at once.
Repository Handling:
repos, lr List all defined repositories.
addrepo, ar Add a new repository.
removerepo, rr Remove specified repository.
renamerepo, nr Rename specified repository.
modifyrepo, mr Modify specified repository.
refresh, ref Refresh all repositories.
clean Clean local caches.
Software Management:
install, in Install packages.
remove, rm Remove packages.
verify, ve Verify integrity of package dependencies.
update, up Update installed packages with newer versions.
dist-upgrade, dup Perform a distribution upgrade.
source-install, si Install source packages and their build dependencies.
Querying:
search, se Search for packages matching a pattern.
info, if Show full information for specified packages.
patch-info Show full information for specified patches.
pattern-info Show full information for specified patterns.
product-info Show full information for specified products.
patch-check, pchk Check for patches.
list-updates, lu List available updates.
patches, pch List all available patches.
packages, pa List all available packages.
patterns, pt List all available patterns.
products, pd List all available products.
what-provides, wp List packages providing specified capability.
Package Locks:
addlock, al Add a package lock.
removelock, rl Remove a package lock.
locks, ll List current package locks.
Type 'zypper help ' to get command-specific help.
linux-cbwh:~ #
65 • zypper, imho, is good but can be better (by powerfactor 1 on 2008-06-03 05:10:53 GMT from Australia)
I am a relative novice and my opinion is probably not worth much but I played around with the old version a few weeks back and was surprised at some its easy-to-use command line features, especially the repo handling - add repo and enable/disable repos. I tried to see this functionality in apt, rpm, smart but it was either not there or as easy to use.
linux-cbwh:~ # zypper mr --help
modifyrepo (mr)
modifyrepo (mr) <--all|--remote|--local|--medium-type>
Modify properties of repositories specified by alias, number or URI or by the '--all, --remote, --local, --medium-type' aggregate options.
Command options:
-d, --disable Disable the repository (but don't remove it).
-e, --enable Enable a disabled repository.
-r, --refresh Enable auto-refresh of the repository.
-R, --no-refresh Disable auto-refresh of the repository.
-n, --name Set a descriptive name for the repository.
-p, --priority Set priority of the repository.
-k, --keep-packages Enable RPM files caching.
-K, --no-keep-packages Disable RPM files caching.
-a, --all Apply changes to all repositories.
-l, --local Apply changes to all local repositories.
-t, --remote Apply changes to all remote repositories.
-m, --medium-type Apply changes to repositories of specified type.
------------
Cheers
66 • Watch out for Grub multi-booting incompatibilities (by powerfactor 1 on 2008-06-03 05:30:55 GMT from Australia)
Older Grub setups (Mepis 7.0, Ubuntu 8.04, OpenSuse 10.2) in my recent experience are UNABLE to boot into Fedora 9 or openSuse 11.0 (RC1) but Fedora and Suse 11 can boot into the others. There should be a clear warnings about this from the distro distributors so people don't get caught out. I don't know what the problem is because they are all using the same Grub version - 0.97. It may be something in the mapping (device.map), stage1 and stage2 sections or something else.
Cheers
67 • No Specifics on Zypper! (by Anonymous on 2008-06-03 05:32:35 GMT from United States)
"There is not doubt in my mind that Zypper is the most powerful package management utility available today, with many useful options and arguments that do not exist elsewhere."
I understand you're trying to be concise, but you can at least list a few examples about what you're referring to.
68 • @66 (by floater on 2008-06-03 05:40:52 GMT from Australia)
I think the grub issue has to do with some allocation or chunk size for newer grub or fdisk or similar - it has gone up in size.
Read it on the sidux home page.
69 • @ 66 (by floater on 2008-06-03 05:47:34 GMT from Australia)
Found the link regarding grub. on the sidux news page. Here it is:
http://www.sidux.com/Article416.html
Scroll down to section "grub/ grub-gfxboot".
70 • RE: Zypper (generally) (by Matt on 2008-06-03 06:49:31 GMT from United States)
I've diddled around with zypper last month. I found it to be an interesting tool to use, but saying that it is the fastest or most flexible, in my humble opinion, is completely false. It does have some very unique tools, like exporting to a text file, but I feel that that would rarely be used.
I am currently an Archer. I have become absolutely, mind-bogglingly addicted to pacman, which I do think holds the title that you gave to zypper. Not only is it extensible beyond reason in some cases, but it also gives the end user a simple to use, easy to follow set of commands and switches that are used everyday. For instance, instead of typing 'zypper refresh' followed by 'zypper refresh', you simply type 'pacman -Syu'. All functions are headed by a capital letter (S for sync, R for remove, Q for query, U for update/add) which I find extremely easy to use and remember.
@12: Small point of clarification: PKGBUILDS are indeed very easy to write, modify, and use, but they are technically not handled by pacman. Rather, ABS (the Arch Build System) takes care of all that business. Beyond that point, ABS is the perfect tool to compliment pacman, and I use it frequently. The AUR (Arch User Repository) is an absolutely fantastic resource.
I hope that everyone will, however, take ladislav's advice and test everything out. Something will fit perfectly with you. Also, although this site is extremely informative, I have to disagree: testing it for yourself is simply the best resource. No reviewer will ever compare to personal experience.
If anybody is interested, the following are the links to the Arch Wiki, the page on pacman, and the page on the ABS, respectively.
[/html]http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page[html]
[/html]http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman[html]
[/html]http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS[html]
Hope you enjoyed the small novel,
Matt
71 • Sorry, proper links... (by Matt on 2008-06-03 06:50:35 GMT from United States)
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS
72 • RE: 70 Zypper (generally) (by ladislav on 2008-06-03 06:58:19 GMT from Taiwan)
saying that it is the fastest or most flexible, in my humble opinion, is completely false
I said neither. "Powerful" was the only adjective I used to describe Zypper.
73 • Re:66 Powerfactor 1 --Grub multi-booting incompatibilities--- (by Dubigrasu on 2008-06-03 07:18:14 GMT from Romania)
Next to the Sidux link from "floater" here's one from Mandriva wiki :
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/SysAdmin/GrubInodeTransition
74 • more zypper controversy (by Anonymous on 2008-06-03 07:53:58 GMT from France)
portage is the most powerful.
can you enable or disable compile options in zypper? Portage can.
75 • @69 • floater & @73 Dubigrasu ---> re Grub problems (by powerfactor1 on 2008-06-03 09:49:27 GMT from Australia)
Thanks for the links, I am more informed but far from happy about this issue cropping up and ambushing me and many others ANNOUNCED!
Sidux is doing the right thing by including the WARNING in the Release Notes but Mandriva and Fedora (OpenSuse 11 Dev has NOT, too) never did.
Here is a little excerpt from Mandriva Forums on the issue:
Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:20 pm by roudoud0u
I very much agree with your comment in Bugzilla: the update of the 2008.0 bootloader is a necessary minimum solution. But I think there is a second very important issue: since this is a known problem, users should be made aware of it BEFORE they have lost hours and hours.
I guess we agree that the errata would be the right place, but since Mandriva considers that this is a side-effect of something intentionally done, they will not agree - release notes? the feature for tips-and-tricks / faq / howto discussed in the community chat section ("Improving the forum")? This is an old problem - Mandriva have no interest in giving visibility to this kind of thing.
https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=38054
http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=84208
76 • Installed opensuse successfully :) (by Yasser on 2008-06-03 11:10:40 GMT from India)
HI there...just wanted to share this with everyone...hope it helps someone :D
I wasn't able to install opensuse kde4 from livecd as the livecd ran really slow on my PC. But theres a way u can still install from the livecd. Heres the trick:
When its booting, press Cttrl-C THE MOMENT u see "Starting kdm"
It will then launch u into a console login. Well at the login prompt just type "linux" (thats the username) and then just press Enter when it asks for password (its a passwordless login). Now become root with the su command (it won't ask u for root password). Once ur in the root prompt, just type "install" and u can then install from the livecd in text-mode...and it works better and more smoothly than the GUI install. U just use ur keyboard, especially Tab, Enter and the arrow keys.
I've installed it this way....and I don't know abt others but I did not face ANY crashes or odd system behaviour...the OS is runnin smmoothly and beautifully. On my Intel celeron 2.40 Gigs with just 256 MB RAM :)
Heres a screen capture enjoy!
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/3/1942518/snapshot1.png
77 • Zypper again (by fox82es on 2008-06-03 12:16:18 GMT from Spain)
For those of you who need package managers comparations:
http://duncan.mac-vicar.com/blog/archives/309
http://duncan.mac-vicar.com/blog/archives/310
http://duncan.mac-vicar.com/blog/archives/311
If case 2 or case 3 are unknown for you:
http://svn.labix.org/smart/trunk/README
You can find the details about those cases in the readme above in CASE STUDIES section.
78 • zypper dist-upgrade (by Anonymous on 2008-06-03 12:34:01 GMT from Germany)
That's rather the right way to track Factory.
79 • @76 (by sd on 2008-06-03 12:36:03 GMT from Germany)
I am very, very pleased to hear this.
Many thanks for your installation tip!
OpenSuse and KDE still work with 256MB RAM and the system is not slow.
This is the way it should be.
80 • Zypper (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-03 12:43:25 GMT from Italy)
Thanks for your Zypper review, Ladislav, I found it helpful.
It was good also because it started a useful discussion here.
Apart from Zypper, what is your overall experience with openSUSE RC1?
For me it is a bad disappointment. It is well known that openSUSE is my fav distro, but (with my hardware) I am having tons of problems with RC1, *many* more than I had with Beta 3: sound, network and an endless list of other issues. I have been begging them to delay the release, but I doubt they'll listen.
81 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-03 13:38:46 GMT from United States)
#1: You can't expect any full-fledged Linux desktop to run well w/ 256MB RAM. You'd be better off with XFCE or DSL for example. Memory is dirt cheap, get at least 1GB.
82 • Re 81 (by Anon on 2008-06-03 14:21:40 GMT from United States)
Yeah, but try to find some cheap 256mb or 512mb (PC100 or PC133) memory for a laptop.
83 • Re. 81 (by Nanlee on 2008-06-03 15:19:45 GMT from Canada)
I have run Open Suse on a PII-233 with only 160MB RAM. It worked at a reasonable speed. I can surf the internet and playing music at the same time. OpenOffice also worked OK on it. But, mine was a desktop which, as I found, runs a bit faster than a laptop with the same configuration.
84 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-03 15:26:43 GMT from United States)
Finally got around to installing Gentoo, based on some of Landor's postings in previous DWW comments.
One of the easiest installs I've ever done. I'm using the 2008.0 beta. I was looking for the documentation, accidentally clicked the install icon. I figured "Oh well, I can partition the drives". Then it started installing. After that I did a little configuration, installed some binary packages, and was done.
I rebooted and am now writing this from Firefox. Hard to believe any Linux install could be easier. Of course I have to learn how to actually use Gentoo, but installation itself was VERY easy, so much improved from a couple of years ago.
85 • @75 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-06-03 16:42:56 GMT from Canada)
Oh, yeah. That whole discussion got sidetracked, which led to me forgetting to add the initial issue to the Release Notes (which is where it belongs). I'll try and find a few minutes to do it today. Thanks for the reminder.
86 • re: 72 (by masher23 on 2008-06-03 17:30:50 GMT from Australia)
ladlslav these are your quotes you should check what you say before you say you didn't mention faster heres your quote "Not only is it much faster than any graphical tool can ever be," i see the word faster don't you.
87 • @86 Command line tool vs. Graphical tool (by Anonymous on 2008-06-03 18:43:05 GMT from United States)
A command line utility will always be faster than a graphical utility. Don't ya think? If you don't think so, give an example.
88 • re 87 (by masher23 on 2008-06-03 19:53:54 GMT from Australia)
I agree with you i think a graphical gui is just waste of good ram, I prefer cli to any gui out there
89 • 88 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-03 20:05:05 GMT from Canada)
> I agree with you i think a graphical gui is just waste of good ram, I prefer cli to any gui out there
"graphical gui"? Why not graphical CLI? Or command line GUI?
Ladislav compared zypper with graphical package managers and zypper is faster than any of them, but not faster than apt-get or urpmi.
90 • No subject (by vzduch on 2008-06-03 23:20:11 GMT from Germany)
This week's comment section to me seems like one of the most constructive I've ever read. If only it were like this every week, keeping the die-hard fanbois and other flamers out for the most part... :)
I agree that Ladislav's zypper review could have been better thought out, but at least it got something running that looks like a mostly flame-free collection of impressions of package management systems. I, for one, prefer zypper over YaST's package management section, but for some things the latter is either more informative or more comfortable. Been a while since I last used urpmi, and as for speed, apt-get is just unbeatable as of yet.
Perhaps pacman can compete with apt-get on the speed part – unfortunately I didn't use Arch thoroughly enough when I had it installed on my 2nd machine. In the end I deleted it because it segfaulted on shutdown resp. reboot, and I wasn't able to track down that error. And then I never got around to installing Arch on my other machine.
Btw, the machine is a 2x1266 MHz Pentium III (server) w/ 1.5 GB registered SDRAM and approx. 150 GB of SCSI hard drive space. It had been running a Windows 2000 Server for a number of years.
91 • @90 fanbois, lurkers et al (by Sergent HardNut a.k.a. floater on 2008-06-03 23:49:59 GMT from Australia)
We're still here! We just change our names when posting each week so that we throw you off the scent of us being here... ;-)
*insert evil cackle* Mmmmwwwaahhamuuuuhhahahahahahahahahaa....
@85 (Adam W) Regarding that grub issue, sounds like it should have been something that got reported as a matter of HIGH IMPORTANCE considering it may (did!) cause some havoc. I've seen other posts (on other fora) asking very similar q's. I was lucky to be surfing on the sidux site that week when I read about it!
92 • RE: 86 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-04 00:09:57 GMT from Taiwan)
these are your quotes you should check what you say before you say you didn't mention faster
Oh, come on! You accused me of saying "fastest", not "faster"! Or do the two words have the same meaning in Australian English?
Anyway, please let's stop these silly semantics and rather concentrate on real issues. Did you actually try Zypper? I am just wondering how many people who expressed their doubts about the power and convenience of Zypper have used it. It does not seem to be a particularly well-known utility.
93 • ubuntu upgrade (by verndog on 2008-06-04 00:32:35 GMT from United States)
I read the grub issue above and for the first time while upgrading ubuntu I was faced with the option of keeping the current grub or upgrading. Anyone else using ubuntu have come across this issue? Thanks
94 • re 92 (by masher23 on 2008-06-04 00:44:48 GMT from Australia)
Yes i do use zypper i have opensuse 11 rc installed and find it the best put forward by opensuse but i only use kde3 not kde4 yet i am waiting until it goes to 4.1, just for the record i find zypper to be great
95 • GUI (by Tony on 2008-06-04 02:34:16 GMT from United States)
When is Open-Source going to produce a product that is wholely self-extracting and installing to compare with microsoft. I want a low cost, easily upgraded operating system that simply works with the touch of a mouse button. I have a pathological aversion to command-line anything. I'll pay for the damn CD if it gets me a system I don't have to diddle and tweak. Even with its bugs, Windows allows me to do the things I want right out of the package without searching for just the right command or manually configuring anything. Guys, I'm loving the idea of dumping the big guy, but you've got to give me something I can work with.
96 • RE: 95 GUI (by ladislav on 2008-06-04 03:07:28 GMT from Taiwan)
What exactly makes you want to "dump the big guy"? Just curious...
97 • RE: 96 (and so @ 95) (by Sergent HardNut on 2008-06-04 05:33:12 GMT from Australia)
Ladislav
Do you really expect an answer from Tony (i.e. post 95)? Can't see him really adding anything more to the discussion cos he seems to be happy with his magical MS product...
98 • @ 95 Bareman Tony (by capricornus on 2008-06-04 07:34:38 GMT from Belgium)
Tony, I'm replacing a few older PATA disks with new SATA's, and since I don't want to make disk images, I do the full re-installing myself. Always in dual boot. Choosing the right Linux distro could make someone sweat indeed, since videocards don't always cooperate, so to speak. I go that far with you and your frustration - and your longing for the perfect CD...;-)
BUT.
There a few derived distro's that always do their thing, and do impress people that are convinced that Linux is only for nerds and weirdo's.
My top 5:
- MEPIS7 [Debian]
- MINT [*buntu, Debian]
- Granular1 [PClinuxOS, Mandrake]
- Wolvix 1.1 Hunter [Slackware]
- Puppy4
Before bashing and shouting, this does not mean that I don't like Mandriva of openSUSE or Knoppix or whatever, but then there is always something to fine-tune, either in Xorg or in sound & video. Like the Bareman, I like it free, quick, simple, straightforward, dependable.
There remains - in my household and office - one but against Linux: scanners. The cheaper ones that do everything we want under WinXP, are neither recognized nor running under SANE.
Wish you luck finding IT. A little daring won't harm you, though.
99 • Linux works, the chip producers are the problem.. (by arno911 on 2008-06-04 09:19:14 GMT from Germany)
today even the big and almighty MS is in trouble with all the lousy hardware, something that never used to be a problem before.
My Linux worked perfectly before HAL and new Xorg. Things we only need for all the funny hitech gadgets and for "convenience": let it all happen automagically. Of course it doesnt work for everyone in any case. lousy BIOS and unreliable DPMS, tricky udev rules, inhuman uuids ;) And these issues will be sorted out in future, too, im sure. Rest is fine, always and out of the Box.
This is the first year in a long row where i can even hardly find something bad in Suse, Mandriva and Fedora! Surprising from a Debian Fanboy, isnt it? (Debian is GNU/Linux, Ubuntu is Canonical, my two cents)
so much for fanboyism, flaming and stuff. oh one more:
sidux has its new preview out, you know where to find me: hunting bugs :)
100 • @76----Installing Text Mode from openSUSE Live CD--->init 3 or init 1 (by as boot option on 2008-06-04 10:09:26 GMT from Australia)
76 • Installed opensuse successfully :) (by Yasser on 2008-06-03 11:10:40 GMT from India)
HI there...just wanted to share this with everyone...hope it helps someone :D
I wasn't able to install opensuse kde4 from livecd as the livecd ran really slow on my PC. But theres a way u can still install from the livecd. Heres the trick:
When its booting, press Cttrl-C THE MOMENT u see "Starting kdm"
It will then launch u into a console login. Well at the login prompt just type "linux" (thats the username) and then just press Enter when it asks for password (its a passwordless login). Now become root with the su command (it won't ask u for root password). Once ur in the root prompt, just type "install" and u can then install from the livecd in text-mode...and it works better and more smoothly than the GUI install. U just use ur keyboard, especially Tab, Enter and the arrow keys.
FYI: 'Yast' tool-set is available in text mode/console mode with the "Live Installer" found under "Miscellaneous" section. Just boot with the 'init 3' or 'init 1' options (maybe choose 800x600 screen resolution before you boot) and type yast at command prompt (you will be root already in 'init 1' mode and you will need to become root if in 'init 3' mode by typing su -. Also, as root, typing following should get you directly to the installer: yast2 live-installer.
Cheers
PS: Sorry DW Admin, I left a tag out in previous post, please delete.
101 • 95 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-04 10:51:38 GMT from United States)
Tony,
You are not looking for a CD of any kind. Trust me, Windows is far from perfect when it comes to being installed on a system with new hardware, when it isn't already installed.
What you are looking for is preinstalled Linux, by a company like Dell or System76. You can't compare a system set up by someone else against a system you set up. Of course the one that's already set up will work better.
"I want a low cost, easily upgraded operating system that simply works with the touch of a mouse button."
I want a million dollars without having to work for it, a lawn that doesn't have to be mowed, and a car that has an eternally full tank of gas. An OS is a complicated thing. Windows has maintenance and bugs, so does Linux, so does Mac. Linux has far less maintenance than Windows, but it's not perfect.
For you Windows may be the right thing because you already know how to use it, due to the fact that you already know Windows. It may not be worthwhile for you to invest the time to learn Linux.
102 • I've never made any negative comment about Novell... (by KimTjik on 2008-06-04 13:14:53 GMT from Sweden)
... but this piece of crap made angry:
http://www.moreinterop.com/solutions/benefits/
Nice move Novell in making everything associated with you smelling bad and look distasteful! Yes, Red Hat didn't join you Novell in your questionable rendezvous with Microsoft, so why bullying Red Hat? Red Hat contributes more than you in developing Linux, something you take an advantage of, but instead of being thankful you're now trying to make Red Hat products looking. And what is your great argument against choosing Red Hat? Here it is:
"SUSE Linux Enterprise isn’t the only paid Linux distribution. But it is the only Linux distribution recommended by Microsoft and SAP. The only distribution supported by both Novell and Microsoft."
Eh, what's the argument here? Won't it be a bit crowded in bed if everyone joined you and Microsoft? And if not being ironic: why on earth would I want Microsoft to support my Linux system?
The rest in the article is an attack on free Linux distributions with no names. A lye it itself because others than Novell and Red Hat can offer paid support. And even if we're looking beyond those, the list of features in favour of Novell is laughable.
I've nothing against OpenSuse, but in view of these moves by Novell I wish the project could sooner than later break loose and continue its existens and development outside of Novell's arena. First time I write something like this, but I thinks it's necessary to pass this link through to others here on DW.
103 • re 102 – "why on earth would I want Microsoft to support my Linux system?" (by vzduch on 2008-06-04 15:11:47 GMT from Germany)
The buzzword here is interoperability in a multi-OS environment... – think about it for a moment.
Sadly you can't do everything with Linux that you can do with Windoze, or at least not exactly the way you do it with Windoze. So I reckon that part of the deal is making Win servers and SLE/Novell Linux work together flawlessly.
And I didn't even talk about M$'s contractual obligation to sell 70,000 or so SLE and/or Novell licenses per year...
104 • RE: 103 - I would agree if Novell presented their case differently (by KimTjik on 2008-06-04 15:42:14 GMT from Sweden)
Interoperability has usually been what has been expected from non-Windows developers. Microsoft do support several widely recognized protocols, but continue also to disregard standards, or make new proprietary ones with little to none existent specification. Hence the need in the first place for "interoperability", something that could have been solved differently. As it is now Microsoft tend to cut out another piece of the market by using its partnership with Novell.
I have given Novell the benefit of the doubt for a long time, but remember that this wasn't a part of a clear Microsoft presentation, but more of a Novell one. We can't either disregard the potential price of this "interoperability". If it would have usual business not filthied with patent hooks, even how worthless, I wouldn't complain. However, now Novell is using the work made by mostly combined with an agreement that the majority of those view as unethical, to outmanoeuvre competition.
This only implies the Microsoft thesis Red Hat wants better interoperability with Windows they need to make a similar deal with Microsoft. But is that a good path to choose? Why shouldn't it be possible to develop interoperability without suspicious patent filth? By accepting we in my view only validate that thesis as having the quality of truth.
It definitely looks suspicious to me. The SCO trial will probably cement Novell's case, so their on secure ground. I doubt Novell has any sincere interest in protecting Linux outside of its own self-interest, so where will they go from here?
105 • corrections of #104 (by KimTjik on 2008-06-04 17:08:51 GMT from Sweden)
(it seems like a can't get my eyes to focus today, hence skipping a lot of words)
... Hence the need in the first place for "interoperability" is a creation by the one Novell tries to interoperate with, something that logically could have been solved differently...
... If it would have been usual business not filthied with patent hooks, even how worthless, I wouldn't complain. However, now Novell is using the work made by mostly other developers to outmanoeuvre competition, buy using an agreement that the majority of those view as unethical.
This only implies the Microsoft thesis that if Red Hat wants better interoperability with Windows they need to make a similar deal with Microsoft...
(I'm sorry for the inconvenience)
106 • dead link win4lin (by undercover on 2008-06-04 18:52:10 GMT from Canada)
fwiw > related links page > Emulators for running Windows software under Linux:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=links
107 • No subject (by undercover on 2008-06-04 21:08:53 GMT from Canada)
Aaahh..not a dead link but win4lin ends up here.. http://www.netraverse.com/
108 • The new Pardus install. (by chris on 2008-06-05 02:59:15 GMT from United States)
I downloaded and installed the latest Pardus.
The partitioning was scary.
After you've chosen your desired partition
and set it's properties,
and click 'next',
there's no more verification
of which partition is to be formatted.
The 'formatting' message
seems to stay there forever.
But all came out well.
The install worked on the second try.
That's about par for the course for Pardus.
Pardus has a fresh new look,
but I miss the wild cat wallpaper.
I have flowers.
chris
109 • RE: 106 + 107 (by johncoom on 2008-06-05 03:40:45 GMT from Australia)
Thats odd because when I clicked the Win4Lin on DW the Related Links page ,
subsection 'Windows-based Linux Distributions' I ended up here
http://win4lin.net/content/
110 • Win4Lin vs VM (by Verndog on 2008-06-05 03:52:53 GMT from United States)
What's the advantage of Win4Lin over a VM , as in Virtualbox or VMWare?
111 • KDE3 dead? (by BhaKi on 2008-06-05 04:10:43 GMT from India)
Will there be a KDE 3.5.10?
or 3.6?
Is KDE3 dead?
Am I the only one who has stupid love for KDE3?
112 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-05 04:18:02 GMT from United States)
As far as I know, KDE stops at 3.5.9 since the KDE 3x line has been replaced by KDE 4. I'm really going to miss it too, but KDE 4 is the new game in town.
113 • Re 100 • @76----Installing Text Mode from openSUSE Live CD---> (by Update on 2008-06-05 04:44:51 GMT from Australia)
FYI: 'Yast' tool-set is available in text mode/console mode with the "Live Installer" found under "Miscellaneous" section. Just boot with the 'init 3' or 'init 1' options (maybe choose 800x600 screen resolution before you boot) and type yast at command prompt (you will be root already in 'init 1' mode and you will need to become root if in 'init 3' mode by typing su -. Also, as root, typing following should get you directly to the installer: yast2 live-installer.
I posted this info above and after a practical trial, I would recommend to only use the 'init 3' boot option as the 'init 1' mode will boot into the installer with no problem but it then hangs on the first window. I am guessing that a number of services (maybe networking?) are not started in the 'init 1' mode and thus the hang.
I tried the 'init 3' boot option and successfully installed openSuse 11.rc1 (from Gnome Live Cd). I was also able to fix the Grub incompatibility issue by choosing the 128 inode size via the "Expert" mode partition formatting options, which is also available in the gui yast tool-set.
The Release Notes for OpenSuse 11 Rc1 mention something about inode issues but they give NO WARNING of incompatibilities in a multi-boot setup with older grub editions/distros that do not support the new default 256 inode size.
From the release notes of OpenSuse 11 Rc1:
Inode Size on the Ext3 Filesystem Increased
The inode size on the ext3 filesystem is increased from 128 to 256 by default. This change breaks many existing ext3 tools such as the windows tool EXTFS.
If you depend on such tools, install openSUSE with the old value.
install openSUSE with the old value
Using this bit of information plus the previous info I obtained via the (much appreciated) links provided by others here, I can now easily solve this issue using the yast formatting tools or simply pre-formatting an ext3 partition with other disk partition tools that default to 128 inode size and installing openSuse without formatting, which is not always an option when using other distros.
Furthermore, Acronis True Image 11 and Acronis Disk Director 10 (which I recently purchased) do not recognise this new 256 inode size and thus more reason for me to prefer distro/distros that offer the option to install on a pre-formatted partition or to allow for formatting using the 128 inode size. Now that we know OpenSuse offers both options, what other distros offer one or both options?
Cheers
powerfactor1
114 • @95 (by john frey on 2008-06-05 05:19:10 GMT from Canada)
"Even with its bugs, Windows allows me to do the things I want right out of the package without searching for just the right command or manually configuring anything. Guys, I'm loving the idea of dumping the big guy, but you've got to give me something I can work with."
Well Tony, how about a large selection of operating systems that are easy to install, come with a complete set of applications and allow you to directly install 1,000's of additional applications.
-You don't have to fiddle and tweak to get drivers installed for each piece of hardware and peripheral.
-no searching all over the net for the applications you want, they're all in one central location.
-No need for antivirus or antispyware
-all of this available for free if you want
(I'm sure there are many more features, I just can't be bothered thinking right now)
Sounds like all you need is a browser, media player, email client, very basic drawing software and a text editor, no internet connnection, no sound, no printer, no CD/DVD-burner, no 3D graphics. That's windows OOTB. I don't know of any Linux distro that will do that for you but if that's what you really want... Try enough alpha's and beta's and you might eventually find one that works the way you want.
115 • RE 95 The answer is Red Hats bright idea, (by dbrion on 2008-06-05 09:00:32 GMT from France)
"Even with its bugs, Windows allows me to do the things I want right out of the package without searching for just the right command or manually configuring anything."
Indeed...
Apart from free viruses (even no need for clicking, that hurts fingers, too), you can get almost any free application Windows ported (just google search "gimp Windows download", "abiword ....")....and Red Hats bright idea,
Cygwin:
you can download a tiny, (rather CLI-oriented, I confess, but with manuals, sources...etc) and very easy to configure with a GUI:
you can choose not to install it, but rather use as a mirror for further use (which makes its downloasd statistics highly unreliable), and the mirror is not put in an obscure , implicit place but where you CHOOSE (the usually upper-cased word when one ritually writes about FrEeDoM....). The only flaw is that it is slow (apps are 4 times slower than natively compiled ones...) and rarely uptodate....
But people having Vista+Cygwin+ some nice W$ ports of their favorite application+editor rarely use their second OS (a spare-wheel linux)....
By the way : how can you power-on a PC ... with a mouse click... BIOS is that unuser friendly it should be removed....
116 • win4lin link (by undercover on 2008-06-05 10:06:13 GMT from Canada)
Working for me now too. Guessing it was fixed.
--------------------------------------------------------------
109 • RE: 106 + 107 (by johncoom on 2008-06-05 03:40:45 GMT from Australia)
Thats odd because when I clicked the Win4Lin on DW the Related Links page ,
subsection 'Windows-based Linux Distributions' I ended up here
http://win4lin.net/content/
117 • Epidemic is nice, however... (by AlanJM on 2008-06-05 12:19:08 GMT from United States)
Epidemic is nice, however...
Easy to install, easy to run, really nice desktop environment, however...a little better support in English would make a "good" distro almost perfect!
118 • @117 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-05 13:19:31 GMT from United States)
I noticed in a few screen shots on their website the little BR flag in the KDE system tray. Technically couldn't you just tell KDE to use English? Would that work or is there something else involved? I never really messed with changing the language like that.
119 • Gentoos nasty jokes...Question 84 (by dbrion on 2008-06-05 15:27:38 GMT from France)
"Finally got around to installing Gentoo, based on some of Landor's postings in previous DWW comments.
One of the easiest installs I've ever done. I'm using the 2008.0 beta. I was looking for the documentation, accidentally clicked the install icon."
Was it a convenient ergonomy?
Did you find the documentation on the installed HD version? -which was your initial intention, if I can still understand English....
Could a hypersimple gfortran program be compiled and execute?
{ ex. echo " programme
print *, 'Bom dia"
END" > hello.f # there should be at least seven blanks in front of each line
gfortran hello.f && ./a.out # should greet you ... in Brazilian....
} I had to recompile (perhaps it was meant for???) gcc (I choose gcc-4.2.0) + gfortran to get a working gfortranbegin.a ... else, fortran programs cannot start.....but subroutines can be compiled and linked to c....
Else, it was astonishingly easy ... byt python seemed to be very active during their binary install process -I tried to see, from time to time, if I had enough memory with a working top)
120 • RE: # 111 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-05 17:09:44 GMT from Italy)
"Am I the only one who has stupid love for KDE3?"
No, you are not. It is going to take a (long) time before I get used to KDE4. But we can keep using it for quite a while. Debian Lenny should ship with 3.5. OpenSUSE 11 will ship with both. Slackware isn't going to move to KDE4 any time soon... And so on.
121 • KDE3 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-05 17:53:39 GMT from United States)
If you don't like the default Kickoff style menu in KDE 4, you can change it to the KDE 3 style one to ease the transition or personal preference. Just like most Display Environments, with enough time and effort you can make them look like a completely different one. You can even have Konqueror as a file manager instead of Dolphin. It takes a bit of effort to change things over, but it can be done.
122 • RE: # 121 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-05 23:14:56 GMT from Italy)
Do you have a link to a how to? Thanks.
123 • eAR OS missing/disabeld links (by PF Yearwood on 2008-06-06 13:39:52 GMT from United States)
I was interested in aAR OS as a media distro, however, when I tried to follow the links given here on Distrowatch, it was disabled at the server. Is there another link or what happened? Odd that a new version is released and the webpage is down the same week. I thought only restaurants disappeared that fast.
124 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-06 13:44:43 GMT from Canada)
Is this what you're looking for?
http://www.earos.dk/
125 • RE 22 :Deli is a beta state release. (by dbrion on 2008-06-06 14:09:45 GMT from France)
"wondering if anyone has general comments about this distro." (deli).
... well, I was more satisfied with the previous one (a stable one, obviously: the symetric w ould have been strange....); I VMplayerd both ((not that RAM greedy => ideal for virtual machines, even new ones, but it is not their original audience...)
. Anyway, as old PCs might be in a bad state (one finds them in an attic, or buys and carries on long bumpy-shaky roads), their connections might be in a bad state... and it would be a smart idea (at least, I fear) if they added a RAMtest before any attempt to install..
126 • @122 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-06 15:36:07 GMT from United States)
#121 here
For the KDE menu switch, its as simple as right clicking the task bar and going to "add applet to panel" as if you wanted to add a button and selecting the older KDE menu there. As for the Konqueror switch, the tutorial I had used seems to be gone now but I remember how to switch it. Fire up Kcontrol and go to File Associations then Inode and click Directory. In Application Preference Order move Konqueror to the very top and it will now be used as the default file manager.
127 • KDE4 vs KDE3 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-06 17:33:52 GMT from United States)
I agree with many KDE 3.5.X fans. KDE 4.0.X sucks. It does not have a digital clock that 3.5.X has. Will it be incoroporated back? There are many functionality issues. Regardless of which distro is using KDE 4, it is not as good as 3.5.X where X can be any number from 0 to 9. If things do not improve dramatically, there will be more and more users looking towards other desktop environments. In Fedora 9, "there is no place like gnome", why because KDE stinks as simple as that. Sorry to KDE developers, but you guys are rushing your product out, while there are several good things, there are many issues and bugs that will need fixing. Please bring back many of the KDE goodies in 3.5.X back into KDE 4. :)
128 • Why you shouldn't use Gentoo (by Anonymous on 2008-06-06 18:20:55 GMT from United States)
@84
@119 Nasty Jokes
The problem is, they've kind of burned themselves. Wait until you use their disto and depend on their packaging and they get further and further behind.
They stop updating packages not based on perceived use but on the willingness of a developer to keep it floating. It becomes a political ballgame. What if Gentoo went all KDE or all Gnome simply because it was easier to manage?
Recently they've decided to use a particular boot mechanism not because there is any real improvement (on a modern machine) but because it curries favor with the developer. This is the way they make decisions, not based upon community impact but what the 'boys with the toys' want this week.
They almost completely went under, nobody was minding the store there were thousands of packages way out of date. They are two months late with their announced plans for a new version.
Don't give me that crap you can just update from March 2006, you'll be compiling for days. Next they'll tell you the beta is just fine if you need it go ahead and install. The problem with this is there are architectural changes in the works or else they would have cut a final NOW WOULDN'T THEY?
The nasty part about all of this is that there is nothing in place to keep history from repeating itself. The developers' efforts would be better spent working on a mainstream distro. Why Gentoo is still listed as a major disto on this site, I have no idea, it is completely without merit.
129 • Can't See The Packages For The Trees (by Landor on 2008-06-06 18:36:57 GMT from Canada)
How many packages are "behind" as you say? I don't know what obscure packages you use, but any time I've read of a bugfix, security issue, or a needed bit of functionality, any package I went to upgrade to a newer version in Gentoo has been there. Odd no?
Two months late? Honestly? I think the Release Engineering page for 2008.0 states May 19th, and the general concensus is it will be released when it's ready. So again, two months late? Heonstly?
You're assuming there's going to be major changes. The only way you'd know that for sure is if you hung out in the gentoo-releng channel and followed the Devs closely. With your comments here which I've seen have no base in facts, that's not the case.
You obviously do as much research when it comes to Gentoo as Ladislav has in my humble opinion.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
130 • No subject (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-06 22:23:32 GMT from Italy)
@126 Thanks :)
@128 And it seems to me that Sabayon is going down the same road. There hasn't been a major, stable release for 9 months, very unusual for them. No wonder if you insist being based off Gentoo.
131 • RE: 129 Can't See The Packages For The Trees (by ladislav on 2008-06-06 23:22:20 GMT from Taiwan)
You seem to have so much time on your hands - why don't you write a serious article about Gentoo? I've been asking for ages, but nobody is ever interested! But boy, try posting a comment suggesting that Gentoo is not an absolutely perfect distro and you get dozens of Gentoo fans coming out in droves, attacking the site and writer. (While at the same time, send $500 to Gentoo and you won't get a single thank-you from anybody!)
Landor, can you give me an article please? Since you've done all the research, it shouldn't be a problem, should it?
132 • RE: # 131 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-06 23:43:56 GMT from Italy)
"(While at the same time, send $500 to Gentoo and you won't get a single thank-you from anybody!)"
Did you really expect a thank you from them? From the very people who, when the project founder offers to help, instead of replying "yes please", they say "no way, what have you got in your mind?"
133 • Booho on Gentoo (by Verndog on 2008-06-07 02:00:03 GMT from United States)
Those comments by Landor and others make this a sad commentary on Gentoo.
Instead of being positive on Gentoo and show its value, they attack opposing views.
134 • Love Isn't In The Air (by Landor on 2008-06-07 03:58:35 GMT from Canada)
I'm not fanboi'in sh*&. What I'm doing Ladislav is calling you on comments and I have.
I remember you stating that you were asked why don't you remove this comments section. Your reply was simple. Maybe not in these exact words but clear enough. It would only be right and democratic for someone to have a forum where they could challenge your comments, research, and information posted.
I've done just that and not once have I found you to admit you've done shoddy research when it's come to Gentoo. Not once have you apologized for your errs. I've found holes in almost every comment you've made about Gentoo other than the one regarding the donation. Which the donation deal you seem to let it hang around common sense like an anchor though. So who's worse Gentoo for not thanking you, or you for however long (months? years? should I check?), letting that one thing let's say, fray the information you comment on, or post about them.
I guess that's for you to decide.
Oh, and 133. How is lack of information and non-factual imformation an opposing view? My comments were set to earnestly bring the true facts to light. If one person is disinforming others, should not another correct them? Far better than those that just type "FUD" (ridiculous word) no?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
135 • Looks like Mint 5 (Final Release) is being seeded to mirrors right now (by Check your server/mirror on 2008-06-07 04:36:13 GMT from Australia)
[DIR] Parent Directory -
[ ] LinuxMint-5-BETA-048.iso 26-May-2008 13:18 690M
[ ] LinuxMint-5-Light.iso 07-Jun-2008 05:09 637M
[ ] LinuxMint-5.iso 06-Jun-2008 18:58 691M
md5sum.txt:
7597955b8b25641bacd098c287aafff6 LinuxMint-5-BETA-048.iso
32c7172f92b37d27a92084e71b6f489b LinuxMint-5.iso
7d9d13a248639495cb452492429b7147 LinuxMint-5-Light.iso
136 • RE: 134 Love Isn't In The Air (by ladislav on 2008-06-07 05:48:22 GMT from Taiwan)
Sorry Landor, but I still think that Gentoo is the sick man of the Linux distro world, with its current leadership totally incapable of bringing it out from its misery and quagmire. As for my "lack of research", would you attribute Daniel Robbins' recent criticism (and offer of help) to "lack of research" too?
No, Landor, it's only you and other die-hard Gentoo fans who refuse to see things as they are. Yes, I may be wrong at times, but I've been around the distro world long enough to spot a problem project. Gentoo wasn't always like this. Remember the time when they were the first to bring out a live CD with a demo game (America's Army)? Or the time when they announced package management innovations on a monthly basis? When the Linux forums around the world were buzzing with Gentoo talk? Sadly, those days are gone, my friend.
But don't let me stray off topic here, so I ask again: Is your well-researched Gentoo Linux article coming or not?
137 • @93 Consistent UBUlinux (and that logical) loooove (by dbrion on 2008-06-07 14:08:12 GMT from France)
"read the grub issue above and for the first time while upgrading ubuntu I was faced with the option of keeping the current grub or upgrading. Anyone else using ubuntu have come across this issue?"
I suppose you have already found the answer in the million of hordes of entries of the "vibrant" UBUlinux fora.... unless they are just to be counted, Google-searched in a (technical, of course) PR purpose.....
138 • Busy Bee (by Landor on 2008-06-07 19:27:11 GMT from Canada)
I've stated before about Daniel Robbins. My thoughts on the matter. Recently, they were even more cemented. You talk about him offering to help with Gentoo. He didn't run for membership on the council did you know that? He had the chance to. Also, he stated before he'd be willing to do this or do that with Gentoo, take a leadership role, then not take a leadership role, etc, etc. Now the man states his life is too busy for Gentoo. The project takes up too muich of his time. Did you know that as well? Research Ladislav, Research. You've been at this a long time.
So based on the above, I can see why the people at Gentoo wouldn't want him back, seriously. He's too indecisive to be in any leadership role. The man probably is busy and probably can't tend to Gentoo as it should be. But on the other side of the coin, he should stop coming out with all this negative media, comments, when he himself states not long after he doesn't have the time. Isn't that why he left Gentoo in the first place? So his offering the olive branch of help out to the Gentoo community wasn't all it was cracked up to be in my opinion.
Would Distrowatch operate fully and properly if you were to leave and come back, and leave again? How stable would that be? Also, how stable would your continual comments on the matter make the site? Gentoo's been making a lot of changes. Changes that are for the better. Changes you fail to aknowledge. Nobody's saying they didn't have problems. They're sure as hell doing their best to fix them though.
Do you have any children Ladislav? No need to answer either. If you do, do you focus on the problems they faced previously, or do you look on constructively at the gains they've made in fixing them? Like I said, no need to answer. The answer would be obvious for anyone with or without children. Also, just a side note on this example. Daniel Robbins fits this view in my eyes, kind've. A parent that gave birth to Gentoo, left because it was too busy, then offered to help, but later on said it was too busy again. How would a child succeed with such a parent. Let alone a distro?
For the review. I don't think one based on 2007.0 with very specific apps and rarely updated would be a beneficial read to others.
Thank you for aknowledging you're wrong at times. Says a lot about a person that can. I have no problem with it myself,
Lest I forget. The same can be said about Knoppix, Red Hat, Slack, and any other distro that paved the way no? I'm sure you've figured out I'm not the n00b I like to portray myself as. I remember the days when any new distro with any even minute bit of difference was a huge deal. Back when even the most avid of geeks still went "Linux? Huh?". It could be easily said that Gentoo has fallen in the ranks of the rest of the big guys.
Sometimes I may take a hard line and that I will apologize for. The reason I do though is when I see something totally wrong, and I'd do the same for anything, or any distro that I was aware of that fact.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
139 • Did knomath arrive this week? and comm @81 (by dbrion on 2008-06-08 14:06:50 GMT from France)
I saw knomath was released in this weeks DW news, and I downloaded her:
one can have her englicised, as far as I tested, by starting by typing "knoppix lang=us", like any Knoppix AFAIK... and the menus
are in american English,
wxMaxima has English help,
the key,qp is very exotic etc... but the authors are modest, they claim only french language support...
There is something which makes me somwhat astonished : from their package shipping list, it is two years old (12 times the lag of the "sick man of the linux distros"....) and I gave a colleague of mine a Knomath live CD ... two months ago....
Unlike some asocial distros, which support many processors (and have sometimes long _antiPR_ lags), Knomath supports "only" i486 (and later x86)... which makes it useful for people who do not change their >=128MRAM PC when the ashtray is full (perhaps they do not smoke?) EX: from "here" #81 :"Memory is dirt cheap, get at least 1GB." (in the context of someone -whose richness is unknown/unclaimed- having managed to start Suse with "only" 256MRAM, which shows skill)
140 • Gentoo, Landor, #138 (by Chris Hildebrandt on 2008-06-08 19:42:02 GMT from Austria)
1) A Linux distribution is not a child.
2) A distribution founder is not a father.
3) Honor and respect the fathers, but don't make them gods - and never expect them to be gods.
4) The importance of fathers (and mothers) for a child's further development after the very first years is still a matter of ongoing academic conversation.
5) Gentoo has lost most of it's shiny image, and it does not matter very much who might be at fault. It also has lost most of it's (overrated, but formerly existing) technical advantage. I am very much interested in your opposing article on topic, though.
6) Please finally stop the silly "stick in the ice" thing, please!
Greetings,
Chris
141 • Gentoo & OpenSUSE (by Anonymous on 2008-06-08 21:27:44 GMT from United States)
bitting lip. deep breath.
No really.
Gentoo, Ladislav is right. I too have gone to the well a few times and each time is has become poison. And reading between the lines from everyone I think we all can agree that it is broken. At this point the only fix is to take the lumps and go back two years to the creators last code and start again. Open up updates to that older version again to the 07' version that I asked for two years ago. There has to be a stop to this slash and burn and go forward at all costs, all that does is get everyone stuck and mad.
I also no longer have the stomach (and trust factor) for the install and pray updates. The only gentoo I still use and refuse to update is my xbox. There would be no way back if it got a "update" from this point.
OpenSUSE, it is the only one that has never run on any one of my pcs ever and it is because of its my way or the highway attitute. It would rather leave you on a black screen than to ask you for a IP or a DNS adress or a video setting. If your stuck just ask first or run a wizzard for us from the menu at a low resilution. Or as a last resort tell us what open source driver you don't like and let us use the M$ one from the your buddy or the cd that came with the hardware chum.
142 • More Points Than A Porcupine (by Landor on 2008-06-08 22:43:16 GMT from Canada)
The first three show you missed the points being conveyed. The fourth, well, again the point was clear. Any person, especially a child/youth (and adult for that matter) who hears from someone "important" that they will get assistance, then hears time and time again that the person is too busy to help them will first be demoralized and second be jaded by it.
The comments are pretty broad for number 5. I could say that about almost every long term distro. They've all lost their original shine and once technical advantages no? So how does Gentoo differ? I'm very much interested in seeing your response regarding this.
And 6? People should try to be silly more often. Maturity is relative....To high blood pressure, strokes, ulcers, heart attacks and many other woes....
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
143 • Linux Mint 5.0 Released (by technosaurus on 2008-06-08 23:05:28 GMT from United States)
You can download Elyssa at:
ftp://mirrors.secution.com/linuxmint.com/5/LinuxMint-5.iso
I just happened to stumble upon it today - 50% complete with download now, mini review to follow.
144 • is it April again? Lexmark ads on dw (by arno911 on 2008-06-09 06:22:55 GMT from Germany)
since when does this crap work with Linux? less printing, more saving, well at least the first part of that slogan is correct. no printing would be more accurate.
145 • Zenwalk 5.2 (by capricornus on 2008-06-09 07:00:01 GMT from Netherlands)
CrossOver under Zenwalk 5.2, it remains hidden like in 4 an 5.0. Installing OfficeXP same thing. No icons.
But even stranger: installing Filezilla, the icon is shown, but the program doesn't start.
It is a pleasure to work with Zenwalk 5.2, but the above ruins it when it becomes business.
146 • Minty fresh mini-review (by technosaurus on 2008-06-09 07:19:59 GMT from United States)
Desktop - Single bottom panel gnome with dark background - nice
Youtube test - passed with flying colors
Webcam test - first distro to ever fully pass this one from the get go
Encoded DVD test - played fine
Intel video sound and wifi all worked well for me.
Includes the Gimp, firefox 3 rc1 (with all of the necessary plugins), openoffice 2.4, mplayer and totem, brasero
impressions - mint update and selectable updates is a nice have, menu system can steal mouse focus but is otherwise quite nice - especially the ability to uninstall programs from the menu with a right click and verification, not a whole lot of duplicate programs and they have included a good selection of common must-haves
My only sortof negative comment is that if you are going to include proprietary software you might as well use Opera but that is just a personal preference and at least it is in the repo.
147 • @144 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-06-09 07:27:30 GMT from Canada)
Hey, the whole thing's accurate. If you can't print anything, just imagine how much you save on ink...
sigh.
Number of Comments: 147
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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