 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 266, 18 August 2008 |
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Welcome to this year's 33rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The explosion of low-cost, ultra-portable laptops that started to appear in computer stores is a dream come true for many technology enthusiasts and free software developers who are keen to offer solutions for the new computer class. In this week's issue we take a first look at Mandriva Flash 2008.1, one of the first distributions with official support for the ASUS Eee PC. Does it really work "out of the box" as claimed? Read on to find out. In the news section, Slackware introduces KDE 4.1 into the development tree, Fedora hints at a major problem with its update infrastructure, and Linux Mint suffers from a crippling attack on its web site. Also in this week's issue, links to two excellent interviews with Ubuntu's Scott Remnant and gOS's David Liu. Finally, after a short break, we have resumed adding new distributions to the DistroWatch database - one of the new ones introduced last week is FaunOS, an interesting Arch Linux-based desktop distribution optimised for USB Flash drives. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (11MB) and mp3 (11MB) formats (many thanks to Russ Wenner)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
Mandriva Flash 2008.1 on ASUS Eee PC 900
 After some three months of keeping the default Xandros installation on my ASUS Eee PC, it was time for a change. While the Eee PC variant of Xandros Desktop is an extremely well-designed and an excellent entry-level Linux for anyone looking for basic Internet and computing functionality, it's unlikely that it would satisfy an average computer geek for too long. Sooner or later its limitations in terms of power computing and software installation, not to mention the "don't leave it alone" desire to tinker with any new toy, would likely see many of these netbooks' flash drives being wiped clean, making room for a new, more powerful operating system.
But which one to choose as a replacement? Ever since the appearance of the first Eee PCs, many Linux distribution developers have started working on their own alternatives to Xandros Desktop, complete with full hardware support and a variety of desktop solutions. For my first deployment I chose Mandriva Linux 2008.1, sometimes referred to as "2008 Spring". (Personally, I prefer to call it "2008.1", since I don't think that a product designed for international markets should carry a name of a season - especially while a big part of Mandriva's own development team lives and works south of the equator!) Not only was Mandriva Linux 2008.1 the first major Linux distribution to add full support for the Eee PC, it also received excellent reviews, both in mainstream computing media and on personal blogs.
 The Mandriva USB key arrived in a parcel resembling a shoebox. It could easily hold another fifty or so USB keys and I think there must be a reason for this peculiar choice of packaging (why not just use one of those bubble-lined envelopes?), but I could not spot one. Besides the USB key, the box also included a mini-CD packed in a hard plastic case. The product's image, as provided at the Mandriva Store, certainly doesn't do it justice; the USB key that I received was, in fact, a "slim" version, much slicker than the one on the picture (see image on the right) and about half the size of the 4 GB Mandriva Flash 2008. I've never seen such a small and cleverly-designed USB key before! The first impression was good.
Next, booting the USB key. This can be done by pressing the Esc key during the initial start-up in order to bring up the boot menu where Mandriva Flash was listed as one of the options. But booting Mandriva Flash wasn't nearly as fast as the original OS; while Xandros Desktop is up and running in its full graphical glory in around 17 seconds, Mandriva 2008.1 Flash took exactly two minutes to boot into its KDE 3.5.9 (that was the second boot; the first boot is always longer since it requires extra configuration steps). Of course, this is a generic operating system that is meant to work on a variety of hardware, so it's hardly surprising that it took this long to arrive at the desktop. Maybe Mandriva could work on this - it shouldn't be hard to detect the Eee PC and pre-optimise the boot process for this particular piece of hardware.
When the KDE desktop finally appeared on the screen, my first steps led to checking whether everything worked out of the box as Mandriva had claimed. And here came the first little disappointment; while the wireless network worked perfectly, launching Skype and attempting to make a call gave a "problem with audio" error. Luckily, this was easy to fix - I simply started Mandriva's Control Centre and disabled PulseAudio in the hardware configuration section. After this, Skype worked just fine. Other than the audio, everything else did seem to work out of the box - the screen resolution was set up correctly and the rest of the hardware worked fine as well. I didn't test the suspend and hibernate functions.
My next step led to Mandriva's Rpmdrake to install any security and bug-fix updates that have been made available since the product's release. Mandriva's default USB installation comes with a lot of software, so I wasn't surprised to see that over 100 updates were listed as available, including a new kernel. I duly applied all what the distribution's package management tool proposed and rebooted the Eee PC into the updated kernel. Problem number two: this time the system took over 10 minutes to boot! This was due to an extended period of inactivity just after the "Starting udev" message. The same system started without a similar delay on another computer, so I assume that this is something hardware related. I haven't been able to find a solution for this problem, so my Mandriva Flash 2008.1 now takes over 10 minutes to boot.
As a compensation, the Eee PC now runs an operating system that is familiar and easily extensible. It also looks great; I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I am always astonished how great the default Mandriva fonts look on an LCD monitor. I don't know what exactly makes the fonts look this perfect (or is this just a subjective observation?), but in terms of visually pleasing default fonts there is no other distribution (with the possible exception of Fedora) where font settings don't require extensive tweaking before they look reasonably good (but never as good as on Mandriva!). Maybe some readers will be able to comment on this - do you agree that Mandriva's default fonts look exceptionally beautiful? And if so, what makes them look better than those of the competition?
Mandriva Flash 2008.1 running on ASUS Eee PC 900.
(full image size: 618kB, screen resolution: 1024x600 pixels)
I was contemplating whether I should install Mandriva Linux on Eee PC's internal Flash drive or not. As at the time of writing, I still haven't made a decision - it runs great from the USB Flash drive and, according to some information I found on the Internet, any speed difference between the internal and external Flash drives would be negligible. With this setup, I effectively have a dual-boot system - the original, but rather limiting Xandros Desktop that the Eee PC came with, and a portable and highly customisable Mandriva USB key that can be booted on another computer. I've found the speed of Mandriva's KDE desktop acceptable for the tasks I am likely to ever perform on this ultra-portable laptop, although the hardware limitations are sometimes obvious, e.g. when copying a large number of images from an SD card to the USB key. The only real disadvantage of this setup is the ever-present danger that the USB key gets unplugged by accident, which would probably result in a nasty crash.
Conclusion? I am reasonably happy with Mandriva Flash 2008.1 on my Eee PC. Although certain things did not work "out of the box" as promised in the release announcement and I still haven't found a solution for the shocking 10-minute boot delay, it has now become my primary operating system on the Eee PC. Its KDE desktop is faster than I expected, the default fonts look absolutely gorgeous in all applications, and its utilities, especially the package management system that allows extending the Mandriva installation with thousands of programs, is heavenly, especially when compared with Xandros Desktop. It might yet replace the original distribution on the internal Flash drive - provided that I manage to solve the 10-minute boot annoyance and that I don't find any new issues.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Slackware tests KDE 4.1, Fedora suffers from update outage, attackers crack LinuxMint.com, interviews with Ubuntu's Scott Remnant and gOS's David Liu, Zypper tips and tricks
 Last week, the home page of Slackware Linux got updated! If that's not already a good enough reason to throw a party, then consider the two items that have been deemed interesting enough to make the front page - the inclusion of KDE 4.1 in Slackware's testing branch and a new, "bi-directional" Slackware logo: "That's right -- KDE version 4.1 is now part of Slackware -current (in the /testing directory), so for everyone who can't wait to try it out, have a look at it! We're all (very happily) using it here now, and it has come a long way since the first 4.x release. Congratulations to the KDE team for the fine work (and many thanks to Robby Workman and Heinz Wiesinger for all the help with build scripts and testing for the initial Slackware packaging of KDE4). Have fun! :-) Also, we recently commissioned Mark from Senile Felines Designs to create a unique new Slackware Logo, as we were getting a number of bug reports that the old logo could not be read easily while standing on one's head. ;-) We think he did a great job with it!"
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 On a much more serious note, if you've had trouble updating your Fedora installation during the past week or if you've been mystified by the sudden lack of updates, there is a reason for it. It would appear that Fedora's update infrastructure has been through some major trouble. The exact extent of the problem remains a secret at the time of writing, but if you can read between the lines, here are some hints by Fedora project manager Paul Frields: "The Fedora Infrastructure team is currently investigating an issue in the infrastructure systems. That process may result in service outages, for which we apologize in advance. We're still assessing the end-user impact of the situation, but as a precaution, we recommend you not download or update any additional packages on your Fedora systems." The above was published late Thursday, with a follow-up email arriving on Saturday: "The Fedora Infrastructure team continues to work on the issues we discovered earlier this week. Right now, we're getting the account system restored to service, along with some of the application servers. We're also taking advantage of the outages to upgrade a few systems at the same time. Some services such as the Account System and the Wiki should return to normal over the weekend, but we expect outages to continue for some other systems. Please be patient as we continue to work the problem." Stay tuned for further updates.
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 Fedora isn't the only distribution that suffered from a major problem last week. The increasingly popular Linux Mint became a target of some unscrupulous attackers who managed to crack the distribution's web site and insert a malicious trojan horse into its PHP code: "Our server was hacked and code was injected into it to make connections on our behalf to pinoc.org and download a trojan called JS/Tenia.d. If you visited LinuxMint.com in the last two days we recommend you scan your computer to make sure this trojan isn't present. As this attack exploited vulnerabilities within our PHP code, we took the opportunity to clean it all and secure every single page against injections in the future. LinuxMint.com is now clean and secure, but we experienced almost 20 hours of downtime and we lost almost 2 days of work into fixing this. I personally received a lot of emails from the community, warning us about the problem. I haven't had time to reply but I would like to thank the people who came forward. If you observe a problem in the future please do not hesitate to report it."
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 Whatever your opinion about Ubuntu there is one thing that is hard to deny - Mark Shuttleworth's vision and relentless pursuit of his goals have been responsible for Ubuntu's success on the desktop. A view shared by Sam Varghese in this article entitled Shuttleworth and Ubuntu keep moving on up : "Ten years from now, if Linux has managed to gain something like 10 per cent or more of the desktop market and continues to maintain its lead in the server market, one person would have to take a goodly share of the credit - Mark Shuttleworth. The way he has gone about establishing Ubuntu as the desktop Linux distribution most in demand by enthusiasts is remarkable. And he is now quietly beginning to muscle in on the enterprise market." The article concludes: "Though it feels like Ubuntu has been around for a long time, it's not even been four years since the distribution was launched. And Shuttleworth himself got into business for the first time just 13 years ago. Remarkable progress, indeed."
Mark Shuttleworth might be one of the most glamorous personalities in the Linux world, but for many it might be more interesting to read interviews with developers who are directly involved in day-to-day work on the world's most popular desktop Linux distribution. Last week, Scott James Remnant, the leader of the Ubuntu Desktop team, spoke to Hardware.no about the current status of of Ubuntu and the future of Linux in general: "Q: Red Hat, Novell, IBM and several other companies have paid developers working on the Linux kernel and other Linux-related projects. Does Canonical do something like this? A: We're a rather smaller company than those you mention; they have teams of people working on single open source projects that are larger than our entire company! This obviously means if you count and compare the simple number of commits, we appear to come out badly in comparison. Canonical has paid for work on a number of upstream projects, and we have developers who have provided significant contributions to them. As we grow as a company, that number will increase."
* * * * *
 Speaking about interviews, here is a great one with the creator of gOS, a fast-growing Ubuntu-based project which has created a unique desktop and which has focused on integrating popular Google applications into its distribution. David Liu, the founder of gOS: "Q: Does gOS have a set release schedule or do you release whenever you can add something new to the mix? A: What we try to do is make something new every 3 to 4 months. Our focus is totally on the consumer. Traditionally, a Linux company has a server product line and the consumer side is a sort of way to brand it and point back to the server where they actually make their money. Our team is a little bit smaller and just focused on the consumer. Every 3 to 4 months, we try to do an update and look around during in-between times to see what's a really good fit for the particular hardware that we're looking at. A lot of the software that's preloaded on lots of the distributions was created a while ago and was originally meant for workstations and standard-size computers. As we get into non-workstations and into netbooks and Internet appliances, the software needs to change and adapt to make the experience more real. We try to release more often and try to pick the best applications to fit the hardware."
* * * * *
 Finally, something more technical, borrowed from the excellent openSUSE Tutorials web site. This time, it's about Zypper, which offers a number of little tricks to make a user's life managing openSUSE packages a little more enjoyable: "Zypper is a very easy-to-use and powerful package manager that is very underrated. With the latest rewrites in openSUSE 11.0 of libzypp, it is blazingly fast and has a few new features that many people are not aware of." Here are a few examples that the author finds useful or interesting:
- Install metapackages or patterns: # zypper in -t pattern xfce
- Search for a metapackage or pattern: # zypper se -t pattern media
- List available repositories: # zypper lr
- View a description of a package: # zypper if package
- Simulate a zypper command: # zypper in --dry-run <package>
- Lock a package in its current state: # zypper addlock <package>
- Remove the above lock: # zypper removelock <package>
Please visit openSUSE Tutorials for other interesting Zypper commands.
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| Released Last Week |
ClarkConnect 4.3
ClarkConnect 4.3, a specialist server and gateway distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, has been released: "ClarkConnect Server and Gateway Community edition 4.3 is now available. What's new? The Office edition and Enterprise edition products have now merged! Unlimited mailboxes are now included in the Enterprise edition and this includes full groupware support. The full list of changes is available in the developer change log -- highlights include: Groupware support in webmail, OpenVPN for road warriors, system processes viewer, mail queue manager, RAID manager, default security keys for users, remote backup (beta). Known issues: blank screens on first boot with some types of hardware; some legacy Dell/MegaRAID RAID cards are not supported; localization is incomplete." See the detailed release notes for further information.
Scientific Linux 5.2 "Live CD/DVD"
Urs Beyerle has announced the release of the Live CD/DVD edition of Scientific Linux 5.2, a Red Hat-based distribution enhanced with scientific and educational software: "Scientific Linux Live CD/DVD 5.2 has been released for i386 and x86_64 architectures. New feature: changes can be stored persistently on a storage device like a USB key. Together with the possibility to start the live CD from a USB key, this feature allows you to carry around a portable Scientific Linux live system on a single USB stick. Features: can be installed to local hard disk, runs from USB key, can be mounted over NFS (diskless client). Software: Linux kernel 2.6.18, OpenAFS client 1.4.7, X.Org 7.1, 3D desktop with Compiz and AIGLX; ALSA sound libraries 1.0.14, GNOME 2.16.0 (standard desktop on live CD), KDE 3.5.4 (only on live DVD), OpenOffice.org 2.3.0, Firefox 3.0...." Read the complete release announcement for further information.
paldo GNU/Linux 1.15
Jürg Billeter has announced the release of paldo GNU/Linux, a hybrid (source and binary) distribution for the desktop with a custom package management system: "We are pleased to announce the release of paldo 1.15 with many bug fixes and updates. It features the latest stable GNOME 2.22.3 desktop, OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, Firefox 3.0.1, Eclipse 3.4, and VirtualBox 1.6.2. Also included are Linux kernel 2.6.25.15 to support new devices, X.Org 7.3, updated proprietary drivers for NVIDIA and AMD graphic cards, and Wammu 0.27 to simplify cell phone synchronization. NetworkManager 0.7 enables easy Internet connections with GSM/UMTS and DSL. With SMPlayer 0.6.1 playing videos and DVDs has a new comfort. The easy-to-use graphical installer has been updated to make the installation from the Live CD as simple as possible. All packages have been rebuilt with the updated toolchain: GCC 4.3 and glibc 2.8." Visit the project's home page to read the release announcement.
paldo GNU/Linux 1.15 - a distro with a custom package management and an option to compile applications from source code
(full image size: 338kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
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New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Asterisk on IPCop. Asterisk on IPCop is a specialist Linux distribution consisting of IPCop, a firewall distribution, and Asterisk, an open source PBXi, telephony engine, and telephony applications toolkit.
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DistroWatch database summary
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And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 25 August 2008.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Comments (by Jimbo on 2008-08-18 09:00:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Is it just me or does gOS just thrive on coming out with a new gimick every couple of months. Last time it was Myspace apps on the dock this time it's google gadgets. Rather than these gimmicks why don't they concentrate on making it a worthwhile distro?
2 • Linux Trojans (by AbacusMonkey on 2008-08-18 09:26:12 GMT from Australia)
Oh dear, it does appear the idiots of the world are going to start making more attempts at Linux sabotage. Although it is impressive that the mint guys were able to intercept the problem quickly and effectively. Kudos to mint.
3 • Arch Linux on Eee PC (by afonic on 2008-08-18 09:31:44 GMT from Greece)
I've tried many distros with my Eee PC 701 and I've concluded to Arch Linux. Using the latest USB images makes the installation easy and fast and if you take into consideration the lightweigth nature of the distro and the community packages build for Eee (custom kernel, acpi events, madwifi) you can set a working system with minimal trouble.
Right now I am using Gnome with Compiz Fusion on the custom 2.6.26 kernel and everything, from cpu scaling to the onboard camera, works like a charm. And the time it takes to boot from the BIOS screen to GDM is about 12 seconds.
Find more info here:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_Arch_Linux_on_the_Asus_EEE_PC
4 • Attack on Linux Mint (by Jim on 2008-08-18 09:55:13 GMT from Hong Kong)
Seems to me somebody is jealous of the popularity Linux Mint is getting lately.Maybe too many users are turning to linux instead of spending their dollars on Microsoft Vista! Good work Linux Mint team---I hope your O.S. becomes number one!
5 • Skype audio and Mandriva (by jollyx on 2008-08-18 10:06:42 GMT from Spain)
I had the same problem with my 2008.1 install and Skype. But I resolved it from the settings of Skype. Just changed everything in Sound Devices to pulse and voila.
BTW the new logo of Slackware looks too ugly to me.
P.S. 10 000 000 ? :) No more. Promise.
6 • Mint is mint (by Anthony on 2008-08-18 10:18:07 GMT from New Zealand)
Well here I am in mint opposed to my normal Solaris 10 GA Desktop with the profile that nautuils broke from blastwave kudo's burner app yay.
Eye candy still no ZFS hay we cant have everything even multi million Microsoft hasnt got it all.
Mint has nice package management and the web installation is a good choice. 10/10 although the samba integration is no where near as good as suse's.
7 • re:#3 arch linux on the asus eeepc (by michael King at 2008-08-18 10:46:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have had an acer aspire one for a few weeks now, and having replaced the Limpus lite with Ubuntu on the first day( I actually crashed it trying to get full functionality with more fedora programs..and with the updates) I have also run Puppy Linux on it from the usb
I wondered if arch linux and mandriva both work with the new atom chips that are in the acer aspire as well. Ubuntu takes a minute to load, puppy 25 seconds(actually its so quick I am only estimating...) My webcam works fine in ubuntu though I still have a couple sound issues to resolve,(no microphone) Sound works in Puppy 4.05 beta, though I have not recorded anything with the microphone to test.
some games like openarena work excellently, but things like extreme racer are too slow to use. Overall a great laptop to type on and play with, the asus eeepc seems better supported at the moment though...
8 • Eee-Pc (by Anton at 2008-08-18 10:48:32 GMT)
Another interesting Distrowatch, thanks.
Having tried over 20 linux distributions on my Eee-pc 701, including Mandriva, my top 3 at this point would probably be
1) Debian http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC
2) Fluxflux (pclinuxOs) http://fluxflux.net/fluxflux-eee/index-en.html
3) Arch linux. (see above)
both Fluxflux and Arch are relatively easy to install, For those wanting a minimal install, on which to build a system of their choice, the Debian net install works well, and is the Os of choice here.
9 • RE: 5 (by ladislav on 2008-08-18 11:33:06 GMT from Taiwan)
P.S. 10 000 000 ? :) No more. Promise.
I corrected the story two minutes after you first posted about the error. And here we are, one week later and you are still at it. Man, some people just don't know when to stop...
10 • Attack on linuxmint.com (by Clement Lefebvre on 2008-08-18 11:55:27 GMT from Sweden)
Hi,
Someone on our forums suspected Canonical to be behind the attack on our server and I see someone here already mentioned that this could have to do with jealousy or the popularity of our distribution, so before any more conspiracy theories arise I just wanted to say that we were not specifically targeted by this attack. Many other servers were hit by it. We also believe the attack was automated by a script and scanned as many domains as possible. To be honest I don't even think it has anything to do with Linux. Let's not point fingers at each others, this has nothing to do with Canonical, nothing to do with Microsoft or any other editor.. we've just been hit because we were on a long list of domain names and some of our PHP scripts happened to be vulnerable. If we were to point fingers we'd point them at ourselves.
Thanks,
Clem.
11 • Slackwars? (by Tom on 2008-08-18 12:00:25 GMT from Germany)
This new Slackware-Logo ...
"Slackwars"?
Is this intentional?
www.slackware.com
12 • RE: 10 Very Good (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-08-18 12:15:21 GMT from United States)
You show a lot of class. Keep up the good work.
13 • slackware logo (by arno911 on 2008-08-18 12:29:32 GMT from Germany)
the new logo looks distorted, it makes me feel like im standing on my head! And this was only done for some freaks who cannot position their monitor correctly? :)
It might be an interesting concept and piece of Art, but its also plain ugly - imho
I keep using the old one, wherever i can.
again, sidux is not listed under upcoming releases. I mentioned it, but my comment "vanished" last week. - next try :)
14 • MSI wind/Advent 4211 (by miksi on 2008-08-18 12:38:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have just bought an MSI Wind in the form of an Advent 4211 and tried a few live distros on it. None so far have recognised the wi-fi, so I wondered if anyone had found one where the wifi works out of the box, or without too much fiddling. Just installing Mandriva Free at the moment........
15 • fonts on Mandriva ? (by Anonymous on 2008-08-18 12:42:33 GMT from Canada)
Can someone could explain what is different in the rendering of font in Mandriva ? What are the config option to enable this on other distro ?
16 • New "Flippy" Slackware Logo (by Pig_Pen on 2008-08-18 13:07:15 GMT from United States)
looks good to me, and before all you cry babies get your panties in a wad over it remember it is just a logo so get over it...
17 • re: 14 wifi (by glyj on 2008-08-18 13:12:22 GMT from France)
You should try to install mandriva One (proprietary wifi drivers included)
though, you can install wifi drivers after the non-free repos are configured...
www.easyurpmi.zarb.org
regards
glyj
18 • The power (by 10M on 2008-08-18 13:18:53 GMT from Spain)
Ladislav, you may have the power to delete posts but you do not have the dignity to admit an error. You corrected the error and deleted my first post without any reason. And despite being wrong you continued to be ignorant. Saying that Europe is larg 2.5 millions square kilometres is not a grammatical error.
Something like "Woops, I did a mistake, thank you." would have bigger effect. And much more positive.
Man, some people don't have the courage to admit a mistake...
P.S. Let the deleting begins!
19 • RE 18 Repetitive information (by dbrion on 2008-08-18 13:34:53 GMT from France)
If I aém interested in accurate numbers (useful if one needs them, not for illustrative purposes), I wikipedia search, then paper search. People who write on paper acknowledge some corrections, but monts later, even if correctors give them because they have some respect towards truth, not to claim they could correct for weeks....
OTOH, why does Linux Identity Kit advertise for mandriva and only Mandriva here? They have beeen doing it since last year, and I know they have other distributions (and even interesting ones) with nice help on paper. I suppose it is because of geoip and because of the Mandriva==france absurdity....
20 • Another openSUSE Tutorial site (by Anonymous on 2008-08-18 13:45:07 GMT from Germany)
http://susegeek.com is also a nice and busy tutorial site
21 • linux mint (by twodogs on 2008-08-18 13:57:59 GMT from United States)
good job, Clem.
nice Distrowatch this week!
22 • PCLinuxOS. (by Graham Hamblin on 2008-08-18 14:07:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have used Slackware, and I am still a fan, since it first came out.
If you want an easy ride with Linux PCLinuxOS is the dog's bollocks.!
Regards
Graham
23 • Linux attack (by Chris on 2008-08-18 14:25:03 GMT from Canada)
I can't imagine anyone wanting to deface a linux site. But it looks like the numbers are starting to jump ever since computers from walmart starting selling as linux boxes, exposing the public en masse and as more people jump on the linux bandwagon. They may be trying their hand at seeing what sneaky stuff or damage they can do. Definitely not smart.
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Abraham Lincoln
24 • re.17 msi wind/mandriva (by miksi on 2008-08-18 14:48:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
The install of mandriva free went ok but the re-boot failed. I did try the Mandriva one live cd and that also failed to boot. Just trying ubuntu, and it has dropped me to a shell. So far, the latest Puppy 4.1 beta has been the closest with correct screen res but no wifi. Wish I could get the msi version of Suse!
25 • RE: 18 The power (by ladislav on 2008-08-18 14:59:44 GMT from Taiwan)
Oh, give me a break! I make a dozen of errors in every DW Weekly - factual, spelling, grammatical, whatever. Do you seriously expect me to repent myself for every silly error I make?
As for deleting your posts, I thought I gave you the reason last week, but here it is again: for any message that is intended for me (and that includes any alert to a factual error), please email me directly, so that I can correct it. Of course, if you don't want to email me, feel free to post your message here, but accept that it will be deleted after it has been acted upon. That's how things have been here for years and so far you've been the only one sulking here to no end.
And yes, if you continue to babble on this subject, then your posts WILL BE DELETED.
26 • RE: 25 Excellent response (by IMQ on 2008-08-18 15:05:41 GMT from United States)
:)
27 • No subject (by Dick Cheney on 2008-08-18 15:25:09 GMT from United States)
The new Slackware logo is definitely not something I would have done. But as long as the distro continues to work so well, I will not complain. It's great to have a maintenance burden close to zero, along with easy access to the latest and greatest of all my applications. I don't think the Slackware logo appears anywhere in the distro itself anyway, so it doesn't matter much.
The presence of KDE 4.1 brings up the important question: will KDE 3 be dropped in the next release of Slackware?
28 • Re: 10 (by Anon on 2008-08-18 15:25:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Clem
Your honesty and transparency is commendable.
Keep up the good work!
29 • Ref#18 I don't get it! (by Verndog on 2008-08-18 15:40:47 GMT from United States)
Why belly ache about some error. He found and error corrected it and that should be the end of it. Why make a fuss over a slight error. I'm sure it wasn't intentional. Besides, these comments should be about distros and not some grammatical errors somewhere.
30 • Mandriva Review (by Verndog on 2008-08-18 15:51:37 GMT from United States)
"...Problem number two: this time the system took over 10 minutes to boot! This was due to an extended period of inactivity just after the "Starting udev" message...." I had similar issue with TinyMe and it was the NIC connection. Once I the my internet connection set up correctly then the exxcessive udev issue was solved.
"...Maybe some readers will be able to comment on this - do you agree that Mandriva's default fonts look exceptionally beautiful? And if so, what makes them look better than those of the competition?..." I reported on this a couple of months ago. I just couldn't believe how beautiful the display was. Someone at Mandriva responded that they spend countless hours perfecting the fonts. I forget who that person was, but they are a regular commenter here.
If Mandriva can make the display look so great why can't the rest of the Linux community do the same. Some browsers displays are just plain ugly. The font issues go deep. Not just browsers but OpenOffice and just about everywhere. Kudos to Mandriva, for solving the Linux font issues.
31 • Mandriva / Eee: Skype, fonts, boot (by Adam Williamson on 2008-08-18 15:56:27 GMT from Canada)
Okay, first of all, the issue between Skype and Pulse is known and out of our control: it's documented in the Errata. http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Errata#No_sound_in_Skype . Skype just simply has bad audio output code which makes it not work with PulseAudio, it's not something a distro can do anything about.
There is nothing particularly special about Mandriva's fonts, and I think it's not useful for you to keep going on about that point as it's highly subjective. :) It's simply the case that people do not agree on font rendering. On any distro someone will find the default rendering great and someone will hate it.
All distros use the same set of packages for font rendering. No distro is doing anything fundamental to change how fonts look. Mostly the only differences between them are tweaks to the build configuration options. Some distros, including Ubuntu and I believe SUSE, enable patent-encumbered options in their Freetype builds which results in different rendering from a distro like Mandriva which leaves these patent-encumbered options disabled. Some people like one style, some like the other. It seems to be essentially a matter of taste more than anything else.
There are configuration options which can tweak font rendering but again these are a matter of taste more than anything else and I believe our defaults are just the upstream defaults in this case. Both KDE and GNOME have font configuration modules in their control centers which will let you tweak these options if you like.
"Maybe Mandriva could work on this - it shouldn't be hard to detect the Eee PC and pre-optimise the boot process for this particular piece of hardware."
It's actually harder than you think. The default, Xandros-based Eee distro uses a completely custom startup process, it's not just an optimized generic SysV boot, it's completely different. One of our developers has worked on replicating and improving this system and making it more generic, but it's much more work than just flippingthe switch on a couple of services. See http://helllabs.org/blog/20071231/asus-eeepc-fastinit-reimplementation/ , http://helllabs.org/blog/20080205/eeepc-fastinit-reimplementation-update/ , and http://helllabs.org/finit/ .
Your 10-minute-wait-on-boot issue sounds vaguely familiar but I can't quite bring the details to mind. You may want to check EEEuser's Mandriva forum, or Mandriva Bugzilla, and see if you can find anything on it there. Sorry I can't help more. It's worth noting, though, that our recommended use case for Mandriva on the Eee is to simply always suspend and resume it, there's not much real need to ever shut the thing down.
32 • New Slackware Logo (by Jason on 2008-08-18 16:09:49 GMT from Canada)
I think the new Slackware logo is great!! It seems to be well suited to the distribution!
33 • 10 min boot time (by Landor on 2008-08-18 16:17:12 GMT from Canada)
I don't know if this will help Ladislav....
Last week I noticed Verndog posted a comment about extremely long boot times and it sounded familiar, though I couldn't remember.
In the end he figured it out and it had to do with either DHCP or ETH0, I did have a similar problem with a distro I was testing, it's too bad I had been long enough that I didn't remember and saved him some time trying to find it.
Anyway, could it be along those lines? I noticed you mentioned wireless, but not wired.
Just a thought anyway, hope you figure it all out.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
34 • Re: #25 - Over-reaction? (by dialup on 2008-08-18 16:22:40 GMT from United States)
Imo, there is a valid reason not to delete Comments that point out acknowledged errors of fact. That is, to inform those who read Weekly before the correction is made. I usually read Weekly only once but often check back and browse Comments several times during the week.
35 • 14 • MSI wind/Advent 4211 (by Ghostdawg on 2008-08-18 16:42:40 GMT from United States)
I read in another forum where someone mention that using Ubuntu, I assume the latest version, wifi worked pretty much out the box.
Below is his quote:
"By the way, I was able to get the wireless to work in Ubuntu without much trouble, and it easily connects to my home wpa2 protected network. I highly recommend this mini laptop."
http://www.123macmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19838
36 • No subject (by wl on 2008-08-18 16:45:10 GMT from France)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
37 • antz (by gk on 2008-08-18 16:47:57 GMT from India)
Reading the flames being thrown in linux forums about nearly every code/feature/dist/logo/etc.etc. gives me a feeling as if i am watching a group of ants carrying a piece of chocolate. Every ant pulls the choc in its direction (up/down/left/right/all) and yet somehow they are able to carry the piece into their abode!! yeah keep it going folks!!
38 • @27 Slackware KDE4 (by BhaKi on 2008-08-18 16:56:51 GMT from India)
Slackware won't drop KDE3 for KDE4 untill KDE4 is functional enough for the people who use the most UNIX-like Linux - Slackware.
39 • Re: 26 (by 10M on 2008-08-18 16:59:55 GMT from Spain)
I am not sulking for the error, nor for deleting my posts but for the manner by which he acted. IMO methods like this not help anyone. A little bit of a sense of humor in cases like this is everything needed. Using the power to deafen the opponentś voice is inherent to another company, isn't it?
I apologize for the errors (the grammatical ones).
And apologize for the inconvenience too, Ladislav. This will not stop me from reading DWW. All the best!
40 • re: 24: puppy linux wifi (by michael King at 2008-08-18 17:17:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
The wireless drivers for Puppy Linux for the eeepc worked fine on my acer aspire one
here is the forum thread with the drivers
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=219445#219445
41 • RE 39 You should try wikipedia (by dbrion on 2008-08-18 17:20:06 GMT from France)
Comment deleted (disrespectful).
42 • @41 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-08-18 17:46:29 GMT from Canada)
"when a linux distributor has some worms in His site detected by its users, and swears it is now clean -without any checks-)"
It's usually a good idea to post some kind of detail and substantiation for serious assertions like that...
43 • Re 42: It was this weeks DW topic (by dbrion on 2008-08-18 17:57:13 GMT from France)
Comment deleted (disrespectful).
44 • re. 35 • 14 • MSI wind/Advent 4211 (by Anonymous on 2008-08-18 18:10:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks ghostdawg, I will check out that link.
45 • 10 min boot time (by miksi on 2008-08-18 18:18:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
I am having the same boot prob with the Mandriva Free install on my Advent 4211. Looking at the verbose output during boot, I wonder if it is looking for the usb cd/dvd drive that was used during install. Booting in safe mode cures the problem for the next normal boot. The problem re-occurs at the second normal boot. Will post to the mdv forum later.
46 • http://linux-blog.org (by devnet on 2008-08-18 18:25:46 GMT from United States)
To everyone that seems to think Ladislav should follow your own moral compass and do things how YOU want them to be done.
Get out. No really, get out and don't come back. This is ladislav's site. He created this. If you enjoy it, stay here and keep the criticism to constructive. If you find that you don't like the way he runs things here...LEAVE.
Ladislav doesn't have time for your petty squabbles...which is why he deletes comments that are inaccurate. That means when he fixes an error someone points out...THAT COMMENT IS INACCURATE because it points to an error that has been fixed. Don't like it? GET OUT.
Distrowatch comments are NOT the place to TRACK errors that Ladislav fixes. If you find an error, email him directly. Keep the comments on what they should be for....COMMENTING ON THE WEEKLY.
Don't like it? LEAVE. No really. GET OUT.
As for me, I support Ladislav 100% and say that if you don't like the way he does things and continue to stay "stirring things up"...you're a troll. And you're the worst kind of troll to...the self denying troll. You're the type of person who goes over to someone's house and then criticizes the layout, the decorations, and the way the person manages things. This is Ladislav's house. Don't walk into his house and tell him he's doing things wrong. Have some tact and if he asks you to voice your opinion or error fixes in an email...have the common decency to follow the instruction. If not, GET OUT. LEAVE. Don't ever come back.
Linux and communities don't need people like that...people like that divide communities through disregard for tact, decency, and proper report channels.
Ladislav, don't worry about these people...they are incorrigible...not you. They are so firmly rooted in their own ideals (i.e., ladislav should apologize, ladislav should acknowledge error) that they don't know how much they sound like pompous, arrogant arses who have NO TOLERANCE for anything outside their own bubbled existence.
Keep on keeping on Ladislav! Loyal readers don't squabble with petty nothings like that!
47 • Fedora update infrastructure issues (by FuguRitual on 2008-08-18 18:31:11 GMT from Belize)
hhhmmmm... I wonder if the Fedora update infrastructure issues had anything to do with something you mentioned a few weeks ago in DWW Issue 20080721?
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/people/justin/packagemanagersecurity/attacks-on-package-managers.html
48 • Slackware logo (by Warper on 2008-08-18 18:47:09 GMT from United States)
I think the new logo is quite interesting, like something taken from a book of Dan Brown. Hey, this looks like an Illuminati symbol!!! It's cool.
Thanks Ladislav for another interesting DW.
Warper
49 • About deleting (by MacLone on 2008-08-18 18:52:29 GMT from Mexico)
Well, to be fair i think its better to edit no delete, with an explanation of this action so we can understand the problem.
About the hacked servers it would be great if you can track this guys and report them to your local authorities.
50 • @43 - sorry (by Adam Williamson on 2008-08-18 18:59:18 GMT from Canada)
Sorry! I somehow totally missed that story. Ignore me. :)
51 • RE: 46 (by 10M on 2008-08-18 19:43:34 GMT from Spain)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
52 • Slackware and KDE4 (by uz64 on 2008-08-18 20:03:02 GMT from United States)
About that Slackware logo... meh. Looks too complex for a distro that prides itself in pure simplicity, and just doesn't look too good to begin with. It's an interesting concept, though.
I'm actually somewhat surprised KDE 4.1 has made it into Slackware, since I've heard a ton of bad things about 4.0.x, and that there are plenty of things left to be fixed in 4.1.x. That was a while ago, so most likely some of it's been ironed out, but more likely people just had too high of hopes and like to whine about anything. Either way, my experiences with the desktop environment weren't exactly pleasing, so I'm still nervous that Slackware is making the switch... but on the other hand, KDE must be doing something right to even be considered in a distro focused so hard on stability. Either way, I hope the end results are good.
53 • Mandriva and eeePC (by anonymous coward on 2008-08-18 20:05:23 GMT from United States)
I'm using the Mandriva XFCE version (which I discovered on distrowatch!!) of 2008.1 on my 701, and couldn't be happier. Boot times are more like a minute. Have it on the 4G SSD with the home directory on the SD card. Works like a champ.
54 • none (by Anon E Moose on 2008-08-18 20:25:39 GMT from Canada)
Regarding the boot delay. Can you Ctrl-C past it? I've had to do that on a few laptops where they were hanging during boot for some unknown reason (I suspect it was network related).
Speed is a pretty subjective thing with regards to USB drives, some being blazing fast and many of the cheap ones (like Mandriva probably uses) being spectacularly lethargic. You can restore the Xandros install, can't you? Blow that sucker away and install to your internal drive. Can't beat a hands-on acid test.
New Slackware logo is clever, but hard on the eyes. It falls into the category of "Just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean that you SHOULD" ;)
55 • eeepc Mandriva (by beany on 2008-08-18 21:15:58 GMT from United States)
I've kept Xandros on my Eeepc 900 16gb 8.9" Celeron for about 2hrs. Most of that time was spent getting full KDE desktop running. I tried EeeFluxBuntu (?) EeePcLos, Mandriva, & FluxFluxPcLos. No wifi issues with any, and the camera worked. I would have went with EeePcLos but it doesn't do a full install. So I installed Mandriva, and it has been awesome. The Compiz runs perfectly (though I don't use it). One suggestion would be Opera as your net browser, it has many zoom and format options.
56 • @54 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-08-18 21:27:21 GMT from Canada)
Actually, the USB drives we use for Flash are rather fast. We compared several different available ones at the time we went from 4GB to 8GB keys and picked one that was about 40% faster than the ones we were previously using (which weren't exactly slow). I don't have the exact figures to hand (they're buried in my IRC logs somewhere), but they're not slowpokes.
57 • @54 msi wind/ mandriva boot (by miksi on 2008-08-18 21:47:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks Anon E Moose, Ctrl-c does get you past the hangups. Well, you learn something every day. It does boot fast if it gets a straight run at it. Anyone know why booting in safe mode would make it boot normally only once thereafter, until you boot in safe mode again?
58 • Slackware and KDE 4.1 and the new logo (by IMQ on 2008-08-18 21:51:14 GMT from United States)
The KDE 4.1 packages are in testing, not the default, which is still 3.x.x series.
The new logo, though interesting, is hard on the eye. I prefer the old one over this.
59 • Comment Clean Up (by Chris Hildebrandt on 2008-08-19 07:26:10 GMT from Austria)
I really admire Ladislav's dedication for creating and maintaining this valuable site, and even more his patience with stupid/rude/useless/off-topic comments. Thanks Ladislav!
If it would be me being responsible, I would delete a lot more of comments - starting with all those containing zero useful information, e.g. "I tried distro XX, and it looks better than all other, and it works great for me." An operating system is not a pet, no need to love it. An operating system must operate.
To all of you who think it is helpful to educate other people, listen: Often it is not.
Educate those who have asked for it, and do it with respect. If you find an error in an article, you are not better than the author, actually you are far below him. After all, he has done the all the work writing it, you just read it and find an error. Perfectionism is often overrated, and keeps people from actually doing stuff.
Instead of criticizing and correcting other people, start doing something yourself. Ladislav has asked several times for well written reviews and articles - do a fine one, and submit it to him.
Greetings,
Chris
60 • RE: 59 (by 10x1000x1000 on 2008-08-19 09:37:25 GMT from Spain)
And this is ON topic, isn't it?
"To all of you who think it is helpful to educate other people, listen: Often it is not."
I'll take a note and will stop trying to make the author of this site a little bit more respectful, more critical of himself, more tolerant, less abusive with the power hе has, and more willing to hear the critics.
Aren't the bug reports one of the driving forces behind FOSS? Well, I can tell you the bug reports are forbidden here at Distrowatch.
As for the reviews - thank you number 59, may be I'll write some and will send them. Who knows :)
Ladislav, I really expect you will hear the critics too, not only the applauses.
Think a little bit over it!
How people acting like this could expect others to act differently? Deafening the opponents and amplifying only the praises not is the FOSS' way.
Maybe I am not completely wright but I am not completely wrong too.
Anyway, you have the power to delete,to create a biased image of mine, to think, to change etc.
Do what you think is wright.
61 • Some info on the state of X.Org development (by Observer on 2008-08-19 09:47:16 GMT from Australia)
X.Org 7.4 To Lose DRI2 Support
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjYzNw
"....Persistent Configuration Options For X.Org Drivers
In recent times, the xorg.conf (or formerly, XFree86.conf) file once used for configuring all static X-related server options has been shrinking in size. Thanks to more reliable EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) on LCD panels, it's generally no longer needed to manually specify mode-lines within this X.Org configuration file. With improvements for auto-detection, in many circumstances it's no longer even needed to manually specify your graphics driver and other options. However, the X Server currently lacks an infrastructure for supporting persistent device properties........
.....What the open-source X.Org development community lacks right now is any successor to the xorg.conf configuration for persisting driver configuration. This topic was brought up on the X.Org mailing list this week. A developer, Christoph Brill, had asked how a driver should store changes it has made or how should a driver configuration be modified at run-time. Simple answer: there is no infrastructure in place right now....."
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=xorg_driver_persistent&num=1
62 • Nvidia 7300 GT graphics card (by synapse13 on 2008-08-19 11:00:20 GMT from United States)
Why is it that many linux distros have problems with the 7300 GT, namely
they will not boot into a GUI. ?
63 • re:62 (by Dante on 2008-08-19 12:01:41 GMT from Netherlands)
You should be glad you don`t have a ATI mobile radeon X700 ;) You don`t want to know what trouble I had in the past using this card. All is well now after learning to cope with it. I have a quintuple boot system :).
I had the best results using Sabayon and it recognizes the card instantly. Maybe you should try Sabayon maybe you`ll have better luck too.
I am totally backing-up `Devnet` (Re: 46) here, great post!!.
Ladislav great DWW and keep up the good work!!
regards,
Dante
64 • re 62 (by Anonymous on 2008-08-19 12:20:50 GMT from Canada)
Have you tried the proprietary driver or the free driver?
65 • Slackware logo (by Benjamin Vander Jagt on 2008-08-19 13:04:00 GMT from United States)
"the old logo could not be read easily while standing on one's head"
So true, and now with the new logo it even feels like you're standing on your head when you're looking at it right-side up! ;-)
Senile Felines Designs, eh? Too much gaming makes peoples' minds start working in reverse. Spending Ages at a segA can cause a condition called Sega-mad damageS.
66 • Wireless broadband set for mass take up (by Observer on 2008-08-19 13:08:51 GMT from Australia)
Linux developers better be on the ball to develop drivers and applications to cater for this new development or wireless users will have no choice but to use MS Windows and/or MAC OS!
Optus Pre-Paid Broadband
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1032758&p=1
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Optus Pre-Paid Wireless Broadband.
Q: Why can I not use Pre-Paid Wireless Broadband with a MAC operating system?
A: Optus Pre-Paid Wireless Broadband uses SMS to confirm your service number and allows you to check your balance as well as providing included standard national SMS with selected recharge values. The current MAC connection software does not support SMS and as this is a key feature, Optus will not be able to supply the Pre-Paid Wireless Broadband service on MAC computers. However, Optus is investigating a solution that will allow MAC customers to enjoy Pre-Paid Wireless Broadband.
http://www.optus.com.au/home/index.html
Modem: Slimline USB Modem (Huawei E169)
This appears (to me) to also be the same modem used by Vodafone and the 3 Network (Hutchinson/Orange) and seems to be supported by Linux but the Optus SMS messaging configuration method will need to be supported or worked around.
67 • New distro? (by Adam on 2008-08-19 14:44:26 GMT from Australia)
"slarkwars"?
68 • Agreed! (by someone on 2008-08-19 15:28:49 GMT from Aruba)
@ 16: you're 100% right. Jesus, some people make a big deal out of nothing. If you don't like the new logo, use your own and quit whining!
69 • Website attacks, Slackware logo, Eee PC, etc. (by A distro maintainer on 2008-08-19 16:08:52 GMT from Germany)
First of all, I think the whole website attack thing is overplayed -- to put it bluntly, shit happens. My own site was hacked back in February (I was having a few financial difficulties, and it had been hosted on some cheap shared-hosting thing -- someone sniffed the FTP password -- when I reported the break-in, first they denied it, then deleted the site). Since then I've paid for my own hosting on a VPS, and -- I hope -- kept much tighter security, but that's not the important thing. I'll admit that Clem and Mint probably handled the situation a bit better than I did, although my situation was a little messier since there was... well, poor communication between my sponsors, my web hosts, and myself.
I can think of worse things to complain about than Slackware's logo. First of all, remember who's the developer -- if Patrick Volkerding likes it, then it's his choice to keep it. Personally I like it -- it fits with the whole Deadhead image he's got going. If you really want to complain about something in Slackware, focus on something like the source tree. It's still just as unreasonable to complain, if you consider that it suits his needs as a developer just fine, but you'd at least have a *stronger* complaint (much of the code hasn't been touched in several years, and a large percentage won't compile with a modern toolchain -- and there are a lot of other issues, like massive inconsistency within the build scripts and difficulties with platform support, which is why I eventually abandoned all the Slackware code I was using and coded my own build system).
I can understand the boot time complaints with the Eee PC. For one thing, ten minutes is wholly unreasonable; for another, there are reasons why you would want to shut it down, like the power consumption while it's in standby. That said, mine boots my distro in about two or three minutes, using a "frugal" installation and an encrypted writeback partition, using the standard init system and slightly modified init scripts. Most of the slowdown is actually during initial root pivoting, probably because it runs 'depmod -a' on everything because it's needed on a real LiveCD boot.
As for corrections, give it a rest. It says at the bottom of *every page*, and I quote, "Contact, corrections and suggestions: Ladislav Bodnar." Again, remember who's dictator. I don't particularly like comment deletion, since replies to the deleted comment then lack their context, but hey, it's not my site (of course, considering that *my* site, I used to go into spammers' accounts and vandalize their profiles...)
70 • *Continuing from 69 (by A distro maintainer on 2008-08-19 16:17:25 GMT from Germany)
Forgot to mention on the Eee PC, all that about power consumption said, I just leave it in standby anyway. My first laptop was an old one with a dead battery, so I've always been in the habit of carrying the brick and plugging it into the wall -- I've maybe used it without the plug for one or two hours, tops -- so battery drain's never been much of a problem to me.
And if we're on the topic of Eee PC distros, there are a few things I consider essential: Disk encryption (think about it, a machine that portable is where it's needed most); Opera (far better browser regardless of platform, but especially on smaller screens; set the toolbars to about 50% size, tab bar to visible only when needed, and maybe enable automatic page resizing); Wireshark (well, maybe not for everyone, but I think it's the perfect portable packet sniffer), and Tor/Privoxy (that's how I always browse). I haven't used any of the other distros, both for practicality and vanity, but I'd be interested to know how widely these are supported. Particularly disk encryption.
71 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-08-19 17:23:29 GMT from Canada)
Mandriva 2009 beta 2 will be available only tomorrow. It already looks quite stable on my system.
72 • RE: 59 (by Landor on 2008-08-20 07:18:27 GMT from Canada)
"To all of you who think it is helpful to educate other people, listen: Often it is not.
Educate those who have asked for it..."
Yet, that is exactly what your post did the opposite of....odd no?
No attack towards Ladislav, and yes, this site is his private site, his enterprise to make his living currently that he allows us to use, but again, also we, the readership are why it exists in "that form". But, I remember Ladislav stating, and this is not a direct quote, that he has this comments section here (partly) as a forum for those to discuss, in a democratic fashion. So in essence, some of the comments here are going against part of the reason why this comment section exists. So comments about e-mailing Ladislav instead of here, or that it's not about errors, etc, it's wrong based on what has been said previously, and, I might add, I have seen Ladislav reply to a comment about an error, that is was now fixed or similar.
It seems a lot of people have taken it upon themselves to defend the liberties of the comments section, and Ladislav. Personally, I think the man can himself, and has been more than willing to on numerous occasions when he sees fit to.
Just my take on it of course. I'm in no way trying to "Educate" anyone, I'll leave that for Teachers and Developers :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
73 • RE: 72 Missed a part....sigh (by Landor on 2008-08-20 07:22:42 GMT from Canada)
this...
"forum for those to discuss, in a democratic fashion"
should read as this...
"forum for those to discuss the information posted in DWW in any viewpoint (ie: differing, corrections, agreement, etc) in a democratic fashion"
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
74 • @62 (by Anonymous on 2008-08-20 10:15:32 GMT from United States)
Why is it that many linux distros have problems with the 7300 GT, namely
they will not boot into a GUI. ?
Politics.
Xorg now relies on auto configuration to select X drivers. Freedesktop.org has rejected patches that allow the X server to recognize the proprietary nvidia driver automatically (with a fallback to nv if nvidia isn't found) because the volunteers do not want to support nvidia. This trickles down to the user being forced to create her own xorg.conf to specifically load the nvidia driver to override the default action of the X server.
Everyone using Xorg will eventually be forced to deal with this issue because of the politics of a few, however, you can always use the poorly licensed XFree86 or Accelerated-X from Xi Graphics, you are not limited to using the software available from your distribution's repositories.
75 • Curious discussions around here (by Nobody important on 2008-08-20 14:07:18 GMT from United States)
People saying, "Don't disagree with me, because that's disagreeing, and disagreeing is bad."
If you don't like the Slackware logo, why is it a bad thing to say so? If a distro is discussed in DWW, why not talk about it (even if it is negative). Disagreeing is good.
I agree that comments regarding correction should be deleted when fixed. I do not agree that we start deleting a bunch of posts so that nobody knows what's going on. I'm talking about a few posts above that Adam Williamson was responding to that I couldn't read.
Sometimes trolls have something to say, too.
76 • Filesystems (by Linux Enthusiast on 2008-08-20 15:03:08 GMT from India)
I wish Distro Watch Weekly features of Filesystems one day. With new Filesystems like ZFS and BtrFS coming up, it would be great if there would be an article about Linux Filesystems.
77 • Ref#72 and errors that don't exist. (by Verndog on 2008-08-20 15:13:05 GMT from United States)
Democratic or not. When an editorial error has been corrected and the rest of us have not seen it, why comment on it. We have no idea what is going on.
Someone above made some comment ("P.S. 10 000 000 ? :) No more. Promise.") that the rest of us have no idea what he's going on about. This is why it's a good idea to just delete such posts that confuse the masses.
78 • @ 74: X.org autoconfiguration (by Martin Ultima on 2008-08-20 17:23:01 GMT from Germany)
Xorg now relies on auto configuration to select X drivers. ... This trickles down to the user being forced to create her own xorg.conf to specifically load the nvidia driver to override the default action of the X server.
That's exactly what I'll never understand about X.org. In fairness to them, I don't follow their internal politics, nor have I explored the inner workings of their codebase, but in my experience their "auto-detection" has consistently been somewhere between a joke and a nightmare. It's been a few years since I last trusted X to configure itself, but I remember Intel cards in particular were such a nightmare that I ended up writing a script that grepped the output of lspci to "probe" the hardware -- and it actually got more accurate results. The fact that auto-detection is now the default just seems, to say the least, quite ill-advised.
Personally, I'm quite fond of xorg.conf. It's persistent, and if coded correctly, there's no "gray areas" or room for doubt. With X.org's auto-detection, I don't feel my computer knows its hardware better than I do. With my machines, I always use explicit manual configuration for video driver, screen resolution, color depth, etc., because I need to be sure it will work.
With the new 1.4 server, it's become even more important for me to have a good Xorg.conf. All my machines' configurations have been manually edited now; on every single one of them, I've at least added Option "NoAutoAddDevices", because it either breaks the hardware directly, or messes with something else (for example, virtualization software).
As a side note, I also usually disable the Composite extension and AIGLX -- those also seem ill-advised, although it may be my own preference since I use a lot of older and/or less powerful hardware (Compaq DeskPro with an NVIDIA Vanta 16MB, and an ASUS Eee PC), and my faster machines I prefer to use the CPU cycles for compiles rather than needless graphical effects. But again, may just be me.
By the way, if you'll forgive me for getting off-topic and rather pretentiously plugging my own code -- here's the link for the X script, in case anyone finds it useful. I don't know how well it works on other distributions, but it should be fine with recent Slackware at least (if not let me know). I'll admit, it's essentially a kludge, but until X gets their act together it'll have to do, and from what I hear it tends to mostly work:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/ultima/ultimalinux-current/source/X11/xorgmaker/
Anyway, end of blatantly off-topic self-promotion.
79 • @74 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-08-20 20:32:13 GMT from Canada)
"Everyone using Xorg will eventually be forced to deal with this issue because of the politics of a few"
Can't speak for other distros, but we at Mandriva do not use the X.org auto-detection stuff. We (actually...I) still maintain our own list of hardware -> driver mappings and write the chosen driver explicitly to xorg.conf . Frankly, the X auto-configuration stuff is nowhere near good enough yet, IMHO.
80 • antiX-M7.5 - "Toussaint Louverture" released. (by anticapitalista on 2008-08-20 23:06:32 GMT from Greece)
For the early birds,
antiX-M7.5 - "Toussaint Louverture" released.
http://antix.mepis.com/index.php/Main_Page
Release notes for Toussaint Louverture. (antiX-M7.5)
This release concentrates on 3 main areas.
1. Customised icewm. 2. antiX Control Centre. 3. smxi script integration.
All three options were from community input to make antiX as user-friendly and flexible as possible.
1. Fully customised icewm. antiX-M7.5 is probably the best configured OOTB icewm distro, thanks to the great work by OU812. Icewm in antiX-M7.5 works as a fully functioning and stylish desktop, with tools to customise as the user wishes.
2. antiX Control Centre. Inspired by the Control Centre in TinyMe, OU812 developed one for antiX. Users can now carry out desktop, admin, networking and hardware related tasks from one central control centre.
3. smxi script integration. Thanks to h2, the smxi script can be used in antiX. This script enables users to keep their antiX rolling along and fully maintained. This has allowed antiX to be incredibly flexible (even more so the antiX-bse version) If users wish they can 'sidux' or 'sid' their system, install newer kernels from Debian and sidux, install graphics drivers (ATI and nVidia), install other desktop environments such as xfce, kde, and install virtualbox and lots more!
Main upgrades from VETËVENDOSJE!(antiX-M7.2)
* abiword version 2.6.4
* abiword plugins added
* iceweasel 3
* Rox-filer 2.7
* python 2.5
* eeepc-acpi-modules and scripts added
* mybashburn added
* smxi script added
* improved remaster script
* lxappearance added
* pcmanfm filer added
* icemc added
* ario replaces gmpc
* abscreen (from absolute linux) added
* nitrogen added
All apps: apt-get dist-upgrade on 20 August.
Have fun!
81 • Another good DWW (by Jon on 2008-08-21 00:44:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
Good read I like to hear the eeepc getting a mention I thought I was the only eeepc user about that hadnt wiped linux from their eeepc.
Keep up the good work ladislav!
82 • re: comments (by ned on 2008-08-21 01:17:07 GMT from Austria)
I do welcome the deleting of irrelevant comments - it makes my reading of distrowatch weekly easier not having to wade through a lot of useless stupidity.
It's harder for Ladislav, though - now _he_ has to do it ... but at least it saves many people some valuable time.
83 • Ref#76 FileSystems (by Verndog on 2008-08-21 02:03:44 GMT from United States)
I missed your comment on NEW file systems. Sounds like a great idea. I have followed several comparisons on most of the linux fs but haven't seen the new ones you found. I tend to stick with ext3.
84 • Re file systems - comments 76 and 83 (by ? on 2008-08-21 03:41:29 GMT from Canada)
Re comments 76 and 83:
Agreed - anything on new file systems WOULD be of interest. Especially what's happening with ext4 versus Reiser4, and any new alternatives. There have been mentions of alternatives in posts of previous weeks, but any FIRST hand experience re stability, file deletion and recovery, and use with large multimedia files and streaming would be helpful here. What about if you are running a large database across a country wide network of retail stores. What about hidden dangers (eg. I recall a reference to being able to hide data in NT filesystems in some sublevel where the operating system wouldn't normally see it). The only inclusive reference I've come across is "Linux Filesystems on Sam's Books by William von Hagen ISBN 0-672-32272-2 Library of Congress Card # 2001093563 First edition 2002 - so probably a little dated now (though it does cover JFS and XFS). Anyone know of any good online references where you don't have to pay money to read someone's research paper? (most of us aren't doing this for a living - we just want to install the best system for whatever it is we need to do!)
85 • the cycle of linux (by zack d. on 2008-08-21 10:53:32 GMT from United States)
i see the mandriva team tells us to not use there betas over previous releases as an upgrade, almost obvious mistake with most distros, and also to keep the "test" attitude in mind by keeping the release off of critically needed machines.
this all is just common sense, but it made me wonder again about the "life" of a final release of mandriva. well, about any linux distro: how long have we been able to keep from reinstalling after finding the right one for our particular machines?
for me it has been since the final release of pclos 2007. still on the old pc i have at home. now that is coming to an end.
anyone have a distro on for years?
86 • cycle of mandriva (by Anonymous on 2008-08-21 12:24:54 GMT from Canada)
Mandriva 2008.1 will be supported 1 year and 6 months. Here is more info: http://www.mandriva.com/en/mandriva-product-lifetime-policy/
87 • @66 Wireless Broadband (by Anonymous on 2008-08-22 05:50:33 GMT from United States)
Man really sorry to hear that. I've been using Wireless Broadband through a USB modem since February. Just went up to $60 month and I've downloaded 10 gig already this week. -Linux Mint Fluxbox
Things must be tough down under?
88 • KDE4 in Slackware and Debian Stable (by manifold on 2008-08-22 07:41:04 GMT from Finland)
Slackware tests KDE 4.1? Cool.
Also the next stable version of Debian (5.0 aka "Lenny") offers KDE 4.1 as a backport.
http://kde4.debian.net/
Both Slackware and Debian Stable are known for their conservatism when it comes to upgrading software, so this probably means that KDE4 is now *almost* stable. :)
89 • "Microsoft buys another $100M in certificates from Novell" (by ProLinux. on 2008-08-22 07:47:55 GMT from United States)
<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080821-microsoft-buys-another-100m-in-certificates-from-novell.html>
Hum: why would MS give Novell, 100 millions dollars?
How long will "Novell own", OpenSuse remain Open?
Suggest that we rather support "really Open distros", like Gentoo, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, etc... and stay away from Microsoft/OpenSuse distro...
ProLinux.
90 • Re:89 (by Dante on 2008-08-22 09:47:32 GMT from Netherlands)
Microsoft is getting scared I would say :). OpenSuse 11 is one of many candidates that I would prefer over Vista :). We have to have a little faith in the linux community so I think you don`t have to worry about OpenSuse to remain `Open`.
Cheers,
Dante
91 • If it's not open it's not LINUX (by Chris on 2008-08-22 10:46:50 GMT from Canada)
Perhaps we need to revisit the definition of LINUX. Or let's put it another way. If it's not open it's not LINUX. We should give LINUX software that is running astray a new name like OUT OF LINE-UX haha and perhaps shorten it like an acronym. OOLUX for short which could stand for "Out Of LUX" (pun intended).
92 • Opensuse (by Master on 2008-08-22 11:38:09 GMT from Germany)
http://lwn.net/Articles/283566/
OpenSUSE EULA
«It must be said that this distribution got off on rather the wrong foot; it puts up an end-user license agreement which prohibits redistribution for compensation, bundling openSUSE with any other "offering," reverse engineering, transfer of the software, use in a production environment, or publishing benchmark results (but only if you're a software vendor). Users are required to stop using the software upon termination of the license, which happens after 90 days, after the next release, or whenever Novell says so. And, just in case one was considering the crime of using the release for too long: "The Software may contain an automatic disabling mechanism that prevents its use after a certain period of time, so You should back up Your system and take other measures to prevent any loss of files or data."»
93 • A couple quick points (by Martin Ultima on 2008-08-22 14:03:14 GMT from Czech Republic)
@ 79: It's good to see I'm not the only one who doesn't leave X to its own devices (pun quasi-intended).
@ 91: That's outright patent nonsense. The meaning of Linux is already well-established: As a proper noun, it is the name of a specific product, as chosen by Linus Torvalds -- well, technically Ari Lemmke -- and its use as a generic term to refer to the kernel plus common user-space programs (i.e. a distribution) is based on a de facto concensus among the user community. As I'm assuming you refer to the latter usage, a rough equivalent would be to say "let's re-define 'Punch Buggy' to refer only to cars that are blue". It makes no sense, and it is linguistically impossible.
@ 76, 83, 84 (I'm replying in the order I read things, by the way): I definitely agree we need more information on filesystems -- as well as other technical aspects of distributions. Distribution reviews are good for "mere mortals," but there are a lot of more technical people here -- including developers, like myself. I don't know if DistroWatch would be the ideal place -- maybe it would be more of a niche site, kind of between DistroWatch and Slashdot -- but it would be nice knowing about the latest gimmicks I could throw in whenever I drop by to inflate my page hit rankings. :-)
For what it's worth, by the way, I currently use XFS on my development machines -- works beautifully with large files like VMware setups and the distro's ISO images -- and ReiserFS for smaller filesystems like my Eee PC. Even if the journal increases disk wear, I've had too many filesystem corruptions with ext2 and ext3 (I seriously wonder if the journal even works on the latter), and I only use those for static or easily-replacable data (initrd images, and frugal-install boot partitions).
94 • Not open not linux (by Chris on 2008-08-22 16:12:51 GMT from Canada)
If it's utter nonsense then we shouldn't complain when we're charged a couple hundred bucks to own a distribution. Things are clamping down.
If anyone hasn't noticed the internet is becoming a smaller place, less files more advertising available. I won't be surprised if linux software starts to become closed loop.
hmm, again about nonsense. Is Linux patented?
95 • MIB Live Games 2008.1 released!! (by killer1987 on 2008-08-22 20:25:47 GMT from Italy)
hi to all,
it's available a revised version of Mandriva 2008.1 One edition, that contains a lot of the best games availables for the Linux world. here is some games inserted in it: supertux, freecive, globulation2, supertuxkart, warzone2100, flightgear, kdegames4, torcs, wesnoth, opencity, openarena, wormux, gnome-games, nexuiz and so on. You can play to all of these games in Live mode, and if you prefer, you can install the distro to the hard disk using the "Live install" option.
More info here:
http://mib.pianetalinux.org/miblight/2008/08/22/mib-live-games-20081/?lan=english
Bye
Marcello Anni - MIB Team
96 • re 94 about patents (by glyj on 2008-08-22 20:29:05 GMT from France)
you should go to EOLE : http://eolevent.eu/
there will be lawyers debatting about the GPL v3
give us a report about it ;-)
regards,
glyj
97 • @ 80, 95 (by the voice of common sense on 2008-08-22 21:36:46 GMT from United States)
Please don't use the comments page to advertise your new release -- if you e-mail Ladislav directly (distro@distrowatch.com), he usually posts that information within a day or so. It may take a couple tries -- he seems to have a pretty tough spam filter (or it might just be he gets a lot of mail), but seriously, you should know better than to use DWW comments to advertise.
98 • RE: 97 (by IMQ on 2008-08-23 06:48:57 GMT from United States)
I don't see anything wrong with letting visitors of DW know of the new releases in the comment section. If a member of the release team of a particular distro would like to give heads-up to a soon to be officially release, so be it.
*Unofficial announcements* happened from time to time in the past under the comment section. Why is it a problem now?
Also, I believe Ladislav only makes official announcement on DW if the distro homepage already makes its official announcement. With details.
99 • @ 93 (by Linux Enthusiast on 2008-08-23 08:08:37 GMT from India)
"I don't know if DistroWatch would be the ideal place "
What I meant is that if we can have a feature story on DWV about Linux file systems like we had about Package management before http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20080630#feature that would really be very informative.
100 • Re: Opensuse (by Anonymous on 2008-08-23 17:15:30 GMT from Germany)
> http://lwn.net/Articles/283566/ OpenSUSE EULA
Don't you have some better FUD against openSUSE than some obsolete Beta development EULA?
101 • re 101 (by Anonymous on 2008-08-23 20:33:30 GMT from Germany)
What can you hold against Suse & Novell? Novell is a model, an example in the Linux community. Heck, even Microsoft recommends Suse, according to Novell's website.
102 • re: opensuse (by eula on 2008-08-23 23:42:26 GMT from Bulgaria)
Yes that's just bullshitting.
The "release" eula is:
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.0/repo/non-oss/EULA.txt
There is a good reason for each of the "nasty looking" points in the BETA eula.
And they are different in the RELEASE eula!
Some peope just like to talk nonsense.
103 • Was slax also attacked? (by gocosoldll on 2008-08-24 01:18:13 GMT from United States)
Was slax.org also attacked? I can't access the homepage nor the forum. I sent email to Tomas@slax.org, but it bounced back :(
Does anyone know if something bad happened?
Thank you in advance
gocosoldll
104 • Here's what comes up when I try to access slax.org (by gocosoldll on 2008-08-24 01:19:31 GMT from United States)
You tried to access the address http://www.slax.org/forum.php, which is currently unavailable. Please make sure that the Web address (URL) is correctly spelled and punctuated, then try reloading the page.
Make sure your Internet connection is active and check whether other applications that rely on the same connection are working.
105 • Re:102 (by jack on 2008-08-24 14:36:05 GMT from Canada)
I am confused (my normal state)
Are we talking about the free (ie no cost) Suse or the purchased Suse?
(from your "release" eula)
For ninety (90) days from Your date of purchase,...
Also in the
'release' eula
You may not, without
Novell's prior written consent not to be unreasonably withheld, publish or
disclose to any third party the results of any benchmark test of the...
Term. This Agreement becomes effective on the date You legally acquire the
Software and will automatically terminate if You breach any of its terms.
Upon termination of this Agreement, You must destroy the original and all
copies of the Software or return them to Novell and delete the Software from
Your systems...
You acquire only a license to use the Software
I am not clear as to whether a "license" extends indefinitely ( as I would expect "ownership" to) or is something that can be revoked at the pleasure of the grantor
106 • RE: 105 (by IMQ on 2008-08-24 14:45:30 GMT from United States)
Anything released under GPL does not have an expiration date.
Any 3rd party software is subject to 3rd party's license. Usually there are restrictions on how you use the licensed software, especially distribution.
All licenses are subjected to termination if the term of license is violated. Retail SUSE box includes 3rd party software, therefore 3rd party lincense is part of the overall SUSE license.
That's how I understand the license thingy.
107 • Slax site is up and running (by gocosoldll on 2008-08-25 02:29:48 GMT from United States)
Slax site is back up :)
I thought for a moment there, that it was under attack or something like that.
108 • Where from could I download OpenSuse 11.1 Alpha2 ? (by Anonymous on 2008-08-25 07:33:28 GMT from United States)
I am behind a firewall, where both bittorents and ftp are blocked.
So I do need an http download.
Hope the Suse crowd will understand this.
Note that I downloaded a large file
"openSUSE-11.1-Alpha1_Alpha2-DVD-x86_64.delta.iso", but it is not an iso file!
..
Number of Comments: 108
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| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Southern California Internet Linux
SCI.Linux was a Linux distribution based on system administration through Webmin, best-in-class desktop applications, Microsoft Office compatibility, VPN connections to Windows, remote desktop to Windows XP, easy dual-boot with Win2K/XP/NT, multimedia applications for CD/DVD plus authoring utilities, spam blocker, complete set of high performance development tools, high performance video, extensive printer and sound card support, LaTeX, cluster software, and more. This distro was aimed at the student/researcher who wants to replace Windows and still interface to the Windows world. Requires a Pentium MMX or better, 256MB or more of RAM, at least 2.5GB of free disk space.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| 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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