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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • *buntu's (by Mario on 2008-09-15 10:03:23 GMT from Greece)
"many DistroWatch readers find the growing number of *buntus, or distribution derived from -- and named after -- Ubuntu, rather ridiculous. Some even think that it's happening at the detriment of the entire open source movement. After all, wouldn't it be better if these "developers" helped squashing bugs in the parent distribution instead of recreating it with a slightly modified package list and a different desktop theme?"
Thats says it all
2 • Derivatives (by Didier Spaier on 2008-09-15 10:11:08 GMT from France)
Aside from the trademark issue, it seems to me that all this energy spent for "new" distributions would be better used to develop new software. I'll stick to Slackware 12.1 (till next release) anyway.
3 • #1 (by porter on 2008-09-15 10:16:52 GMT from United States)
agreed.
4 • Ubuntu Trademark (by Eric Yeoh on 2008-09-15 10:18:05 GMT from Malaysia)
In a way I am for the Canonical in enforcing their trademarks. After all, Canonical has invested heavily in popularising Ubuntu. Would there be ShipIT free CDs be if Canonical did not pay for them?
The email sent to the Ubuntulite folks was worded well and respectful and was not confrontational; so I do not see the problem there.
I believe better time should be spent in debugging the actual distro itself and contributing to the upstream. Maybe do some meta-package install rather than to create a new distro call it whatever buntu.
Alas, these are my opinion and I have tremendous respect for distro creaters; their dedication and talent is what makes the OSS so darn interesting and vibrant. And we all know variety is the spice of life.
5 • Linux Mint 5 "Xfce" (by Sonster on 2008-09-15 10:24:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
I like Xfce. I like Ireland. I like the Irish. I like Guinness. I like mints. But Mint Xfce, being *buntu-derived, contains all the bloat that makes it into minty treacle and virtually useless on even the most modern hardware. Look for Slack+Xfce (or even JWM) for sleekness and speed. I agree - all that rigour is boring. There are some incredibly clever guys out there offering remarkable distros. This isn't one.
6 • The Buntus (by Caraibes on 2008-09-15 10:28:33 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I believe Canonical is right to enforce the trade mark. As they did a lot of marketing work, it makes sense to have their brand-name well protected.
Thanks to Debian, Ubuntu is doing a good job. I hope the project of hiring devs for upstream project (X, OpenGL, GTK+, Qt, GNOME and KDE) will start well and expand.
I would enjoy more cooperation from Canonical/Ubuntu with the Debian folks.
As much as I believe in Freedom and variety, and occasionally enjoy my marginal, smaller distro, I still believe in the big ones (Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva etc...) as being strong, firm, more serious projects...
An example of a promising smaller distro that seems to be "out of breath" now, is PCLinuxOS... It does make a case for independent devs to help the big project upstream instead of forking into yet another derivative distro.
Anyway, long live to the FLOSS folks, peace & kudos to you all !
7 • RE:Linux Mint 5 "Xfce" (by Juha on 2008-09-15 10:31:26 GMT from Finland)
I recommend Zenwalk. It's Slackware based and uses Xfce.
8 • GoblinX (by Jeimisbondis on 2008-09-15 10:40:43 GMT from Brazil)
I recommend GoblinX, best livecd using Xfce and Slack based...
9 • to be "out of breath" now, (by Chon on 2008-09-15 11:00:55 GMT from Thailand)
I think, soon you are going to bite your tongue :-)
Chon
10 • I dont understand why (by Chris on 2008-09-15 11:02:39 GMT from Germany)
All these buntus are really unnecessary... I mean.... a few clicks in synaptic and the additinal software is installed.... and changing the look isnt a big thing.....
I agree with number 1..... squashing bugs would be more effective than making new buntus.......
But i dont think that much of the foobuntu maintainers can squash bugs.... in times where tools like reconstructor and so on are available even a Linux noob can build his own buntu..........
11 • Maintainer noob? (by Douglas on 2008-09-15 11:28:37 GMT from Germany)
From 10.
Sure a noob could make a new distro with some ease but making a good one based on finding good software that works well together takes time. After a year or two of maintaining this new distro the person will no longer be a noob and whether his distro lives or dies he will become a good resource for Linux.
He might also show off some good new options or software. I know that testing software out and helping fix problems for Kubuntu is how I found the the Cream editor. Want the power of VIM without the craziness? Try it out.
I would never have happened into Ubuntu without a derivative that had a desktop I liked. Sure it is a small thing to shift Ubuntu to Kubunt but as a Noob I would never had done it. It saved me from Windows and might help others too because I HATE Gnome and would have never stuck with Ubuntu. I have yet to find a distro I like better. Using Kubuntu has taught be Linux.
Douglas
12 • Oily Eula (by NK on 2008-09-15 11:43:42 GMT from United States)
I hate every single Eula I'm forced to click on the principle that it's an unenforceable unnegotiated immoral contract. I think it's quite arrogant of the twats over at Mozilla to ram it down everyone's throat. And Iceweasel *is not* the same, as it is missing fuctionality and fonts. Plus it has a rendering bug that makes some pages unreadable. I know that all the crashing is a general Firefox thing though. It really kinda shows Mozilla's ethics over this.
Chrome FTW.
13 • @12 (by NeverMyself on 2008-09-15 11:52:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
Chrome sucks, have you seen how many 0days are available for it? Use it all you want, but don't come crying when your box gets owned by some skiddie from russia and turned into a georgia fighting botnet ha-ha-ha
As for the *buntus, at least something is being done about them. Not that I like ubuntu or it's derivatives. The keyword here is Slackware.
14 • re #s 1,2,3,5, etc (by Simon on 2008-09-15 12:08:42 GMT from New Zealand)
Yes. I'm happy with Slackware (+ XFCE) too, and find Ubuntu too cluttered and slow...however, I do think it's an excellent distribution and it's the one I recommend to Linux newcomers. From what I've seen of it, there's enough difference from Debian to justify its setting itself apart as a separate distribution (e.g. it's much more up-to-date than stable Debian but not as flakey as Sid). I don't think the same can be said for most of these Ubuntu derivatives, but I'm generally biased against "forks" unless they're clearly necessary. I've seen it called "Not Invented Here Syndrome": people with NIH syndrome don't like to contribute to an already existing project when being the "creator" of a brand new project (even if it's 99.9% someone else's code) is so much better for the ego. Why post a list of instructions and a few packages so Ubuntu users can easily set up a system like yours, when you can post 600MB of mostly-Ubuntu and call it your very own distro? This is perhaps too harsh...I don't think I've tried any of the unofficial *buntus, so may be unaware of significant improvements/differences to administration etc...but if a "distribution" is basically just an existing distro with some different packages and themes, it doesn't deserve a Distrowatch listing.
15 • Stux (by cgrille on 2008-09-15 12:09:32 GMT from Germany)
I would like to test this distribution, but the download per torrent was horrible slow (3-4 days for a dvd-iso) and a regulary download is not offered.
16 • @14 (by NeverMyself on 2008-09-15 12:10:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Not harsh at all, in fact very true. However the best distro to introduce Linux to newbies is Gentoo or Arch. Linux is all about DIY, and using constant GUIs are not going to help you learn anything about Linux.
17 • buntus/ (by jb on 2008-09-15 12:30:00 GMT from United States)
i agree with mario also,
am i the lone wolf here?(debian)
18 • Helping squash bugs with ubuntu - laughable (by my2cents on 2008-09-15 12:43:31 GMT from Canada)
All of you that keep posting that these groups should help squash bugs have obviously never tried to contact them in any way. After 2 years of posting stuff in launchpad I have yet to receive a single reply from anyone directly associated with Canonical.
Have you ever thought that maybe these folks have tried and since they were ignored, decided to go ahead with their own vision of it?
All of you that are bashing derivatives, even the mighty Slackware was a derivative of SLS which the first commercial Linux. Very few have truly original roots.
19 • @18 (by NeverMyself on 2008-09-15 12:46:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
There's a difference between a derivative and a derivative of a derivative of a derivative and so on. Slackware is a derivative of a very old, unsupported distribution, kiwibuntu based on the edubuntu xfce banana edition or something stupid is not.
20 • Still to many distros (by Chezzy on 2008-09-15 12:58:25 GMT from United States)
Im a fan with Ubuntu, I like what their doing with it. I really wish Clem from Linux Mint would get hired at Ubuntu, That guy has done wonderful wonders with that distro,
That Foresight Mobile is very sweet looking!
@#9...Yea right! Tell me another one.
There is waaaaaaay to many Linux distros out there for Linux to ever be taking serious buy the general public. Ive heard to many people say the reason they wont use Linux is because they dont know which one to try, and are scared because their are toooo many to choose from. So they just stick with Windows and forget Linux. Linux needs to be down to a few. IMHO.
Mandriva is looking good.
I would like to see the KDE distros start using KDE4 more, If not many are using it, then how is it ever going to get better?
21 • RE: #17 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-09-15 13:13:18 GMT from Italy)
"am i the lone wolf here?(debian)"
No. Another Debianite here.
22 • Hey, where's Distronator...? (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-15 13:39:05 GMT from Germany)
He's supposed to be announcing Slackbuntu(tm) today... two infringements in one craptastic distro! Hope Caanooniicaal isn't *that* ticked about Uubuuntuu.
23 • Ubuntu digging a hole for themselves (by davemc on 2008-09-15 13:40:19 GMT from United States)
While I wholeheartedly agree that new *Buntu derivatives need to be soundly squashed, eliminated, killed, maimed and forever destroyed, Canonical did give the thumbs up for Christian Edition. How can they give the go ahead to them and then deny sponsorship to the other religious editions as well?.. I think Canonical should not be in the business of promoting a religion, as they appear to be doing with this move. Their choice is clear - either withdraw sponsorship to Ubuntu CE, or allow sponsorship to all *Buntu derivates that carry a religious name, ie. Ubuntu ME, Ubuntu Satanic, etc.
24 • #16 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-15 14:09:14 GMT from United States)
"However the best distro to introduce Linux to newbies is Gentoo or Arch. Linux is all about DIY, and using constant GUIs are not going to help you learn anything about Linux."
That is brilliant. Every grand parent in the world is going to dump Windows and Macs to spend months learing how to install and setup Linux.....it will be so much fun that they won't be able to resist!
Ninety percent of the computer using population are just like drivers...they have no clue what is going on under the hood. Following your logic people should jump all over a "build it yourself" automobile. Mechanics would think it a great idea...that way eveyone would know how smart they are. And you shouldn't be able to drive if you can't asemble an internal combustion engine should you? That would be just stupid.
Linux will never be used by anyone but elitists following that kind of thinking....but then maybe that is what you are wanting.
25 • #23 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-15 14:10:40 GMT from United States)
"I think Canonical should not be in the business of promoting a religion, as they appear to be doing with this move. Their choice is clear - either withdraw sponsorship to Ubuntu CE, or allow sponsorship to all *Buntu derivates that carry a religious name, ie. Ubuntu ME, Ubuntu Satanic, etc."
So...what happened to "choice". Isn't that what FLOSS is about? Until someone makes a choice you don't like....then they have no choice.....
26 • Ubuntu eee (by Chris on 2008-09-15 14:11:22 GMT from Canada)
Nice layout indeed.
Looks like the window is an applicaton. Photoshop, AutoCAD or any other application like that has menus down the left and right side. Makes complete sense to set up a desktop like this. Maybe others will follow suit.
27 • Ubuntu NB Remix for EeePC (by viktor on 2008-09-15 14:18:08 GMT from France)
By the Eeebuntu (to be renamed also) has issued a NBR edition v1.0 in July (RC1 was available a couple of months before).
28 • random thoughts for a Monday morning DWW thread (by toasty toes on 2008-09-15 14:18:13 GMT from United States)
The idea that permeates throughout this site and many others regarding open source is that we as a community can take something that someone has released and make it better.
I don't quite have bias toward any specific distribution (use the best tool for the job philosophy), but like it or not, Ubuntu has changed the GNU/Linux landscape, and has benefited the entire community already. The amount of forks have diluted this benefit, but only slightly. Canonical has every right to enforce their policies.
I think Mint has done good things to offer improvements to an existing product.
Some things that would help improve Ubuntu (and others) that doesn't involved creating a new spin:
- improve upstream development and infrastructure
- improve INIT (parallel procs)
- improve security overall (SE Linux, standard corporate builds, etc.)
- someone somewhere needs to do something about Xorg. (why does a desktop need to run Xserver? isn't it overkill?)
As for Slackware, it is run from the shoulders of one man, and as such, is extremely dependent on Mister Volkerding's health. If that fails, at least parts of the "Slackfrastructure" will likely fail, and those that have production servers based on it will need to start looking for alternatives - eventually. (remember all those who jumped ship when he had a mystery health problem in 2004-2005?) Forks of Slack would be the only thing that could preserve it's ideology.
as always, thanks and have a good week, Ladislav!
29 • Effort Convergence (by Nikhil Sinha on 2008-09-15 14:27:18 GMT from India)
I am wondering if all Ubuntu derivatives combine their effort and built Ubuntu as the strongest, more stable, more feature rich...
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
“United we stand; divided we fall”
30 • #14 (by mario on 2008-09-15 14:27:45 GMT from Greece)
"This is perhaps too harsh...I don't think I've tried any of the unofficial *buntus, so may be unaware of significant improvements/differences to administration etc...but if a "distribution" is basically just an existing distro with some different packages and themes, it doesn't deserve a Distrowatch listing."
I agree with that. Most of them will not live long enough to justify the entry anyway. Its parasitic for linux and spam for DW.
31 • Firefox also digging hole for itself (by Ronald Sarcaoga on 2008-09-15 14:31:03 GMT from Philippines)
I think Mozilla is acting like how the XFree86 project acted before. All this does is reduce the user base of Firefox (for those who use the browser in Linux). This is not a good time, considering the upcoming arrival of Google Chrome for Linux. Also, there are a lot of browsers out there for competition, including recompilations of the Firefox source code itself (which are not anymore identified as Firefox). If this goes on, Firefox's share of users will definitely drop. If Mozilla is not threatened by this, then the company may just be acting high and mighty without considering its current position.
32 • @16 o.0 (by Anon E Moose on 2008-09-15 15:13:49 GMT from Canada)
Thinking back to when I was first exposed to Linux. A gearhead suggested I try Debian or Slackware. Well, I couldn't even figure out which file to download from the Debian site that would give me the appropriate install CD.
Another gearhead suggested Libranet, and that was by far a more enjoyable experience.
I can think of no better way to turn a new user completely away from Linux than to toss them some gearhead distribution like Gentoo.
Unless your comment is targeting OS enthusiasts rather than actual computer users (the people who use apps and don't really give a darn what runs under them so long as they can set their background, mouse cursors, and sound events).
Even I won't waste my precious free time in jumping through the obstacle course that is a Gentoo install. No OS is worth that sort of effort to me, having the vestiges of a life and all beyond the computer room.
33 • New Buntus (by Xpress on 2008-09-15 15:22:26 GMT from United States)
I think that the best Linux Distro is the one people are willing to use. Ubuntu has a good distro but I found problems with it on computers where Debian works just fine. Tex has built a great distro and I recommend PCLOS 2007 for use by noobies and Minime 2008 if space is limited.
Ubuntu unlike Debian does not work on older boxes and if they are unwilling to make it available for these computers they should cooperate with a distro like Ubuntu-Lite which is at least trying to do this.
As far as Mozilla is concerned they would be better served by making there Browsers available to as many users as possible and not limit it by the use of their EULA.
I really think that instead of messing with Ubuntu they should just go to the base distribution and improve Debian which is already very stable, easy to add onto and easy to customize and has good security.
34 • Too many distros, part 8,390,052 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-09-15 15:40:50 GMT from United States)
Yet again, the too many distros argument.
I don't understand why we need Linux at all. Just use Windows. It will do what you want. Heck, there are too many Windowses too. XP Professional is all we need.
What, you don't like *my* choice? You mean you want to use the OS that is closest to *your* needs and preferences? Screw your needs and preferences. If XP Pro is the only OS, we have achieved the goal of having only one OS, otherwise my head will hurt because it gives me a headache to have choice.
35 • @34 (by Anon E Moose on 2008-09-15 15:50:47 GMT from Canada)
I fail to see the validity of comparing a handful of Windows variants, all of which are based on a single "distribution" for a given generation, where the sole difference between them are feature limitations put in place in order to market the thing to different economic brackets, to the state of Linux, where not even the kernel version is the same across all distributions.
A huge Buffet offers piles of choice. Doesn't necessarily mean the food is worth a damn.
36 • *buntu (by Vakkotaur on 2008-09-15 15:55:08 GMT from United States)
It's Canonical's trademark so they get to set the rules for playing with that ball. Still, *buntu does immediately indicate the source - whether that means "try this out" or "avoid this one" to a person, it is a useful thing to know and the less digging the better. How many Slack* or *Slacks are there? At least a couple or something phonetically close, but many Slackware based things don't come out and say it so plainly. Any *hats? Man*? *drivas? Yes, I know about PCLinuxOS, I'm using it.
The idea that there's no need for any other than plain Ubuntu isn't quite right. Sure, if it installs as is and you know what you don't want and do want you can tweak it with synaptic. The variations arrive pre-tweaked. I could see the argument if there a minimalist Ubuntu (by Canonical) that was enough to have a truly minimal window manager (icewm? fluxbox? nothing even as heavy as XFCE) and synaptic - then whatever system it could be installed on wouldn't need to be very beefy. And it would be customizable without being cluttered. Of course, the same claim can be made about any major distribution, and many minor ones as well.
37 • RE: 23, Sponsorship? Where did you hear that? (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-09-15 15:58:32 GMT from United States)
What do you mean sponsorship of Ubuntu CE. I agree with you that the derivatives with the Ubuntu name should be stopped but I know of no sponsorship of Ubuntu CE or Ubuntu ME by Canonical. As for Ubuntu Satanic Edition, Mr. Shuttleworth has no problem with it.The only ones who won't list their distribution is DW. DistroWatch said that it would offend some people. I wonder how many other distributions have not been listed because of censorship?
38 • too many distros (by Chris on 2008-09-15 16:18:36 GMT from Canada)
I agree, there are too many distros. Linux is interesting and in some respects better but I still use windows and probably will for a quite a while.
39 • "Contributing upstream" (by Duhnonymous on 2008-09-15 17:05:35 GMT from United States)
This is a lot easier said than done. Have any of you actually tried to contribute upstream? Depending on the project, it may range from easy to practically impossible.
40 • Too many distros (by RollMeAway on 2008-09-15 17:12:51 GMT from United States)
If user "A" wants to share their idea of the perfect desktop, perhaps they could export their user directory (less any personal data), along with a list of applications used. This would include wallpaper, icons, layout etc. Create a package called "DesktopXYZ".
Then an interested person "B" could download and install package "DesktopXYZ" on their computer. That script which would create a new user on "B" s computer, import "A" s user directory and insure all the required apps are installed. Then "B" could log on as user "A" to experience it, on their own computer.
Crudely described, but you get the idea.
I think this would cover many of the derivatives we've seen lately.
41 • @12 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-09-15 17:16:32 GMT from Canada)
Chrome? That would be the browser that a) has an EULA and b) has no functioning Linux version yet? Yep, sounds like a winner.
42 • Ubuntu Satanic Edition (by satan666 on 2008-09-15 17:16:34 GMT from Canada)
Why Ubuntu Christian Edition is listed here at DistroWatch? It offends me. Ubuntu Satanic Edition should be allowed here just like any other Ubuntu Crap Edition.
43 • A solution for religious editions of Ubuntu (by Adam Williamson on 2008-09-15 17:18:23 GMT from Canada)
On religious editions of Ubuntu - there is a third way. Don't sanction one specific religious edition, or a whole bunch of them: force them all to come together and make one big non-denominational Ubuntu Religious Edition.
In the best case, it would be either a great step forward for harmony between religions. Even if that didn't work out, it'd be HELLA fun to watch the flamewars.
44 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-09-15 17:26:14 GMT from United States)
I see that PC-BSD-7 was just released. If you want to give it a spin:
http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/21/11/
45 • @32 - I agree! (by gnobuddy on 2008-09-15 17:26:29 GMT from United States)
Even I won't waste my precious free time in jumping through the obstacle course that is a Gentoo install. No OS is worth that sort of effort to me, having the vestiges of a life and all beyond the computer room.
=========================================
After using Gentoo almost exclusively on all my Linux boxes for four or five years, I have come to the same conclusion. I always hated the tedious, time-wasting mess that is a Gentoo install, but suffered through it for the very significant speed benefit, the excellent documentation, and the knowledge that I could install just about any package I wanted, even the relatively obscure ones like CRRCSIM, Xcircuit, and Qcad.
What changed? Kubuntu became good enough with version 8.04. And fast PC hardware got much cheaper, so I can tolerate the much slower speed of the 'Buntu's - all it took was a $90 ECS mobo/dual-core Athlon 64 combo from Fry's. And let's not forget that Gentoo provides absolutely no way to stay up to date with the latest security problems, while the *buntu's provide immediate notification with a desktop applet, and the possibility to automatically apply all security updates if you so choose.
I still feel desktop Linux has gone off track somewhere in the last decade, since it now runs molasses-slow and requires ever faster hardware with each new version, just like Windows does. However, as long as I have to choose between one bloated molasses-slow OS and another, I'll always go for the Free/Open Source one. So Linux it is.
Every once in a while, though, I can't help sighing wistfully for the enormous promise that BeOS once held out, before it died an ignoble death. A modern OS that was FAST - what a concept!
-Gnobuddy
46 • 39 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-09-15 17:27:56 GMT from United States)
Right on the money. A point I have also made many times. I dare you, try to 'improve' Ubuntu by getting them to change their default colors. Or get them to change _anything_ important. Won't happen.
I could understand the problem if you were forced to use the derivatives. You're not. And newbies are not going to be confused by the choice of Ubuntu vs. Crux.
47 • copyright by ubuntu (by linuxdog1 on 2008-09-15 17:48:46 GMT from United States)
copyright issues are just like cost issues. mandrivia costs more than windows when you really look at it, copyright complaints have much the same effect.
mephis started posting little notes about copyright enforceable in america...as it enjoyed even up to number 1 status, now the last i looked it was around number 17.
mandrivia made the alert that ubuntu was going to be free until it reached market share then things would change. mandrivia was the one who wrote that book to begin with as their own memberships had went from about 60 dollars a year to 120 dollars.
personally, i found ubuntu had manipulated code such that it was no longer an interest to me to use any ubuntu because i could never be sure what did or did not work. so as ubuntu flexes, it don't and won't affect my life. as for the "too many ubuntus" i threw them in with ubuntu. problem solved.
i still keep going back to one linux and i have others start their linux experience with it and that is texstar's pclinuxos2007.
smaller distributions still hang with dsl and puppy.
microsoft has recently stated that they know children have birth certificates and want to make the internet safe for them. and, they also know that children reach the age of majority and then microsoft will still have the data. this also blends with china and the eu wanting to tame the internet which is laughable as all governments lie, cheat, steal, imprision and murder including the usa. given that, computer useage in the future could actually decline from apathy.
the ultimate computer and os as of now for younger people is their cell phone.
48 • Too many distros yes but... (by MacLone on 2008-09-15 17:48:55 GMT from Mexico)
Agree, there are too many distros which just change the wallpaper and the software selection trying to make you think of a new distro...well, they can do whatever they want, it's free anyway, use it if you like it. There are others like Linux Mint which takes ubuntu base but develops new stuff for it making it well worth it just like a full new distro, this is what makes all the difference.
49 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-09-15 17:55:59 GMT from United States)
@ #45
5 years and you never heard of GLSA?
50 • Mandriva is free (by satan666 on 2008-09-15 18:17:41 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (disrespectful).
51 • Issue with the issue (by hk47 on 2008-09-15 18:18:57 GMT from Germany)
Just a nitpick, but since last week's DWW has been "this year's 36th issue of DistroWatch Weekly", shouldn't this week's issue be 37th?
52 • Ubuntus and such... (by ezsit on 2008-09-15 18:21:18 GMT from United States)
"On religious editions of Ubuntu - there is a third way. Don't sanction one specific religious edition, or a whole bunch of them: force them all to come together and make one big non-denominational Ubuntu Religious Edition."
Why? Companies, like individuals should have free choice in their religious beliefs and practices. If a company wants to support one religion and not others, who are you or anyone else to say they should not do so? If you are a customer of said company, you can voice your opion through the marketplace. Seeing as how most people who use Ubuntu never have to pay for it and are at the mercy of Canonical, what are you complaining about?
53 • Mandriva compared to PCLinuxOS (by satan666 on 2008-09-15 18:27:25 GMT from Canada)
In my opinion Mandriva is better than PCLinuxOS.
PCLinuxOS went up in DW rankings and then went down in a hurry. It is not a stable, reliable contender. It does not have the resources to become and remain a major distro.
It is true that Mandriva has had its ups and downs but Mandriva has been around for more than 10 years. And most of this time it has been a solid major distro.
54 • RE: 52, More at stake than religious beliefs. (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-09-15 19:11:03 GMT from United States)
I'm not sure what you are talking about but Canonical does not sanction one religious distro or belief over another. What will happen when you start mixing religion with business or government is you get bias treatment always. Then they will start censoring what they think is wrong in their eyes, and that is even worst if the business is a information website for example like DistroWatch. Religious beliefs and practices should be left up to private individuals and not up to business or government.
55 • Too many *buntus ,,, said ,,, very said :D (by WerewolfC on 2008-09-15 19:12:04 GMT from Romania)
Hi!
I'm not a fan of this distro (which doesn't mean that i hate it... just to be clear) and i don't worry about it's future, because those distros ("just add a theme and upload it" distro ) are history before they're born.
About the rest of the distros , comunity based distros, that brings something new, inovative, "something else" i'm worried about.
Romans, in their wars had a tactical scheme "Divide and conquer" (Divide et impera).
I think this scheme is aplied on some distros .... not by Win trolls ,,,, even worst,,,, by the
56 • Really! (by dooooo on 2008-09-15 19:13:02 GMT from Jordan)
"There are some specific goals that we need to meet in Jaunty. One of them is boot time. We want Ubuntu to boot as fast as possible - both in the standard case, and especially when it is being tailored to a specific device."
Ubuntu is the distro I recommend to my friends . I am a Debian (Sid) user and with Ubuntu I can ssh to a friend's machine and work with commands I'm familiar with .
That said , I don't know what's wrong with the Ubuntu guy I quoted . Why he always presents himself as the man who shows at the end of the day and saves it .
Debian started working on enhancing the boot experience for more than a year . Combining 'Dependency based boot sequence' (1) with other tools (2) like dash (Debian lightweight shell) made It possible to decrease boot times among other advantages .
Now what is the great innovation Ubuntu users will enjoy and praise all over the world . Maybe a magical lightweight shell named 'Ubash' combined with the innovative usage of insserv !
____________
(1) http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot
(2) http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/05/msg01119.html
57 • Too many *buntus ,,, said ,,, very said :D - continued (by WerewolfC on 2008-09-15 19:16:07 GMT from Romania)
by it's own fans.
So instead of having xyz distributions based on X distro, it will be better that those programmers would join the original teams and start improving the distro they love some much.
58 • Ubuntu Satanic, helping upstream, ... (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-15 19:19:53 GMT from United States)
I agree that Ubuntu Satanic Edition should be listed -- if we're going to propagate the "too many distros" problem, we can at least be fair and consistent. I personally find the earnest Christian Edition more offensive than the tongue-in-cheek Satanic Edition, partially because of the "propagation problem" and partially because of my own religious views.
The whole "helping the upstream project" argument is fallacious for numerous reasons. First, it takes different skills to maintain a distro of third-party programs than it does to maintain an individual, original program. I'll be honest: I know just enough C/C++ that I can write the occasional patch here and there, but I couldn't develop a full-featured application in either language to save my life. There's also the aforementioned problems of upstream not helping matters, and the matter of those (like most of the *buntu "developers") who have nothing useful to contribute besides a slightly different color scheme.
By the way, which "upstream" should we focus on, anyway? In my opinion, most of the effort in open-source should be focused on individual applications, rather than distros -- in particular, I'd hate to see the continued propagation of private patches like many of the larger distributions (Debian's a particular favorite) use.
59 • RE: 45/32 (by Gentoo_user on 2008-09-15 19:42:31 GMT from Netherlands)
@45
And let's not forget that Gentoo provides absolutely no way to stay up to date with the latest security problems
Ever heard of glsa check? You can automate the whole update /notification procedure if you want. There's also a glsa notification icon available
@32
Even I won't waste my precious free time in jumping through the obstacle course that is a Gentoo install. No OS is worth that sort of effort to me, having the vestiges of a life and all beyond the computer room.
Did you ever install Gentoo? Then you should know it's not that hard. Ever heard of stage4?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Currently it is better for user to install something like Debian / Gentoo / Arch. Computers aren't cars, things will break, fast.Then knowledge to fix things comes in handy. Eventually users will have to learn to deal with a broken X, f00bared kernel upgrades etc. The truth is Linux is still miles away from the 'userfriendlyness' of Mac and Windows. Until it becomes just as user friendly having some knowledge about your system is a benefit.
60 • @49 (by Gentoo_user on 2008-09-15 19:44:12 GMT from Netherlands)
LOL
61 • RE: #58 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-09-15 20:06:09 GMT from Italy)
"I agree that Ubuntu Satanic Edition should be listed"
LOL, I didn't know that existed for real.
At least that is a funny one.
Pity I don't like heavy metal music.
62 • re 61 (by satan666 on 2008-09-15 20:24:04 GMT from Canada)
You don't have to. Death Metal will do.
63 • Correction in Ubuntu Eee Live USB section concerning UNetbootin (by Geza Kovacs on 2008-09-15 20:45:08 GMT from United States)
"There are instructions for transferring the ISO image to a USB device, but they require a third-party tool and several extra libraries, and seem to work correctly on an Ubuntu system only."
UNetbootin (the "third-party" tool you mentioned, which I happen to be the creator of) happens to work perfectly on Windows, which basically everyone has access to, without any "external libraries".
As for running on non-Ubuntu distributions, it works perfectly on basically any mainstream desktop Linux distribution, so long as the "vol_id", "7z", and "mtools" commands exist (which are included in basically every mainstream desktop Linux distribution, aka Fedora, openSUSE, etc, or are at least available in their repositories). No "external libraries" are required; Qt4 is statically linked into both the Windows and Linux versions.
64 • Ubuntu Heavy Metal Edition (by satan666 on 2008-09-15 21:17:06 GMT from Canada)
Hey I have an idea. How about forking Ubuntu Satanic Edition to create Ubuntu Heavy Metal Edition that would make it really easy to listen heavy metal music? Would Ubuntu HME be offensive too?
65 • 59 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-09-15 21:20:18 GMT from United States)
> The truth is Linux is still miles away from the 'userfriendlyness' of Mac and Windows.
In what way? I don't use a Mac all that much, but I regularly use Windows, and I don't see it as more user friendly. I find dealing with security on Windows to be much more confusing than anything on Linux. Updating/installing software is far easier on Linux.
Perhaps there are some cases where installing non-free software or new hardware is more difficult in Linux.
My Slackware system, once set up, requires very little maintenance. I just use it. No messing with anything. Just firing up gslapt every few weeks to install security updates.
66 • AKA Topic of weak -Issues ? (by Nags for NuBs on 2008-09-15 21:42:59 GMT from Canada)
@ # 32
Your impressions only re-enforce what any Gentoo devotee cautions Linux tire-kickers
> Sources -based are often not suitable for the majority of *casual* desktop user
OTOH, what is your singular definition of "an actual user"
> Only those who may share your views ?
Why should biased opinions define an *Linux enthusiast* as - (atypical idioms: gearhead, geek, pseudo-guru)
Power users/Linux enthusiasts tire of digs - categorise them as spoon-fed wannaBs
@ # 45
You were on track Re documentation/ability to install (sometimes more valuable- safely UN-install)
most anything desired
If you had read more Docs - as mentioned by other posters - GLSA/security announcements
~ there for those who "wasted" time informing themselves
When did you learn more - when (own) glitches occured - or you blindly trusted, (hopefully) *everything* just-worked ?
How many Duhs were a result of own lack of understanding... WTH IS hidden behind cute eye-candy
Opinions are just that - good or bad experiences, often missing the point of any sources-based offering
All is in hands of those who want to (actually) use flexiblity - whether that translates to power-user/specific needs:
OR - ease of use for *you*
Gentoo etal development philosophy is same as most - specifically targeted as (platform of choice ?) - To better serve needs of OSS enthusiasts
If that gets "tedious" look elsewhere, we hope you will be happy w/your chosen "life"
For a more balanced outlook Plse note :
http://iso.linuxquestions.org/
What should DWW be defined as - for gleaning impressions of offerings -or just yet another convenient platform to blog
67 • PCLinuxOS (by George Appleton on 2008-09-15 21:57:18 GMT from Australia)
What I would like to know is, why hasn't there been a new version of PCLinuxOS since May 2007?
I know there are other derivatives of this distro, but not an updated KDE one.
I have been using PCLinuxOS as my main desktop since the early versions and would not like to see it die off.
(I'm not an advanced Linux user)
68 • @ 59: A modest proposal... (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-15 22:09:05 GMT from United States)
> Currently it is better for user to install something like Debian / Gentoo / Arch. Computers aren't cars, things will break, fast.Then knowledge to fix things comes in handy. Eventually users will have to learn to deal with a broken X, f00bared kernel upgrades etc. The truth is Linux is still miles away from the 'userfriendlyness' of Mac and Windows. Until it becomes just as user friendly having some knowledge about your system is a benefit.
If you'll forgive the reductio ad absurdum here -- you're basically saying that, until Linux is user-friendly enough to be mainstream, we have to act like it's as user UN-friendly as possible? Most non-techies I know don't like learning new things, it's as simple as that. And even the techies will avoid it if they can.
I find Linux to be much more intuitive than Windows, but the fact is I've been developing it close to four years now (and using it as a "mere mortal" for five). My main complaint has been the same the entire time -- hardware support. X configuration is enough of a bitch already, but don't get me started on (among other things) the three mutually-incompatible NVIDIA drivers, and the increasingly less-laughably pathetic "auto-detection". Wireless and printing are also favorites -- although that's more the vendors' vault, for not releasing decent hardware documentation, let alone Linux drivers. It seems silly to me that I can use i.e. Linksys and EPSON, but not NETGEAR and Lexmark.
And of course, DLL hell. Different distributions shipping different library versions, and so on. (Not usually a problem, except when the major shared-object version changes, which just leads to massive breakage.) I guess that's more a downside of open-source's decentralization, though, not just specific to Linux...
If we're going to make every user learn the low-level workings of the system, how about we also force them to learn low-level C programming? Then maybe they'll do what the original programmers should have done in the first place -- made X unbreakable, and made kernel upgrades un-f00barable, and so on. Makes sense to me, anyway.
69 • Pardus log in (by goatfoot on 2008-09-16 00:22:22 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know the log in for the pardus live CDs released today? I tried to log in to both live CDs, without success. Why have to log in to a live cd anyway? Most other live CDs at least tell you what the log in is.
70 • RE: 63 Correction in Ubuntu Eee Live USB section concerning UNetbootin (by ladislav on 2008-09-16 00:42:37 GMT from Taiwan)
Sorry, UNetbootin didn't work right on my openSUSE 11.0 installation. I installed everything it asked for (yes, many of the packages required by UNetbootin, such as p7zip, are not installed by default on openSUSE), but it still complained that I needed to install module-init-tools (which _is_ of course part of openSUSE default install, so it was installed). After that, the program simply reported that it couldn't find any USB storage devices. At that point I gave up.
So my complaint still stands - if you want to perform a USB install of Ubuntu Eee, it is necessary to install extra software packages, libraries and a third-party application, but even then it isn't guaranteed to work on all major distros, including openSUSE.
By contrast, dd always worked correctly here. I still think Ubuntu Eee should provide an *.img file that can be easily written to a USB key.
71 • @ # 68 (by Una bash ed sources on 2008-09-16 01:30:19 GMT from Canada)
> (" force them to learn low-level C programming )
If anyone has aspirations of "developing" own Apps - perhaps
Realistically - How about learning more of Bash (since it's the backbone of the Linux CLI)
Conversely, the only *unbreakable* code is embedded systems
The extent any user is willing (or wishes to) learn on own... seems more dependent on how dis-satisfied they may be w/present offerings
It is EZ to find fault - when viewed in retrospect
Not that simplistic when the shoe is on the other foot ?
To assess alternatives- wait to see how outcomes of (I.E. static libraries/varied approaches to Pkge Mgt)
are percieved by FOSS advocates in general
Nobody is being *forced* to do anything - use what is available/contribute or remain on sidelines.
If anyone feels they can do a better job @ X-windowing/ease pains of (mostly uproven need to) constantly "up-grade"_
Perhaps they should consider - distro hopping seldom allows sufficient time/nor then learn enough
to honestly qualify kibitzers to promulgate blanket condemnations
BTW - IMNSHO - Tasteless jokes about 'Buntu_xx are not valid critiques of worthiness
Please excuse the examples - just how much Sir, do you know of varied present Linux windowing environments ?
(E.G. TinyX / Xvesa / frame buffer alternates)
What about enlightened use of *how* to debug development of any -
http://bashdb.sourceforge.net/bashdb.html
http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl1_objdump.htm
http://librenix.com/?inode=4086
Google > "Linux executable event tracing (&/or) debugging
How successful then have you been - implementing "improvements" of other coders' contributions
Maybe - you are better qualified to speak for "average users"
than I - ( a mere 8+Yrs of Gentoo after assessing others)
W /my usual spurts ( of "gonna_learn_or_ die trying" ) - then reality sets in !
The more learned - the more I realised it only emphasised just how *much* more there is (readily available) if I wanted to know
I cannot speak for others - but it seems more is up to me - than complain when what is freely offered - is off-handedly rejected ?
72 • RE: 70 Correction in Ubuntu Eee Live USB section concerning UNetbootin (by Not-so-1337-haxxor on 2008-09-16 01:32:31 GMT from United States)
The point that was being made wasn't about getting the application working on obscure distro xyz, it was that it works perfectly on Windows, which every normal user has access to, simply by downloading and running a single binary, nothing else required, no installation necessary, just download and run. For the 90% of normal users desktop users, especially those who are newly migrating to Linux and aren't seasoned Unix gurus, a graphical tool for Windows is much more user-friendly than mucking around on command-lines. As for the other 1% of users who are too 1337 to dual-boot, and who love the command-line enough to prefer dd, they should be more than comfortable installing using the standard mount, cp, and syslinux procedure.
As for prompts for "module-init-tools", you apparently somehow horribly misread something. The only binaries that are checked for and prompted for are vol_id, 7z, and mtools.
FYI, you apparently don't understand the definition of "Library"; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_(computing) Qt4 is a library (and it's statically linked in), 7-zip and mtools are applications not binaries; fine detail but nevertheless the article in inaccurate.
73 • RE: 72 Correction in Ubuntu Eee Live USB section concerning UNetbootin (by Not-so-1337-haxxor on 2008-09-16 01:34:59 GMT from United States)
Correction to typo on above post before someone jumps on it, it's "7-zip and mtools are applications not libraries; fine detail but nevertheless the article in inaccurate."
74 • MilaX / DSL desktop app? (by KnightFire on 2008-09-16 01:38:37 GMT from Canada)
It's been driving me crazy but what is that app in the upper right hand corner of the desktops of MilaX and DSL - it shows useful stats like mounts, disk and network usage, etc.
75 • RE: 72 Correction in Ubuntu Eee Live USB section concerning UNetbootin (by ladislav on 2008-09-16 01:54:25 GMT from Taiwan)
If your application is designed for Windows only, why don't you say so? Yet, your web site claims that it works on Linux, but when somebody tries it, you accuse me of being too 1337 to run Windows? Great!
As for dual-booting, I haven't done that for over 6 years and I am not about to go out now and buy a $500 copy of Windows, so that I can run some obscure application.
As for module-init-tools, my mistake, sorry. It was "udev", not module-init-tools. The exact message was: "vol_id not found. Install the 'udev' package or your distribution's equivalent."
Finally, please note that I didn't blame UNetbootin anywhere in the article. I understand that it isn't easy to create a binary that would run on all distributions. My only criticism is of Ubuntu Eee, which only provides an ISO image, but no USB img file.
76 • RE:74 (by Sertse on 2008-09-16 01:55:21 GMT from Australia)
That's Conky. Should be in your repos. Otherwise http://conky.sourceforge.net/
The site also has info on customising it etc.
77 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-09-16 02:05:11 GMT from United States)
There's way too many Ubuntu knock-offs. Most of the derivative distributions could easily be set up as a meta-package in the repos instead of full-fledged releases.
78 • RE: 76 + My 2 cents (by KnightFire on 2008-09-16 02:12:53 GMT from Canada)
Ah ha! Thanks!
Now for my opinions: I think *buntu should drop FireFox as a default app but still allow it to be installed; and I was getting tired of all the *buntu* releases, come on people you have the knowledge to create your own "remix" but not enough to come up with a creative name.
79 • Here's an idea (by Nobody important on 2008-09-16 02:52:48 GMT from United States)
This is for all those kiddies out there who want to make a new distro based off of anything. ANYTHING.
1) Make it.
2) Do not put it on the internet.
I don't want to see it. The internet doesn't want to see it. Nobody cares. We like the spirit, now go away.
As for this discussion of what to give newbies, I for one will give newbies newbie distros. If you gave one of my relatives Arch or Gentoo, they'd blink for a moment and then yell at you for breaking the computer. Nobody in my family knows how to do antything aside from login to Facebook or MySpace and check their e-mail now and then. Newbies should be given easy distros - duh. Baby steps, people. You don't teach a kid how to swim by throwing him into the twenty-foot deep lake. Well, maybe some of you guys do, but I'm not talking to you.
As for PCLinuxOS, the distro is great, but I tired of downloading the entire system over again every install. New ISO files are nice, you know. Good news: the repositories have been frozen, and a new 2008 edition is on the way. Or so they say.
As for the Firefox hullabaloo, I do wish there would be a standardized version that removed the Mozilla brand. IceWeasel would be good, if everybody would just use one. Or somebody could make Epiphany more usable.
80 • Slackware Trademark (by dialup on 2008-09-16 02:56:16 GMT from United States)
According to TESS (USPTO's Trademark Electronic Search System), the Slackware wordmark (registrant Volkerding) was cancelled on April 26, 2003.
The reason given is failure to file the required Section 8 declaration between the 5th and 6th anniversaries of the registration (plus a 6 month grace period).
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=2uhstq.1.1
(url for the TESS search page)
There are also U.S. state-issuled trademarks, but the circle-R symbol is reserved for U.S. federally registered trademarks (in the U.S,)
81 • Too Many Crap, Too Many Distros (by Lycan on 2008-09-16 03:27:44 GMT from United States)
They should all be banned, dead, leave the big ones and join those make them better geesh..
Debian
Ubuntu
Fedora
RedHat
CentOS
Gentoo
OpenSuse
Mandriva
Slackware
FreeBSD
OpenSolaris
done :) enough choices there
82 • My Thoughts On PC-BSD-7 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-16 04:08:04 GMT from United States)
Major disappointment!
I was thinking that I could drop in the DVD and install a
FreeBSD/system/Base on a ZFS file system. No such luck - PC-BSD-7 is
using UFS-2.
No big deal, zfs is considered experimental-- I can understand why
the devS may shy away from said file system.
(That was my first disappointment)
Booting PC-BSD-7 you will notice that you're booting
7.1-'PRE'-RELASE. .i.e. FreeBSD-7.1-BETA-1.
Ok, yeah its time for you to shut up and stop pointing out faults and
tell us what you really think.
Okay!
After the install completes and you reboot into your new PC-BSD-7
system, you are faced with a 'PRETTY GUI' that ask you about video cards
etc. I chose my ATI card and screen rez and my box locked up, had to
pull the plug and hard-boot!
Rebooted and choose vesa/defaults, I had to pull the plug again & hard boot.
After this release, I'm done with PC-BSD.
83 • metapackages, MEGArepository (by technosaurus on 2008-09-16 04:12:39 GMT from United States)
The reason there are so many "respins" is because it is easier to take a system that you have "painstakingly" configured to fit your niche and run mklivecd or remasterme using a mega-distro with a large repository than it is to do it all from source or even to create a metapackage to do the same thing. Seriously - could somebody create a script to automatically create a metapackage - for bonus points update additional required repositories and redo the theme etc.
Ubuntu for example has metapackages for the official distros, minimal GUIs or command line only to be installed from the 10MB minimal cds so any respins could just as easily be installed using the medibuntu repository. (unfortunately this install method only supports wired ethernet, but it is a great way to get a system that has no bloat - don't belive me - try installing kde4 this way without all the kubuntu bloat - I went from "whatever" to "wow") Thanks to dependencies this is pretty straight forward - if you want a firefox internet kiosk just apt-get install firefox and a metapackage for firefox plugins -granted this will also require editing xinit or typing X --firefox. Point being that this could be a "kiosk" metapackage.
Then your only limit is the number of packages in the repository.
Which brings me to my other point. Why do so many people put up with the extra work required to run vanilla Slackware or Gentoo? They know that pretty much any program they want can work on their system. Can we not just have a centralized repository with ALL source packages (maintained by the developer or other designated volunteer each having a "current" folder) that could be used in combination with something like the Suse build concept that all distros could share. Way too much effort is spent on tracking these sources and packaging them that could much better be spent elsewhere.
84 • Ubuntu or Debian (by tech2k on 2008-09-16 04:31:48 GMT from United States)
Should Ubuntu have started in the first place or should the developers spent their time working on Debian?
85 • Is there a bias against Ubuntu Muslim Edition? (by Inquirer on 2008-09-16 04:42:15 GMT from India)
Can anyone clarify why Ubuntu Christian Edition is allowed to use the Ubuntu trademark but not Ubuntu Muslim edition? Is it because Canonical favors Christianity over Islam? WEIRD STUFF.
86 • Pardus, again. (by Chris. on 2008-09-16 04:46:01 GMT from United States)
I installed the new Pardus on my Dell Dimension,
no problems. Set the install Kernel options to 'Safe',
eliminate the Safe options in the menu.lst after the install.
They have wallpaper with a picture of a 'hyaena'...
I've never seen one before
-- like a striped dog with big cat ears.
The resting animal looks directly at you.
I'm using it for my Vista wallpaper now.
Very nice.
Chris.
87 • RE: 85 Is there a bias against Ubuntu Muslim Edition? (by ladislav on 2008-09-16 05:07:19 GMT from Taiwan)
How do you know that Ubuntu Muslim Edition is not allowed to use the Ubuntu trademark?
88 • @ # 83 Dinasaurs once ruled ? (by Re-spinning a sticky web on 2008-09-16 05:23:33 GMT from Canada)
Did you really think out the full implications of your above musings ?
First off, are you confusing distro-specific repositories of offered Pkgs vs a meta-distribution ?
Secondly, upstream resources for pre-Cfg'd binaries differ from
Dwnld'ing, re-compiling to customise to individual tastes, hardware
Most Linux variants bundle pre-supplied systems -fewer offer a choice of minimal text-only CLI up to full blown GUI desktops
Fewer still offer user any desktop Mgr/windowing environment they want after install
It is up to Ea. user - to then take as offered (binary -based) or build up as desired from sources (own or e-builds etc)
How many know *how* to install own App versions (+ all essential dependencies) or worse -
Compile whichever Kernel , vanilla or patched - they may want
Slackware is not Gentoo, the end-user design philosophy is vastly different
Lastly, who is to decide on any "universally acceptable standard" of versioning of total chosen
This whole *too much- too many choices confuse "actual users" thing is ludicrous
Any that keep repeating variations of above - might belatedly
decide Microsoft's arbitray control of use is simpler
Whether that is worth tolerating known technically inferior hard-coded_ demographics is a personal choice alway open
89 • Religious Editions & Mozilla (by UZ64 on 2008-09-16 06:29:02 GMT from United States)
First off, in my opinion, religion has no place in computing. That said, I find it utterly ridiculous that Ladislav puts Christian and Muslim editions of Ubuntu in the DistroWatch database, yet refuses Ubuntu Satanic Edition. Even worse, the CE developers sent in bribe money to "buy" their space on DistroWatch. Sounds like Christians alright: trying to force their religion on everyone else, regardless of whether they want it or not! George Carlin's [RIP :( ] skit titled "When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?" perfectly sums up my views on this.
Either take them ALL out (preferred), or list the Satanic Edition as well. While I'm not quite sure I would claim myself to be "satanic" (at least, not fully), I still feel offended by this because I do hold quite a few "satanic" views, and I realize all the crap satanism gets that is just NOT TRUE. It's almost all misinformation by... get this... Christians, amplified by Hollywood to make a quick buck. Seriously, check it out on Wikipedia, it's not near as bad as Hollywood likes to make it look.
More people over the centuries have been killed in the name of god (uncapitalized on purpose; I do *not* believe in him/her/it) by Christians and Muslims. Hey, didn't Muslims even have something to do with 9/11? And what about the Inquisition? Either way, long enough religious rant. I will just finish by saying that for a so-called informational site, selectively picking distros to be listed based on religion is a pretty bad thing to do. Censorship is always bad.
On the subject of the latest BS move pulled on Ubuntu by Mozilla regarding the EULA in their Firefox browser: IMO, this needs to end. I knew a Mozilla "Corporation" was a bad idea, and this is the second time they've proven it in a major way. And both times, with Debian and now Ubuntu, they made the notices just when the release of the next version of the distro was to be released--seemingly trying to force each distro into obeying their commands. If Ubuntu caves in, who knows what Mozilla Corp. will try to pull next... or who they'll attack next. The way I see it, there are a couple possible routs for Ubuntu to follow:
1. Come up with an agreement that the EULA will NOT be displayed at "first boot" (or EVERY BOOT of the live CD), but instead will be tucked away in a more proper location--such as accessing by clicking an "EULA" button the the Help/About window. This ain't ****ing Windows; not having to click "I Agree" to some legal corporate mumbo jumbo that only a lawyer should have to bother with is just one of the things that makes Linux so great. Hell, the "agreement" not even enforcable in all countries to begin with, and even when it is no one bothers to read it.
2. Rebrand. If Mozilla disagrees, screw them. They don't want the open source community using the real name of their supposedly "open source" browser, change the name. Preferrably come up with a name Debian and Ubuntu can both agree on though... no need to have a million differently-named Firefoxes just because of Mozilla Corp's arrogance. What you get is identical to Firefox in functionality, but different in name and logo.
3. Switch to Epiphany. Already lighter-weight than Firefox, it's soon going to be based on Webkit instead of Mozilla's Gecko. I expect that to further improve its performance. It unfortunately doesn't support Firefox extensions, but being a GNOME project it does integrate better in the environment than Firefox. However, it does have an ad-blocking extension (though not as fully-featured as Adblock Plus), and right there is my primary concern when choosing a browser to use.
Meanwhile, Mozilla's officially-branded Firefox should go right where it belongs: In the non-free repositories, universe or multiverse. Maybe make it easy to get in case the user doesn't like the idea of a "rebranded" Firefox or doesn't like Epiphany, but make it an OPTION, not the default. I'm quite disgusted by Mozilla Corp's actions, and have yet to be impressed by anything they did since the Foundation spun them off. Mozilla went downhill fast the second they spun off the corporate entity.
90 • post # 89 Religions re-vested ? (by Hmmm on 2008-09-16 08:06:25 GMT from Canada)
> ("First off, in my opinion, religion has no place in computing.")
Do you mean rational discussion of defined religions_ (theology)
Or mujahideen -style justification for holy- jihad ?
Neither are suitable topics for open forums (if purportedly to host discusssing Linux content)
Browsers etc. can raise heated (equally religious in fervour) biases
An aside: ~ If you prefer Gnome - you may not be aware Konqueror is a Kde "shell"
Serving as a multi-purpose place-holder for desktop Mgt/ as well as a capable Browser
(own E-mail/web-blocking of fine-grained filtering/viewing sources of site pages)
It informs if pages are non-compliant
> I pages do not render accurately- they contain bad coding-standards errors)
Addressing your topic:
It is highly dubious most > binary-based variant "developers" have more than perfunctorilly,
examined a comprehensive majority of browsers now available
NOMB - but A suggestion - why ruin your day stewing over failings of any
It is your O/System why not take back control ?
OTO foot -
I now have a vast collection of walked-in *other peoples shoes*
Some are left foot only - others, open sandeled (for toe-dippers encountering deep waters?)
All pinch - (wink) good thing I am smiles aweigh ?
..
91 • @67 and others (by davecs on 2008-09-16 08:32:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
A new version of PCLinuxOS is being prepared. There are a shedload of updates in "testing" which will have to be moved into "stable" in one go when testing is complete.
There are more people involved in its developement than ever before. But nothing will be released officially until we are happy with it.
For those using PCLinuxOS already, keeping updated through Synaptic is as good as installing the next version.
92 • BIGLINUX (by mottasystem on 2008-09-16 10:00:01 GMT from Brazil)
I recommend the Biglinux system clean robust and complete
93 • Religion, distros, choice. (by Shrek on 2008-09-16 11:46:56 GMT from United States)
Distrowatch, Canonical, or any other private entity has every right to limit or "censor" any distro, religious group, or political affiliation they want. Companies are allowed to express their beliefs just like any other person. If you don't like the belief or practice, just don't support the company.
Freedom of Distros is excellent. I do think that every ubuntu with a different wallpaper being posted as a new distro is a little much, but man do I love the constant energy it shows. Just like free press, if you have a barrage of distros people will sort out what is good. It is exactly why, even though there are hundreds of distros, Ubuntu, SuSE, Fedora, Redhat, Mandriva, etc are still the big dogs.
Long live competition.
94 • PCLinOS and #67 (by Barnabyh on 2008-09-16 12:28:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
It' actually still very usable and up to date and kernel 2.6.22 in the repository is a major improvement. I suppose they are waiting for KDE4 to become stable and fully functional for the next release.
However, in the future I'll probably be going back to something a bit more responsive on the desktop. Don't get me wrong, it's not slow, but the faster the better, and on the laptop I get more battery life out of say Slackware. Wonder why that is.
95 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-09-16 12:43:30 GMT from India)
why blame all mini *buntus, when ubuntu itself is a respin of debian!!
96 • user friendly Linux & other things (by tomt on 2008-09-16 14:33:50 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the excellent summary about what is happening with regard to trademarks.
The DistroWatch listing and determination of what constitutes a separate distro has been fine. Don't know where I'd draw the line, but listing too many would be better than missing the good ones. Mint may be based on Ubuntu, but it suits me better.
#24, well stated. It's good that there's more room in the Linux community these days for casual computer users who don't care to know how everything works.
#65, yes!... a hardcore enthusiast recognizes that the limitations with regard to hardware might "perhaps" impact Linux userfriendliness. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that we will see better vendor support as long as there are so many different Linux configurations. Standards might inhibit the vigorous creative process that characterizes the Linux community, still, I wish the major distros would find a way to get together so that vendors could afford to support Linux.
97 • Firefox EULA (by jack on 2008-09-16 15:05:10 GMT from Canada)
Perhaps this has happened because Mozilla has found that the majority of users are Windows users.
From the comments in various forums it seems that few linux users like the EULA.
Certainly a disappointing move by Mozilla
98 • Re. 97 (by UZ64 on 2008-09-16 16:40:08 GMT from United States)
No, Mozilla specifically went to Ubuntu and told them "display the EULA--or else." It really has nothing to do with Windows.
99 • *buntu silliness (by Anonymous on 2008-09-16 16:56:45 GMT from United States)
I'm still waiting for Ubuntu Scientology Edition. I can imagine the emails being shot back and forth between Canonical's legal staff and Scientology's lawyers over trademarks that aren't enforceable in all jurisdictions.
100 • The religious versions of linux. (by Earl on 2008-09-16 16:57:32 GMT from United States)
I admit that I was slightly startled the first time I saw a Christian version of Ubuntu. Then moreso when the Moslem version showed up in here.
But now I feel that it's a silly issue altogether for those of us who are not religous, and maybe a valid issue for those who are; no biggie.
I'm holding my breath for a Christian Science version so I'll never have to take it to a geek for repair.
101 • *buntus and all that (by A-Style on 2008-09-16 17:48:01 GMT from United States)
Hey, Ubuntu itself is a derivative of Debian, just like Mandriva is a derivative of Red Hat. A bit more user-friendliness than the original. It is tiring to read about all those ubuntu-derived distros. Earlier comments pointed out that maybe those devs should contribute efforts to the original, and maybe have a 'community' repository for those contributions that don't make it into official releases. I'd propose that it be source-only, and not tied to a specific version of system libs, so that it could carry from one release to another... oh, wait, freebsd's ports does that already!
102 • RE: 93, 95 Censorship and Debian (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-09-16 17:50:29 GMT from United States)
RE: 93, No I don't believe so. I don't believe in censorship in any way shape or form. That is my opinion and not up for debate.
RE: 95, Correct, so lets blame Debian.
103 • RE: 87 Ubuntu Muslim edition (by Anonymous on 2008-09-16 18:43:49 GMT from United States)
Ladislav,
In this weeks DWW, you wrote:
Of the above (and to the best of our knowledge), only Ubuntu Christian Edition has been granted permission by Canonical to use the word "Ubuntu" in their product name
I think that folks interpret the support of only Ubuntu Christian Edition to mean that Canonical is biased against the Muslim Edition. Of course, the same logic would say that they are biased against the other *buntus as well.
104 • Eeepc and linux comparison (by glyj on 2008-09-16 18:45:34 GMT from France)
I don't know if someone add this to the review Ladislav did for us, but here's the link:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=asus_eee_distros&num=1
There is a bias as the Ubuntu and Mandriva tested are still betas...
105 • @52 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-09-16 19:16:27 GMT from Canada)
It was this thing called a "joke". I'm sorry if you missed that.
sheesh.
106 • @47 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-09-16 19:23:52 GMT from Canada)
"copyright issues are just like cost issues. mandrivia costs more than windows when you really look at it, copyright complaints have much the same effect."
How do you figure that? Does Microsoft pay you to use Windows?
Mandriva is free. You can get two perfectly fully-functional editions of Mandriva for nothing, no money, zero dollars.
You can also choose to buy an edition which includes some commercial software, a shiny box, a disc, a manual, and a month of installation tech support. And yes, if you were to choose to do that, and do it for every new release which came out, it would work out more expensive than buying every new Windows release as it comes out. But you don't have to. It's entirely legal and possible to choose not to pay anything.
Try doing that with Windows.
"mandrivia made the alert that ubuntu was going to be free until it reached market share then things would change. mandrivia was the one who wrote that book to begin with as their own memberships had went from about 60 dollars a year to 120 dollars."
No, we didn't. We just say that Canonical's original business model was basically "spend Mark Shuttleworth's money", which is by definition not a sustainable model, given that Mark Shuttleworth does not have an infinite amount of money. At some point, Canonical is going to have to do *something* to generate enough income to be self-supporting. Or find someone with a gigantic reservoir of cash that s/he doesn't mind emptying into Canonical, indefinitely. We never said what that might be - as it happens, it seems Canonical is trying to build a business model based around services and OEM integration, although it's impossible to judge how well this is working as it's a private company and doesn't print any financial results. We just pointed out the inevitable about how Canonical is financed.
107 • RE *BUNTUS (by Anonymous on 2008-09-16 20:07:38 GMT from Australia)
95 debian might be to blame for the buntus but it is all the noobs in ubuntu really causing all the problems they think they know everything but really know nothing
108 • 106 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-09-16 21:27:07 GMT from United States)
Not to mention that Mark Shuttleworth has said the same thing - eventually Ubuntu will have to pay for itself.
109 • @ 71 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-16 22:17:20 GMT from United States)
First of all, I hope you are familiar with the allusion in the subject, but if not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
> Realistically - How about learning more of Bash (since it's the backbone of the Linux CLI)
As a heavy shell scripter myself, I agree that it's useful to learn, but there are limits. My original point was that most users don't have the time or interest to learn programming *at all*, and shell scripting falls into that category (even if it doesn't need a compiler).
To use the X example, shell scripting can be quite useful: For example, Xorgmaker (http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/ultima/ultimalinux-current/source/X11/xorgmaker/sbin/xorgmaker) is a shell script I use to generate xorg.conf files. But there's limitations. You're limited to the system's available commands, and even Xorgmaker is more a workaround than an actual fix.
I also disagree with learning Bash specifically; better learn generic Bourne syntax, since some Bash-isms don't work in other shells such as BusyBox's.
> The extent any user is willing (or wishes to) learn on own... seems more dependent on how dis-satisfied they may be w/present offerings
Agreed. I think.
> Perhaps they should consider - distro hopping seldom allows sufficient time/nor then learn enough to honestly qualify kibitzers to promulgate blanket condemnations
Are you referring to me specifically, or users in general? I'll admit to being unfamiliar with other distributions, since I've generally stuck to my own code the last few years, but from what little I have seen (mostly others' reports) the problems I've described aren't limited to a single distribution, but are an "upstream" issue. I think we (developers) need to focus significantly on cross-distribution problems such as this rather than everyone insists his way is better, but I'll say more on that once I've addressed "Not Invented Here" syndrome in my own code.
> BTW - IMNSHO - Tasteless jokes about 'Buntu_xx are not valid critiques of worthiness
Valid critiques, of course not. Fun, absolutely. :-)
> Please excuse the examples - just how much Sir, do you know of varied present Linux windowing environments ?
> (E.G. TinyX / Xvesa / frame buffer alternates)
Very much aware. The main problem with those is you don't get nice, hardware-dependent features like accelerated 3D graphics, and other configuration options are similarly limited. Particularly where size is relevant -- I believe DSL uses KDrive / Xvesa, correct? -- they have their uses, but what we need most right now is a stable, functional standard X server. That said, X.org has gotten significantly better in the last few years.
> How successful then have you been - implementing "improvements" of other coders' contributions
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I use mostly unmodified upstream code (except when patches are necessary, either for security or to fix build problems). Most of the improvements are things like Xorgmaker that work around the problem until a more ideal implementation is available -- frankly, I'm not a C/C++ coder (although I'm majoring in Comp. Sci., so that should change).
> Maybe - you are better qualified to speak for "average users"
> than I - ( a mere 8+Yrs of Gentoo after assessing others)
I honestly don't know what "average users" want, and most people I know don't even use Linux. But I know things that irk me, like X configuration, wireless, and printing. I don't always have time to sit down and fight with the code, for example if I'm working on someone else's system and the existing environment isn't suitable for my needs (or has other problems like severe virus/spyware infestation). When I do have time to sit down and fight with it, of course, I try to make it better in whatever ways I can. There's plenty of time for my self-glorification later, though; I know right now my continuing contribution to the distro proliferation problem isn't the most ideal solution.
Even though it isn't really there now, I think we need to make mainstream, "average user"-friendly Linux a reality. The fundamental design of Linux is -- for the most part -- less functionally retarded than, say, WIndows. It's just that there are lots of rough edges that need to be worked out.
> I cannot speak for others - but it seems more is up to me - than complain when what is freely offered - is off-handedly rejected ?
I agree there's better things to do than complain, but at the same time, the "don't complain 'cause it's free" argument is bullshit. The fact is, Linux has problems, and we need to acknowledge (and fix) them if we're going to get anywhere. I'm doing what I can -- hopefully in a few months, I'll be on the front page, not the comment forms, and credited with something a bit more useful than some half-assed misinformed opinion -- I probably won't be, but I can try, right? In the meantime this gives me something to do while I get my own act together...
110 • Ubuntu variants: Let evolution takes its course (by Web DB on 2008-09-17 00:19:04 GMT from Malaysia)
Do not worry so much about too many trivial variance in distros, stemming from ubuntu. As before, the point that they all should work together instead of forking is useless. Most of the owners are attempting to scratch their very own itches. Some are just experimenting.
In the end, most useless distros will die and the remaining will be the strongest species that can compete with Microscope Vista/Xp.
Altho their distros failed, the owners will have very good experience in Linux to be mentioned in their resume.
111 • @ 110 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-17 01:33:25 GMT from United States)
> Altho their distros failed, the owners will have very good experience in Linux to be mentioned in their resume.
"Linux development experience: I can click the 'Change Wallpaper' button in Reconstructor."
112 • @ # 71 Allusions vs Proposals (by Bashing about on 2008-09-17 04:23:43 GMT from Canada)
Jonathan Swift - an ordained priest - what has obscure writings of
literary attempts ~ to do w/"improving" Linux
> Yet another mythical foray as Gulliver's Trav(ails) perhap_
Would you equate your motives to such whimsical aspirations ?
How ironic is it - contending users don't have time to learn
Yet they accomodate those limitations to post subjective opinions
of distro "failures' on generic blog platforms
B.S. exemplified would be _ believing popularity of a falacy -
automatically conveys rights to complain
Esp in light of - many don't care enough to inform themselves after obtaining free software
by way of own choice
You are promulgating basicly the exact tactics this weeks topic queried
Why the proliferation of pet-projects that differ little to other "developers"
You use upstream feeds essentially verbatim
How will that "improve" standardising in any manner
BTW rather than "fight code" > why not master it, then apply utilities to debug all sources
E.G > set trace points, discover *why* it is cludged hackery
There is no ideal situation -
Automating GUI candy does nothing to promote clean code
Had you referred only to backwards compatibility to earlier shells
You had a mild rebuff of caveats to *limiting* use to Bash only
(Bash is in most part, backwards compatible - not completely,
but they had limitations which Bash largly corrected)
Are you not aware Busybox is a minimalised sub-set of "crippled" CLI
Btw B/Box is user configurable
X-servers *are* standarised - use minimal for most needs
Accelerated 3d (proprietary drivers, modularised "wrappers" to kernel event interupts)
are primarily for add-on GPU chip-sets, then how used -
Gaming or latest You-tube whimsies
Conversely, the problems you encounter are more attempts to automate the Cfg of OEM modules
Printers - ever use the CLI -
E.G: ( # foomatic-configure -s cups -p Epson-Stylus_C82 -c file:/dev/lp0 -n epson -d gimp-print-ijs)
Or - rather than "fight" IDE candy scripting just to automate plebian tasks:
(# useradd my_name -m -G users,wheel<<-(optional) -s /bin/bash)
(passwd my_name ->>( enter ->> confirm)
You talk widely of fixing viewed weaknesses of Linux
Where does this obsession to Make Linux "Maintstream" stem
A burning desire for public plaudits ? ("I'll be on the front page ~ credited with")
It may be enlightening to determine the formal teaching of computer Sci curricula
Is there any that explore how to formalise a development of a full operating system ?
All too many present examples suggest not - (respins vs...)
113 • @ 109 (by Backwards shelling on 2008-09-17 05:04:54 GMT from Canada)
Damn - now M. Ultima has me self referring
My post (112) was meant to reply to opinions of Martin
Plse see --> # 109
BTW your "developing" efforts should broaden your overall schooling projects
114 • @ 112 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-17 11:47:35 GMT from United States)
> Jonathan Swift - an ordained priest - what has obscure writings of
> literary attempts ~ to do w/"improving" Linux
> > Yet another mythical foray as Gulliver's Trav(ails) perhap_
>
> Would you equate your motives to such whimsical aspirations ?
I was alluding to the satirical aspects of his essay (implying my proposal that all users learn low-level C/C++ is akin to his proposal to sell children as food for the upper-class), but yes, there is some whimsical element I guess.
> BTW rather than "fight code" > why not master it, then apply utilities to debug all sources
> E.G > set trace points, discover *why* it is cludged hackery
>
> There is no ideal situation -
>
> Automating GUI candy does nothing to promote clean code
I'm aware. My approach to development is to fix the problems I know how; I'll admit my criticisms of X are based on a limited knowledge of the low-level details.
> (Bash is in most part, backwards compatible - not completely,
> but they had limitations which Bash largly corrected)
I wasn't talking about backwards compatibility, but rather Bash-specific features such as arrays.
> Are you not aware Busybox is a minimalised sub-set of "crippled" CLI
> Btw B/Box is user configurable
I'm aware of BusyBox's functionality, and its user-configurability. In a way it's the same idea as KDrive vs. X: A minimal, self-contained subset that does what it needs to, but that's it.
As far as programming goes, I don't know much about the low-level internals, but I am familiar with a UNIX command-line environment and -- gasp -- building things from source. For the record, I spent most of the summer putting together my own build system to replace SlackBuilds in my project, and yes, coding all 500-something build scripts myself. I'm not an idiot.
> Printers - ever use the CLI -
Configuring printers is fine. Installing drivers, on the other hand, is a pain. Gutenprint and HPLIP are largely OK, but have you ever tried configuring a Lexmark or Brother?
> Or - rather than "fight" IDE candy scripting just to automate plebian tasks:
Check the source of my init scripts; I have that automated based on the kernel command line.
> A burning desire for public plaudits ? ("I'll be on the front page ~ credited with")
I was being ironic. I have no interest in publicity, only good code -- I know there's better ways to market it than continuing to develop my own separate distro, and I'm working right now with a couple other projects (Wolvix in particular) to see if I can find something better to do with myself than contribute to my favorite pet problem.
> BTW your "developing" efforts should broaden your overall schooling projects
The only thing I'm going to say at this point is this started as a high-school project, largely because of frustrations with other distros. Check the source code. It's not just a respin -- maybe it's vanity, but it's vanity with its own comprehensive build system, LiveCD code (not linux-live), and quite a bit besides.
I'll continue this debate later, when I have a bit more free time...
115 • Ubuntu online store selling codecs (by drizake on 2008-09-17 12:30:31 GMT from United States)
Look at this article. Ubuntu is selling codecs on its online store because they are so "difficult to install". Is this a joke? Who has problems installing codecs for DVD and popular media format playback in Ubuntu? Thank goodness Mint is still free to download and install!
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/091508-now-playing-dvd-movies-windows.html?hpg1=bn
116 • Couple replies (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-17 13:48:47 GMT from Germany)
@ 112, et. al.: Just to get the debate on more even ground (and keep it from turning into an all-out flamewar), here's my perspective:
As I mentioned earlier, I've been using Linux about five years now, and developing it for four of them. My project started in 2004, while I was a high-school freshman, at about the same time Ubuntu was just coming into the market. My interest is largely in fixing what I feel are the "rough edges" remaining in Linux distributions. At the moment I'm shifting away from independent development to working with other projects, Wolvix in particular, so that I can focus on perhaps more useful development work.
I prefer Linux to other operating systems largely for practical reasons; I want to make it more mainstream largely because it "sucks less" than other operating systems. I am aware of other efforts, such as the LSB; right now I'm trying to get up to date with those, so I can better understand their strengths/weaknesses, and what still remains to be done.
I have no formal training or background in computer science, but I have a fairly solid grasp of a UNIX command line environment, and programming experience in Bourne shell script (including Bash extensions) and Python, among others (also PHP, XHTML, CSS, but those aren't particularly relevant to this debate). I understand enough C/C++ to write the odd patch, although I'm not at the level of programming my own applications yet. I'm majoring in comp. sci. mainly to fill in the gaps. :-)
For the most part, I'm familiar with the underlying design principles in most of the software (the kernel, GNU utilities, X, etc.). I'm also familiar with their configuration, building from source, etc. (my codebase is an independent effort, although it borrows Slackware's package tools and a few scripts). My main limitation, as I've stated earlier, is that I don't really know much about the actual implementation -- the source itself. As a general rule, I don't mess with others' code unless I know what I'm doing, the downside of which is -- as you've pointed out -- I'm not really helping much upstream. Again, I hope to learn more so I can make myself more useful here.
I hope that explains my perspective somewhat, so I guess it's your turn now. You've mentioned "8+ years with Gentoo," among other distributions, and your posts indicate similar familiarity with principles/implementations, the command line, etc. Could you elaborate a it on your perspectives so we can get on more even ground?
@ 115: I think software patents are the real joke here, although I have yet to quite grasp the punchline.
117 • @ # 116 Perspectives Personified (by Veni Vidi on 2008-09-17 18:04:59 GMT from Canada)
Your willingness to be candid is refreshing - Thank you
The appreciation of irony was noticed, but then, lacking that... self-counseling seldom exists ?
> ("My interest is largely in fixing what I feel are the "rough edges")
LOL - Which underscores Prev. reflection _
>" (seems more dependent on how dis-satisfied they may be w/present offerings")
>("Particularly where size is relevant")
An aside : That could be an embaressing slip-o-the-quip
In context of minimal X-servers - did you mean resolutions ?
Many seem sceptical, but X-vesa accomodates 1600x1200 @75Hz 24 bit
Maybe more - that is highest my 19" Crt can do
LSB is a worthy collaboration - albeit primarily focused on Specs towards portability of Apps to Linux
(vs your stated goals to standardise/unify upstream resources ?)
You may be interested in furthering efforts of Buildroot/Busybox/uClibc
> ("Could you elaborate a it on your perspectives")
"it" bit or I.T. _ would that alter views ?
Many of my views on philosphy of development strategem was summed neatly by gem:
> ("Managing developers is like trying to herd cats")
Suffice to say I have no interest in developing anything other than
perhaps > "Use it or lose it"
> ("but I have a fairly solid grasp of a UNIX command line environment")
Wink - just a slip then ?
> (". "fdisk -l /dev/hde"
> ("fdisk -l /dev/hdf")
> ("keep it from turning into an all-out flamewar")
That would be self defeating - however, I.T. should be clarified_
Many comments you were uncertain of - were more of a "shotgun"
approach to to remind first myself then hopefully others:
" Everyone hears only what they understand".
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Freud would've hated me)
Summarily -
"I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem".
Best of regards - you are not merely a user - but actively contributing
118 • Too much variety? (by capricornus on 2008-09-17 18:14:49 GMT from Belgium)
Look at it biologically: it is thru accidents on the DNA-level that evolution takes place. Evolution has no plan: it's trial and error and trial again. Details are changed, fail or lead to improvement.
Look at it economically: if you had a 10 000 people company, how would you search for improvement? Yes, by implementing teams that fight each other, competing for improvement, like P&G's Dash against Ariel against Vizir.
M$ has it's competing themes in-company. Linux'es don't: they have their teams outside, in the open, developing OS'es that excel in excellence and difference, but still are called Linux. I love 100 *buntu's, may the best be the best and offer improvement to the community.
119 • @ 117 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-17 18:41:07 GMT from United States)
> >("Particularly where size is relevant")
> An aside : That could be an embaressing slip-o-the-quip
> In context of minimal X-servers - did you mean resolutions ?
> Many seem sceptical, but X-vesa accomodates 1600x1200 @75Hz 24 bit
> Maybe more - that is highest my 19" Crt can do
I was talking more about file size. Minimal X servers are nice when you've got tight limits on disk space, but since I'm more focused on the desktop side of things, I'd rather have full functionality myself.
And I guess since my writing style just begs for Freudian analysis anyway, I might as well *ahem* play into your little trap -- I hate you forever for having a 19", my largest is 17" at 1280x1024 ;-) I used to run two of them in dual-head mode, but right now they're back on separate machines so I can have one system for development, and another for everyday work (they're "linked" right now with x2x).
> LSB is a worthy collaboration - albeit primarily focused on Specs towards portability of Apps to Linux
> (vs your stated goals to standardise/unify upstream resources ?)
Portability's a major problem. Even when you're just running software compiled for one distribution on another -- there's often lots of elaborate kludges and workarounds involved. For example, a lot of proprietary software ships its own separate versions of common runtime libraries such as GTK+, Qt, SDL, libcurl, and so on -- even though most systems should have them, there's no way to guarantee compatibility.
Admittedly, in an ideal world there would be no proprietary software, but that's what a lot of people use and depend on. Even right now, I'm typing this in Opera; the licensing's not ideal, but it's livable (nothing against redistribution, for example), and the fact is it's a better product (at least in my view) than other browsers.
> You may be interested in furthering efforts of Buildroot/Busybox/uClibc
I'm not sure I quite follow your train of thought...
> > ("Could you elaborate a it on your perspectives")
>
> "it" bit or I.T. _ would that alter views ?
I meant to type "bit"; I was typing it on my EeePC, and I'm still sort of getting used to the keyboard. "Perspectives" referring mainly to this particular topic, of course.
> > ("but I have a fairly solid grasp of a UNIX command line environment")
> Wink - just a slip then ?
Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more, say no more! But seriously, no, it's not intended.
The tragic irony of the whole thing is that my other major is in English.
> Summarily -
> "I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem".
I like that; it fits. (Is that an Ashleigh Brilliant line?)
> Best of regards - you are not merely a user - but actively contributing
Contributing to the problem, of course, but I guess it's something :-)
Regards --
120 • Firefox EULA (by Anonymous on 2008-09-17 19:04:40 GMT from Canada)
Firefox has agreed to drop EULA. See more info here http://practical-tech.com/operating-system/mozilla-to-remove-firefox-eula/
121 • @120 Firefox drops EULA (by Nobody important on 2008-09-17 20:58:39 GMT from United States)
So they did.
I still feel that the Linux community will be less than happy with Firefox in the future. We never forget, do we? Perhaps this will shoot forward some development of a good alternative to Firefox.
I'm still glad they dropped it, however. I'm just wondering about the repercussions.
122 • Re. 118 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-17 21:28:00 GMT from Canada)
Improvement will not come from low level repetition. The Linux mess is like one iPod and hundreds of iPod imitations. It will not improve Linux. Linux would be much better off if more developers work on developing better applications ( I mean really good ones like the thousands available to Window users, not like those 90% craps on the Linux), solving hardware compatibility problems instead of copying each other with a different label. Windows Vista created a once in a life time opportunity for alternative OS to grab the market. Linux gained nothing. Right now, Linux is just like the motto of this website said for "fun", it is not for serious work for the lack of professional quality applications.
123 • @ 122 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-17 21:52:34 GMT from United States)
Thank you for providing a voice of reason among these raving lunatics.
124 • @ # 119 - Train Wrecks (by Prose-it on 2008-09-17 22:53:18 GMT from Canada)
> ("I'm not sure I quite follow your train of thought")...
That "train" as you may have surmised - often gets unexpectedly side-tracked
I mused ~ How many Linux devotees have *not* entertained thoughts
Re building a minimal system to meet their own unique needs
Then discover viable offerings already exist:
Remastering, liveCD w/persistent saves are now within (relative) ease.
If/when they are satisfactory, enthusiasm may lead into giving back to a favoured project
Helps it, all benefit from expanded knowledge ?
All that from > ("if I'm working ~ and the existing environment isn't suitable for my needs")
Yes it was A.B. (or as I like to recall it, brilliant Ashes inviting rekindling)
Hope you didn't think I was implying you were ("Contributing to the problem")
(I try to respect the principles of ) ~
"It should be perfectly lawful to print even things that outrage the pruderies and prejudices of the general,
so long as any honest minority, however small, wants to read them."
Not that I am above privately indulging in the "loaned" word from a missed past-friend *Schadenfreude*
> ("The tragic irony of the whole thing is that my other major is in English.")
It is tempting to allow oneself to be overly enmeshed in virtual reality
Total immersion ?
Now I try take a deep breath, play w/composing prose:
Boolean logic (Curiouser & curiouser)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a sinful man, weak of flesh
Placed amid these temptations, I strive ~
What then do we confess within
wilst e'rer the mind (with very soul) mesh
For our eyes offend when they see not
We are as deaf, words ring not true
So then shall we strive - as once more... begin
The truth we seek, will it ever arrive_
Will vanity prevail - (the blood runs hot)
How then, to start - be... as born anew
125 • Re. 120 / 121: Firefox EULA (by UZ64 on 2008-09-18 02:15:55 GMT from United States)
Excellent. It looks like they really are dropping it. Well, somewhat. Originally they were just going to use more "normal (ie. non-legalese), but still long and drawn out writing. Now it appears that they're going to still show a pop-up window on first start with very brief information, though not requiring an explicit "I Agree" button or checkbox. Certainly a step up from their original plans, but I still don't like the idea of having to click through pointless crap on first boot of every fresh install, every boot from live CD, etc.
Personally, what I think they should do is drop the idea of a pop-up window, period, and maybe put some brief license and trademark information on the first-run page, pointing users to "Help -> About" for more information. From there, there can be an "EULA" button with all the legal crap they want to tell us.
126 • Who's the fool? (by Fool on 2008-09-18 10:36:49 GMT from United States)
Right below the box where I'm typing is the phrase:
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. (Mark Twain)
That is actually incorrect, although there are some references to Mark Twain having made that statement around the net (and perhaps he did REPEAT it), the quote is actually from Abraham Lincoln.
Just FYI, in other words, I wouldn't want you to open your mouth and remove all doubt :-)
127 • Debian lenny (by rudy on 2008-09-18 10:56:09 GMT from Indonesia)
When the debian stabble release............
128 • Software Freedom Day (by Linux Enthusiast on 2008-09-18 11:28:48 GMT from India)
Saturday 20 September 2008 is Software Freedom Day -
http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_freedom_day
Any special mention of Software Freedom Day(SFD) on DistroWatch home page on that day?
129 • # 126 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-18 12:58:43 GMT from Canada)
That might pose another "timley" debate:
Arpanet didn't exist in S. Clemens times
"Mark Twain having made that statement around the net "
Closely followed by - other poses
-The MIS - quote is the largest lie of all
Biblio : "There are "Lies, damn lies & then (*ranking) statistics"
- Culminating in:
With EULAs - at least it can be agreed to, then the offensive wording is never seen again
Bublio: "How to win freinds and influence ~ "
Reference: http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln78.html
""I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."
- The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
130 • @ 105 - Poe's Law (by Pseudonym on 2008-09-18 13:15:22 GMT from United States)
You should know better than to make a joke about religion on the internet, Adam, as jokes and parodies are almost impossible to tell from the real thing (summation of Poe's Law) d-:
http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe%27s_Law
131 • router security and linux (by Sharon Clarke on 2008-09-18 13:27:52 GMT from United States)
Hello - I am trying to get Pardus to work on my notebook computer. I have tried Mint and Mepis also.
I am wondering if the inability to use wifi is because of the security parameters I have on my Belkin router, especially the router's firewall and the mac address filtering (allowing only entered mac addresses to get into the network).
I also have the ssid set to not be broadcast, and I am using WPA (PSK) with a 64 digit key.
Windows Vista works with these security features intact, of course. I am not willing to turn any of these off but was wondering if someone here knows of a linux distribution that has no trouble with tightly secured routers.
Thanks you in advance for any suggestions!
- SC -
132 • re 131 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-18 13:44:43 GMT from Canada)
Have you tried Mandriva? If not, you can download the Live CD (with Gnome or KDE). You can try Mandriva 2008.1 or Mandriva 2009 RC1. You don't have to install it. Just try it in live mode and if it works, install it on the hard drive. If you encounter problems go to Mandriva's forums. There are at least two wireless Gods there: awilliamson and Reebus. If you open a thread you'll definitely get their attention.
133 • I just had to! (by whocares on 2008-09-18 14:11:03 GMT from Finland)
On religious editions of Ubuntu - there is a third way. Don't sanction one specific religious edition, or a whole bunch of them: force them all to come together and make one big non-denominational Ubuntu Religious Edition. < Adam wrote.
>>>>>>>>>>>What about Ubuntu Ridiculous Edition ;) ;)
134 • re 133 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-18 14:42:11 GMT from Canada)
What about Ubuntu Ridiculous Edition ;) ;)
That6 would be too generic. Most likely it is going to be forked. Then there will be Ubuntu Ha Ha Edition and Ubuntu LOL Edition.
135 • Dummy Series (by Verndog on 2008-09-18 15:26:31 GMT from United States)
All this Ubuntu nonsense is beginning to sound a lot like the Dummies books series, like "Linux for Dummies", etc...
Ubuntu for BusDrivers, DentistBuntu, Ubuntu4Divorcees, DepressionUbuntu, MachanicsUbuntu, SeniorCitizenUbuntu or SeniorsforSlackware. DitchDiggersDebian, PlayboyBuntu.
All this talk is just giving Ubuntu free air time. The subconscious doesn't necessarily differentiate good from bad , it just remembers the subject.
The reason we have a proliferation of distros and not quality applications is very simple. Coding takes talent, Remastering a distro doesn't.
136 • vernog's ironic "dummy" post #135 (by lol on 2008-09-18 15:36:58 GMT from United States)
Perhaps an Ubuntu for bad spellers? "..MachanicsUbuntu.."
137 • Sibilant Re-spins (by Raving sez on 2008-09-18 17:11:32 GMT from Canada)
@ # 135
You are correct - > ("The subconscious doesn't necessarily differentiate good from bad
it just remembers the subject").
However, ("giving Ubuntu free air time") may have been the....
@ # 133
Please sir, Have compassion
Adam may Poe's as an atheist while suggesting sonourous syblings,
But once again a rib was plucked, (via inccessant naysayers breast thUMMping )
To plague "the man"
Admittedly on the other foot however, your URL of UREeez was appopriate to weekly topic
(Ridiculous 'Buntings)
Mind, as was noted, (a modest proposal) alluded to
Wink-wink, nudge - Best agnostics say no more
We therefore, temorously beg anyone who might care
Be it casting a wide net or phishing from Finland,
You may ponder, Specious Grailing is not the only slippery catch
Paradoxically, to Babylon translate (it's written on Rossetta-stone tablets )
The "good-book" parathetically proposed *the snake did tempt*
Wink-wink, Best agnostics say no more
(The Nudge - when all was still, faintly could be heard - never "mores"_)
Another famous Poe sir once quoted:
"In darkest night the raven cried out, "Alas poor Yorick I knew him.... well"
Then flew away high above the cuckoos nest
138 • to all of the close-minded people here (by jazk on 2008-09-18 20:08:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
Who the hell are you guys to tell the others not to create distros, not to publish them and to join some other distro?! This is not a company and even if it was you are not the bosses! Anyone is free to create as many distros as (s)he wants. Nobody is forcing you to use anything so don't force the others to do things that they might/can not want/do!!! Nobody even forces you to see their distro! I haven't heard of distro spam/advertising!
You are not in charge of anyone else's life so enjoy you favourite distro/s and keep learning!
139 • re: 134 (by kanishka on 2008-09-18 20:25:27 GMT from Italy)
I think that Ubuntu: OMG Edition would be a nice name ;)
140 • re 138 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-18 20:29:40 GMT from Canada)
I haven't heard of distro spam/advertising!
But YES, there is spam/advertising.
Ubuntu does that.
How may alphas, betas, gammas, deltas and other release candidates can a distro release to get enough attention? Ubuntu spams this very site with their development releases. Not only they spam often but they spam hard too. When they issue a development release they issue one Ubuntu, one Kubuntu, one Xubuntu, one ArseBuntu and so on until the whole page gets ubunted.
141 • Ubuntu Eee is a great distro (by Ubu Walker on 2008-09-18 23:31:12 GMT from United States)
It has a few minor bugs, most of which are fixable. My usb key wouldnt mount because of a problem with fstab, and installing additional programs, like frozen bubble, was annoying, because the repository hashes were broken, which I solved by changing the repositories to main, not US. The most annoying bug so far is that sound is not hardware controllable...everything blasts out at full volume.
I found the fixes by looking at the bug reports, not the wiki, which was mildly annoying...
142 • re: 140 (by jazk on 2008-09-19 00:44:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
OK I had to say it i better way: there is no advertisement/spam from those hundreds of small spin-off distros. They might not live long enough. Spam from the "official" ubuntus exist, I will not deny it and I'll even go further to say that unfortunately has a big influence on their popularity. Example: I was using my laptop and a guy sitting near by saw my desktop and tried to guess I am running ubuntu (wrong), then he said kubuntu and xubuntu (all wrong), it was kde but none of these so I thought how brainwashed the new users like him might be. He almost thought that it couldn't be something else than ubuntu.
143 • Apt-build and Gentoo Portage (by Verndog on 2008-09-19 01:45:32 GMT from United States)
The following quote from some searching of "apt-build".
"In spite of being at an early stage of development, the program is promising. In my opinion it will be able to compete with Gentoo’s portage in the future. But as for today, the apt-build system it too young and underdeveloped to compete with the stable, mature, and easy to use portage. Anyway, don’t worry. Debian wasn’t created to be compiled by users, contrary to Gentoo. Users should make use of Debian’s gigantic default repositories of ready-to-use binaries. But who from us, the users, never wanted to optimize his system in the past and wouldn’t like to optimize it in the future?"
I was wondering if anyone had used apt-build and what was your experience?
I have no experience with Gentoo, and I'm slowly making my way in that direction. Apt-build can be use to optimize your system more efficiently according to you processor.
144 • Re 123 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-19 02:11:50 GMT from Canada)
Guess I touched your nerve. Well, it is, really is, painful to face the truth. Denial or vituperate will not change it.
145 • @138!! (by Martin Ultima! on 2008-09-19 02:21:03 GMT from United States)
There is such a thing as punctuation spam!! There's no need to use exclamation points! for everything! and in fact it makes your posts very hard to read!! and it looks like you are always shouting!!
> Nobody even forces you to see their distro!
Ubuntu. Thank you, 140, 142, et. al.
@ 143:
> I have no experience with Gentoo, and I'm slowly making my way in that direction. Apt-build can be use to optimize your system more efficiently according to you processor.
What most binary distro maintainers will tell you is that optimizing low-level packages like the kernel and glibc will yield a significant speed boost -- ditto for certain processor-intensive packages like xine-lib -- but most other packages don't gain much from higher optimization. My own experience as a distro maintainer has generally confirmed this -- it's just not worth re-optimizing every package.
A few common compiler optimization myths are more or less debunked in Gentoo's compilation optimization guide:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gcc-optimization.xml
146 • Re #130 Poes Law (by Glenn on 2008-09-19 03:50:28 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for the link to Poes Law.
Its the most interesting and useful thing I've read in this weeks comments so far.
I'm so impressed I'm going to create a POEBUNTU which will enable imps of perverse distros to create their own forks easily , (insert wide grin here)
Glenn
For those readers who are non english I am playing with the name Poe. Edgar Allen Poe was an American author of the 1800s who wrote some off beat stories, Imp of The Perverse being one of them. .
147 • @ # 143 ~ # 145 (by Portaging on 2008-09-19 05:17:59 GMT from Canada)
> ("optimizing low-level packages like the kernel and glibc will yield a significant speed boost")
Excuse me, I question those hasty assumptions:
Cleaned of non-essentials, *smaller* Kernels execute faster (boot-up_
Glibc dynamic parsing (Esp when once loaded into Ram) is for compiling
The compiler itself may be "optimised", not stripped of functions
"Significant speed boosts" are largely unsubstantiated by (often questionable) benchmarking
> ("most binary distro maintainers will tell you")
Is based on (developer's own?) subjective opinions, need to evalutate user-base commonalities
(Hint - echoes of "time" wink - nudge, may ring hollow)
Respectfully expanding on #145/143 above:
It can be confirmed - There are many lesser-considered side effects of attempting "optimal" customisations:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Acovea
http://www.coyotegulch.com/products/acovea/
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/
Carrying hardware specific optimisations too far:
If binaries are shared (own LAN or group project) they may not even run on Diff. architecture (CPUs)
If a CPU "upgrade" is in future, I.E. Amd Intel
Apps not only lose some of percieved customisation benefits - again, results are unpredictable
Software:
(Martin - you are welcome to intercede @ anytime/Re views, Esp if any seem incorrect)
WARNING - If you are contemplating a "jump" to outer reaches of mapped boundaries:
Special laws of relativity may invoke unseen events > Observer/causality decay "spins"
Please be aware:
Results are indeterminate
Some may be mutually-exclusive
Compile time is marginally longer, faster binaries are just one method to increase overall system "responce"
Users forget (man nice) niceness_factoring, fg/fb backgrounding, queueing wait-states (&&)
It is extremely problematic to debug unforeseen code "jumps"
(This is somewhat the same as problems encountered w/inherited *Polymorphism* on C/C++
Ill-defined variable pointers, may throw intercepted_event errors
> (non user-defined stderr/stdout echoes ?)
Tip: > http://www.linuxsa.org.au/tips/io-redirection.html
In worst case instances, compiling completes - but (E.G. if stripped of trace points):
there is no memdumps to assess where the bugs occurred
But WTH do I know > YMMV
I question that assumption:
Fine for binary-based "developers?" - they must plan in user -base generalities:
(Hint - echoes of "time" wink - nudge, may ring hollow)
Respectfully expanding on #145/143 above:
It can be confirmed - There are many lesser-considered side effects of attempting "optimal" customisations:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Acovea
http://www.coyotegulch.com/products/acovea/
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/
Carrying hardware specific optimisations too far:
If binaries are shared (own LAN or group project) they may not even run on Diff. architecture (CPUs)
If a CPU "upgrade" is in future, I.E. Amd Intel
Apps not only lose some of percieved customisation benefits - again, results are unpredictable
Software:
(Martin - you are welcome to intercede @ anytime/Re views, Esp if any seem incorrect)
WARNING - If you are contemplating a "jump" to outer reaches of mapped boundaries:
Special laws of relativity may invoke unseen events > Observer/causality decay "spins"
Please be aware:
Results are indeterminate
Some may be mutually-exclusive
Compile time is marginally longer, faster binaries are just one method to increase overall system "responce"
Users forget (man nice) niceness_factoring, fg/fb backgrounding, queueing wait-states (&&)
It is extremely problematic to debug unforeseen code "jumps"
(This is somewhat the same as problems encountered w/inherited *Polymorphism* on C/C++
Ill-defined variable pointers, may throw intercepted_event errors
> (non user-defined stderr/stdout echoes ?)
Tip: > http://www.linuxsa.org.au/tips/io-redirection.html
In worst case instances, compiling completes - but (E.G. if stripped of trace points):
there is no memdumps to assess where the bugs occurred
But WTH do I know > YMMV
148 • on the subj of APT-BUILD... (by AV1611 at 2008-09-19 06:36:27 GMT from Ukraine)
I've been using apt-build for quite a while. Well, IMHO, that is a great utilite to handle with sources without messing up with libs needed for compilation (it downloades all the deps, and removes them afterwards, if you tell it to do so). There only few issues you should remember of:
1. It works noce only as you provide it with a lot of options like "-y --force-yes" otherwise it doens't install what it compile.
2. apt-build's own line should be put in into /etc/apt/sources.list Yet it puts that line initself at the instllation stage, you ought to check to be sure - "deb file:///var/cache/apt-build/repository" - or so...
3. I didn't do any try to recompile ALL the packages that are installed at your system. Why? See the next point.
4. Unlike to other source-recompile featured distros, Debian doesn't give you much of the speed improvement with the source-recompiled packages. Actually, there is hardly any difference I could see (against Gentoo, at least; though I didn't touch Gentoo since 2004.2; and I didn't try ArchLInux&Crux at all, but they say the difference is huge). That's my own IMHO, but a solid one. ;)
5. Sometimes it behaves itself buggy. Especially at Ubuntu against Etch...Sorry...Concerning Lenny - it didn't try it yet....
6. IMHO, the most productive way to make you new-installed Debian responsive and blazing fast - a custom way of installing: base system (reboot) + "apt-get install xserver-xorg-core kdm kdebase mc" (I do like how your X fires up instantly at Lenny at the various HW; as for Etch - it wasn't so), then reboot + "apt-get install what_you_need" (a hint: I try to use a third-party "generic" version of Openoffice.org (i.e. Infra-resource's one - www.i-rs.org), making a link and placing it somewhere at the table or Kmenu), and here it is, ready to serve...As I got the latest Lenny installed this way I found it to be pretty fast.
God bless!
149 • RE: 122 - that's a very narrow view (by Homeros on 2008-09-19 09:16:06 GMT from Sweden)
If we the discuss the Linux-kernel, you can easily check who's contributing to the project. It's for sure no hobby-team; many of the biggest contributors have huge commercial interest in seeing the kernel progress.
A distribution doesn't necessary translates into a bunch of good developers. It might just be enthusiasts who learned how to repack already existing software. If they would be banned from making their own custom mish-mash distribution wouldn't help develop better software, because they might not have neither skill or will.
Instead of generally complaining about "crap software" you should recognize and appreciate the huge work done on a quite small budget, if any. If we talk about *buntus, yes then it might be good to understand that even the mother Ubuntu isn't as big contributor to Linux as its size would justify, so why does some for example refuse to give Fedora credit for taking the risk of pushing ahead and test new technology? Isn't that if something contra-productive?
Further, no operating system of today, be it OSX, Windows, BSD, Solaris, OpenSolaris and Linux, is perfect. Depending on my needs, be it on the desktop or server, I could complain about crappy OSX, Windows, BSD, Solaris, OpenSolaris and Linux software or non existing software or limited usability. Yes, maybe some is more perfect in some field of applications, but how can that be a base for an objective judgement on the state of all other platforms? All have strengths and weaknesses.
Lastly, to limit the amount of distributions, or try to suppress the creation of new projects, would suggest that we've now reached the peak of innovation. Some of the respected and established of today were some years ago viewed as nothing else but off-springs. Who's almighty enough to judge from where the next big thing will come from? Isn't openness the core of open-source? Or why should we promote a limit to how open it should be? I'm also doubting the premisses for the complaint in the first place, because who're we to tell others that they aren't allowed to do what they think is fun for them and some friends, and then search for fellows on the Internet? To me that sounds like some have too dull and boring lives with no place for spontaneity and fun.
150 • @ 147 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-19 13:52:18 GMT from Germany)
> Excuse me, I question those hasty assumptions:
> ...
> "Significant speed boosts" are largely unsubstantiated by (often questionable) benchmarking
A valid point. And admittedly, I usually don't bother with benchmarks at all -- it's largely subjective.
> > ("most binary distro maintainers will tell you")
>
> Is based on (developer's own?) subjective opinions, need to evalutate user-base commonalities
Of course there's always the grain of salt. It's true that binary distributions generally avoid specific optimizations wherever possible, since it's more important that they support a lot of hardware acceptably than a limited range of hardware extremely well.
> Users forget (man nice) niceness_factoring, fg/fb backgrounding, queueing wait-states (&&)
Niceness can only go so far, though. You need root privileges to lower niceness -- ordinary users can only raise it -- and even then, overdoing niceness is just like compiler optimizations. My experience has shown anything further than '-n -5' will usually crash the system.
> It is extremely problematic to debug unforeseen code "jumps"
There is always the question of how many users actually *need* that level of debugging, but yes, that is a tradeoff.
Please correct me if I understand this wrong, but to my knowledge most compiler optimization flags do strip code of some debugging symbols (as does the 'strip' command, which many developers -- myself included -- use to further reduce binary size/resource requirements). I know that '-fomit-frame-pointer' in particular can give extremely good performance results if used correctly, but makes debugging virtually impossible.
If it helps anyone, I generally follow the same principle Patrick Volkerding uses for Slackware: Use the individual package's recommended optimizations (generally '-O2' unless told otherwise), and except for low-level packages, use generic processor optimizations (i.e. on x86, '-march=i486 -mtune=i686' will use 486-compatible instructions, but optimize the execution order for Pentium-Pro/P-II and newer). There are a lot of things I disagree with Volkerding about -- though that's a different story altogether -- but I can't argue with his judgement as far as processor optimizations.
151 • @ 149 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-19 14:17:17 GMT from Germany)
> A distribution doesn't necessary translates into a bunch of good developers. It might just be enthusiasts who learned how to repack already existing software. If they would be banned from making their own custom mish-mash distribution wouldn't help develop better software, because they might not have neither skill or will.
I think that's about what everyone else has been saying, but I think yours is the best explanation so far.
> Further, no operating system of today, be it OSX, Windows, BSD, Solaris, OpenSolaris and Linux, is perfect. Depending on my needs, be it on the desktop or server, I could complain about crappy OSX, Windows, BSD, Solaris, OpenSolaris and Linux software or non existing software or limited usability. Yes, maybe some is more perfect in some field of applications, but how can that be a base for an objective judgement on the state of all other platforms? All have strengths and weaknesses.
Another point I've been making for years, but not quite as eloquently.
In my view, Linux seems to be the most "reasonable" operating system to work with; I have no experience with OS X, but Windows in particular annoys me to no end, mostly because of how easily it breaks in inexplicable and counter-intuitive ways. But there are lots of rough edges, as I've been pointing out: Hardware support still leaves a lot to be desired (when it works, it's much more straightforward than Windows -- but when it doesn't, you either write your own driver or you're screwed); and while I prefer Linux package management to Windows for numerous reasons, there's a distinct problem when every distribution insists on doing things its own way (my experience makes me think the LSB has had only limited success in any real world use).
> Lastly, to limit the amount of distributions, or try to suppress the creation of new projects, would suggest that we've now reached the peak of innovation. Some of the respected and established of today were some years ago viewed as nothing else but off-springs. Who's almighty enough to judge from where the next big thing will come from? Isn't openness the core of open-source? Or why should we promote a limit to how open it should be?
The problem is many new distributions simply aren't providing innovation -- the popular concensus with the *buntus, for example, is the only "innovation" they make is changing the wallpaper.
As someone who likes to think he's doing something good himself, I fully support the right to innovate. I would never agree, for example, with someone who said "all right, that's it, there can be no more distributions". However, I *would* encourage developers to show a bit of self-restraint, and consider whether Yet Another Distro(tm) is really the best way to go. I've been thinking about that myself, and the conclusion I've reached is that keeping up my own distro (particularly with the "vanity" name) isn't going to get my work where I want it to go. I still have a commitment to my users to finish the next release -- it would be extremely foolish to abandon my own project here and now -- but my focus is already shifting away from independent development and more towards working with already-existing projects.
Anyway, just my two cents.
152 • GNU/Linux user (by OpenGL is now free software on 2008-09-19 16:49:22 GMT from Finland)
Linux.com has an interesting article, where Bruce Byfield writes:
"After nine months, an open secret can finally be acknowledged: The OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux, which was released by SGI in 1999, has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question, the SGI Free License B and the GLX Public License, have been rewritten after months of negotiation between the FSF and SGI. The problem is now resolved, and the result is a code contribution that the FSF ranks as one of the greatest given to the community by a proprietary company."
http://www.linux.com/feature/148339
One might argue that 3-D acceleration is not really necessary on GNU/Linux systems, but it's a pretty cool feature nevertheless. I guess GNU/Linux would have much less users if 3-D acceleration was suddenly taken away because of license conflicts. So, now we need to thank not only SGI, but also the GNU project and FSF for their tireless efforts to keep both the new and current GNU/Linux users who like cool 3-D graphics happy.
P.S. Don't forget that tomorrow, Saturday 20 September, is Software Freedom Day. :-)
153 • @ 152 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-19 17:02:31 GMT from United States)
So basically, "Thank you for telling us we shouldn't have been shipping your non-free software all these years, but it's OK now"? Gratitude, indeed.
> I guess GNU/Linux would have much less users if 3-D acceleration was suddenly taken away because of license conflicts.
*Fewer* users, you mean. (I'll argue with your actual claim some other time.)
154 • 143 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-09-19 17:23:56 GMT from United States)
Disclaimer: This is based on my experience playing with apt-build for a few days. Therefore it may be inaccurate.
apt-build is only useful for optimizing the packages already available in binary form. I see the usefulness of doing so for computationally demanding software, but it's mostly a way to kill time, rather than to do something useful.
It's not really helpful for building new releases of packages, and given that Debian has everything updated quickly anyway, there's no point in using apt-build to get the latest and greatest.
I like Slackware's SlackBuilds. That makes it very easy to build your own packages (with some optimization also) but you can easily build packages of the latest releases, or construct your own SlackBuilds. You are not at the mercy of a package builder that way. Plus you are not constantly updating the entire system, as you do with Debian, Arch or Gentoo.
So to summarize my experience, if you find great joy in building your own packages, use apt-build. If you've got a wife and kids, it's probably better to spend time with them. Don't use it because you expect a faster system.
155 • Beware the Jabberwocky (by And the *mores* of that is on 2008-09-19 20:35:06 GMT from Canada)
The fix (ated ?) morally binding customs of a particular group
~ Mirriam Webster
@ # 154
Please be cautious ill-connsidered blurbs
> (" a way to kill time, rather than to do something useful.")
> ("Plus you are not constantly updating the entire system, as you do with Debian, Arch or Gentoo.")
Esp when alluding to power-user based readers I.E. Gentoo-ers
@ #
Hi Martin, Thnx for your kind replies
> ( ~ distributions simply aren't providing innovation ")
D Robbins also feels Gentoo is slipping in that area
I really should have limited optimization comments to: CPU generation families
(O.P. > cat /proc/cpuinfo)
On a binary Sys (Esp if not a distro maintainer) there is user-limited need for make/compilers
Users are generally unaware of what optimisations were default supplied w/binaries
> ("You need root privileges to lower niceness")
Aha - don't we just hate hasty blurbs_
Plse re-think that statement - (Root vs non-enhanced default user permissions)
Which can alter core-Sys. Cfgs. ?
Viewers - if interested, please *READ* Docs
Built-in man pages
usr/src/Linux/Documentation (when kernel sources are installed )
On-line manuals:
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/
Caveats:
> I queried/argued @ length w/an enterprise former IBM DB developer aquaintance
(He lauded "higher" CPU specific flags than I contended wise )
I also lurked, (sometimes notified of lead-developers mis-conceptions)
~ Was intrigued, delved deeply into Vector development strategies
> But usually regretted doing so - few wish to dissect obscured estoria,
Then loyalists *brand* comments as disruptive or worse
> BTW Vector uses/d ? same CPU family flags (march is not to be used *in conjunction* w/Mtune)
March is specific - Mtune is "generic", mtune obviates generic 486
> ("most compiler optimization flags do strip code")
> *All* options are up to how the coder wishes to use (warnings/omits etal are just the tip of iceberg.)
Compiler use has few "defaults" outside of architecture variables
(People - Plse READ your documentations
Only sources-based offer finer-grained controls
(Gentoo has neat "ufed" & MAKEOPTS = "j2")
BTW - Do you use distcc ?
> ("(I'll argue with your actual claim some other time".)
Wink -nudge - That would lead to contentious views Re "frivolous" vs graphical intensive users' *needs*
Then codecs/licensing would enter banter
"It" (collectively) was observered to be practiced more in the breach " ?
> Enter heated discoures RE supplying GPL'd distro source repositories
Disparate opinions (E.G. of plethora of proliferations) were already known
> Ponder why a lead/ing issue desired to promote confrontations
Sex/mayham/"rank"-ling topics sell ?
(A whimsical attitude Re "prostituting" of morals was:
"I am not *prone* to argue"
156 • Ref#155 and PLD Linux (by verndog on 2008-09-19 21:22:42 GMT from United States)
Ref#155, Interesting read. Some thoughts were hard to follow though.
I liked this phrase "Sex/mayham/"rank"-ling topics sell ?"
...
Regarding PDL. First time I bothered to follow up on this Linux. Actaully first time I recall seeing anything about it before. On their feature list they bring up a couple of interesting points:
"Modular kernel
PLD kernels are build using modules. No more make menuconfig to make the kernel more stable or faster. You are free to pick which modules to load depending on hardware you want to use. The rest is still there, waiting for your next computer upgrade to save your day. "
The above point I found has some debates. Many follow the idea of monolithic kernel versus modular kernel. Monolithic being larger but much faster.
Also of note:
"Binary package distribution
Unlike Gentoo, PLD provides you with binary packages optimized for your system's architecture. No more asking users to log out just to get enough CPU power to compile that office package upgrade! Don't worry, your configuration files are safe, we use several kinds of triggers and RPM magic to make sure your files are left intact. "
I wonder , do they optimize for _every_ CPU out there?!
157 • @ 155 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-19 21:29:30 GMT from United States)
> > ( ~ distributions simply aren't providing innovation ")
> D Robbins also feels Gentoo is slipping in that area
"Larry the Cow was a bit frustrated with Linux. Now he's a *lot* frustrated..."
> > ("You need root privileges to lower niceness")
> Aha - don't we just hate hasty blurbs_
> Plse re-think that statement - (Root vs non-enhanced default user permissions)
> Which can alter core-Sys. Cfgs. ?
To my knowledge, you need to be root in order to run i.e. "nice -n -1" (although positive niceness adjustments are possible on any account). But if you have a source that says otherwise, I'd be interested to see.
> Users are generally unaware of what optimisations were default supplied w/binaries
Agreed. I remember back a couple years ago, I never thought I'd hear the end of "why's this i486 optimized??"
> > BTW Vector uses/d ? same CPU family flags (march is not to be used *in conjunction* w/Mtune)
> March is specific - Mtune is "generic", mtune obviates generic 486
If my reading of the GCC manual is correct:
* -march sets the processor type and what instruction codes are used
* -mtune optimizes instruction *order*, but doesn't alter code type
* -mcpu is a deprecated alias for -mtune on x86, but is still used on some other archs
I know -march *implies* -mtune (so "-march=i686 -mtune=i686" is redundant), and that experimenting can have drastic consequences ("-march=i586 -mtune=i686" will essentially reduce the system to a crawl), but I've never heard anything saying that you can't use them together.
> BTW - Do you use distcc ?
I don't -- it's too much work making sure all my systems have the right libraries and compiler, and most of them have older/slower processors anyway so there wouldn't be much performance gain (the main reason I'd use that kind of program). That said, I don't know how I'd survive as a developer without ccache.
158 • @ # 157 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-20 00:10:06 GMT from Canada)
>(" if you have a source that says otherwise, I'd be interested to see")
Root privileges are needed for *most* system core configurations
Users (without Root altering their premissions) have limited powers
Noting that only root could n_xx whatever - was superfulous
Example : Consider make vs make install
> ("but I've never heard anything saying that you can't use them together.")
Obviously, some can - BUT re-think Mtune vs hard-coding to earlier CPU specs
"~ mtune=cpu-type
Tune to cpu-type everything applicable about the generated code_ *except for the ABI and the set of available instructions.*
~ "i686
Same as generic, but when used as march option, PentiumPro instruction set will be used,
>> *so the code will run on all i686 family chips*.
~ "march=cpu-type
Generate instructions for the machine type cpu-type"
Much of that vaunted "blazing speed" of Distro loyalists - comes from supplied defaults -
Maintainers' Judicious paring of non-essential dependencies -
Even there, it's binary size & INITIAL load times "impressing" non-thinking fanBois ?
Eerrr, by {performance gain}- you mean reducing compile times ?
I tend to think of distcc as the "poor-man's" multi-Cpu alternative
Loosely - a Beowulf clustering
. ("making sure all my systems have the right libraries and compiler")
Sync changes only ?
159 • @ # 156 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-20 00:27:16 GMT from Canada)
@ # 156
http://oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html
To keep proper perspectives - an onlooker may assume there is animosity
(a la secular "debates")
If/when any get too boisterous in championing -*will* be on shaky footings
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/reliable-os/
"hard to follow" Customisation options or "Mores" ?
*Canon* fodder is the key Algo
(Google > define mores canon )
*Someone* SAH is confusing concepts of a true micro-kernel system to E.G. what make menu-cfg does
(builds a makefile DB of options for kernel only)
"Faster" is NOT the point - basicly what should the kernel do:
Control sycall interupts or allow ABI to directly run in own mem_alloc space
= Un-monitored by kernel protected_ring error handling
Much of the design-theory controversy is about parent-child forking
Casual users are ill-qualified to understand all nuances of practical vs theoretical implications = P, DAM_ HIK :(
RPM magic - that "logic" may explain much > ("No more asking users to log out")
. ("I wonder , do they optimize for _every_ CPU out there?")
Best re-visit Gcc Docs (CPU "optimizations/myths)
160 • @ 158 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-20 00:54:28 GMT from United States)
> >(" if you have a source that says otherwise, I'd be interested to see")
>
> Root privileges are needed for *most* system core configurations
> Users (without Root altering their premissions) have limited powers
> Noting that only root could n_xx whatever - was superfulous
> Example : Consider make vs make install
Believe me, I know *all* the gory details of privilege separation.
My original point, however, remains that you can't do 'nice -n -1' as a regular user -- you can only increase the niceness -- lowering niceness (giving the task a higher priority) requires root privileges.
> Obviously, some can - BUT re-think Mtune vs hard-coding to earlier CPU specs
>
> "~ mtune=cpu-type
> Tune to cpu-type everything applicable about the generated code_ *except for the ABI and the set of available instructions.*
>
> ~ "i686
> Same as generic, but when used as march option, PentiumPro instruction set will be used,
> >> *so the code will run on all i686 family chips*.
>
> ~ "march=cpu-type
> Generate instructions for the machine type cpu-type"
Are you saying to build the entire distro using -mtune=i686? First of all, that would be a non-trivial task (I already spent most of the summer re-building 500+ packages, I'm not going to do that again to get a tiny bit of extra performance). Second of all, call me crazy, but I still have a couple older (i586) systems that I sometimes use; see http://ultimapcs.dyndns.org/~multima/micron-xpe.html for one.
> Much of that vaunted "blazing speed" of Distro loyalists - comes from supplied defaults -
> Maintainers' Judicious paring of non-essential dependencies -
> Even there, it's binary size & INITIAL load times "impressing" non-thinking fanBois ?
Even though it is mostly perception, small binary size and fast load times still impress *me*, and I'm the one who sets the defaults and does the judicious paring in the first place. My main desktop is a PIII-650, and believe me, it's pretty sweet seeing apps just snap onto the screen even though it's a 2008 operating system on seven-year-old hardware.
> Eerrr, by {performance gain}- you mean reducing compile times ?
In this context, yes.
> I tend to think of distcc as the "poor-man's" multi-Cpu alternative
> Loosely - a Beowulf clustering
I've heard of people who have Beowulf clusters running in their basements, just to run distcc, but in my case it's impractical. I only have one machine doing development work; my others usually run only one or two applications at a time. It's privilege separation up to eleven.
> . ("making sure all my systems have the right libraries and compiler")
> Sync changes only ?
Basically my development procedure goes something like build package -> check for make errors -> upgrade package -> build next. I don't like to mix and match library versions -- there's too much room for things to break, especially when the major version number changes (libexpat.so.0 -> libexpat.so.3 was a particular pain). And anyway, I don't upgrade my non-development systems until the entire release is ready and stable, because frankly I can't afford to have a broken system.
161 • @ # 160 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-20 01:29:47 GMT from Canada)
"Original point" ? > you siezed upon "nice"
vs mention of *nice* only as one (of few) Sys altering options defalt user have
Practicality ? > Users have opportunity to *up* niceness factoring
few would consider lowering
More practical - use ampersand
Ultmate suggestion - they should *learn* their own system -
Otherwise, the worst bottle-neck/error causing - is themselves
If they bolox things- they have learned to read B4 jumping
>in a manner they are not likely to forget or ignore (contrary to usual tendencies)
Now you know these things, I know also -but that "common user"
*fudging* of rebuffs keep creeping in
Fully expand or choose safer terrritory
What happened between march 486 to march586 "slowing system to a crawl"_
The Ides of March - ??
What do you suppose Gcc's mtune accepts as code-type instruction sets ?
(That misconception is second only to "defaults" *plus* specified fields on fstab)
162 • @ # 160 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-20 01:45:30 GMT from Canada)
> ("Are you saying to build the entire distro using -mtune=i686?")
Forgot to add - Nobody is advising you alter how you develop
Just examining mis-conceptions & subjective determinations of validity
vs practicality & how things *really* work
All too many "developers* fail to ensure they are linking on a clean system
(incompatible or at best - *non-essential * dependencies get included into binary ofrerings)
163 • niceness, etc. (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-20 01:46:35 GMT from United States)
> "Original point" ? > you siezed upon "nice"
> vs mention of *nice* only as one (of few) Sys altering options defalt user have
>
> Practicality ? > Users have opportunity to *up* niceness factoring
> few would consider lowering
Lower niceness raises a task's priority; I usually run builds at -5, for example, since that forces the compile to get more priority when it allocates resources.
My *original* point, going back to #150, is that niceness is one of the *less* generally useful ways to increase system performance.
> More practical - use ampersand
Background tasks are useful, but all the same I have little use for 'vi &'.
> Ultmate suggestion - they should *learn* their own system -
> Otherwise, the worst bottle-neck/error causing - is themselves
Absolutely.
> What happened between march 486 to march586 "slowing system to a crawl"_
> The Ides of March - ??
>
> What do you suppose Gcc's mtune accepts as code-type instruction sets ?
Frankly I have no idea why -march=i486 works and -march=i586 doesn't, but I'd be very interested to know. I'm guessing it's some bug in either the compiler, or the Intel instruction set itself -- all I know is I've never had anything run well when built with -march=i586. Any GCC experts care to enlighten me on this one...?
"I love you, Pentium-MMX, but it's for the greater good of Rome!" Yeah, I guess Shakespeare and C compilers don't really mix.
164 • @ # 163 - NIce is as nice does ? (by Roaming on 2008-09-20 06:00:43 GMT from Canada)
. ("niceness is one of the *less* generally useful ways to increase system performance")
Agreed - niceness factoring is seldom applied, & trade-offs always occur
Besides, the shell has own default pre-sets, & "advice" to scheduler may be ignored
(Rule of thumb- unless confident of results, use as pre-Cfg'd)
Any "optimisation" mistakes, read-ahead buffers do not contain data, are of litle value,
Then the system takes a @##!! performance *hit*
All is more or less a guessing game, too many variables to be entirely predictable
(Risk vs Cisc, bus throughputs, which software values to prioritize - endless choas) ?
Backgrounding (&) is one possible way to aleviate resource consumption
Actually. I was thinking more in terms of more readily applied (& &) conditional wait-states
( without pitfalls of altering default scheduler prioriites)
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/BrainDump/Better-Command-Execution-with-bash/
Few "normal users"? should even consider playing w/unknowns - unless boldy embarking on
that slippery learning climb to errr, "self-empowerment"?
(My daughter once asked - "Ok, all fine & dandy > but what do you DO" ??
> "I want to learn, the more I understand, *hopefully*... the less confusion
if it was me or WTH happened this time" ?
Duhhs will still occur, but I stand a better chance of gracefull recovery w/out
bugging forums
-
This analysis (servers, data transfers) highlights complexities http://www-903.ibm.com/kr/techinfo/xseries/download/Tuning_xSeries_for_Performance.pdf
(open w/acroread)
Frankly, I soon got lost - Gcc options seemed slightly less confusing
You may be more interested in these:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/Portage_Niceness
http://kerneltrap.org/node/8059
> ("but I'd be very interested to know")
Me two , Amen to that
> ("it's for the greater good of Rome!"_)
I took schadenfreude delights in needling_the_thread when irritating Fanbois got too snarky:
"All rhodes do *not* lead to Rhome"
http://sisyphus.ru/srpm/Sisyphus/R-base/spec
Or as M.Twain sez:
"I never let my (in my case, lack of) schooling interfere w/my education"
165 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-09-20 11:58:50 GMT from Canada)
In response to the latest pclinuxos article on tuxmachines.
http://linuxgeeksunited.blogspot.com/2008/09/just-wth-is-up-pclinuxos-anyway.html
Unfortunately , while Tex is obviously a competent developer , the team around him is worse than useless , often causing more trouble than anything else.
An ideal scenario for Tex I assume would be to just produce a distro and have all other aspects - promotion , fundraising , finding packagers etc taken care of by the "ripper gang"
They are just unable to do a good job and it is really hurting this distro.
Actually the selfishness of the supposed team to focus on their own offshoot distros (kdulcimer , tiny me , spring to mind) rather than get this new pclinuxos distro finished just shows that these people are only interested in making themselves look important in this big linux world and not on supporting their benevolant dictator Texstar.
Then you get completly non sensical ideas coming from the team suggesting things like "lets move to a fedora base" great idea - not , and other gems such as "we believe that kde4 is not ready for the average user - so we will not even include it in the repos , you cant make up your own mind on this one"
classic - distros from ubuntu to suse to arch are all using kde4 , yet these fools say that its not for pclinuxos users , even though they have things like fluxbox in the repos.
Simply , you do not have enough packagers and developers because no one wants to work in an environment that firstly only pretends to be a community distro and secondly completly restricts anyone that has an iq higher than that of the average windows user that they target.
In my opinion this used to be a great distribution but like libranet before it , it will die off due to not looking at the bigger picture - The facts speak for themselves as the number of users drops daily.
166 • More about Ubuntu Satanic Edition (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-09-20 13:52:52 GMT from Italy)
While I am not a satanist by any stretch of the imagination, I believe that accepting Ubuntu Satanic Edition boils down to having some sense of humor and broad horizons.
Personally I don't believe that Good or Evil are real.
I base my beliefs in Advaita Vedanta and Taoism.
167 • @165 (by Barnabyh on 2008-09-20 15:54:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
"...restricts anyone that has an iq higher than that of the average windows user that they target."
Uha, we're not prejudiced at all? I suppose there will also be people with an IQ above 100 who are using Windows because maybe which OS they are using is not the most important thing in their lives. And the other way around. Some people in the Linux 'community' seem rather obsessed, and you don't necessarily need to be a genius to make even Slackware, Gentoo, Arch or whatever else of the more involved ones work, just a lot of time on your hands and the will to do it.
168 • Like lead (topic) Balloons (by Refactoring niceness on 2008-09-20 22:07:20 GMT from Canada)
This ain't goona fly _
"Banging" Ubuntu may be like the joke about the missionaty who wanted to learn tribal customs
He asked a shy female "Ubangi "?
> she giggled, said - "youbetcha"
169 • @165 (by Warp0 on 2008-09-21 04:08:56 GMT from United States)
Most of your arguments are baseless. If KDE4 OR is a POS, why would they try to put it in the repos and support it? You chose to use a different distro so you can use buggy software ... isn't that special. Some people actually value stability.
170 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-09-21 12:01:45 GMT from Canada)
169 -
Lets not forget that pclinuxos is full of buggy software also - just read the forums!
not only is it buggy , it is full of security holes
for example , opera is at 9.52 , lots of security fixes over 9.50
guess which pclinuxos has in the repos ?
So if people use pclinuxos you are open to all kinds of hacking
171 • RE: #165 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-09-21 14:14:35 GMT from Italy)
"classic - distros from ubuntu to suse to arch are all using kde4 , yet these fools say that its not for pclinuxos users , even though they have things like fluxbox in the repos."
AFAIK, Debian Lenny isn't going to have KDE 4 either.
As to me, I am going to boycott every distro which doesn't offer at least the choice of KDE 3. For this reason the latest PC-BSD is no-go area for me.
Does it mean that I am going to boycott KDE 4 forever?
Not necessarily, but they have to convince me that it is stable and usable. Probably not going to happen before KDE 4.3
172 • @ 170 (by Martin Ultima on 2008-09-21 14:22:57 GMT from United States)
> not only is it buggy , it is full of security holes . . . So if people use pclinuxos you are open to all kinds of hacking
You have to remember, however, that there's more to security than running updated software. If you follow good security practices, that can reduce your risk of being hacked as much as -- maybe even more than -- having the latest up-to-date software.
As for anyone who's complaining about KDE 4, remember that developers' time is fairly limited, and not all developers are interested in providing the latest bleeding-edge software. I believe that's actually a large part of PCLOS's appeal. KDE 4 is a pretty big jump, especially for developers, and maybe they don't feel there's enough demand to justify updating and possibly breaking lots of things along the way.
I, for one, am perfectly content with 3.5.10. It's stable, it's functional, it works the way I expect it to, and I don't have to re-do all my desktop customizations (most of which, in my case, would probably be to revert to 3.5.x-ish behaviors, thus defeating the purpose of half the new features right there). So far, my users haven't given me a single complaint about the "outdated" desktop; and after all, our project's focus is a fast, stable system that "just works," not to break things at every opportunity all because of popular hype.
173 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-09-21 14:32:55 GMT from Canada)
There is some heated discussion on the Internet about how Canonical does not contribute to Linux kernel. I wonder, does Ubuntu Christian Edition contribute to Linux kernel?
174 • @ 171 (by Anonymous on 2008-09-21 14:37:57 GMT from United States)
AFAIK, Debian Lenny isn't going to have KDE 4 either.
It will be in backports and can currently be installed on Lenny from the kde team's repository: http://kde4.debian.net/
175 • RE: 174 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-09-21 15:52:48 GMT from Italy)
Being in Backports doesn't quite mean the same as being in the main repos, IMO. My experience with Backports is that software there does break things, especially dependencies.
176 • To # 165 • (by linuxera on 2008-09-21 23:11:43 GMT from United States)
How would you know what the ripper gang is doing, and what they are suggesting unless you are a part of them?
177 • KUBUNTU 8.1 Beta, Could You post post about your experience? (by AhJay on 2008-09-21 23:47:19 GMT from United States)
Hello:
Kubuntu 8.0 was just not ready! It was not at par, with the Gnome based.
But it has been a while, and KDE4.1 is now very close to be released.
So Kubuntu may be a lot better, that it was.
Please post if have experience it, over more than a few hours.
AJ
ps: I am using Ubuntu 8.04 amd64, runs very nicely KDE 4.x applications.
But at some point the superior design KDE based system management tools, may take over, the great but less advanced Ubuntu Gnome based tools.
I have always liked SUSE (KDE based) but recent experience made me switch, to more solid Ubuntu. (Suse 11.0 / KDE4 was not good at all).
But Ubuntu, "features-wise" is not Suse, Suse is a much more polished system... that I admit missing.
Will Kubuntu be the answer? (Possibly the best of both worlds...)
178 • Ladislav, a minor request, about this blog... (by AhJay on 2008-09-21 23:49:18 GMT from United States)
Could the most recent post, come on top of the list, rather that at the end of it?
Thanks.
179 • About Distro Derivatives. (Incl. Copyright) (by AhJay on 2008-09-22 00:05:45 GMT from United States)
Like many I do deplore the multiciplity of so many "distros derivatives".
I would prefer people focusing on making the wheel better, rather than a wheel re-desin, but sometimes there is value in re-designing (learning, and a better global approach).
If the idea, is to add missing functionality ( Ubuntu-Studio, Mint, ...), I suspect that a repackaging of the distro, was done, because there is no easy way to modify the distro, to "make it look like this".
This is probably due to the limits of "packages" (Debian, or RPM's).
It may exist a Linux "super package" which allows not only to install, but also move, delete, etc...
Of course scripts like shell, Python, etc... could easily achieve this, but to encapsulate the functionality in a existing packages, would be great.
They would allow the "non-geek" to not only add functionality, but also modify the distro-base to a given end.
I bet you already have lots of ideas...
Shich?
Number of Comments: 179
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| • 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 |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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Biadix
Biadix was Knoppix-based Linux live CD with support for the Catalan language.
Status: Discontinued
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| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Questions and answers: 32-bit versus 64-bit computing |
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| Questions and answers: Working with OpenSSH fingerprints |
| Tips and tricks: Basename, for loop, dirname, aliases, bash history, xsel clipboard |
| Tips and tricks: The Firejail security sandbox |
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| Questions and answers: The number and diversity of Linux distributions |
| Tips and tricks: Adding an AppImage to the application menu |
| Tips and tricks: Port knocking and other ways to protect OpenSSH |
| More Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers |
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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