 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 263, 28 July 2008 |
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Welcome to this year's 30th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! There's been a lot of activities in distribution releases this past week and a bit in developmental releases as well - openSUSE and Ubuntu developmental versions created a bit of buzz around the Web. In the news this week the Mandriva distribution celebrates 10 years, Foxconn Electronics has angered Linux users, and openSUSE is giving away PromoDVDs. Steven Lake is back with us again this morning with a look at NimbleX 2008, I took Parted Magic for a wee spin, and Caitlyn Martin dissects VectorLinux 5.9 SOHO in Reviewed Last Week.
All this and more in this week's DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (14MB) and mp3 (13MB) formats (many thanks to Russ Wenner)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
Review: NimbleX 2008
(by Steven Lake)
About nine months ago I reviewed NimbleX 2007 and found it to be quite an enjoyable compact distribution with a number of unique features. The first of those was that it is designed to run from a CD, a USB pen drive or even from the network rather than a hard drive. A combination most other distributions don't do. Or for that matter, any that I'm aware of. NimbleX 2007 was also very fast with a lot of great tools. It set quite a precedent when it came out. So what's special about 2008 that sets it apart from its predecessor?
LiveCD
Well, there are several things actually. Starting with initial bootup of the livecd, you're greeted by five basic boot options in the grub menu. They are as follows:
- NimbleX 2008 - Boot in KDE
- NimbleX 2008 - Boot in KDM
- NimbleX 2008 - Command Line
- NimbleX 2008 - Safe Install
- Boot from the first harddisk partition
Now honestly, these choices both intrigued me and confused me. KDM is the KDE Login Manager, and rarely have I ever seen a distribution that actually suggests you should boot from either KDM, or raw KDE. Selecting the first option boots you into a generic, raw version of KDE, complete with a basic list of software. Booting into KDM however, gives you a wide selection of 8 operating systems. You have a choice of E16 (enlightenment), EDE, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, IceWM, KDE, Openbox, and TWM.
The command line option allows you to boot into a basic command line, perfect for troubleshooting hardware issues on your system. Safe install allows you to boot in a basic, semi-gui environment should your hardware have issues installing NimbleX via a gui environment, or if you choose to just take the quick and dirty way around it and go directly to the installer without first booting into the livecd. Either can be done, and is entirely up to your own personal preferences. The last option on the boot menu obviously boots you into your regular PC hard drive so you can use whatever OS is already installed there.
Depending on which window manager (WM) you choose will go a long ways towards what you have at your disposal. I say this because not all of the WM's have access to all of the programs. KDE seems to be the most complete out of all of them, having access to what appears to be every available application on the disk. And there's a lot of them. What's even more surprising is how small the NimbleX iso is compared with
what's on it. It weighs in at a humble 199mb. That's like packing an elephant into a British Mini.
But somehow the developers of NimbleX 2008 managed to get an entire OS that could easily fill up an entire CD into a very surprisingly small space. That's impressive to say the least. Speed wise, the livecd loads amazingly fast, and even on a machine with very, very humble specs, the cd loads very quickly and gets you where you need to go faster than most livecd's out there.
Upon loading up the computer and reaching the desktop (using KDM) I was surprised that you had to login. I was even more surprised to realize that they don't tell you what the login is. A little bit of rebooting and digging revealed that the default login is "root/toor". Why they have you login as root is beyond me, but I guess it's alright for a livecd environment, so long as you don't go running around trying to play god or anything.
Once you're onto the desktop (depending on which WM you use), you will find a wide range of different, but similar eye candy experiences, all of which look quite nice. Each of the WM's appear to be untouched for the most part, leaving them in nearly original condition. There are a few oddities, tweaks and preferences set down by the developers, that I found to be quite curious. For one, it is impossible to adjust screen resolution if you're using KDM to load your WM, but if you boot into raw KDE, you can. You also don't have to login to KDE if you boot straight into it from the boot
menu.
The list of software available in both the livecd and installed version is quite impressive. Present are popular programs such as Firefox, XMMS (I'm pleased to see this one added), Mplayer, Gimp, Xine, K3b, and several others. Gone are a lot of the "fluff" extra programs you wouldn't use or which are not used often enough to warrant their inclusion. There are a few games, some of the more popular secondary
applications, such as Kmail, Kword, some very useful utility applications such as a bluetooth monitor, a firewall, and a number of other useful applications.
The livecd interface is clean, snappy, and while simple, is very practical for everyday use. It's also obviously very lean, despite the impressive list of applications. In other words, just as I mentioned above with all the "fluff" applications trimmed out. Now once you're ready to shutdown, doing so is a bit odd. Instead of actually shutting everything down, it just gives you the option to end the WM session, and then dumps you to a semi-graphical (ie, console with a pretty graphical container) console session that you have to login to. In order to completely shut down the PC, you have to kick out the CD, then power down the machine by holding in the power button.
That's a bit dumb in my book, but it's what you have to do. On the flipside though, you can easily pick up and restart X at this point and start working in your livecd again. You can also do some jockeying in the console if you so choose.
Installation
Installing NimbleX is a bit like playing a game of dice. In order to succeed, you have to do everything perfect, and pray the installer doesn't get heartburn in the middle. It uses a text based installer (nxinst) to do your installation, so it isn't all pretty and nice like other installers, yet it's still simple enough for even a newbie to do. Well, mostly. The initial menu includes two things. An option to install either to USB or hard drive, and the ever famous warning disclaimer.
The NimbleX Installer
(full image size: 78kB, screen resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
I tested first with the HDD option, which ultimately failed, despite my best efforts. Interestingly enough, the developers included a warning that this is "a work in progress" and it may have a few issues. Now while I'm not partial to having a flaky installer in a finished product (the distro), at least they were kind enough to come out and mention that it's still a beta, rather than a finished product (the installer), and that some issues might occur. If you tell it to install to USB, then select the primary HD as the installation destination, you can still install NimbleX to your hard drive.
One thing to note however, if you install to a pen drive, or even your HD, NimbleX will install the system to a single ext3 partition, and all configurations are, curiously enough, saved to a fat32 partition that it adds in first. I don't know why it does this, but I suspect there's some crazy reason behind this. Either way, it's part of the install, so don't be surprised by it. Also, when creating the fat32 partition, allow at least 25 megs for system configurations, upwards to 500mb depending on how much
data you plan to save.
Installation time from start to finish is 10% installing time and 90% choosing your configurations. It's not that the menus are excessively time consuming, because they're not. In fact, you only need to make a few choices and you're done. The whole install from start to finish (assuming you're not a slow reader) is at most 2-3 minutes long, maybe as long as 5 minutes if you have a slow pen drive or a slow machine.
One other thing to note. When the installer gets done and you boot into the installed system, you'll find a "Install NimbleX" icon on the desktop. Don't panic about this. It's not something the developers missed, but is intentionally there so that you can install NimbleX to another device if you want to, even after you've installed your system.
Installed System
Boot time on the installed system is blazing fast. It's easily one of the fastest bootups I've seen in a while. I even tried to hinder or cripple it's boot time, and even on a dog slow pendrive or an old as dirt test machine, it still booted amazingly fast. The desktop and applications are also very fast.
The NimbleX KDE Desktop
(full image size: 178kB, screen resolution: 800x640 pixels)
One thing I was very curious of this time that I didn't test last time was booting across the network. Oddly enough, it works. Well, for the most part anyways. You can actually boot the machine over a 10/100 network from another machine, and it will run pretty darned good. One thing that helps to aid this is that NimbleX comes with six basic servers, including a pre-configured PXE boot server. That is how it is able to allow you to boot across the network. Just setup a dumb terminal with PXE boot, and away you go.
One thing to note though. You'll need to make sure that you have one unconfigured network card in order to turn the machine into a PXE boot server. If you have two nics, disable and remove the configuration of one, then leave the other for standard network access. If you don't need that, and would just like to use the machine as a PXE boot server, then all you'll need to do is have one nic card that you've removed the configuration on. It takes a little hacking to do that, but it's not a big deal if
you're adventurous enough.
The bright side to PXE booting is that you can have dumb terminals setup all over the house (or your office) running simple touch screen monitors and a small computer (Like the Linutop) with some kind of simple kiosk program. Doing that will allow for quite an interesting, yet simple use for NimbleX. It also has great applications for school or office or home or wherever, where you need a lot of machines all running the same configuration, but don't need or want to have HD's in them due to cost or security issues. It would also reduce the amount of system issues you'd have to deal with on a software level.
And if PXE isn't your thing, there's also five other servers to chose from, including a web, ftp, ssh, dns, and dhcp server. Configuring wireless is also pretty easy and painless. In fact, by itself NimbleX makes a great basic web surfers OS. You could setup your grandma with a computer running NimbleX and she could more or less login, connect to her internet (if she has dialup), and browse away, or get her mail.
For the power user there's also things like LinuxDC++, RSS feeds, IM's, SSH and more. VirtualBox is even included with the system, so if you want to emulate other distros or OS's, you can do that very easily. And for the paranoid, there's ClamAV antivirus and Guarddog firewall. Another interesting tool I found was the "Kshutdown" tool. It's available in any of the WM's and allows you to click it and shut down your machine. It sure beats doing it the NimbleX way.
For those wanting to add extra applications to NimbleX, you'll need to use Gslapt for the graphical interface, or slapt-get from the command line. Almost all advanced administrative functions have to be done via the command line. So if you want to add another user (and I very highly recommend you do, as the system runs as root by default) you'll need to do that from the command line.
Another thing that stunned me about NimbleX was its surprisingly small install footprint. After having worked with several distros recently that have anywhere from a standard 1.5gb install footprint, up to a mind blowing 9gb footprint, seeing that NimbleX only used a humble 372mb with all the bells and whistles was impressive, to say the least.
Also, there's something else I found while digging around in the installed system that may interest a lot of people. If you open up Firefox and click on the "Custom NimbleX" link, you'll be greeted by a website that allows you to actually build your own custom version of NimbleX. I kid you not. It's complete CD remastering right from a webpage. The site even tells you how big your ISO will be when you're done, and it changes as you make changes to the ISO configuration. When it's done it gives you a custom packaged, ready to use, build to order version of NimbleX 2008 for you
to use! It's rather nice if you ask me. :)
Conclusion
Overall I'm rather impressed with NimbleX 2008. It's got a little something for the minimalist, something for the new user, and something for the power user. The entire system is very clean, very stable, and exceptionally well done. I'd easily give this my two thumbs up as I really couldn't find much of anything to complain about. Admittedly the installer still needs some work. But aside from that, I'm very pleased with what NimbleX has to offer. For more information about this distribution, you can check out their homepage, their distrowatch page, or if you're ready to dive in, you can grab a copy of the installation ISO. Of if you're really adventurous, you can even make your own install cd exactly to your liking.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Mandriva's 10th Birthday, Fedora 9 Re-Spins, openSUSE PromoDVD, and Foxconn Crippled BIOS
 Mandriva quietly celebrated their 10th anniversary this past week. In May, they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the company in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, but this past week saw the 10th anniversary of their first release. On July 23, 1998, Mandrake 5.1 was released based on Red Hat 5.1 featuring KDE 1.0. Linux Weekly News has retained the original announcement for posterity here and Google has the original thread from fr.comp.os.linux here. As I look back I wonder how differently my life would have been without Mandrake Linux. So, it tugged at my heart strings a bit when I saw Gaël Duval wishing them a Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday Mandriva.
In other news, Mandriva announced a new partnership with Precedent Technologies developing a new low-cost desktop. With Intel Atom CPUs and Mandriva Linux preinstalled, they estimate retail prices to be 399.99 USD. Also, howsoftwareisbuilt.com published an interview with Mandriva developer Helio Chissini De Castro.
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 Speaking of Gaël Duval, he is continuing development on his newest project, the Ulteo family of online desktop services. The Online Desktop received updates on July 16, 2008 and last week brought a new Sirius stable and Virtual Desktop Beta3. Some experts believe that Software as a Service and Cloud computing are the future. What do you think?
Ulteo Online Desktop features popular applications
(full image size: 347kB, screen resolution: 1277x926 pixels)
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 The Fedora Project announced their ISO Re-Spins of Fedora 9. These include all updates released as of July 18th, 2008. The main issues addressed were Bug #445517 where Anaconda crashed during selecting packages and some Russian translation issues, and Bug #445974 where minstg2 install failed. The full changelog is available here, and download information is here. The full announcement is here.
In other Fedora news, the results of the recent FESCo election were posted last week. Bill Nottingham, Kevin Fenzi, Dennis Gilmore, Brian Pepple and David Woodhouse were elected to FESCo for a 2 release term. Jarod Wilson, Josh Boyer, Jon Stanley and Karsten Hopp were elected for a 1 release term as of July 24, 2008. The full announcement has further details on that. The first meeting under the new team was held July 25, 2008, all present except Dennis Gilmore. Brian Pepple was chosen to be chair of the committee. The full minutes of that meeting are here.
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 The FreeBSD Project recently held their core team elections as well, and announced their results last Monday. Murray Stokely posted, "Peter Wemm is rejoining the team after a 2 year hiatus, and Kris Kennaway is joining the team for the first time. The remaining 7 slots were filled with incumbents Wilko Bulte, Brooks Davis, Giorgos Keramidas, George V. Neville-Neil, Hiroki Sato, Murray Stokely, and Robert Watson". His full post here.
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 openSUSE received their 11.0 Promotional DVDs this past week. The installable PromoDVD contain both a KDE and GNOME live system. If you are planning an installfest, a LUG presentation, or something like that; the pertinent information is here.
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 Perhaps the biggest story last week concerned Foxconn motherboards that are (allegedly) deliberately crippled for Linux. A tech-savvy user at the Ubuntu Forums posted that the BIOS of his G33M-S contains different reference tables for various operating systems, and that the one for Linux "points to a badly written table that does not correspond to the board's ACPI implementation" causing "weird kernel errors, strange system freezing, no suspend or hibernate, and other problems." He goes on to say, "After looking through the disassembled BIOS for the last several hours, rebooting it, and tweaking it more, I'd say this is very intentional. I've found redundant checks to make sure it's really running on Windows, regardless what the OS tells it it is, and then of course fatal errors that will kernel panic FreeBSD or Linux, scattered all over the place." Apparently Foxconn has been known to be hostile toward Linux support for quite some time before this incident according to Phoronix.com.
However, Matthew Garrett, respected Linux developer, stated he sees nothing especially sinister in the code he's examined. "There's no evidence whatsoever that the BIOS is deliberately targeting Linux. I can't find any way in which the code Foxconn are shipping is worse than any other typical vendor. This entire controversy is entirely unjustified." It's reported that Foxconn plans to make a statement sometime today on the matter.
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| Released Last Week |
DragonFly BSD 2.0
Matthew Dillon announced the availability of DragonFly BSD 2.0: "2.0 is our eighth major DragonFly release. DragonFly's policy is to only commit bug fixes to release branches." Changes in this release include: the HAMMER filesystem featuring crash recovery on-mount (without fsck) and queueless incremental mirroring, numerous kernel changes like native fairq-queue implementation and native connection state recovery, various hardware changes like added drivers and better USB survivability, userland changes like blacklist for weak Debian-generated SSH keys and improved manual pages and documentation, a lot of contributed software like new versions of BIND, OpenSSH, tnftpd, and GCC. Fortran was removed from the base system, along with other old stuff like legacy device drivers. See the rather brief release announcement and the detailed 2.0 release notes for more information.
xPUD 0.7
Following version 0.6 just four days ago, a new version of xPUD was released today, boasting "same features, 20% smaller": "xPUD is a small and fast booting LiveUSB, usually boots into X within 15-seconds, and starts an easy-to-use UI as soon as possible. Being a Ubuntu derivative with APT/dpkg system, the rootfs is quite small: only 67MB of core image, including Ubuntu 8.04 compatible kernel, Xvesa as xserver, web browser (firefox), media player (mplayer) and input method (scim). This project is under heavy development, and we're looking forward to any kind of feedback, please visit http://xpud.org/ for more information." Read the release notes for more.
NimbleX 2008
Bogdan Radulescu announced the availability of the final version of NimbleX 2008, a Slackware-based mini distribution: "This version gets significant cleanups since NimbleX 2008RC, Bluetooth finally works OK, some improvements to the USB installer, significant changes on how NimbleX boots from remote locations (PXE & HTTP), several bug fixes, updates and several other things. I managed to make NimbleX a little slimmer and I also managed to squeeze in the latest VirtualBox so that people can run/test other OSs inside NimbleX. Partimage was added so you can easily clone disks and partitions with NimbleX thus resulting in some mass deployment functionality when users know their way around Linux. I guess here a small tutorial will be posted at some point..." Read the full release announcement for more information.
Ubuntu Muslim Edition 8.04.1
Ubuntu Muslim Edition (UbuntuME) 8.04.1, an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring Islamic software, a Quran study tool and a web content filtering utility, was released, in the form of not just an update but a full new DVD with tons of software: "The Ubuntu Muslim Edition team is proud to announce the release of UbuntuME 8.04.1. This release is only available as an installable DVD. Highlights: WebStrict (parental control tool) enabled by default (so as browsing the Internet is safe); Zekr 0.7.0 (Quran study tool) installed and configured to play Quran recitations; Minbar and Firefox "Pray Times" addon installed; Monajat (display Islamic prayers) Thwab (encyclopedia); UbuntuME artworks: usplash, login screen, Islamic wallpapers, theme etc." See the complete release announcement and release notes for more information.
BLAG Linux And GNU 90001
Jeff Moe announced a bug fix release of BLAG Linux And GNU labeled as 90001, a single-CD desktop distribution based on Fedora: "It comes on a single CD (684 megs), is easily installed, and user friendly. This release follows quickly on the heels of BLAG 90000, as there were a few annoying issues with that, some of which have been sorted, such as some broken dependencies. A number of packages have been added to the CD, some of which appeared in earlier blag releases, such as: bittorrent, freej, gcc, gqview, gthumb, thunderbird, vnc-server, xchat. The CD has 97 package updates including a new kernel-libre-2.6.25.10-86.fc9.1, firefox 3.0.1, gnome/gtk2/nautilus packages, pidgin, xorg and more... Known issues with this release: Use yum instead of apt, or uncomment GPG line in /etc/apt/apt.conf (or install those keys); Automajick kickstart installs are not currently available; On some installs you have to hit ctrl-alt-f7 after firstboot when you add a user; this is only needed the first time." Read the complete release announcement for further details.
IPCop 1.4.20
A new version of IPCop, a user-friendly firewall distribution geared towards home and SOHO users, was released: "Update is split into two parts because of a kernel update to accommodate free space limitation. 1.4.19 contains some packages updates, most notably a dnsmasq update to be immune on recent dns advisory. 1.4.20 installs the second part of the kernel update and configure the new kernel. 1.4.19 could be installed separately from 1.4.20. A reboot is not needed after 1.4.19 installation... Changes summary: Upgrade openssh to 4.7p1; Include lzo binary so, it will match openssl version if openssl is updated; Update dnsmasq to 2.45; Update tzdata to 2008d; Update pcre from 7.4 to 7.7; Update apache to 1.3.41..." Read the detailed release notes for more.
Ulteo Applications System
Gaël Duval announced the availability of Ulteo Application System, code name "Sirius" Stable: "The Ulteo Application System is a FREE installable version of Ulteo, that ships with hundreds applications and innovative features that include: Global Ulteo authentication; Automatic data backup/synchronization to/from the Ulteo Online Desktop; "My Digital Life" panel to organize your digital life easier and better; Automatic system and application incremental upgrade; Very fast to install, very easy to use." "Sirius" Stable is an installable liveCD that offers a Windows alternative; it comes with a lot of applications by default, including Firefox 2.0 and OpenOffice.org 2.3. Learn more here.
Also announced is Ulteo Virtual Desktop Beta3: "It allows you to use the best Linux applications on the Windows(TM) operating system. It's been designed for individuals and corporate users who want to have Linux and Windows applications together on the same desktop without the hassles of dual booting or virtualization. It already got great feedback from the IT press during the past three months. If you would enjoy Ulteo Virtual Desktop on a preloaded USB key that wouldn't require any installation, please let us know!" Learn more here.
Foresight Linux 2.0.4
Paul Cutler announced the release of Foresight Linux 2.0.4, an rPath-based distribution showcasing the latest GNOME technologies: "The Foresight project is excited to announce the latest release of Foresight, the Foresight GNOME Edition 2.0.4. This release features a brand new theme, and a number of minor updates and bug fixes, notably a problem when trying to install on certain RAID setups. This latest version also introduces the Foresight GNOME Lite Edition. For the first time, Foresight is available for installation on one CD, and features Foresight's lightning fast tar-based installer. This edition does not include OpenOffice.org and is English only to reduce installation size. Users who choose to install the Foresight GNOME Lite Edition can easily upgrade to the full version." Read the full release announcement and release notes for further details.
Parted Magic 3.0
Patrick Verner announced the 3.0 release of Parted Magic, a specialist live CD distribution designed to facilitate hard disk management tasks: "This new release of Parted Magic has the most aggressive changelog of any release to date. Almost everything has been updated and redesigned while doing our best to maintain the same user interface. The most significant changes are the additions of HAL and dbus, new Xorg server, basic wireless detection, FireFTP, udpcast, Linux-2.6.26, and many other updated and new programs. Parted Magic also has a new GRUB version of the iso and the USB version is GRUB-ready. People have been asking for a "Save Session" function and we added it." Visit the project's news page and check out the latest changelog for a complete list of fixes and package updates.
Devil-Linux 1.2.15
Heiko Zuerker announced the release of Devil-Linux 1.2.15, a live firewall and server oriented distribution. "Devil-Linux 1.2.15 is available for download. The changes include lots of program and security updates. See the Changelog for details." Among the changes are: ImageMagick can now correctly identify file types again; added arping tool; added dev86 to build environment; added hotfix to allow ntop links against net-snmp; added missing LSI fusion scsi drivers to initial ramdisk; corrected dhcp compile; corrected motion compile; downgraded iptables to 1.3.7 (due to missing extensions, i.e. connlimit, time and others); increased compatibility of strongswan for windows and cisco clients. Read the brief release announcement and the changelog for more information.
GoblinX Premium 2008.2
Flavio Pereira de Oliveira today announced the availability of GoblinX Premium 2008.2, a Slackware-based desktop distribution and live CD: "Main upgrades since last stable release: Upgraded all packages. Upgraded Kernel (2.6.24.3), AuFS, Linux live and Squashfs. Added Bookmarks to GoblinX Panel. Added extra folders to be used as package repository. Added media package repository to Slapt-getrc. Added package upgrade check to Xfce panel with Xfce4-smartpm-plugin. Added interface to build module with Slapt-get help. Added initrd.img to be used by Suspend/Hibernate after install. Added Isolinux option to not load customization during boot..." Visit the project's news page to read the full announcement.
Absolute Linux 12.1.05
Paul Sherman announced the release of Absolute Linux 12.1.05, a light-weight, Slackware-based distribution featuring the IceWM window manager: "Big change is with the installer, "Autoinstall" option that takes care of drive partitioning along with the Lilo setup, making install much easier for new-comers to Linux and/or text-based installation. The usual options for installation are also still available. Documentation (HTML instructions for the install) have been updated both online in the ZIP that contains the iso. Here's the changelog: Redesigned installer to include an "autoinstall" option; Corrected internal "name" of links2.desktop file; absgamma.py (utility to adjust gamma of monitor) updated; Java updated to jre-6u7; gnome-icon-theme added for compatibility with some apps; Svgpage moved to CD2." Check the release announcement, changelog, and the package list for more info.
Debian GNU/Linux 4.0r4
The fourth update to Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 is available: "The Debian project is pleased to announce the fourth update of its stable distribution Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (codename etch). In addition to correcting several security problems and a few serious defects in the stable release, for the first time in Debian's history an update for a stable distribution also adds support for newer hardware by giving users the option to install newer drivers. Existing Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 installation CDs and DVDs can continue to be used to install this update. After installation, upgrading via an up-to-date Debian mirror will cause any out of date packages to be updated. However, users of the network-console installation method are strongly encouraged to update their media, see the "Debian Installer" portion of this announcement for more information. Those who install updates frequently from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update." Read the rest of the release announcement for a detailed list of all changes.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Mini Review |
Parted Magic 3.0
This weekend I booted Parted Magic 3.0 to grab a screenshot for this week's Distrowatch Weekly and it was so neato, I thought maybe I'd share a bit about it. The name implies that it's a great tool for partitioning drives and with GParted, it is. But I guess I was just surprised to find a lot more.
It comes in a 44MB zip file and when uncompressed, it is either a 45MB ISO or approximately a 45MB directory of files for a USB stick (depending upon which you've downloaded). So, it's small. Now, I didn't have much luck with the USB method even though I followed the directions to a "T." However, the regular ISO burned and booted just fine.
It boots up into a basic Xfce 4 desktop either under Xorg or Xvesa. Its Xorg couldn't seem to do much more than 800x600 with my on-board NVIDIA chip and cheap VGA monitor I was using, but under Xvesa I could get 1280x1024. Parted Magic comes with X configuration tools in case you run into similar issues. Interestingly, it did boot my HP Pavilion laptop in its optimum resolution of 1280x800 under Xorg with similar graphics chip. I suppose it just didn't like that cheap old monitor.
Parted Magic comes with Conky configured and running on the desktop with lots of handy information. There is no main menu, but on the panel are several smaller categorized menus. In the Networking menu Firefox 3.0.1, XChat, GRSync, and lftp are found. Also included is a "Start Network." Since the internet connection isn't brought up at boot, you'll probably need that.
There is a help menu with some links to various parts of the Parted Magic website such as for the Changelog, list of programs, and the Parted Magic Documentation. Another nice touch in this menu is a list of Bash Key Combinations.
Parted Magic's Main Purpose - GParted in action
(full image size: 777kB, screen resolution: 1200x1024 pixels)
Then there is the Utility menu full of great tools. Some of these include Xfburn, Xarchiver, ISO Master, Partition Image (backup or restore), a couple of tools for trying to rescue lost data, a tool to make a LiveUSB of Parted Magic (that does indeed work), and more. Some other stand alone panel buttons are for screenshots, a terminal, and GParted.
I tested GParted on several filetypes I rarely even think about. These include JFS, XFS, NTFS, and Reiser4. It worked fine, so these in addition to the more commonly used are supported. The resulting partitions were readable as such from an actual install.
Then there's the Quit button. From it you can reboot, exit X, or shutdown. All in all I thought it was pretty cool. It's something every distro tester (or computer user for that matter) should have around their workstation for those occasional slips of the mouse and it'd be a handy way to partition those new drives or do backups of your main system that work better if not mounted. 45MB. There's always room for Parted Magic!
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| Reviewed Last Week |
Along with the in-depth review here this morning by Steve, Softpedia and the Red Devil gave NimbleX 2008 a test drive last week as well. Caitlyn Martin looked at an update to one of her long time favorites and Ericsbinaryworld took Puppy Linux 4.0 for a little spin.
* NimbleX has always been impressive. The main advantage is its amazing speed. Softpedia gives a complete introduction to all the software and features, but they were most impressed by the amount of graphical environments included in the 200 MB download. They said, And here is the strong point of NimbleX 2008, that it uses no more than 7 (seven) desktops/window managers in 200 MB! Amazing, isn't it? In conclusion, NimbleX works very well, contains a lot of useful applications and window managers (desktops) for all tastes... and that's the most important thing.
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* Red Devil's Tech blog said, NimbleX runs beautifully on my Dell laptop in live CD mode - my Intel/Pro wireless NIC was automatically detected and configured, requiring just my ESSID and encryption key to get me online via Wireless Assistant. Sound was working, the resolution was almost correct - 1280x768 instead of 1280x800 - my touchpad worked fine, USB memory sticks were automounted, and I had a battery icon in the panel accurately reporting my power. [But...]
* * * * *
* VectorLinux is a very capable system with nice looks and lots of useful applications. I've always like it. Ms. Martin examined 5.9 SOHO with a fine tooth comb and found a few issues, but in the end she admits it's still a favorite. She concludes: Vector Linux 5.9 SOHO isn't free as in free of cost but the price is modest and there are no restrictions on use. It is probably worth the price of admission for those who know and like Vector Linux already and for anyone who is looking for a Linux distribution that is optimized for performance and who doesn't mind an occasional foray to the command line. Despite the caveats I've raised Vector Linux remains one of my favorite distributions for the desktop. SOHO is the flavor of Vector Linux that has the most to offer in terms of ready to go software for those who like KDE for their desktop environment.
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* Puppy is one of my favorite little distros because it packs so much into such a tiny package. And it works so well... for me. Eric stated, Once I finally got it working, I was surprised at how well it worked with my wide screen monitor. They don't have nice, glitzy GUIs. But if the newbie didn't care or if it was their only choice because someone donated an old clunker to them, I think Puppy Linux would serve them well. I like Puppy Linux and I think they continue to create a good lightweight distro with lots of programs.
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Ladislav is still on his vacation this week and I'm still filling in. Again, if you'd like to share any good distro news with me and the Distrowatch Weekly readers in the next couple of weeks, you may email me at srlinuxx at gmail dot com. I want to thank Steven for the wonderful review and Dr. W T Zhu for his invaluable assistance.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next installment will be published on Monday, 04 August 2008.
Thanks,
Susan Linton
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Progeny Debian
Founded in March 2000, Progeny Linux Systems develops Linux-based software and services for networking computing environments. Progeny Componentized Linux was a new kind of Linux "distribution", built bottom-up as a set of interchangeable parts that closely track their counterpart "upstream" open-source projects, rather than top-down as a monolithic, difficult-to-change whole. By being constructed in this fashion, the componentized Linux was easier to customise and modify than traditional Linux distributions.
Status: Discontinued
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