DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 277, 3 November 2008 |
Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It was the Ubuntu week, with much of the Linux-related coverage on many web sites dominated by the brand new "Intrepid Ibex", the project's latest. A plethora of reviews followed almost instantly, but some subtle hardware issues and lack of real breakthrough features have left some of the users and reviewers unimpressed. In other news, Fedora has unveiled Plymouth, a new flicker-free boot process, Sabayon has hinted at a large number of never-seen-before features for the upcoming 4.0 release, Yellow Dog Linux has launched a beta testing period for its forthcoming version 6.1, and NetBSD is about to branch version 5.0 with some unexpected improvements. Also in this week's issue - Ubuntu has published a draft release schedule for "Jaunty Jackalope" or Ubuntu 9.04. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the October 2008 DistroWatch.com donation is GoblinX, a slick Slackware-based live CD made in Brazil. Happy reading!
Content:
Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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Editorial |
An overview to Ubuntu editions
The big Ubuntu release week has come and gone. While many download servers suffered from heavy access rate, the release event proved fairly orderly with no nasty surprises. This was the first time DistroWatch made five Ubuntu release announcements in one day, providing all the relevant links to the latest versions of Ubuntu, as well as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio and Mythbuntu. Although the latter four are effectively nothing more than specialist editions of Ubuntu, they had all started up as independent community projects and only became official Ubuntu subprojects at a later stage. Besides, some of these editions are highly interesting products which some users might even find preferable over the main Ubuntu edition. Let's take a brief look at what exactly Ubuntu delivered last week.
Not much needs to be said about the project's flagship product. There is little doubt that Ubuntu has become the world's most popular desktop Linux distribution and the latest release is likely to confirm this status. There aren't many revolutionary features this time around, but the release should suit anybody who is looking for an up-to-date, but reasonably stable Linux distribution with a highly mature and familiar GNOME desktop environment. A server edition is available too, although most users would probably prefer to stay with the 8.04 LTS version which comes with a free 5-year security support (in contrast, 8.10 will only be supported for 18 months). The reviews so far have been mixed - various hardware compatibility issues and lack of real killer features might be discouraging factors when considering an upgrade from version 8.04.

Ubuntu 8.10 comes with familiar and stable GNOME desktop environment. (full image size: 2,089kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Kubuntu 8.10, on the other hand, is a completely different beast from version 8.04. Although the Kubuntu developers gave its users the first taste of KDE 4.x in a semi-official, "community-supported" edition of "Hardy Heron", this time around there is no ambiguity as to where the project's desktop preference lies - the Kubuntu development team considers KDE 4 a stable and usable desktop. While this might be true, there are clearly many users who are not yet prepared to abandon the familiarity and configurability of KDE 3.5 or who are not ready to go through the painful process of a paradigm shift, which is what a major switch like this would require. We haven't seen any reviews of Kubuntu 8.10 yet, so we don't know how well KDE 4 has been integrated into the product, but given the limited resources Ubuntu traditionally allocated to its KDE fans, it's unlikely to have matched the work done by openSUSE or Mandriva in this respect.

Kubuntu 8.10 with KDE 4.1.2 represents a major paradigm shift (full image size: 475kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Next, Xubuntu 8.10. Now in its 6th release, this alternative for those who like neither GNOME nor KDE is an excellent option. Xubuntu is not a lightweight distribution, however, and it is definitely not in the same league as some of the slick distros designed to run comfortably on computer systems built in the late nineties, such as Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux or MEPIS AntiX. Nevertheless, it's a well-balanced distribution, integrating the Ubuntu core with some of the lighter applications, e.g. GNOME Office instead of OpenOffice.org, and providing an attractive, GNOME-like user interface that doesn't get in the way. A very good *buntu, as long as -- and that needs to be stressed again -- one doesn't expect the speed of light from it. After all, it's still powered by some heavy GTK+ code.

Xubuntu 8.10 offers an attractive desktop with less resource-hungry applications. (full image size: 442kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Ubuntu Studio is a distribution that is bound to gain more popularity in the coming months. It is the only one of the five Ubuntu editions that doesn't come as a live CD, but rather as a traditional "alternative" installation DVD with a text-mode installer. This could possibly detract some users - after all, the distribution is targeted at creative artists, rather than computer techies. But once installed on the hard disk, Ubuntu Studio provides a well-equipped atelier with an excellent collection of open source software designed for musicians, graphics designers, video production specialists, and anyone who enjoys creative work. One big warning, however - the latest release does not come with a real-time kernel by default due to various issues that came up during testing. This means that those music producers who are already using Ubuntu Studio, might want to postpone their upgrade until these problems are addressed.

Ubuntu Studio 8.10 comes with an attractive dark theme. (full image size: 1,283kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Finally, a Linux for your lounge. Yes, Mythbuntu is one of the growing number of projects that turn the excellent, but complex MythTV into a highly intuitive suite with a point-and-click user interface and a variety of configuration options. Mythbuntu can help with organising your digital entertainment, recording television, playing music and videos, creating DVD and photo collections, browsing the Internet, making phone calls, delivering news and whether reports, and playing games - all from the comfort of your lounge suite. A great way of showing off the capabilities and power of open source software at zero cost!

Mythbuntu 8.10 has a potential to enrich anybody's digital life at no software cost. (full image size: 61kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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Besides the official Ubuntu products, a number of Ubuntu-based distributions have also started working on new releases based on "Intrepid Ibex". The first among them was nUbuntu, a project integrating a variety of hacking, cracking, networking and forensics tools into the Ubuntu core (with Fluxbox as the desktop), which released an alpha version late last week. The project's developers don't seem to believe in publishing changelogs or release notes, so we don't know what's new since the last stable release, but from what we've seen, nUbuntu seems similar to Backtrack or Helix in terms of providing users with a double-edge sword of security tools. Worth a try if you are interested in cracking user passwords or identifying security threats.

nUbuntu 8.10 provides a great variety of hacking and cracking tools (full image size: 360kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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Miscellaneous News |
Fedora unveils Plymouth, Sugar spin, Sabayon hints at major new features, Yellow Dog launches beta testing, NetBSD prepares to branch 5.0, CrossOver Linux
Although the release of Intrepid Ibex largely overshadowed every other Linux-related event, it wasn't the only interesting development that happened during the week. One of the other topics worth mentioning was Plymouth, a new flicker-free boot process that is being integrated into the upcoming release of Fedora 10. Phoronix has published a 5-page overview (with several videos) of what could soon be a new standard in booting Linux-based systems: "The current version of Plymouth is 0.6.0 and development on this RHGB replacement began in May of 2007 by Red Hat's Ray Strode. However, it wasn't until earlier this year with Fedora 10 that development of Plymouth kicked into full swing. The code to Plymouth is hosted on the FreeDesktop.org git server. As a forewarning, Plymouth is not a solution that can just be built for your distribution of choice, but it must be fully integrated into the distribution. However, once kernel mode-setting is in the mainline Linux kernel, we will hopefully see more distributions use Plymouth or develop their own richer boot programs." Covering the same topic, Fedora Magazine has published an interview with Adam Jackson and Ray Strode, two Fedora developers responsible for the new graphical boot process.

Fedora 10 Preview (expected on Tuesday) comes with updated desktop artwork (full image size: 1,054kB, screen resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Still on the topic of Fedora, Sebastian Dziallas has announced the release of Fedora Sugar Spin, a distribution featuring the Sugar desktop from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project on a Fedora live CD: "I'm proud to be announce the availability of our Fedora Sugar Spin, which incorporates the Sugar Desktop Environment on a Fedora live CD. With this spin, you'll be able to run Sugar, which is developed by Sugarlabs and the desktop environment used on the OLPC, directly from a live CD! You'll find several activities on the image including most notably sugar-browse, a web browsing activity based on XULRunner, and sugar-write, a word processor based on AbiWord, among several other applications. We will be importing further activities into Fedora, which might be installed using 'yum install sugar-*' at a later time."
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What's happening with Sabayon Linux these days? Fabio Erculiani, the distribution's founder and lead developer, has published some interesting hints about the upcoming release of version 4.0, promising to deliver exciting, never-seen-before goodies by the end of this year: "I am coding as hell. What you will see within a month is something nobody else has. I am not joking, it's about Entropy and the web. The funny thing is that it will just be the tip of the iceberg related to what I want to build up. So, an appetizer in one month, then Sabayon 4, featuring a LOT (I mean, a LOT) of new thingies. Some of them are: KDE 4, GNOME 2.24, 2.6.27/28 kernel, i686 CHOST, new theme, Entropy 0.24. To sum up, it's something I've been working on since January 2007, more than 150,000 lines of code, AI. Expected date: before Christmas 2008, as usual. In the meantime, we're almost ready to release 3.5.1, which can be easily updated to the current 4.0 branch using Entropy." You've got to love the Italians (and the enthusiasm that permeates Fabio's every blog post)!
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Yellow Dog Linux, the world's sole distribution that specialises in delivering Linux operating system to the PowerPC processor, including the popular Sony PlayStation 3, has announced the start of a new beta testing period for the forthcoming Yellow Dog Linux 6.1: "It's that time again! We are looking for beta testers to test the latest, greatest version of Yellow Dog Linux. There are lots of great new improvements that everyone will surely enjoy, so here's your chance to see and test the distribution. As with Yellow Dog Linux 6.0, 6.1 will support IBM Power architecture systems, Apple G4 and G5s, Sony PlayStation 3, and the Yellow Dog Linux Powerstation. Owners of any of the above hardware can email myself with a description of what they have and a brief sentence or two of what they use the system for."
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Still on the subject of upcoming releases, the NetBSD project has published a mailing list post entitled Plans for NetBSD 5.0: "Just a quick heads-up that, after an official 'freeze period', NetBSD-current is almost at the stage where we can branch the repository for 5.0. Much has changed since 4.0; some highlights are: during the development of NetBSD 5.0, the kernel version was bumped 73 times, the previous record was 29; there is a new kernel threading model which has better performance than the previous implementation; we have introduced the file system journalling (WAPBL) functionality, kindly donated by Wasabi Systems; much work has been done in the file system arena; the Xen port has updated to Xen 3.3, and has support for PAE domains and amd64 domains (both dom0 and domU); X.Org is now a part of our base system; providing multilib functionality (64-bit platforms such as amd64 and sparc64 can now compile and run 32-bit binaries seamlessly); many more device drivers are present in tree...." As always, testers are most welcome.
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Finally, a topic that will hopefully trigger an interesting discussion in this week's comments section. As widely publicised during the second part of last week, CodeWeavers released its US$40 CrossOver Linux Standard edition, an application that allows running popular Windows software in Linux, as a free download for a limited period. This caused substantial excitement in the Linux community, with several DistroWatch readers commenting on the news in last week's DistroWatch Weekly. Personally, I don't have a need for CrossOver Linux, so I never downloaded the software, but I was surprised by the level of noise this announcement caused on many Linux community sites. So the question for this week's discussion is this: Did you download the free CrossOver Linux last week? If so, what do you use it for? Are there any specific Windows applications that you wish to run on Linux? What are your experiences with the software so far? Please discuss below.
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Released Last Week |
Ubuntu 8.10
The long-awaited stable release of Ubuntu 8.10, code name "Intrepid Ibex", is now out: "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop and Server, continuing Ubuntu's tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. New Features since Ubuntu 8.04 LTS: GNOME 2.24; X.Org 7.4; Linux kernel 2.6.27; encrypted private directory; guest session; Network Manager 0.7; Samba 3.2; PAM authentication framework; Totem BBC plugin; server virtualization; Ubuntu as a Xen guest; JeOS is now an option in the server installer; notable inclusion in the main repository - Sun's Java OpenJDK 1.6, Apache's Tomcat 6, ClamAV, SpamAssassin; boot degraded RAID setting...." See the release announcement and release notes and features overview for further information.
Kubuntu 8.10
Kubuntu 8.10, an Ubuntu variant featuring the latest KDE desktop version 4.1.2, has been released: "Today sees the release of Kubuntu 8.10 featuring the KDE 4 desktop. The Kubuntu developers have been hard at work, bringing you the latest and greatest software the open source community has to offer. KDE 4 reworks your system with a major new revision of the desktop. This Intrepid release lives up to its name by including many changes, but there are some features that are not yet available in KDE 4. If you would rather stay with what you know then remember that Kubuntu 8.04 is still fully supported, see KDE3-KDE4Migration and Is KDE 4.1 for you? for more information on deciding. You can try it first with the Kubuntu Intrepid Live CD to see for yourself whether or not it really is 'for you'." Read the detailed release announcement for additional details, list of features and known issues.
Xubuntu 8.10
Next, the release of Xubuntu 8.10, a desktop distribution designed for users and fans of the Xfce desktop: "The Xubuntu team is happy to bring you the latest and greatest software the open source community has to offer. This is their latest result: Xubuntu 8.10, which brings a host of excellent improvements built on the rock solid Xfce 4.4.2 desktop environment. New Features since Xubuntu 8.04: newest AbiWord 2.6.4 word processor with tons of bug-fixes and new features; improved multimedia experience by including the Listen multimedia player; light-weight search front-end called Catfish; Seahorse - a GTK+ front-end for GnuPG; X.Org 7.4; Linux kernel 2.6.27; encrypted private directory; Network Manager 0.7; DKMS; Samba 3.2; PAM authentication framework; Totem BBC plugin...." Read the complete release announcement for further information.
Ubuntu Studio 8.10
Ubuntu Studio 8.10, a multimedia-oriented Ubuntu derivative, has been released: "The Ubuntu Studio team is proud to announce its fourth release: Ubuntu Studio 8.10. With this release, Ubuntu Studio offers a pre-made selection of packages, targeted at audio, video and graphics users. Ubuntu Studio greatly simplifies the creation of Linux-based multimedia workstations. For Ubuntu Studio 8.10 we have continued to update packages and fix critical bugs to improve the Ubuntu Studio user experience. We are sad to announce the real-time kernel won't be installed by default in Ubuntu Studio in this release. This means that for the time being, we recommend our users that depend on the real-time kernel to stay with 8.04. Features: new Ardour version; Audacity fully working; update of all software packages." Here is the full release announcement.
Mythbuntu 8.10
Mythbuntu 8.10, a distribution featuring a standalone MythTV system and the last of the official Ubuntu variants, is now also available: "After a long and tedious process with many new features and bug fixes the Mythbuntu team is proud to introduce Mythbuntu 8.10 'Intrepid Ibex'. Features: Mythbuntu-log-grabber - this application grabs specific log files into a single area and can upload them to pastebin for easy troubleshooting; automatic partitioner now creates an XFS file system for recordings; mousepad, a graphical editor is now installed by default; Wubi now supports Mythbuntu; Apple trailer plugin is now packaged and available; web site now has link to Mythbuntu in the news. Changes from Mythbuntu 8.10 RC: Wubi now included on CD image; install documents for 8.10 included on CD image; Windows autorun now links to documentation and Wubi." Read the release announcement and release notes for further details.
OpenBSD 4.4
Theo de Raadt has announced the release of OpenBSD 4.4, a BSD operating system with a strict security philosophy and advanced security features: "We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 4.4. This is our 24th release on CD-ROM (and 25th via FTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of more than ten years with only two remote holes in the default install. As in our previous releases, 4.4 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system: new or extended platforms for sparc64, socppc, landisk; improved hardware support; new tools and functionality; assorted improvements and code cleanup; install and upgrade process changes; OpenSSH 5.1; over 4,500 ports, minor robustness improvements in package tools (Firefox 3, GNOME 2.20.3, Inkscape 0.46, KDE 3.5.8, OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, Xfce 4.4.2...." Read the release announcement and release information for a detailed list of changes and improvements.
Puppy Linux 4.1.1
Barry Kauler has announced the release of Puppy Linux 4.1.1, a bug-fix update of the recently released version 4.1: "Puppy 4.1.1 released. Fixes and improvements include: mouse detection, touchpad tapping, loading extra SFS files, DVB USB firmware, old Network Wizard, GPRS message, desktop drive icon renaming, desktop drive icon realigning, check dependencies of installed PET packages, ALSA shutdown, ROX error message when copying from Linux to VFAT file system, improved support for widescreen resolutions, remaster-CD improved, rxvt terminal pasting, and many network setup fixes especially for wireless (including NDISwrapper)." See the release announcement and release notes for a more detailed list of fixes and improvements.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Ubuntu 9.04
The Ubuntu developer team has published a draft release schedule of the project's next stable release - version 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope". The work is about to start, with the first alpha build expected to be ready for testing later this month. As with version 8.10, the development will comprise six alpha builds, a beta and a quick release candidate before the final release scheduled for 23 April 2009. For more information please visit the Jaunty Release Schedule page on Ubuntu Wiki.
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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DistroWatch.com News |
October 2008 donation: GoblinX receives US$250.00
We are pleased to announce that the recipient of the October 2008 DistroWatch.com donation is GoblinX, a Slackware-based distribution and live CD made in Brazil. It receives US$250 in cash.
The timing of the donation coincides with the project's 4th birthday, also celebrated last week. Although GoblinX has been struggling to become a household name in the Linux distro world, its founder, Flavio Pereira de Oliveira, has been patiently working on the project, providing regular releases, quality weekly newsletters, and timely web site updates. And just recently, our friend Béranger (who can hardly be accused of being overly positive when writing about Linux distributions ;-)) has given GoblinX a Best One-Man Effort award, along with a US$30 donation: "The 'Best One-Man Effort Award 2008' goes to Flavio Pereira de Oliveira for the continuous effort of developing the Slackware-derived GoblinX distribution. Without being perfect or bug-free, GoblinX is currently the unique distro to have so many GUI configuration tools written by a single person, such a large selection of packages and desktop environments, and such a flexible way of running and of remastering it. Play with it. Experiment. Support it. Buy its value-added editions, such as GoblinX Mega Flash 2008.2."
Flavio Pereira de Oliveira has emailed DistroWatch to say that he was honoured by being a recipient of a DistroWatch.com donation.
As always, this monthly donations programme is a joint initiative between DistroWatch and two online shops selling low-cost CDs and DVDs with Linux, BSD and other open source software - LinuxCD.org and OSDisc.com. These vendors contributed US$50.00 each towards this month's donation to GoblinX.
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NdisWrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and SabayonLinux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
- 2008: VLC ($350), Frugalware Linux ($340), cURL ($300), GSPCA ($400), FileZilla ($400), MythDora ($500), Linux Mint ($400), Parsix GNU/Linux ($300), Miro ($300), GoblinX ($250).
Since the launch of the Donations Programme in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$19,433 to various open source software projects.
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DistroWatch database summary
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And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 10 November 2008. Until next week,
Ladislav Bodnar
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • GoblinX (by Flavio de Oliveira at 2008-11-04 12:46:09 GMT from Brazil)
"Flavio Pereira de Oliveira has emailed DistroWatch to say that he was honoured by being a recipient of a DistroWatch.com donation."
Yes, I would like to say thanks now using the DistroWatch Weekly. Again, I'm honored to have been chosen to receive the Distrowatch.com donation this month.
2 • Crossover (by Gene Venable on 2008-11-04 12:52:12 GMT from United States)
There are some things that Linux just doesn't do, or doesn't do well. Text to Speech is one of them -- the Windows program TextAloud, for example, crushes any Linux text to speech, mainly because the (for pay) voices available for Windows are much better than those available for Linux.
Crossover is an easier way to run Windows programs in Linux.
Mind, I haven't yet gotten TextAloud to work in Linux, even with Crossover, but it is a good way to try. Others have gotten it to work.
I would love it if I could access Audible.com site audio programs in Linux, with the aid of Crossover, but I haven't yet been able to do that either.
3 • Great Read (by Raul Castillo on 2008-11-04 12:54:05 GMT from United States)
Can't wait to try Ubuntu Studio. It looks great and has LOTS of useful apps for video encoding.
Did we switch to a Tuesday release for DW?
4 • Sabayon (by M1k on 2008-11-04 12:57:54 GMT from Italy)
Forza Fabio..... we are all waiting the new release... sorprendici con effetti speciali!!
5 • great (by Peter Kotrčka on 2008-11-04 12:58:22 GMT from Slovakia)
Great issue - once again. And will be better every ween until X-mas, because big releases are planned for every week.
6 • GoblinX (by Slogger on 2008-11-04 13:06:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ladislav: we thank and admire you. However, no-one is perfect. An award to GoblinX has to be one of your biggest mistakes? It is truly awful. Ever tried to get on-line with it from a Static IP?! Those guys are utterly clueless and content themselves with propagating errors and oversights of other unworthy distros. Let's see who else agrees and disagrees.
7 • Kubuntu 8.10 and NVIDIA (by Leo on 2008-11-04 13:33:33 GMT from United States)
Hi
My upgrade to 8.10 just failed because of the nvdia binary drivers issue. I can't even login to KDE 4 with the free nv drivers. Many people are suffering similar pain, just look at kubuntuforums.net. Thank goodness I always use a separate partition to try the upgrade, and another partition with the previous release ... and a shared /home
So, if you have an NVIDIA card, you miht be better off not upgrading, at least for nw, at least in Kubuntu (not sure how Ubuntu proper would fare)
8 • crossover and ubuntu bias (by Casey on 2008-11-04 13:35:18 GMT from United States)
Yes. Downloaded crossover. EVE-Online is the application testing with it. Its very very nice for those who have games or winapps that need to be run.
Oh, and NO bias in the ubuntu article(s) above. lmao. Gotta love the vague hardware issue references, and "some users" bits. From the reading here, one would be scratching ones head as to the popularity of the 'buntus....fortunately, this isn't the only place to get information regarding the best distro out there. (IMHO on the last line there...no need to debate that bit.)
9 • @8 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-04 13:41:42 GMT from France)
I'm not scratching my head. You seem to select those sentences that allow you to see a bias. What's that psychological trait called?
10 • No subject (by mandog on 2008-11-04 13:58:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Slogger From one English man to another you are one sad man
11 • ubuntu, wiindows7, crossover office (by fred brockmaan on 2008-11-04 14:01:35 GMT from United States)
I havee found no problems with ubuntu 8.10 having upgrade from 8.04. as for window, microsoft has previewed window7. I have used cxoffice (crossover office) to install quicken and other windows only programs.
12 • Free Crossover (by Ken Harbit on 2008-11-04 14:07:55 GMT from United States)
I downloaded it to find out if I really could run MSOffice on Linux (I duel boot XP/Ubuntu). I found out that MSOffice does indeed run fine on Linux. Then I re-partitioned my drive and installed Ubuntu 8.10 using the whole drive ... no windows needed any more with crossover. ... Oh, yea, I did have a backup for both my windows and Linux data.
Now where are my games....
Ken Harbit
13 • Why Windows Can't Be Replaced (for me) (by Gary Olson at 2008-11-04 14:23:14 GMT from United States)
I wish I would have known about CrossOver Linux free download. I'm a professional photographer and use Photoshop every day. I have yet to be able to get my version working under Linux and I'm not about to replace this awesome tool with the Gimp. If it wasn't for this one issue I would be 100% Linux.
14 • GoblinX (by Thomas on 2008-11-04 14:44:25 GMT from Taiwan)
Slogger, maybe it is only right that GoblinX gets the pot, so they have some resources towards rectifying the blemishes you are so focused on. Gongrats Flavio!
15 • Re 2: Text-to-Speak on Linux (by hobbitland on 2008-11-04 14:49:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Try "espeak" on Linux. It is OSS and does many languages:
English, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Serbo-Croate, Russian, Spanish you name it. Previously I used festival but espeak with multi-language is much better.
TextAloud is crap and you have to pay. Try deskbot which is FREE to use on Windows. All the Windows TTS use the smsae old MS engine. Why should you pay.
16 • Crossover (by Sam on 2008-11-04 14:50:52 GMT from United States)
I am a regular user of Crossover Office for running Photoshop, Endnote, and Microsoft Project on my linux box (Mandriva 2009 at the moment). I had been deferring shelling out the $40 for the registration until my trial period ran out. Fortunately I ran across this article: http://blogs.computerworld.com/free_as_in_beer_codeweavers_crossover_linux_and_mac
Laughed my behind off and thought "Hey, wait, I gotta get that serial number!!"
http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/
Outside the United States, this may not come across as such a cool marketing strategy. Here, where we have been barraged by almost two years of political campaigning and the constant blundering of our Commander in Cheese, I think Codeweavers did themselves some good. :D
17 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-11-04 15:00:27 GMT from United States)
http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/olpc/0.82/i686/sugar-spin.iso
18 • @Ladislav (by Eyes-Only on 2008-11-04 15:09:04 GMT from United States)
I hope that today you're feeling MUCH better Ladislav and have recovered from whatever it was that you had. You really push yourself too hard for us. I, for one though, appreciate your tireless efforts to bring to us each week yet another high-quality online newsletter. Thank you!
Once again: I hope that you're back to your 100% capacity today!
Amicalement/Cheers!
Eyes-Only/L'Peau-Rouge
19 • Windows (by 123 on 2008-11-04 15:19:41 GMT from United States)
for some one new to windos it might be easy to give it up and move to Linux, but for some one that has invested a large quantity of Money in Software for windows this transition is not possible in a 100% unless that software would work on linux, So I think we SHOULD put more effort Developing WINE or crossover instead of trying to bet the record on who develops more releases or distributions. to release every 6 month is a wast of time, from ubuntu 8.04 to 8.010 there is no substantial difference for the regular user PLEASE develop wine Faster!!
20 • No subject (by sertse on 2008-11-04 15:23:50 GMT from Australia)
I don't think DW is biased.., he gave the same attitude/approach to Mandriva 3 issues back, oh how we forget so quickly :P
IMO he's just keen to point out flaws rather than positives, but it applies equally.
21 • yellowdog (by ssam on 2008-11-04 15:25:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
when will yellow learn the benefits of open development. you used to have to pay to use the betas, now you only have to email and hope they let you.
this is why i switched to ubuntu. nightly builds for downloads, open bug tracker, all mailing lists are public, public IRC, etc.
22 • Crossover is free software (free as in speech) (by chemist on 2008-11-04 15:26:56 GMT from Germany)
Don't forget that Crossover is free software: http://www.codeweavers.com/products/source/ The source code is available for everyone.
23 • Ubuntu versions (by miko on 2008-11-04 15:27:41 GMT from Austria)
good overview, but you missed a few (official) variants
- Ubuntu Netbook Remix = UNR for netbooks, no separate installation image, you have to install classic Ubuntu plus UNR packages; see
http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/nbr
- Ubuntu MID = Mobile Internet Devices for small devices with touchscreen 4-7', without keyboard; installation image at
http://releases.ubuntu.com/intrepid/
see also
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile http://www.intel.com/products/mid/
- Ubuntu UMPC = Ultra Mobile PCs (was Ubuntu Mobile till some days ago) for small devices with a somewhat bigger touchscreen 7-10', also without keyboard; installation image at
http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-umpc/
see also
http://people.ubuntu.com/~ogra/mobile/
I tried UNR and MID (but not UMPC) and was not really satisfied; don't know why Ubuntu/Canonical tries to do *three* different variants for small hardware without being able to do *one* right
24 • Missing the most interesting anouncement this week (by asshur on 2008-11-04 15:33:31 GMT from Spain)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081031-the-call-of-cthubuntu.html Sadly is probably cthonicware ...
25 • Goblinx (by Wayne on 2008-11-04 15:42:27 GMT from United States)
Slogger, I totally disagree with you. This is a great donation choice and I am totally happy with DW supporting this distro. I believe Goblinx to be the best of the Slax derivatives, even though all are really good. What sets it apart is the huge collection of up-to-date packages, as well as, the website which contains great articles and how to style minitutors. I appreciate this distro so much...
Thanks distrowatch and congratulations Flavio
26 • Codeweaver, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice3 (by Verndog on 2008-11-04 15:49:10 GMT from United States)
I got the serial for the Codeweaver offer. I downloaded their software. I'm just not sure if I even need it. I'll have to experiment as to how it is better than just using Wine. There's not a lot of high-powered MS products that I now use.
I was using Microsoft Office, and hated using OpenOffice, until Mandriva and OpenOffice version 3! Wow what a difference. Not sure what Mandriva did, or if it's Mandriva at all, but this new OpenOffice loads much faster, and ALL my Microsoft Office files are opened perfectly using OpenOffice3.
27 • RSS feed (by Rafael on 2008-11-04 16:01:51 GMT from Brazil)
Apparently, this issue didn't appear on the RSS feed. At least not on my Google Reader ...
28 • Linux TTS (by Patrick on 2008-11-04 16:06:12 GMT from United States)
Another interesting option I just found out about for Text-To-Speech in Linux is Oralux's Voxin. For $5.78, you get the high quality IBM ViaVoice TTS engine, packaged with some tools and an installer.
When you make the payment, they send you a link to the download, and the install was a breeze. You only have to make sure your spam filter doesn't eat the e-mail containing the download link. Unfortunately, "Oralux" and "Voxin" just sound too much like names of medications I guess. :)
29 • "Home entertainment just got entertaining again." (by uz64 on 2008-11-04 16:45:36 GMT from United States)
I've got no problem with taglines (in fact, a good one can be quite amusing to read and can improve your perception of a product and the people behind it), but am I the only one who feels this one just *reeks* of Microsoft? This wouldn't be so bad if Microsoft didn't take this same exact style of line dozens of times since 1995, change a couple words, rehash it, and completely fail to deliver on the promise the line claims, again and again. They beat it to death to the point of "yeah, whatever..." literally.
Yeah, you can say "it's just a tagline" and "but it's not Microsoft" and you'd be right, but I've come to be conditioned to have the words "Microsoft" and "broken promises" when reading Microsoft's poor excuses for using their operating systems during their installs, post-installs, and on their web site. And this one reads *just like* all that crap. The line just has that whole feeling of "Microsoft friendliness" which, if anyone else was previously stuck in the grasp of Windows and has used/installed different versions of it, they'd know what I mean...
Don't take this the wrong way though, I'm not saying that Mythbuntu itself has any real relation with Windows. Just that its claims just feel like a massive cliché by now.
30 • 8.10 and Nvidia (by sonicfrog on 2008-11-04 18:02:28 GMT from United States)
I upgraded from Hardy to Ibex and had similar problems. When I booted into Ibex, I would get the nvidia driver error and would be forced to operate in low res graphic mode. I installed and reinstalled nvidia drivers first 177, then, since my card is a bit dated, downgrading to 173. Still no luck. I found the solution, and it wasn't a driver problem after all. I have several Distros running on my computer, and my grub on MBR was point to the boot folder on an older distro, Mint 5 Xfce, and of course, that /boot/menu.lst did not get updated to the new configuration. So I went into grub and rooted the /grub/boot/menu.lst to the correct path on the updated Ubuntu partition. I had really scrambled my xorg.conf file, and as soon as I reinstalled the Nvidia 173 driver, I have had no problems.
Hope this helps someone.
31 • crossover or wine (by 123 on 2008-11-04 18:03:31 GMT from United States)
Linux NEEDS some windows software - A Good video editor!, unless you want to wait 10 more year for kino to be it - gimp is great for the regular user but for the pros were is Photoshop? and if you have pad $$$$$ for it you are no way moving to linux unless it runs on it!
32 • RE:31, Thats the last thing linux needs. (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-11-04 18:29:55 GMT from United States)
No linux doesn't need some Windows software. I own Photoshop and it will run under Crossover. I don't really need it tho and I don't even have it installed on my system. Also there other video editors besides Kino. The software you mention is written for MS Windows. You know that when you buy it so you know you will have to more or less use MS Windows. Of course if it will put money in your pocket then most people don't care which os they use. Of course you would have to have a lot of money in your pocket if order to use this great software made for MS Windows. As long as you keep supporting Microsoft thats what you'll have to use. Pretty simple isn't it.
33 • @32 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-04 18:34:37 GMT from United States)
I couldn't agree more. The last thing The Linux world needs is MSware. If software developers want to develop, for example, photoshop for Linux, so be it, but please do not drag MS ware into our world.
34 • re 32 re 33 (by 123 on 2008-11-04 18:48:05 GMT from United States)
ok then mac software if that sounds better for you :) on my case I di professional photography and video and I have invested a lot of money in software for that purpose I have try to make it work under Linux do you think I will put to the trash mor than $3000.- NO WAY so I like many other are stuck with f#$# windows If more people would be able to use the software that they already have for windows it would be less painful the transition. trust me no one rally cares about leaving windows, they are more concern about the software that are use to
35 • Re:33 (by Sam on 2008-11-04 18:48:38 GMT from United States)
"please do not drag MS ware into our world" Really? If so, there are tens of thousands of businesses who would easily say "then don't drag Linux into our world" without that interoperability. Just because open-source-only works for your computing needs, doesn't mean it works for the majority of us. Some of us don't have ten years to wait for Kino to get up to speed with even the most basic Mac video editor, while Photoshop version 6 or 7 still runs circles around the illy-named "GIMP."
36 • wine (by 123 on 2008-11-04 18:51:04 GMT from United States)
then can you tell me way WINE is successful??
37 • Crossover (by Crivens on 2008-11-04 19:12:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Downloaded it, installed it, installed Office 2003, tried to uninstall Office 2003 and it failed. Uninstalled crossover feeling rather guilty at rushing to get something because it was free.
38 • Linux Adoption & Quality Apps. (by Andrew P. Dickerson on 2008-11-04 19:27:44 GMT from United States)
Good applications for Linux may take several years or more before they appear in the marketplace. In the Linux world we have more than a dozen desktops (Gnome, KDE, Xfce, etc.). We also have RPM, DEB and Slack based systems running under 100's of different names and variants. Further more many of those run under different kernels and have frequent release cycles and yet others release not as frequent. And unfortunately there has been disagreements even within individual distros like the flame wars we seen in the last edition about KDE4.x and KDE4 vs. KDE3. There has been fingerpointing and blame over problems with the Nvidia driver issue.
Corporate and Government institutions are still beholden to Microsoft and many of them purchase reduced block and site licenses as long as they agree to purchase Billy's next latest and greatest thing, this is called bundling.
Now as a user might want get a little bit more out of Windows software investment on their PC so this has also slowed adoption fully to open source somewhat. What really needs to happen is a unification of standards and technology which could possibly be overseen by a non-profit neutral entity or international organisation. We have international boards that certify and ratify wireless standards and I see Linux needing something similar.
Also, until we see more Universities and global government willing to change from their proprietary systems, then adoption will be extremely slow and painful. Developers may not see much profit margin in developing a quality app like Photoshop for Linux until some of these changes are put in motion. Are there quality apps out there now? Yes! But it is slim pickings out there at best. CrossoverOffice isn't a cure all solution for every win based app. But it's a great start at assisting the migration and transition into Linux for some of your legacy apps. The other alternative is to stay with Billy and Steve Balmer and shell out hundreds of more dollars because some legacy XP apps will not run under Vista either, like your Anti-Virus program.
39 • No subject (by Sergio on 2008-11-04 19:27:56 GMT from Mexico)
I never liked Kubuntu too much in the past (I tried it for the first time with 6.10 and MEPIS did everything better for me), but since they were now incorporating KDE 4 as their main desktop, I gave it a try again. Kubuntu has improved very well and altough there are still many glitches (some weird psychedelic artifacts when opening windows) and I could not install properly the restricted drivers for my Ati 9600 card (a black screen before login screen, but I suspect this happens in every *ubuntu) I will keep it installed for the time being as a secondary desktop, and will keep a close eye for the next version.
I became interested in mythtv recently and have installed a mythtv-backend on my main Debian server. So it was a perfect opportunity to try the new Mythbuntu and I must say I'm very impressed by it, you can install it for being a frontend only and generally everything has worked out of the box without much hussle, the only thing they need to improve is making it easier to add Samba shares (I have all my videos in the Debian server and share it using Samba across my network), since right now you have to do it manually.
Plymouth sounds interesting, and it would be a visually pleasing feature to add.
40 • @ #22 Crossover = Free Speech (by RickH on 2008-11-04 19:43:22 GMT from United States)
Pretty stupid. It's not free as in any Speech I care to participate in. You don't even own the software. You only get a license for 1 year at a time. You certainly can't install it on many PCs or give it to your friends.
On another topic, my attitude about people who MUST use Windows: What's the big deal? Use Windows. It's not like Linux users will miss you.
41 • Wine (by scorp on 2008-11-04 19:50:00 GMT from United States)
wine is Free and if all linux developers would give a day a week and we all give $1 the story would be different, I bet you that more people would be adopting linux
42 • Kubuntu 8.10 worked for me w. Nvidia 7150 video (by Gnobuddy on 2008-11-04 19:57:03 GMT from United States)
Last night I installed Kubuntu 8.10 (AMD 64 version) on an HP laptop, a Pavilion dv9810 with an Nvidia Geforce 7150 built-in video card.
The Live-CD froze until I added "irqpoll pci=noacpi" to the end of the kernel boot parameters (based on this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/110396 )
Once I added those boot parameters, everything went normally. I only had an 800x600 video resolution once the Live-CD had finished booting, but this was enough to let me do a graphical install to the hard drive. After installation I opened up the hardware manager and installed the Nvidia 177 drivers; after a reboot I had OpenGL and the normal 1440x900 full resolution for this laptop.
There are some streaking/tearing artifacts apparent during some of the KDE 4.1 menu animations, but other than that I'm having no issue with the Nvidia binary drivers.
I haven't had time to fiddle with some of the additional hardware drivers (Synaptic, LightScribe, etc), but the basic install seems to work well enough. I used a wired ethernet connection during the install, so I don't know if the new Atheros driver in the new Ubuntu/Kubuntu kernel worked automagically with the Atheros-based WiFi hardware in the laptop or not.
-Gnobuddy
43 • @40 (by chemist on 2008-11-04 20:03:33 GMT from Germany)
Where did you find this "1 year at a time" stuff in crossover-wine-src-7.1.0.tar.gz ? It is not there. You are talking about the non-free binaries not about the free source.
44 • re 31 (by glyj on 2008-11-04 20:03:35 GMT from France)
a good video editor : professionnal level quality ? Cinelerra
The interface is a bit complicated, but you can do many many things...
so ... urpmi cinelerra !
regards, glyj
Ps: about gimp, the CYM support is still lacking but it's in the pipes...after, there will be MANY less reasons to stay with photoshop. gimp & graphicsmagick/imagemagick will be the photoshop replacement.
regards, glyj
45 • vote for Linux (by beany on 2008-11-04 20:09:32 GMT from United States)
The guys over at Engadget are doing an Operating System Poll. I would suggest everyone get over there and vote. http://www.engadget.com/
46 • RE 31 (by 123 on 2008-11-04 20:11:25 GMT from United States)
and this are not the pro versions and please don't tell me that you would not love to see them run on linux:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiopp
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+Ultimate.htm
http://www.magix.com/us/movie-edit-pro/plus/
thank you about cinellera not good enough
47 • re 46 ups sorry (by 123 on 2008-11-04 20:14:33 GMT from United States)
# 46 is for you
48 • re 44 ups sorry (by 123 on 2008-11-04 20:19:24 GMT from United States)
I hate do this wile at work :-)
# 46 is for you
49 • beany's link (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-04 20:35:49 GMT from United States)
Down a ways on the page is the vote for OSX, Windows and Linux, as beany says.
I am not sure why I'm posting this, except that I like to type and say "beany."
*grin* LOL, etc..
50 • replacement / comment about ubuntu distros (by freeballer on 2008-11-04 20:55:57 GMT from Canada)
first I'd like to reply to the replacement part of the posts; linux is wonderful and alot of good programs to at least meet the needs of most users, the main problem is developpers of such programs/games/hardware not giving linux/osx/bsd and others a good look. Simply put, since most (users) will not give linux a first look and windows is "simpler" they will never.. I've tried switching a few people and noboby will take the time to learn it so I dun bother any longer.
On that same subject, running emulated products are a sad affair in general. I dun understand the geeks out there who will run games in an emulated enviroment instead of swallowing their pride and just installing that old version of xp that came with their pc/laptop.. u all know there's a cd lying around collecting dust. I have 2x and both are XP!!!!
About ubuntu..... I l-i-k-e it in that it helps the general user.... and is fairly easy to run and comes in a few flavors for gnome/kde/xfce.... But I think there are alot of problems with it too. None of which I'm gonna get into atm.. My major beaf with it is I'd like to run a debian based off my 4gb usb key... AND keep the rest of the info... But I've found even the newest distro bloated in size and much more difficult to install on usb than it should be (I've tried 3x methods and none worked consistantly). I'm also very shocked that nobody has started a distro "ubuntu on usb" or "mini/teeny ubuntu" that's somewhere near half the size it is atm.. kind of middle ground from dsl and full blown distro
51 • @34, 35 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-04 21:04:22 GMT from United States)
@34 I don't personally care what software you use if its mac based fine, windows based fine. My beef is with trying to bring windows software into linux. If your $3000 worth of software is what you must use then use it on the mac. What's the sense of trying to use it on linux? for the sake of running it on linux?
@35 Really? Yes really
"If so, there are tens of thousands of businesses who would easily say "then don't drag Linux into our world" without that interoperability.
Are you talking about interoperability or running windows designed software on Linux. I do not think they are the same my friend.
there is a difference between running platform independent apps and running apps designed for one platform on another. The latter I find is a hindrance to a complete Linux environment. I would think at some point Linux supporters would want replacements to these software titles and not just another hack on how to use those titles in Linux.
Just because open-source-only works for your computing needs, doesn't mean it works for the majority of us. Some of us don't have ten years to wait for Kino to get up to speed with even the most basic Mac video editor, while Photoshop version 6 or 7 still runs circles around the illy-named "GIMP."
If you don't want to use GIMP then use Photoshop on the Mac. I don't see the sense in running Photshop on Linux. I would hope that you would want to maybe help GIMP get up to speed. Help code, or fix bugs, or just get involved. Or even help in trying to develop an open source alternative to Photoshop. If you have no interest in this, then why use linux in the first place when you can and probably already do use Mac/windows
52 • re 46 (by glyj on 2008-11-04 21:16:34 GMT from France)
Sure, cinelerra is not so sexy, but have a look:
http://www.heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php
http://www.heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra_shots.php
53 • re 51 (by 123 on 2008-11-04 21:42:30 GMT from United States)
not bad ! then I guess we need to start donating to cinelerra, for the future it sounds very promising
I do not ague that linux has software it might be in diapers, but why not take advantage of the existing software from other OS, lets take away from windows the only reason why peoble are holding themselves back to switch to linux
54 • more good video (by 123 on 2008-11-04 21:48:59 GMT from United States)
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/videoediting
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/overview.html
55 • re 53 : my switch to linux (by glyj on 2008-11-04 21:59:49 GMT from France)
My first step towards Linux, was using Mozilla & Star/OpenOffice & LaTeX Then, I realized I didn' use any MS-app related anymore... I was free ! So I switch to Linux very easily : I didn't see the difference between Linux (mandriva 8.2 I think ) and windows ;-)
So the best thing is : #1: Use free apps compiled for windows #2: switch to linux.
56 • re 55 (by 123 on 2008-11-04 22:09:19 GMT from United States)
My first step toward Linux was buying Suse 7.3 4 out of my 6 computers run Linux (no dual boot) 1 windows xp, is not even connected to the Internet so no problems with virus 1 Mac
57 • good free videos made with free tools (by glyj on 2008-11-04 22:13:54 GMT from France)
big buck bunny and elephants dream weren't so bad, made with free tools :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE7VzlLtp-4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsGEWHNJ3s8&feature=related
http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/
http://orange.blender.org/
58 • @ 53 - You're missing the point (by Andrew P. Dickerson on 2008-11-04 22:51:49 GMT from United States)
Just Imagine that you have three P-4's just kicking around. The hardware is still good. The hardware is tool old to run Vista but could run Mandriva (not one of my favorites), or Ubuntu. MS would tell you, you would need to buy a new PC. Linux gives you the ability to run a new state of the art O.S. on an old PC.
Sometimes the machine that you are using might be unusable due to viruses and spyware. Or simply put, you found everything you needed and more through Synaptic, potential saving you hundreds of dollars. For instance you might need "Sony Vegas". The question is do you have the Vegas money? Or will the Open Source progam "Kino" work for you?
As the guy @55 said he converted over pretty much seamlessly and run free win apps most likely with Wine. Sometimes it comes down to economics not just will it run under linux. Should one buy a new PC or a Vista upgrade and pay Billy & friends hundreds of dollars or find a cost effective alternative for your good working hardware and software. Or one might be sick of the Viruses, Malware and Spyware.
59 • Linux swapping (by Nobody important on 2008-11-04 22:51:52 GMT from United States)
For me it was finally realizing that all the programs I used in Windows were the stock Linux standards. I've never liked MS Word, and I've been using Firefox for years.
60 • WINE (by 123 on 2008-11-04 23:15:01 GMT from United States)
I wast talking about making wine a CHAMPION you are all missing the point and yes I have Sony Vegas ? thank God I had the money to buy it and kino is good but it is far........ from being a professional solution
61 • World of Worldcraft & Vent (by Zach Bishop on 2008-11-04 23:36:13 GMT from United States)
WoW and Ventrilo are the only 2 programs that keep me from switching. I have tried about 6 or 7 different distros and I really liked some of them. If both of these (not just one) were useable on ANY Linux distro i would gladly use it, but sadly that is not the case and I am forced to stay with Windows.
62 • @61 (by ct on 2008-11-05 00:00:47 GMT from Canada)
Mumble (Ventrilo alternative) can be used on Linux, you'll have to WINE WoW.
63 • New uses for an old prog (by mark on 2008-11-05 00:10:04 GMT from United States)
I recently downloaded the crossover office standard that was offered last week as a free download. I have been a linux user for the last four years. I am in the Army and one thing that has been keeping a virtual or dual-booted windows on my machine for this time is one program that as of this writing is still not working with the download version of wine. All of our correspondence in the military is in the Puredege format. Until this last week I could not use this program unless I had a virtual Windows partition still on my machine on which to install it. After downloading the free copy of crossover office standard, I can now use this program under linux and finally be free of the bane that is Windoze. I would like to thank all of the people that have been working on this project for finally securing my parole from the windows operating system. I will now be purchasing the newest version of crossover office as soon as my next check comes. Thanks for freeing your military soldiers, we will continue to keep you free in exchange.
64 • Wine (by 123 on 2008-11-05 00:44:14 GMT from United States)
Lets make Wine a champion, lets Start helping them.
http://www.winehq.org/
65 • CrossOver (by fos on 2008-11-05 01:50:23 GMT from United States)
I still have not received the password.
66 • Mainactor (by 123 on 2008-11-05 01:57:17 GMT from United States)
Mainactor was the only Video editing software worth using on linux What happend to them?
67 • Mainactor (by 123 on 2008-11-05 01:59:32 GMT from United States)
http://dvformat.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=32719
68 • MainActor (by 123 on 2008-11-05 02:02:30 GMT from United States)
http://flavor8.com/index.php/2006/07/30/mainactor-vs-cinelerra-simple-editing-part-1/
69 • @67-68 ..basically posts by 123 (by My Name Is Not Important on 2008-11-05 02:59:10 GMT from Australia)
@ 123: So you're a video professional right? You make money from that craft? Then stick with the "tool" that makes it easier for you to make money and do your work.
If you can't get the right tool from Linux then stick with the tools you have purchased. If Macs are better for video/image manipulation then go that way else stick with your Windows based solution.
If you don't make money from video/image manipulation and you're peeved because the tools in Linux aren't as good as those on Windows why bitch and moan? Either help get those tools to the level you think they should be in whichever way you can or just move on and use what works...
I've tried some of the video tools in Linux but didn't like the way they worked or to do the things I wanted in the way I wanted them to so I just stuck with my older PC with XP installed and required software and use that for the job.. My main PC still run s Linux, it's just not my video editing machine which suits me fine!
70 • Crossover (by Woegjiub on 2008-11-05 03:11:18 GMT from Australia)
I downloaded crossover mainly for games, as even on my windows box I use purely open source software, but there are games like the elder scroll series, Starcraft and Diablo which I just wish I could have a linux port of.
71 • re @55 and Goblinx (by withheld on 2008-11-05 03:54:06 GMT from United States)
@55 well said; thats what i am doing as well and would recommend the same to others. there is a lot of quality free stuff out there; one just needs to look.
On Goblinx, despite the slick artwork, I did NOT like it at all; my chief complaint was its boot-up time, excruciatingly slow - even for the mini flavor (which i think had fluxbox). i had booted it on qemu, but in my experience, no other distro takes such a long time; not even OpenSUSE or Fedora. i was just shocked to hear that its based on slackware.
72 • Hello, I'm a Mac , and I'm a PC... (by Verndog on 2008-11-05 04:28:30 GMT from United States)
Pushing the commercial slogan further along... They didn't finish it correctly. It should be: Hello, I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC, and I'm Linux, and I'm another tool and on and on.
Use the right tool for the right job. Linux, Mac, or Windows is no a end-all product. There's pluses and minus for all.
If you need to loosen a 9/16" nut, do you reach for a screwdriver? Of course not.
Don't get locked in on any one solution. Open your mind for other ideas.
73 • RE 69 (by 123 on 2008-11-05 04:43:57 GMT from United States)
read all my posts please : )
74 • CrossOver Linux (by JaDa on 2008-11-05 05:30:28 GMT from United States)
I was one of the them how download it. First I was curiously about it, then I was surprise. The College recommend Office 2007 and I have no choice to another alternative Program. The homework and test's are all in Office 2007 format, and OpenOffice can't handle it. This was the reason for me to run Windows Vista on my Laptop.
Now I was testing the free Crossover Pro Linux from codeweaver, and it is awesome. Yes, I wish me that M$ Office, Adobe Creative Site, Adobe Acrobat Pro, are available for Linux.
75 • CrossOver (by capricornus on 2008-11-05 06:35:36 GMT from Belgium)
I report on this site for 2 years now. I hobby-test most of the final distro's. One of the must-haves is VLC working (that means: with audio and video) and CrossOver/WINE installing well and have WinXP working without crashes. Some distro' s handle WINE like it was warm beer, some distro's do a very good job. I am glad that the community has discovered the ease that CrossOver offers us in using M$-software, for whatever reasons. I hope that other testers will report on WINE-handling too.
76 • RE: 6 Goblinx (by Greg at 2008-11-05 06:38:44 GMT from Greece)
I agree that GoblinX doesnt see network out of the box if you use a static IP. But thats been the case with, probably, the most successful linux live CD too, Knoppix, at least when i tried it. GoblinX is well worth the donation if the donation was meant to go to a distribution. Although, like i said before theres absolutely no reason to have many distros like easys, wolvix, goblinx, vectorlinux, zenwalk which such small userbases doing more or less the same thing. Although the same statement could be made about the thousands of Debian or Ubuntu deritives. Long live open source.
77 • Crossover and older games that WinXP can run? (by ChiJoan on 2008-11-05 08:22:33 GMT from United States)
Hello Everyone,
I missed out on the free download, but remember how well it worked in Xandros 4. However, I never got that old version working on some of my favorite old pinball games from either Win95 or DOS/Win3.11 days. If Crossover is the wrong tool for this, can anyone point me in the right direction?
Also, I'm confused on their Crossover Mac support of the G4. My G4 is PowerPC-based, but they mention the Tiger 10.4 CD needed, yet they say in the graphic it's for those that are Intel-based. I loved OpenSuse 11.0 on my Mac G4, but I missed the ActiveX support on the Web...Adobe should open up the code to Gnash, if they don't want to support the Linux PowerPC platform.
Thanks for a great read, ChiJoan
78 • re: 61 about games (by glyj on 2008-11-05 09:05:30 GMT from France)
Many games are running quite well under linux, sometimes better than on XP.
http://www.cedega.com
regards, glyj
79 • Re 77 - Old Games (by Brooko on 2008-11-05 11:40:15 GMT from New Zealand)
For older games, try dosbox. It's often available in most repos.
80 • @66 Mainactor (by chemist on 2008-11-05 12:20:48 GMT from Germany)
Mainactor is dead. Mainconcept now concentrates on licensing codecs. Long ago I used Mainactor on Suse 8.2 which came with a fully unlocked Mainactor version (no watermarks).
81 • Dreamlinux 3.5 rc4 (by capricornus on 2008-11-05 13:34:33 GMT from Belgium)
Well, on my new testing machine, I got Dreamlinux installed, but I do want to report several crashes from the GUI and when working with FF3. It is like a French car in the ' 70-ties: when it worked, O waaw, but you never knew if it would work and when it would end doing that. Thus, not being blind for the beauty of the OS, and it's devillish (debiannic) speed, I will not keep it...
82 • Kubuntu intrepid a disappointment (by David Smith on 2008-11-05 15:21:26 GMT from Canada)
I installed the latest kubuntu and had severe kde4 problems right off the bat. The most severe ones caused hard lockups requiring alt-prtscr-s,u,b to reboot, when I attempted to launch either display preferences control panel or krandr (the display was incorrectly set to 1024x768). The chief culprit appears to be desktop effects enabled by default -- and I could not even get into the control panerl to disable them without lockup! After an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade things settled down, but for example kde4 displays a box of garbage when kicker is opened for the first time after every boot.
Contrary to some reports, I was able to enable "nonfree" fglrx driver for my older, 9550 radeon.
My other main complaint has to do with the installer's non-intuitive apporoach to bootloader. Apparently it defaults to overwriting your MBR *without telling you*, unless, like me, you get curious and click on the "advanced" button from the partitioning menu. From there it was impossible for me to select the installation partition for grub, either by "/" or "(hd0,5)", so I did not install grub and had to manually add an entry for the new kubuntu installation into my existing grub menu.lst.
In conclusion, the ubuntu/kubuntu team has got a couple of crucial features badly wrong; *show-stoppers*, imo, and they should study the far more sophisticated and bulletproof efforts of several (many, even) other recent distros, including Sidux and Mandriva.
This kind of crap is very damaging to the open source movement.
83 • Best KDE4: Arch (by Carl on 2008-11-05 15:32:21 GMT from Spain)
That's it....
I am absolutely no Arch die hard, since I have been using MEPIS for years.. But the best KDE4 experience so far is undoubtedly the one with Arch. It is clean and to the point. Sure, not all KDE3 features have been implemented, but so far I have found that Kubuntu´s, Suse's and even Debian's mix of KDE3 things into a KDE4 desktop lead to strange things. Arch gives me KDE4 in its vanilla form and it happens to be quite good.
84 • I need CrossOver!! (by Pablo A. Fabrega on 2008-11-05 16:07:02 GMT from Argentina)
First of all, sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language, I only speak spanish. I live in Argentina (a country in South America), I'm an accountant. In my country, tax data must be informed and prepared with apps that run only on Windows platform. Even though, I use Sabayon Linux 90% of my work time, and Virtual Box running on linux host to run Windows XP as a guest when I need to deal with tax software. I do not use CrossOver, but it would help me
85 • @ 57 - Blender (by Some Guy On the Internets on 2008-11-05 16:16:16 GMT from United States)
big buck bunny and elephants dream weren't so bad, made with free tools
Blender may be steadily improving, but as the CG Society members continually points out on cgtalk, blender is not yet at the capabilities or feature set of the proprietary apps. There are areas where it shines (Its UV mapping is top notch), but the asininely designed UI and the documentation that makes that asinine UI* impossible to understand, kills it as a valid choice for anyone that can afford XSI or Maya, both of which have been ported. Photogenics HDR is the only proprietary rasterized image editor on the platform that has a stable release (Pixel is ok, but it is not stable).
For the people that are complain about those of us pointing out free software's flaws, how else do you expect it to improve? Do free software developers use osmosis to figure out where their programs fail or do they use our complaints? Stop being a fanboy, accept that a lot of freesoftware isn't as good as the software that it seeks to be an alternative for, and work to provide programs that are actually better than the proprietary applications.
[*] The biggest problem that blender has is that the UI was never meant for the general public to use, version 2.5 will supposedly address this with a near total re-write of blender.
86 • @83 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-05 17:11:28 GMT from United States)
I concur completely. For me Arch's kde4 is the best implementation. Nice job archers.. Though I will say I dualboot that laptop with arch and debian lenny+kde4, and I must say debian lenny and kde4 are a close second. At least for me.
87 • Best one? (by Nonny Moose on 2008-11-05 17:24:40 GMT from United States)
I just want a non-Windows, non-Mac operating system that is ready for games at www.pogo.com (which uses java and java script) and can set up wifi easily on a laptop with Realtek driver.
Non I have tried work!
Help please with making a better choice? I don't want to have to build one as I don't have time.
88 • @87 (by Andrew P. Dickerson on 2008-11-05 20:03:49 GMT from United States)
Try the full version of Linux Mint. It has flash, java and the so called "restricted drivers" set. Keep in mind, Java doesn't fall quite exactly in the GPL category so some vendors are reluctant to bundle it due to legal issues but most of them will point you to a download link.
Also, Atheros (D-Link) based wireless cards usually work with little fuss. For your card, you might have to bust a move the "NDIS Wrapper" utility. But I would start with Linux Mint or spend a few dollars and go commercially with Xandros or Mandriva (which is not one of my favourites).
APD
89 • 88 (by Nonny Moose on 2008-11-05 20:51:23 GMT from United States)
Andrew thank you.
Xandros would not install on this because it was too old for the hardware.
I got my money back.
Isn't there a Linux that will just install and be ready to go? I'll pay.
90 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-11-05 22:37:35 GMT from Canada)
Have you considered Mandriva? You can download and burn the Live CD for free. You can run it live, without installing on the hard drive. If you like it you can buy the paid version (Powerpack) or you can install the free version from the live CD.
91 • @89 (by Carl on 2008-11-05 22:39:29 GMT from Spain)
If you want to pay, I suggest you spend some money in hardware that is supported in Linux. That will then allow you to try out different distros and pick the one you like best.
For proper wireless support on tricky cards, I suggest you try MEPIS. The 4th beta of what will be MEPIS 8 is quite good.
92 • Missing the point. (by Eddie G. Wilson on 2008-11-06 00:59:52 GMT from United States)
A lot of people have missed the point about Wine, Crossover linuix, and such. If you NEED MS apps then its best to use MS Windows. You shouldn't buy MS apps with the intention of using them under Wine or Crossover Linux. That would be silly. If you already have invested in these programs and want to migrate to linux then Wine and Crossover may be an option for you. Thats all there is to it. Still pretty simple isn't it. If it doesn't work then you know what you HAVE to do. Still simple.
93 • buy hardware for linux? (by Nonny Moose on 2008-11-06 01:38:37 GMT from United States)
Buy a computer for linux?
I did not know we were supposed to do that. I thought linux as for us who could not use Windows because our hardware was not good enough for Windows.
So linux is the same as Windows then? We have to make sure the hardware is good enough for linux?
I am shocked!!!!
94 • Educational forum here!! (by Nonny Moose on 2008-11-06 01:43:09 GMT from United States)
Thank you! I did not know of this. And I plead ignorant of linux ways.
I was remembering reading about linux being a revolution from Microsoft. But now I am seeing linux experts advising of the knowledge that linux needs the hardware (network and video and others?) for compatibility, just like Microsoft Windows!!
What then is the point of linux in the first place?????!!!!
95 • Re: Nonny Moose (by Stuart on 2008-11-06 02:27:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
To respond:
You don't have to buy a computer designed specifically for Linux, but unfortunately there are a few hardware devices (specifically wireless cards) which aren't always supported by Linux. This has massively improved over the last couple of years (the majority are now supported), but you might still be unlucky.
It's not a question of the hardware being "good enough" for Linux; with windows, the manufacturer undoubtedly writes a windows driver. With Linux occasionally this happens, but more often a developer has to reverse engineer to create one.
If you're referring to older computers being able to run Linux, this is definitely true, whereas it's not true for the newer versions of windows. A 400mhz CPU could run certain distributions (packaged for less powerful machines) with no problem.
96 • Sorry, but Let's be clear here (by Andrew P. Dickerson on 2008-11-06 03:59:16 GMT from United States)
Speaking for myself, I am not recommending anyone to buy a new windows license for any software program to run on Linux, that's just insane. But if you already got some OLD win programs it might make sense to run them under Wine if you can. Sony Vegas is on ver. 8. Let's say you have Vegas ver 6, Version 6 still beats out Kino's current release, stick with Vegas, I would. But if find yourself considering a new PC because it's slow or lack other apps, consider a GNU/Linux distro and bring over your OLD apps CW CrossoverOffice or Wine if you can. This would save you a ton of money. Or at best, postpone your upgrade to Vista if you are going that route (but I don't recommend Vista at all.) Also, it would not be wise to but a new Win apps just run them under Wine, save your money. Because that would truly be a waste. The software in the Repo's using Synaptic might have what you are looking for in Open Source to fill in the gaps.
Also, the very first GNU/Linux kernel version was built to run under an i386 (Intel) processor by Linus T. Hey Nonny, if you got a P4 or better you can run most current GNU/Linux versions using KDE4 or Gnome without any out of pocket expense. I really think you should try "Linux Mint" or Mandriva and then blog back in for advice if needed.
APD
97 • Point of Linux (by Carl on 2008-11-06 08:35:02 GMT from Spain)
Sorry guys, if you fail to see that there may be hardware for Linux that is not supported, because the manufacturer refuses to co-operate in order to create drivers, and that that in no way can be attributed to Linux, you really have no idea what is going on in the world.
The point of Linux is _NOT_ to supply everybody with any possible driver for any possible piece of hardware out there. Linux _IS_ about creating a community driven OS that allows you to work in an open environment without the restrictions and risks involved with working Windows.
Windows out of the box has very poor hardware support and needs manufacturer's drivers to get things to work properly. And even then it may be a pain. Can anybody say 'Vista' without laughing here?
98 • Re:97 Windows has crap hardware support out of the box (by hobitland on 2008-11-06 09:52:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, agree that Windows has crap hardware support our of the box. I have a 3 year old Nforce4 based motherboard and Vista will not recognise tthe on-board ethernet. Even the official Nvidia drivers don't work after 20 months from Vista release. However, with Linux (ie Ubuntu 8.04) it worked out of the box.
In fact with Linux my webcam, scanner, sound and network all worked out of the box. That's from a single livecd. However, we Vista it comes on a DVD and yet none of the sound, network, scanner and webcam worked out of the box. What on earth does Micorosft put on a DVD? Microsoft needs to write generic drivers for common hardware.
Even hardware comes with a CD or even a DVD containing bloatware and drivers. So if you have lots of hardware you can go through installations CD/DVDs. Almost everybody do not see these problems as they pay the Microsoft Tax and gets Vista pre-installed.
I have dropped Windows altogether for a year now.If I need Windwos stuff I now use Wine or VMWare. A lot for games now work under WINE. Besides I only play FREE games now.
99 • Are Fedora 10 and Mandriva Linux Free 2009 really Free software as claimed? (by Linux Enthusiast on 2008-11-06 11:15:32 GMT from India)
In the release announcement of Fedora 10 preview:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2008-November/msg00081.html
it is stated as "We use 100% pure free and open source software here, none of that high-fructose proprietary stuff."
Also, in Mandriva's download page:
http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free
it states Mandriva Linux Free 2009 as "pure Free Software edition, no proprietary software/driver."
If both the distros are completely Free Software (free as in free of speech), then why are they not listed in the list of Free GNU/Linux distros recommended by FSF?:
http://www.gnu.org/links/links.html
Due to the above reason I refuse to buy the claims made by Fedora and Mandriva that Fedora 10 and Mandriva Linux Free 2009 are 100% Free software (I understand that Fedora 10 is still under development).
Please, folks at Fedora and Mandriva, if your software is not entirely Free software then kindly do not make such claims. However, if your claims are really true then please make sure your distro is mentioned in this list:
http://www.gnu.org/links/links.html
100 • #99 (by herman on 2008-11-06 12:51:59 GMT from Netherlands)
"Due to the above reason I refuse to buy the claims made by Fedora and Mandriva that Fedora 10 and Mandriva Linux Free 2009 are 100% Free software (I understand that Fedora 10 is still under development)."
You might as well wonder what the FSF's criteria are. "They reject non-free applications, non-free programming platforms, non-free drivers, or non-free firmware “blobs”." In this respect, while Fedora and Mandriva Free are not "free" enough to the FSF's taste, they contain ONLY free software. They just do not stop working once you start using ndiswrapper or whatever, if I understand them correctly. It's highly arbitrary.
101 • greenLegs (by Anonymous on 2008-11-06 15:22:45 GMT from France)
"Due to the above reason I refuse to buy the claims [...]"
As Herman said, it's a question of which *definition* you buy. There is no ultimate authority here, and there are several accepted meanings. Pick yours if you must.
102 • @99 (by noyb on 2008-11-06 16:15:35 GMT from Canada)
So, for you Linux is a religion. How nice.
For most of the rest, we just want our computers to work.
Free as in No Cost is all my pragmatic self cares about.
Linux should be 100% Activism Free.
Leave the cult-like adoration to the mac heads.
103 • SimplyMEPIS 8.0 looking REALLY good these days (by Brian Masinick on 2008-11-06 17:55:46 GMT from United States)
I have been following the Beta testing cycle of the SimplyMEPIS project and reporting issues as I find them to help improve the quality of the end result. In the first test cycle, there was a kernel related PAE error that prevented my Dell Latitude D600 from even loading the Live CD, but my Lenovo 3000 Y410 loaded perfectly and worked perfectly, even in Beta 1. In Beta 2, the PAE issue was fixed, and support improved. All that remained, from my persective, was to improve Broadcom wireless support, which happened in Beta 3, and resolve an NTFS-3G issue, which was solved in Beta 4.
Though SimplyMEPIS continues to undergo testing, I now have THREE laptop systems at home that are capable of running SimplyMEPIS 8.0 as if it were a final release.
If there are any Linux distros which have higher finished product quality than MEPIS, there sure are not many of them. The Debian Core looks really good, so that spells good news for the Lenny release eventually getting out the door, too. MEPIS is based on Debian Lenny for SimplyMEPIS 8.0. Even though still in Beta testing, I recommend anyone desiring a fresh, but really solid and simple desktop system to revisit SimplyMEPIS. I think that it is "Simply MARVELOUS".
104 • @99 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-11-06 18:25:16 GMT from Canada)
FSF's criteria for that list are rather strict. They will not include any distribution which "encourages" access to non-free bits. Or, in their own words - right at the top of that page:
"We do not have links to web sites of the well-known GNU/Linux system distributions, or to the well-known BSD system distributions, because all those sites explicitly describe, and facilitate access to, various non-free programs."
i.e., as far as FSF is concerned, it's not good enough for the product to only contain free software: neither the product nor the website should "explicitly describe, and facilitate access to" non-free software.
For the record, there is no non-free software or firmware in Mandriva Free. (Well, in practice, there may be packages which mistakenly contain things they shouldn't: everyone screws up sometimes, and we haven't done a comprehensive audit for a while. But not intentionally.) Free software enthusiasts should note, though, that it'll set up a 'non-free' remote repo set by default, so if you want to install Mandriva Free and use 100% free software, you should remove those repositories immediately so you don't inadvertently install software from them.
105 • GoblinX, "Too many distros", Linux as religion (by Caitlyn Martin on 2008-11-06 18:50:47 GMT from United States)
First, I agree with all those who think Ladislav made a great choice in awarding a contribution to GoblinX. No, the distro isn't perfect? Which one is? IMHO, none are. GoblinX has some very nice and unique features, very nice artwork, and is generally very promising. Hopefully the contribution will help the developers fix what bugs they have and make the distro better. I certainly don't agree with anything Slogger had to say.
#76 - Vector Linux has a small user base? You could have fooled me. After recent releases it was in the top 10 for 30-day period hits on DW. (Still at #22 in 6-month list.) If you visit the forums you will find a large and active community. Vector Linux has been around for 10 years. It came before most of the other distros you mention. Zenwalk also has a very sizable user community and it's been around for a long time. Both Vector and Zenwalk have developed unique tools and applications that have been picked up by other distros. wicd, the Zenwalk network manager, is becoming increasingly popular.
I also find it pretty funny that you say it does the same thing as Wolvix. I like Wolvix a lot but all teh two really have in common are the Slackware roots and using slapt-get/gslapt for package management.
I wrote an opinion piece for O'Reilly which made it really clear that I think that there are too many distros some time back. I think you're picking on the wrong ones to criticize, though, when you lump in ones that have been around for many years and have a solid following. There are plenty of Johnny-come-lately clones of Ubuntu that change way too little to be seriously considered a separate distro. There are umpteen little garage distros that contribute nothing to the wider Linux community. Neither Zenwalk nor Vector fit in that category.
#102: I agree with you that FSF places their definition of freedom over pragmatism. It does take on an almost religious fervor a lot of them time. Hey, never mind if using something that doesn't fit their political agenda is the only way to make your hardware work. They'd tell you to throw away the hardware.
In general religious zealotry applied to software is a huge problem in the Linux community. No, I'm not saying a huge number of people act like zealots and fanatuics. There is a small but very loud minority who do. G-d help you if you criticize their favorite distro, for example.
106 • Sorry for the typos (by Caitlyn Martin on 2008-11-06 18:59:33 GMT from United States)
I did click Submit way too quickly. I apologize for the typos in #105.
107 • RE: FSF (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-11-06 19:09:38 GMT from United States)
The FSF is not a bad thing per say. There is a method behind their madness. To be totally free from any kind of proprietary software and their companies they feel that they have to not use any kind of software that is closed source, or non-free in any way, shape, or form. And this carries over to project websites, repositories, etc. As soon as someone starts using non-free or proprietary items on their system install then it is not a free system anymore. I am guilty of this myself. They are always working on getting hardware to operate with the same quality or functions that the closed source drivers provide and they are doing very well in this regard. So no matter how we feel about it we should always support the FSF because their work is good and very much needed.
108 • FSF - Mandriva - Fedora (by Gill Bates on 2008-11-06 19:47:49 GMT from United States)
FSF may be strict with good reason. Not only is the U.S. the land of the free and the home of the brave, it is also the land of the lawsuits! Possible lawsuits may be coming out of Redmond, Washington someday like the crap SCO try to pull. Why do I say this? Because notables such as Novell/Suse, Linspire and Xandros are selling Microsoft indemnification licenses. Which simply put means if you bought a Microsoft indemnification license with your new Linux O.S. and Microsoft sues, you'd be protected supposedly. For the rest of us it's oh well. But FSF and others would most likely fight or defend the little guy who incorporated 100% free software in there programs or distros. This is one of the many reason why they are so strict in their criteria. They are not going to dumb down their standards for anyone including Mandriva or Fedora/Red Hat! Doing such a thing would destroy them and their creditability.
109 • the linux machines (by Nonny Moose on 2008-11-06 20:46:08 GMT from United States)
I see linux laptops being advertised at the distrowatch front page.
I read the reviews and they are mixed. It seems that the hardware they are installing the linux on is not always compatible. wow.
Linux pre-loaded on a pc or laptop seems like an awsome idea. But they would have to be good.
110 • #109, LInux machines (by Caitlyn Martin on 2008-11-06 21:29:45 GMT from United States)
#109: Nonny Moose: Actually most of the reviews of the Linux netbooks I've read have been excellent. One notable exception is the Everex Cloudbook, which shipped with a poorly configured gOS v.2 and runs very slowly.
What I think you might be referring to is that a number of these laptops do contain proprietary drivers written especially for the distro they ship with. This is certainly true of the Asus EeePC. The net result is that some people have run into compatibility issues when trying to replace Linpus Lite with another distro. I've read similar complaints about replacing Xandros on the Acer Aspire One. Both of these distros have simplified desktops which seasoned Linux users find frustrating. Both do offer the option of switching to a more conventional Xfce desktop.
The Asus EeePC has a vibrant Linux user community and some people have succeeded in changing distros, albeit with some extra configuration steps. In addition several distros are now offering specific EeePC builds, including Mandriva and Foresight Linux. In general the EeePC with Linux has been extremely successful and is, IMHO, very good indeed.
There have always been specialty hardware distributors offering Linux on fully compatible hardware. There is no shortage of excellent preloaded Linux systems. What we don't see yet is such systems in big box retailers, at least here in the U.S. HP does hope to have a Linux mini-notebook in retail stores for this holiday season.
111 • 105 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-11-06 21:43:02 GMT from United States)
"I wrote an opinion piece for O'Reilly which made it really clear that I think that there are too many distros some time back. I think you're picking on the wrong ones to criticize, though,"
Now that's a funny statement. "Get rid of some distros, but not the ones I like." Here's the thing: It's none of your business if someone else wants to put together a distro. What you are arguing goes against the very thing that makes free software such a force.
"There are umpteen little garage distros that contribute nothing to the wider Linux community."
How do you know that? Is it really a bad thing to have knowledgeable Linux users? How do you know what they will do with what they learn? How do you know that they won't contribute something that is adopted by other distros? I encourage you to try to introduce a major change into Ubuntu or Fedora - it's not happening. Your arguments are the equivalent of criticizing someone for painting his car pink. It's his car, his paint, his time, and of no concern to you.
"Hey, never mind if using something that doesn't fit their political agenda is the only way to make your hardware work. They'd tell you to throw away the hardware."
Please provide a link. I've never heard that. You're being dishonest, and if you can't make your point honestly, you must not have one to make.
"freedom over pragmatism"
So software freedom is not pragmatic? From Merriam-Webster, pragmatic means "practical as opposed to idealistic". I would suggest to you that free software is very pragmatic. You may use Linux because it has a price tag of $0, but I use it because free software is better. You have strong opinions, and I would suggest that it is you who is the zealot.
112 • #111 Putting Words In My Mouth (by Caitlyn Martin on 2008-11-06 23:17:44 GMT from United States)
"Dick Cheney" has a talent for putting words in my mouth. Tell me, did you even read my original article for O'Reilly before jumping into attack mode? It's at: http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/01/so_many_distros_so_little_time.html if you're interested in what I actually had to say. It quoted Carla Schroder and linked Ryan Lorte who essentially were making the same point: having literally hundreds of Linux distros of variable quality doesn't help the Linux community or Linux adoption and, IMNSHO, actually hurts when many of those distros are half baked at best.
Nowhere did I suggest that anyone should get rid of distros I don't like. What I did say, in response to #76, was that well established distros, ones that have been around for a long time, have a large following, and that contribute to the Linux community as a whole most definitely are worthwhile and serve a beneficial purposed. There are definitely distros that match that description that I personally don't like. My personal likes and dislikes were never a criteria, either in my article or in my comments above. I did lay out some objective criteria, though.
What value is there to an Ubuntu respin with a different theme and a different package list? What value is there to buggy, poorly thought out one person hobby distros? I didn't say that people shouldn't have the freedom to create such things. What I did say and still say is that they don't help the community. When someone who isn't a Linux user tries a distro and finds a buggy mess that doesn't work for him or her they aren't likely to try another distro. They are far more likely, IME, to conclude that Linux is a mess and not worthwhile. I also never set myself up as an arbiter to determine which distros are worthwhile or not. All I did was lay out objective criteria and state quite clearly that more isn't better..
It is most definitely a GOOD THING to have knowledgeable users. Tell me this: Do you or I or anyone else have to create a distro to be considered knowledgeable? AFAIK that has never been a criteria used to judge my skills or abilities when I was hired for corporate Linux positions or now when I sell my consulting services to my customers.
You called me dishonest before even asking for a link. Well, here's the link you asked for: http://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software It seems I did make an honest argument despite your allegation to the contrary. Here is the most relevant sentence: "And because our computers control much of our personal information and daily activities, proprietary software represents an unacceptable danger to a free society." If one maintains that proprietary software is unethical to use then FSF is, in fact, claiming that it would be unethical to use hardware which requires proprietary software to function.
Free software and Open Source Software are, in and of themselves, beneficial and quite pragmatic. I've never argued otherwise. Again, you put words in my mouth at the end of your post. What is decidedly ideological rather than pragmatic is the insistence that Free Software be used to the exclusion of all other software. If I insisted on that sort of ideologically extreme position in my business I'd have zero customers. I also have yet, in a 28 year career, to run into one company or organization that completely eschews proprietary software. I have come across companies who try to use F/OSS wherever possible and I certainly encourage that. I have yet to see the business or organization that could run with no proprietary software at all. Pragmatism is to do what works while encouraging improvement (including migration to F/OSS) wherever possible.
113 • RE:112 (by IMQ on 2008-11-07 00:28:10 GMT from United States)
Caitlyn,
I really like your post.
114 • Ref#113 I don't (by Father Frank on 2008-11-07 01:11:47 GMT from United States)
I don't. When someone goes to great length to defend themselves, I question there motive. Caitlyn Martin, has gone to great length , in words that is, to defend herself from comments made by Dick Cheney.
It's as though she is trying to convince everyone reading this how right she is. It doesn't take long contracted statements to make a point. KISS, I always say. Dick Cheney made some good counter-points - simply.
115 • @112 (by Phil Ford on 2008-11-07 01:20:35 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
116 • info and sadness here (by Nonny Moose on 2008-11-07 01:53:07 GMT from United States)
The information is foremost and although subject to research for slubstantiation once in a while, valuable and good for linux and this site.
The personal issues between posters here make me sad. Those issues are not resolvable; the polarized parties will continue ad infinitum unless clipped by the sysop here or one or the other just breaks off the conversation.
Please do that, one or the other of you; break it off. You both cheapen this forum.
117 • Ref#116 Easy solution (by Doctor Duane on 2008-11-07 03:04:43 GMT from United States)
Nonny Moose, there's an easy solution for you - don't ready them!
118 • RE.97 • Point of Linux (by Anonymous on 2008-11-07 04:46:39 GMT from United States)
The point is that Linux have his own market. If you walk around your home, take a closer look to your products. TV, Dishwasher, Washer, Dryer, DVD Player, MP3 Player, Navigation System, and millions of another Products, all powered by Linux.
119 • nickspamming namestealing and politics in a linux forum (by arno911 on 2008-11-07 10:08:35 GMT from Germany)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
120 • #119 (by yelamdenu on 2008-11-07 10:45:17 GMT from Netherlands)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
121 • @ 112 (by Linux Enthusiast on 2008-11-07 11:15:57 GMT from India)
"What value is there to an Ubuntu respin with a different theme and a different package list? What value is there to buggy, poorly thought out one person hobby distros? I didn't say that people shouldn't have the freedom to create such things. What I did say and still say is that they don't help the community. When someone who isn't a Linux user tries a distro and finds a buggy mess that doesn't work for him or her they aren't likely to try another distro. They are far more likely, IME, to conclude that Linux is a mess and not worthwhile."
While I agree with you about a new Linux user being put off of the whole Linux ecosystem due to a buggy distro, it's rather incorrect to say a particular distro's respin with a different theme and a different package list don't help the community.
Think positive. What if a particular distro's respin works bug-free for the new user? Won't the new user get into the habit of using the respin more and more for his work? Won't the new user get curious about other distros and start distro swapping inspite of the original respin working bug-free for that new user? Won't the new user eventually learn how to contribute to the Linux ecosystem which would directly or indirectly help us all (Linux community)? It is here where a particular distro's respin with a different theme and a different package list value is present.
122 • Dick Cheney, Number of Distros (by drizake on 2008-11-07 13:49:11 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
123 • No Politics Here Please. (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-11-07 13:50:03 GMT from United States)
This is not the place for politics or for people to try to push their opinions of political figures on to other people. There are other forums for that and your opinion on politics is not needed or wanted on DistroWatch.
124 • #119 & #120 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-07 13:59:12 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
125 • @124 (by arno911 on 2008-11-07 14:35:41 GMT from Germany)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
126 • "don't ready them?" (by Nonny Moose on 2008-11-07 15:10:04 GMT from United States)
I do not know what that means.
I do know that the in-fighting in the linux areas cheapens this site.
On-topic: the Acer little notebook called the "Acer Aspire One" is coming to our facility soon; we ordered one and we will post here how it goes. There are now 6 users of the three machines here, and linux has been our project on this laptop and one of the PCs. The other PC belongs to a person who will not try linux.
With shipping our new little notebook computer is less then 400 American dollars; pretty good if it works. :O)
127 • #125 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-07 15:57:45 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
128 • @127 (by arno911 on 2008-11-07 16:05:43 GMT from Germany)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
129 • Microsoft Missing Netbook Growth as Linux is Winning Sales (by Andrew P. Dickerson on 2008-11-07 16:19:20 GMT from United States)
Today Bloomberg.Com said:
"The Netbook, which usually cost less than $500, are the fastest-growing segment of the personal-computer industry -- a trend that's eating into Microsoft's revenue. Windows sales fell short of forecasts last quarter and the company cut growth projections for the year, citing the lower revenue it gets from netbooks."
The Netbook will account for one third of all PC based sales this year alone. That number is expected to rise in 2009. Leading the way is a Linux O.S. optimised to take advantage of this new type of mini system. A netbook for Vista would not be a very smart idea due to its high resource requirements and high power consumption. But HP is putting Vista on some of them which will eventually fail for them in my opinion due to high heat, high resource requirements and lackluster performance issues.
Recognizing this serious threat to their bottom line Microsoft extended once again XP's availability and support life in an attempt to retrofit some netbooks with Windows XP so that they may slow down the rapid Linux growth in this exploding segment because they understand the desktop market share is next. Again, Billy fell asleep at the wheel and now must invent a new marketing strategy for this ever growing threat to MS. Their stock dropped $1.20 today which suggests there is not much innovation left coming out of Redmond. The only other hurdle Linux Netbooks must jump at this point is the FUD that comes from those who promote proprietary O.S.es.
130 • @arno911 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-07 16:46:35 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (disrespectful).
131 • Respins (by Nobody important on 2008-11-07 17:18:01 GMT from United States)
Respins don't hurt the Linux community at all. In fact, they help it. Ever heard of a little distro called Puppy Linux? Their Puplets are arguably one of the best parts of the community and the distro. It's so easy for anyone to lump a new little ISO on the website that it actually bolsters the entire community. Fedora, Debian, etc. are all examples of why Caitlyn is outright wrong.
Caitlyn maintains that a newbie will see the communiy-spun distro and not like it. Who's to say that they will care about those at all? If a Linux newb is smart enough to find, burn, and test the community-spun distro, they're also smart enough to know that what they are using is not the real deal. It's fairly obvious that when you're using "Vubuntu" that it's a copy of Ubuntu. Most of these community-spun distros work off that for publicity.
I think the way it works is fine. If a user wants to get into Linux (just like every single person on this board did at one time) then they will have to find out which one they want to try. Even with a few Google searches and a few minutes of research one can deduce that a good newb friendly distro would be Mandriva or Ubuntu. It's not that difficult. The rest of the "garbage" is hidden from sight, or of little interest.
It's the right of the open-source software freedom hullabaloo that people can respin their distros. Whether or not you find these distros worthy of merit is another matter entirely.
While I'm typing along, I'm also going to say that the FSF does excellent work in pushing the free software movement. If they can made a totally free distro like gNewSense work fine in the next two years (which is entirely possible) then we might be getting somewhere. Sure, some of them are a little over the top in their arguments and reasoning, but again, this is how they choose to use their computers. I prefer to start with a totally free base and then add the packages I know and need, and that I have an idea of how much proprietory software I have. This is the kind of freedom that makes me support the FSF wholehardedly, even if some of its members may be a little stronger on the Free front than me.
132 • Re Mandriva 2009, for Adam (by Barnabyh on 2008-11-07 17:38:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi Adam, this months LM came with 2009 Free as you probably know, have tried it in a proper hard drive install and was in fact very impressed, did not encounter any bugs, artefacts in KDE4 or the like as people posted here two weeks earlier. Wireless even worked straight away with my atheros chip (this laptop is an IBM T42) that 2008 Free did not set up, so I suspect the advancements are in the kernel?
Nice job, no problems here, apart from the issue with libmono0 still needed to install Evolution. Thanks to the team.
133 • @ nauseam (by arno911 on 2008-11-07 18:04:12 GMT from Germany)
my intention was not to debate about politics, i addressed a delicate topic because i felt the urgent need. unlike others i didnt insult anyone. (well, except the real Cheney, but for a reason) the person i spoke to did not even read my posting, let alone answer to it yet, but one or two anonymous heroes called me a moron. i think two of them, cause the first one put an end to this already... and so did i. but if you really want to talk about politics, and once we're at it, and only because it has something to do with linux, and because i really wanna "pour oil on troubled water"; here is the ball. play it!
Barack Obama proves the power of Open Source: http://opensource.org/node/372
whoaa! and I thought linux had nothing to do with politics ;) Hail to the King!
b.r. and have a nice WE everybody
134 • #133 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-07 19:45:11 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
135 • #133 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-07 19:54:34 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (disrespectful).
136 • #130: No I don't work for Vector (or Wolvix or Zenwalk) (by Anonymous on 2008-11-07 21:47:29 GMT from United States)
#130: I only mentioned Vector Linux (together with Zenwalk and Wolvix) in response to #76 claiming that they were all unneeded duplications of little or no value. I do use Vector Linux as my primary home desktop distro (mainly Red Hat at work) so those two tend to be what I can comment on most. I certainly don't raise Vector every week like one person does with Mepis. Do I think Vector is a good distro? Yes. Do I think it's the best distro on the planet? No, not really. I think it suits my particular needs well is all. I certainly don't work for them and never have.
The only distro maker I have ever worked for is Red Hat.
137 • #136 was me (by Caitlyn Martin on 2008-11-07 21:49:01 GMT from United States)
I did enter my name and URL but for some reason it didn't take. I'm testing an alpha build of something so I guess weirdness is to be expected....
138 • Caitlyn and Vectorlinux (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-07 22:32:20 GMT from United States)
Why is your name one that scrolls by on the installation screen of Vectorlinux, Caitlyn? Is it for contributors? If so, why is my name not one that scrolls by? If not, what are the names for?
139 • Verndog Last Week's Comments (by Landor on 2008-11-07 23:16:54 GMT from Canada)
I read last week you were sepaking about back-ups and such and tried quite a few. There's a newer project (might still be in alpha, not sure now) TimeVault. It might be worth a looks since it tracks what it's backed up and only backs up new or changed files.
Last I read about it, it was only available for Ubuntu specific, but the code could be built and with a bit of tweaking used on other distros. They may have ported it other distros or made the source non-ubuntu specific.
Hope that helps somehow
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
140 • Ref#139 Backups (by Verndog on 2008-11-08 00:55:38 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the information. I have searched several leads of late. What I was looking for was a replacement of Acronis Trueimage. Since that program no longer works with Ext3 256-byte inodes.
what comes closer is PartImage. It only backs up used portions of a partition. No other program outside of Trueimage/ghost does that. Most of them just have front ends to dd, cpio, tar, and the like.
I was able to backup my entire one partition Mandriva in under 11 minutes, and restore in under 2 minutes on another hard drive and computer!
141 • @132 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-11-08 01:44:13 GMT from Canada)
Thanks, glad it's working for you. I did report the Evolution / Mono issue upstream and it was fixed, thanks to Matthew Barnes of Red Hat:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=549025
but it was too late to get in 2009. As I mention in the bug, it's up to Fred (Crozat) whether it's important enough an issue to be shipped as an update for 2009.
142 • re 130, 135 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-08 02:30:48 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (disrespectful).
143 • @135 "hero" as in sarcasm (by arno911 on 2008-11-08 09:33:46 GMT from Germany)
Comment deleted (off-topic, disrespectful).
144 • upgrading ubuntu broke my graphics twice! (by geert on 2008-11-08 12:10:57 GMT from United States)
When upgrading ubuntu on my everex pc (sold for use with an UBUNTU version!) UBUNTU broke my graphics beyond repair for a newbie.
The funny thing is that, when they posted some bug fixing packages, they broke it again.
Thank you Ubuntu.
145 • New Puppy at the White House (by Lobster on 2008-11-08 13:50:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sasha and Malia ... I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us ...to the new White House. President Eect Barack Obama
Are they getting a copy of Puppy Linux? http://tmxxine.com/wik/wikka.php?wakka=PresidentialPuppy
146 • #137 - Scroll on Vector Linux install (by Anonymous on 2008-11-08 14:38:56 GMT from United States)
My name went onto the scroll shortly after I started doing some volunteer packaging for Vector Linux. I don't know what the criteria are for getting on that list. I think (only a guess) that it's for anyone who makes a significant contribution in the opinion of Vector (Robert). I guess he thinks I've been helpful with my packages and lately helping out now and then with repository maintenance. I don't know what you have contributed or why you aren''t included.
I have been making voluntary contributions as time permits to two distros at this point. Vector Linux is one. The Ultralight project (no public release yet) is the other.
147 • #146 was me (and it was my fault this time) (by Caitlyn Martin on 2008-11-08 14:40:20 GMT from United States)
Yes, #146 was me, and this time I really didn't fill in the boxes. Sorry.
148 • Mandriva has new CEO (by Anon on 2008-11-08 14:52:16 GMT from United States)
Mandriva just announced on their home page a new CEO, Herve Yahi. (Accent ague on the last e in Herve). He has a Ph.D. in Physics and has lead successful businesses before.
Let us at Distrowatch wish Herve success in moving Mandriva forward into the future.
149 • @141 (by Barnabyh on 2008-11-08 14:54:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks for that Adam, it will definitely make a difference. As I said, a nice release again at least for me, and the best KDE4 in any distro incl. openSuse that I've seen so far. Not quite my cup of tea though, will probably be using Xfce most of the time, or the fvwm-crystal mod. Have a nice weekend.
150 • Thanks Caitlyn (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-08 18:19:18 GMT from United States)
Nice of you to fill in about that scrolling name thingy in the Vectorlinux install screen.
I've contributed over half a million dollars to Vector, that's why I was wondering about why I'm not in that name list.
:O) *Grin* LOL, etc...
151 • Last Week's KDE Editorial (by Jayson Rowe on 2008-11-08 19:21:18 GMT from United States)
I just realized that I can't leave comments on old issues, so I apologize for doing it here.
I used to read the DWW every week, but I stopped for a while due to the constant bickering...well, I realized that I like the bickering, it's amusing, and entertaining, so I was digging through the old issues and came across Ladislav's editorial on KDE 3/4 and Debian Lenny.
Ladislav, I know you caught a little flack from some of the readers of that issue, and I wanted to say that I agree with you 100%. I just followed your advice and did a Debian Lenny KDE install and I'm more than pleased. It IS nice to see that there are still fast and stable distro's with no issues out there! Thank you for your reccomendation.
(Note to the readers who gave Ladislav a hard time about his editorial): To all the others, I think it's great that there are so many of you eager to try out new things, and test out all the distro's that come through, but remember, there are those of use, who while we love Linux, and perhaps one particular Desktop Environment, we all don't have the luxury of constantly mucking around with our systems. We need something fast, stable and reliable. Like many others, I'll be sticking with KDE 3 on Debian for some time. I will keep up with KDE 4 in Virtual Machines, but I just can't run it right now. Just be thankful that in Linux, we do have a choice, and please respect the opinions and needs of other users - you aren't always right!
152 • Little happenings (by Verndog on 2008-11-09 16:28:33 GMT from United States)
It appears that very little is going on in Linux for the past few days. After a barrage of Ubuntu notices, not much else is happening. The BSD notice has been on the front pages for a few days now. Maybe a lull before the storm. Or the world economy has effected us all.
153 • Disappointed . . . (by rich on 2008-11-09 17:06:55 GMT from United States)
Having scrolled down all of the last 152 comments has left me with a bad impression about some of the Linux community in general. If people would be more civil and keep the subject matter on track and stay away from inflammatory (i.e. anonymous political name useage) and the back and forth bickering.I am disappointed that Distrowatch being the fine website that they are haven't cracked down on this type of behavior for letting this go on as it has. It serves no function to the overall Linux community at large to discuss anything viable when one has to read through much of this ranting and idiotic discourse from people who can't at least sign off with names that won't encourage the type of behavior that I've read here so far. Maybe if people had to login and support a code of conduct would be necessary to get this back on track. . . . dunno.
154 • keep distrowatch free (by duck at 2008-11-10 00:39:47 GMT from United States)
rich #153,
What a pain in the neck you are. You want mommy admin to come and civilize everyone so that distrowatch will be decent once again. Please...
We are free to behave how we want here and we like it that way. Leave us alone and go be preachy somewhere else.
155 • RE: 140 and Distrowatch being free (by Landor on 2008-11-10 01:26:10 GMT from Canada)
RE: 140
No need for thanks...I should have looked deeper. As you've probably seen it is just another frontend. Those were some really decent times you posted. I still do it the old way myself...Maybe I'll have to look at another solution with that kind of speed.
RE: Free Distrowatch....
Times have been pretty rough before here and Ladislav still moderates us in his own fashion and when he feels it's needed. There's always someone who's not happy with the status quo of course. I myself was a bit of a hardliner until I realized I was turning into a zealot myself, or feeding little whiners who most likely have very little ability to form a decent exchange, let alone breathe.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
156 • Damn Small Linux Update (by Verndog on 2008-11-10 01:31:49 GMT from United States)
I just found out Damn Small Linux has been updated to version 4.4.8 I found that info on a non Linux site if you can believe that. I didn't see any news about it on the front page here at DW.
157 • RE: 156 (by Anonymous on 2008-11-10 02:00:07 GMT from United States)
Verndog, DW isn't going to hiccup every time there's a DOT release. It's impossible to keep up to minute on ALL distros that have DOT releases from time to time. For up to the minute bleeding edge coverage on your distro, always go to your distro's homepage.
158 • RE: 157 (by Landor on 2008-11-10 02:52:16 GMT from Canada)
"It's impossible to keep up to minute on ALL distros that have DOT releases from time to time"
True for some periods in the yearly cycle. The front pages has BSD 6.4 from Nov/4....Doesn't seem too difficult right now though.
I always smile though when people come and answer for Ladislav as they know the facts about something.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
159 • Xubuntu (by My Linux Page on 2008-11-10 03:19:59 GMT from United States)
I tried Xubuntu and I must say that it takes some getting use too. KDE 4 is very different then 3.5 it is not as flexible when you want to customize it. Anyways, I will continue to play with it and see if I can get used to it.
160 • Ref#157 (by Verndog on 2008-11-10 05:22:02 GMT from United States)
If you notice the left side of the front page, Puppy was "hicciped" along with most others. My point was a non Linux magazine mentioned in passing the version change.
161 • to "duck" (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-10 11:47:10 GMT from United States)
You said, " We are free to behave how we want here and we like it that way."
Doesn't that mean "rich" can "behave anyway he wants," including chiding us for behaving as we want?
:O)
162 • @105 (by Greg on 2008-11-10 15:48:10 GMT from Greece)
Replying to the @76 part: I try to only critisise what i care about. The Ubuntu and Debian clones are millions. Never liked Debian, probably never will and i dont care about all those distros. Im looking forward to the next Vector release as you personally have put a lot of work into it. If it doesnt gain at least 2 levels on my scale, im sorry but i will keep on mentioning your distribution with goblinx,wolvix,zenwalk,kateos,easys and all other poor slackware xfce clones. Yes Vector is beyond that point but it still cant be considered a serious distribution IMO. As for Zenwalk, dont make me laugh. Its never been a serious distro. Its an Archlinux wannabe but sadly for them they have 200 less quality and 100 times less user base. Its as close to Slackware as Suse. (Yes i know i am exaggerating). The way its evolving, prety soon it will have no reason of existance whatsoever. Check out their package repositories, the User Repository, and you will found that out yourself.
163 • LinDVD (by Verndog on 2008-11-10 22:25:49 GMT from United States)
This program came up at Mandriva web page. In researching it a bit, I find it hard to get any information. Apparently a version of it is on Mandriva's Powerpack. The company that created LinDVD is InterVideo. I remember that program from Windows days. It use to be good in the beginning, or I remember using it way back when.
There's been some HowTo's on Debian forums or rather and update to using the free DVD Decrypter and the aging Shrink program. Oddly enough, I haven't run across any program that works any better than Shrink.
I know about using 'libdvdcss2', but it doesn't work on all copy protected programs.
What program does anyone else use. I have DVDFab for Windows , but don't particularly like it.
Regarding LinDVD: You can read some promo on it here. Read the very last line at the bottom of the page: http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Product_Profile.jsp?p=LinDVD
164 • 163 - part2 (by Verndog on 2008-11-10 22:28:36 GMT from United States)
By the way, I'm referring to movies that you either own or try to watch from rental companies. I'm not advocating anything other than viewing and making copies of what you own.
165 • RE: 163 (by Landor on 2008-11-11 02:58:33 GMT from Canada)
I ran dvdshrink (if memory serves me) under MS and I could never find anything better that was *nix or MS based. The quality loss was negligible in my opinion only of course. Diehards would say otherwise in regards to compression.
I haven't needed to shrink a dvd for some time now, so I'm not sure how a nix based util will stand up now, but I'm curious now if dvdshrink will run under wine/crossover.
As many have stated, there really are just some apps from the MS based pool that work far better.
Look at photoshop in comparison to GIMP, the learning curve in gimp is astounding with photoshop as the benchmark, and photoshop is just far more intuitive. I use gimp for a lot of things, but when I'm pressed for time or trying something new, I bring up photoshop under crossover.
I don't even want to get started on Webcam support, proper webcam support that is.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
166 • #165 and Mandrake printing (by Verndog on 2008-11-11 04:29:29 GMT from United States)
You brought up a sore subject with webcam. I still use Windows for that ONE product. Why. It simply works! With that said, the newer Skype 2.0 has shown much improvement and so does Ekiga 2.0. It will now at least communicate with my Logitech Webcam.
Regarding Gimp, it makes me feel like a gimp :),. if you know what I mean. When it first starts all those dialogs are confusing, and I just now figured how to cut and resize things. Photoshop like you mentioned is intuitive.
Right now I'm having issues with Mandriva and my printer. Apparently I need to use the livecd and install system-config-printer. I think that's it anyway.
167 • whine and grossover and Photoshop (by beany on 2008-11-11 06:10:21 GMT from United States)
I have been using GIMP for some time now and find it to be a great little program. I have no issues with it other than the CMYK disability. Gimp, Open Office, K3b...etc. They are all free, fine and dandy alternatives to what would add up to be very expensive software. That more expensive software in return is designed to run on an expensive OS and sometimes this expensive OS requires additional costly virus protection. I suppose if i paid $599 for GIMP, I would get really bitchy about its downfalls. Until then I am very very happy.
168 • Get Well! (by Tony on 2008-11-11 06:15:32 GMT from United States)
Get well Ladislav!! We'll all still be here!
Everybody deserves some time off for being sick, and you are no exception to that rule. Kick-back with your feet propped-up, rest, and recover Amigo.
169 • mepis beta on laptop (by joey on 2008-11-11 21:36:18 GMT from United States)
wont install to hard drive - gparted does not work - networking borked - many display probs -
not a support forum i know .. just reporting on this toshiba i tried it
170 • mepis beta 5 (by adrian on 2008-11-11 22:45:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
re:- post 169 The new beta 5 of mepis 8.0 is running superbly here,why don`t you pop over to http://mepislovers.org/forums/index.php we will gladly help you out if you post your spec and the exact problem.Don`t give up yet.
171 • mepis beta 5 (by joey on 2008-11-12 15:51:14 GMT from United States)
i take responsibility for trying a beta out; knew that chances were slim of a successful install, etc.
thank you for the invitation, i will head over there after i try again so i can be more useful with details about the problems and bugs.
172 • replacement for dvdshrink (by El Barto on 2008-11-12 22:42:34 GMT from United States)
at 165
I would try k9copy. works really well for me
173 • sabayon try (networking woes) (by todd r. on 2008-11-13 01:24:14 GMT from United States)
rtl8187b realtek .. same old story ..
ndiswrapper gets set up real well .. network is detected and reported in network manager .. but
.. no connection .. won't connect.
the strength of the connection is reported as 48% and sometimes 54% .. which is half or a bit more of what is detected by xp and vista.
when will a kernel come out with good drivers for realtek network apparatus? it has been 2 YEARS since this card was released ..
174 • @173 RealTel ra (by DeniZen on 2008-11-13 15:01:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Realteks = Linux pain, it seems.
I'm all for voting with my feet/wallet I would be tempted to ebaY that realtek - or even try taking it back if its recent purchase. And grab another brand with a known, 'good' chipset. (If both transactions via ebay, it may not even cost you, other than time. If thats do-able)
Now, I know! - you shouldnt 'have to do that' in 2008. And also that issues can often get fixed by voice of the people.
But, life it too short, and Wi-Fi Nics are cheap now.
175 • @ 166 Gimp-o-shop (by DeniZen on 2008-11-13 15:27:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Regarding Gimp,.. When it first starts all those dialogs are confusing, and I just now figured how to cut and resize things. Photoshop like you mentioned is intuitive."
Fair comment Verndog, but (if you have not done so) check out the latest release of Gimp - the interface has been changed - at least a fair bit. Its now much more like ... Photoshop. (a lot like Photoshop interface on OSX anyhoo)
If your distro doesnt have the latest Gimp release (sorry dont have the specific release info to hand) - and if you have good bandwidth! - you could burn off and fire up an Ubuntu 8.10 live CD to take a peek at it - thats how I got wind of the interface change. Or search for image/reviews of it.
Praise be to the Gimp! - Now with added Photoshopiness ;)
176 • @ 102 free-aholics and mac-olytes (by DeniZen on 2008-11-13 16:11:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Quote: "So, for you Linux is a religion. How nice. For most of the rest, we just want our computers to work. Free as in No Cost is all my pragmatic self cares about. Linux should be 100% Activism Free. Leave the cult-like adoration to the mac heads." End Quote
I agree. I also just want it to work. Despite being a Debian-head .. ;)
The less savoury (to some) fervours expressed are often hand in hand with adolescence i suspect. That said, there should be, and is a choice for those who want a 'truly' free OS.
Alas, limited working hardware, and not being able to view much other than static content would not suit me. Good luck, and hats off to those who make that sacrifice for their principles. I mean that.
I 'pervert' and taint my Debian system(s) in order to make it do things i want to do. I'm feeling increasing guilty about doing it - my choice to feel that way - not due to others opinion! But I have always known that what I do is basically contra to Debian philosophy. So I feel I ought to respect that. And I'm geting older. I cant be doing with the tinkering and maintenance any longer! So I'm currently evaluating Ubuntu/Kubuntu and Mepis to see if I can make the switch. (yes still basically 'Debian' i guess)
So far i like Ubuntu 8.10 - a lot. I dont get why it gets 'bashed' at all. Ubiquity and popularity i suspect. Becoming too 'mainstream' perhaps. Anyhoo, Latest Gnome feels a happier place to be than KDE4. Not as snappy as pure Debian and KDE 3.5, but maybe Mepis will help there.
Finally, as it happens, I write this on a Mac today. I assure you - there is no 'cult like adoration' towards Mac round here! I've had plenty issues, and I'd be happy to admit them! I cant stand the 'Mac-olytes'. The last thing you want to hear when you need help on a mac forum is some insane, blinkered defense of all things Mac when you clearly have come with a Mac related *problem*. Does my head in! (Principles i respect, but Zealots are the scourge of the earth).
So, I keep running Linux, dual boot on the Mac, and on a dedicated Machine (which also runs XP - in a VM - purely for things like Nokia updater etc ;) ) All bases covered, and a happy experience.
If i absolutely _had_ to choose one OS, without spending more money on Hardware, then my shocking realisation is that I would be running XP, on my Intel Mac. Simply because, thats the only OS I 'own' that currently works with *everything* I *ever* might need to use (at this time) Notwithstanding that I _might_ be able to get by with Wine, but i doubt it. Still sad, but still true.
But, back to the point about getting all hot and bothered about totally 'free' OS - its simply a million miles from practicality for me, and for many. Others may find a way to get by. Perhaps enlightenment and guidance instead of foot stomping is called for.
Right, time to boot up Mepis and take a looksee.
177 • Realtek (thanx denizen) (by Todd R. on 2008-11-13 18:12:50 GMT from United States)
I agree, but this machine is a "house" laptop, with many users, along with the two PCs here. We can't modify the hardware but we can swap out hard drives in our ongoing efforts to FIND A LINUX DISTRO THAT WILL WORK!!
:O) apologizing for the yelling and the exclamation point; but this has been going on for way, way too long. XP and Vista work well (not troll!!!) and no, NO linux distro will connect to our router.
They will SEE the router, some of them, but they will not connect.
We have faithfully followed steps from Mint, Sabayon and many others and all end up with similar results.
We're waiting for a more evolved kernel. *rolls eyes*
178 • Ref#176 (by Verndog on 2008-11-13 21:38:56 GMT from United States)
I'm a little surprised that you dual-boot your mac with Linux. Is this an older model Mac?
I read somewhere a rather lengthy response comparing a mac running OSX or their latest offering and Linux. It was quite informative. My thinking is that if someone buys a Mac why put Linux on it at all or just buy a PC and load Linux.
179 • Note to all who have helped: (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-13 23:28:50 GMT from United States)
Many have commented and given us links and suggestions to help get this Toshiba laptop to work in a Linux distro, particularly our networking woes.
We just installed "Ultimate Edition," an Ubuntu derived distro.
Networking set up "out of the box," with no fooling around with ndiswrapper and no driver installation! We are testing it now.
Needless to say, we are ecstatic at the moment! :O) We will post in here now and then to let all who care how it is going.
Thank you again; you know who you are. :O)
180 • @ 178/Verndog - Macs and Linux (by DeniZen on 2008-11-13 23:59:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
No, its a recent Mac thats basically Intel throughout - therefore a specifically designed 'PC' (but with very regular hardware). I run Linux on it because..a: I like Linux, and b: .. because I can ;)
So, I already own a 'PC' (that is also a Mac) - thus, why do I need to think about buying another PC? I can - and have - run OSX, XP and Linux on my Mac - natively, and flawlessly. Its feasible to install and run all three, with Bootcamp and chainloading XP and Linux in Grub. XP needed a few drivers of course - downloadable from Apple. Debian did not do so bad ;) - aside from the wireless Nic Bluetooth - etc, But no surprise there.. Ubuntu live CD picked up the wifi Nic, and all the hardware - no trouble.
Go (intel) Mac! and have up to three options on one workstation :) - if you wanted to.
181 • Linux on a Mac, Mint 6 RC (by drizake on 2008-11-14 01:27:23 GMT from United States)
I don't see the point in buying a Mac unless you need some specific software than only runs on a Mac or unless you have extra money floating around and don't want to worry about finding a Linux distro that works. My preference is to be a low-priced PC (preferably without Windows pre-installed) and install Linux on it.
I just installed the latest Mint release candidate. Everything is working great so far. Still disabled the Compiz immediately after install, cause it always messes up my desktop.
182 • Re: Linux on Mac (by DeniZen on 2008-11-14 09:29:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
Fair enough, I would possibly do the same - if I happened to need a new PC today.
I got the Mac, with OS and loads of software bundled for a very (very!) good price.
Personally, I have had no worries about finding a Linux Distro that works (with all the Hardware) on this *Intel* Mac. Its a PC - with Intel hardware, a Marvell Nic, and an Atheros wifi. Current, popular Distro's are likely to 'just work'. You mention Mint for example, that would undoubtedly fine - because Ubuntu goes on '100% fine' OK with pure Debian I had some fiddling to do. But that's just good ol' Debian! - and it would be the same on any PC with an Atheros Wi-Fi Nic, and Bluetooth adapter etc.
i'l shuddup now - I dont want to sound like a Mac evangelist - I'm just a guy with a PC - running Linux, and OSX ;)
183 • Ultimate 2.0 user update (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-14 12:27:21 GMT from United States)
Working great, fast and no bugs yet. Networking is solid and sound and other multimedia is right on.
We are now beginning to think that we've found a Linux for this laptop, it will also be installed on the newer PC but not the old one for now.
184 • @163 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-11-15 11:46:35 GMT from United States)
We haven't included LinDVD on the Powerpack since 2008 release - some as yet unresolved legal issues arose after that. It's just a licensed software DVD player, fairly basic but mostly does the job, except you can't select the video output mode so it has trouble with Compiz. We will likely use a different DVD app in future if we start shipping one again.
185 • @26 (Verndog) (by Blue Knight on 2008-11-15 21:18:09 GMT from France)
> "I was using Microsoft Office, and hated using OpenOffice, until Mandriva and OpenOffice version 3! Wow what a difference."
I'm sorry but OpenOffice 3 is crap.
See e.g http://beranger.org/index.php?page=diary&2008/11/09/12/16/01-losing-faith-in-f-loss-lastly-be or http://beranger.org/index.php?page=diary&2008/10/13/14/26/02-openoffice-org-3-0-released-the-
Read also the comments.
"OpenOffice does not have "a bug". It has gazillions of bugs and usability problems, and it's a catastrophic software anyway! The only reason it's used is because... there is no other MS Office-like suite for Linux/BSD! It's because you don't have the choice, not because it's good!"
186 • Ubuntu Ultimate Edition is the best of the lot... (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-15 21:28:43 GMT from United States)
...there is nothing lacking in 2.0 version of Ultimate Edition. We have been struggling with distros for months; this one is well thought-out, and utilises the newest kernel for perfect support of modern drivers such as rtl8187b.
Ultimate Edition! Everything just works!!!
187 • Ref#186 and Beranger's opinions (by Verndog on 2008-11-16 00:20:50 GMT from United States)
Did you read the top line of his site that you provided: "...Skeptical & Cynical Strong Opinions"
When someone yells wolf long enough , people stop listening. Also when someone is so negative and toxic I stop reading. I don't know exactly what he's for but it appears he's against almost everything. Some folks here laugh and enjoy(sic) his comments.When one sets out to find bad in anything, and everything is it any wonder that is exactly what they discover?
I just gave my experience using OpenOffice version 3 under Mandriva. I, me, myself, was pleasantly surprised. Maybe I don't expect much or my usage is limited compared to others.
188 • Sorry (by Verndog on 2008-11-16 00:23:08 GMT from United States)
That last post of mine is for post # 185
189 • #186 Ultimate Edition (by Glenn on 2008-11-16 02:21:19 GMT from Canada)
Hiya Jerry. I agree with you, Ultimate Edition is pretty good. My first attempt at installing it on my Thinkpad T60 failed at the end of the install. The DVD was clean so I cold booted ,went into the BIOS and reset the hardware. I found that sometimes error bits are left on and it affects some installs. That did the trick. The distro slid in smoothly and works fine. I;m not sure I'd say it is the best one out there but (for me anyway), BUT as you point out Ultimate Edition! Everything just works!!!
I agree, I like it
Have a good one. Glenn
190 • Ultimate 2.0 (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-16 11:50:01 GMT from United States)
Good morning, Glenn.
Interesting about having to go into BIOS and reset for the CD/DVD to boot; I had to do the same thing, but I thought it had been somehow messed up by my previous Sabayon install on this hard drive I use for Linux distros (I swap out the Vista hard drive).
I thought nothing of it after the successful UE install. But I'm going to report it at the UE forums, maybe you should, too.
The big thing for me on this machine is finally being able to see networking "out of the box." For the first time I was able to just input the security type (wpa2/tkip) and the long key code and the network was right there waiting to be used. That is no small thing after months of hassling with distro after distro, installing ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant and trying all of the different networking tools offered.
191 • Ultimate Edition (by mt_deb on 2008-11-16 16:42:03 GMT from United States)
I'm with Glenn and Jerry. UE is a great distro (for me anyway) I have been using it since 1.7
If DW is still doing the donations, I think TheeMahn and UE team deserve consideration for a donation for the coming month.
192 • UE and donations (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-16 17:14:43 GMT from United States)
Hi mt_deb. Nice to see another UE fan. :O)
At the UE forums a while back I mentioned wanting to donate, but the site administrator, "theeman," said that donations are not accepted.
I did not pursue the subject, but I guess every distro has their policies about that.
193 • # 190 Ultimate Edition (by Constant Observer2 on 2008-11-16 19:46:06 GMT from United States)
Hello. just as you and others have indicated.....everything works.
Booted from an all SATA and did not have to set the BIOS that was mentioned.
UE may appear at the top of my recommended for Ease of Use.
194 • UE 'just working' (by DeniZen on 2008-11-16 22:33:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
Not wishing to start anything inflammatory - just my curiosity Does Ultimate Edition have extra drivers / modules etc that assists with hardware detection/activation - and thus the successes detailed above?
I had thought it was 'just' Ubuntu, but with loads of extra apps / restricted codecs / Wine and easier to enable for 'MS' apps / games etc?
Genuine question! - as if its got lots of extra 'out of the box' modules for hardware, i may earmark it for a trial should I ever find myself with an 'awkward' Laptop - or similar.
Second question - if it does have every module known to Humankind running, is it snappy in use?
Again, please note - genuine interest to know - not flame-baiting ;)
195 • UE 2.0 (by Jerry B. on 2008-11-17 01:06:23 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu would not connect with my router no matter my installing rtl8187b drivers, invoking ndiswrapper and installing and configuringing wpa_supplicant.
What the UE people did, apparently, was to take the *goals* of Ubuntu and re-frame those hopes into working reality, at least for this laptop and this user.
Again, we worked for *months* with 17 distributions at last count, just in attempts at getting networking, let alone out-of-the-box screen resolution, graphics configuration and true power control working (I'll never understand why Windows can allow for shut-down of this Toshiba laptop on lid closing, but most Linux distros cannot).
Sit there and disrespect or critisize all you want; I have a free Linux distro now that does what NO OTHER COULD DO; just work, right from live CD to HD installation.
Toshiba Satellite A205 S5809; been around for years; why so long to get it right I don't know.. the kernel? Again, I don't know. Is it bad/wrong to be so excited about a distro that got it right? A free distro? Scarey to some? The thought that you don't have to purchase a Linux in order to get one that just works?
Shame.
196 • Linux fanaticism (by Radlure on 2008-11-17 03:31:36 GMT from United States)
"There is a small but very loud minority who do. G-d help you if you criticize their favorite distro, for example."
Unfortunately this is very true particularly if one points out legitimate questions-since fanatics only accept devotion and fandom.
I've used Ubuntu since warty warthog. That's a long time-but recent changes including lack of communication about important changes and forum members who insult anyone who raises questions have me concerned and even looking for another forum to hang out in.
Recent changes in xorg, which thankfully not all debian based distros have adopted, have left users and helpers scrambling for ways to fix the xserver. The old ways of configuring x often fail and many video cards are affected. But being large and popular seems to mean you never have to admit to anything or even consider your user base-they're just users after all.
I've learned that bigger is definitely not better. Ubuntu devs may fix the current problems with xorg but I don't trust them to consider the users in their future plans. And what are their plans? To be as insular and smug as that most popular of operating systems? I think they are on the right track then.
I had spent a lot of time helping at the ubuntu forums but because of the issues I've listed I won't miss it. I recently installed Mepis and have also tried antiX (based on Mepis but lighter weight) I find that both Mepis & antiX will install on hardware that Ubuntu won't load on.
Goodbye Ubuntu-here's hoping that something with a similar but more sincere mission statement takes your place.
197 • #194 UE Just Working (by Glenn on 2008-11-17 04:12:08 GMT from Canada)
Hi DeniZen JerryB gave you and answer which I don't disagree with. I think the UE team put in as many Drivers/Modules they could but I'm pretty sure they did not get them all. As to whether its snppy in use. My experience is that it is not. But then with all that stuff you can expect it to be a bit bloated. A bit of tweaking is required and that will fix it, i just do not have the time to do spend on it.
If I remember correctly, around this time last year, Jerry was reasonably (and justifiably) frustrated with trying to get a linux system running on his Toshiba. Nice to see that this year he finally got a distro which worked out of the box for him. Note: That does not mean it will apply to everyone but I still think it is one of the better distros because it slid onto my 4 systems with no problems (other than I ensure I do a BIOS reset) and no quote SHOE-HORNING endquote to get it to work. I have a couple of quirky systems so if a distro is going to choke, it probably will on one of my systems. Thats one reason why I'm impressed very favorably with UE. Glenn
Number of Comments: 197
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