 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 284, 5 January 2009 |
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Happy New Year and welcome to this year's first issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Perhaps a good way of starting the year is with a look at the 17-year old history of Linux and Linux distributions - from the modest first release of "it won't be as big as GNU" to today's dominance of the free operating system in server rooms, if not yet on the desktop. In the news section, Debian votes to clear the firmware issue prior to the release of "Lenny", Ubuntu proposes a new system-wide notification agent for the desktop, and openSUSE announces preliminary plans for the release of version 11.2. The end of 2008 gives us a good opportunity at taking a look at which were the most visited distribution pages during the past 12 months, while the beginning of the new year means a new donation - US$250 go to the LXDE project. See below for more. Enjoy the read!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (17MB) and MP3 (15MB) formats (many thanks to Russ Wenner)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
Linux & Distributions through the Years (by Muhammad Fahd Waseem)
The end of 2008 brought to a close a very productive year for Linux and Linux distributions. Ranging from a new kernel release to an onset of some of the best distributions yet, Linux desktops and server distributions are making headway at the cost of all other operating systems. As an ode to all that Linux, distributions, open source software and developers have achieved over the years, this is perhaps a good time to take a trip down memory lane.
The long road to now
Linux has come a long way since Linus Torvalds released his source code in 1991 for the kernel he had developed. In the beginning, even the naming was not so certain ('Linux' acquired its name only when the systems administrator responsible for the distribution of the first code release via FTP named the directory 'Linux'; 'Freax' was the name originally thought up by Torvalds). But now, Linux is a well-known operating system kernel, and distributions running Linux as their core are the de-facto standard in server environments, and becoming increasingly common in home and office user desktop environments.
Initially released under its own license that restricted commercial activity, it was soon re-released in 1992 under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This allowed Linux and GNU developers to work together to release a complete operating system based on the Linux kernel - because a kernel itself gets you nowhere. Linux is now over 17 years old. Its free nature meant that it developed fast, and even less than a year after it was released, there were related newsgroups springing up and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) expressing interest in releasing a GNU system alongside Linux.
 In February 1992 came the first Linux distribution - MCC Interim Linux. Soon afterwards, the Linux version 0.95 became capable of working with the X Window System, and thus acquired the graphical windowing abilities so necessary to succeed in the operating system market. This was followed by the Softlanding Linux System (SLS) distribution and although it did not last very long, it led to the development of Slackware Linux, from which some of the most popular distributions of today were originally derived. In 1993, Ian Murdoch released Debian Linux, while the following year marked the release of Red Hat Linux and SuSE Linux (as it was then spelt).
By now, Linux distros had acquired full operating system capabilities, such as graphical systems, networking tools and multi-architecture support. The four major distros (SuSE, Red Hat, Debian, and Slackware) would go on to become the base for most of the Linux distributions that followed. Linux pulled a publicity stunt in 1996 with the introduction of Tux, the plump penguin mascot that we have come to associate so lovingly with Linux.
1998 marked the release of the Kool Desktop Environment (KDE) and, for the first time, a Linux distro would be able to gain Graphical User Interface (GUI) properties. Prior to this, all Linux work was done on the command line. This release was, perhaps, the first time Linux could be applicable to the home user and desktop. Do remember that at this time, Microsoft Windows was already into its Windows 98 iteration, which had a very powerful GUI - so complete that the command line had practically become redundant. On the distribution side, another popular project arrived in 1998: Mandrake Linux. After a few mergers and renames, this would later be known as Mandriva Linux.
KDE 1.1
(full image size: 479kB, screen resolution 800x600 pixels)
The GNOME project had its first release in 1999. Contrary to the completeness and option-driven configurability of KDE, GNOME aimed at power through simplicity. In many ways, this kind of thing put Linux distributions at an advantage against other proprietary operating systems: users now had a choice of a GUI, and that too for free. Even though the level of complexity KDE and GNOME had reached by that stage was nothing compared to what Microsoft had developed, it was, nevertheless, the humble beginning that has led to the brilliant desktops that we are familiar with on today's Linux distributions.
Red Hat Linux with customised GNOME from 1999
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OpenOffice.org was released in late 2002, as was the first free sound codec, Ogg Vorbis. By now, Linux distributions were beginning to match Windows, capability for capability. 2003 was the year Red Hat announced its Fedora derivative, then called 'Fedora Core'. Many people then criticised it for being a test bed for Red Hat's main commercial product - Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Finally, in 2004 arrived the distribution that would win over the greatest number of desktop users in the Linux world due to its user friendliness: Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 4.10 "Warty Warthog"
(full image size: 47kB, screen resolution 600x450 pixels)
By that time, Linux distributions were becoming common, and no longer the domain of the specialised. Linux desktops were becoming more and more sophisticated, and the very nature of Linux meant that the more people used it, the faster it developed. In November 2006, Novell signed an 'agreement' with Microsoft that safeguarded it from being sued over 'possible patent infringements'. The Linux community did not take kindly to this - most were of the opinion that this was an acknowledgement of Microsoft's long-standing claims of patent infringements. This led to a temporary sidelining of Novell's SUSE distribution by the Linux community. openSUSE's popularity would also suffer due to this development.
Where Linux stands today
Today, Linux distributions power most of the demanding server market: Google, Wikipedia, IBM, NASA, etc. There are hundreds of distributions to choose from, for all purposes. Many of the major ones feature delightful GUIs and easy installations. Linux distributions offer alternatives to nearly every feature other proprietary operating systems offer. Linux is becoming increasingly easier to use. As features are added, and more developers actively work with the Linux distributions, or with the companies behind the distributions, Linux is getting better by the day.
Today, Linux is beginning to rival Microsoft Windows, the dominant desktop operating system. And in doing so absolutely free of cost to the average, non-commercial user, it is carving out a portion of the market for itself. And the GNU GPL nature of Linux and its distributions ensures that Linux will gather steam at an exponential rate: more popularity leading to even more development, and so in a cycle. The open-source model is doing Linux a world of good.
Where you may find the Linux distributions of the 'morrow'
Linux is flexible. That lends it to uses where other operating system kernels may not venture without much manipulation. We can see expansive feature capabilities: touch hardware features or support for specialised hardware. Linux distributions could provide system-wide voice recognition, interface with other non-computer household electronics, offer personal task management or artificial intelligence. It is all dependent on where the programmer is willing to take it. We may see Linux distributions being placed in embedded and mobile systems (for example, the Google Android is a Linux 'distro' of sorts) and electronics around us. And obviously, the PC.
A document showing a timeline of major distributions up to 2007
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| Statistics |
DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics in 2007 and 2008
The star distribution of 2008 was undoubtedly Linux Mint, a project which has been successful in enhancing a standard Ubuntu and GNOME with a variety of user-friendly tools and features. Other operating systems rising noticeably in the ranking were Dreamlinux, Puppy Linux, FreeBSD, gOS and PC-BSD. On the other hand, severals distributions have fallen over the past year, most noticeably Freespire, KNOPPIX, Zenwalk Linux, Gentoo Linux and MEPIS Linux. Overall though, it's the same old story - the Ubuntu, openSUSE and Fedora pages continue getting most hits year after year, with only an occasional "outsider" upsetting the dominant trio.
As always, the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics shouldn't be taken too seriously - they are a fun way of looking at what's hot among this site's visitors, but they certainly do not correlate to install base or distribution quality.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Debian clears Lenny firmware issue, Ubuntu proposes new notification agent, openSUSE discusses roadmap for 11.2, Xubuntu and Bayanihan Linux updates
One of the biggest disappointments of 2008 was the non-arrival of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0, code name "Lenny". But according to this article by Heise Open Source, chances are that we won't have to wait for too much longer since one of the main obstacles -- the dispute over the inclusion of proprietary firmware -- has been cleared through a general resolution: "The Debian developers have decided to release the upcoming Debian 5 (Lenny) with proprietary firmware files to expedite the completion of the Linux distribution's next release. The vote itself had several options for dealing with proprietary firmware, from a complete elimination of it, even if it meant more delays for Lenny, to an explicit waiver of the source code requirement for firmware files. The winning option was 'assume blobs comply with the GPL unless proven otherwise', a principle which declares proprietary firmware as undesirable, but allows for the earlier release of Debian 5 to take priority over the removal of questionable firmware."
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 Nothing stirs the interest of the desktop Linux user community as much as a blog post by Mark Shuttleworth, especially if it deals with a major desktop feature. Such was the case on the eve of last year's year-end holidays when the Ubuntu founder wrote a lengthy article entitled Notifications, indicators and alerts. With over 200 comments, there is little doubt that the issue around the proposed new desktop notification agent does interest the wider community: "Why a completely new notification display agent? We are designing it to be built with Qt on KDE, and GTK+ on GNOME. The idea is to have as much code in common as we can, but still take advantage of the appropriate text display framework on Ubuntu and Kubuntu. We hope to deliver both simultaneously, and have discussed this with both Ubuntu and Kubuntu community members. At the moment, there is some disagreement about the status of the FD.o specification between GNOME and KDE, and we hope our efforts will help build a bridge there. In Ubuntu 9.04, we would likely continue to package and publish the existing notification daemon in addition, to offer both options for users that have a particular preference."
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 Xubuntu might not be the most talked-about Ubuntu derivative out there, but there is no denying that the distribution has attracted a fair amount of users who prefer the lighter Xfce desktop. Here is an excellent overview of the project as published by Linuxlandit, complete with screenshots: "The default desktop environment for Xubuntu is Xfce, one of the top three UNIX and Linux desktop and development platforms. In the words of Olivier Fourdan, the creator of the Xfce desktop environment, 'Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for various *NIX systems. Designed for productivity, it loads and executes applications fast, while conserving system resources.' Because of this emphasis on conserving system resources, Xubuntu is an ideal candidate for old or low-end machines, thin-client networks, or for those who would like to get more performance out of their hardware."
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 openSUSE 11.1 was the last major distribution release of the past year. As a result, while all other major projects have already started working towards their next stable releases, the development team around the green lizard has only now initiated a discussion over the schedule of openSUSE 11.2: "First we talked about July 2009 release to come close to an 8-month release cycle. But KDE 4.3 is scheduled for release on June 30th and probably an OpenOffice.org release will be out end of June as well - neither of them would make it into a July openSUSE 11.2. Therefore we're now thinking about a September release. Besides getting the most current OpenOffice.org and KDE in, this would even have one additional upside. It probably would be just before our openSUSE conference. So the conference could be used for a focused openSUSE 11.3 planning. But it has its downside as well. Finalization of the release would happen during the summer holiday season. To address this, we added one beta to stretch the development time a bit.
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 Bayanihan Linux is one of those distributions whose development is financed by a government, in this case the government of the Philippines. Disappointingly, the project appears in a limbo as the current stable release is nearly two years old and the new one, promised to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2008, has yet to arrive. Tech Source from Bohol reports: "In May 2008, Manilatimes.net reported that the latest version of Bayanihan Linux was about to be released. According to the report, 'Software programmers at the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology are now putting the finishing touches to the latest version of Bayanihan Linux.' In addition, a leading member of the Bayanihan Linux team said, 'Bayanihan Linux version 5 is slated for release by early 4th quarter, possibly on the first or second week of October, with the possibility of an offline edition of Wikipedia bundled with the upcoming academic edition.' With the year coming to an end, I'm left wondering where the heck Bayanihan Linux 5.0 is." Time to place Bayanihan Linux on the discontinued distributions list?
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| Released during Last Two Weeks |
sidux 2008-04
Stefan Lippers-Hollmann has announced the release of sidux 2008-04, a desktop distribution with KDE 3.5 or Xfce based on Debian's unstable branch: "After fixing the problem with multiple optical disc drives, which occurred in our first preview, and quite some infrastructural changes, we now have the pleasure to announce the immediate availability of sidux 2008-04 'Pontos'. Pontos concentrates on integrating the changes caused by kernel 2.6.27, init optimisations accomplished by insserv and, in particular, overhauling the installer. Features: based on Debian 'sid' as of 2008-12-22; Linux kernel 2.6.27.10 (SMP, hard pre-emption); X.Org 7.3; KDE 3.5.10; new SVG-based, art theme; offline manual for English and German directly on the disc, online manuals for more languages online; support for Intel P4x, G4x and Q4x chipsets...." Read the detailed release notes for further information and a list of supported hardware.
Sabayon Linux 4, 4-r1
Fabio Erculiani has announced the release of Sabayon Linux 4: "On the behalf of the Sabayon Linux team, we're pleased to announce the immediate availability of Sabayon Linux 4. Bringing a more accessible, easy-to-use and fast way of doing business and home computing in a web 2.0 flavour is what we are going to achieve by the beginning of the new year. Sabayon Linux 4 offers an easy-to-use and attractive desktop coming with thousands of tools and applications, such as effortless connections to any kind of wireless network, web and multimedia applications (Java, Flash player, Google Earth, Picasa), browsers (Firefox, Opera, Konqueror), instant messaging clients (Pidgin, Kopete, aMsn), multimedia and playback tools (Elisa media centre, GeeXboX, VLC, SMPlayer), productivity tools (OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, GNU Calc, Kontact, Adobe Reader). Technically, Sabayon Linux 4 has been completely rebuilt on top of GCC 4.3, for i686 (32-bit) and x86_64 (64-bit) architecture." Here is the full release announcement.
Sabayon Linux 4 - a Gentoo-based distribution "with a Web 2.0 flavour"
(full image size: 837kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
pfSense 1.2.1
pfSense 1.2.1, a maintenance and bug-fix update of the FreeBSD-based mini-firewall system, has been released: "The pfSense team has a Christmas present for you all - the 1.2.1 final release. The only changes since RC4: fixed problem preventing RIP from starting; fixed broken link in VLAN reboot notification; fixed problem with SSL certificate generation. This is a strictly a maintenance release, meaning it contains only bug fixes in the pfSense code, no new features. Though we also upgraded the base operating system from FreeBSD 6.2 to 7.0, which necessitated numerous changes in how things were configured. The change to FreeBSD 7.0 brings improved performance and more hardware support." Read the complete release announcement for further information.
Lunar Linux 1.6.4
Stefan Wold has announced the release of Lunar Linux 1.6.4, a source-based distribution designed for advanced Linux users: "The Lunar team proudly announce the final release of Lunar Linux 1.6.4, code name 'Lacus Autumni'. It is our most polished release to date. New features: working software RAID configuration; improved language selection; installation from a USB stick or other media; ships with kernel 2.6.27.10; ReiserFS, XFS and JFS file systems are now also built-in with the precompiled kernels. Summary of changes since beta 1: isolinux updated; all modules refreshed; installer will now skip the 'swap file' step if a swap partition has been added; USB modems in the precompiled kernel have been disabled since they require firmware images that we don't supply; added lsb-release." Refer to the full release announcement for more details.
Berry Linux 0.94
Yuichiro Nakada has announced the release of Berry Linux 0.94, a Fedora-based live CD with KDE 4 as the default desktop: "Berry Linux 0.94 released." This is the project's first version based on the stable Fedora 10, with Linux kernel 2.6.27.10, glibc 2.9, GCC 4.3.2, X.Org Server 1.5.3 and KDE 4.1.3 as the default desktop. Besides the kernel and toolchain, other major packages were also upgraded to their latest versions; these include Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5, OpenOffice.org 3.0.0, Flash Player 10, Samba 3.2.5, WINE 1.1.9, Digikam 0.10.0 and Inkscape 0.46. The distribution, which promotes itself as "the most beautiful OS in the world", comes with support for both English and Japanese (selectable from the boot menu), a control centre for configuring network interfaces and update features, and a simple graphical hard disk installer. For further information please refer to the full changelog.
Berry Linux 0.94 - a Fedora-based live CD with KDE 4.1.3
(full image size: 1,276kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
MoLinux 4.2
MoLinux 4.2, an Ubuntu-based, general-purpose distribution developed by the regional government of Castilla La Mancha in Spain, has been released. Code named Toboso, the new release of MoLinux is based on Ubuntu 8.10, which means that most of the included applications have been upgraded to their latest versions; these include Linux kernel 2.6.27, X.Org Server 1.5.2, GNOME 2.24.1, Firefox 3.0.5 and OpenOffice 3.0.0. The distribution's artistic team has delivered new desktop backgrounds depicting images from the autonomous community and some abstract designs, as well as brand new icons for the panels, menus and desktop. An interesting new feature is a new backup manager that automates backing up of data to external devices or over the local network. There is more - please see the full release announcement (in Spanish) for further details.
MoLinux 4.2 - now based on Ubuntu "Intrepid Ibex"
(full image size: 2,386kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
FreeBSD 7.1
The first big release of the new year is FreeBSD 7.1, announced today: "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE. This is the second release from the 7-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 7.0 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights: The ULE scheduler is now the default in GENERIC kernels for amd64 and i386 architectures; support for using DTrace inside the kernel has been imported from OpenSolaris; a new and much-improved NFS Lock Manager (NLM) client; boot loader changes allow, among other things, booting from USB devices and booting from GPT-labeled devices; the cpuset(2) system call and cpuset(1) command have been added, providing an API for thread to CPU binding and CPU resource grouping and assignment; KDE updated to 3.5.10, GNOME updated to 2.22.3; DVD-sized media for the amd64 and i386 architectures." See the release announcement and release notes for further details.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Pardus Linux 2008.2
The developers of Pardus Linux have published a release schedule for the upcoming version 2008.2: "We are happy to announce the second update to Pardus 2008 series, Pardus 2008.2. It will contain all the new features of our tools, bug fixes and updates to packages since the release of Pardus 2008.1. As always, existing Pardus 2008 users will be able to update their systems to Pardus 2008.2 just by updating via package manager or PiSi command-line tool." The final release of Pardus Linux 2008.2 is expected 30 January 2009; for more details please see the announcement.
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
December 2008 donation: LXDE receives US$250.00
We are pleased to announce that the recipient of the December 2008 DistroWatch.com donation is LXDE, a free and open source desktop environment.
According to the project's web site, "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE), is an extremely fast, energy-saving desktop environment maintained by an international community of developers. It comes with a beautiful interface, multi-language support, standard keyboard shortcuts and additional features, such as tabbed file browsing. It is especially designed for computers with low hardware specifications like netbooks, mobile internet devices (MIDs) or older computers. The source code of LXDE is licensed partly under the terms of the General Public License and partly under the LGPL." Although unlikely to compete with the big boys of the open source desktop world, the popularity of LXDE is clearly on the rise. Some of the distributions that use LXDE as their default desktop include VectorLinux and Hiweed Linux.
As always, this monthly donations program 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 LXDE. (Please note that the donation was not yet effected at the time of writing. We are waiting for a reply from the LXDE Foundation with the details of how to make the payment since their donation page does not provide the information.)
Here is the list of projects that received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the program (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), Dillo ($150), LXDE ($250).
Since the launch of the Donations Program in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$19,833 to various open source software projects.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Chakra LiveCD. Chakra LiveCD is a user-friendly and extremely powerful live CD and operating system based on the GNU/Linux distribution for connoisseurs: Arch Linux. It features a graphical installer, automatic hardware detection and configuration, tools and extras.
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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, 12 January 2009.
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Happy new year to all, and thanks (by mark south on 2009-01-05 09:10:06 GMT from Switzerland)
Thanks for keeping Distrowatch Weekly running into 2009, and happy new year to you and all the readership.
2 • No subject (by SR on 2009-01-05 09:22:15 GMT from United States)
Thanks, that's a superb chart!!
Chakra also looks interesting.
3 • KDE was the first GUI?!? (by Pinky on 2009-01-05 09:40:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just a minor point really, but what research was done with regards to the statement that "1998 marked the release of the Kool Desktop Environment (KDE) and, for the first time, a Linux distro would be able to gain Graphical User Interface (GUI) properties."?
I recall running a GUI (can't recall which WMs I had installed) way back in '96. The first KDE (I thought no-one else remembered the original name :) was the first true "desktop environment", as opposed to a true WM, but X has been on Linux for a darn sight more that 10 years!
4 • Debian GNU/Linux in 1993 (by Ariszló on 2009-01-05 10:09:05 GMT from Hungary)
"In 1993, Ian Murdoch released Debian GNU/Linux"
In 1993 it was called Debian Linux:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.development/msg/a32d4e2ef3bcdcc6
It was renamed Debian GNU/Linux at Stallmann's request:
http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch10.html
5 • Great feature - pity about the stats jibe. (by Brooko on 2009-01-05 10:13:57 GMT from New Zealand)
Nice feature story - thoroughly enjoyed it - especially the images of early KDE and Gnome DEs. Would have been nice to mention the pioneers of the LiveCD and then LiveCD install (which have become commonplace now) - but which led IMHO to a surge in Linux use at the time.
Have to admit that the only thing that rankled a little with this issue was the PHR comparison year on year. As stated - it shouldn't be taken too seriously (and doesn't reflect the quality etc of the distributions) - but if that's the case, then why make special mention of a few that in your words "have fallen dramatically over the past year". Or was this a chance to knock a few easy targets yet again?
And if it was - then why not use the actual HPD comparison rather than the ranking? For example - take Gentoo that has fallen by only 56 HPD, yet PCLOS falls by 1355 HPD and isn't mentioned? Seem fair? In fact even Ubuntu fell yoy by 194 HPD which is far more than most of the ones listed. Sabayon and Mepis fell by virtually same amount yet I note no mention of Sabayon.
**BTW - I have no intention of taking a pot at any of the distros above - I think all of them are amazing distros in their own right**
I do agree that Mint had a great year.
I guess all I wanted to point out that statistics can be (as always) very misleading. And making a statement with the word "dramatically" just seems a little unwarranted perhaps. Also - I'd imagine that you should probably make your main trio a quad. I'd hate to think that Debian is ever ignored as one of the dominant majors ....
Food for thought.
6 • Happy newyear (by Dante on 2009-01-05 10:23:55 GMT from Netherlands)
I wish all of you a happy new year!! Thanks for the DWW.
Dante
7 • Debian (by Jose on 2009-01-05 10:37:56 GMT from United States)
I don't see the 2008 non release of Lenny as a disappointment. I see it as a virtue. We want reliability, stability and security in our distro; not eyecandy and frills.
8 • Happy New Year! (by PiEp on 2009-01-05 10:52:24 GMT from Europe)
Wonderful to read my weekly DWW again! Happy New Year to everyone and may this year bring you everything you hope for...
9 • Great feature by Muhammad Fahd Waseem (by zaine_ridling on 2009-01-05 11:22:30 GMT from United States)
Fantastic article! Thanks for the all the hard work you put into it.
10 • Good Start! (by Craig B. at 2009-01-05 11:30:49 GMT from United States)
Nice article Muhammad. It's nice to read about the good old days! Happy New Year to all the DW peeps!
11 • Debian (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 11:59:01 GMT from Austria)
> One of the biggest disappointments of 2008 was the non-arrival of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0, code name "Lenny".
Debian GNU/Linux had a 23-month long release cycle from 3.1 "Sarge" to 4.0 "Etch". Now it has been about 21 months since Debian 4.0 was released, and all the signs suggest that we may see Debian 5.0 "Lenny" released in late January or early February 2009. So there should be a good chance of Lenny's release cycle turning up to be one month shorter than Etch's. That should be considered a good thing, not a reason to be disappointed. :-)
12 • RE: 7, 11 Debian (by ladislav on 2009-01-05 12:06:09 GMT from Taiwan)
Hmm, it looks like I need to rephrase the sentence. How about this one: "One of the most exciting things that happened in 2009 was the non-arrival of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0." How does it sound?
13 • Great job (by Travis on 2009-01-05 12:08:14 GMT from United States)
Great job on another Distrowatch Weekly, you're doing a fantastic job!
14 • Memory Lane, my first linux (by netscarf on 2009-01-05 12:17:16 GMT from United States)
Greetings,
This got me thinking about my first linux, Caldera Open Linux 2.3. What a beast! I never did get the sound working on my Compaq 5100 w/ a p90, 1gig hd, and a whopping 8mb of ram. I should dig it out of the closet, and see if it still boots.
Anyone remember what happened to Caldera? I think that they turned into the evil SCO group... But I'm not sure.
So everyone, do you remember your first linux? And what are you running now? I'm running Debian Lenny on an ibook now... And still haven't got the sound to work, some things never change. :-)
See ya netscarf
15 • Thank you! (and Chris Smart...?) (by Bernhard J. M. Grün on 2009-01-05 12:20:58 GMT from Germany)
Thanks for this lenghty issue of DWW.
But I also have one question: I thought that Chris Smart will write the DWW from now on. Who will write the next issues?
16 • 2008 (by Greg on 2009-01-05 12:42:15 GMT from Greece)
"severals distributions have fallen over the past year, most noticeably Freespire, KNOPPIX, Zenwalk Linux, Gentoo Linux and MEPIS Linux."
That sums up 2008 for the linux world.
Freespire and Gentoo are already dead.
Zenwalk and Mepis are one step closer to the grave.
Oh & theres 300 more Ubuntu based distributions than in 2007.
Happy 2009, with world peace and linux on the desktop! :)
17 • A distro here and a distro there (by anon on 2009-01-05 12:44:01 GMT from Norway)
In how many ways can you combine Linux and non-Linux software in a bootable Linux OS? Oh - my thoughts exactly...
I just read in the aspiring Arch distrolet Chakra's forum that they thought they should bundle an office suite with their derivative, so they decided on KOffice. Right.
We're wading to our knees in distros and OS-/Linux-related technical 'tweakage', but where is the *serious* software for people wishing and needing to use their computers productively? We know where. Of course, under Linux, with a handful of 'tweakage', you can almost get there, or you may manage to make something _similar, but there are simply no Linux 'killer' apps. Luckily, OOo runs under Linux!
When are Linux developers going to code something worthwhile?
18 • 2008+ (by Greg on 2009-01-05 12:44:06 GMT from Greece)
And, how i could i forget, we also have input hotplugging now.
19 • history of Linux (by SlaxFan on 2009-01-05 12:45:48 GMT from United States)
I think the introduction of LiveCDs, DemoLinux and Knoppix with all the derivatives has to be a major milestone. This enabled people to try Linux without destroying their existing OS. Many people weren't comfortable trying to partition their hard drives back then.
20 • #16 "Zenwalk and Mepis are one step closer to the grave." (by anticapitalista on 2009-01-05 12:55:03 GMT from Greece)
"Zenwalk and Mepis are one step closer to the grave."
This will be the funniest wrong statement of the year, you'll see.
21 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 13:00:10 GMT from Canada)
Does anyone know what has happened to Texstar? he has been missing for ages and the silence coming from the pclos community is worrying
22 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 13:01:11 GMT from Canada)
can anyone recommend a small distro that is based on intrepid?
small as in under 400mb
thansk in advance
23 • #21 - (by anon on 2009-01-05 13:07:23 GMT from Norway)
I guess the flip side of gung-ho is gone.
24 • Several things (by Dick Cheney on 2009-01-05 13:10:28 GMT from United States)
16: Not sure how you can say that. Zenwalk looks to be pretty strong, and given that they probably now comply with the GPL, will only get stronger. It's a nice distro that is likely to enter the top ten most popular distros by the end of 2010.
I've installed the Mepis RC and it looks great. Sure, it may not be updated as quickly as I'd like, but so what. The community is taking a bigger role in its development and it appears to me to be picking up momentum that was lost when Warren went back to work.
Gentoo is probably not run very well, but the development continues. It is stumbling but far from dead. Sabayon is a Gentoo derivative that is doing very well (check out the selection of binary packages in the latest release).
As for the article, I agree with post 3. I wasn't using Linux then (hadn't even heard of it) but I've read about pre-KDE guis. Slackware 3.3 was released in 1997 and included FVWM. You can still find it on the Slackware download page. Not that this is important, but it seemed to be a strange thing to write, as it really serves no purpose to make such a statement without actually doing some research.
25 • Happy GNU Year (by drizake on 2009-01-05 13:26:08 GMT from United States)
I enjoyed the article by Muhammad and I can't believe how fast time passes. Five years since Fedora already?!
I downloaded, seeded over night, booted, and even installed Sabayon. It's nice looking, but buggy. Portato crashed every time I opened it (I submitted the reports). What's up with the ad space on the Spritz package updater? I opened it from the desktop and it says "your add here". Definite turn-off!
No particular complaints about openSUSE 11.1, but Mint is still more user friendly IMHO.
RE 12: looks good other than the year :)
RE 14: first distro was Red Hat from the back of a networking text book, probably 6 or 7 years ago. currently running Mint
26 • RE: 3, 24 Of GUIs and KDE (by Muhammad Fahd Waseem on 2009-01-05 13:26:24 GMT from Pakistan)
Please read the page @ http://www.kde.org/announcements/announcement.php , in particular, the three bullets.
I happen to agree with their definitions and ideas.
27 • @17, killer apps for GNU/linux (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 13:30:57 GMT from France)
What about bash, iptables, apache, gcc, ssh... They may on other systems but don't tell me apache runs half as good on Windows!
28 • Observations (by Sertse on 2009-01-05 13:36:22 GMT from Australia)
Mandriva is 10 hits away from PCLOS at time of writing, should overtake soon. Return of the parent over the fork.
Puppy has overtaken DSL - so long have we all associated mini-distro/old computers with DSL that it feels weird now that we have a new "king".
I always compare Zenwalk with Vector, must be the initial similarities (XFCE, Slackware, close to eachother on rankings). In my ignorant eyes all that happened is that the places have swapped, ...move along, nothing to see. ;)
Maybe just me, but I feel MEPIS is getting some momentum again.
Good to see some Pardus news. Really deserves some love above 43. Kinda proves why people rather do derivatives, despite how we whine about that - You make a distro from scratch, the reviews love it, it's arguably one of the best OOTB distros there, yet you get nowhere.
29 • GNOME wasn't always about simplicity (by J. J. Ramsey on 2009-01-05 13:50:20 GMT from United States)
"The GNOME project had its first release in 1999. Contrary to the completeness and option-driven configurability of KDE, GNOME aimed at power through simplicity"
This isn't quite true. Early on, GNOME had a more clumsy and complex UI than KDE, largely because it was intended to be independent of any particular window manager, while KDE had its own window manager which was well-integrated into the desktop and didn't stand out as being separate from it. GNOME's current simplicity is, AFAICT, due to a reverse second-system effect. Since the earlier versions of GNOME were afflicted with a complexity that had come to be seen as a liability, the "second system" from the GNOME developers was designed to fix that problem.
30 • No subject (by changturkey on 2009-01-05 14:06:06 GMT from Canada)
@17, I agree. You can have the best OS, but when the apps aren't good at all, what's the point?
31 • RE: 12 (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 14:06:35 GMT from Germany)
How about: "One of the most completely unsurprising things that happened in 2008 was the non-arrival of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0."
32 • RE: Anon - How do you define "serious" software or killer application? (by KimTjik on 2009-01-05 14:06:49 GMT from Sweden)
I haven't posted anything here for months but why not make an exception now in the year 2009.
To me serious software sound like something I can use at my working place. Even at the current state of GNU/Linux there's no reason to why Linux would be inferior to any other option at most working places. There are of course specialized fields where GNU/Linux at the moment lack real contenders to Windows or MacOS, but then we aren't talking about the majority of working places.
The problem I have in my work with IT-administration is how Windows has become more of an entertainment platform than a clean professional one. Hence we've got a peculiar situation. I would definitely say that GNU/Linux is a more professional platform but with some trade-off. A more real obstacle in some environments is that Windows only solutions, even though not necessarily better, already are implemented since long before GNU/Linux became a contender. I wouldn't say "seriousness" is a problem, and if so it's a problem both have in different ways.
Killer application? For the general user, not a professional in a narrow field, what would be killer application in Windows or MacOS? Honestly I don't know. At the moment I personally can't find any that would get me to revalidate Windows or MacOS as an alternative to GNU/Linux. Hence I'm inclined to think that this so called killer application that will convince the general computer users to take on Linux still is an abstract idea without definition. I'm however interested to know what you yourself would see as a possible killer application.
To me it's not about finding a killer application, but how the overall computing experience in Linux meets my needs best. Of course there are applications that I only have in Linux, but they're usually just better and more efficient tools than what is available on for example Windows, not that they're unique in doing something never seen before. The modularity of a GNU/Linux system is one of the greatest assets in my view; I can get it do function at whatever capability I want it to, there's no limiting boarders between what's defined as desktop tasks and server tasks.
Yes for me the opposite is true: Microsoft has to produce something outstanding far better than today, or have the luck that some software company develops an an Windows-only application that takes my breath away, before I consider to incorporate Windows in my personal computing environment.
33 • Memory Lane (by Cliff on 2009-01-05 14:13:12 GMT from United States)
Netscarf, Caldera Open Linux was a thing of beauty, depending on how you like your distro. It really raised the bar in terms of installation and ease of use.
My first distro was Slackware, although I can't remember which version it was. I believe it was a 12 diskette download. Back then, running X could be a scary thing. It required more info than just sync and refresh rates. I remember frying my brain trying to calculate the duration of the front porch, back porch and sync pulse for a raster scan. It was daunting, to be sure. And it wasn't all that difficult to overdrive your monitor and take years off it's life.
The Linux desktop has come a loooong way. I've always considered it a superior OS and wished more people would try it. Just look at us now. :)
34 • Why is slamd64 not included (by jepuzon on 2009-01-05 14:22:12 GMT from Philippines)
in the descendants of Slackware? Bluewhite64 was just derived from slamd64 as we know it.
35 • 26 (by Dick Cheney on 2009-01-05 14:24:01 GMT from United States)
My comment regarded your statement that, "Prior to this, all Linux work was done on the command line." I don't see it that way. There is a gap between GUI as in complete desktop environment and working at the command line. Your statement gave the impression that there were no graphical applications, which we today would usually refer to as "X applications".
It's hardly important, so I'll just leave it at that.
36 • PCLinuxOS and Gentoo are a step closer to the grave!!! (by DistroMann on 2009-01-05 14:30:18 GMT from United States)
"Zenwalk and Mepis are one step closer to the grave."
"Does anyone know what has happened to Texstar? he has been missing for ages and the silence coming from the pclos community is worrying"
More like PCLinuxOS and Gentoo.
37 • Linux History Chart (by My Linux Page on 2009-01-05 14:31:56 GMT from United States)
I must compliment you on your hard work put on the Linux History chart.
38 • @12 (by Jose on 2009-01-05 14:32:16 GMT from United States)
That's somewhat better. But you know as well as I do that Debian doesn't compete to be the fastest distro to market, so to speak. Nor does it /follow/ others. It takes the lead on a reliable distirbution. Wise up.
39 • Bluewhite64 (by DistroMann on 2009-01-05 14:39:10 GMT from United States)
"Bluewhite64 was just derived from slamd64 as we know it"
Bluewhite64 is in constant development and a better x64 distro. I have not seen anything new from Slamd64 in a long time.
Check out the new Bluewhite 64 12.2 LiveDVD it has new KDE 4.2 Beta.
Where is Slamd64??
40 • RE: 29: GNOME (by Muhammad Fahd Waseem on 2009-01-05 14:39:41 GMT from Pakistan)
It was not exactly about simplicity then, but the simplicity factor has always been manifest. I quote from the GNOME 1.0 press release: "GNOME is a graphical user interface (GUI) that combines ease of use with the flexibility and reliability of GNU/Linux."
41 • lol @ grave comments (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 14:43:53 GMT from France)
distrowatch hit ranking is not going to kill any distro, never. I use gentoo and I didn't feel it dying while it lost hit ranks!
42 • PCLOS (by Cheezy on 2009-01-05 14:47:15 GMT from United States)
I like to know about PCLOS also. I think that distro is graveyard ready. I loved Texstars work. To bad its slowed to craw. Where you at Texstar? Are the "A-Holes" forum mods still hang out there? LOL Thats why i left. :-(
43 • #27 and #32 - (by anon on 2009-01-05 15:14:44 GMT from Norway)
Linux is my platform of choice. Archlinux, to be exact.
I agree that Linux has almost all the tools you could ever wish for in order to tweak your system or develop software. I also agree that Linux is among the best platforms in certain areas, like e.g. networking.
The problem is with the desktop user apps. They are typically lacking in features and/or quality, or they are not native Linux creations. The Linux office apps/suites demonstrate the point: they simply don't cut it. Over to OOo... Now, with OOo, you get a database program which is (much) inferior to Access, and your upward choice is a to go for a Ph.D. in informatics in order to hopefully get productive with MySQL or PostgreSQL. OOo Calc is good, but OOo itself is slow and a resource (memory) hog if you want to do more than calculate your private bank statements. For this task, Gnumeric or KSpread is sufficient...
Similarly in other areas. GIMP is fine, but not first class. Adobe just recently released 64-bit Flash, but it will kill Firefox often enough to force you to alternate with, say, Opera. Why are graphics folk choosing Mac or even Windows?
In short - apart from networking, I see no field where Linux shines and is the preferred platform for professionals, but I am willing to listen and learn...
Meanwhile I wish that, at least some, Linux coders would give priority to top notch apps in various areas. If this does not happen, Linux on the desktop will continue to be almost there...
44 • Distros, first and current ... (by Diti on 2009-01-05 15:26:48 GMT from Austria)
Netscarf (#14): I started with SuSE 6.2, on a 486 PC; this surely was not easy ... I tried Slackware, got back to SuSE and still stick to openSUSE. During the years I tried some others like Kubuntu, Zenwalk, Mint -- I can't recall all of them (I also checked FreeBSD and DesktopBSD). On a not-so-recent notebook I tried Zenwalk, Damn Small, Ark, Vector, TinyMe, and am now very content with antiX.
When I started using Linux I always had problems getting sound, and setting up X11 was not easy. But either I found a solution in some forum (or even by contacting a developer), or the next release did a better job -- this is what we all expect from an active community working to make our lives easier. Can you expect that from e.g. Microsoft ... ?
45 • RE:14 (by Eduardo on 2009-01-05 15:49:29 GMT from Brazil)
My first distro was a Mandrake 6. Now it's a Mandrake 8 (never did get the sound work on it) (home), Mint 6 (home), Suse 9 (University) and Ubuntu 8.1 (work). There is a partition left, im thinking about install Sabayon or PCBSD on it.
When you told about the lack of sound i did laugh. That's sick but was good times.
46 • Re: 3,24,26 (by chemist on 2009-01-05 15:55:30 GMT from Germany)
In the old times Fvwm2 was the default windowmanager in Suse.
Here is a short overview about the GUIs used in Suse from version 4.2 onwards:
http://tux.uni-bielefeld.de/doc/support-db/sdb/maddin_wm.html
KDE 1.0 Beta 3 showed up in Suse 5.2, Suse 5.3 was released with KDE 1.0 final.
Even today Fvwm2 is still a part of OpenSuse.
47 • Wolvix (by Rattlehook on 2009-01-05 15:55:46 GMT from United States)
Try Wolvix. Why? It works.
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48 • RE: Anon (by KimTjik on 2009-01-05 16:23:00 GMT from Sweden)
Our choice of distribution is the same.
I would agree on the database matter concerning OOo, but then my view on the usability of MySQL is different and I'm not in favour of Access. For a "serious" environment I don't think Access is the best way to go and not the most future-safe. Why would MySQL be particularly difficult if we're anyway talking about a professional environment? It's just like how Excel sometimes is used far beyond its purpose. I'm not sure here how to reply because I'm inclined to believe Access most of all is a heritage of the past. Why not do it right from start and build a database that's accessible cross platform?
I did have the same opinion about GIMP in the past, but I've totally revised my opinion. GIMP allows you to use Photoshop filters if you so wish. Usually the comparison is done against professional versions of Photoshop CS4, which most of all is a testimony of piracy. My opinion nowadays is that GIMP beats Photoshop as long as you're not a skilled professional using Photoshop CS4. Fair enough, if your professional field is photo though, yes I would agree that Windows or MacOS at the moment are better options (of course this depends on your Linux skills but I'm referring to the average user). Still we're now discussing a niche of computing, something that's irrelevant to the majority.
...
Adobe flashplayer 64bit is of course a nice bonus in Linux. Strange though that you have such problems with it. I have the opposite experience: the 64bit version has been rock solid and far better than any 32bit versions I've used in the past. I'll check the forum and read up on why some have these problems.
...
Sometimes the reason our opinions differ isn't that one of us know the truth and the other doesn't, it's just because our computing and its needs differ.
49 • Frisky Pups (by JAG on 2009-01-05 16:43:09 GMT from United States)
Have you guys checked out these puppy based distros...??
NOP(Nearly Office Pup) ...and... Boxpup
These two are getting really good reviews on the forums.!!
(both of them are authored by 'gray')
Here's a link...
http://puppylinux.org/downloads/puplets
50 • not ready yet (by Matt at 2009-01-05 16:47:11 GMT from Canada)
thanks for the summary of linux from it's start to now... it was interesting to read but what's even more interesting is that after this many years, linux isn't ready to be a desktop os yet! i know i'm probably going to get flamed for this but here it goes.
why so big? that's my first question, i checked out sabayon after reading good reviews and wanting to try out the new one but it's over 4gb to download! i understand that there's a ton of stuff packed into that iso but seriously, why not do something like ubuntu does and give a cd with the basics and then give a package manager to install the other stuff. i'm not interested in downloading something that big and i think there's a lot of people that agree with me. that's what's killing the chances for some os's to get mass adoption is how big they are and how unnecessary that is.
ubuntu has the right idea with the cd thing but other than that, it's horrible, to not update as much as they should and not take as many debian updates as they should is stupid. the reason linux doesn't need antimalware software is not it's unix base, OSX is unix based and apple has finally announced that even they recommend antimalware for OSX... so it's not the unix base but it's the updates and the firewall and all that that keep us protected, but ubuntu and all it's million derivitives, are flawed in that updating thing... come on, you can do way better than that.
this is why i refuse to run anything that isn't a cd release (not DVD) and anything that is ubuntu based. at this point i'm stuck in windows again because i have no other choice. i still check here frequently in the hopes that something new will come up but nothing of worth has. come on, with a huge community for this you have to be able to do better than this. zenwalk is useless, i hope it dies, same with freespire and mepis, i hope ubuntu dies as well (fat chance) and i really hope mandriva dies because of the mismanagement in december. we need some new things in the linux world, someone to come along who knows what they're doing to release something of worth, not the random garbage based on a garbage ubuntu os that we see now
51 • 2009 distros of interest (by Brian Masinick on 2009-01-05 16:54:24 GMT from United States)
I was really pleased to see that sidux 2008-04 was able to be released before the end of the 2008 year - and work has already started on sidux 2009-01. I don't really NEED a new sidux release - I still have sidux 2007-04.5 on one of my systems, but I enjoy having a recent ISO image available and a fresh install every now and then on a test system. sidux fits both desires very well. I use it mostly in rolling upgrade mode, but I enjoy seeing the new graphics every now and then when I am testing, and I also appreciate the continually improving hardware support. sidux is what I use as my every day cutting edge desktop system.
For my other every day desktop systems, I use SimplyMEPIS and AntiX. Both are well along in their release plans. SimplyMEPIS already has a Release Candidate 1 available. Any suggestion that MEPIS is fading away is quite wrong. I have never seen MEPIS as solid, stable, and current as it is right at this very moment, and it is not even officially released. I think that SimplyMEPIS 8.0 will be THE distro to watch in Q1 2009! It's stable-mate, AntiX M8.0 is also undergoing public testing right now. As a small, fast alternative to SimplyMEPIS, these two have to be one of the best 1-2 combinations offered by any distro team. I strongly recommend SimplyMEPIS 8.0 Release Candidate 1, even before final release, as a great every day stable desktop system, and I heartily recommend AntiX M8.0 Public Test 1 as a really fast, solid, extremely flexible system that can be used as a Live CD, a rescue CD, or a fast desktop that uses light window managers and light applications to allow it to be used on aging hardware or to race along on more current hardware. No, MEPIS is not falling away, it is quietly, firmly, cleanly creating two current distros that define what a stable, solid desktop system should really be.
52 • Memory Lane & Sabayon nonsense (by Verndog on 2009-01-05 16:58:35 GMT from United States)
It appears it's "Down memory lane". Slackware and the afore mentioned Caldrea was my first install.
This weeks DWW was a delightful read.
#50 by Matt. I totally agree with regards to Sabayon. Nothing there to intice me to download it. I've tried a few times in the past. sabayon fails measurably on my pc. Never again - unless they have a reasonable download.
53 • Re: 50 (by EP on 2009-01-05 17:00:32 GMT from United States)
Sabayon is big because of choice, plain and simple. It's cool that you choose not to use it because of that. That's part of the beauty of linux. Choice and flexibility. For someone who is downloading from a friends house, and doesn't have a fast connection, the DVD is the perfect way to go, although then do they have enough speed to keep that much software updated? meh, nothing is a perfect solution.
I'm not following your rant on Ubuntu. They should default their firewall to on, but it's defaulted to off because they don't have any software listening by default, but the newer releases do come with ufw, which is easy to use, yet no gui. My gripe with ubuntu, is that I think if you install a service, it should be off by default. No big deal really, but there is a services menu entry where you can turn it on, so I think they should be off by default, but again, it's just an opinion thing. Sounds like you don't like Ubuntu because...it's not debian? I guess I didn't really get a lot of your rant. Ubuntu is not perfect, yet they are contributing to open source, which can be said of many distributions. If you wish to see them die, then I really don't think you understand open source software at all IMO. Linux is continuing to improve and as far as the desktop goes, and has 13.4% of the server market for corporations, not to mention servers running personal web pages. The sky is the limit.
54 • Importance of Live CDs (by JR_w on 2009-01-05 17:01:16 GMT from United States)
After Red Hat, I fell in love with Mepis 2003. Wonderful thing, the live CDs. I am now running Debian, Mint, Puppy, PClinuxOS 2007, only one of which is not issued as a Live CD. Sadly, the latest Mepis distros do not work right on my AMD64 Compaq SR1575CL (with HP VS17 monitor), despite all the boot options.
55 • Yes, anti, we can have fun with these comments! (by Brian Masinick on 2009-01-05 17:06:02 GMT from United States)
20 • #16 "Zenwalk and Mepis are one step closer to the grave." (by anticapitalista on 2009-01-05 12:55:03 GMT from Greece)
"Zenwalk and Mepis are one step closer to the grave."
This will be the funniest wrong statement of the year, you'll see.
I am not at all concerned about such statements. As you say, they are the funniest wrong statements out there, and we know why! :-)
Friends, many of you have no idea how much work and collaboration goes on in the MEPIS projects. You might want to check out the MEPIS Lovers Forums. All year long this past year, while people were moving on to other distributions, the MEPIS Lovers Forum members were working on things like adding a community repository, which kept current software available for SimplyMEPIS 7.0, when it seemed to other people that SimplyMEPIS had fallen asleep. AntiX never slowed down at all - there has been a rich collection of M7.* releases - M7.5 is still very much a current, really nice looking release, yet M8.0 is well along, and very close to release even now.
Those of us who participate in the MEPIS Lovers Forums chuckle at comments like these. Yeah, sometimes a few people get frustrated at them, simply because so many people are missing out on the great work that is taking place, and even experiencing the results of that work - all of which is readily available to anyone who is interested in it.
In the end, the vast majority of people out there are incredibly helpful, extremely talented, and they have a good sense of humor too! :-)
I invite you to check out http://mepislovers.org/forums/ and see what it is all about.
56 • re.No.49 (by solver on 2009-01-05 17:38:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
Keep up, old chap.
Although the work of 'gray' on NOP and BoxPup is truly amazing, the buzz is all about 'wow' 's U.P. Check it out.
57 • pclinuxos (by Djordun on 2009-01-05 17:45:04 GMT from United States)
Good riddance, not because the product is bad (it's ok, or was at the 2007 point) but that community over there is one caustic group that just might be responsible for more potential users fleeing to other distros or even back to Windows than any other online forums.
Reworked Mandrake/Mandriva seemed to be ok back a while, but it was always very difficult to urge oneself to go to their forums and post a query given the condescending attitudes, etc.
Wishing Texstar well, all the same; he was one hard working man.
58 • 43 (by Dick Cheney on 2009-01-05 17:46:07 GMT from United States)
"In short - apart from networking, I see no field where Linux shines and is the preferred platform for professionals, but I am willing to listen and learn..."
Most of what is done on Linux is done using open source software. Most of the major open source projects are cross-platform. So it's difficult to define a "preferred platform".
More important is the areas where you can do your work and not have problems. If you are doing statistical analysis, R is very popular and the developers use mostly Linux. Many users do as well. I don't know or care about relative popularity.
Matlab, Stata, Mathematica, ... all work fine on Linux. True, developers of some programs don't have a Linux port, but for real numerical analysis, using Linux is better. It's one of the main reasons I use Linux, in fact.
59 • RE: Linux & Distributions through the Years (by FuguRitual on 2009-01-05 17:46:09 GMT from Belize)
Good article but incomprehensible not to mention the the re-incarnation of LiveCDs by Knoppix.
In 1998, as a Netware CNE and Windows NT 4.0 admin, I watched a co-worker mess around with Red Hat and laughed.
I never looked at Linux again until 2003 when Knoppix brought out the first really useable LiveCD. I concur with Brooko and SlaxFan posts above regarding the importance of LiveCDs in getting people to easily try Linux.
However, you did hit the nail on the head when you noted that Linux gained mainstream popularity with the advent of Ubuntu. Ubuntu's impact on other distros becoming more easy to use cannot be overstated.
In addition to the increasing popularity of Linux in the server and desktop markets, the future looks very promising with the OS as it comes pre-loaded on more and more webbooks and appliances like routers.
60 • Oldies (by Fernando on 2009-01-05 17:46:32 GMT from United States)
Happy New Year to all Linux Community!!
It was a good day to remember the old days, My first Linux experience came with Caldera 2.3 it was beautiful easy to install and very stable and it came with the Star Office suite, I still have the three cd set, then Mandrake 7.0 what a nice distro! Later I stick for a little while with Xandros 2.0 before start jumping with any kind of distros; however my main distro is Vector 5.8 KDE. I tried 5.9 but I get back to 5.8 (Teenpup and Wolvix) in the same machine. Keep the Pinguin Power up!!!!
61 • to #50 (by Serpent on 2009-01-05 17:50:55 GMT from United States)
Why not try sidux or debian lenny-neither of those have the dramatic disadvantages of that popular distro the demise of which you are wishing for.
I think one reason for dvd releases is that not everyone has broadband to download tons of different packages, but it may be true that the size of such iso's is a drawback.
62 • Ubuntu's user friendliness (by Osoloco on 2009-01-05 18:32:51 GMT from Ecuador)
"Finally, in 2004 arrived the distribution that would win over the greatest number of desktop users in the Linux world due to its user friendliness: Ubuntu."
I am not sure the popularity of Ubuntu is based in its "user friedliness" or more in its overwhelming marketing strategy (free CDs distribution, ubiquitous adds, etc.).
I think there are other more "user friendler" distros than Ubuntu, i.e.: Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, openSuse, to name a few.
63 • suse 11.1 (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 18:53:07 GMT from United States)
if back in the 90s anybody would have told me that in late 2008 suse would release a distro which cannot configure sound, nvidia or networking without experimenting and editing the configuration files (xorg.conf, etc) I'd have laughed and said, "yeah, right."
unbelievable.
64 • Berry Linux marketing strategy (by Adam Williamson on 2009-01-05 19:09:33 GMT from Canada)
I like Berry's marketing strategy - stick a kitten on it. Genius. Why did I never think of that? :)
65 • RE: Anon, KimTjik, Matt - Apps have nothing to do with it. (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-01-05 19:16:54 GMT from United States)
It seems that everybody talks that if linux had some killer apps or if software companies would produce apps that were cross platform and would run on linux then linux would be high in desktop user numbers. That is not the case at all. Why do you think most desktop users, (even professionals), use MS Windows and apps written for MS Windows? Because that is what their computers came installed with. Not many people will ever install an os on a computer. Not many people will ever build their own system. Even so called professionals buy an off the shelf system and use whatever is installed. Thats the way it is now and its going to be a long time before it ever changes. So lets not put the blame on developers of apps for the desktop market dominance of Microsoft. The general public does not have a clue or worst yet does not really care as long as they can play a game, go on the web, send little messages, play with pictures or use iTunes and load their iPod. As far as business goes, a business will keep MS Windows and apps on their systems just so they don't have to retrain an employee and most business owners don't really know the difference anyway. Thats what its all about. Not about how good something is or isn't.
66 • Re. post 50 • not ready yet (by Matt at 2009-01-05 16:47:11 GMT from Canada) (by jeff_Brasov on 2009-01-05 19:37:59 GMT from Romania)
Happy New Year everybody !
Matt ...we all make mistakes. In your case you forget a word because ( Vista ) is not ready yet.
Let me quote : "zenwalk is useless, i hope it dies, same with freespire and mepis, i hope ubuntu dies as well". Please answer :
1 On what computer you try the upper mentioned distros ?
2 What exactly you don't like ?
Or it is possible that you are not ready for Gnu/Linux.
67 • @59, 53 (by Volore on 2009-01-05 19:51:44 GMT from France)
> "the increasing popularity of Linux in the server and desktop markets"
>"has 13.4% of the server market for corporations, not to mention servers running personal web pages."
I'm very sorry but this kind of comment is almost useless and stupid. This is not because something is popular it is good, it is even very often the opposite!
> "Linux is continuing to improve and as far as the desktop goes"
No, Linux becomes worse than some years ago and unfortunately I don't see a sign for a change for the moment...
68 • @67 - Why? (by Miq on 2009-01-05 19:55:53 GMT from Sweden)
"Linux becomes worse than some years ago and unfortunately I don't see a sign for a change for the moment"
That is an interesting claim. Could you describe a little more in detail why you think so?
69 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 20:06:31 GMT from Canada)
"Why not try sidux or debian lenny-neither of those have the dramatic disadvantages of that popular distro the demise of which you are wishing for. I think one reason for dvd releases is that not everyone has broadband to download tons of different packages, but it may be true that the size of such iso's is a drawback."
ok first off, sidux is based on an unstable branch of debian and imho that's kind of dumb and wouldn't that make the OS even more unstable than a lot of linux's already are?! correct me if i am wrong on that... as for debian, thats another dvd release which is stupid. your comment about not everyone has broadband to download all the packages... then they wouldn't have the broadband to download the dvd iso then would they!?
"if back in the 90s anybody would have told me that in late 2008 suse would release a distro which cannot configure sound, nvidia or networking without experimenting and editing the configuration files (xorg.conf, etc) I'd have laughed and said, "yeah, right."
AMEN TO THAT!
now, RE #66... vista is ready. it wasn't ready when it was released or for a year or so after that but it sure as hell is ready now if you have a computer that's good enough for it. many computers are not ready for it, too slow or whatever but if you have a computer with a nice dual or quad processor and more than 2gb of RAM, vista is a pretty good OS. granted, you still need protection in the form of antimalware and stuff like that, but so what, a few extra programs don't really matter.
in response to your two questions, i have an hp desktop, intel core2quad Q6600 6MB L2 cache 1333 FSB 4GB RAM @800MHz, 640GB SATA 7200RPM , NVIDIA Gforce 8400 with 512MB DDR2 so a really nice machine, zenwalk can't find my hard drive no matter what i do, freespire hangs no matter what mirror i download from, or what burning program and burner i try it from, it just hangs on my machine during the loading, and mepis refuses to load any sort of graphical anything and i'm stuck in CL which i refuse to use. i don't have enough knowledge of CL to do a lot or to fix anything like that, and i also think it's stupid that in 2009 you have to resort to CL to do anything... again, linux is not ready. and the whole "die" thing was not some immature comment, it was because people had mentioned the word dying before, it's just that in reading my comment again it sounded kind of immature.
i think i'm ready, i might be wrong but i'm pretty sure that it's linux that's not ready and not me... which is helped by the fact that all my friends have tried linux as well and have all come to the same conclusion... it's not ready
70 • Re: post 50 (by Shawn on 2009-01-05 20:15:00 GMT from United States)
Matt,
I believe most distro's that come as DVD's are for the sake of people who have limited bandwidth. What I mean is that on a DVD of over 4 GB's, you "should" have everything you need without going online to download and install anything else from a repository. The Live CD/DVD is a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't sort of deal in my opinion because there are pro's and con's on both sides. Some people like the minimal approach while others want everything and the kitchen sink put onto the distribution media.
Zenwalk, Mepis and Freespire are far from useless in my opinion. In fact, I believe Freespire is better than either its parent Linspire or Xandros. Think of it this way: Vista comes on a DVD and you must purchase it. Linux is free and the only thing you'll end up paying for are the CD's or DVD's and the cost of your ISP bill. In this case, the latter is cheaper than the former on most occasions. If I had to choose out of those options, you can assured I'd take patience and find something to do in the time a 4 GB download finished than to pay several hundreds of dollars for Vista.
My question to you is what is it exactly you need your computer to do that Windows does better than all the distro's of Linux you've tried? It seems you're pretty picky (I know I am too!) but I just wasn't sure what, in particular, you didn't like about any of the distro's you've tried. Most of your gripes are in the form of how big or small you'd rather the distro's be than technological/usability reasons.
By the way, most distro's do come in the form of a "lite" version, Sabayon included. Even Ubuntu comes on a DVD if you wanted or needed it to.
71 • No subject (by Matt on 2009-01-05 20:17:55 GMT from Canada)
btw, post 69 was by me... sorry, i forgot to add in the name...
72 • "Death of [insert your favorite something here]" (by Miq on 2009-01-05 20:19:35 GMT from Sweden)
"it was because people had mentioned the word dying before"
No no no no no noooo, no-one in any computer-related field or forum has ever proclaimed the death of anything before!
PS.
You sound like you have a reasonably new rig. If the install repeatedly crash or can't find your HD etc etc then you probably have an necessary piece of hardware to exotic (unlikely) or new (likely, probably your mother board) for the kernel to deal with.
73 • RE: 67 (by EP on 2009-01-05 20:26:45 GMT from United States)
"I'm very sorry but this kind of comment is almost useless and stupid. This is not because something is popular it is good, it is even very often the opposite!"
Well as opposed to your posts this week, I think it holds just about as much validity. The major difference being is that I gave you an actual number and not a non-specific claim about the quality of [insert distro here]. Linux on the server is solid. If you are having a difficult time grasping that, then I'm not sure you know nearly as much as you think you do.
74 • RE 70 (by Matt on 2009-01-05 20:46:45 GMT from Canada)
if a distro has a lite version they should make it more visible but i guess maybe i should look around more... still, if linux wants to really compete for the desktop market, that's just another thing that they really have to try and fix is making things more obvious. and tied into that is something that makes me so mad each time i check out a distro... all the ftp and http pages that are out there are so confusing to a newbie and a pain to someone like me, maybe if you're a computer guru they don't matter, but why not just have a direct link that says download now and when you click it you just get the iso download... there are enough distros that have that that it's obviously not all that hard so why can't the other ones do it
i admit i am picky in some things but with linux you should be able to do that... in windows people put up with things because they have no choice. in linux, with hundreds of distros you'd think that there would be one that would be for you, most ubuntu based ones are approaching that but ubuntu itself is so stupidly flawed that i avoid all of those and so that makes the list of ones to try so much shorter... why can't someone make a useful OS out of something that's not ubuntu!
and so what if freespire, zenwalk and mepis are free if they don't work... i agree with #72 that my hardware is probably too new but there again, if linux wants to really compete for the desktop market, then why don't they have drivers and all that?! so what if it's free, you pay for Vista but it at least works for you, what good is a free OS that doesn't work... freespire, zenwalk and mepis, and all other ones for that matter... if you update and make it possible for me to run you, then i will, but come on, for a free OS that claims being open source is good because of speedy development, then why do people have so much trouble with drivers and things like that, AGAIN, LIKE I SAID BEFORE, LINUX IS NOT READY
75 • Re: 74 (by Anonymous on 2009-01-05 20:54:51 GMT from United States)
you pay for Vista but it at least works for you
If you upgrade your hardware to run the OS, and even then there are many, many who disagree and see Vista as this decades' Windows ME.
76 • RE:56 (by JAG on 2009-01-05 21:14:58 GMT from United States)
@solver Yeah, I was already aware of it, thanks.
Have you guys checked out these puppy based distros...??
NOP(Nearly Office Pup):[ISO Size: 83MB]
http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads/puplets/nop-nearly-office-pup
MD5 Checksum: 0c042ee6c26a36dbf5914d61a5e6cb26
...and... Boxpup:[ISO Size: 92MB]
http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads/puplets/boxpup
MD5 Checksum: 0672d60bad8914c4dd1be32185bb8562
77 • It's ready for me (by Shawn on 2009-01-05 21:16:15 GMT from United States)
Vista, for some strange reason on my dual-boot XPS M1530 Dell laptop, inexplicably screwed up on my computer. For reasons unknown, and although I rarely boot into Vista, I cannot login as my regular user and had to instead create another account to use Vista. All the files I had saved in my original home directory on Vista cannot be seen unless I view them via Ubuntu on my other partition. Linux saved my butt in this regard because all of the papers and articles I needed for school would have been gone forever due to Vista 1.) NOT working the way it is supposed to and 2.) gave no rhyme nor reason for flaking out.
Linux IS ready.. to take over my Vista partition, because Linux is ready for me. Now I can run Office 2007 inside of CrossOver Pro without the worries I had in Windows in general and Vista in particular.
I believe the issues you're having with your computer are with regard to proprietary stuff that most US-based companies and individuals leave out of the distributions of Linux (free ones) because they do not want to get sued. I tried openSUSE 11 and 11.1 recently and had trouble with video because my card was recognized correctly as nVidia, but the driver was not available through the install. If I utilized the Packman repository, I would have been able to install said driver and everything would have been fine. Sabayon did my nVidia card fine for me because their laws are not US laws (Italian distribution-Sabayon) but I ran into other problems with my synaptics touchpad which revision 1 did not correct for me and, ironically, every other distribution I've used (Zenwalk included) did not have an issue with. I'm running Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS and when I first installed it, everything was recognized, but I did need to tweak some things such as my fingerprint reader. My card reader will not read Memory Sticks/MS Pro, but handles everything else just fine.
Yes, every OS has their problems, but through my experiences Linux handles everything I need it to do better than Windows. It's just the nature of the beast: what works for you might not work for somebody else. But the exception with Linux is that with a little work and effort, and the understanding and patience of a learning curve, problems can and will be fixed now and for the future in sequential versions. That has and always will be both Linux's strength and it's achilles heel.
78 • No subject (by Gimper on 2009-01-05 21:18:47 GMT from Lithuania)
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. (Mark Twain)
^^^
So true.
79 • RE: 74 (by Tistje on 2009-01-05 21:19:56 GMT from Belgium)
Matt, am I right to think that you'd prefer linux distro's to support only a (very) limited set of hardware (like MacOS does) and integrate very well with it?
If you want something like that:
* Dell is selling PC's preinstalled with ... Ubuntu.
* The advent of the netbooks started a lot of derivatives (not only *buntus), with all eeePC hardware supported. As far asI know the Acer Aspire One was also blessed with some proper distro's.
cheers, Tistje
80 • Re Matt (by Nobody important on 2009-01-05 21:23:30 GMT from United States)
"AGAIN, LIKE I SAID BEFORE, LINUX IS NOT READY"
Hmm. I have seen this sort of mentality in some newer computer users, who are claiming that Linux should come to them on a holy chariot and whisk them away to the promised land of open source and whatnot. Sometimes they refuse to capitalize letters. This is fine.
No, Matt. It's not Linux that isn't ready. It's you who is not ready.
Debian does indeed come on a single CD.
Linux doesn't have device drivers for new hardware because - newsflash - most vendors don't support Linux. Certainly quickly enough for your newer computer.
Ubuntu is not stupidly flawed. But, if you wish to continue your baseless rants, please feel free. Just try to explain your views a little better.
It's funny that all of the Windows and Mac fans proclaim that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" and all of this nonsense. Really? Because my desktop runs it fine. My laptop too. Oh, and my other desktop. And my friend's desktop. And my other friend's desktop. And my girlfriend's laptop too. My mother's desktop runs it perfectly. My neighbor's desktop handles the LiveCD just fine. And when I went to a local Linux group, everybody there ran it just fine.
I'm chuckling a bit when I read those "not ready" comments. Sure,some machines don't work. But let's not base our entire argument on one single machine. Soon, Linux will support that, too, just like it has done with all of the hardware before it.
Once you understand this, Matt, then you just may be ready for Linux.
81 • #48 and #58 - (by anon on 2009-01-05 21:24:02 GMT from Norway)
You two keep shooting down my arguments...! :)
While I still think Linux could/should offer a better native office suite, for one, I won't argue anymore, as I think you both have some good points.
I have not found out why the 64-bit Flash kills Firefox when loading certain pages, but it's still in alpha, so it is probably only a matter of time before it's fixed.
And, yes, I am a heavy user of OOo Calc. I will look for R and Stata and see if I can handle them. Thanks for the tips!
82 • PCLinuxOS (by historyb on 2009-01-05 21:24:23 GMT from United States)
There is nothing wrong with PCLinuxOS nor is it going any where. We have a vibrant community, Texster is just taking time off for a bit and the next release should be out soon.
It has always been the philosophy of the dev team at PCLinuxOS to release when it is ready and not before. PCLinuxOS is a solid distro and is not going anywhere.
83 • 69 (by Dick Cheney on 2009-01-05 21:27:38 GMT from United States)
Debian comes with a netinstall CD, about 150 MB.
Ubuntu, Mepis, Mint, Mandriva all come on one CD.
I don't know what problems you have exactly, but have you tried Virtualbox? You should not have any trouble installing inside Virtualbox. Download Ubuntu, install in Virtualbox (don't even have to burn a CD) and test it out. Obviously better to do a hard drive install, but Virtualbox works great to try Linux.
Linux is not perfect. Whether it is "ready" depends on your definition. It's ready for me. I've got hardware that doesn't work with Vista but "just works" with Linux.
Install Ubuntu 8.10 in Virtualbox and let me know if it doesn't work properly and requires using the CL. I doubt you will be posting anything.
84 • No subject (by greenLegs on 2009-01-05 21:35:03 GMT from France)
Has Texstar hinted at when he'll be back from his time off?
85 • Back at ya! (by Serpent on 2009-01-05 21:37:04 GMT from United States)
"ok first off, sidux is based on an unstable branch of debian and imho that's kind of dumb and wouldn't that make the OS even more unstable than a lot of linux's already are?! correct me if i am wrong on that... as for debian, thats another dvd release which is stupid. your comment about not everyone has broadband to download all the packages... then they wouldn't have the broadband to download the dvd iso then would they!?"
There's more than a little tortured logic in all that. Unless you actually try sidux I guess you won't know but for me it definately is very stable and more stable than at least one of the distros you were wishing would die-uboohoo. Debian is available as a cd and in many flavors-you do not need to download the dvd image.
People can use linux resellers as well as download from wifi cafes or work to obtain isos, but they might not have the bandwidth at home.
Whatever. Happy New Years everyone!
86 • Linux is not ready (by Carl on 2009-01-05 21:39:27 GMT from Spain)
Matt's argument: I cannot get it to work, my hardware is too new, so Linux is not ready....
Lemme see:
OLPC project: MS had to revive WinXP and engineer for 6 months or more, and even then the OLPC laptop had to be equipped with an extra memory card. So Windows was not ready....
Netbooks: Linux was the very first OS on those machines. Again, MS have had to retrofit XP onto these machines, so Windows was not ready...
IPhone and Android: both smartphones run a Linux / Linux related kernel. There is no Windows smartphone that comes even close to these devices, so Windows is not ready...
When you come with arguments, make sure you come better prepared. Did you know that Linux has the best hardware support out of the box of all OS-es? That's right! The whole driver thing is a result of MS' stranglehold on suppliers, which is slowly coming undone. It has nothing to do with Linux being ready or not...
87 • Forget about it (by X on 2009-01-05 22:08:36 GMT from United States)
Forget about Ubuntu, Mepis, Suse, Gentoo, ect. In fact forget about the top ten and venture abroad. Try Puppy Linux, which at under 100 mbs works better than most of the bloated top ten. I don't even want to hear a word about running as root. I have NEVER had a problem running as root. Now having said that, if given the option, don't run as root.
The other distro you should all try is Wolvix. It will only cost you a cd to try it and I believe you will be impressed. It is easier to install than Zenwalk and it runs on almost anything.
88 • Lots of responses to various things (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-01-05 22:27:44 GMT from United States)
First, I was surprised to see Ladislav writing DWW again. No problem for me because I like Ladislav's writing. I just have to wonder what happened to Chris this week.
The one major error in Ladislav's otherwise excellent feature article was pointed out by #3 and countless others afterwards: Linux has had a GUI as long as it has had X. Red Hat Linux 3.0 (circa 1995) had FVWM as the default desktop if I remember correctly. They also offered the commercial CDE for sale somewhere around that time. A number of window manager still in use today were around way back when.
Yes, once upon a time Caldera OpenLinux was an excellent distro. It was a change of management at Caldera that changed everything. The new management decided that OpenLinux really should be closed and for a fee. Then they won a huge settlement against Microsoft over DR-DOS, which they had acquired. Then they acquired SCO and changed their name to SCO. Finally they decided that the DR-DOS case was really a business model and decided to play litigation roulette instead of producing software. It's truly a sad story. Caldera was a very good Linux company once upon a time.
Linux isn't ready? Matt, take a brand new system, wipe the hard drive, take a brand new, shrink wrapped copy of Windows, and install it. Watch just how much hardware doesn't work out of the box. Will you then say Windows isn't ready?
The fact is that Linux today supports much more hardware out of the box than Windows does. The mistake you are making is comparing a preloaded OS with one you have to install. Its an apples and oranges comparison. Try a system preloaded with Linux from Dell or HP or any of the netbook manufacturers and you will see that Linux most certainly is ready, and indeed more ready than Windows in your terms.
Zenwalk and Mepis are far from dead or even dying.
Zenwalk and VectorLinux look similar at first glance only. Beyond that there are huge differences. Both are good distros but the philosophy behind each and how they are organized is quite different. Which is better depends on what you want out of a distro.
Vector Linux 6.0 rc1 had plenty of bugs so there will be an rc2 shortly. It's become obvious to me that VL 6.0 will be a quantum leap forward from the 5.x releases in terms of ease of use, maintaining a secure system, internationalization/localization, and the size of the repository in the end. None of this is finished yet, of course, and please don't judge ANY distro by development and testing versions.
Zenwalk 5.4 will be a worthy upgrade over the previous versions and its clear that the developers have worked out most of the issues in their custom administration tools since 5.2. wicd has become the simplest network management tool on the planet and it's both lighter and more stable than Network Manager. No wonder other distros are adopting it. To those above who ask about new LInux software being developed: the Zenwalk team is clearly doing just that. The package manager is also improved. The changes aren't as large as in Vector which is not surprising since this isn't a major release (i.e.: not 6.0 yet). Once a few more bugs get worked out it does look like Zenwalk will be better than ever before as well.
Wolvix 1.1.0? Great distro, but decidely dated and long in the tooth. I'm very much looking forward to see what 2.0 looks like.
(X)Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid? The three above worked well on my hardware. Ubuntu didn't. My older laptop display was handled perfectly up until Gutsy. Now the installer delivers a blank screen. X hardware support has gone backwards in Ubuntu. My new netbook didn't fare much better. Sound doesn't work even though it just works out of the box in Vector, Zenwalk, and even gOS 3.0 (based on Ubuntu Hardy). I suppose I could go through the forum and work with Ubuntu folks to figure out why. I just don't like Ubuntu well enough to bother. Xubuntu is also markedly slower than the Slackware based distros.
I tried installing Foresight Linux Mobile 1.1 on the netbook. X just respawns and won't start. I decided not to bother troubleshooting why. Sure, it's probably fixable. It might not even be difficult to fix. I just wasn't that interested in distro hopping and trying yet another distro particularly after discovering that the basic install is borked.
So... there are my comments for the week.
89 • RE (by Matt on 2009-01-05 22:42:14 GMT from Canada)
"Matt, am I right to think that you'd prefer linux distro's to support only a (very) limited set of hardware (like MacOS does) and integrate very well with it?"
Not at all, I think that linux should support everything, as for proprietary hardware, look at what mint is doing, they have a full version that contains mp3, dvd ,etc. etc. and then a limited version for ppl in the US and all that, most people will still run the full version but they cover their asses with the limited version... would it be so hard for other distros to do the same thing?
"Once you understand this, Matt, then you just may be ready for Linux."
my response to this is that the linux community is showing the same signs that i found annoying with the mac community, not realizing their own faults, and being so "upity", oh, look at me, i run linux so i'm better than you... whether linux could work on my machine or not i'm not sure if i want to be a part of such a fucked up mentality
"Linux isn't ready? Matt, take a brand new system, wipe the hard drive, take a brand new, shrink wrapped copy of Windows, and install it. Watch just how much hardware doesn't work out of the box. Will you then say Windows isn't ready? "
i did that on my machine and the only things that didn't work were my video card and wireless card, both of which were bought seperately and installed seperately after i took the tower home from the store where i bought it, other than that it worked perfectly, and the seperate hardware that i put in came with it's own driver install CD's and so in 2 minutes i had it all working fine, plus windows update updates drivers nicely.
90 • Puppy is a platform, rather than a distro (by Sertse on 2009-01-05 22:50:21 GMT from Australia)
As some of the posts have pointed out, Puppy has some great derivatives. Boxpup, NOP, the new UP..
Puppy is special in that it encourages users to spawn derivatives of itself; the actual Puppy release is kinda a base for that creativity.
To the guy who's having problems, try Pardus Linux: it's not as well known as the others, but it's unique as being effectively a Turkish government project to encourage their country to use open source software. Thus there is a real emphasis on making it user friendly and just working.
It has worked well whenever I tried it.
91 • RE: 89 and all other rants by Matt (by SlackBugger on 2009-01-05 22:54:44 GMT from Australia)
Matt: Sheeeesh... Give it a rest... Vista (MS) works for you on your new rig? Great... Now p*ss off and use the friggin thing and stop b*tchin' about Linux not being "ready"... Gees what a ball buster...
For all the other 6 billion people (oh sorry hang on your friends' PCs don't "work" either so take off 2 from that... ;-) ) on this planet who don't have a Q6600 with oodles of RAM and and 8400 nvidia card they can still continue to enjoy life... without the cost of all that hardware and bloated OS...
Really now, if Vista works for you then be happy. But get off your high horse.
Did you report the issues you had to any forum? The beauty of open source is that you CAN contribute... try helping the devs rather than moaning about it all.
And you say CL in 2009 is just not on? Gees, you want to be spoon fed as well?
92 • Matt's HP machine (by KimTjik on 2009-01-05 23:01:31 GMT from Sweden)
I'm not challenging you Matt, but I would be curious to examine the cause of your problems. The hardware you describe isn't extremely new and the functionality in question isn't of the kind that usually cause problems. I've lately worked with newer hardware than that and even if not detected correctly (because it's brand new) it has worked flawlessly. Therefore I suspect something else.
I wonder whether HP has screwed up BIOS and hence making a mess of your attempts to install. Windows doesn't follow standards very well and hence we at times encounter very strange BIOS tables. I can only guess because I'll never get my hands on your computer.
93 • Mepis is very good (by Ray on 2009-01-05 23:02:28 GMT from United States)
I trying PCLOS BEL Server, everything just works and it is rock stable. My second choice for an excellent distro is definitely Mepis. Debian is of course the Mothership. It is rock solid and I used it on older computers because of it's great stability and meager requirements (Puppy and DSL are great but Debian is easily configured with a minimalist WM Fluxbox or JWM).
Ubuntu is just another Debian based distro which has some pluses and some minuses, it is not as polished as Mepis or PCLinusOS but the resources and the publicity given to it by Canonical and distro sites have helped it gain a dominance in the HPDs, for now.
OpenSUSE and Fedora are buggy, they seem to take one step forward and two steps back. I wonder if their commercial distros SUSE and Red Hat are as bad. They seem to suffer from amnesia, things work in one release and in their next release they are broken. I noticed this on Open SUSE 11.1, things that were working on 11.0 don't work on 11.1.
I know that there are a lot of hard working developers trying to improve these distros, but the Hits Per Day are not really in any way a measure of a distros quality and there must be a better way perhaps an evaluation panel or some type of independent evaluation group.
Definitely Mepis, PCLinuxOS, Sabayon and Debian are far more polished and user friendly than Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and Fedora.
It's obvious that Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and Fedora receive a disproportionate amount of free publicity from distros sites which claim to be imparcial. Of course it is just incidental that the 3 are backed by large corporations.
94 • No subject (by Matt on 2009-01-05 23:05:34 GMT from Canada)
hey SlackBugger... all i have to say is LMFAO, so long as i've pissed off some people who think that linux is the be all and end all of life, i'm happy
i know i'm right and that's all that matters, think what you want but you're wrong, dead wrong, and the market share proves i'm right, last i checked there was absolutely no doubt that windows was winning, maybe something's changed but i find it unlikely, seems to me that windows is kicking some serious linux ass
95 • @ 94 "seems to me that windows is kicking some serious linux a$$" (by DeniZen on 2009-01-05 23:21:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well fine - then that is where _you_ are.
No problems, no loss. Only to your pockets - a little (a lot..) emptier.
Cya. Enjoy.
96 • Re: 12 + 17 (by Some Guy On the Internets on 2009-01-05 23:25:25 GMT from United States)
Hmm, it looks like I need to rephrase the sentence. How about this one: "One of the most exciting things that happened in 2009 was the non-arrival of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0." How does it sound?
It sounds like you are flaming Debian developers. :) Why not rephrase that line to read "Debian missed their first projected release date due to the number of bugs in the testing branch."
Of course, under Linux, with a handful of 'tweakage', you can almost get there, or you may manage to make something _similar, but there are simply no Linux 'killer' apps.
That depends on what you are trying to accomplish, if all you are willing to use is free software, then yes there are no killer workstation apps, however, if you are willing to spend money on software and make the right hardware choices, GNU/Linux is the base of a stellar workstation both Graphic and Office. The various stable distributions (Debian, RHEL, SLED, Ubuntu LTS, and to an extent Mandriva though they are more consumer oriented) make this possible. Some people have never learned that quite a few proprietary applications have been ported to Linux thanks to a rather vocal minority that like to make our lives more difficult d-;
97 • RE: 94... Sigh.. what a gaff... (by SlackBugger on 2009-01-05 23:44:38 GMT from Australia)
Pissed off? Meh.. hardly... You're the one ranting and raving on a Linux site about how Linux "failed" you.. oh woe is me Matt thinks to himself.
No one here has said how Linux is the be all and end all.. You put that foot in your own mouth. All people are saying is that it can replace Windows (depending one one's needs and desire to adapt).
So you had problems? As I asked you before did you post to any forums about the exact details of your issues? Too hard? Or just CBF (Can't Be F****d)?
I think Kim's post (#92) may be a good place to start... But probably no need seeing that Linux has "failed" and you're well and truly entrenched in MS-land... at least your nose and wallet are anyway...So be it.
cheers!
98 • Poor Matt (by Brooko on 2009-01-06 00:00:36 GMT from New Zealand)
Matt - great - enjoy your Vista. We're laughing with you ....
Give you an example - I also have a Q6600, 4Gb DDR2 1066 Ram, twin Satas, latest Intel HDA, Nvidia 9600GT - and I run Mepis 8 64. It all worked OOTB - the only thing I had to load was the Nvidia driver - and that's easy.
I had to do a new install of XP on my dual boot system the other day - very little worked - until I found and downloaded all the drivers. You see they don't come as part of the Windows install - funny that. Most amusing one is having to load motherboard drivers for an internet connection - so I can get connected and download other drivers. I've never had an issue with any distro recognising my ethernet connection though. BTW - I only dual boot XP so that I have it available 'just in case' I need it to help out my "Windows impaired friends" - family included :) Mepis on the other hand was easy.
One thing I never noticed was you asking for help on our forums. If you had, and were willing to try a couple of simple procedures, I'm sure we could have had you up and running. But that's your loss. I don't think (from your posts) that you're ready for Linux yet. That's also your loss. If you are ready - ask for help. You'll get a ton of it. Just ask nicely and be prepared to open your mind.
Oh - and the comment about market share. Mmmmm - may want to check stats before broadbrushing that one. Both OSX and Linux slowly growing. Windows share dropping - again albeit slowly. Yes MS have the lions share - but I think you're going to see a drastic change in the coming years.
So - like I say enjoy your Vista. I've seen it, played with it, discarded it, and I think I'll stick to Mepis and the rest of the whole Linux Community. My choice :)
99 • @Matt: time to rest (by Miq on 2009-01-06 00:06:51 GMT from Sweden)
Matt, you started nice enough here but now you've turned into a troll. You've had your say and people have listened. Rest your case, and don't hesitate to report back if you try another distro.
It might very well be bad a BIOS or something like that; it is not uncommon for the first version of new motherboards to have bugs. If so it is not Linux' fault, since the manufacturers obviously have tested against Windows.
100 • "Killer Apps" (by Sertse on 2009-01-06 00:11:24 GMT from Australia)
I thought Apple's killer app is obvious. Software specifically made to specific hardware, every the whole computer system is integrated as one thing, with a bonus for style. That's what people are buying their premium for...
For Linux, the closest equivalent imo would be the whole concept of the repository system?
101 • No subject (by changturkey on 2009-01-06 00:31:22 GMT from Canada)
A whole lot of "this distro is more/better than the other because of silly reasons."
102 • RE: 62 Ubuntu's user friendliness (by ladislav on 2009-01-06 01:40:02 GMT from Taiwan)
overwhelming marketing strategy (free CDs, ubiquitous adds)
Ubiquitous adds? Please do me a favour and show me one (just one!) web site with an Ubuntu advertisement. Because I've never seen any and I do go around many Linux web sites every day.
103 • No subject (by Miq on 2009-01-06 01:47:43 GMT from Sweden)
Eh, why was that poke on the Shuttleworth piece deleted (the orignal #102)? It was entertaining and valid criticism. Sarcasm isn't spam... Seems a lot of arbitrary pruning is going on here. :(
104 • RE: 103 (by ladislav on 2009-01-06 01:57:29 GMT from Taiwan)
Entertaining? You are joking, right? The poster copied and pasted a large chunk of text from DWW, then added about five thousand lines of "clap clap clap" in upper-case letters. If you find that funny, give me your email and I'll send you the comment - you can then look at it all day and laugh your lungs out.
105 • Ubuntu detractors (by Muhammad Fahd Waseem on 2009-01-06 02:43:43 GMT from Pakistan)
There's never a shortage of Ubuntu nay-sayers, is there?
106 • Regarding Matt and his detractors (by Mike Meyers on 2009-01-06 02:53:37 GMT from United States)
The problem is, Matt is right and most of you know it. The ones that don't know it - don't have a clue.
It isn't that Windows is winning.
It's that Windows has already won!
It's just better, period.
Now, regarding Linux. All the distros are fun to play with. To install . To compare with each other. Stuff like that
But to get serious work done, you have to turn to Windows.
Sorry to ruin your new year, but that's just the way it is.
107 • RE 22 : small ubuntu based distro (by Bobby Hunter on 2009-01-06 03:02:44 GMT from United States)
regarding the request for a <400MB Ubuntu Intrepid derivitive, the only one I know of is Debris Linux. They strip ubuntu down to <200MB and still keep the gnome desktop. But they always stay one version behind Ubuntu - for example they are just now moving to an Ubuntu Hardy base. It is a really great little distro tho, I use it on older computers that I donate to charity.
108 • Where is GNU/Linux heading? (by Woodstock69 on 2009-01-06 03:12:07 GMT from Papua New Guinea)
To Chris and Ladislav, thanks for a great DW, though it never arrives on a Monday, always on a Tuesday morning for me (Papua New Guinea)...
What really bugs me to tears about GNU/Linux as a whole is the level of consistency of operation over releases and hardware. There isn't any. You can read any comments section on any review and find as many people that the distro worked for as that it didn't work for (on their chosen hardware). I don't think I've come across that in the Windows forums. Is it really that hard to make the experience consistent??
Why can't I use a device driver written for Windows to drive my device as used on GNU/Linux? Didn't we do exactly the same thing for NDIS with its wrapper? Or am I missing something?
My chosen distro is openSuSE. Loved it (and hated it) since v9.3. I've found 11.0 to be a nightmare. Hardly anything worked for me (consistency....), but 11.1 seems better. Absolutely love the eye candy in 11.1, so time to see how it goes...
Another thing that bugs me about GNU/Linux (or KDE and Gnome) is the resources it uses. I went from Windows to GNU/Linux because I wanted a free system that was supposed to be bloat free and runs on "older" hardware (since when is a P4 old??? or is it just me getting old?).
Anyone remember the good old Commodore 64? I had a word processor, spreadsheet, and games. I did all my homework on it and printed it with an MPS1200 dot matrix printer. Did everything I needed. Was fast (until GEOS came about, but wasn't that bad), except for the floppy drive load time. How much RAM? 64K!! My Pentiums onboard CPU cache is bigger than that!! And yet the software being produced requires a faster CPU every year, and are slower than previous versions.
So where is GNU/Linux heading? As far as I can tell, the eye candy is complete. Many distros (including my favourite, openSuSE look great, but like a sexy looking blonde chick, there's nothing up top). Please Please Please, make the software run faster with LESS memory requirements and a slower CPU. We're not all as rich as Bill.....
109 • trolls (by Andy Axnot on 2009-01-06 03:13:45 GMT from United States)
Folks, from time to time we should repeat the mantra:
"I will not feed the trolls. I will not feed the trolls."
Always makes me feel better. :-)
Cheers!
110 • For the most part they are work. . . . (by Rich on 2009-01-06 03:21:50 GMT from United States)
I've tried (Suse, OpenSuse), Mint, PCLinuxOS, (Ubuntu, Kubuntu), Mepis, Fedora, Freespire, Kanotix, (Madrake, Mandriva), Sabayon, DesktopBSD, Pc-BSD, Pardus, Sidux, Elive, Knoppix, OpenSolaris all with varying degrees of success.
I've attempted FreeBSD, Debian.
I think the hardest things to tackle for newbies is the Nvidia (video) issue, and Wireless Wifi issues. If you can overcome these hurdles. . . which I might add have become increasingly easier to overcome then the rest is easy. Now it's just a matter the choice between 'KDE or Gnome' . Both have their good points.
Having experimented with all of the above my biggest hurdle now is with my internet provider which has been bottlenecking my broadband downloads because of my excessive download consumption. This is my next hurdle to overcome. . . maybe a consumer class action suit is necessary.
Rich
111 • Thanks (by Hopops on 2009-01-06 05:03:30 GMT from United States)
Ladislav,
I really enjoyed reading this DWW. Thanks for bringing back my Monday routine.
112 • Re. 90 (by uz64 on 2009-01-06 05:16:31 GMT from United States)
"Puppy is special in that it encourages users to spawn derivatives of itself; the actual Puppy release is kinda a base for that creativity."
Huh? Last I heard, that's how all the big, traditional, classic distros were. Slackware has spawned several distros. Debian spawned countless distros--including Ubuntu. Ubuntu itself spawned (and is spawning) lots of distros. KNOPPIX, based on Debian, had its part in pioneering the live CD, and plenty of distros are (or were) based on it, including DSL. I'm not so sure I see how Puppy is "special" because it does what pretty much every (major) distro does: encourages variations in the form of new distros.
113 • Warren Woodford (Mepis Master) comments on TYOTLD (the year of the Linux desktop (by Food for thought! on 2009-01-06 05:45:33 GMT from Australia)
Scott: What about the year of the Linux desktop?
Warren: It’s never going to happen. Sorry.
Scott: Why not?
Warren: There’s a chicken and egg problem with getting it on the desktops, where no matter how much Mark Shuttleworth does, Michael Dell is not going to tell Bill Gates where to go. No one is going to forget that Microsoft’s the big game in town, no matter how much Microsoft stumbles.
Mark Shuttleworth can spend his entire billion dollars on trying to make Ubuntu good enough to shoot down Microsoft on the desktop and that won’t change. It goes back to what I was saying earlier about the fragmentation in the Linux market.
You don’t have one set of products against which you can build commercial software, or do commercial deployment, or even long term enterprise deployment. It’s doable with Ubuntu, but it’s not a no brainer, although Novell and Red Hat are trying to address that part.
Right now, I don’t know of a single major corporation that would go with Linux on the desktop for one reason–no Visio. Until OpenOffice does a Visio clone, you can forget it.
http://howsoftwareisbuilt.com/2008/12/12/interview-with-warren-woodford-founder-of-mepis/
114 • Year of The Linux has become the Day of the Linux at best (by Johnny Come Lately on 2009-01-06 06:25:15 GMT from United States)
How true poster #113. MEPIS's own know it. Linux may have a day or two, but as far as becoming the king of the desktop. Thats Windows arena.
The problem is that no IT deptment head is ever going to put his head on the gallows for Linux. And then watch it fail or some other mishap. They will just keep Windows deployed.
Linux is great for the back office and servers. It's sad if you think about it that way. But what is a server anyway. Thewy "serve" Windows. Sad indeed.
115 • killer apps for desktop linux (by Anonymous on 2009-01-06 06:41:57 GMT from France)
GNOME, KDE, Amarok, wine, K3b, konqueror, gnome-terminal, gok
That beats MS Office and Photoshop for my usage.
116 • @114 ...Keep sending Bill that money! (by Wouchoo Toorkinbowt Wylliscz on 2009-01-06 08:52:13 GMT from Australia)
Ahhh..."becoming the king of the desktop..." wow what a dream! Is that what it's all about?
Seems like even a 40% market share will suffice, no? That's a lot of dollars, certainly not 100% of the market but a nice share no? No need to push the "king o' da hill" off his perch. Just scare the daylights outta him and keep him on his toes!
And seems like this is what's happening out there seeing all the double-takes and under-handedness (OOXML anyone?) and back-pedalling (Bill: Let's "retire" XP. He's been good to us... Steve: No. we can't!!! Netbooks. Bill. Netbooks! Lots o' dough to be made Billy Bob! Loooots o dough. Let's keep him up for a while... warts and all... Vista can't be trusted... And we'll squeeze them Netbook makers lemons in the process!)
No point trying to explain to you, I see that you're well entrenched in the MS dung pile.
So... Err.. Enjoy. And happy New Year!
117 • @12 LOL (by john frey on 2009-01-06 10:54:13 GMT from Canada)
Well I am another one who doesn't regret that Debian 5.0 has not yet been released. I'm still running a couple of Sarge installs because it just isn't necessary to update those servers. They are fine the way they are. I expect that a release of 5.0 will mean a forced upgrade and the subsequent fixing to get everything working again.
I don't know Debians support policy exactly but I doubt they are going to support more than one deprecated release.
I kind of like tweaking my desktop every so often to fix things. I don't like doing that with my servers.
118 • @Woodstock69 and all those with old computers (by jeff_Brasov on 2009-01-06 11:08:09 GMT from Romania)
"Please, make the software run faster with LESS memory requirements and a slower CPU. We're not all as rich as Bill..."
If you have old computer try: Antix , Vector or Absolute.
I have a computer with 256MB Ram , AMD XP 1800+ processor ,integrated video.
I try a lot of distros and for my computer and my needs ( dictionaries ). For me the best is Absolute.
On one CD you have :
K3b, ISO Master, AcidRip , Xmms , mplayer , Firefox , Deluge , gFTP , Abiword , StarDic(gcide) ,WordNet , UnitConversion ,gCalc ,FileFind ,Rox ,Pcmanfm ,GQView ,Gimp ,Asunder(cd_ripper) ,PDF Edit ,Thunderbird ,Chess avidemux ... all works for me .
On this distro i installed commercial OALD ( Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary ) and LDOCE ( Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ). It works very well with sound included.
Try it and you will not regretted.
119 • Better isnt always 'better' and better is not always bigger (by DeniZen on 2009-01-06 11:34:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
I use 'Linux', enjoy doing so, and I advocate it's use wherever opportunity presents.
I use it for all that I can, and most of the time.
Ive said before -on here- that, personally, I need a Mac to achieve (just) some of what I do. A specific part of an imaging workflow process.
Its simply a truth - *for me*.
Last outing, I got semi-flamed for mentioning that! It's as if a truth is seen as a heresy because it sounds unpopular, or is somehow imagined to be trolling in some way.
Given the choice I'd use only Linux.
There may come a day. Perhaps soon even. I look forward to it, But the Mac must stay - for now.
Regards 'bigger' than MS - for 'Home Users' - why even care?
Windows still comes with nearly every new PC.
Consumers seem to imagine it is 'free'.
They have become used to using it. Their software 'works' with it
What can you do...
Aside from very specific apps, and drivers for some very specific hardware, most modern Distro's, all things considered, have a big edge over Vista.
Most of us 'here' know it.
I beleive users just continue to use, contribute, and advocate.
And not waste energy worrying about being 'bigger'.
Just growth, wider understanding and ever evolving.
'Domination' will nowever occur while there are hundreds of Linux Distributions 'followed' by a so called 'community' - basically spending too much time bashing each other over bragging rights, indulging in pedantry, and point scoring.
Once one Distro becomes big enough to even look vaguely capable of 'challenging' for any notable market share' it becomes turned upon in itself.
Ubuntu is already getting slated as the 'new' MS' wherever you look!
Why? popularity does not comfortably go hand in hand with Linux users - so it appears.
So in the Consumer sector, how will Linux ever 'dominate' the Desktop? and anyways should we even care.
In the Enterprise sector, its value is already known, and it grows.
That will keep 'Linux' alive. The Desktop will continue to evolve. Hardware compatability will continue to improve. Those that know this, will all benefit.
Great!
120 • Re:112 (by X on 2009-01-06 12:40:13 GMT from United States)
What is your point? So It (Puppy) can do what other major distros do? True, and that is a good thing. What you seem to be overlooking is that it is a full-fledged distro at under 100 mbs. The fact that you are comparing Puppy to large 690+ mbs distros is interesting...
...Caitlyn, I agree that Wolvix is a bit "long in the tooth" but it still works better than a LOT of the more popular distros. The design of the desktop, menus, and control center is so nicely done. The layout of some distros is so counterintuitive that it becomes and exercise in patience to try to figure out where everything is. I too look forward to 2.0.
121 • No subject (by Dick Cheney on 2009-01-06 13:26:41 GMT from United States)
Gee, I didn't realize that you could determine the 'best' OS based on market share. Maybe different OSes are better for different individuals.
A better metric would be the market share among users who have run both OSes for at least a year. Most Windows users have never used Linux long enough to get to a reasonable point on the learning curve, and someone is arguing that they chose Windows over Linux? Given that Windows users change to Linux but few Linux users change to Windows, I can only conclude that you are drunk if you come to any conclusion other than that Linux is superior.
"Individuals who have only run Windows and only buy Windows computers run Windows more than any other OS, so Windows is better." Yeah, that logic will win you a Nobel Prize.
122 • RE:106, Are you joking Mike? (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-01-06 13:28:15 GMT from United States)
Well? Are you joking.? Sorry but I only give any credence to someone if I believe they know what they are talking about and not just tolling. Mike you are just trolling. I've been working with computers before there was any MS Windows so I know a little something about it. You or Matt have no argument to speak of, no point to make, (because you know you can't), and nothing to prove or disprove. So with that said, why are you here?
This is my opinion and not up for debate.
123 • @ Dick - 121 (by DeniZen on 2009-01-06 14:31:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Who are you 'debating' with Dick? - yourself? ;)
Your apparently 'verbatim' quoted statement "Individuals who have .. etc" (you place in quotation marks ) - does not exist in any thread above - as far as I can see?
Secondly, I'd guess 99.9% of posters are saying the same as you.
Yep. You are right - Different strokes for different folks.
Though pointing that out isnt going to get you much of a prize either - is it? :)
124 • Tiny Core Linux (by jeffcustom on 2009-01-06 16:37:19 GMT from United States)
Tiny Core is now at 1.0. It's a very cool project that is worth looking at for a very small, modular and FAST system.
www.tinycorelinux.com
125 • Feather Linux (by X on 2009-01-06 16:46:22 GMT from United States)
In a fit of nostalgia I recently loaded the last version of Feather Linux on one of my machines. I couldn't get it connected but I just wanted to take a look at it again. It was really a nice polished little distro. I wish someone would adopt it and bring it up to date.
Caitlyn, I know your history with Puppy. Your review was one of the first ones that I ever read and it actually persuaded me not to try it for a couple of years. I feel a bit resentful about that (I know it didn't work for you and death threats and what not). However, on the other hand your review of Wolvix brought that wonderful distro to my attention. I am sure you are sick of this subject but in all fairness you should re-examine Puppy (if you haven't already). It is a great little distro. For all I know you could be secretly using it as your main operating system.
Predictions:
Vector Linux is an up and comer and will reintroduce Slackware to the Linux community.
Zenwalk will continue to improve and grow stronger and stronger.
126 • RE: #26 - strange idea of a GUI IMHO (by Pinky on 2009-01-06 16:49:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
>"Please read the page @ http://www.kde.org/announcements/announcement.php , in particular, the three bullets."
I have read the announcement, and recall it first being made. I did not (and still do not) agree with the Matthias' definition of a GUI, and I suspect that there are few that did (or do). Taking the argument that different widgets being used excludes a _User_Interface_ from being a _Graphical_ one to its extreme, MS Windows doesn't qualify once you add an app that doesn't use that native widget set (and there are *many* of these). QED.
My point was that declaring KDE as the first GUI for Linux is provably false without some skewed concept of what a GUI is. A quick Google for "GUI definition" will result in multiple hits along the lines of "a user interface based on graphics instead of text". I have yet to see one (other than Matthias') that defines a GUI based on a consistent widget set.
As always, YMMV, as does mine :)
127 • Eye opener (by paul on 2009-01-06 17:02:05 GMT from United States)
I have often wondered how some folks can see the same distro in such radically different ways. Now I think I know.
I put Suse 11.1 on my Toshiba laptop and the install went perfectly. I have never had such an easy install of anything. Everything worked. That was a 64 bit install.
So, I got a Suse 11.1 32-bit live CD and installed it on my main desktop. I must say that I haven't had such a difficult experience in quite some time. Some of it was my fault, and some Suse's.
One noteworthy: If you are playing with this distro, do not make modifications using Yast/Boot loader. I does something to the MBR and leaves you without an OS. Grub-install from the live CD won't fix it. You need to reinstall from the beginning. I'm a slow learner, so I have installed the live CD (KDE version) three times. I finally modified menu.lst manually to get the boot preference changed.
Same distro, two radically different experiences. So, if somebody says your favorite distro sucks, they might be right!
128 • Re: 102 (by Osoloco on 2009-01-06 17:19:03 GMT from Ecuador)
Sure, my "ubiquitous adds" (meaning advertisement) remark is an exageration, indeed. What I was traying to talk about (since english is not my primary language), is about the amount of Ubuntu related stuff (articles, reviews, books, blogs, etc.) that take Ubuntu as a synonym for Linux.
Don't take me wrong, I have nothing against Ubuntu (@105). The point I was traying to make was just that IMHO the popularity of Ubuntu is not strictly related to its "user friendliness".
Apart form that, great article.
But since you asked for a Web site with Ubuntu advertisement, there you have:
http://barrapunto.com/ (the spanish Slashdot clone)
129 • Tried Fedora 10 (by Linux Guy on 2009-01-06 17:34:31 GMT from United States)
Have to take it off our machine (laptop) it drops connection with the router at irregular but frequent intervals.
We thought the newer kernel fixed that stuff. Nope.
Too much bad stuff about the new suse, so we'll just keep our Vista hard drive in until the next kernel.
130 • No subject (by Matt on 2009-01-06 17:35:30 GMT from Canada)
"I can only conclude that you are drunk if you come to any conclusion other than that Linux is superior."
Wow, talk about narrow minded people, you're the kind of guy that goes down with a sinking ship because he believes that it's unsinkable, look at the facts buddy!
"You or Matt have no argument to speak of, no point to make, (because you know you can't)"
?! We both have a good argument, we've both proved our points over and over again in these comments and people just come back repeating the classic "Linux is better than Windows" shit that we hear all the time and never actually responding to issues or proving us wrong. Prove my points wrong if you think your OS is so much better.
"Vector Linux is an up and comer"
This is wrong as well, how can a Linux distro cost money?! Sure there's a free version but come on, for there to be a Linux that costs money is against what Linux was created to be. I refuse to even entertain the idea of running something like that from a company that destroys what Linux was supposed to be. I have no problem with companies out there that will ship you a copy of Linux identical to the one available for free download, it saves some download time and can make a bit of money for the companies but to have a Linux that you have to pay for?! Why not just run Windows then?
131 • @130 (by zak on 2009-01-06 17:52:23 GMT from United States)
"Why not just run Windows then?"
Because linux is better.
I think you misunderstand the "free" in free software. It does not mean (necessarily) "free of charge", it means that the software is free for anyone to use, copy and modify the software, and do almost anything with it (within the bounds of the GPL). Anything includes selling. As long as anyone is able to get a complete copy of the source and use it freely within the term of the GPL, then it doesn't matter if the author chooses to sell his version (usually along with extras like printed manuals, support, etc). "Free" in Free Software also means, "free to sell" .
132 • No subject (by EP on 2009-01-06 18:46:33 GMT from United States)
Linux is different than windows. Superior in some ways, inferior in others. Where it is inferior, it has been gaining ground steadily, however in closed source hardware drivers, in some ways linux is at the whim of the manufacturer. Another important thing to note, is that some users may never utilize the parts of either os that make it superior/inferior to the other os. It's all a matter of preference. Personally, I just prefer linux but use both os'. But then again, I have had a terrific experience with the hardware on my notebook.
133 • #96 - about commercial Linux apps (by Anon on 2009-01-06 18:48:40 GMT from Norway)
Some Guy On the Internets wrote:
"Some people have never learned that quite a few proprietary applications have been ported to Linux thanks to a rather vocal minority that like to make our lives more difficult d-;"
Thanks for this heads up! What you write is certainly true about me; I tend to restrict my attention to what I can find in the default repositories. Now, let me make a note of this... :)
134 • same old same old (by Joey on 2009-01-06 19:01:26 GMT from United States)
The debate about linux vs windows is telling, in my opinion. If it were an ongoing debate about which works best mac or windows, it would not make sense very much because both work well in their own right.
But linux is still struggling, still can't get the kernel and drivers etc to work on varying machines like windows has since xp.
Mac doesn't have to; it's set up in its own world of drivers, etc. Very smart, as limiting as it can be to a few windows addicts trying mac for the first time.
Linux is more of a jalopy still, in a world of shiney new cars.
135 • @ 130 - Matt (by DeniZen on 2009-01-06 19:07:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Why not just run Windows then"?
Bloat.
Awful slow stodgy bloat.
Unless you stick with XP. Which is not too bloaty by todays standards, but has to be patched up like its a broken veg strainer.
You asked for reasons - just one or two to be starting with ;)
And you have to pay for that..
136 • @ 134 (by DeniZen again on 2009-01-06 19:21:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Linux is more of a jalopy still, in a world of shiney new cars"
A bit harsh Sir?!
Perhaps more like a kit car, ..
faster lighter, tailored, handles well, customised to the drivers needs, not the same as your neighbours, and their neigbours and .. their .. Didnt cost the earth, takes on competitors, and sees them off - on the straights, and the bends... Costs very little to run. Everything, almost anything you need - nothing that you dont. People who see it, rather fancy it.
Etc..
137 • No subject (by Matt on 2009-01-06 19:25:28 GMT from Canada)
I know what free means, and I know that you can sell it but I think that it's still wrong to sell it. I know that it's legal and all that to sell it provided that you provide source code, I'm not debating it's legality. What I'm debating is whether it's right or not for them to sell Linux and I think it's wrong because that's not what it was MEANT to be. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it if they called it something else other than Linux but Linux means free and here again, Linux is shooting itself in the foot by not doing anything about this.
As for post 135, Vista is only bloat if you try and run it on an old computer. My XP machine ran Ubuntu 7.10 fine, 8.04 not as well and 8.10 not at all basically, it also didn't run Vista very well. Vista has more bloat than XP but seemingly 8.10 has more bloat than 7.10... it's the same for all OS's, as time increases the power of computers increase and therefore the size of bloat in OS's increases. This is true across the board, Linux, Mac and Windows. There's no denying that. And as for the patching, you need to patch everything, seriously... how do you not realize that you have to patch Ubuntu just as much as Vista or XP or Mac or anything else!?
And fine, you pay for Vista, but if you run Linux, even a really free Linux, you pay with hardships, trying to get drivers working... just like Joey says, "Linux is more of a jalopy still, in a world of shiny new cars."
138 • Joey, Matt - big :rolleyes: (by Miq on 2009-01-06 19:52:09 GMT from Sweden)
"Linux is more of a jalopy still, in a world of shiny new cars."
Sheez, guys... I use both Linux and Windows daily. First: car analogies are done, tired and invalid for computers, and marks your arguments as wrong by default, dull and unimportant. Second, IF you were still to liken an OS to a car, the saloon of Windows might have cars that are new and shiny, but this does not say that the technology that they're made from is new or that they're super sports cars, rather they are Chrystler Spacewagons built on 1970's carriages.
Now quit this freckin' boring topic and use your "Oooo! Shiny!" Windows instead of bickering like brainless fanbois.
139 • analogies (by DJ on 2009-01-06 20:32:22 GMT from United States)
How about analogies to women? :) I first ran around town with common women such as W95, W98, and XP. I knew nothing else.
Then Ubuntu winked at me and I was intrigued by her uncommonness and attitude. Later sexy Suse seduced me with her attractiveness, but I soon found her to be inflexible and difficult in certain ways.
Reluctant to return to my old flame Ubuntu, I decided to date her mother, Debian. Debian at first seemed plain, but reliable. But now I see that she can out-do all the others in every way, given the right amount of care and attentiveness!
All in jest, no flames, please.
140 • Blah blah blah (by Nobody important on 2009-01-06 21:31:19 GMT from United States)
Again, we get into this rut of people proclaiming that one or the other is the best. It's just so uninteresting. Can't we find something better to argue about; something productive?
Matt, look. You come onto a Linux forum and started complaining about how Ubuntu didn't work on your new computer. This really your only point you've made, and frankly, it's not that strong of one. Considering there are millions of computer running Linux - as well as the one typing this message - without problems right now, your words mean nothing to me. You can tell us all day long how Linux isn't as good as Windows or whatever, but it really doesn't matter. You're trolling - stop wasting our time.
I support the people who are being mean to you because you deserve it.
As for the commentor who stated that the market share on Linux is a telling story...yes and no. For one, market share is a worthless way of measuring computer usage, because most people (except for a very small minority) cannot buy a computer without Windows on it. If I were buying a computer, I would too. I would then rip Windows off and throw it out my window. But that would be counted as a Windows sale, you see?
There is no "market share" measurement for downloads of free OS'. Ubuntu could be on half of those Windows machines that the survey lists, and we wouldn't know. It only tracks BOUGHT Linux installations. Red Hat, what say you. So, market share is worthless when you're discussing who's winning.
But, this is the point I'm getting at - who cares who's winning? I certainly don't. If Linux dropped off the market share list, would I stop using it? No. If Windows were to lose completely to Mac, would I stop using Windows occasionally? No. Every time a person says, "Linux is not ready for the desktop," I chuckle, because I'm looking at my own personal proof that they are wrong every time.
Tell me that Linux isn't ready? Bah. I use it full time. I use it for all my work. The only reason I have a Windows-dedicated hard drive is for games. So, seriously, cut the crap. Who do you think you're fooling here?
I'm seeing a lot of people say what OS they use as if it matters. Here's a big newsflash for everyone here: IT DOESN'T. The world does not give a flying frack as to what OS you run. Windows, Mac, Linux, what have you, it's all as meaningless as what color socks you're wearing right now. We happen to like playing with OS stuff, those of us who read Distrowatch on a regular basis. Yeah, it's fun.
But it doesn't matter.
Windows trolls, leave. You won't convince us that Windows is better than Linux. We won't convince you that Linux is better than Windows. There's nothing to be gained from this nonsense.
Stop. It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
141 • Windows or Linux (by X on 2009-01-06 22:09:29 GMT from United States)
...limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns it calls me on and on across the universe...
Shhhhhhhhhh...(try Wolvix)
142 • Ref# 134 (by Johnny Bench on 2009-01-06 23:00:18 GMT from United States)
"Linux is more of a jalopy still, in a world of shiney new cars."
That has to be the funnest line I have ever heard! Not only funny but sadly true!
Linux - a jalopy. Man I'm still laughing about that one.
Mac and/or Windows is the only true experience. Sure you pay a few bucks, but then anything in life worthwhile will also cost.
143 • @118 Old Computers (by Woodstock69 on 2009-01-06 23:20:31 GMT from Papua New Guinea)
Jeff,
I'll try Absolute, I've tried Vector and it's not bad. I don't want a minimalist distro. I want productivity (audio, video, dvd), I need KDE's bling and UI like a drug. I have to have OOo's MSO compatibility. And after spending a week downloading a CD at the office, I don't want to have to get online at the office again for another week just to get multimedia working. I have to lug my desktop from home to the office to update it every time. Internet here is too expensive to own at home.
That's the beauty of DWW. I get a snapshot of all the distro's I should try, and I do. Time comsuming on a 56K connection, I can tell you, but fun nonetheless.
One of the points I'm trying to make is that in my experience GNU/Linux and the community is adequately qualified to produce graphically appealing desktops and icons, openSuSE (and KDE, ok and Gnome too) is testament to that.
The problem is not eye candy, and I still believe a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 CPU with 800MHz FSB, 768MB RDRAM and ATI Radeon 9550 graphics card is not a slow computer. The problem is that the software on it is bloatware. That's perceived to be a Windows only issue.
I share RSM's philosophy that any piece of software should do one task and do it the best way possible. So much software out there is slapped together and sent out to compete, not to be the best it can. Choice is good only if the choice works not hinders.
Again, using the C64 as an example, the software developers on that platform made it do things in 64K that wasn't supposed to be possible. They got every bit and byte to work overtime, pushing the boundaries of the CPU and other chips. Software development today is lazy and not optimised for speed (in my opinion at least).
I haven't found a distro that can meet my needs in speed AND eye candy. Of course I can use Xfce, and have, but I'm used to KDE and prefer its format. LXDE looks good, but I haven't installed it yet. My personal opinion of why software is so slow these days is because of the IDE's. They are convenient, but horribly inefficient. Assembly is king here, but who programs in assembler? Now that's efficient!
Using openSuSE as an example, when I click on the icon to launch OOo, it takes at least a couple of seconds (with no feedback at all) for anything to happen. KOffice doesn't cut it, and isn't MS compatible. Some software just doesn't work at all and crashes, also with no feedback (that's part of the consistency problem). And multi-tasking??? With frustrating regularity, I can crash most distro's by simply running half a dozen major resource hogs of software at once. That's supposed to be GNU/Linux's strength isn't it, real multi-tasking and real multi-threading?
I just wish the software/OS/Distro could get faster and not have to rely on me upgrading my computer hardware every year just to keep up with it.
Maybe I'm trumpeting out of my rear end, but that's at least two years of observations and pent up frustration out of the way. Things can only get better.....I hope......
144 • re #139. (by Glenn on 2009-01-07 01:31:47 GMT from Canada)
Hey DJ.
To go along with your fun.
"How about analogies to women? :) I first ran around town with common women such as W95, W98, and XP. I knew nothing else."
( SNIP )
145 • #144 continued.. Sorry... hit wrong key. (by glenn on 2009-01-07 01:34:04 GMT from Canada)
To go along with your fun.
"How about analogies to women? :) I first ran around town with common women such as W95, W98, and XP. I knew nothing else."
( SNIP )
Then Windows is a prostitute. You have to pay to get screwed.
ha ha ha ha ha
Glenn
146 • OS (by Ulf Dellbrügge on 2009-01-07 02:09:43 GMT from Germany)
Did Linux start, because someone wanted to learn something about computing?
I use Linux, because i wanted to learn. It is a great way for that.
The most common tasks dont depend on the OS. If i want to browse the internet, i click firefox (opera, even iexplore have seen safari once) and do so. OpenOffice is nice on Linux. And Windows XP or Vista and will be nice on 7. Fetch some Mails. Yeah and so on. Of course there are special needs. For example photo editing Is photoshop csX (for most people i met, that need to earn money with it.) But common tasks dont need a special OS. My father DOES NOT understand computers the slightest. He didnt even notice he used ubuntu. He wondered once, why its not blue, but brown.
Lets not talk about the common tasks then, boring.
Drivers? Fault of the vendors.
MP3 and the like? Legal issue
Market share? Preinstalled is locked safe enough for *common folk*
Usablity? It differs, but it isn't inferiour.
So Windows wins on: Games(wine and cedega improved a lot, i know), some special needs. (access and visio and photoshop and some) Comfort. (to a high price)
And so, Windows will claim the desktop.
Before i met the trolls, i didn't even think linux would want to win over the desktop. Why would it? I am a little confuse about that.
And Linux wins on: Server (thats what ppl say), Some special needs (Learning, someone said statistic analysis) Customizability (is that a word?) (to the price of comfort) Security (i state it boldly without proof and have the bsds in mind as well.) Coolness. (Yeah and with compiz i can rotate my desktop while a video runs[flickers] and snow falls and there are water ripples and i can burn the desktop when i minimize windows and look how cool the icons look [Buuf, oxygen, whatever] i even have multiple desktops and and and... and look, when i press that button, linux checks all my apps and if there are updates the just... update magically)
Last but not least. Free. Freedom. It may be the oldest illusion there ever was, but it is ... nice.
Doesnt cost a cent, too. :)
147 • Women (by X on 2009-01-07 03:04:21 GMT from United States)
The analogies to women however intended are inappropriate and offensive. Not funny. Not clever. Not progressive. Not intelligent. Whatever.
148 • Opinions from within bubbles (by KimTjik on 2009-01-07 07:32:02 GMT from Sweden)
Either people socialize to little or they refuse to accept how opinions differ.
I work mostly in a Linux environment. I can afford Microsoft licenses and for some purpose I have Microsoft Open License Business. Even when administrating Windows server and network I do that from a Linux desktop. Why? It's more efficient and I'm able to easier work with different tasks simultaneously. Yes, I use Linux as a server as well and I'm using FreeBSD for routing and firewall, but still I also prefer a Linux desktop simply because it's better for me, and in my case that's true both professional and private.
Then some guys here tell me: "Linux isn't ready... Windows is the only true experience" (a "true experience" could though mean everything from disaster to success). What's the logic in telling me and others who consciously as an intelligent decision choose Linux that in fact what we do doesn't work? Isn't that like telling Usain Bolt after his victory in Being OS that you can't run faster than 9.70?
Do I use Linux because of ideology? NO. Do I use Linux because I can't afford Windows? NO. There's nothing more to add.
...
However the same criticism does apply to some Linux users. Maybe I belong to the group of so called power-users, but I know for sure that you can keep even Windows XP in good shape without a lot of hassle for years, and if updated and you use your brain in deciding what pages you visit on the Web, Windows is a pretty solid and fairly secure system. Yes, I would without hesitation say that Linux is more secure, but since it's possible to run Windows successfully why should we tell the ones that like it that Windows is crap and doesn't work? Let them who use it decide if it's good or not. I think we're all fed up enough by those who tell us that what we do doesn't work.
There are plentiful of reasons for why I think Linux is better and hence we better focus on those advantages than talking trash about Windows or MacOS. I do like to argument about these issues, and I tend to defend Linux a lot and I do my mistakes as well in choosing the wrong approach. Nevertheless Linux has a much more accepted status in many places so the need to defend becomes less crucial and hence there's less point in wasting time on people who obviously aren't interested in anything else but pick a fight.
/trying to escape my bubble
149 • Distro Timeline (by Sitwon on 2009-01-07 08:12:22 GMT from United States)
Why is BackTrack listed as a branch of Knoppix? Isn't it built on SLAX?
150 • "fault of the vendors" etc (by djordun on 2009-01-07 11:53:05 GMT from United States)
the computing world is what it is.. with the hardware what it is. windows is successful with the hardware and linux is no in any reliable sense at all.
as pointed out up there apple/mac is in its own world with it all and doing much better than linux distributions are.
blaming "vendors" is absurd because hardware is what it is and the software is either going to work or it is not going to work. linux does not work. and what is startling is that it has been well over a decade and the developers STILL struggle year in and year out release in and release out with these issues.
facts, not loyaties, will help you attain clear knowledge of this situation.
151 • RE: depends on what you're talking about (by KimTjik on 2009-01-07 13:45:21 GMT from Sweden)
Hardware includes all components you can attach to a computer, whether it's an indispensable part or not.
Mac has a chosen selection of hardware that is proven to work. Everything beyond that is user responsibility what concerns compatibility.
Windows has a small kernel in comparison to Linux but does on the other hand not include any drivers to talk about. It's up to the user to find drivers. For newly bought hardware that's usually not a problem, but in many cases it might mean a deeper investigation to track down exact what components the motherboard is made of.
"... hardware is what it is and the software is either going to work or it is not going to work..."
Not to ridicule you in any way, but the above sounds like you're not understanding the principles of how software communicate with hardware. It's not absurd to blame vendors if they refuse to cooperate, because in most cases reversed engineering means a very time consuming work practically in the blind. Vendors don't exactly need to do anything but have good practices for publishing white papers, something that can be done without reveal crucial company secrets. Some vendors have with success simply decided to feed the Linux community with good white papers while not doing any work themselves on Linux drivers. Hence it's more a question of interest in their current and potential customers than whether it's affordable or possible.
Overall it might be easier to find drivers for Windows but it's not a clear case. For 64bit systems it has been for the last years a quite annoying business to track down drivers, something that has meant extra time checking compatibility before a buy. A quite common issue among Windows users (including my own work with IT-administration) is that Windows might need drivers to even detect the hard drives; ahci isn't supported by default in XP but should work in Vista, but beyond that you might encounter other scenarios as well. Overall Linux has more drivers than any other operating system in history, but then we have those gadgets...
Today I spend very little time, if any, when choosing basic hardware. Basically I choose the best hardware because I know that it's supported. MSI screwed up selling motherboards with badly written BIOS which did confuse Linux, but that's quite rare since we now talk about bad engineering and not compatibility (even though I suspect that Matt has encountered something similar, because the hardware he has is basic and supported). The only few things I spend a bit time on is if needed webcams, scanners and printers (a month ago Vista didn't support about 30% of the printers generally used). The only thing you get when looking for a printer with Linux support is a better printer (printers with no support is usually badly built printers, crippled to make an extra buck and hence in need not just of a driver but an extra driver that let your computer do the work for it). I'm not a big fan of Webcams but I recently discovered that several (I do get orders for Webcams) works better in Linux than in Windows, which did surprise me (still check before you buy a Webcam for Linux). The really good thing with Linux is that you for example can connect all kinds of Mobile phones in data mode with no problems whatsoever in Linux, without having to install some obscure zillion MB suite of some kind (not very convenient if you have different brands); the same could be said about those Webcams - you don't need to clutter your system with bundles of ok- or crap-ware.
I would say that the so called hardware issue in much depends on the user's approach to Linux, because frankly it isn't that difficult nowadays. Users of Windows probably approach a nice surprise the day Microsoft can't continue to fill up their systems with more "stable" APIs and hence need to code from scratch again.
152 • RE: 124 Tiny Core Linux (by X on 2009-01-07 14:40:48 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the tip. I tried it. It is really extraordinary. Just what I have been looking for. 10mbs to start. Then you just download the applications you want to use. I am writing this from Tiny Core Linux with Opera installed. I am using an old Dell Optiplex GXMT 5166 (pre Pentium I?) with 128 mbs of RAM.
153 • Ref#151 Nonsense (by Sam Spade on 2009-01-07 14:56:22 GMT from United States)
The above post is about as an obscured lengthy post as I have read here on DW.
Webcam is one among many issues facing Linux and NOT facing Windows. I plugged in my new webcam in XP and prosto it worked out of the box! In fact in also worked out of the box under Vista. Try that on your fav Linux. NOT!
I plug in my Cannon scanner and it too works without me having to work. Same with my printer and Wifi too.
In fact everything I through at Windows works. Period. Not so on Linux. The only thing that works is the basic install. Most anthingg else and I have to just put up with what I can.
KimTjik . It sounds like your lengthy posts your trying to convince yourself of the viability of Linux.
When in fact it's Windows that runs with ease. It just the way it is. That's why it cost. For the easement.
154 • Windows vs. Linux (by mika480 on 2009-01-07 15:24:49 GMT from Italy)
Linux lost the train.....Vista is rubbish,they are changing few things...voila'....Windows7....still worse than Xp.
And in the meantime....Kde4...vista gui clone....Ubuntu...more attention to Compiz than make work acam or a usb device...
Sorry...I WILL EVER use Linux...can't blame the others!
Ciao buon 2009!
155 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-07 15:52:55 GMT from Canada)
Maybe you won't care because that's sort of the feeling I got from reading all these comments but after reading the attitudes of the Linux fan boys and how you treated people like Matt, I will never again even try a Linux distro. I am going to tell everyone I know (I'm regarded as the guy to go to when your computer breaks at least in my community), that they should never try Linux, it's not worth it. And for those who say that Windows is worse because of security issues... the only times in the last 5 years I have ever gotten a virus were two of the times I went to a website that Distrowatch had links to for Linux reviews, and in the pop-ups that came up from those websites I got virus's twice. Not only does that mean that Distrowatch should be shut down because of mismanagement and not properly checking out links, but it means that I'm never going to run Linux ever again, and tell everyone I can that they should stick to the real winner... Microsoft.
You can say all you want about how Linux is better but you all know, deep down you all know that Linux is infinitely inferior to Windows
156 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-07 15:57:22 GMT from France)
What bad Windows news prompted all these attacks on Linux this week?
157 • Copmment 153 (by forest forest on 2009-01-07 16:01:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
I cannot agree with your assertion that hardware does not work on Linux the instant you plug it in. A I recall from my MS days a lot of hardware came with CD roms which you were obliged to load and install PRIOR to installing the kit. Anyway how OFTEN are you installing kit anyway?!
I use Ubuntu 8 series so to speak and it does work without any major drama at all.. Granted it takes a moment or two to find the driver but it's an old PC, LOL. Thereafter it works no problem.
(I cannot believe a person would worry about a moment or two spent setting up stuff when a scan for malware/nasties on MS??? can take hours!)
Wifi up and ready in seconds, ditto printer and usb sticks, whatever. And if you need an update it's ready for the installing.
Reference the above MS??? v Linux argument...if folk want to PAY for stuff why not? if folk don't want to pay for stuff then again why not?
There seems almost to be some sort of derision heaped on folk who like to use and develop Linux. Why? If it is their hobby, job or passion why on earth should they not. It is almost akin to a person slagging someone off 'cos of the car they choose or have to drive...sheer nonsense.
Personally, not having to arse around with anti this, that and the other is all the incentive I needed to switch.
Judging by the way more computers are being sold with Linux installed out of the box (in the box?) may be an indication of the way manufacturers are competing for customers. And, judging by the way the global economy is going manufacturers may, possibly, have no choice but to very seriously consider using Linux as the main OS and selling MS products as special orders..who knows?
If Linux is not for you then fair enough, but why bother to get worked up if others can use and enjoy Linux?
Lastly, to borrow from another allusion above on the female front, ahem,...if you have got an ugly gf why would anyone want to steal her from you?, LOL
158 • Different not inferior (by EP on 2009-01-07 16:08:55 GMT from United States)
Jeez, the cryfest continues. Linux is not Windows. It's the first thing everyone should know. Will it work just like windows? No. I for one am very happy about that. I PREFER a linux environment, you may or may not. As a "go to" type of a guy for computers, I'm aware of many problems that exist in windows as well as linux. Neither is perfect. For whatever reason, everyone is free to recommend to the 4 people in their sphere of influence who actually care what they think to use whatever they think. If anyone has specific questions, those are better served for distribution forums than for a comments section like this and I'm sure someone would step up to help and probably resolve *most issues.
That's reality, as is reality that when windows fanboys come into a linux forum and start with the FUD, then they are going to get bashed. Same thing would happen if a linux user went into a Windows forum and started acting like a raging linux admin. For those that did not expect that, then let me just say welcome to using the internet for the first time ever to each of you. Jeez, get a helmet, run what you want. The only one who has to live with your decision is you, and maybe your family.
159 • Wot EP said (by forest forest on 2009-01-07 16:23:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Actually that is a good point ref one's family. My son of 16 is so into graphics at college all he can think of is Mac kit. The little villain imagines his old man (no me, really) is useless 'cos I use Linux..wot does he know? His AirBook hinge cracked under the heat stress!!!
Obviously OS kittykat 10 is hot stuff (groan)...oops just realised i was being OSist.
160 • odd (by DeniZen on 2009-01-07 19:16:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
We have all had our gripes with OS's - a Linux Distro included maybe - at one time or another, if you are an User, you are entitled to from time to time :)
But I have a good chuckle at folks who specifically visit a Linux Distro Forum, on a Linux Distro Site, in order to state that they will 'never' use Linux!
OK, they may be trolls (or imagine they are), and ought not to be fed, but theres great humour value in that irony because it appears sooo very darned stupid!
161 • 159 Wot EP said by forest forest (by Tony on 2009-01-07 20:02:51 GMT from United States)
I've run into the same problem with children wanting a computer that is what they call "normal." One of my son's came to me and wanted an M$ computer and I told him I could build him a Frankenputer with Linux installed as the final touch. He insisted on XP. I had a motherboard/cpu with the original XP CD.
I built him the XP system, but told him I would only use free software to run it. I stripped down XP as far as I could take it and started loading the free software. Gimp, Open Office, AbiWord, Mplayer, VLC, Firefox, Thunderbird, and several others I can't remember at the moment. All of the software except the Windows OS is used in Linux. I even changed the theme to look different than Windows.
He took the system home and has been using it for going on two years now. He has always grumbled about using Linux, but he is using A LOT of programs that are mainly found with a Linux Distro and he appears happy with the system. His friends seem to like it too...
The biggest road-blocks I see with most people getting cozy with Linux is usually within their own frame of mind. Also, if software manufacturers start taking Linux into consideration that will help too.
162 • RE 154 and 155 (by Nobody important on 2009-01-07 21:00:55 GMT from United States)
Hah. Hahahaha.
Okay, sweeties.
I said it once, and I'll say it again: Nobody gives a second thought as to what OS you guys use. I certainly don't care if you want to sell your heart, soul and leg to Microsoft to get the latest and greatest Windows products - that's fine. You guys can keep having fun, and telling your friends never to use Linux or whatever.
We'll be here laughing at you, because you think we actually *care.*
Hahahahah. Hahah. Hoo.
To 155 specifically: We (well, I) were mean to Matt because he came onto the forum, started spouting grammatically incorrect and obviously false conclusions for his five minutes of Linux experience. It's like if you went onto a car forum and said, "I couldn't get it working the way my horse and buggy usually turns on - cars are stupid."
Now, seriously, where are these trolls coming from? Is a Windows forum ganging up on Distrowatch?
163 • Most comments missing the point (by rarsa on 2009-01-07 21:37:09 GMT from Canada)
It's not about who dies and who lives. Actually, a distro living or dying depends more on the developers than the users, so it being good or bad has little to do.
Regarding the Killer Apps and comparisons with Proprietary products:
This is Free software (as Freedom). The main goal is not to be the best but to be free. By being free there is a likelihood that it is going to be "the best" in many regards.
Can you run it in the hardware of your choice? or just in the hardware of choice of the vendor?
Can you access your own data whenever you want? or do you depend on the vendor providing you with the tools?
Can you extend it to scratch an itch? Or do you have to beg for the vendor to add the feature?
How can we expect to educate other people to use Free software when even some people using it and promoting it don't even understand it?
164 • Windows, windows, windows (by JMK on 2009-01-08 03:30:10 GMT from United States)
Why all the talk in comparison to windows. Who cares? Distrowatch is not about how Linux is better than Windows. It is about the individual attributes of the various distributions and to "put the fun back in computing." I like a good flamewar as much as the next, but can't we at least flame about linux distributions?
I'll start: love Ubuntu: been using since Dapper, never had major issues. Running intrepid on my main box: vanilla core2, 2g RAM. All peripherals (including USB NIC and webcam) work literally out of the box. If I want to run some non-supported software (ie Shockwave) there is Wine.
On my old PIII, Zenwalk rules. (Love the forums, which is the real way one should choose a distro, as with enough messing around, you can get most anything to work)
On my laptop (c.2005, AMD sempron 1.6g, 512K) I use Archlinux, which is the most fun. Forums are great, and I know every piece of the system, because I put it there.
I like the Sabayon devs attitude, but actually using the distro (up to 3.5) just doesn't feel right to me.
I like dependency checking, so Slackware didn't do it for me.
Could never figure out what Fedora and openSuSE offered that Ubuntu didn't.
Debian community is a little too political for my taste, but I reap the benefits of their existence and beliefs. (Hypocritical of me I know)
Never tried Gentoo.
Puppy kind of felt like a personality cult.
I like my Arch app choices better than DSL, and it's not much bigger, and more bleeding edge.
165 • yggdrasil linux (by trufflesdad on 2009-01-08 08:52:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Very surprised that this distro was not included it the distros article..I believe it was the first of the auto-setup distros...Quite mind blowing at the time..No more xf86config needed :-)
166 • Re. Matt and DVD rippers (by jeff_Brasov on 2009-01-08 14:43:23 GMT from Romania)
"i have an hp desktop, intel core2quad Q6600 6MB L2 cache 1333 FSB 4GB RAM @800MHz, 640GB SATA 7200RPM , NVIDIA Gforce 8400 with 512MB DDR2"
Dear Matt . please prove us that Vista is good and confess in what time you rip a DVD (for your personal use)- aprox. 2 hours film and 0.2 bits per pixel.
167 • Open SuSE 11.1, Fedora 10 (by paul on 2009-01-08 15:05:19 GMT from United States)
More speed bumps, although I think the CDROM thing isn't exclusive with SUSE/Fedora. When I install an OS on my PERSONAL computer (as in PC), wouldn't you think that the user would have access to CDROMs and Floppies? Maybe I am old-fashioned in thinking of my PC as being personally MINE. But I guess it is not too much trouble to add myself to groups such as disk, floppy, cdrom, etc., etc. just to get some basic functioning going. But it shouldn't be necessary.
Then there is audio. To the folks who bring us such nice programs as Amorok, Jukebox, et. al., here is a clue. Sometimes (just sometimes) I may want to actually listen to a disk before I rip, fold, staple mutilate, catalog, rearrange, and create 17 different playlists. I may not want to do all that other stuff if the music stinks. On the other hand, if I could ever get Kscd to work, I wouldn't care.
On the upside, I downloaded an ISO for Sabayon 4 and... to steal a phrase from PCLOS -- it just works! (as a live DVD). I think I will do an install and see if the magic lasts.
168 • ref 153 (by Anonymous on 2009-01-08 15:27:06 GMT from United States)
In fact everything I through at Windows works.
Do you throw at Windows? Or you just put it through Windows?
What do you mean with that senseless sentence?
169 • Some Distros I liked for 2008 (by Landor on 2009-01-08 15:35:27 GMT from Canada)
Since everyone is commenting on distros that worked or didn't work I'd like to point out a few of my favourites for 2008.
1) AntiX - Great distro that just keeps getting better (love the new theme Anti) and I think we're going to be seeing this one move up the ranks for 2009 for sure.
2) Gentoo - I'm biased when it comes to Gentoo, but fact is I actually know enough to run this distro without any problems or qualms at all and it's as blazing fast as any light distro I've used.
3) ISidux - I'm not a big fan of Sidux but they got something right that very few other distros could on my test bex. The Via Unichrome chipset worked out of the box with 3D support. It's also a pretty fast distro though I'd tell anyone to go for the lite addition and build fromt here.
4) CeonOS - What needs to be said. A great enterprise system that's rock solid with their own touch-up's added to RHEL.
Some distros that also stand out and are at least worthy of a mention are Whitebox, Mandriva (though I found the last release with so many flaws inexscusable to release knowing it contained them), Red Flag, Mepis, Lixtrix (just looked at it and a really nice Gentoo based distro), Absolute and Slackware.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
170 • to DJ @ 139 (by Bobby Hunter on 2009-01-08 17:44:31 GMT from United States)
It's too bad you dated Suse because she has a communicable disease (mono). You better go see Doctor Stallman right away and get that cleared up !!
BTW, the KDE version of mono is going to be called Klap :-)
171 • Distros (by X on 2009-01-08 17:52:54 GMT from United States)
I must say that I have burned almost every distro on Distrowatch and after going through many a loser, here is what I have found to be the best of the best(FLAME ME):
Wolvix - (yes, it's Slackware) So far the best all around system that is easy to install, runs from live cd and it all just works. Menu is intuitive and easy to navigate. It is a bit dated but version 2.0 should be released soon. Looking forward to seeing Skype (hopefully) included.
Vector Linux - (Oops, Slackware again) Slick, polished and will probably be the one to redefine the Slackware distro. It is getting better with every release.
gOS - (What Ubuntu? How did that get in here?) Fun, good for older folks and kids. I don't really need the Google Widgets though. I am going to install it today on a dead Windows laptop for my wife's parents.
Puppy - Small (under 100 mbs, doesn't work on every machine though) but can compete with and is often compared to heavyweights like Ubuntu.
Tiny Core Linux - Is this the new DSL?
AntiX - I like it too. I agree with #169, keeping an eye on it for 2009.
Pardus - Very slick and polished. It feels finished. No Skype though.
Not Sure:
Arch - I like the idea but haven't found the time. I really want to play with this one. More for hands on rather than out of the box.
Absolute - (Slackware) Haven't tried it. How does it compare with Wolvix? No live cd?
Thumbs Down:
Open Suse 11.1 - No (but hopeful, I almost like it).
Sidux - No (don't see the need).
Mepis - (shrug).
Mandriva - (I don't know, just too much and buggy).
Saybayon - (don't see the need).
172 • to Woodstock @ 143 (by Bobby Hunter on 2009-01-08 18:06:54 GMT from United States)
Woodstock69,
please give Debris Linux a try on your machine. It is a stripped down Ubuntu with a full-featured desktop and is compatible with Ubuntu repositories. I run it on machines that are older than yours with no problems.
Some of the things that make it suitable for older computers :
* defaults to 16bit color (this helps a lot on REALLY old computers with limited graphics ability)
* does not include compiz (but you can get it from the repo if you want it)
* not infected with mono
the downside is they stay one version behind Ubuntu (they are just now moving to an Ubuntu Hardy base). Or maybe that's a good thing, since Hardy has already had time to mature a bit and fix bugs and security holes.
http://www.debrislinux.org
173 • Sidux (by mika480 on 2009-01-08 20:59:24 GMT from Italy)
"X...put glasses on and you will see"
Benedetto XVI
Skype working on Sidux....
I see the need!
174 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-09 01:09:04 GMT from United States)
My Canon camera, my HP printer, my Palm Device and my I-Pod worked out the box using Linux, no drivers or re-working or configuring anything was required. But the best thing I like about it is, is I don't have to buy pricey Anti-Virus software every year. My proprietary box is very slow, has many popups it crashes and blue screens a lot due to most likely malware.
175 • Re 174...Oh yeah, worked OTB? My MX300 Canon printer does not work at all (by Beg to differ on 2009-01-09 03:22:39 GMT from Australia)
...with linux, my sd card on the 3g modem is not recognised, never mind the sms software and other goodies that the supplier ("Three") provides for MS Windows and Apple OS only. And then there is the constant issues that many Distros (especially the 'buntu' variety) have had (latest xorg -1.5.3 introduced some new ones) with a simple Intel 915GM card and LPL screen, and not to forget the winmodems found on many laptops (I know, I know....its the fault of hardware suppliers, but it makes you realise in whose world we a living!).
One is a FOOL if they think they don't need to use a anti-virus scanner in Linux, IMHO! Given that most viruses are written for MS Windows (due to the fact that it DOMINATES user space!), the Linux OS is much less at risk from such attacks but it surely can facilitate the spread of same through emails and file attachments. I always use Avg (Free) for Linux.
IMO, Linux on the desktop is very well suited for the education sector (server and thin client setups) and is being deployed in a number of countries. Then, once young people get accustomed to it, it will spread much further.
Cheers
176 • RE: 175 FOOLS (by drizake on 2009-01-09 12:25:45 GMT from United States)
"One is a FOOL if they think they don't need to use a(n) anti-virus scanner in Linux, IMHO!"
I hope the H doesn't stand for humble. If it does, you need to look it up. I don't think I need to use an anti-virus scanner in Linux and I am far from a fool. How do most people get malware on their Windows boxes? They click or download and run stupid junk (usually from IE). I never get any malware on my XP box at work, because I use Firefox and don't go to stupid websites to download stupid files and click on stupid ads. Most people who use Linux probably know better and the crap you get out on the web doesn't work with Linux/Firefox anyway.
177 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-09 12:26:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref comment 175...it IS dependent on which distro you use, not just the kernel. If the comments above say folk have no problem running kit and some say they do then it speaks for itself. If some kit will not work at all with ANY distro then very possibly this is a price which comes with free software, LOL.
That said, more and more manufacturers are waking up to Linux so it may not be too long before the drivers are included along with the other OSs...though preferably via a repository...
Reference AV, folk are responsible for their OWN kit, nobody else, LOL. If you did pass on any nasties inadvertently, so what? People are aware of the pitfalls of using the internet, when they buy a machine it has AV and other protection bundled onto it if only for a month possibly. If they elect NOT to protect themselves...
178 • My picks in 2008 (by Shawn on 2009-01-09 16:01:48 GMT from United States)
I believe my top 5 and bottom 5 go like this in 2008:
TOP 5
Ubuntu
Mepis
Sabayon
openSUSE 11
OpenSolaris
BOTTOM 5
Fedora 9/10
Gentoo
PCLOS
DreamLinux
gOS
I was *highly* impressed with OpenSolaris for functionality out of the box. OpenSolaris was better than Fedora on my machine and more hardware worked from the burned CD from OpenSolaris than Fedora. That totally shocked me. The only things that weren't detected by OpenSolaris were my wired Marvell ethernet connection and built-in card reader. As far as Linux distributions are concerned, Ubuntu and Mepis were my favorites and although PC/OS wasn't on either list, I believe that's a solid distribution based on Ubuntu as well. I'm looking forward to what 2009 has to bring, that's for sure.
179 • PCLinuxOS very much alive (by davecs on 2009-01-09 16:08:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Please! Reports of the death of PCLinuxOS are grossly exaggerated. We have so far gone through five numbered test releases, two of which were released publicly, and are preparing TR6. We have had to keep the new stuff out of the stable repos pending the new release but the packages are waiting. Expect a full release in the near future with all the packages updated and a smooth update from the 2007 release with no need to re-install for existing users.
Our aim is to publish an OS that is accessible for people moving to Linux from Windows, with as few hurdles as humanly possible, and a simple upgrade path where the need to re-install is kept to a minimum. That won't suit everyone, of course. Many people want cutting-edge and hackability if you like. Those people have a big choice if PCLOS doesn't cut it for them. That's the great thing about Linux -- plenty of choice for different types of people!
180 • Sabayon 4.0 (by Vincent on 2009-01-09 16:50:22 GMT from United States)
I have been playing with a lot of different distros in the past couple of months as I want to find one to be my primary OS on a couple of my systems. I am not new to linux/unix and I have been using some flavor of linux since 1996. However, I have not been fully satisfied by any particular distro for my needs, which span the spectrum of web surfing to programming.
After test driving about 8 of the latest bigger distros, and a few lesser-know ones (btw DreamLinux has a buetiful front end, but distro still needs some tweeking) I looked at Sabayon. Before I even tried the Live version, I went to their site and got into the live chat room to ask some questions.
The users there were not only very nice, but VERY knowledgable. Based on my exeriences with that community, I gave Sabayon a test drive.
OK, for anyone who is looking for a distro that is not only "slick-looking" but also seems to function exceptionally well under the hood, I would urge you to check out Sabayon 4.0 RC1. There are a few things about it that may appeal to others that I didn't even know were included with the install until after I planted it onto my drive.
Firstly, the install comes packed with a lot of apps, but apps that (IMHO) are more useful than fun or just "wow", although there are plenty of those too. The distro comes with almost any windows manager I can think of, and at your login you can change your session type...huge list of managers. Once you choose one, you have the option to make it your default or to use it only for your current session. I'm sure other distros have this bundled in, but this one had more managers than I'd seen with an install disc, as opposed to adding them yourself later.
Also, the package manager is pretty nice. It is compairable to a lot of other distros' pakage managers. Sabayon seems, to me, to work with hardware better than other distros. Some of the configurations/mods they made from the Gentoo base seems to handel hardware "calls" extremely fast...in some cases almost too fast. Example: putting Sabayon onto a laptop, it appears that the mouse pad becomes "super sensitive" to finger taps. This is not a glitch and only means that I have to give my mousepads a much lighter touch than ever before. USB connectivity/hardware recognition appears to be faster than other distros I've tried.
If you want to try Sabayon 4.0, I would suggest getting the RC1 version. I would not suggest the 64 bit version yet (from any distro right now). I am very pleased with Sabayon and with the support from both Sabayon and the user community. If you haven't tried the 3-clawed Linux yet, you should. Personally, I like it much better than Ubuntu, Mepis, or OpenSuse. I also think that it has small leg-up over PCBSD under the hood.
181 • Re: 179 PCLOS (by sertse on 2009-01-09 22:42:34 GMT from Australia)
I think the issue is that PCLOS development is very...secretive for lack of a better word.
Everyone understands/accepts Debian's long release cycle because even though there are delays, you can see the progress that's been done to it, that it's very active etc. It's all very open.
182 • RE: 173 (by X on 2009-01-09 22:58:46 GMT from United States)
Well that wasn't really a flame, too polite but I'll take it. Which version of Sidux has Skype? I just loaded it up again and I didn't see Skype. I didn't look at the package manager to be fair though. Also I am going to have to take gOS off my list. It was unstable but my experience with Ubuntu has been like that. I am going to install Pardus on my inlaws laptop. However it isn't perfect either it is missing drivers for wireless Dlink card and Skype. I don't know how to make the wireless work. They will never use Skype though, In fact I rather doubt they will ever use the laptop, kind of a waste. I might add Mepis to my list...
183 • re 180 Sabayon (by Anonymous on 2009-01-10 00:13:15 GMT from Canada)
Dear Vincent,
That was a helluva review. What a smart way to advertise for your preferred distro. If only Sabayon was as good as your review is. Unfortunately it's not. Nice try, mate.
184 • Sabayawn (by Todd on 2009-01-10 02:20:38 GMT from Canada)
Very poor integration and wireless detection and stability.
Many many problems solved by other distros. Very pretty junk.
185 • No subject (by DistroMann on 2009-01-10 04:30:10 GMT from United States)
"Please! Reports of the death of PCLinuxOS are grossly exaggerated. We have so far gone through five numbered test releases, two of which were released publicly, and are preparing TR6"
I reported it and I still stand by it. Where are all the links to download these releases?
There all DEAD!!!
186 • RE: 30 minutes of my life I'll never get back... (by A Hoser on 2009-01-10 08:14:04 GMT from Canada)
This is one of the worst comment threads I've ever seen on DW.
Uncensored misogyny, an one really boring troll fight with odd interruptions from the peanut gallery on why X distro is their choice over Y distro.
Where's the real insight or useful information? When did this become /d/istrowatch anyways?
187 • @185 Dead links (by davecs on 2009-01-10 09:56:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Save me from idiots!!
Once each test period is over, the link is closed. They are TEST RELEASES and only available during each test period. Otherwise they would find themselves being used as STABLE releases. When a release is good enough to be classed as stable it will stay released until the next stable release is ready.
Of course, it takes a Live Human Being to close each link just as it did to open it, and the announcements of availability for testing and withdrawal were all made on the forum. By real living people.
As I said, if the way we do things at PCLinuxOS don't suit you, use another distro. There's plenty to choose from. If it makes you feel good to think it's dead, well that's your problem.
188 • PCLOS (by glyj on 2009-01-10 10:26:24 GMT from France)
If you can't wait for the PCLOS update.... use Mandriva 2009 there is the control center too and when PCLOS will be ready, switch to it ;-)
++
189 • Pardus (by Gary W on 2009-01-10 10:33:01 GMT from Australia)
I'd like to put in a word for Pardus too. I tried this because I'm interested in the official sponsorship aspect (and to be honest, I'm a bit of a distroholic, I like to try new things to enjoy the best of the Linux world). It is already widely used in the military and police, health, education and business sectors.
I used it (in English, not Turkish) on my travelling laptop (Thinkpad T40) for a couple of weeks while on holiday. I found it quite well designed and carefully constructed: everything worked just the way you expect, even multimedia and suspend/resume. I don't use it full-time as its repository is quite small compared with more established distros and it didn't have several of my favourite apps, but it did have functional equivalents. A simple update brought me many current versions (e.g. Firefox 3.0.5) so the repository is well maintained too. I could live with Pardus, as could most people for whom the repository is adequate.
Incidentally, DWW readers may be interested to see that Pardus development cost 2.5M euros in 2008, quite a bit of cash but there's a fine, successful distro to show for it. I wonder how that compares with what the Turks are paying Microsoft for little more than rights-to-use? Based on what I've seen, Pardus could cut that dramatically :-)
190 • No subject (by Dick Cheney on 2009-01-10 12:24:45 GMT from United States)
Comment 187 is yet another example of the biggest problem with PCLOS, and why I simply can't recommend it to newbies. Why the heck would anyone recommend a distro for which post 187 is a standard response on their forums? It wouldn't be so bad if that type of response didn't also drive users away from real distros and back into the arms of Microsoft.
Have you considered simply saying, "The test release links were closed after the testing period was over." Or is it necessary to throw in rude commentary as well?
191 • #190 (by NoMorePClos on 2009-01-10 13:00:46 GMT from Australia)
Spot on. I was a PCLos user and promoter. But the forum sucks. Post 187 is atypical of the pclos forum. If it fades away I won't be unhappy.
192 • Some whine with your cheese? (by Warp0 on 2009-01-10 14:39:52 GMT from United States)
"Was it necessary to throw in a rude comment as well?"
When somebody complains that the TR links are dead .. well .. duh!
"I tried the new Ubuntu and it really sucks ... It wouldn't install on my IBM Selectric."
You don't want to use PCLOS ... great! You want a standing ovation with that?
193 • For Matt and all the post written by matt but signed differently (by jeff_Brasov on 2009-01-10 15:57:20 GMT from Romania)
Dear Matt :
You will not foul a GNU/Linux guy ! You wrote at post 155 & 186 and use another signature (name).!!!
Let me start with a sad true story: Last year I meet with a teacher from an who tell me he received (as a bonus) a laptop. He said he use only his old desktop computer. What is this old desktop computer he have ? When he bought his desktop computer he buy an old one and that was happening about 4 year ago. I hope you realize what computer he have ( yes the guy is cheap ! ). The question is why he is not using the brand new laptop. He said that the OS is Vista and he is afraid to not broke the laptop because he is not aware how to use it. The teacher is 40 years old and teaching Economics.
It's the only one? I don't think so: its only the W$ path to hell !
OK ! And now something cheerful (or is that sad??) news : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/10/winows_7_beta_delay/
Matt ! We all know Vista is made for "The Labels" ( Warner, Sony BMG, EMI et al. ). Therefore all multimedia will work less good than it used to ( W$ XP ). Or let just say that Vista is full with DRM ( Digital Rights Management ). All or some "Premium Content" ( quality music/films/documentaries/video_clips files) and media will not play (work) at right size/resolution or not at all. Because this is what you choose : Not To Own Your Computer.
If Vista making you happy it means you use your computer only for Games and Internet/Web related. It is OK ! Return to W$ forums and return when you are ready to make the change . Hasta la Vista ...baby !
194 • No subject (by LOLWOW on 2009-01-10 17:13:04 GMT from Canada)
@192
A complaint doesn't warrant a rude response, especially if it was just a complaint that the TR links are dead. Also, your "whine with your cheese" little comment really doesn't hide who you are :).
195 • Haha (by Warp0 on 2009-01-10 21:28:18 GMT from United States)
"A complaint doesn't warrant a rude response, especially if it was just a complaint that the TR links are dead. Also, your "whine with your cheese" little comment really doesn't hide who you are :)."
I am who am I, and certainly nobody that you have heard of before.
I use 5 different distros along with OS/X, OS/2 and several flavors of Windows. Bashing PCLOS, Ubuntu, or {insert least favorite distro here} is idiotic, and I, for one, am dang tired of it.
196 • Ref# 195 PCLOS forum is plain bad! (by Ugene Ubuntu on 2009-01-11 03:22:48 GMT from United States)
People are not knocking PCLOS, just their rude and obnoxious moderators and most of there followers.
They are the worst or the worst when it comes to being helpful. That's just the way it is. If you don't like it then change your behavior. Or maybe you just want 12 people to follow PCLOS :)
197 • PCLOS: Last word before next DW - Rudeness is sad (by Miq on 2009-01-11 14:38:36 GMT from Sweden)
When you put so much hard work into something, and that something also has fantastic potential, isn't it very sad to destroy all that effort by rudeness?
So you dislike n00bs, and at the same time say you're focused in the very newbs making the transition from Windows to Linux? There's a contradiction here, or you're just trying to justify bad personalities. In any way, not having visited your channel or forum myself, it seems you're trying your best to drive people away.
198 • No subject (by LOLWOW on 2009-01-11 17:16:33 GMT from Canada)
@195
How is it bashing when all they are questioning is why the links are down? Are you so sensitive to even slightest questioning/criticism that you must bristle at the slightest notion of dissatisfaction in any comments? Must every "testimonial" ooze with praise and groveling? Give me a break.
199 • Wolvix (by X on 2009-01-11 20:52:21 GMT from United States)
I have had quite a time finding a distro to install on my inlaw's laptop. I tried all of the major and most of the minor distros. There were only two that worked out of the box. MCN Live - Toronto, and of course trusty ole Wolvix. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1100. I ended up installing MCN Live - Toronto because I couldn't find my Wolvix Hunter cd. MCN Live is very nice but I prefer Open Office to all of the "K" stuff. Even the browser is Konqueror but it has flash installed for Youtube and works nicely. It also had Opera installed but no Flash which for most people makes it pretty useless. I know I could have gone to the forums for the other distros and people would have been very helpful but I just didn't have time. Pardus is off my list(it couldn't handle the screen resolution and was inconsistent booting up) and MCN Live Toronto is on. Wolvix continues to top the list. I don't have any particular reason to like Wolvix over any other distro (I want them all to do well) other than in my experience it just works better than the others.
I think Astrumi worked too but rather confusing for older people.
200 • Lunar Linux (by M. Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér on 2009-01-11 21:03:09 GMT from Denmark)
Quite excited about the new release of Lunar Linux. It has been a while since the last release, and I shall look forward to installing it on my system. Thank your, Lunar gang!
201 • Mark Shuttleworth / Ubuntu article at nytimes.com (by chris on 2009-01-11 22:13:24 GMT from United States)
The article is in the Business section of the New York Times website.
chris
202 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-11 22:35:56 GMT from Canada)
Hey Chris, how about a link to that article?
203 • Interesting (by #201 #202 on 2009-01-12 00:35:54 GMT from Australia)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html?_r=1&ref=business
After reading that article, I will have a look at ubuntu.
204 • Link to Ubuntu article (by Nobody important on 2009-01-12 00:41:31 GMT from United States)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html?_r=1&ref=business
205 • Aw, man (by Nobody important on 2009-01-12 01:32:40 GMT from United States)
Aw, man, you beat me.
Well, in any case, that was a fine article. Ubuntu-haters will cry, most definitely (its view of Ubuntu is very biased against the rest of the Linux world) but it's pleasing to see such a positive article. Such a bounty of information on such a widely read newspaper can't be bad for Linux, certainly.
206 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-01-12 02:17:11 GMT from Canada)
Has Tex left the project?
Is he giving any input on these releases?
I feel the only good think about pclos (Tex) has gone and now its being run by the incompetant ripper gang
207 • PClinuxOS GNOME (by capricornus on 2009-01-12 08:17:40 GMT from Netherlands)
I promised the rude mod's that I would never mention the OS ever, but to be honnest: I like the design of one of the only OS'es that managed to communicate with my AMD64x2 system (I reported a few weeks ago). It's my workhorse, it does everything I need and want.
But indeed, stay away from the cowboys that run the forum. It leaves a real bad taste in the mouth, while in other fora, people are treated as people, newbies are kindly helped further and silly questions get good answers.
Number of Comments: 207
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| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Server Optimized Linux
SoL (Server optimized Linux) was a Linux distribution completely independent from other Linux distributions. It was built from the original source packages and was optimised for heavy-duty server work. It contains all common server applications, and features XML boot and script technology that makes it easy to configure and make the server work.
Status: Discontinued
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