 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 258, 23 June 2008 |
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Welcome to this year's 25th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! openSUSE 11.0, Firefox 3.0, Red Hat Summit - these were the main events that kept the Linux news sites busy over the past week. The latest release of Novell's community distribution resulted in a large number of first-look reviews, the authors of which seemed to be impressed with the effort of the developers. Fast and pretty? Definitely. Bleeding-edge? Maybe. Unstable? Absolutely not. Despite the many experimental technologies, KDE 4 and other new features, openSUSE 11.0 appears to be a much improved, well-tested and meticulously designed operating system that should please even the most demanding desktop Linux user. In other news, Mandriva announces a release plan for its upcoming version 2009, Red Hat extends support for its enterprise distributions, Debian and ASUS cooperate on a new Debian solution for the Eee PC, and Ubuntu's Netbook Remix gets a thumbs up from a satisfied user. Finally, the DistroWatch's package database receives a number of new additions - read on for details. As always, thank you for visiting DistroWatch and have a lot of fun!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (6.6MB) and mp3 (6.5MB) formats (many thanks to Russ Wenner)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
From Fedora 9 to openSUSE 11.0
 Those among you who read DistroWatch Weekly with religious regularity probably remember that your DistroWatch maintainer tends to switch his primary distribution every six months. This is mostly the result of wanting to follow the current trends in different distributions and to remain as objective as possible when comparing and evaluating different products. Having just completed some six months on Fedora 8 and 9, it was thus time to pick a new distro for my main workstation. The result? This issue of DistroWatch Weekly is the first of many that has been put together on openSUSE 11.0.
Before taking a first look at Novell's community distribution, let me start with a few remarks on Fedora's last two releases. It seems to be a trend among Linux distributions that an excellent release is often followed by a mediocre one. It's as if the distribution developers became complacent after one or two successful versions, thinking that nothing could possible go wrong six months down the line. As such, they get more adventurous, make wrong decisions, and add experimental features, the combination of which is often disastrous. With Fedora 9, I feel that the developers have negated all the great work they had done with previous 2 - 3 releases and went overboard with bleeding-edge software and features. No wonder Fedora 9 received barely a lukewarm reception by most reviewers, while many users were much less kind in their choice of words when describing their own experiences.
My sentiments are no different from those expressed in many recent reviews. Fedora 8 was possibly the project's best release to-date - certainly not without its problems, but generally trouble-free, especially after the first waves of post-release bug fixes and software updates were applied to the distribution. On the other hand, Fedora 9 barely qualifies as a stable release. The decision to provide KDE 4 as the only KDE desktop was a painfully wrong one, particularly at the time when the vocal Fedora KDE team has been campaigning hard to convince the Linux community that Fedora was not a GNOME distro any more. And shipping a version of X.Org that did not work with any of the proprietary NVIDIA drivers also must have cost the distribution a few users.
It wasn't just KDE 4 that made Fedora 9 a buggy and feature-incomplete operating system. During my use of the product I also encountered a number of other annoyances, among which a failure to find the CD/DVD burner (a reboot would fix the issue, at least for a while) was most unpleasant. My Nikon Coolpix camera, which was detected fine in Fedora 8, no longer worked in Fedora 9 (I had to remove the SD card and plug it into a USB card reader in order to extract the content). And last week's software update, which brought over 200 new package versions into Fedora 9, broke my GRUB (I had to reboot into a live CD in order to re-instate the bootloader). All these little troubles suggest that Fedora 9 does not only suffer from wrong design choices, but also from lack of quality control during beta testing and post-release updates.
So shortly after last week's release of openSUSE 11.0, I made a decision to dedicate my second hard disk to what promised to be one of the most ambitious products of the just-concluded distro release season. Let's face it - both Mandriva Linux 2008.1 and Ubuntu 8.04 were fairly conservative releases, making them look like minor updates rather than major new distribution versions (I don't mean this in a negative way, on the contrary). Fedora went the other direction, putting every conceivable new feature and unstable software into its development tree. Although the openSUSE developers did largely the same, they have also given themselves a much longer development period. The presence of several prominent KDE developers on the openSUSE team has also raised the confidence level as to the KDE 4 implementation in the distribution. And while KDE 4 is the default KDE in openSUSE 11.0, KDE 3.5 and its components are thankfully available in the distribution's repositories and can be installed with just a few mouse clicks.
One non-technical problem with openSUSE 11.0 is, of course, Novell's infamous patent protection deal with Microsoft, which continues to be a hotly debated topic in DistroWatch Weekly forums week after week. One thing is clear, however; although the people who continue to campaign for boycotting Novell's products are extremely vocal, they are clearly in minority. An indication of this is the interest last week's release of openSUSE 11.0 generated here on DistroWatch. It is illustrated in the table below, which ranks the major distribution releases according to the number of unique hits their respective pages received during the first three days after the release. As can be seen, with over 16,500 unique hits, openSUSE 11.0 is second only to Ubuntu 8.04 in terms of post-release interest in the distribution among the DistroWatch visitors.
So what were the first few days of openSUSE 11.0 like? My first impressions are much more positive than the first few days on Fedora 9; I spent much of them migrating data and settings, and configuring the user interface the way that makes me productive. One of the most pleasant surprises that won me over was the inclusion of Konqueror 3 in the default installation. This simple trick that Fedora failed to spot makes it possible to stay with KDE 4 as the default desktop, but still enjoy the goodness and flexibility of KDE 3.5 wherever KDE 4 doesn't cut in. Let's be honest about it, in terms of features and customisation options, both Dolphin and Konqueror 4 file managers are very poor substitutes for the excellent Konqueror in KDE 3.5.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the improvements in YaST and package management, especially its speed. The last time I used openSUSE extensively was in 2002, but even the more recent reviews continued to express dissatisfaction with the general speed of the distribution's administration and package management utilities. Clearly, the developers have listened to their users and have made massive efforts to address this issue. On my x86_64 system, software installation with YaST2 wasn't any slower than that using any of the Fedora package management utilities, while booting is also much speedier than was the case in previous versions of openSUSE. As I had used the live CD to install the operating system, I spent considerable time tormenting the openSUSE package management utilities, but apart from an occasional failed connection to an overcrowded mirror, I had no problems installing and uninstalling applications. Installing proprietary and non-free ones, as well as adding video card drivers and media support to openSUSE 11.0 was surprisingly intuitive and straightforward. Even third-party applications, such as Opera 9.50 and the latest Google Earth, all worked without any problems.
Overall, I am pleasantly surprised with openSUSE 11.0. Perhaps the only area where it lacks in comparison with Fedora 9 is its font setup; on my LCD monitor I find the default fonts looking absolutely gorgeous on all recent Fedora and Mandriva releases, but it takes a lot of experimentation and tweaking on most other distribution to get the same effect. Other than that, openSUSE 11.0 looks good and feels solid, and I expect being a satisfied openSUSE user for the next six months.
What are your experiences with openSUSE 11.0? Please discuss below.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Mandriva 2009 release plans, extended support for RHEL 4/5, Debian on ASUS Eee PC, Ubuntu Netbook Remix review
 Last week's release of openSUSE 11.0 marks the end of another eventful release season. Luckily for us, the distro developers never sleep and for the next few months we can expect a steady stream of development builds for interested beta testers. The delayed first alpha of Ubuntu 8.10 should be out any moment now, but it looks like the first major distribution with a new development release will be Mandriva Linux, which published a detailed roadmap for its upcoming version last week (see the Upcoming Releases and Announcement section below). So what can we expect in Mandriva Linux 2009? As always, there are many interesting points, which Shafiq Issani summarises neatly in this blog post: "Here's what you should expect from Mandriva Linux 2009: a revamped installer; improved boot speed; improved DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support) management; improved language selection; Linux kernel 2.6.26; GCC 4.3; GNOME 2.24; KDE 4.1; Firefox 3.0; OpenOffice.org 3.0; implementation of the PolicyKit and PackageKit technologies; improvements to the Mandriva Windows migration and parental control utilities; Live Upgrade (same as Ubuntu's update-manager tool); init scripts improvements; Splashy will replace the actual boot splash; lots of desktop improvements. There are also some rumors that X.Org 7.4 and GRUB 2.x will be included in Mandriva 2009."
* * * * *
 Red Hat Summit 2008, the three-day annual conference that took place in Boston last week, is an event keenly followed by the online media, as well as many enterprise Linux users. Besides publishing details about the new oVirt hypervisor, the enterprise Linux vendor has also announced an extension of support for its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4 and 5 series by an extra year. The Register: "Red Hat outlined its complex release roadmap during the Red Hat Summit in Boston. At five years after their release, RHEL 4 and 5 will move to the 'transition' phase where updates will be minor bug fixes made on a more flexible schedule. Years six and seven are the last gasp before the final update release. Updates will be critical bug and security fixes only. RHEL 4 was released in 2005. That would have formally put it in "transition territory" at this time. But the OS now will get a reprieve from phase two at least until Q4 2009. The next update, RHEL 4.7 is planned for general release on July 21st. Version 4.8 is scheduled for the first half of 2009. RHEL 5 was released in 2007, so the OS will therefore continue to get regular phase 1 updates until 2011. The next update of RHEL 5 will be version 5.3, scheduled for January 2009."
* * * * *
 Chances are that the ASUS Eee PC stand at next year's Computex show will carry an "It's better with Debian" slogan, instead of its current (and hopelessly inaccurate) "It's better with Windows" motto. The reason? Ben Armstrong explains it in his post published on the Debian-eeepc-devel mailing list: "I just received an encouraging note from Ellis Wang of ASUS in Taiwan following up on Martin Michlmayr's suggestions to ASUS about how they could work more closely with the Debian community. Ellis has assigned Robert Huang the task of putting a working relationship in place between ASUS and Debian, with backup provided by five other ASUS employees." The author provides some technical details in this follow-up post: "The key areas where work is happening now are in the installer, ensuring that as much as possible is set up automatically for the user and that the install will run a variety of situations (e.g. different network needs: WPA, PPPoE, etc.) and fine-tuning the ACPI scripts to ensure that they are reliable and implement a good default set of behaviours for the user, while allowing some configuration by more experienced users and users with special needs." If you are interested in this development, then please keep an eye on the Debian Wiki's Eee PC page and subscribe to the project's mailing list.
* * * * *
 Speaking of ultra portables, here is an interesting first-look review of Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a distribution specifically designed to power low-cost, low-specification computers: "The benefits of Netbook Remix over the regular version of Ubuntu are that it includes an 'Easy mode' interface, with a tabbed screen that makes it easy to find applications and a lot of thought has gone into how to make the most of the available screen area, which can be awkward on a 7-inch screen. I'm glad that Canonical have developed a tabbed interface along the 'Easy-mode' lines for Ubuntu, I've grown to really like the 'Easy mode' on the Eee PC and found that when I did install the 'Advanced mode', which is more like a traditional desktop environment that can be found on just about any computer (the idea doesn't vary that much between Linux, Windows and Mac), I never used it." For more information about the product and to see a short video of its user interface in action please visit the Ubuntu Netbook Remix page at Canonical.com.
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| Released Last Week |
Pioneer Linux 3.2
Technology Alignment has announced the release of Pioneer Linux 3.2, a desktop distribution based on the recently released Ubuntu 8.04: "Technology Alignment sponsored and community open source projects, today announced the availability of Pioneer Explorer and Basic 3.2, the latest version of its open source Linux operating system distributions. Pioneer operating systems continues to build upon its 7-year life cycle with the Release 3 series. Highlights of the KDE-based distribution include improvements and enhancements on the Programs Folder to allow difficult to find and install items such as codecs while the latest release of Pioneer Linux sports a 2.6.24 kernel, Firefox 3 beta 5 and OpenOffice.org version 2.4.0. Read the rest of the press release for more details.
Kurumin NG 8.06
Leandro Santos has announced the release of Kurumin NG 8.06, a Brazilian desktop distribution based on Kubuntu 8.04, but enhanced with features developed earlier by the Kurumin and Kalango projects. Version 8.06 is the project's first stable release. Some of the changes since the earlier beta release include: upgrade of the system to the latest Kubuntu "Hardy Heron" code; Magic icons improvements; addition of a shortcut to KFind (a files and folders search tool); minor changes in the configuration of APT sources; addition of a My Computer shortcut to the desktop; several new magic icons for Blender, Picasa, Flash plugin, Skype, Songbird, etc; various cosmetic changes to the desktop and GRUB boot theme; new applications - Audacity, Thunderbird, KDE Games, XGalaga, Ltris, Jockey-KDE, GParted and additional media codecs for K3B; removal of Kontact and its dependencies. Read the full release announcement (in Portuguese) for further information.
Kurumin NG 8.06 - the start of a new era for one of Brazil's most popular Linux distributions
(full image size: 455kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Zenwalk Live 5.2
Pierrick Le Brun has announced the release of Zenwalk Live 5.2, a live CD edition of the Slackware-based Zenwalk Linux: "Zenwalk Live 5.2, the latest Zenwalk in its live CD format is ready! Based on Zenwalk Current and a slightly modified version 6.2.3 of the Linux-Live scripts, Zenwalk Live is meant to be an almost perfect clone of Zenwalk standard, although it now uses a slightly modified kernel in order to unlock specific live CD features, such as the re-mastering of Zenwalk Live on a USB key with persistent changes. As always, Zenwalk live features several specific live CD GUI tools which you will find in Zenpanel. Essential recovery and system tools, such as LiloFix, GParted and TestDisk have not been forgotten. Zenwalk Live 5.2 includes all the latest improvements from Zenwalk 5.2 recent release." Visit the distribution's user forums to read the full release announcement.
openSUSE 11.0
The long-awaited openSUSE 11.0 has arrived: "The openSUSE Project is proud to announce the release of openSUSE 11.0 - everything you need to get started with Linux on the desktop and on the server. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, the openSUSE Project provides free, easy access to the world’s most usable Linux distribution, openSUSE. The 11.0 release of openSUSE includes more than 200 new features specific to openSUSE, a redesigned installer that makes openSUSE even easier to install, faster package management thanks to major updates in the ZYpp stack, and KDE 4, GNOME 2.22, Compiz Fusion, and much more." For more information please see the release announcement, product page and release notes.
openSUSE 11.0 - one of the project's most ambitious releases
(full image size: 861kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Mandriva Linux 2009
Mandriva has published a release roadmap leading towards the distribution's next stable version - Mandriva Linux 2009: "Mandriva Linux 2009 comes a step closer to reality today with the unveiling of the release schedule and the technical specifications. All this information can be found on the Mandriva Linux 2009 Development page on the Mandriva Wiki. The schedule includes two alphas, two betas, and two release candidates, prior to the final release in early October 2008. The first alpha release is scheduled for June 25th - just a week away. The technical specifications are based on input from both the community and Mandriva staff, with each item assigned to a specific maintainer and given a priority level." Among the most interesting items are switch to KDE 4 and inclusion of OpenOffice 3. Please see the full announcement for an overview of the main specifications.
* * * * *
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Annual package database update
After two weeks of soliciting suggestions for the annual package database update on DistroWatch, these are the packages that have been accepted as new additions to the list: Git, HAL, GNU Midnight Commander, Miro and PulseAudio. Many thanks to those of you who took the time to email your suggestions; if your preferred package didn't make the list, don't despair - we'll have another update in June 2009!
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- BoliviaOS. BoliviaOS is an Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution developed in Bolivia. Web site in Spanish only.
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 30 June 2008.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Parsix (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-23 09:18:01 GMT from Italy)
So what happened to Parsix 1.5?
2 • @1 (by BhaKi on 2008-06-23 09:29:08 GMT from India)
Yet another example of a good distro not receiving the attention that it deserves. All because of the hype generated by the commercially sponsored distros.
3 • SuSE 11 (by Sarge on 2008-06-23 09:29:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sorry, Ladislav. It crashed, and crashed and then crashed some more on several of my machines. I don't care for the over-graphical menu list, either, that seems popular with the major distros - what's wrong with plain old text. And bloated it is, indeed. Slow, cumbersome, pedantic (especially in the installation) - all of this unnecessary. Puppy Linux offers so much more and at speed. For control freaks, Puppy Muppy standard is the proverbial kitchen sink. Forget the rest - if Muppy can't do it (and Mark can't fix you up within 24hrs!) - forget it. For EEEPC fans, there's Puppy Breezy. For Xfce (fastest and easiest neophyte desktop) - Puppy wNOP. For Compiz fans - Puppy wNOP. Suddenly everthing's doggy - woof woof (incidentally, that';s the P/W, too.).
4 • Suse 11 (by Gene Venable on 2008-06-23 09:38:13 GMT from United States)
Suse 11 simply wouldn't install for me. I had a similar problem with Mint. Probably because of my crummy Ati video card, or maybe my creatively formatted hd (not all ext3). Fortunately, I am extremely happy with the current Sidux, and am learning about Fluxbox after finally abandoning Window Maker.
5 • openSUSE 11.0 (by Joaquim Gil on 2008-06-23 09:42:01 GMT from Portugal)
I have exactly the same problem as previously described by Gene Venable. I also have an ATI video card. Shame Novell is not supporting some ATI's cards... :(
6 • @3 (by BhaKi on 2008-06-23 09:42:05 GMT from India)
openSUSE 11.0 is the best distro ever in package management, feature-wise as well as speed-wise, if you consider the sizes of the official repos and the packman repo.
The crashes? They must be because of KDE4. You can still install only KDE3 if u want.
The artwork is stylish and eye-pleasing at the same time.
I've been using openSUSE 11.0 (with KDE3) for a day, trying in different ways to make it crash. Not a single crash, so far.
7 • ATI Cards -- please report! (by Francis on 2008-06-23 09:50:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
Could anyone with the ATI problems with installation please report this issue? It would be really helpful to track it down....
openSUSE 11.0 is the most amazing release I've probably ever had the pleasure of installing and using. Congratulations again to all those involved!
8 • Ubuntu logo on FAQ page (by Francis on 2008-06-23 09:59:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Out of interest, why is the Ubuntu logo shown on the FAQ at the bottom? Seems unrelated.
9 • Comments on DWW (by KimFaste on 2008-06-23 10:00:19 GMT from Sweden)
The "Better with Debian" slogan is if not irrelevant, at least very humorous and somewhat comforting. The Debian + Asus cooperation looks very promising and an excellent move into the right direction. Debian isn't my faviourite distribution, but it nevertheless is a pure and reliable distribution, both technically and ethically. A way better solution than getting tied up with companies having cut obscure deals with Microsoft.
Suse? I'm not a very vocal boycott-Novell-guy, even though I made a complaint about it here on DW a couple of weeks ago. I don't know what to believe actually, because it's a big mess of entangled actions between IBM, Oracle, SCO, Microsoft, Novell and some others, making it all foggy and hard to understand. My basis for not using Suse is simple enough and actually hard evidence:
- as long as Novell makes written (written is at least not a rumour) claims on their own sites insinuating that the only viable way to go is to cut deals with Microsoft I've no wish to support the product by buying or by "testing" new features (this is were OpenSuse comes into picture)
You don't need to be particularly smart to read and understand how Novell is promoting their deal as a reason for choosing it over other Linux vendors. In view of this: why should I support OpenSuse over Fedora (reflecting the rivalry between Novell and Red Hat)?
I wish someone just cloned off a totally OpenSuse, letting the prisoners free, because its developers are doing pretty fine.
10 • openSUSE 11.0 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 10:02:16 GMT from United States)
Glad I'm not the only one who had major problems with openSUSE 11.0. :-(
Every time I booted up, the whole OS would freeze within one or two minutes of use. (This was an x64 GNOME system installed via LiveCD.) Couldn't even kill X - had to poke the reset button. I guess I'll try out a KDE install and see if it goes any better, though I was trying to avoid KDE until v4 matures a bit more.
11 • Liberté, égalité... fraternité? (by Jean-Paul Marat on 2008-06-23 10:05:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
> One non-technical problem with openSUSE 11.0 is, of course, Novell's
> infamous patent protection deal with Microsoft, which continues to be a
> hotly debated topic in DistroWatch Weekly forums week after week. One
> thing is clear, however; although the people who continue to campaign
> for boycotting Novell's products are extremely vocal, they are clearly
> in minority.
So much for Linux's community ethic, then, Ladislav?
I too encountered the shortcomings you describe in Fedora 9, and am also pondering possible alternatives, but for as long as Novell's patent indemnification deal stands I will never seriously consider installing openSUSE, regardless of its supposed technical advantages.
12 • SUSE 11 (by James Bennet on 2008-06-23 10:10:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
Suse 11 doesnt work with most dell dimensions. They dont have PS/2 ports (only usb) and they dont have a BIOS option for legacy USB support, so you cant install suse, as with no keyboard, it times out and boots the first option (boot from hard disk)
This has been a problem since suse 10. Come on novell! This has been reported countless times and dell is a major manufacturer, so it should be fixed!
13 • DWW (by Francis on 2008-06-23 10:13:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
@KimFaste: bear in mind that Novell and Red Hat are commercial companies. While they both use Linux, they are instantly also competitors. Marketing types are naturally thrilled at a difference and would want to promote it.
Still though, the controversial part of the MS-Novell deal (the customer patent protection) is _never_ suggested as a reason for people to choose SUSE, even from any Novell marketing types that I've seen or heard. The only advantage mentioned is the interoperability with MS products, which is important in the enterprise and is kind of fair enough (since they made the deal with them).
Anyway, openSUSE is a community project simply sponsored by Novell (like many other FOSS projects). Not using SUSE hardly promotes the rivalry which two larger commercial companies (Novell/RH) have with each other.
14 • Open Suse 11 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 10:14:22 GMT from China)
ISuse looks Pretty nice now. With KDE4 it looks Very modern and stylish. But i think i stick with my mandriva 2008.1 around for a while.
Would be nice if there is some Distrowatch Feature story about the various EEEPC Distros. because xandros sucks and ubuntu netbook remix is for Atom Only.
15 • OpenSuse (by Bob on 2008-06-23 10:14:33 GMT from Austria)
Problems mentioned above confirmed (KDE4). I hope 3.5.9 stays until KDE4 is finally dumped and KDE5 is starting to work.
16 • Yeah....openSUSE is a good OS (by Suseuser on 2008-06-23 10:18:29 GMT from Australia)
I am keeping my 10.3 on the laptop and adding some backport repos for yast and zypp to get the new package manager speed improvements. I will wait for 11.1 before considering reinstalling here!
I did install 11.0 on my old P4 via a net install iso and was easily able to choose kde 3.5.9 desktop and save on downloading (or buying) DVD version. About 70 MB for iso + another 70 or more for install setup and the rest depends on what you choose to install. For my selections, I think there was approx another 600 MB on top of all that. If you don't install via dvd, the net iso is the best choice to get a clean kde 3.5.9.
No issues here, all routine stuff for me (I have done a few openSUSE installs recently and practice always helps).
17 • Suse 11 (by Marcel on 2008-06-23 10:23:19 GMT from Netherlands)
I could not use my ralink wireless card with Suse 11.
It simply does not work. Fortunately many other distros support it out of the box. This problem seems to be quite old (I see messages dated somewhere in 2006) but it has not been solved. Too bad, because ralink (rt2500) does not need ndiswrapper.
In the meanwhile I have 'archived' the DVD+R.....
18 • openSUSE 11 (by JeffM on 2008-06-23 10:31:48 GMT from Canada)
I played with the beta's for a bit but had a lot of issues installing/crashing. For some reason their beta's always kill me but releases run smoothly and 11.0 didn't let me down.
Install went great and its much faster than previous versions on my aging laptop. I'm still not warming up to KDE 4 especially with all the quirks and bugs that can't seem to get fixed but so far with 11.0, I haven't had any problems. Mind you I haven't played with it much either. I will install openSUSE 11 on my primary laptop which will give me a real test at how well it preforms. Should it bomb, back to Mint 5 I will go (for a month before I try another distro )
I don't know about anyone else, but I have a very hard time keeping one distro for very long.
19 • Suse 11 (by mika480 on 2008-06-23 10:34:58 GMT from Italy)
Curiosity.....
Five hours with Suse on my spare Hdd.....
back to Sidux............
Smile back on my face!
20 • OpenSUSE 11.0 (by Redy on 2008-06-23 10:53:02 GMT from Indonesia)
OpenSUSE is great and beautiful, and very user friendly to newbie. But for me it doesn't great anymore if my hardware is not working. My laptop Toshiba L310 doesn't running well with OpenSUSE for ethernet and wireless, because it doesn't have driver, it detect Marvell Technology but it's not work at all. Downloading the driver from Marvell's website and try tp compile it to the kernel, but it doesn't work either.
Woooaaa.......
Back to my Slackware.. compiled driver just running perfect :)
21 • Re 17... Check here.....If you really try, you will get there (by Yes You Can! on 2008-06-23 10:57:16 GMT from Australia)
[...]
Ralink RT2500 chipset
The RT2500 chipset performs well and is supported fully by Ubuntu, Debian Etch, and SUSE 10.2 - just as it appears to have been discontinued. It's well worth using if you can find some old stock cards using this chipset. Our stock of these has been exhausted, but if we can find more of either PCMCIA or PCI versions, we will snap them up. .....
SUSE Linux 10.0 has both rt2500 and rt2570 drivers : other distributions may vary, but if yours does not include Ralink support, then we include a CD containing the source with your order or you can download the source from http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/
For some reason, Novell removed support for the rt2500 from SUSE 10.1, we believe that they intend to re-introduce it at some time. Meantime, look here for a very useful HOWTO on getting the rt2500 up and running on SUSE 10.1.
Note: openSUSE 10.2 now includes full support for the RT2500.
[...]
http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/products/wireless/
Try here: http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/Network_Adapters_(Wireless)
22 • Distro stuff (by Steve on 2008-06-23 10:58:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hmm, so much to say.
After using the following pretty intensively for the last 18 months:
OpenSuSE
Sidux
Sabayon
Vector Linux
Mandriva
..I'm now migrating my workstations over to Vector Linux. Why? Each release is solid and does everything - from about 6 months ago. Yep, that's a bit out of date - but the flip side is - everything is patched and working. VL just goes.
..just thinking about the last time VL crashed. Can't. That stable; must be over 500 hours use on an SOHO RC now. Solid.
My servers are using the latest Mandriva One with HD install. Why? Stable + total package sweetness + can handle old, cranky hardware (that's my servers!). HW tolerance is good on Mandriva.
OpenSuSE - no killer issues; small grumbles plus, somehow, blandness / no vision just prompted me to keep moving on. Did crash (Note: not reporting the latest version; this re 10 > 10.3)
Sidux. Nice distro. Well, slh and team do a great job and support well. These are very tech people and give determinedly correct answers... but I am not at their level; I can't cope with their tech prowess. My brane melts.
Sabayon. This is the distro I want most to see fit and working! It's fun! But I became jaded after too many issues. (great music too)
After all that - if someone held a gun to my head and said "Here is a random box from out of the past - so, what will boot on it, connect to the net, run great and impress everyone? Get this right... " I'd just have to say "Puppy".
23 • RE 13 (by KimTjik on 2008-06-23 11:04:38 GMT from Sweden)
(I'm not a troll but for some reason I wrote KimFaste instead)
@ Francis
That's one way of interpreting the situation. Based on http://www.moreinterop.com/ I came to the conclusion I explained in my previous post. The whole point of the site is to promote the benefits of the deal; nothing strange as it's an intentional deal made by Novell. Some part reads:
"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. And the distribution with more Linux firsts than any other, including the first enterprise distribution to ship with built-in Xen virtualization."
The consequences of this:
1.) forget about open standards because it isn't worth a squat
2.) Red Hat is a worth choice because it didn't cut such a deal
Intriguing is also the comment about Xen. Xen was like the favourite child in the Linux world for years, but has somehow coming under more and more control of Microsoft. Not a catastrophe because we've got KVM improving fast. Nevertheless it's symptomatic that the Novell/Microsoft pact is using Xen as an argument, something that should serve as a warning for us all. Let's see what happens with Xen.
Why is "interoperability with MS products" fair, when it has to be done on Microsoft's terms, which usually means poor support for open standards? It's Microsoft's choice in the first place to make it non-interoperable, should we hence simply accept that by saying: "all right we do it your way as usual"?
It could very well be true that a position of principles "hardly promotes the rivalry", but does that make the principles invalid or irrelevant? In the end I have to live with the consequences of my choices. An operating system isn't something of great importance in life, but I still would hate myself for making questionable choices because of indifference.
Conspiracy or not, we'll get a clear answer someday about the real implementations of the Novell/Microsoft deal.
24 • Great that you've included Git! (by Andy on 2008-06-23 11:13:41 GMT from New Zealand)
Hi - Good on you for including Git in your list of packages that you track!
A very good choice!
- Andy
25 • openSUSE11 (by Dorin on 2008-06-23 11:16:12 GMT from Romania)
I succesfully installed it on 3 computers all with ATI video cards - no hassle at all. Here's a screenshot of one with ATI Radeon 9000 Pro video card with 128 MB DDR-RAM:
http://rebound11.deviantart.com/art/openSUSE11-Elegant-Brit-Clean-89406906
26 • Novell OpenSuse Buggy and Complacent (by Philippe Landau on 2008-06-23 11:28:22 GMT from Switzerland)
As mentioned by others Novell usually does not listen to bug reports except when they are testing applications their commercial branch wants improved. Here too the install of OpenSuse 11 does not even boot, giving "99 99 99 99 ..." instead. The mailinglists are of course dominated by fans and problems which are not easily solved are usually ignored. The last time i seriously tried to help them fix a bug the devs labelled the fact that a typical 22'' LCD resolution is not supported in the open source driver a feature not a bug. The new community manager (attempt at their corrupt Microsoft deal damage control) dropped the ball.
27 • Fedora 9 & openSUSE 11.0 (32 bit) with *chrome graphics (by zkdabek on 2008-06-23 11:29:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
Difficulty in installing F9 in Graphics mode from DVD. Graphics totally failed.
Text installed OK. First boot only gave runlevel 3 since openchrome driver failed. Resorted to vesa driver which worked, but was slow. Google wen for openchrome solution which after downloading source from www.openchrome.org, recompiling and changing xorg.conf to:
# Xorg configuration created by pyxf86config
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# keyboard added by rhpxl
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "true"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "openchrome"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "ExaNoComposite" "True"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
Option "ExaScratchSize" "8192"
Option "MaxDRIMem" "16384"
# Driver "vesa"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Philips 170B"
HorizSync 0 - 82
VertRefresh 0 - 76
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Modes "1280x1024"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Got the EXA acceleration satisfactorily.
Initial Updating was then a problem with Packagekit, so I installed the Packagekit update with yum, which solved the problem for other updates. Packagekit is still cumbersome as I have found no way to install multiple updates without recycling the repositories: needs further embelishment for this. F9 has proved to be fairly stable on my platform using GNOME, but there are rough edges. F9 outperforms F8 on boot up speed and is generally more responsive to user commands. It seems that I have a useful working system, which, as with F8 maturity will probably enhance.
openSUSE 11.0 (32 bit) downloaded and written to DVD installed without a hitch. I chose to instal three major desktops: KDE3, KDE4 and GNOME.
On first boot the unichrome graphics driver produced window display corruption in the rectangle about the cursor. This effect had the undesired problem of corrupting the text in the menus. All three desktops were thus problematic. I tweaked away all the eye kandy without significant effect. Changing the driver to vesa in xorg.conf cleared the problem, but left an unaccelerated driver
I prefer KDE3 rather than the KDE4 desktop. The "steering" mechanism of KDE4 seems awkward and slow and detracts from the user experience. Currently I am using GNOME as the desktop of choice.
The screen fonts chosen by default are poor in that they are difficult to read.
Overall I prefer the user experience of Fedora 9 to openSUSE 11.0, Sharp and responsive is better than fuzzy and slow.
28 • Misdiagnosing incompatibility in Fedora 9? (by J. J. Ramsey on 2008-06-23 11:34:30 GMT from United States)
"And shipping a kernel that did not work with any of the proprietary NVIDIA drivers also must have cost the distribution a few users."
IIRC, it's not the kernel that's incompatible, but rather the version of X.org in Fedora, which is 4.3.99.
29 • The ideological warriors are back and selling the "purity" of their ideology (by How pure is it? on 2008-06-23 11:51:16 GMT from Australia)
Why is Microsoft the "enemy of humankind" but Intel is the darling of the Linux ideology warriors"? Is Intel not a monopoly or have monopolist tendencies/practices?
To me, no monopoly is good but we are seeing more and more emerging as the big fish eat the little ones and get bigger in the process.Globalization is here to stay and is a very good environment for monopolistic development, like it or not.
30 • openSuse fonts using an LCD - any hints Ladislav (by Bill on 2008-06-23 11:54:15 GMT from United States)
Ladislav - could you kindly post what processes you went thru getting the fonts looking close to gorgeous? I got 11 and an lcd at the same time and worked to get them usable (including compiling freetype fonts myself) but any additional pointers would be appreciated.
Been using 11 since beta 3 and have had very few issuse, to me this is the best and most solid of the Suse releases since I started with the later 8.x release.
31 • Microsoft (by Troy Banther on 2008-06-23 11:56:56 GMT from United States)
"Red Hat is a worth choice because it didn't cut such a deal."
As a systems administrator, RedHat can be a proverbial pain in the ass at times. Notably, subscriptions and their management. I use Debian and RedHat in that order.
We do "not" have to deal with Micro. Just like a victim, we do not have to deal with a person or organization that victimizes others just to make a profit. SCOG, etc.
Redhat looked at Micro's claims, laughed loudly and pointed the Micro lawyers to the door.
32 • RE: 3 openSuse fonts using an LCD (by ladislav on 2008-06-23 11:58:36 GMT from Taiwan)
I haven't been able to make the fonts look good yet. But I am still experimenting, so hopefully, they'll come right.
33 • openSUSE 11.0 (by Rebel devel on 2008-06-23 12:08:25 GMT from Brazil)
I have installed it on my desktop and my laptop, working grrreat, this is the first time in years that I will be able to stay with a non-Ubuntu distro for longer than a week. ;)
Ladislav, what were the font tweaks you did for openSUSE 11.0?
34 • Video and openSUSE 11 (by Xgamer on 2008-06-23 12:25:02 GMT from Slovakia)
openSUSE 11 is good distro and it work very well but I have a big problem with Video.if I want to play some video I see nothing and sound working.I installed all codecs but it doesn't work:( Does someone have similar problem? Have you idea how it solve? thx
35 • @32 = freetype2-lcd and libXft-lcd for openSUSE 11.0 (by Rebel devel on 2008-06-23 12:28:17 GMT from United States)
Try these packages, and let me know the results :)
http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/home:/dmitry_serpokryl/openSUSE_Factory/i586/
rpm -e --nodeps freetype2
rpm -Uvh freetype2-lcd-2.3.5-13.58.i586.rpm
rpm -Uvh --force --nodeps libXft-lcd-2.1.12-9.68.i586.rpm
36 • Parsix, Puppy, Vector ... (by anonymouse on 2008-06-23 12:30:26 GMT from Germany)
I base my distro choices on wireless/wpa support.
Someone mentioned Puppy. This is an amazing little distro that I have overlooked till recently. Puppy's network wizard is the best, period. Strange, it never receives much press.
Parsix does Gnome right. Ubuntu pales in comparison. Oh ya, Parsix handles my wireless/wpa. Buntus will not.
I would love to be a Vector fan but I failed to get an internet connection.
37 • OpenSuSE 11.0 (by jones on 2008-06-23 12:36:09 GMT from Germany)
Finally, after bitching at the developers for years because of slow and cumbersome package and repository management it has been fixed! :)
Now YAST2 isn't just a very handy configuration tool it's fast too.
Package management with Zypper on the commandline is nothing short of aptish amazing.
Just a few things which rain on my parade:
Using AMD/ATI's video driver instead the one provided by X11 corrupts the X11 system. 1024x768 is suddenly gone while the 1280x1024 setting results in 1024x768 with non changable completely wrong 42(!)Hz refesh. I guess that's the usual ATI crap and not related to OS.
If I enable Desktop Effects (Compiz) and reboot, the Effects are disabled again.
With enabled Desktop Effects the window controls (close, maximize, minimize) stop working or have a 4 secs delay.
KD4 sometimes crashes while performing very common and simple tasks like deleting an icon form the desktop. It's kinda rare and not reliably reproducable but non the less pretty annoying when it happens.
38 • Fedora (by Jesse on 2008-06-23 12:50:35 GMT from Canada)
I'll be the first to agree that the FEdora team made a lot of mistakes with Fedora 9. It's buggy, KDE4 obviously isn't ready for most people and their post-release updates have broken many things on my PC. That being said, Fedora 9 is also the first distro I found with enough bleeding-edge features and eye candy to attract the attention of non-Linux friends. I think I've had as many requests to install Fedora 9 on friends' computers as I have every previous version put together. I'm hoping Fedora 10 will be much more stable so I'll feel better about installing it for people.
39 • Ideology? Maybe simple pragmatism? (by KimTjik on 2008-06-23 13:00:37 GMT from Sweden)
I've already written two comments, but I couldn't resist comment one of the subjects above: "The ideological warriors...".
I strongly believe it to be dangerous to treat all complaints as being ideology driven. I even suppose most to be pure pragmatism. How can I practically protect my right to choose something I prefer today, but also tomorrow?
40 • Fedora 9 (by Dougal on 2008-06-23 13:04:25 GMT from Israel)
I think Ladislav (and others) might be a little harsh in their comments on Fedora.
While not a Fedora user, nor caring about it particularly, I do appreciate the fact that they push forward the "bleeding edge" -- and give it greater exposure (for testing).
For example, their inclusion of a new Xorg (and the Nuveau drivers) will quite likely hasten its stabilization so the rest of us can use it.
They seem to have a heavy emphasis on detecting/reporting/fixing bugs, so I tend to see it as being oriented towards people who want to help with the development of GNU/Linux, yet are not up to using a development branch.
Think of it as the Debian Testing to Rawhide's Debian Unstable to RHEL's Debian Stable.
If people want a safe and comfy distro, they have Ubuntu...
41 • RE: 32 - openSuse fonts using an LCD (Lladislav) (by Bill on 2008-06-23 13:17:18 GMT from United States)
Lladislav - have you tried http://opensuse-community.org/SubpixelHinting?
hint need to create a soft link as the build process is looking for /usr/share/automake and there's only /usr/share/automake-1.10
42 • No.41 (by Singed on 2008-06-23 13:22:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well, I guess if no-one wants your Vista and No.7 is destined for the scrapheap before issuance, nice of you to pick up your pen and help out folks with their SuSE problems, Bill.
43 • suse 11...ho hum (by debo on 2008-06-23 13:37:40 GMT from Australia)
Downloaded dvd of suse11, md5 ok, burn ok. Install finally worked after 5 attempts without probs. Customized the install and had kde 3.5.9 & kde4. Booted ok basically works. Ease of configuration is poor. Package manager still sucks. KDE4 not as good as Kubuntu's efforts. It left me cold. So nuked it, (lucky it was on a spare drive), chucked the dvd in the bin and back with trusty debian where life is good.
44 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 13:43:35 GMT from United States)
@Rebel devel re: #35 - what is libXft-lcd and what does it do? I assume freetype2-lcd is freetype2 with subpixel hinting enabled when compiled
45 • OpenSuSE 11 (issue workaround) (by Robert on 2008-06-23 13:48:11 GMT from United States)
I had problems with my initial x64 installation; it would always fail to find files. The solution was unchecking the install from images option in the final system overview before the actual file copy.
Otherwise everything works great. The package manager (esp. backend!!) is vastly improved, and finally makes software installation usable on older PCs. nVidia graphics drivers were installed out of the box.
I'll be testing it on an ATI 2600Pro AGP soon to see how it works with ATI!
46 • openSUSE 11.0 (by IMQ on 2008-06-23 13:48:13 GMT from United States)
I have openSUSE 11 installed on 2 partitions on one machine: one with openSUSE 11 Beta 3 GNOME Edition (Don't want KD4, yet) and openSUSE 11.0 DVD.
I prefer KDE over GNOME but since openSUSE did not release KDE 3 LiveCD, I chose GNOME LiveCD for the installation, then add KDE packages. So far, I experience no problems with this installation. Even upgrading to the final release using zypper.
I decided to keep this installation a little longer and installed the newly release openSUSE 11.0 DVD on another partition. I was surprised and delighted to see KDE3 as an option along side with GNOME and KDE4. So I picked KDE3, GNOME, and XFCE along with additional packages. Well, another surprise was that the installation process was faster than the older versions of openSUSE.
So, my impression of openSUSE 11.0 on this PC:
- Overall both installations has been working fine so far.
- Both support my USB wireless (zd1211rw) with WPA.
- The new package manager, zypper, is a much improvement to the previous generation of package management in openSUSE. Moreover, I love to use it in the terminal mode instead of graphical one.
- Package selection is decent though not at the level I have enjoyed with Debian or Ubuntu based distros. Or Madriva.
- Both installations keeps up with the upgrading process so far without any breakage yet.
- Multimedia support is better once the 3rd-party repos are added.
- Downloaded packages, by default, are removed after the completion of installation; so to keep the packages in order to burn them to a CD/DVD, the .repo files must be manually editted to change the value from 0 to 1 for *keeppackages*.
I have not tried to install the nVidia binary drivers for the nVidia video card yet. Maybe soon.
On a side note, has anyone tried to run xorgconfig on some of the newly releases distros lately?
The configuration just stopped short before I had a chance to configure the monitor. I experienced this *stop short* with some distros, including Debian/Ubuntu based distro using the command *dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg*.
The reason I ran these xorgconfig was because there was no way to change the monitor resolution, which had 1024x768 as a highest possible resolution. And I am used to running xorgconfig as a way to modify the xorg.conf file.
47 • Fedora (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 13:49:57 GMT from United States)
I find your comments about Fedora interesting. Fedora 8 was hopeless, however I gave up after only two days. It couldn't even keep an internet connection.
I've used F9 a little and thus far it has worked well. I'm a GNOME user, though, so that might be part of it.
Nonetheless, nothing is likely to pull me away from Slackware - 12.1 is the first I've worked extensively with Slackware, and after over a month of using it, it doesn't look like I'll go back. I used to wonder why Slackware was so popular, based on the reviews of it and comments about its difficulty, then I used it and fell in love. Sometimes you have to learn how to use something properly to realize that your previous views of the world were messed up.
Been burned by opensuse in the past, have no desire to try it again. Ubuntu Hardy didn't work very well for me either.
48 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 13:51:37 GMT from United States)
@Rebel devel re: #35 libXft-lcd may not be needed after 10.2, what is it supposed to do?
According to http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/5902667/com/libXft-lcd-2.1.12-9.1.i586.rpm.html libXft-lcd "Users of OpenSuSE-10.3 could skip this, because all patches are already applied to the stock packages."
and per http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/8070320/com/freetype2-lcd-2.3.5-13.58.i586.rpm.html "You also could try libXft-lcd
along with this package (just incase, despite that "libXft" looks fine within "xorg-x11-libs"). "Cairo" package already contain required patchset"
49 • openSuSE11 (by Paul Bruce on 2008-06-23 14:02:04 GMT from United States)
Istarted with KDE4 and had to download drivers from ATI for my Radeon 9600. SuSE 11 drivers would display, but not correctly.
I never got Samba to work in KDE4. I gave up and went to Gnome. Samba works there. I am still working on other things but it looks like a good distro for desktops.
In my laptop, I have tried just about every distro that comes on a live CD. Including both SuSEs. None can use my Realtek RTL8187b wireless card. It is attached to the USB bus, and some distros recognize it, but none use it for wireless. The only distro that works at all is Mandriva 2008.1, because it recognizes an old Netgear MA111 that I plug into a USB port. (But it won't recognize the permanently connected Realtek device).
So I like SuSE, but it is only Mandriva for my laptop.
50 • Re: 44 - openSUSE custom LCD patches (by Rebel devel on 2008-06-23 14:06:28 GMT from Brazil)
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/dmitry_serpokryl/openSUSE_10.3/repodata/repoview/freetype2-lcd-0-2.3.5-13.1.html
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/dmitry_serpokryl/openSUSE_10.3/repodata/repoview/libXft-lcd-0-2.1.12-9.1.html
You can also take a look at the sources, especially the .spec file.
51 • suse 11 and ATI (by johnp on 2008-06-23 14:08:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi
for people interested in knowing an issue:
I have an ATI X1950 PCI card. I installed suse11 gnome without issues, UNTIL I decided to install the ATI driver.
well, from that moment, once I pass the login, what I have is a nice, full white screen.
so, went back to Ubuntu
john
52 • Re: 48 (by Rebel devel on 2008-06-23 14:09:31 GMT from Brazil)
I agree, but at least we can try and see what happens. ;)
53 • openSUSE LCD patches (by Rebel devel on 2008-06-23 14:14:41 GMT from Brazil)
Arch Linux's AUR has custom packages using Ubuntu patches - freetype2-ubuntu, libXft-ubuntu, cairo-ubuntu... we could create openSUSE rpms using their sources. Anyone interested? :)
54 • Password stymie (by ChuckM on 2008-06-23 14:58:36 GMT from United States)
Some prior experience with other Linux distros prior to this adventure !!
Installation with the Live CD halted on a P II 450 (Gateway) desktop when suggested password (linux) was tried. Conversely same CD installed OK on x86_64 (Gateway) without any Username & password solicited.
Suggestions welcomed. Thanks
55 • Gentoo 2008.0 (by Larry Gearhart on 2008-06-23 15:06:31 GMT from United States)
It appears that Gentoo is now down to one release a year. 2008.0 is likely to stay in hiding, and 2008.1 will be the official release of the year.
56 • openSUSE 11.0 - GNOME (by Bándi András on 2008-06-23 15:10:11 GMT from Romania)
hi,
i have expected to read a review about openSUSE 11.0 with some GNOME testing in it :( i have experienced a quite nasty bug in it that led to gdm failiure, so i switched to kde 3.5 and xfce as an alternative.
my box is a hacked hp vectra 420 dl, pentium 4 at 1,6 ghz, 768 sdram with a better cooler in a new case. openSUSE 11.0 runs on it like crazy !!!
57 • openSUSE 11 ugh (by Sam on 2008-06-23 15:23:55 GMT from United States)
As a relatively long-time SuSE user (started with version 9.1, so I guess not too long) I stuck with SUSE even through the disaster that was release 10.1 and 10.2 -- I adapted, switched to the SMART package manager and uninstalled the broken package manager.
During the 10.3 release I gave up on my Dell/Dud Inspiron and finally sold my first born child for a lenovo Thinkpad -- which I promptly couldn't get a host of features working under 10.3 (wireless, power management, some graphics display issues). So I switched to Ubuntu Hardy.
This weekend I spent Friday and Saturday back in SUSE land. Positive features:
*Much, much improved package management
*that good ol' SUSE crisp design
*a surprising usable experience in KDE4
But then on Sunday I reinstalled Ubuntu. Why?
*I use GRASS GIS and other open-source GIS software frequently, often GRASS is the first thing I install on a distro. SUSE refused to install GRASS from the SUSE 11 repo, and refused to install from the open build service -- each time claiming a lack of proj and geos dependencies. Trying to install these from binary rpms and source off the GRASS website put me back through a familiar dependency hell. In 2008 I shouldn't have to do this anymore. I got Grass and QGIS working without too much effort, but the time spent on getting them to work was needless.
*Keyboard functionality. On my Thinkpad, other than the ThinkVantage button which I have no expectation of working in Linux in the first place, I have three little buttons to control the sound. In Ubuntu these worked fine. In my testing of Pardus Linux (yay Turkish designers for orginality, still boo to Brazilian designers for aping Vista) these worked after setting keyboard profiles in KDE. In SUSE? Zilch. Zip. Nada. Maybe this was a KDE4 issue, but this seems so 1998ish.
*Graphics issue. Tired of the KDE4 desktop I installed Gnome on release 11. Every program I opened other than Nautilus opened to fill 3/4 of my desktop. I know this has to be some simple setting I'm not understanding, but should this just work?
*Banshee. I would have liked Banshee to actually be able to play ANY sound file. Even Ogg. I installed my fluendo codecs, but no still no MP3. Maybe a issue with Fluendo, not sure. But sheesh!
*Video. Any video. MPEG, AVI, not even thinking about WMV. Any video format actually playing would have been nice. Saturday night, around 10pm trying to get a DVD of "Be Kind Rewind" to play I decided that spending 2 hours trying to get something so simple working (and yes, I'm more than familiar with libdvdcss and other codecs) was stupid. I don't have time to get a system up to speed to work with what I think of as basic functionality.
So back to Hardy Heron for me. For now. I'll wait to see what openSUSE 11.1 brings.
58 • OpenSUSE, distro quality (by Autokrator on 2008-06-23 15:44:52 GMT from United States)
Stop for one moment.
How many QUALITY distros are there? How many distros can you consistently and reliably install? How many can you use daily without fear of breakage, without annoying bugs, without bloated eyecandy taking precedence over function and code correctness?
Out of the 300+ distros, I can count less than 5. OpenSUSE has never been one of them, and after trying yet another bloated, buggy mess of a monstrosity, I am thinking it never will be.
From 9.x until now, SUSE has been bloated, buggy and slow on ~ 10-12 machines of varying architecture I have tried it on. Looking over the above comments, I see that this is not merely anecdotal. SUSE is garbage. And it's a real shame too, because it does provide a visually pleasing and professional-looking installer. Maybe next time the suse crew will put a little more effort into QC...but I seriously doubt it. Garbage. Don't bother even trying.
NEWSFLASH: KDE 4- STILL NOT STABLE! STILL BUGGY! STILL BETA!
59 • SUSE 11 works! (by Muhammad Fahd Waseem on 2008-06-23 15:55:59 GMT from Pakistan)
Why is it that there are so many negative comments about SUSE and so few in favour? Is is simply because the negative ones are very vocal?
Because I've installed it on three differently configured machines (very old, medium, and brand new)... and apart from a graphics issue on the new one (solved by a little Googling and Wikiing), it's perfectly up to the mark... no crashes or bugs in KDE4 yet
60 • OpenSUSE 11 (by biomega on 2008-06-23 16:02:23 GMT from Mexico)
I don't know why boycott Novell? OpenSUSE is a great distro! impresionant, and this release looks very cool, I'd like to prove it, but i don't have a extra PC for do it ¬¬U
61 • RE: rt2500 support (by Use the Source Luke on 2008-06-23 16:17:50 GMT from United States)
All of RaLink's native kernel support is provided by sourceless firmware, why do you expect a community driven distribution to include that by default? Rather than complain about the distribution not supporting your wireless card, why don't you complain to RaLink about the lack of source for their firmware?
Ralink Technology Corporation (U.S. Offices)
20833 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 200
Cupertino CA 95014
Telephone (408) 725-8070
Fax (408) 725-8069
Marketing@ralinktech.com
FAE@ralinktech.com
Source matters.
62 • Boycott Novell (by Ubuntufreezone on 2008-06-23 16:20:29 GMT from Italy)
Comment deleted (troll).
63 • @ 59 (by DeniZen on 2008-06-23 16:23:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
quote: "Why is it that there are so many negative comments about SUSE and so few in favour? Is is simply because the negative ones are very vocal?"
As with any subject / object / OS etc Muhammad!
Not just Suse, not just Linux.
Thats why Forums are ever not truly representative - of [ ..anything!].
64 • @58 - kde4 is still buggy? @59 why so many negatives? (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 16:25:29 GMT from United States)
@58 - this is a revelatation?
Only 5 distros are of "quality"? Let me guess they're all *buntu's?
@59 negatives are important as they push people towards their own distro of choice. Also many have issues with the MS deal
Personally I think there's only 2 non-server oriented distro's that are polished, rich enough and well supported - Mandriva (include PCLinuxOS here) and openSuse. Fedora is just plain too experimental and the *buntus are a bit too simplistic (but great forums and an overly rabid fan base), Debian has too slow a release cycle, Gentoo and Slackware a bit to much work and pretty much everything else is low volume.
65 • RE: 57 • openSUSE 11 ugh, MINT 5 (by drizake on 2008-06-23 16:32:53 GMT from United States)
The dependency situation you described is why I stopped installing RPM based distros. I don't even bother downloading the live CDs to check them out anymore. I'm sticking with Mint 5 (until the next Ubuntu comes out at least). I know it contains non-free software, but it's still way better than Windows. People complain about losing flexibility, but I don't see the loss. I can do anything to Mint that I desire. I have no problem cutting and pasting scripts, but for some things, it's nice to have a GUI (for example, disabling compiz special effects). It's also a great distro for sharing with users who are new to Linux.
That reminds me. My girlfriend's Sony laptop crapped out on the MS Office installation. It's stuck in a loop between recovering "lost" files and applying automatic updates. Rather than attempt to fix it or reinstall, I installed Open Office and let it take over the file associations. She worked on a spreadsheet for work last night and didn't even notice she was using Open Office instead of MS Office. :)
66 • openSUSE fonts (by Chris Maaskant on 2008-06-23 16:40:05 GMT from Netherlands)
What's wrong with the fonts in opensuse?
I run 10.3 with a lcd monitor and they look like this:
http://home.quicknet.nl/qn/prive/chris.maaskant/fonts.png
Am i missing something?
Can someone post a screenshot of how it could be better?
@ Ladislav Bodnar
First of all, thanks for maintaining this great website.
You said in your review of opensuse11.0 that it defaults to KDE4.
In the installation process where you have 'select' your desktop it clearly states that opensuse doesn't default to anything because they want you to make the choice for yourself.
67 • Known KDE 4 issue with ATI drivers (by Rod Schaffter on 2008-06-23 16:44:41 GMT from United States)
This from openSUSE:
There seems to be an issue with the fglrx driver and KDE4, which causes windows to be painted/repainted very slow on KDE4, while this does not occur on KDE3. It doesn't matter if compositing effects are turned on or off in KDE4. Using the free radeon or radeonhd drivers seems not to cause such performance problems. You may have to blacklist the 'fglrx' driver in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, to prevent it from being loaded automatically on bootup. If you change your xorg.conf to use the radeon or radeonhd driver, but the fglrx module is still loaded (even if it is no used) you might encounter those performance problems in KDE4.
http://en.opensuse.org/KDE4#KDE_4_UNSTABLE_Repository_--_Bleeding_Edge
I have an nVidia card, and 11.0 is working great.
Cheers,
Rod Schaffter
68 • KDE Vista??? (by sonicfrog on 2008-06-23 16:45:57 GMT from United States)
Is KDE 4 the linux version of Vista?
I agree with you about Fedora 8 v 9. 8w/ Gnome worked very well, but when I upgraded to 9, it booted and ran slower. Had some problems recognizing portable HD's. I switched back to Linux Mint. The latest works like a charm.
PS. If I break something.... OK. WHEN I break something, Puppy is my go-to disk for fixing stuff.
69 • Asus (by Leo on 2008-06-23 16:48:41 GMT from United States)
This is really, really a good sign (Asus cooperation with Debian). I hope they revert course, they keep offering Linux (whatever distro) as a first class citizen, and (for their sake) keep in mind what made the eeepc a hit: Low price, Efficient/easy interface, portability. Linux has to do with the first two points, and the latter is, in part, due to incredible scalability of Linux (from embedded into super computing).
Cheers!
70 • @46 xorg (by john frey on 2008-06-23 16:58:21 GMT from Canada)
I think these days you will find running xorgconfig is not recommended unless X is not starting at all. Distros make many modifications to xorg.conf that running xorgconfig overwrites. I suspect the modifications are made to accommodate proprietary video drivers but there are probably other reasons too. For something like video resolution I find it works best to edit the appropriate lines.
There is a problem sometimes with a distros X configurator overwriting changes to xorg.conf on a reboot which can be a real PITA. Best is to use the distros X configurator to achieve your desired settings but editing can work too.
I have not run into the problem you mentioned. It may be a problem with xorg and your hardware but that's just a wild guess.
71 • openSUSE 11 (by MacLone on 2008-06-23 17:03:45 GMT from Mexico)
openSUSE 11 improved...polished... do you really mean it? I think openSUSE is a non recoverable case of a bloated headless distro. YAST is much improved from previous but that does not mean "completely usable" For me SUSE's repos are dog slow and flimsy. There is my atheros wifi that is almost out of the box with every distro i test but i could never uset it in opensuse11, tried to download madwifi but it says is there already but it offers me to install it anyway. Ok let's try to install, selected a 130KB file and now i have to install 450MB of openoffice tempaltes, help, languages, non madwifi libraries and a lot of other files that has nothing to do with madwifi, not even upgrade files. As far is i know madwifi is the only thing i wanted to istall this time not the whole repo. I laughted and cancelled the download. Fired up again yast, slected madwifi only and now i'm presented 400MB of a whole different files that yast wants to install anyway and has nothing to do with madwifi. I went to the manaul installation using opensuse's web page and it fails as always with "i did not find this or that repo, i did not find this or that file"... the same old old sh..t... this is nothing new, they have been carrying this stupid bugs and failures since version 10.
Novel is proven to be the nemesis of openSUSE, pehaps they need a new head like Mandriva to really improve.
72 • @66 re: fonts (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 17:06:56 GMT from United States)
Suse doesn't provide/allow anti-aliasing of fonts because the technology is MS's cleartype (if you look at your font settings in kcontrol the anti-aliasing option is greyed out). But your image looks like mine after I compiled freetype2 and before that my font's had no crispness or sharpness so I don't know why your's are so good, unless its a 10.3 vrs 11.0 thing. What freetype2 rpm do you have installed? If it is freetype2-lcd that would explain it, it is not the distributed version but a custon one.
73 • Asus too (by john frey on 2008-06-23 17:14:05 GMT from Canada)
I agree with Leo that Asus working with Debian is a very good sign. Whatever your preferred distro very few people can fault Debian. They have defined their principles, stick to them and as a result turn out an ultra-reliable OS. They do this so well that they are the base for more distro's than any other. That Asus chooses to work with Debian is a sure sign that Asus has learned who is respected in the Linux community. Any Debian development will filter down to the Debian based distro's very quickly and provide the maximum exposure for specialist OS's for their hardware.
74 • Fretype/ Font antialiasing (by Rod Schafffter on 2008-06-23 17:26:16 GMT from United States)
"Suse doesn't provide/allow anti-aliasing of fonts because the technology is MS's cleartype (if you look at your font settings in kcontrol the anti-aliasing option is greyed out). But your image looks like mine after I compiled freetype2 and before that my font's had no crispness or sharpness so I don't know why your's are so good, unless its a 10.3 vrs 11.0 thing. What freetype2 rpm do you have installed?"
It's not greyed out on my installation of 11.0 w/ KDE 3.5.9-49.1. I have the stock freetype2 installed, 2.3.5-62.1.
Cheers,
Rod Schaffter
75 • Pardus ;) (by DeniZen again .. ;) on 2008-06-23 17:26:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
My partners son has been given a laptop, but no OS.
He only wants it for surfing, webmail, and Office suite - so i planned to test oSuse 11 (Gnome) and see if that suited him.
Then, before doing so I read the recent review regards Pardus here on DW.
The reviewer could 'find no fault' at all ,and was clearly impressed.
And clearly suggested it would suit a Linux beginner.
So I tried the lates Pardus 2008 RC2 out in VMWare during my 'lunchbreak' .. which beame err.. 'extended' .. :)
Pardus '08 seems to be just as as the Reviewer said.
I cant fault initial impressions either - everything is set up not just well, but beautifully well.
A novely to play with a Distro that is not just based on one of the 'big gun' distro's - and that is built from scratch.
Though - its nothing like Arch - for sure! Arch is cool, but not for Newbies eh ..
Pardus has a Bespoke Package Manager, and Control Centre (both seem excellent, and simplicity itself).
My only critisisms (well .. observations really) is that the interface is a little 'twee' with what looks a bit like a Manga Cat on the Package Manager progress popup, and a set up wizard called 'Kaptain' (which functioned excellently BTW) that featured a picture of a 'Captain'. (you only see that the once, on first login.
Apart from that it looks great, ( a bit loud for my aging tastes)
Fonts are very crisp indeed, even on VMware
The other 'critisism' is that there was nothing to do once installed!
It was all just set up so well, and all the regular Workstation requirements (inc. Multimedia) all spot-on and working. The KDE menu (kicker or slab) is very nicely done indeed.
The attention to detail in unexpecte dareas is superb, and polished.
I cant really explain, as the same could be said for many a Distro these days - you'd have to try it to see what I mean I guess.
I've run a fair few Distros in VMWare (Pardus set up X with the correct VMware Graphics module BTW) and my impression is that Pardus '08 is a very quick distro too - compared to others Ive tried with exactly the same set-up.
In short, this old Debian-in-the-blood guy is mighty impressed.
Final '08 release later this week I note - so Pardus is the Distro thats going on the boy's Laptop. Not Suse (now, for many reasons!) I think he'll love it.
I hope it turns out to be long-term stable.
Secretly, I think I may be using Pardus myself again soon (with some small theme adjustments towards a more 'subtle' environment for my taste - a 5 minute job.)
I didnt mean to post what now looks like a (very light) 'review' in the DW comments section - but I kinda feel like I 'discovered something' today.
Great work there Pardus guys.
76 • from Fedora 9 to openSuse 11 (by Lutfi Yelkenci on 2008-06-23 17:32:47 GMT from Turkey)
this weekend i also switched from Fedora (using almost 1 year) to openSuse (whic was my first linux distro (openSuse 10)
i faced some minor problems;
* package dependency problems during upgrade some packages
* playing divx movies
but i fixed them
until Fedora 10 will be released i'll use openSuse 11.
by the way i have never been an Ubuntu guy.
77 • Fedora 9 (by arijit on 2008-06-23 17:35:59 GMT from India)
With due respect to distrowatch maintainer, fedora 9 is as great as fedora 8 in gnome front. Yes, I admit kde4 wasn't a good idea, but Gnome version is too good to resist.
In last one month, my fedora 9 installation yet to recieve any major crash. Few hiccups were there, but I didn't find any major problems with my hard wares. Also Nvidia released latest Xorg supported driver almost instantly. FYI, I have geforce 860GT with Nvidia binary driver installed and working like windows version.
I am not saying that people didn't face any problems in fedora, many people did, but also many people didn't.
I am really surprised to see that despite of so much bleeding edge packages, fedora yet to stand out rock solid in gnome version, in some cases better than my Ubuntu installation.
thanks,
Arijit
78 • OpenSuse 11.0 (by historyb on 2008-06-23 17:58:05 GMT from United States)
I wasn't able to get 10 or 11 to boot all the way on my machine, but they both worked in virtual box
79 • re: fonts (by Chris Maaskant on 2008-06-23 17:59:40 GMT from Netherlands)
@72
I have freetype2 version 2.3.5-18 installed.
It's not a custom rpm it's the one provided with opensuse.
Also, my anti-aliasing option is not greyed out, nor has it ever been as far as i can remember.
The only thing i did after installing 10.3 was installing ms truetype fonts arial and such, by using the script provided with the online update repository.
I recently installed opensuse 11.0 in a virtualbox and the fonts looked just like they look now on my machine without any configuration done by me.
80 • cynical view on OPENsuse... (by capricornus on 2008-06-23 18:00:28 GMT from Belgium)
ThAt would be thE trick: M$ corrupts a few Linux distro's, so that would-be users are frightened away after reading DW. Bribing a few loners and/or Aspies is much cheaper than outperforming them.
81 • RHEL 6? (by anony_mouse on 2008-06-23 18:01:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
Is there a release schedule for RHEL 6?
I've used every Fedora distro thus far - but not Fedora 9. I'm a gnome user so I'll give Fedora a go, despite the negative comments about KDE4 in F9).
For some reason I find hard to explain, I preferred Fedora 7 to Fedora 8.
82 • RE: 70 xorg (by IMQ on 2008-06-23 18:03:03 GMT from United States)
There is nothing wrong with my hardware since I use the same hardware for the past 6,7 years or longer with close to, if not more than, hundred of distros passing through.
Some distros do not provide a way to configure the monitor so they can be used to their full capability. The highest resolution, looking through the graphical configuration, is only 1024x768. No options to chose the monitor or to set the vertical and horizontal rates.
When I copy the vanila xorg.conf from a working distros over, it just works and gives the monitor a higher resolution. I rarely need to run xorgconfig until I ran into the problem that cannot be corrected via the available tools in the distro. I learn the xorgconfig no longer allows the configuration of monitor.
Whatever changes happen, xorgconfig does not work like is used to.
83 • Fedora n Suse (by davemc on 2008-06-23 18:04:24 GMT from United States)
Tested both, used both for a while, and i'm happily back on Ubuntu Hardy! The Fedora and SUSE teams need to take a few steps back and really think hard about what they are doing and how they do it, because they really are headed in the wrong directions, and also seem to be very conflicted about which path to tread - User (noob) friendly or Geeks wet dream. They both need to pick a path and fully commit, because you really cant have both and keep everyone happy.
84 • Question for the expert (by IMQ on 2008-06-23 18:08:25 GMT from United States)
Is there a way to find out when the distro was installed? If so, does it work for all distro or everyone has their own way of recording it?
The reason I ask is because I logged in a PCLinuxOS 2007 installation and performed a system upgrade, which was huge. I just want to find out when I have it installed.
BTW, zero problem with the full upgrade. :)
Thanks.
85 • openSUSE x Ubuntu (by apt-getter on 2008-06-23 18:11:38 GMT from United States)
I will stay with openSUSE 11.0 until Ubuntu releases 8.04.1. 2 weeks testing! Happy times!
86 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 18:12:37 GMT from United States)
You can't patent "anti-aliasing", you can only patent a specific way to anti-alias fonts. I'm not an IP attorney, but Linux distros are free to use anti-aliasing. Here is some relevant reading:
http://freetype.sourceforge.net/patents.html
Also note that it is Apple, not Microsoft, that owns the patents in question.
87 • @79 & @ 74 -re: greyed out anti-aliasing - I meant sub-pixel hinting (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 18:12:53 GMT from United States)
@79 & @ 74 - my bad it's not anti-aliasing being greyed out but sub-pixel hinting in the "configure" section under fonts in kcontrol.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType for what it is and does
88 • re: greyed out anti-aliasing - I meant sub-pixel hinting (by Chris Maaskant on 2008-06-23 18:22:57 GMT from Netherlands)
@87
Hmm.. makes me wonder if i could make things look even better with freetype-lcd.
But if my fonts look just like yours now after some tweaking, it is (sub-pixel hinting) likely not of any use to me.
And oh yes it is also greyed out here :-)
89 • Re 58 – “How many QUALITY distros are there?” (by vzduch on 2008-06-23 18:32:10 GMT from Germany)
“Out of the 300+ distros, I can count less than 5.”
-v please – what distros ARE quality distros in your humble opinion? A short explanation as to the reasons would be a big plus. :)
90 • No subject (by zak on 2008-06-23 18:38:18 GMT from United States)
"Suse 11 doesnt work with most dell dimensions. They dont have PS/2 ports (only usb) and they dont have a BIOS option for legacy USB support, so you cant install suse, as with no keyboard, it times out and boots the first option (boot from hard disk)"
I have run openSUSE for years on Dimensions, along with usb mouse and keyboard. It totally rocks!
"Why is it that there are so many negative comments about SUSE and so few in favour? Is is simply because the negative ones are very vocal?"
Because openSUSE is aimed at productive people, not ranters. People who use SUSE are more interested in real work than ranting at Canonical for not open-sourcing their software! Let the "young 'uns" rave all they want about the Novell-MS deal. Novell and MS are business. That's what business do. Live with it. I have distro hopped many a day, and nothing beats openSUSE
91 • Thumbs Up (by Alan on 2008-06-23 18:42:35 GMT from Canada)
Im using the x64 kde4 on my quad core
and the x86 on my old athlon
both are working good (old desktop is locking up but i fear that may be hardware related, gonna try pclos to check if it suffers similiar issues)
im very impressed in the suse team, everything i had complaints about with 10 seem to have been addressed
speed is much improved, gui more polished, package management is now acceptable if not excellent, with this kind of development suse may gain alot of users if they keep this up
92 • openSUSE 11 - ATI graphics problem (by whs on 2008-06-23 18:44:39 GMT from United States)
I also have a serious problem with openSUSE 11 that may be related to an ATI graphics card. The effect is the opposite of that reported by johnp (comment #51) - a black screen rather than a white screen. But I do get a white cursor on the black screen.
I have a Dell Dimension with Intel Core Duo, 3 GB RAM, and a factory-installed 256 MB ATI card. I installed openSUSE 11 from the KDE live CD on Saturday morning, and thought it was great compared to a Mandriva 2008 install that was only two weeks old (couldn’t get the sound to work), which had replaced a Mint 4 install, etc. I added a bunch of repositories, updated the installation, installed a number of packages, customized some of the UI, and tested things like sound that had not worked correctly on a bunch of other live CDs I had tried on this hardware after having the sound problem with Mandriva.
Then late on Sunday I got too wild and crazy and changed the KDE 4 window transparency. Bingo, a white cursor on a black screen. Sometimes a right-click or a random left click on the desktop would pop up a grey box about the size of a confirmation message. That was all I could get. I tried various fixes, probably the best idea of which was to boot into failsafe mode and install KDE 3.5 from the command line. But in terms of the command line, I’m pretty much a noob (despite having used Linux since Mandrake 8.1 – 2001!) and couldn’t implement what I could piece together of instructions on the forums that I could get from my Windows partition. So, having a day job, I went to bed and this morning went to work.
In the clear light of day it dawned on me that probably I can select the Session for the other window manager that’s installed with KDE 4 from the live CD (is it TWM?), remove KDE 4, and reinstall it. Or maybe install KDE 3.5 instead ; )
Or can someone tell me what file to edit to undo whatever happened when I changed the window transparency?
Thanks.
93 • re 90 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 18:45:00 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (troll).
94 • Graphics Card Problems (by Mith on 2008-06-23 19:00:44 GMT from United States)
For those people who are having issues with graphic cards, you may want to look at this:
http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Troubleshooting
It helped me correct an issue with my Nvidia Geforce 3 card.
BTW, I have installed openSUSE 11.0 running gnome and am very impressed with its stability and usability. I especially like the new and improved package manager. There are probably many traditionalist who might disagree, but I like the SLAB menu better and have always like all the tools that YaST has to offer. OpenSUSE also provides good documentation in .pdf and html form, making it a good distro for a linux newbie (and not necessarily technically challenged) user.
Enjoy!
95 • MS/Suse Analogy (by drizake on 2008-06-23 19:08:40 GMT from United States)
Let's say that Suse is your close friend and that you don't care either way for MS. If Suse becomes friends with MS, you probably won't mind.
Let's say that Suse is your close friend and that you dislike MS. If Suse becomes friends with MS, you won't start hanging out with MS, but you'll probably still be friends with Suse.
Let's say that Suse is your close friend and that you HATE MS. If Suse becomes friends with MS, you will probably no longer want to be friends with Suse.
For someone to boycott Suse over the MS issue, I think they would really have to HATE MS. How many of us really HATE MS? I doubt it's very many.
96 • RE:MS/Suse Analogy (by Chris Maaskant on 2008-06-23 19:16:54 GMT from Netherlands)
"Let's say that Suse is your close friend and that you HATE MS. If Suse becomes friends with MS, you will probably no longer want to be friends with Suse."
I would persuade SUSE into killing MS ;-)
97 • " 95 'the hate word'! (by DeniZen on 2008-06-23 19:28:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think thats a well put analogy Drizake.
'Hate' seems to dissipate the more often an individaul has to shave on a daily basis I think .. ;)
Heres another analogy -
In the UK theres a large 'Supermarket' chain - called Tesco's
Many people have come to dislike Tesco's tactics.
Tesco likes to promote itself as 'the peoples friend'. Most people know it isnt really - at all. (long story)
But the majority of UK shoppers seem to continue to choose Tesco's (price , choice of products, dependable quality (but not the very best - etc.
Familiar?
I dont go there - I choose an alternative.
However, the alternative i use, I know shares its Logistics and Transportation infrastructure with Tesco.
Does that shock me?
Nope. Its just business.
Will it stop me using my preffered 'store?
Nope. Not as it stands.
Ive made my choice to avoid Tesco's (I shop elsewhere) and I avoid Microsoft ( I use Linux - and I use OS X too)
This is coming from a Debian stalwart - I'd 'happily' use OpenSuse *if* i wanted to - no qualms. (I dont especially want to). Either way I'm not using M$, nor paying them any money towards their regime.
If i really felt an unacceptable M$ influence creeping in on my Linux Distro, I'd just switch.
Lucky we have that (very very simple) choice - at any time
Just like we do when purchasing life's necessaries.
Each to their own.
Life is too short.
98 • Unfortunately disappointed with openSUSE 11.0, sidux is the best! (by Brian Masinick on 2008-06-23 19:29:32 GMT from United States)
I installed two versions, on two different systems, late last week. The first: I installed the network installation version of openSUSE 11.0 on an old Dell Dimension 4100. It took two hours to download and install, but it worked well. Encouraged by this, I then downloaded the 4.3-4.4 GB DVD image and proceeded to install it on my fastest home system, a Lenovo 3000 Model Y410 laptop. The installation took only 20-25 minutes, with another 5-10 minutes to complete post installation configuration. So far, a huge improvement over previous releases. Then the problems started. Apparently I did not uncheck or disable the desktop search app (Kerry or Beagle). Not sure that was the root cause, but regardless of which desktop or even light window manager I tried, I could not get the mouse to move more than a few inches, which rendered the fast laptop virtually unusable! So close, but it did not work for me! I may experiment again to see if I can reinstall and turn it around, but right now I am frustrated with it.
sidux, on the other hand, was anticipating the second 2008 release, but has been delayed because of instabilities in the Debian Sid packages. I downloaded a preview anyway. Great news! It works as well or better than any other system that I have installed. Perhaps it is too technically oriented for the average user, but I know of no better system to get cutting edge software that actually works. I am chomping at the bit for the final 2008-02 release, but given the rolling upgrades, I already have most of it installed today, and it is the best stuff out there!
99 • @ Brian - Sidux (by DeniZen . .again .. on 2008-06-23 19:42:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
Good choice Brian,
- a good choice for you that is.
Anything based on Sid is undoubtedly going to have *some* issues sooner or later.
Minor - hopefully. and it is a 'hopefully'.
Seeing as half the comments regards Suse and 'buntu here seem to be a concern regards 'the unexpected' and 'niggles' then comparing openSuse to Sidux is a bit like comparing apples to oranges - maybe?
Anyway, keep on Sidux'ing ;)
100 • Suse, Sidux, Debian (by drizake on 2008-06-23 19:45:44 GMT from United States)
DeniZen, we have such a store. It's called Wal-mart, but I shop at Meijer which is right next door and almost never crowded. :)
@98 Instabilities in the Debian Unstable packages? You don't say! :) Whenever I get brave enough, I need to move to Debian Testing. I like the idea of the rolling updates and always testing whenever I use my PC.
101 • re 95 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 19:51:07 GMT from Canada)
I'm one of the guys that wrote many anti-Suse posts. Yes I hate Microsoft so much that I wish someone would be able to create a virus that will:
1. completely destroy all the data on every single Windows machine in the world.
2. completely destroy all the hardware that used to run Windows.
When I say "every single Windows machine" I include my wife's laptop worth around $800. I would gladly pay for a new one if I knew that Microsoft will be no more. Once Microsoft disappears then I will give Suse a chance on my desktop.
102 • @82 by URQ (by john frey on 2008-06-23 19:53:24 GMT from Canada)
I've run xorgconfig on my install of Mandriva 2008.1 and everything seems to work the same to me.
I can clearly see you know what you are doing by the steps you have already taken to resolve your issues. Please don't think I was being patronizing. Nevertheless it can still be used to set vert. and horiz. refresh rates. If it doesn't work for you it must be a matter of what software is installed. Maybe you want to try xorgcfg instead.
I rarely run xorgconfig these days but it used to be a tool I used a lot when I was recovering from ATI driver installs or my wireless mouse would not get detected on a new install.
103 • re 101 (by drizake on 2008-06-23 19:55:36 GMT from United States)
Let's be realistic. If all data and hardware on every Windows machine in the world were to be destroyed, the social-economic impact to the world (including Canada) would be disastrous. It will have to go the other way - where the machines and users gradually get converted to Linux.
104 • @97 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-23 20:00:46 GMT from Canada)
Your analogy is bad. The two linked businesses are a supermarket and a transportation company. They operate in different fields whilst Microsoft and Novell operate the same type of business. If your analogy mentioned two supermarkets or two transportation companies, your conclusion wouldn't be the same.
105 • RE: 102 (by IMQ on 2008-06-23 20:38:47 GMT from United States)
I don't take negatively your comments and I don't think you were being patronizing either.
Like you, I rarely need to run the xorgconfig these days, but I might give the xorgcfg a run next time to see if it helps.
Just a minor inconvenience.
106 • Give SUSE a chance. (by Verndog on 2008-06-23 20:56:39 GMT from United States)
I like your positive comments on suse 11. I haven't tried suse in a couple of years. I think I will wait until the smoke clears and then download it and give it a go.
Regarding all the negatives about Microsoft and suse or whatever. Why waste your time trying to debunk other distros and/or Microsoft. It makes no sense. If I knew your age that might that might bring to light the reasoning. Eleven or twelve year olds act this way. Mature adults don't.
If you like a certain distro, then tell us why. I just don't understand why you waste your time and energy with spiteful comments about what you DONT like.
107 • "How many of us really HATE MS?" (by Arthur C. Clarke on 2008-06-23 20:57:35 GMT from United States)
My hand is raised.
108 • "That's what business do..." (by Ethel Merman on 2008-06-23 21:11:53 GMT from United States)
And slap big-dollar fines on companies that engage in price fixing, intimidation, payola, and restraint of trade -- that's what democratically elected governments do.
The ones in Europe anyway.
109 • re 108 (by drizake on 2008-06-23 21:34:45 GMT from United States)
Yeah, over here we just slap them on the wrist or less.
110 • Board Room or School Yard..RE:106 (by Landor on 2008-06-23 21:56:36 GMT from Canada)
When it comes to online, any measure of maturity is most likely going to be a "best guess" scenario, especially in regard to age.
107 Is a clear example.
A man once said, those that scream the loudest have the most to be quiet about. I think in the Linux world that would translate that they fear both MS and anyone doing business with them. I've often wondered how many that yell the loudest run Windows on their machine(s). I myself reinstalled it once on one box to do a bios update and since then have used a bootdisk instead for my other systems. Gentoo has been my main OS across multiple machines/platforms for about a year now.
I did have to smile over the Puppyian. Which reminds me. I'm considering messing around with, and even possibly, trying to help out with Simplux. It's quite the innovative little project based on Puppy with Gentoo Portage thrown in for Packages/Managent. I was quite surprised when I came across a reference to it and then dug a bit deeper.
Mainstream distros are nice. But they all get a bit ho-hum as we all know, and the lesser talked about smaller projects like simplux are a welcomed distraction/pleasure to find every so often.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
111 • @ 104 (by DeniZen on 2008-06-23 21:57:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Your analogy is bad. The two linked businesses are a supermarket and a transportation company. They operate in different fields "
Analogy may be 'bad' - or not bad! - but not for the reason you note
i.e.
The two linked business's are both retailers.
They are part of the same overall operation(s), but the two comapnies have an agreement to share one aspect (the logistics)
There are only two companies in the analogy.
I wont flog that one any further!
112 • Breaking News - the 'Win-blows' Gang have taken Manhattan .. (by DeniZen again on 2008-06-23 22:04:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Theres some examples of 'death to MS' stuff going on in here now.
I'm sorry, but much of 'that stuff' just appears to be ill informed, and frankly it often sounds naively reactive, and immature.
Counterproductive. I'd say.
We all love to be part of a .. Crusade dont we!
Especially the young guns...
113 • Novell-M$ (by BhaKi on 2008-06-23 22:27:26 GMT from India)
Little knowledge is dangerous.
FUD is dangerous.
One question to all those trolls:
How many of you have actually seen any official announcement of the terms of the deal?
AFAIK, the gist of the deal is just "M$ won't sue SuSE Linux Enterprise customers and Novell would help the creation of software like Mono and Moonlight".
For those who don't understand how creation of Mono and Moonlight helps M$:
M$ can show these projects to claim that ".NET is cross-platform and interoperable". This helps M$ in anti-trust cases. Yes, I do know that availability of something on both Windows and Linux doesn't make it "cross-platform and interoperable" and that .NET/Mono is far from being an "open standard". But most customers don't know.
I hate M$ and I do know that the whole "Linux violates M$ patents" thing is M$ BS. But M$ has enough money to launch a legal attack on Novell by claiming that Novell's Enterprise Linux violates M$ patents. Although M$ will never be successful in proving its claim (because it's false), it has enough money to engage in a legal battle and Novell would quickly run out of business unable to withstand legal expenses. So the deal is perfectly reasonable.
Okay, even my view of the deal is wrong, I'm sure that the deal has nothing to do with openSUSE. It's a great distro and doesn't deserve all this FUD.
114 • OOPS (by BhaKi on 2008-06-23 22:29:36 GMT from India)
The last sentence was meant to read "even if my ..."
115 • RE: # 2, 36 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-23 22:42:56 GMT from Italy)
"Yet another example of a good distro not receiving the attention that it deserves. All because of the hype generated by the commercially sponsored distros."
"Parsix does Gnome right. Ubuntu pales in comparison. Oh ya, Parsix handles my wireless/wpa. Buntus will not."
How very true. Parsix is a rock solid, very good looking Gnome distro based on Debian Testing. It is based on the technology of one of the greatest distros wich ever existed: Kanotix. Because they don't have the money to advertise it or send free CDs, it doesn't have the place that deserves.
116 • Arch > Ubuntu > Suse? (by Jean Azzopardi on 2008-06-23 23:28:17 GMT from Malta)
2 weeks back converted an Ubuntu friend to Arch. He now likes it better than Ubuntu. Personally, I wouldn't ever switch back to another distro now.. It's so comfortable.
117 • @96 (by AustinPowers on 2008-06-24 00:24:21 GMT from Australia)
"I would persuade SUSE into killing MS ;-)"
As has been said many a time in a movie I was in ... "Ya crazy Dutch ba*tard..."
No need to kill, maiming will suffice. ;-)
118 • FWD: To solve the problem that the machine does not have a DVD drive (by OpenSUSE (Linux) Tip on 2008-06-24 01:20:17 GMT from Australia)
Comment by Grósz Dániel
2008-06-23
To solve the problem that the machine does not have a DVD drive, do this: Download the DVD ISO to the hard drive. Mount it with -o loop and copy its contents to a directory on a partition that you won’t format during the installation. Download the mini net install CD and burn it. When you boot from the CD, tell the boot loader to use the directory on the hard drive in which you copied the contents of the DVD as installation source. The mini CD has the traditional installer where you can select which package to install so you can install specific packages from the DVD contents from the hard drive.
You can also install directly from the net with the net install CD and download only the packages you need - the drawback of this is that this way you download them at every installation.
If you do many installations, you may consider creating your own server installer CD with the packages you want with KIWI.
http://news.opensuse.org
119 • Intel is to Hardware what Microsoft is to Software - Monopoly! (by AMD sponsors openSUSE on 2008-06-24 01:39:58 GMT from Australia)
Sponsors of openSUSE
The combined forces of you, AMD and openSUSE are helping lead the Linux operating system community in 64-bit innovation.
Consistent with AMD's theme of customer-centric innovation, openSUSE provides developers with a tool to compile, release, and publish their software for the broad user audience. AMD is a proud Platinum Sponsor of openSUSE.
Novell and SUSE have consistently been among the first Linux distributions to support advanced features in AMD microprocessors such as AMD Direct Connect Architecture with NUMA memory architecture and HyperTransport technology, AMD Virtualization™ technology (AMD-V™), and AMD PowerNow!™ technology.
http://en.opensuse.org/Sponsors
Can one be principled by ranting against MS and cheering for Intel, the hardware monopolist?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Anti-trust+Intel
120 • openSUSE 11 and Fedora 9 (by M. Edward (Ed) Borasky on 2008-06-24 02:00:57 GMT from United States)
I too have joined the openSUSE 11 club. I am still running Gentoo ~amd64 on my Athlon64 X2 and have no plans to change, but I have rebuilt the Linux side of my dual-booted Compaq Presario.
The big thing that put me into openSUSE 11 was the fact that it recognized my Belkin USB wireless adapter and can actually connect! I haven't been able to do that on Gentoo without a lot of command-line wrestling, and I couldn't get it to work at all with Fedora 9. The base install from a LiveCD to hard disk is a *lot* faster with openSUSE than it is with Fedora as well. And Fedora's "Desktop Effects" don't work -- they garble the menus to the point of unreadability, and I had to go to the command line, remove the user and put the user back to clear out the "configuration".
I tried both the Gnome and KDE (4) live CDs, but I rebuilt the machine last night from a network install CD to pull in more software. That gives you four choices: Gnome, KDE 3.5, KDE 4 or XFCE. I had enough problems with KDE 4 crashing that I went with Gnome for the final install.
The one complaint I have with openSUSE 11 over Fedora 9 is that the Fedora repositories seem to have a few more of the packages I regularly use, like R. But I tend to run R "bleeding edge" anyhow, so it's no big deal for me to put a few packages in from source.
So, overall, I think openSUSE is going to stay on my laptop.
121 • For Open Suse 11.00 and Open Solaris (by DRDOS on 2008-06-24 02:51:43 GMT from United States)
you need at least of gig of memory and fairly recent hardware. If you try with a P-III and 256gb of memory they won't even boot.
122 • Ref#110 ... (by Verndog on 2008-06-24 02:55:23 GMT from United States)
I installed ubuntu 8.04 a few months ago, and really like it. Will it be my final frontier, probably not. I have installed several distro's. The reason some have not worked was MY ignorance, not the fault of the distro. There are some rather so-so distros, and unless someone convinces me otherwise, I most likely won't go there again.
Gentoo, on the other hand, I had problems with in the past because of my integrated video, and my inexperience at the time. Maybe I will give it a go in the future.
The one great positive aspect regarding Gentoo is the forums. Usually, if stumped I google around trying to find help. Inevitably Gentoo pops up with some good help.
Case in point, ACPI. DSDT specifically. A great Gentoo article was the very best help available.
One of the main reasons I stick with ubuntu, is the myriad of troubles some Windows users find themselves in. I find it satisfying to be of help, regardless what course they take. And in helping them I help myself in return by reinforcing my knowledge of Linux in general.
123 • Ref#121 (by Lucky on 2008-06-24 03:15:11 GMT from United States)
"you need at least of gig of memory and fairly recent hardware. If you try with a P-III and 256gb of memory they won't even boot."
Don't know about openSolaris, but this is simply not true with openSUSE. I successfully installed on a PIII Thinkpad T23 which I am using to write this comment. Granted, I have 1gb of RAM on this machine, but I have an older desktop with both AMD 1ghz and P4 1.7gh processor, both with 512mb of ram and opensuse installed and runs good on both. I even have compiz enabled on the P4 with Nvidia Geforce 3 cards that works perfectly.
Having said that, my experiences with openSUSE have led me to draw a different conclusion. 11.0 is A okay.
124 • re @123 @121...for OS11.0---Using LiveCD with 'init 3' boot option (by Helps ease the process on 2008-06-24 03:38:39 GMT from Australia)
yast2 live-installer is a text mode installer found on the openSUSE 11.0 Live CDs and I used it to install on a P4 1.7 with 512MB ram with no issues. Using one of the lighter X Window Managers and disabling some unnecessary services is another way trying to ease the process. But recent Live Cd install attempts (on same machine) with Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE were very slow and I either gave up or sought different install options (Ubuntu - alternate iso, Fedora - netinstall, etc).
125 • My sentiments exactly. (by Greg on 2008-06-24 03:44:42 GMT from United States)
I have been an avid Fedora fan and heavy user, especially since 8. My experience with 9 was more than disappointing, especially with my misconception that the "little" inconveniences in 8 would be ironed out by 9, and to be confronted with more issues, and that the little annoyances had not been worked out (use of gconf still instead of ccp... just one). While I don't mind, it is not my idea of good fun to have to start hacking away just to get functionality. The result was exactly the opposite with openSUSE 11.0. The install was very well balanced, and I like that it "respects" my SATA RAID controller without effort (something I appreciated in Fedora and one of my only detractions about Ubuntu, my solid choice for an "Out of the Box", average user). I like the fact that you can readily install both the 32-bit and 64-bit libraries (quite easily at the time of install by selecting "32-bit compatibility" group of packages, something that somehow became broken on Fedora 9. openSUSE is currently my top pick, and that's not something I consider an easy task when I am quick to blow away an OS on a whim because it doesn't "feel" right. I also like that so far I don't have to fight to get the "built-in" configuration tools to play nice with the package specific ones and vice-versa (i.e. compiz-fusion addons integrate directly into the default compiz package that is loaded and fully configurable from the ccsm as well as the "simple" configuration manager that comes by default). I'm sorry to ramble, but there is one more feature, automatic availability of the various repositories that has just about all the packages you could need, and the fact that these repo's were on-line and fully deployed on zero-day. Despite having to compile my own nVidia driver module on my x64 system, I still rank openSUSE "highest in initial quality." The only hold-backs I have found has been the related not to the distribution, but in the current builds of certain packages and their compatibility with the new 2.6.25 kernel or disabled features that were not ready for the current stable package release, like the gdm configuration tool in gnome 2.22. Hope this is helpful to all those looking for a new distro to use, and not just in the unfortunate void that was left Fedora 9 (not meaning to bash it, I'm sure they will tighten up, and after some update cycles, or at least by 10, they will make a bid for the top again).
126 • try VESA option for SUSE ATI installs (by stephanie on 2008-06-24 04:42:02 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the review of openSUSE. I am going to be trying it out on my second hard drive, to have Linux on my desktop for the first time ever. (I've got Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS on my laptops.) I was impressed with the installation options on the DVD and I'm hoping that it will make my dual boot setup easier...we'll see...
PS For those having a hard time installing SUSE on a machine with an ATI card: I was having problems with the screen blanking out whenever I tried to get to the install screen. I then figured out that if you select the VESA option under the monitor settings (at the bottom) it worked just fine.
127 • Upgrade from 10.3 opensuse to 11.0 (by Nelson on 2008-06-24 05:29:09 GMT from United States)
I upgraded my slower linux test whitebox machine,amd 950 thunderbird,768 meg of ram pc133,hitachi 80gb.cdrw-dvd rom machine with 2000 bios. From 10.3 OpenSuse to OpenSuse11.00. OpenSuse 11.0 didn't have the right driver for my sis 64 meg agp video card and every one to 5 minutes my display would flash on and off. I didn't want to get help and look for driver. So I installed Pc Bsd 1.5.1 and was over joyed on the speed of PcBsd and everything worked fine.Open Suse 10.3 was way to slow on this machine,plus other problem's.Plus I had only 200 meg of ram free with Opensuse. With PcBsd 1.5.1 I have 425 meg of ram free. I recommend everyone to check out PcBsd 1.5.1 If you are new to Linux. Since around 2003 I have tested more than 50 different Linux Distributions.
128 • RE: # 127 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-24 09:01:02 GMT from Italy)
"I had only 200 meg of ram free with Opensuse."
You shouldn't have much free RAM when using Linux. If you do, your RAM isn't being used optimally.
129 • Fedora 9 & M$/Novell deal (by Anon on 2008-06-24 09:14:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well all knew that Fedora 9 was going to be very bleeding edge, stop whining about getting your fingers burned, you only have your own ignorance to blame.
The key issue with the M$/Novell deal is that is validates M$'s ludicrous patent claims that threatens our community. Novell is effectively supporting these claims and in doing so jeopardises the future of GNU/Linux. Now Microsoft has two weapons to hammer out their patent claims, a hefty bank balance and members of the linux community making a prima facie admission that the claims are valid (despite uncertainty over the real truth).
130 • OpenSUSE 11.0 (by Rebecca on 2008-06-24 10:18:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've used OpenSUSE fro several years now - from 10.0 onwards - and I've found it to be excellent for almost everything. I downloaded 11.0 last week - and for the first time, it's recognising my wireless devices - all of them.
This, for me has always been the bugbear - I've run my server on a wired connection and had to use 'That which cannot be named!' on my laptop, where I do most of my work. In fact, the only thing remaining on this front is to configure it for finding my ADSL connection. I can ping the other devices on the network just fine - and it comes up as a member of the network... but it can't see the outside word - time for reading some more books!
However, now that I've got a better than even chance of getting wireless working, that's about to change. Thankfully!
My biggest dislike is KDE4! I really loathe those 'shadow' surrounds that come up whenever you mouse over an icon on the desktop - and the icons appear much larger. I'm sure it's all configurable - somewhere - and I've just not found it yet, but until I can do, I'm staying with KDE3.
Apart from those few little niggles, I think this is an excellent release and I'm looking forward to many happy months using it.
Overall score is 9/10 - and that's down to KDE 4 wasting so much desk-space and looking so childish!
131 • OpenSUSE 11.0 - take 2! (by Rebecca on 2008-06-24 10:45:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
Iv'e been reading the above comments now - skiving off from work - and I'm shocked at the number of people who are rabidly against OS11.
A great number of them seem to be ideological ranters... and that a very sad thing to see. I suspect that most of them don't actually use the linux systems for business and that does make a difference - a big difference.
I do use my systems to run my business - and I'm quite happy to recommend any of a number of operating systems to friends and clients - and that includes WIndows, in most of it's versions - including Vista.
However, for the back-end of the networks, I'd always strongly suggest OpenSUSE because of it's configurability and realiability - and for the desktop, it would be either OpenSUSE 11, Mint 5 or Windows (unless there's a desperately real reason to go with something else!).
Anyway - that's my 2nd little gem of the day - I haven't got time to worry about the 'purity' of a distro or idealogical double-think. I only care that it does the job I need it to and it supports my business in a reliable manner - and it doesn't crash! On that basis, I'll be keeping OpenSUSE for the foreseeable future!
132 • Re: OpenSUSE 11.0 - take 2! (by Jean-Paul Marat on 2008-06-24 11:53:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
> Anyway - that's my 2nd little gem of the day - I haven't got time to worry about
> the 'purity' of a distro or idealogical [sic.] double-think.
So you're commending your judgment on the basis of the fact that you're too busy to think?
133 • 116 - Arch (by Anonymous on 2008-06-24 13:14:06 GMT from United States)
I used Arch as my main desktop for maybe six months. It has the best design of any distro IMO. No need to go into all the specifics, they have been stated many times.
The problem is the devs. They go on the forums talking about how stupid the users are, openly mocking them. They do things their way. Here's an example from the recent newsletter if you didn't see it: "Nobody but the developers has input into what goes on in official Arch development. This is their linux distribution and they have been kind enough to share it with the rest of the world in case someone else likes it."
This is problematic, because it means Arch is a toy, not a serious OS for serious users. The devs feel happy to use the work of everyone else, but if someone else needs something, forget it. I'm not going to go into details, but a distro designed to make the devs feel good about themselves is not a useful distro. They don't even entertain feature requests. If you do request something, be ready to be flamed.
When I posted a question here a while back about whether anyone else had any comments about the goofiness of the forums, they even started a thread to discuss my comment.
If you want to play, Arch is a good choice. If you rely on your OS, you need to look for an adult distro. A real distro respects its users.
134 • Re #132: To think or not to think (by Lurker 99 on 2008-06-24 13:36:51 GMT from Switzerland)
"So you're commending your judgment on the basis of the fact that you're too busy to think?"
That could be the motto for posting to DWW these days....
135 • @133 (by Misfit138 on 2008-06-24 14:10:15 GMT from United States)
Unfortunately, you are both attracted and repelled to Arch for the same reasons; Design Approach.
You both praise and criticize its philosophy in the same breath. The Arch Way encompasses a certain scope of development, and feature requests outside of this approach will not be considered.
Having said that, I have personally made 2 official feature requests, both of which have been merged. If you go through the bugtracker and the answer is no, then the answer is no.
Slackware holds to a similar philosophy, and benevolent dictator Patrick Volkerding (nod your head when you say that!) does things his way, like it or not. The way to suggest a feature is on the Slack mailing list, and the same applies: Pat's way or the Highway. This is a *good* thing.
If Arch opened up to adding more automation/abstraction/eye candy, it would cease to be Arch.
As for Arch being a toy, well that is merely a perspective, no doubt colored by a bias related to a negative emotional association that you have developed- you seem to mention this issue you have with Arch here often.
I would sincerely suggest you give Arch another shot, and keep a mature, open-minded approach to your trial. Rather than resisting and suggesting change, why not attempt to embrace?
136 • RE: # 133 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-24 14:11:53 GMT from Italy)
"A real distro respects its users."
It sounds to me as if you were talking about Debian :)
137 • Opensuse 11 (by Josue on 2008-06-24 15:08:52 GMT from Canada)
Hi,
I have upgraded my old Suse 10.2 to 11, and even when I don't have bleeding edge hardware on this machine, the software was able to go through the process without problems, I am pleased all previous settings were respected and restarted services without problems, this give me some confidence with wanting to upgrade my 10.3 to 11 where I have more modern hardware that requires non free software drivers for my video cards.
I would send a follow up once I completed the second stage of my upgrade plans
138 • No subject (by john frey on 2008-06-24 15:40:21 GMT from Canada)
"A real distro respects its users."
Well maybe Arch Linux respects you. Did you ask?
It does sound like you have some issues with the Devs. As an IT technician I sympathize with them. Users are a PITA and sometimes I think the world would be better off without them;)
139 • It is NOT ill-informed or immature to have a problem with this: (by Gary Kildall on 2008-06-24 15:43:42 GMT from United States)
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/Home/News.asp?id=48359
Microsoft to limit capabilities of cheap laptops
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is launching a program to promote the use of its Windows OS in ultra low-cost PCs, one effect of which will be to limit the hardware capabilities of this type of device, CDNNow has learned.
Microsoft plans to offer PC makers steep discounts on Windows XP Home Edition to encourage them to use that OS instead of Linux on ultra low-cost PCs (ULPCs). To be eligible, however, the PC vendors that make ULPCs must limit screen sizes to 10.2 inches and hard drives to 80GB, and they cannot offer touch-screen PCs.
The program is outlined in confidential documents that Microsoft sent to PC makers last month, and which were obtained by IDG News Service. The goal apparently is to limit the hardware capabilities of ULPCs so that they don't eat into the market for mainstream PCs running Windows Vista, something both Microsoft and the PC vendors would want to avoid.
140 • OpenSuSE 11.0 (by Robert on 2008-06-24 15:44:37 GMT from United States)
A lot of improvements, but the fact that they haven't fixed the bug where the wireless doesn't work after hibernation if you use the network manager is truly disappointing as it's an old bug.
141 • RE 108 / European countries do not use "big dollars" (by dbrion on 2008-06-24 16:27:10 GMT from France)
"And slap big-dollar fines on companies that engage in price fixing, intimidation, payola, and restraint of trade -- that's what democratically elected governments do.
The ones in Europe anyway"
They use Euros or even more rock-solid currency: this makes M$ position unpleasant, as they forgot to pay their fines some years ago, when the Great Buck was high, and now, they must
a) manage with floating operations (Apple does not seem to do this: 1euro remains 1 "big dollar" for them)
b) pay penalties
c) pay penalties beca&use they are late in b)
d) learn how to play ukulele (B Gates) and to dance (Balmer) at the street corners to pay their fine penalties ...
BTW European jurists are not elected......
142 • Fedora 9 open SuSE 11.0 (by hg on 2008-06-24 16:27:21 GMT from United States)
I keep 7 or 8 different releases on my system just to get an idea of how the open source community is progressing.
This is an older AMD64 Athlon system with 1 gb and 4 disk drives.
I have always used KDE as my favored manager.
With the release of Fedora 7, I could no longer get the release to run. 8 came out and it was the same thing. Oddly enough the Centos releases ran ok. I have been running SuSE since 5 something and watched its ups and downs.
With the release of Fedora 9, I had hopes for a good release. The install worked however I am not please with KDE 4 and that sours the experience. openSuSE 11.0 made a better choice by providing KDE 3.5 along with 4. I still have reservations about the Microsoft agreement.
As for the other releases some quick opinions.
Sabayon- pretty but still has a little ways to go for ease of use.
Zenwalk- I like it because of the KISS philosophy.
Centos-Not very exciting but stable and functional. Haven't seen the Fedora 9(RH) version yet.
Mandriva-Competent release.
PClinux os- good and easy release. I am looking toward using their work for the minis.
Ubuntu- Stable but I can't get excited. Perhaps I don't favor the way it protects me from myself. Of course it appears to be a good idea when directed toward Windows users. :o)
So much for todays opinion.
143 • Re 139 Comique de répétition (by dbrion on 2008-06-24 16:37:10 GMT from France)
This evil secret "document" has already been cut and pasted in DWW 20080608 , with lots of finger movements. Claiming it is a secret one is a pure joke.
It might have 2 interpretations:
a)M$ and the HW manufacturers are plotting to have prices high ....
b) After the unexpected eeeeePC success (it was very unexpected after the UBU-Dell and UBU-Lenovo fiascos, [fiascos from a from a GNUlinux point of view]), M$ tries to make bargain prices (developping countries may become rich and should get accustomed to M$, in their point of view).
What is not in M$ offer might remain ... Linux monopoly, if the HW manufacturers want it and if M$ does not change the terms of its offer.... or Vista treated....
144 • RE@138 Hey John, its your job. (by Anonymous on 2008-06-24 17:26:57 GMT from United States)
John said: It does sound like you have some issues with the Devs. As an IT technician I sympathize with them. Users are a PITA and sometimes I think the world would be better off without them;)
You know that if you didn't have users then you wouldn't have a job, a computer, or even know how to use one. You had to start out a user. And we all know most IT techs are just users with a manual and screwdriver. At least thats what all the users tell me.
145 • re #132 (by Rebecca on 2008-06-24 18:19:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
No - I make my judgements on what I find to be reliable and able to do the work I need. (And far too many years in the IT industry playing with everything up to and including AIX, HP-UX and OS/400 boxes - and eventualy, you realise that they're just tools, not focal points for crusades - which is why I've often suggested people having mixed environments, including windows clients.)
As that's pretty much what a small business needs to keep going without having to keep playing all the time. I'd guess that judgement to be moderately sound, as the people I've advised seem to like the results and the benefits.
If that's not what we'd like to see, then I guess I'm missing the point somewhere.
146 • RE: 141 (by drizake on 2008-06-24 19:10:23 GMT from United States)
"BTW European jurists are not elected......"
Neither are ours. They are appointed by the President and then confirmed by the Senate.
BTW, has anyone else ever noticed how the small DW icon in the title bar looks like a knife and a fork side by side at the dinner table? I've been thinking that for years, but keep forgetting to ask. :)
147 • Re #145 (by Jean-Paul Marat on 2008-06-24 19:10:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
> If that's not what we'd like to see, then I guess I'm missing the point
> somewhere.
You don't seem to appreciate that the very software tools you take for granted are endangered by patent trolling, if not from Microsoft itself then from opportunists like Firestar Software Inc (whose patent lawsuit was recently settled by Red Hat paying an undisclosed sum) with no customers to alienate and therefore nothing to lose.
By participating in its protection racket, Novell, Xandros, Linspire and rPath tacitly spread Microsoft propaganda to the effect that Free Software's plagued by patent violations, which in turn can only encourage patent trolling, serving to stymie the development of the very software you're blithely singing the praises of.
148 • Linux in general (by Darren Harris on 2008-06-24 19:20:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have been a novice linux user for years,about 7 now and can i say a HUGE thankyou to all the developers and people behind the scenes to make linux one of the greeat sucess stories of all time,back in the day it took days to get a fully working linux system up and running perfectly,Now you can just download an .iso burn it stick it in youre computer reboot and you have a fully configured working linux box in under 3 minutes,keep up all the good work and please guys visit my site www.harrisfm.com
149 • www.harrisfm.com (by www.harrisfm.com at 2008-06-24 19:24:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Linux Rules The World People,Developers keep up all the good work and dont stop doing what you do best........Regards Darren
150 • Differences between Microsoft and Intel (by Sam Exner on 2008-06-24 21:11:11 GMT from United States)
"Intel is to Hardware what Microsoft is to Software - Monopoly!"
When you buy a pre-built computer, your choices for the OS are almost always Windows XP or Windows Vista. Thats a monopoly. But for the processor, you can always buy a computer with an AMD processor, instead of Intel.
151 • @150 (by bleh on 2008-06-24 22:37:45 GMT from Germany)
"...you can always buy a computer with an AMD processor, instead of Intel."
This might not be the case everywhere. In Germany Intel was caught making 'backroom deals' with electronics retailers to offer only Intel based machines. While now it's still possible to buy an AMD based machine in another store this might not be the case in the future when these deals becoome business standards.
152 • Does indifference produce any results? (by KimTjik on 2008-06-24 23:40:33 GMT from Sweden)
Short story less than a week old:
I contacted a seller representing a telecommunication company about their products. In the bundle for mobile Internet solutions they include hardware for connectivity. I asked whether it supports Linux. He hesitated for a moment and then called back to base. The answer was no. He then asked whether I could consider Windows, because their current offer would anyway not cost me anything if I couldn't get it to work within (some kind of guarantee of satisfaction about the product). I answered: "I prefer Linux and if I would accept your offer it wouldn't send any consumer signal to your company". He then looked at me with the face of someone realizing something for the first time: "I haven't thought about that, but it makes sense. I will immediately see how I can put pressure on our company to improve Linux support". And so he did.
I'm just telling this because I see so many comments here reflecting indifference. Some defend this with a self-confident and self-proclaimed maturity of understanding how the big world works, thus denouncing complaints or worries about the Microsoft and Novell deal as childish and irrelevant. On the other hand: I can't understand the fierce anger either some express, like there's not enough of more serious matters to deal with in life.
What we get is two opposite poles, both being potentially harmful to the cause. Still indifference is one of the worst weaknesses, because mostly it's about not being ready to pay the price for defending your fellow man. Fortunately we're now talking about trivial matters like software (I've too many cowards not ready to utter even a word in defence of people getting badly beating up in a public place; I mean it's a pity when you as a single person has to risk your life because the majority are too busy looking at the birds in the sky).
It's late so I tend to get a bit wordy. My point is that nothing has to be like it always has been. Some companies aren't even to be blamed for having bad Linux support, because if nobody tells them anything or show that they respectfully turn their offers down until they so do, how can we possibly expect them to improve? If you choose between some hardware for example, why not send a respectful message about it to those you didn't chose because of lacking Linux support?
I don't force anyone to make the same choices as I do, but it's sad for me to see so many letting their guard low while viewing critical voices as ideologically nutheads. Maybe this is an understandable result of how easy some things have become in the world of Linux. A problem to is that brands and companies are taken to personal. It's important to be pragmatic enough to realize that nothing is static; a company might earn credit today and critique tomorrow; someone act in your favour today, but might turn against you tomorrow. Hence all these comparisons between companies, like some are by nature good and others are bad, aren't more than a snapshot of a short space of time. All what we have is a set of tools, some material and other immaterial, so let's use accordingly as fitting for the current time.
153 • @150 (by BhaKi on 2008-06-25 00:27:07 GMT from India)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=INTC:US&sid=a2mpgvYbaE1M
154 • OpenSuse 11.0 RULES!!!! (by Larva_pro on 2008-06-25 00:43:30 GMT from United States)
With the improvements on Yast2, OpenSUSE it's the best Major Distribution to Me. I been Using OpenSuse since 2006 and I have try other Distro's like Ubuntu Fedora, Ubuntu was very easy but, wasn't the kind of Distro for me.
And with the New OpenSUSE 11.0 I just don't have plans to change of Distro. The community of OpenSuse they are Doing a perfect work listing the user, making better the Distribution, the version 10.2 was to buggy but the 10.3 was a lot better that the 10.2 ,, and with the 11.0 ,, hell a great Distro.
155 • re 152 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-25 02:07:36 GMT from Canada)
Too much indifference. That's how I became an extremist. When people don't hear you, you have to raise your voice. Look at post #154. This is a perfect example. The guy doesn't listen.
156 • @155--> The louder you shout, the LESS You will be heard - almost guaranteed (by Not to be heard! on 2008-06-25 02:44:38 GMT from Australia)
Less shouting and more LOGICAL common sense is better, IMHO!
157 • @ 143......>Logical thought in action (by Right On The MarK! on 2008-06-25 02:50:35 GMT from Australia)
What not in M$ offer might remain ... Linux monopoly, if the HW manufacturers want it and if M$ does not change the terms of its offer.... or Vista treated....
Cheers
158 • Dell CEO says relationship with Intel "makes us a lot of money." (by Who loves you on 2008-06-25 02:59:49 GMT from Australia)
The Chip Game
Veteran industry watchers have seen the Dell/AMD relationship heat up and cool down for years. Dell is believed to receive discounts on Intel chips as a result of its continuing loyalty to the world's largest chip maker. The company is also thought to occasionally toy with the possibility of using AMD's chips in order to keep Intel alert.
In a July interview last year, the week Rollins took over the CEO role, he declined to comment specifically on that issue. He did say that his company's relationship with Intel "makes us a lot of money."
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,119817-page,1/article.html
That was about 3yrs ago and now DELL is probably a Linux "sweetheart" but....
159 • opensuse 11.0 (by warlux on 2008-06-25 03:00:56 GMT from United States)
I don't think that opensuse 11.0 should be out of the Beta version yet..I hate to hop the bus, but thats the kinda stuff windows pulls off...They try to fine tune it while its on my desktop.And KDE4,I could never make my mind up on kde or gnome untill now.who buys half a car....so i'll just ride along in my gnome for now.I installed 11.0 on my 64bit and I got everything to work BUT the sound, So off it went , and i put vista back on and gave back to my wife and Installed 11.0 on an older dell with p-4 in it and ran the kde4 desktop what a techno marvel.N O T.So I uninstalled it and reinstalled 10.3 and ran the updates and boy is it nice.I guess I'm not ready for that high tech look or maybe you want to say modern, You can call it what you want to..I just don't believe its ready yet.Now the 11.0 gnome runs great on an even older hp that i have,
160 • Fedora 9; Xorg configuration problems. (by digger on 2008-06-25 04:09:03 GMT from United States)
Fedora 9 nstalled and worked fairly well for me for a month (Gnome desktop). In fact, it's the 1st 64 bit distro in a couple of years to a) install, and b) work correctly in X without a lot of command-line tweaking. I went back to Sidux because I'm more used to the Debian (and now Sidux) tools. [ No tweaking necessary on the Sidux 2008-pre 1 release., it just works.] If there were no Sidux, I would dual boot Debian and Fedora.
As near as I can tell, about the only change that dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, does on recent Debian-based distros is to allow picking correct keyboard; my 104 keyboard is almost always detected as 105 keyboard, and enable or disable the kernel framebuffer. One thing I learned recently, if recent versions of X fail to work, properly (or at all), it may work to take the following steps:
1) switch to a vt (Ctr-Alt-F5, or whatever) then su or sudo and delete xorg.conf (my systems it has always been /etc/X11/xorg.conf, but I understand some systems may have a different file layout , e.g. GOBO).
2) switch back to vt7 (Ctr-Alt-F7), and
3) Ctr-Alt-Backspace.
Xmay start and work properly. As weird as it seems, it worked like a charm for me on a live cd recently (CRS syndrome, don't remember which one).
Thanks for this site, Ladislav. Love that Mark Twain quote, think I'd better shutup now.
161 • opensuse fonts solution (by Rob Menzel on 2008-06-25 04:29:02 GMT from United States)
you said that the opensuse fonts needed tweaking to have the "gorgeous" quality that fedora and mandriva have by default...
I'm interested to know your end result tweaks that worked for you.
162 • The Arch Was Upright (by Landor on 2008-06-25 05:00:28 GMT from Canada)
I downloaded and installed the Arch USB image and installed it on a 4gig stick i have kickin' around. Luckily I knew already how to do it via dd, as it wasn't until after I installed it and looked for the third time did I find reference in their manual on how to do it.
I was pleasantly surprised though that they offered this medium for an install. I've been thinking about this a lot, and even put a few iso's on my stuck manually when I didn't want to waste a cd, or run it in VM or VB. A lot more distros should consider creating a USB Installer, or a Live USB Distro/Installer. Discs are seriously becoming old school.
The install was pretty quick and I guess I have the base system. I'll play with it for a bit and install the rest of the way, once I learn about pacman of course and check out the programs naming conventions for the packages.
Anyone else know of another distro that has this form of install instead of having to burn a cd/dvd?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
163 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-25 05:17:55 GMT from Canada)
143 • Re 139 Comique de répétition (by dbrion on 2008-06-24 16:37:10
b) After the unexpected eeeeePC success (it was very unexpected after the UBU-Dell and UBU-Lenovo fiascos, [fiascos from a from a GNUlinux point of view]
===================
Tried to find out some info on this but no luck 'cept driver scenarios ..or something. What happened? (the fiasco part)
164 • RE 163 UBU fiascos (by dbrion on 2008-06-25 05:37:28 GMT from France)
If the UBU linux+Dell, UBU -lenovo had been successes,
a) well thinking linuxers would have made hundreds of politically correct pages of it....
b)Dell and Lenovo would have been ready to go on with UBUlinux
and
c) UBUlinux would have been elected by Asus...
d)and Microsoft would have reacted much sooner (as they did with Xandros).....
It is amusing to see how Unterhunde (this notion is explained, with in depth "psychology" in DWW253) like Xandros (not even in the upper 100 of DW hits) can achieve great successes and the Sliced Bread of the Free World (perhaps because it has the originality and software quality of .....sliced bread ).... soyons charitables, quand même : il fait trop chaud...
165 • openSUSE + ATI = nightmare (by stephanie on 2008-06-25 06:13:56 GMT from United States)
An addendum to my previous comment (that you can use the VESA option if you are getting the black screen in the SUSE installation). I tried to install openSUSE twice and it is just not happy with my ATI video card. When I did not have the driver, just clicking on "enable desktop effects" hosed the system (black screen again, no way to login). Install the ATI driver, and the window was set to the wrong dimensions. Try to fix that with SAX2, and the black screen of death reappeared. Sometimes, if the system got really screwed up, you couldn't even get to a login screen.
I gave up and installed Kubuntu instead. It's working perfectly. Too bad, I would have liked to give SUSE a go.
166 • re #152 (by Rebecca on 2008-06-25 06:30:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
I know I might upset some people here with my attitudes to computing - honed by too many years in the business.... but I always ask about linux support for any hardware or software that I buy - on the same basis - if we don't ask, we don't get!
I even do that with software like Serif''s products - they keep calling me up with the latest offers... and I bend their saleforce's ears for up to half an hour at a time about why their software isn't good enough for linux yet. It's fun! And maybe they'll listen one of these days and sort out their screen handling code. That seems to be their biggest problem!
167 • Pardus! (by M. Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér on 2008-06-25 08:05:11 GMT from Denmark)
I am looking very much forward to the release of the brilliant Pardus later this week. This distribution deserves much more attention than it gets. This distribution is my primary recommendation for GNU/Linux beginners.
168 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-25 16:48:00 GMT from Canada)
164 • RE 163 UBU fiascos (by dbrion on 2008-06-25 05:37:28 GMT from France)
If the UBU linux+Dell, UBU -lenovo had been successes,
===========================================
I was wondering more about what went wrong, Just didn't sell I guess?..dunno what the story is, or what may have contributed to the whole deal not working out
169 • RE 168 Obvious answer..... (by dbrion on 2008-06-25 16:57:37 GMT from France)
"Just didn't sell I guess"
Right....
Suppose they had sold.....or , instead of a vote (or a PHR criterium or a "ubu== linux" way of thinking), Dell or Lenovo had chosen technical (or common sense) criteria.... as Asus did...
As I know ubu linux is PR oriented (it is its unique interesting feature, unless they have one line of technical innovation....), there would have been tons of terrestrial and extraterrestrial fora full of their success...
170 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-25 17:08:47 GMT from United States)
From what I've heard, Dell is happy with Ubuntu sales.
You can get a pretty good desktop without monitor for only $259, and that includes DVD playback.
IMO it is hardware compatibility we need, not preinstallation, but nonetheless it is available.
171 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-25 17:24:45 GMT from Canada)
136 • RE: # 133 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-24 14:11:53 GMT from Italy)
"A real distro respects its users."
=================================
Exactly!.. along with a forum that does the same.
Lotta linux crowds just don't get it, or care, or are in denial & are a huge part of the problem.. attracting new folks. A waste of time ..I sez .. & let 'em bicker among themselves.
No doubt, a few have their act together & numbers tell the tale.
172 • RE 170 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-25 17:42:38 GMT from France)
"From what I've heard, Dell is happy with Ubuntu sales.
"
From what I have *read* (sorry, I cannot quote the exact page of Linux DVD+ from memory) now, 60% (the figures are likely to increase) of the ubuDell buyers are happier with the ritually infamous XP..... and Dell has already been paid....
Just one question: which is the more dangerous
a great, well fed, rather slow monopolistic shark or
a thin, hungry, trying to become monopolistic (without great skills by itself, but borrowing them from others) one?
173 • The Arch Fell Over (by Landor on 2008-06-25 18:56:48 GMT from Canada)
Ipdate to my last comment.
I decided to go no further with my testing of Arch. I don't see a need to go through the effort of manually editing so much. Without tools such as rc-update, etc-conf, even revdep-rebuild (which is a godsend for Gentoo). I can't see a reason to put the effort into just "testing" Arch. It felt almost as if I was doing an LFS system just to test their latest version.
I know it's not that extreme, but there's far more effort involved in Arch's configuration that even Gentoo, so in my opinion closer to LFS. But, of course, all of this is just my opinion.
The base install was quick and really effortless though. Would've liked to have seen a user added before it was complete though. Shrugs....
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
174 • RE: # 173 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-25 20:16:23 GMT from Italy)
So Arch is exactly how I expected it to be. That is why I have always refused to even try it. Why should an OS be a pain in the....?
175 • re 172 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-25 21:15:13 GMT from Germany)
I don't use Ubuntu but I think it would be much better to have a Canonical monopoly than Microsoft monopoly. If Canonical had the monopoly then other linux distros would have better chances at cracking that monopoly.
176 • REF#152 • Does indifference produce any results? - by KimTjik (by Verndog on 2008-06-25 22:19:41 GMT from United States)
Very good comment. Intelligently authored. I'm curious as to what put you on to Linux in the first place.
I suppose most are just cowards when you come right down to it. They don't want to challenge the establishment , their boss or even their supplier. They just go along for the ride. It's refreshing to hear comments of reversal.
177 • In reply to 173 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-26 00:23:54 GMT from United States)
What kind of shot is that.
#!1 Anyone that uses Arch knows it's not for noobs.
#2 the ironic part of it all, arch is easier to manage then any other Linux distros out there, the initial pain of setup is well rewarded after.
Also the statement about Gentoo being easier to manage is about as false as it can get. I like Gentoo, but Arch just does everything better.
And as all Archers say, if you dont like it thats fine, there are 10000 other distro's to use. Find the one that fits your skill level and one that fits you best. We don't play the Ubuntu/ Suse / Fedora game of who has the best distro... We already know what the best distro is. If you use it fine, if you don't that's fine as well. Arch is not for everyone, I would say you are in the minority though. Most people that give Arch a real shot...lets say more then a few days, usually jump on the bandwagon.
Linux is a movement. if you like Arch or not that's okay - like I said above it's about choice. IMHO Arch is by far the best distro, but thats for my needs. Pick the distro that best fits your needs and wants.
Bye Bye MSFT!
.
178 • Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind..RE:177 (by Landor on 2008-06-26 02:17:29 GMT from Canada)
I never said the distro was for noobs. I never said that I was one. Truth be told I've used Linux, and Unix for possibly longer than the majority that post here, even with my absence from Linux.
That being said, my comment was not a shot, a fact. Why put in the effort to further "test" Arch to end up removing it? As you said, a matter of choice.
I would like to understand how configuring daemons and such manually is easier than Gentoo. Using rc-update, or as I said, what about other configuration as opposed to using etc-conf. Tools that make Gentoo far easier on the configuration side of things than Arch. Those two cannot be denied. I did not say better, I wasn't getting into "better". I said, less effort.
I find it also quite telling that you jumped on the ponts that I made a statement about once, yet didn't bother to comment on the fact that I applauded it for it's effortless install of the base system, and the fact that it has a USB Image for an install option.
Quite telling indeed.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
179 • Linux's big friend in IT under scrutiny of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (by Run With The Pack on 2008-06-26 03:11:28 GMT from Australia)
Intel hit with antitrust investigation in US
10 June 2008
"...Intel's business practices will come under the scrutiny of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has opened a formal antitrust investigation of the chipmaker......
......AMD issued a statement after news of the investigation was released. "Intel must now answer to the Federal Trade Commission, which is the appropriate way to determine the impact of Intel practices on US consumers and technology businesses. In every country around the world where Intel's business practices have been investigated, including the decision by South Korea this week, antitrust regulators have taken action."..."
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4yzdow
180 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-26 07:03:36 GMT from France)
"You know that if you didn't have users then you wouldn't have a job, a computer, or even know how to use one"..."And we all know most IT techs are just users with a manual and screwdriver. At least thats what all the users tell me.
"
There are two kinds if sysads: those who are late coming with a screwdriver, when needed, and hide the manuals (for the users not to notice they did not read it!).... This can be fixed (form a user point of view) by no screw HW , some fire wars and some luck... With the possibility of getting help by phone from countries where, for superiol skills, the wages are 4 times less, they are a pompous, well thinking disappearing species (and, if they are lucid, they know they cannot find another job)....
and those ho are ready to
181 • 180 and this are answers to (144 • RE@138 ) (by dbrion on 2008-06-26 07:11:45 GMT from France)
and those wha are ready to acquire and share new knowledge ...as users are not their property (you know, users are human beings)... If John Frey (in 138) is the same as in DWW254, he might be of the second category of systyrans, those who have enough skills to keep their computers and increase their knowledge without bullying/swindling users....
182 • RE: 178 and some more (by KimTjik on 2008-06-26 09:50:35 GMT from Sweden)
I think the person behind post # 177 was a bit too passionate about defending Arch, but after reading it several times it looks likes he's/she's still promoting choice. I leave that, but I can respond to some of your questions:
If you wish you could probably with some modification implement the same scripts in Arch. However I think you can distinguish one of Arch trademarks by this:
- the system is kept as clean as possible and implementing modifications is hence a user decision
- pure Arch doesn't contain customized packages, but it's for sure vanilla
- you get a clean file structure
Now, would it be worth the effort to use Arch you ask? Personally I found it to be much easier to maintain, because the structure is clean and you learn how to adjust things at the root level... or should we say /etc level :) ? For me that's easier than remember script commands someone else made and nothing hinders me from making my own, or implementing ideas of others. But, and this is the main point in my view, nobody else but me makes that decision.
Arch and Gentoo users usually has one wish in common: they don't like pre installed bloat. Then if some other features make you choose the first over the latter or vice verse doesn't matter. You've defended and promoted Gentoo quite frequently so we know you like your choice, and that's excellent. I on the other hand value other features.
@ Verndog: thank you for understanding what I tried to express. By the way I found a Swedish telecommunication company - ice.net - that on their site states that the included USB-modem supports "Windows 2000, XP, Vista eller Linux" (I only wonder what happened to Mac?). Nice to see it included in the main body of information.
Why I choose Linux? Actually I did it too late, in the year 2003. As a kid I remember how the family business was run by Unix, but that was before you easily could become a home fiddler and I was a bit too young at the time. Next was the big failure of Unix to adopt to the PC-vision, and we know the outcome of that; some other guys made good use of the situation and became dominating that market.
To make it shorter, I can simply tell you that I was detached from the computer world in about 12 years because of humanitarian work; on that level computing wasn't of great concern. When I came back I was displeased with some parts of Windows, and couldn't understand how all these years hadn't produced more competitive alternatives. I found Slackware and from that point Linux became my main choice even though it took about three more years before I had completely migrated. It's a paradox that my work partly is to administrate Windows systems, but I've at least got Linux and BSD to be included in the mix.
My interest in Linux is foremost technical in the sense that it does what I want more efficiently and is easier to administrate. Thanks to my farther, I can still remember the history behind Microsoft's dominance, and while they did indeed kick the buts of Unix folks for being out of touch with the idea of PC, many parts of it are a less compelling story. Thus I view it as my duty to at least support the right to have a diverse landscape of operating-systems, especially now when an operating system is a part of a bigger communication net. Therefore the need to defend the free choice is more needed than ever, since dominance in one field easily can invade other fields (multimedia is a good example of the risks).
183 • openSUSE 11.0 (by Tony Johnson on 2008-06-26 14:30:23 GMT from United States)
I've been waiting for 11.0 so much! Burned DVD immediately, installed and all my passion was killed by KDE 4 (I'm KDE user), it looks much more beautiful in the developers' and observer's print screens than feels when you try to use it!
unfortunately, I had to switch back to 10.3 till the next openSUSE release.
184 • To Landor (by mozyk on 2008-06-26 15:56:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
What amazes me is how you blind yourself and refuse to see the advantages of arch. You don't need rc-bullshit. Arch have a simpler approach and it is to edit just one array in rc.conf.
Then you only need revdep-rebuild in gentoo because shit brakes in such a bad way! With the binary distros you are safe from such situations and you don't need revdep-rebuild!
And compare the time spent on editing /etc/ stuff in arch with the time spent in gentoo when you do you know what .... (especially when god sends you revdep-rebuild :):) )
Disklaimer: Just to make it clear I don't really defend arch, it also has some problems,
I was gentoo user for about a year 2 years ago. I was arch user for about 6 months. I am now fedora 8 user and I also have opensuse 11 home machine.
Enjoy your stick and if it moves, compile it!
185 • 183 (by Anonymous on 2008-06-26 16:17:33 GMT from United States)
Why not just use KDE 3 in Opensuse 11?
186 • new sidux with XFCE (by arno911 on 2008-06-26 16:28:53 GMT from Germany)
this morning i read that Chris Hildebrandt has announced a new sidux release.
now i read: Stefan Lippers-Hollmann announced...
Ladislav whats up? :)
187 • RE: 185 (by IMQ on 2008-06-26 18:44:56 GMT from United States)
I wonder the same thing since 3.xx series is an option for desktop.
KDE4 is long way from prying KDE3 from my deadly kungfu/shaolin fingers. :)
188 • @162/184 Arch (by steven on 2008-06-26 18:58:59 GMT from Netherlands)
fedora also has a perfectly fine USB stick install/liveOS thingy that works fine for me:
http://lifehacker.com/391067/fedora-9-puts-your-desktop-on-a-usb-drive
that said Arch is indeed a fine OS and I personally find it very easy to install and set up. I reinstall evry other month or so and can have it tunning in no time, it IS diiferent from other distros though and uses the CLI mainly. just setting up a good rc.conf, installing X and just activating the services you need and you have a blazing fast, lightweight easy to configure system.
That being said I do not run Arch as my main OS. as a RHEL admin I like to run fedora as my main OS and bleeding edge as it is (and breaks) it is still predictable plus they/we have a very nice and friendly community with high expertiece and the will to help others even other distros whereas sometimes as Arch (although the forum too is Very Fast) I have this sense of elitism ringing through which does not always suit me very well. With a feature request often one is to just do-it-yourself or that it is not neccesary at all.
still I always run Arch on one of my pc's just to see how fast a distro CAN be, plus I love rolling-release-systems.
steven
189 • No subject (by Lucky on 2008-06-26 19:12:51 GMT from United States)
Re#185
"Why not just use KDE 3 in Opensuse 11?"
Because that would make too much sense. : )
190 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-26 19:13:17 GMT from United States)
> I like to run fedora as my main OS and bleeding edge as it is (and breaks) it is still predictable
Well, I wouldn't say my breakage was predictable. As much as I like some aspects of Fedora, I always find ways to break it, and I only use the official repos. Fedora 9 was pretty good: it didn't break until about a month of occasional usage. Luckily it's a triple boot and I'm not stuck with it.
191 • KDE4 (by RollMeAway on 2008-06-26 21:01:18 GMT from United States)
It's a lot like having a new model car, before it ready for sale.
Has a very pretty paint job, but the rear seat is missing, no radio,
no rear view mirror, no spare tire, and you can only use low gear.
192 • @180 et al (by john frey on 2008-06-26 21:40:32 GMT from Canada)
I'm always the same John Frey. I'm not famous enough for impersonation:)
My comment re users was tongue in cheek. I had hoped the smiley could convey that. If you were going back for the 5th time to fix someone's spyware and virus infested computer because they needed to browse the porn sites you might have 2nd thoughts about users too.
I don't mind at all users who learn, I love them. It's the users who don't want to learn or refuse to learn that drive me nuts. They are sophisticated enough to access oodles of free porn without file sharing. Still they seem to be unable to comprehend that a warning from their antivirus is not there to block access to porn but to block access to a virus. It's not just porn either. Some people think any pop-up warning should be turned off and proceed to find a way to do so even if it means uninstalling their antivirus. Clever bastards. Some people are suckers for any kind of scam for free smiley's, free internet scans of their PC or toolbar that will 'improve their internet experience'.
I have users (mentally ill) who are incapable of learning without repeated instructions every week over the course of months. I can tolerate and understand their limitations. One of my limitations being unable to support users like that indefinitely. I give them time limited support and help them develop other support resources.
Finally a computer tech is not a user with a screwdriver and a manual. That's what the "users" told you so you know it's not true right away. Just like when they say, "no I never browse gay porn sights. Someone must have hacked into my computer and put that stuff there." *Sigh*
193 • openSuse 11.0 (by whooliebacon on 2008-06-27 03:24:10 GMT from United States)
OpenSuse 11.0 requires me to jump through hoops to get the nvidia card working. TV card...forget it.
Running PClinuxOS minime on 3 computers. My, opinion, this is the best distro out there.
GoblinX is a unique, interesting distro...but for some reason the author prefers LILO. Not interested in hacking LILO to put it on a partition.
194 • openSUSE 11.0 (by shishir on 2008-06-27 05:42:54 GMT from India)
Well, I am a huge fan of openSUSE, and I believe that even though their package manager left a lot to be desired, the distro on the whole is pretty solid, professional, and slick. I have tried ubuntu after every release they make. I love their synaptic, but I dont think that has bought me over from openSUSE. The reason being, SUSE lets you have more control that ubuntu. With openSUSE 11.0, I think one gripe that I had with its package manager has been more than addressed. It is a very solid release, of course, certain things like the new network manager though good on KDE, are better on gnome (I am a KDE user). My friend who took my laptop with her, found it slightly harder than openSUSE 10.3 to connect to ethernet. But, I was able to help over the phone :). Other than that, 11.0 is a stellar release. Font setup on openSUSE, is not as tough as has been made out to be. kcontrol (configure desktop in kmenu), or appearance tab in gnome-control-center are very handy in setting up the fonts. kdm fonts are indeed a bit tricky, but if needed one can modify them as well.
I used openSUSE 10.3 till June 19, on my home laptop, and I have to say, I am really happy with the openSUSE.
195 • Re 192 (by dbrion on 2008-06-27 10:03:33 GMT from France)
My comments about sysads were not meant against you, as you seem skilled enough to choose another job (writing how-tos, reviews -I am almost sure of it-, many things you like) if your users are ongoingly wild enough to use the net only for porn sites (some cybercafés have antiviruses with whistles when viruses are detected, so that anyone can see whence the virus comes from : I was very surprised of the funny origins of noise) ...
(but some systyrans are worse than their users..... and monopolistic, too!!!)
They (my comments) were an answer to 144 : I do/did not know whether it was humor, too...
196 • REF 193 • ....by whooliebacon on LiLo (by Verndog on 2008-06-27 14:43:08 GMT from United States)
"Not interested in hacking LILO to put it on a partition"
That's very funny comment. Considering Lilo is NOT a hacking tool, but among other things a boot loader.
197 • PCLOS is fine and all (by changturkey on 2008-06-27 15:04:26 GMT from Canada)
But many packages are out of date, and I can't really have that, especially if it is a rolling release distro. But I am interested for their 2008 Release..whenever it gets here.
198 • Ref #139 - Where you been? (by dialup on 2008-06-27 18:11:16 GMT from United States)
That's six-week old news. MS has since publicly announced the program to extend the licensing of XP for nettops and netbooks in all markets for two years. See the previous two weeks' DW discussions on the topic.
199 • RE: 192, Yes I feel your pain. (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-06-27 19:31:24 GMT from United States)
John said, "Finally a computer tech is not a user with a screwdriver and a manual. That's what the "users" told you so you know it's not true right away. Just like when they say, "no I never browse gay porn sights. Someone must have hacked into my computer and put that stuff there." *Sigh*"
Yes John, I know its not true.
Eddie
200 • Givibg SuSE 11 a go (by glasiad on 2008-06-27 20:27:34 GMT from Canada)
I've used a lot of distros in my time and when it comes to well crafted GUIs, SuSE always tops the list IMHO.
Problem is it always has too many issues and bugs to sort out and never stays installed for more than a few days before I wipe it out and hopefully wait for the next edition.
I downloaded and installed SuSE 11 (Gnome) the other day on a Lenovo (IBM) R61 Thnkpad.
It was very sluggish compared to other distros I've installed - but worst of all was when I tried to play a video clip I took on my digital camera it didn't have the codecs to manage that huge task - but displayed a link to download and install them. I clicked on the link and was taken to a site where they wanted me to pay top dollar just to get these codecs. The cheek! I thought. Just like M&.
The result? SuSE 11 was wiped from my laptop.
I've tried lots of distros. The best for this laptop so far has been Mepis 7, PCLinuxOS minime, Mint 5. Waiting with hopeful anticipation for the final release from Pardus 2008
201 • @ 200 - $$$ for codecs (by DeniZen on 2008-06-27 21:36:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
quote (Re Suse) "I clicked on the link and was taken to a site where they wanted me to pay top dollar just to get these codecs. The cheek! I thought. Just like M&."
and like Fedora, and like Mandriva I believe?
I may be wrong. I'm sure someone would tell me if so ;)
I dont recall paying for a Codec with M$? - not to play a Multimedia clip anyhow. Though of course I would have already paid for the OS at the outset. (Not that I do use a MS. OS , but like most people - I have.)
If you do some research (google) before evaluating a Distro you will find there is a Community supported 'one click install' for most Multimedia support in Suse (and enabling of the Packman repo)
I saw that when I read a bit about Suse while evaluating a Distro for my partners son's laptop. As it goes, I put Pardus on it instead, and its going great - but thats another story..
I'll give hime a while, and then get him on a Debain based distro and using apt-get within a few months ;)
202 • Re: Givibg SuSE 11 a go (by Vukota on 2008-06-27 22:24:21 GMT from United States)
"it didn't have the codecs to manage that huge task"
As far as I know there is no legal (and free) Linux distribution in Canada that can do the same (other than maybe Freespire).
If you were looking to do the same as other distributions are doing (which doesn't offer you to buy codecs) you were supposed to do little reading.
Good reading for complete installation guide of OpenSUSE you (and others that had same and different problems) may find at
http://howtoforge.org/the-perfect-desktop-opensuse-11
Just restricted formats
http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/11.0
203 • http://www.gklinuxos.net/ (by gioank on 2008-06-27 23:06:04 GMT from Spain)
Che cosa è GKLinuxOS 2008?
È un sistema operativo open source, che chiunque può copiare, modificare e distribuire
liberamente. GPL GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991
GKLinuxOS 2008 è basato su PCLinuxOS 2007, del quale conserva la struttura
fondamentale. È completo di programmi perfettamente funzionanti, in grado di soddisfare le
diverse esigenze di chi lavora con il computer (pacchetti office, programmi di grafica e di
disegno professionali, programmi multimediali audio-video, programmi per internet e tanti
altri ancora).
www.gklinuxos.net
204 • @201 & 202 whoa there (by john frey on 2008-06-28 00:07:30 GMT from Canada)
201 In 6 or 7 years of using Mandriva I've never seen a link to download codecs for a fee.
202 - "As far as I know there is no legal (and free) Linux distribution in Canada that can do the same"
Depending on the codec that would be true of any distro. As soon as they include proprietary codecs they are no longer 100% free. That is the sad state of multimedia these days but I believe it will get better.
Of course you were referring to free as in cost. Well both Arch and Vector are free in cost and are legal Linux distributions. There are proprietary codecs available for them. I'm not even sure that it is illegal in Canada for me to use those codecs. Do you know the law?
205 • Re 199 users... Bah (by john frey on 2008-06-28 00:47:02 GMT from Canada)
I'm so glad to hear that Eddie. You had me worried there.:)
206 • mandriva 2009 (by Muhammad Muntaza on 2008-06-28 01:10:02 GMT from Indonesia)
I like Mandriva, thank for your informasion.
207 • @204 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-06-28 02:28:09 GMT from Canada)
We added Codeina - the same system Fedora and (I think) SUSE use to offer Fluendo codecs - in 2008 Spring.
As post #202 says, thanks to the U.S.'s retarded patent laws, it is legally impossible to offer an open source implementation of many multimedia codecs in the U.S. (and hence major, law-abiding distros just cannot include them at all). For most distros - including SUSE, Mandriva, Fedora and Ubuntu - there are well-known third party repositories you can use to access these codecs in countries where that's legal (i.e. just about anywhere except the U.S.) This is not unique to SUSE, so it's unfair to knock SUSE for it.
208 • OpenSUSE 10.3 and later provides LEGAL MP3 Playback via Fluendo plugin (by Suseuser on 2008-06-28 03:18:42 GMT from Australia)
Gstreamer mp3 plugin from Fluendo
Fully licensed mp3-decoder binary as available from
http://shop.fluendo.com free of charge.
RealPlayer 10 for Linux
Adobe Reader for PDF Files
The Opera Web Browser
All the above apps can be found on the DVD and Online 'NON-OSS' repo.
209 • @55 • Gentoo 2008.0 (by Larry Gearhart (by Anonymous on 2008-06-28 03:41:48 GMT from United States)
Thanks, I think you're right gentoo has gone back into the toilet. They're old 'weekly' newsletters turned 'monthly' have grown to 5 weeks or more if at all.
Time to consider an exit strategy for the Puffin Farm, probably Mint as we are already running Fluxbox Mint on the portable.
210 • RE: # 200 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-28 09:23:51 GMT from Italy)
"worst of all was when I tried to play a video clip I took on my digital camera it didn't have the codecs to manage that huge task - but displayed a link to download and install them. I clicked on the link and was taken to a site where they wanted me to pay top dollar just to get these codecs"
That is very odd. I have been a SUSE/openSUSE user since the 8xx releases and I have never heard or experienced anything like that.
211 • ubuntu 8.10 alpha1 (by stefan on 2008-06-28 12:21:25 GMT from Netherlands)
shouldn't ubuntu 8.10 alpha1 be advertised as a development release instead of a distribution release? Or are we so happy with ubuntu that even alphas are deemed stable enough to be labelled such?
stefan
212 • eAR OS (by illiterate on 2008-06-28 13:34:29 GMT from Greece)
earos seems to be a very nice multimedia distro with exceptional sound,
It works fine as a live cd but trying to install it it aborts at about 88% of istall.
Anybody has the same problem or knows of some trick around it? Once only I managed to install it but had to reinstall as I had problems with user name. And that was it!
thanks
illiterate
213 • REF#211 It does... (by Verndog on 2008-06-28 16:14:29 GMT from United States)
It does say "Development Release: Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 1", unless it was changed since you posted your comment.
214 • From Fedora 9 to opensuse 11 (by Riffft on 2008-06-28 23:44:33 GMT from Australia)
Neither install cd will boot on my machine. "Out of range" message comes up seemingly after it trys to configure X.
Basic machine....AMD 4000+ dual core 2gb ddr2 nvidia 6150SE graphics card.
Neither will even install in text mode. Guess I wont be trying these new distros :(
215 • @214 ...Have you asked for help at the the Fedora or openSUSE support forums? (by That is the right place to ask on 2008-06-29 03:54:41 GMT from Australia)
Coming here and WHINGING about this or that not working in ANY DISTRO without first trying the relevant support forums appears more like Linux/Distro bashing, IMHO.
Cheers
216 • RE 211 I suppose it has been corrected (by dbrion on 2008-06-29 12:57:03 GMT from France)
"Or are we so happy with ubuntu that even alphas are deemed stable enough to be labelled such?"
Anyway, Linuxpratique (a linux "journal", which *was* -now, I do not know- based on copies of how-tos and some well-thinking Linux blahblah) ***sold*** UBU beta release last year..... as (the of course, infamous) Microsoft forgot to patent really ugly commercial practices...
217 • RE 209 : "gentoo has gone back into the toilet." (by dbrion on 2008-06-29 13:15:14 GMT from France)
from : http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gmn/ you can see the monthly newsletter har irregular release times, and , as far as I am concerened, it is the ONLY GNUlinux letter which thaught me something this year.
Thos might be linked with their irregular rate of publishing, has something new and interesting does not arrive like trains and planes ...... No need to read Mark Twain here to understand that weekly blogs are doomed to cut and paste others blogs, thus leading to inconsistencies or, in the best case (from a reader point of view), to an increase of biased, unchecked "information"...
218 • RE: 217 (by ladislav on 2008-06-29 14:15:01 GMT from Taiwan)
Hey, dbrion, any progress on your unbiased Gentoo Linux article for DistroWatch? Because if it doesn't come, I might just collect all your posts here for the past year and publish them as the main story in one of the upcoming DWWs. What do you think? I am sure it will give a much more balanced view of Gentoo Linux than anything I could ever write.
Come on, man, don't let me beg...
219 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-06-29 14:55:33 GMT from United States)
I have to agree with Ladislav. For all the criticism, I don't see a lot of others giving actual reasons to think he's wrong, except perhaps on a few details. My testing of Gentoo didn't turn out so well. I don't see that Gentoo is what it used to be at all. There are problems.
220 • Arch's Arc isn't the senter of the universe (for me) (by Landor on 2008-06-29 19:54:58 GMT from Canada)
In reply to those that have talked to me about Arch. Let me explain one more time. I was not looking for a replacement distro. I was not hopping. I was testing Arch, and the USB image.
You will not find a convert in me. Not that I am not of an open mind, I am just quite happy with what I have installed, and I think anyone who has said I didn't take the time to give it a shot, or that if I spent time with it I'd love it, well, you didn't read the point I made and have here as well. I was "testing" it. Seemed quite clear to me, and natural for someone "only testing" a distro to not want to have to spend a lengthy time on the cli.
That being said, thanks to Steven for the info on Fedora having a USB tool for running/installing Fedora. I found it very interesting and I am going to dig a bit deeper into it and look at it's internals. It's possible it could be used to boot any ISO with or without tweaking (as I haven't looked further yet). Save a lot of cd's for the landfill if it's the case.
What I did find shocking for a Linux Project was the installer was released fully for Windows but only testing the Beta for Linux, kind've sad in my opinion. I would've hoped that the Linux version would've been the first to be tested and released.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
221 • @217 • RE 209 : "gentoo has gone back into the toilet." (by Anonymous on 2008-06-29 20:31:27 GMT from United States)
Barring the 'English is not my first language' excuse. You could have told the guy 'You're right this month's newsletter doesn't exist 'yet', instead of giving some obscure URL that says it will be distributed by email.
That's crap! I know you can read that in any language. Into obscurity is where Gentoo is going and unfortunately that is where they are taking the follow-on distros unless they can supplant the infrastructure that is crumbling at Gentoo.
222 • To Print Or Not To Print....what is the question? (by Landor on 2008-06-29 21:43:44 GMT from Canada)
I always wonder why people don't ever look for alternatives. Are their lives full of doom and gloom? Does each and every "singular" event mean only great things to come or sheer catastrophy? I know I don't live in such a world.
(disclaimer: yes I like Gentoo, but foremoest, I prefer to look at things with a more open mind and try to see a brighter side to events than just believe all is for nought)
With the disclaimer out of the way, when I noticed Gentoo had not released their newsletter (for the first month by the last week), I didn't look for the nearest bridge to jump off. I didn't look for any obituaries at any linux news site to see if Gentoo had died a painful, yet quick death. To the contrary, I actually used my intellect and thought, maybe, just maybe, the newsletter might be changing their release date to the 1st of each month. Maybe Gentoo is going to release their newsletter to coincide with the coming release date of june 30th for the 2008 release.
It's quite possible really and far more positive no? Also quite possible none of us know why, well, unless we ask, and I'm guessing those that have commented on it in a negative manner, haven't. Me? I'll wait and see, and, well, keep an open mind.
Speaking of keeping something,
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
223 • REF# 222 • To Print Or Not To Print... (by Verndog on 2008-06-29 23:23:55 GMT from United States)
That makes too much sense. It's easier to sit and complain than the use of logic.
It most likely never crossed their synaptic nerves that their is good reason for the delay. Its much easier to complain.
224 • RE: # (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-30 00:04:10 GMT from Italy)
"That's crap! I know you can read that in any language. Into obscurity is where Gentoo is going and unfortunately that is where they are taking the follow-on distros unless they can supplant the infrastructure that is crumbling at Gentoo."
And that is why a couple of years ago I suggested the Sabayon devs to replace Gentoo with something else, possibly Debian. I did that because I really liked Sabayon. I was flamed by a couple of clueless n00bs.
Where are they now? No stable release since 2007-09-07, something that had never happened before.
Should I tell them: "I told you so"?
Who cares? I am a happy Debian and openSUSE user.
225 • No subject (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-30 00:07:46 GMT from Italy)
Sorry, my previous post should have been: RE: # 221
226 • RE: 223 &224_221 (by Landor on 2008-06-30 00:30:52 GMT from Canada)
RE: 223
I noticed the guy being logical about the Ubuntu Alpha that you helped out :) Blindness is not just a medical affliction, it's a means to an end.
RE: 224_221
Both of you are quite sure about that? I would beg to differ. Sure in some cases a distro may be "anchored" to the one it bases itself on, but the real work can be done by their own team no?
Before you are sure you are sure though, think about System Rescue CD, they are based on Gentoo and seem to have releases when they desire it's time to, ie: latest release on DW's Home Page. Your comments without fact to back them up state a lot. I really wish more people actually posted things in here based on fact and logic for a change. So few of us here do.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
227 • RE: # 226 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-30 01:46:17 GMT from Italy)
"Sure in some cases a distro may be "anchored" to the one it bases itself on, but the real work can be done by their own team no?"
Let's imagine that is true, for a moment (but if I can find an old Sabayon review I'll show you: it mantained that Sabayon was very buggy. I don't believe it was buggy because of the Sabayon devs, but because of its Gentoo basis. But that is only my opinion).
So if your theory is true, the maintainers of a distro based off something much bigger can only guarantee the stability of the packages they put in their own distro. But what about a "dist-upgrade" (Debian based, obviously), an "emerge -uD world" and so on? Or installing something else? How can they guarantee that it works. At least the Parsix devs are playing pretty safe, because Debian Testing, a few months after a release is pretty stable.
228 • Who's to blame, the dog? RE: 227 (by Landor on 2008-06-30 02:04:12 GMT from Canada)
First, you jumped to a new topic of sorts, about why they haven't released.
But let's imagine what you are saying is true, and since this is only a guess, you are talking about someone doing an upgrade based on an older base system.
My take on that is this: An older base system for any distro isn't really that much to deal with, and yes, Gentoo as well. Are you telling me that the devs at Sabayon do not know how to build a current Stage 3 Tardball? How to pull in a recent Portage Snapshot and build their own live cd based on such? Possibly even use the Beta2 as a base? I know I can, and I'm far from a dev on a release team.
I'm not saying they can't for what it's worth. What I am saying is if even a single user has the ability to build their own "new" system based on a certain flavour of Linux, then why can't a dev team do the same? You still present no factual reason why Sabayon cannot release an up-to-date release, other than by their "own choice".
And a quick reply to your comment in parenthesis, Does Sidux, Ubuntu, Parsix, etc, which are all based on Debian testing (no?) make any changes that make them buggy in comparison to Debian itself? There's no way any of these distros could be at fault for any bugginess they "may" have at times?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
229 • RE: # 228 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-06-30 02:28:52 GMT from Italy)
Sorry, Landor, maybe it is my English, but it seems that we are talking two different languages. I asked you if a distro based off something else (with the exception of Ubuntu, because they have their own "complete" repo, but they "guarantee" only about 2000 packages) can guarantee that a system upgrade using the parent distro, or even installing something from the parent distro can work.
(BTW, Sidux and Ubuntu are based on Debian Sid, aka unstable. Only Parsix is based on testing).
230 • IT's what's not being talked about is the problem (by LAndor on 2008-06-30 05:57:09 GMT from Canada)
I don't think it's languages (oh and yes I made a large faux pas regarding Sid and Testing) I think it's the fact that you said Sabayon's non-release is due to Gentoo, I debated that, and you went to a whole different topic of sorts and have strayed from it ever since. That is where the real problem is.
No matter though, tomorrow's another day (well today) and a new DW for us to all debate over again.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
231 • No need to beg Ree 218 (by dbrion on 2008-06-30 06:35:20 GMT from France)
Just google search gentoo + wikipedia, say, or buy some journals (GNU/Linux magazine France has, so should have Linux Pratique today -a friend of mine gave me a copy-).
Advantages are it would not be utterly redundant.... nor biology based (I know other linuxen than the UBU one are underdogs...) nor inconsistent (the eeeePC so{u|a}p opera here)....
The apocalyptic (here) Gentoo situation looks much like the antiPR, nastily HPD cheating , beyond bankrupcy Mandriva's situation last year and in 2006 here....
PS Je ne suis pas le Français anonyme qui a promis (sous vos sarcasmes) de vous faire une revue... et, s'il a un peu de bon sens, il regardera l'évolution de DWW (un bon article en deux mois) avant de s'y lancer...
Number of Comments: 231
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| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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| Random Distribution | 
Bella OS
Bella OS was a beginner-friendly Linux distribution based on Xubuntu's latest LTS (long-term support) release and featuring a customised Xfce desktop. The project's primary goal was to provide a curated suite of high-quality web, office and entertainment applications on top of a desktop that combines some of the best features from several popular operating systems.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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