DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 293, 9 March 2009 |
Welcome to the 10th issue of DistroWatch Weekly for 2009! Have you ever run out of space on your hard drive or had to fiddle with shifting data around? Well, Logical Volume Management (LVM) could be the answer for you! It is supported in most Linux distributions and this week we take a look at what it can offer. In the news section, openSUSE publishes new trademark guidelines, Ubuntu releases mainline kernel updates, the Debian project goes to the polls to elect a new project leader, and ULTILEX delivers a brilliant live CD that offers a collection of minimalist Linux distributions and several useful utilities. Finally, while the week has brought precious little in terms of interesting new releases, we took the time to add four new distributions to the DistroWatch database; that includes the purposely insecure Damn Vulnerable Linux, the Slackware-based Parslinux with KDE 4, the ultra minimalist Tiny Core Linux, and the energy-saving wattOS. Happy reading!
Content:
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Feature Story |
An introduction to Logical Volume Management
For users new to Linux, the task of switching operating systems can be quite daunting. While it is quite similar to other UNIX-based operating systems, such as BSD, Solaris and OS X, it is very different to Windows. These days most distributions are very easy to use and (for better or worse) abstract away the complex and powerful system underneath. This makes it easier to use but as a result, users often know little about the underlying system. Today we are going to take a look at Logical Volume Management (LVM), which gives users the ability to re-size partitions on the fly.
First, a little background on hard drives and partitions. Your hard drive is where all your data is stored permanently and is not to be confused with your system's memory, which is used to store information temporarily like when you run applications or create files. Those from a Windows background will be aware of the drive letter system they use, such as C:\ and D:\ (C drive and D drive). Most users know that this is where they store their files, but not all are aware what their C:\ actually is. In order to store information on a hard drive, your computer needs to know how to read and write to it. You need to tell the computer which area(s) of the hard drive it is allowed to write to, which we call a partition. This could be the whole drive as one large partition, or multiple smaller partitions. The computer also needs to know how to store the data on each partition, which is done by creating a file system on it. Linux has a great number of file systems you can choose from, including but not limited to, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, Btrfs, ext2, ext3 and now ext4. Windows mostly uses the NTFS and FAT32 file systems, while OS X uses HFS+. Most consumer devices, such as memory cards, are pre-formatted with FAT32.
The information for the partitions is stored on the hard drive itself, in what is called a partition table. Most personal computers use the MSDOS partition table, although Apple uses GPT which Linux fully supports. A blank hard drive has no partition table by default, but one is created when it is first partitioned. There are many tools you can use to partition your drives under Linux, including fdisk, parted and its graphical front-end, gparted. Under Linux, all devices are addressable through a file under the /dev directory. For example, your first terminal is /dev/tty0. Names of conventional hard drive are related to their position on the computer subsystem. For example, /dev/hda refers to the master drive on the primary IDE port of the mainboard. These days most computers use SATA controllers, so the first drive is often /dev/sda. Each partition on the drive is then given a number. Your first primary partition is number one, your second is number two, and so on. The MSDOS partition table only supports a maximum of 4 partitions (which we call primary), but does support a partition type called 'extended'. Extended partitions allow users to create an unlimited number of extra partitions (called logical partitions) and under Linux this always starts at the fifth partition. Based on the partition number, you should be able to tell where the partition sits in relation to other partitions on the disk.
In terms of the file system, Linux uses a hierarchy where everything exists underneath / (slash - the root). When installing a distribution, you must create at least one partition, which will then be used as the root file system. If you are a Windows convert then you could loosely (very loosely) relate this to your C drive. Many Linux distributions will create just one such partition for all your data. Below is an example of the partition information for a hard drive. It is an 8 GB drive (/dev/sde) with a single partition (/dev/sde1) which is of the type "Linux".
GParted - single partition (full image size: 53kB, screen resolution: 700x564 pixels)
In order to access the data on this device it must be assigned a mount point. A mount point is a directory on the computer which Linux then associates the partition with. Anything that is written to this mount point is physically written to the partition it corresponds to. The /dev/sde1 device is mounted to the location /media/Linux, as seen in this screenshot.
Partition mounted under /media/Linux (full image size: 53kB, screen resolution: 700x564 pixels)
We are all reasonably familiar with this concept when using removable media, such as memory sticks, but this can also be applied to your whole system. One of the great advantages of using a hierarchical system like this is that you can assign extra partitions to lower directories in order to preserve your data. Linux needs at least one partition for root (/) but you can also create a second partition for other locations such as /home, the location where all user data is stored. Why would you want to create a separate partition for this? Well, if you need to re-install your Linux distribution for any particular reason, you do not need to backup your data - all you need to do is wipe the first partition and mount the second as /home without formatting it. Upon completion, all your data and settings will be exactly as they were! Here is an example of a partitioned hard drive with one partition for / and another for /home.
GParted - dual partitions (full image size: 53kB, screen resolution: 700x564 pixels)
This great feature is very handy, but how do you know how much space to assign? And what if you do this and then later run out of room? Well you could delete data or move it off to other partitions, but there is a much more powerful and flexible way. It's called Logical Volume Management. LVM is a way to dynamically create, delete, re-size and expand partitions on your computer. It's not just for servers, it's great for desktops too! How does it work? Instead of your partition information residing on your partition table, LVM writes its own information separately and keeps track of where partitions are, what devices are a part of them and how big they are. It enables you to have a partition for root, as well as another partition for home, but should you run out of space we can simply tell it to extend either partition and presto, we have more space available. Not only this, but you can add extra hard drives to your system and tell LVM to include them too! In short, you'll never run out of space again :-)
Most modern Linux distributions support LVM devices during the installer phase so most of this is managed for you automatically. In the examples above you can see a partition with type Linux, which is then formatted with a file system and mounted to a directory on the system. Pretty standard stuff. When using LVM, you need to set this partition type to Linux LVM and then use userspace tools to create and manage these devices. Importantly, GParted does not support LVM partitions, so you will need to use other tools. If you're using openSUSE, it has an excellent LVM management tool as a part of YaST. There is a kernel module you will require, as well as userspace tools. Install these via your system's package management took. Below is an example under Debian.
# modprobe dm-mod ; apt-get install lvm2
Creating LVM devices
LVM consists of a few things. Firstly, you need a physical partition of type Linux LVM which will be the LVM Physical Volume. Next, we create a Logical Group to which we assign the physical partition. Next, we can create our individual partitions, called Logical Volumes. Let's walk through this now as the root user.
Step 1
Create a partition on a new blank drive and set it to type LVM Linux (8e).
Note: My device is /dev/sde but yours will most likely be different!
# fdisk /dev/sde
n
p
1
[Enter]
[Enter]
t
8e
w
The device should look something like this.
# fdisk -l /dev/sde
Disk /dev/sde: 8040 MB, 8040480256 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 977 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000bf9ae
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 1 977 7847721 8e Linux LVM
Here you can see a single partition, of type LVM Linux (8e).
Step 2
Now we need to tell LVM to use this partition as a Physical Volume.
# pvcreate /dev/sde1
No physical volume label read from /dev/sde1
Physical volume "/dev/sde1" successfully created
This device has now been added to the LVM pool.
Step 3
Create a Volume Group on the Physical Volume, which we will call 'system'.
# vgcreate system /dev/sde1
Volume group "system" successfully created
Step 4
Now that we have created a Physical Volume and a Volume Group, it's time to create a Logical Volume. We will create one for root, called linux and another for home.
# lvcreate -n linux -L 2G system
Logical volume "linux" created
# lvcreate -n home -L 3G system
Logical volume "home" created
That's it! Now we have two new partitions which can be formatted just like regular partitions. If we look under /dev we should be able to see our new devices.
# ls -l /dev/system/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 Mar 9 17:18 home -> /dev/mapper/system-home
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Mar 9 17:17 linux -> /dev/mapper/system-linux
openSUSE YaST partitioner - LVM (full image size: 53kB, screen resolution: 700x564 pixels)
Display tools
Before we move on, let's take a look at some other LVM tools for displaying the status of our devices. Remember we have three different components that make up a complete LVM partition, Physical Volume (PV), Volume Group (VG) and Logical Volume (LV).
Let's take a look at PV.
# pvdisplay
--- Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/sde1
VG Name system
PV Size 7.48 GB / not usable 3.79 MB
Allocatable yes
PE Size (KByte) 4096
Total PE 1915
Free PE 1915
Allocated PE 0
PV UUID 7vkgGI-e402-K3hE-XGJz-kl4C-nI7o-oFqwA8
Here you can see the Physical Volume name (which is the physical partition we created), the Volume Group that the partition has been assigned to (we called it system), as well as other information related to the size of the volume.
Let's take a look at VG.
# vgdisplay
--- Volume group ---
VG Name system
System ID
Format lvm2
Metadata Areas 1
Metadata Sequence No 3
VG Access read/write
VG Status resizable
MAX LV 0
Cur LV 2
Open LV 0
Max PV 0
Cur PV 1
Act PV 1
VG Size 7.48 GB
PE Size 4.00 MB
Total PE 1915
Alloc PE / Size 1280 / 5.00 GB
Free PE / Size 635 / 2.48 GB
VG UUID Z6TSXO-0DQ3-7Jiz-67k2-dEkY-dYR2-RNJE85
Here you can see the name of the Volume Group (we called it system), the type it is (lvm2), how much total space there is and how much of it has already been assigned (remember we created two Logical volumes, root and home).
Finally, let's look at LV.
# lvdisplay
--- Logical volume ---
LV Name /dev/system/linux
VG Name system
LV UUID L0qrZu-bwCp-rnEu-uJry-4j3n-XBLB-OWsXVx
LV Write Access read/write
LV Status available
# open 0
LV Size 2.00 GB
Current LE 512
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 253:0
--- Logical volume ---
LV Name /dev/system/home
VG Name system
LV UUID AScHe0-q5sJ-F8eH-bYRy-3URL-Nt7m-0UFduW
LV Write Access read/write
LV Status available
# open 0
LV Size 3.00 GB
Current LE 768
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 253:1
Here you can see the two partitions we have created, home and linux. Notice that like PV and VG they also have a unique identifier and this is what Linux uses to detect and control the devices.
Formatting
Now that we have our two partitions, we can format them just like any other physical device.
# mke2fs /dev/system/linux -L linux
mke2fs 1.41.1 (01-Sep-2008)
Filesystem label=linux
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
131072 inodes, 524288 blocks
26214 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=536870912
16 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912
Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 36 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
They can also be mounted just like any other device.
Expanding partitions
Now that you're using LVM, if you run out of space on a partition, all we need to do is tell LVM to assign more space to that particular device and re-size the file system. While you can shrink partitions, it is much safer to grow them. For this reason I recommend never assigning the full size of your physical volume to your Logical Volumes, but to start small and increase as you need. If you are using an ext file system, this can be performed while your partitions are still mounted (some others can too).
This is what it looks like currently, where you can see full 100% usage.
# df -h
/dev/mapper/system-linux 2.0G 2.0G 0 100% /media/linux
First, extend the Logical Volume by 1GB.
# lvresize -L +1G /dev/system/linux
Extending logical volume linux to 3.00 GB
Logical volume linux successfully resized
Now that the device has been extended, we need to re-size the file system
# resize2fs /dev/system/linux
Filesystem at /dev/system/linux is mounted on /media/linux; on-line resizing required
Resizing the filesystem on /dev/system/linux to 786432 (4k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/system/linux is now 786432 blocks long.
After extending and resizing the file system, this is what it now looks like.
# df -h
/dev/mapper/system-linux 3.0G 2.0G 855M 71% /media/linux
If you want to add another hard drive to your machine, simply install it into your computer and repeat steps 1 and 2. As the Volume Group already exists, you do not need to create it as in step 3. Instead, add it to the existing group.
# vgextend system /dev/sdf1
Volume group "system" successfully extended
Now you will have the entire new disk available as additional LVM space, ready to assign to any Logical Volume you want.
And that's how you can use LVM to expand and re-assign more space on the fly, without having to shift any data or shut down your computer!
Booting from LVM
If you want to use LVM for your entire system, you can. The only issue is that you will require an additional partition for /boot and you need to use an initial RAM disk (initrd). Your boot partition only needs to be about 100MB and will store the Linux kernel and initrd. The initrd will contain the LVM userspace tools required to detect and activate your LVM devices on boot-up, in order to load the rest of the system. The distribution installers will take care of this for you automatically.
Conclusion
Well that's a behind-the-scenes look at LVM, which is a great way to gain extra control over your hard drives on a computer. It allows users to infinitely expand their individual partitions to make optimal use of all the space they have. There are lots of other features of LVM, such as snapshots and striping, but we haven't covered any of those. While the examples given here are mostly command-line driven, your distribution may have a graphical manager to make life easier. Either way, a good way to test it out is under a virtual machine where you won't damage any of your precious data.
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Miscellaneous News |
openSUSE releases trademark guidelines, Ubuntu delivers mainline kernel, Debian elects new project leader, ULTILEX live CD
openSUSE has announced the release of a document outlining the use of their trademarks. The announcement reads: "Since it's easier than ever to create customized versions of openSUSE, we've seen a lot of interest in the branding of derivative distros. When is it OK to call a distro "openSUSE," or "powered by openSUSE," and when does the branding need to be removed entirely? The guidelines are an attempt to answer as many of those questions as possible in one concise document." We have seen this occur with a number of other commercially-backed distributions, such as those from Canonical and Red Hat. Community manager Joe Brockmeier has posted regarding the document: "One thing I want to stress: We're putting these guidelines out because we want to encourage and simplify the use of openSUSE as a base for other projects." He continues: "If you want to create your own openSUSE distro or use an openSUSE logo for something, the guidelines exist to make it simple to do that without having to get a separate agreement from our legal department to make it possible. They also explain when use of the marks is not permitted." Do such guidelines actually exist to "protect the end user" as claimed, or is it really to protect the company?
Continuing openSUSE-related news, DaniWeb, an online technical community, has posted an interview with Joe Brockmeier regarding free and open source licenses. The interview centres on the perceived complexities of open source licenses and whether this is justified or not. Ron Miller begins: "Seems every time I write a piece suggesting open source as an option, I get a couple of comments warning readers about the scary complexities of open source licenses. So I decided to ask a guy who knows free and open source software (FOSS) exactly what the deal was regarding FOSS licensing and whether they were really any more or less complex than their commercial counterparts." Before delving into the specifics, Brockmeier provides this general statement: "The only difference is that open source licenses allow redistribution and modification -- and since there are a lot of different licenses with different conditions, companies should pay attention when they engage in those activities. As a general rule, though, use of open source is no more complex - and is typically less complex - than use of proprietary software." If you're not sure about FOSS licenses or are interested in them, the short article is well worth a read.
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Ubuntu has long held the number one spot on the distribution's Page Hit Ranking table. Not only is it popular for users new to Linux, but even experienced users have been switching to it. Being one of the most popular distributions, they have a large user base which can help with testing and bug fixing. The project mostly focuses on the desktop environment, rather than the kernel; however, there are signs this might start to change as Ubuntu expands into the cloud and embedded spaces. Recently, mainline kernels have been added to the Personal Package Archives for users to install on their systems. According to the Wiki entry, "generally Ubuntu systems run with the stock Ubuntu kernels. However it is handy to be able to test with unmodified mainline kernels to help locate problems in the Ubuntu kernel patches, or to confirm that upstream has fixed the issue. To this end we now offer mainline kernel builds. These mainline kernels are made from unmodified kernel source but using the Ubuntu kernel configuration files. These are then packaged as Ubuntu .deb files for simple installation." This will most likely be taken advantage of by more advanced users, but the ability to easily upgrade and test the latest mainline kernel is a huge step in the right direction. For everyday users however, the unsupported kernels will not include restricted or Ubuntu-specific drivers, so systems relying on these will most likely fail.
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The Debian project has been visiting the polls a lot of late and now it's time to elect a new Debian Project Leader (DPL). Recently appointed Debian secretary Kurt Roeckx announced the final call for nominations, which then closed on the 7th March: "The nomination period for the DPL election is almost over. If you want to nominate yourself as candidate, you need to send a signed mail to the debian-vote at lists.debian.org list." Roeckx later posted that two candidates have emerged as a result of the nominations - developer Stefano Zacchiroli and current Debian Project Leader Steve McIntyre. He writes: "The Debian Project Leader Elections 2009 has been updated. The platforms for these candidates shall be published as soon as they are available. I'm currently still waiting for them." Campaigning will now begin, with voting commencing on the 29th March. By mid-April we should know who the newly elected Debian Project Leader will be.
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What is your preferred minimalist rescue system that you carry around in case a disaster strikes? The 50 MB Damn Small Linux? The administrator-friendly Finnix? The super-fast Puppy Linux? The KDE-based Slax? Or the Swiss army knife for your hard disks in SystemRescueCd? If you can't make up your mind, there is an excellent alternative for carrying five different live CDs: ULTILEX - the ULTImate Linux EXperience. ULTILEX isn't a distribution, but rather a single live CD that can boot any of the above-mentioned systems, and do much more. In fact, its GRUB boot menu caries a staggering 39 boot entries, including such useful gems as booting FreeDOS, running Smart Boot Manager or Ranish Partition Manager, executing a system or a hard disk diagnostic utility, cracking Windows NT passwords, wiping the hard disk, booting from a floppy disk or a selected hard disk, and of course running the popular Memtest86+ memory diagnostic tool. All the alternative options for booting the live distributions are also preserved. The tool is provided as a live CD image, but this can be easily transferred to a bootable USB device with an included script. This is a must-have CD for any system administrator or intermediate Linux user. ULTILEX, version 2.1.0, was released last week and is available from here: ultilex-2.1.0.iso (693MB).
ULTILEX 2.1.0 - its GRUB boot menu contains 39(!) boot options (full image size: 32kB, screen resolution 640x480 pixels)
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Released Last Week |
Zenwalk Linux 6.0
Jean-Philippe Guillemin has announced the release of Zenwalk Linux 6.0, a Slackware-based distribution for the desktop: "We are proud to announce the 6th major version of Zenwalk Linux. This release comes with the biggest changelog in the history of the project to offer many new features and optimizations. We spent the 2 last month polishing the desktop around the new Xfce 4.6, making sure that this brand new version is well integrated into Zenwalk 6.0. We also replaced GNOME Office with our lightweight and optimized version of OpenOffice.org 3.0.1, split in two packages. The Totem movie player is also part of the adventure, replacing MPlayer, which is still available from our growing package repository." Read the rest of the release announcement for a more detailed list of changes.
Zenwalk Linux 6.0 - the first stable distribution featuring the new Xfce 4.6.0 (full image size: 496kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
openSUSE 11.2 (and beyond)
Joe Brockmeier has announced that, starting with the upcoming 11.2 release, openSUSE will follow a fixed release cycle. However, unlike Ubuntu, Fedora and Mandriva, who follow a 6-month release process, openSUSE has opted for an 8-month cycle. This, combined with the upcoming ability to upgrade between releases, should help to bring it in line with other major distros. But will the 8 month cycle work? In the announcement, Stephen Kulow admits that "eight months makes it slightly more complicated, as you have a rotating schedule, and lose a month in the summer and winter for holidays... This gives us a single release in 2009 and 2010, and two releases in 2011." While the KDE team are releasing as soon as possible with the current 4.x series, GNOME sticks to a rigid 6-month cycle. This enables other distros to always release with the latest version of the desktop. For openSUSE however, it means they will lag behind from time to time.
Ubuntu 9.10
Although the upcoming Ubuntu 9.04 is still in the alpha stage of the development process, the project leaders have already announced a detailed roadmap for the distributions following release. Code-named "Karmic Koala", Ubuntu 9.10 will launch with the first alpha build on 14 May; this will be followed by five more alphas, one beta, and a release candidate before the final release on 29 October 2009. For more information please see the Karmic Release Schedule page on Ubuntu Wiki.
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- Damn Vulnerable Linux. Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL) is a Slackware and Slax-based live DVD. The distribution, purposefully stuffed with broken, ill-configured, outdated and exploitable software, began life as a training system used during the author's university lectures. Its primary goal is to design a Linux system that is as vulnerable as possible -- in order to teach and demonstrate a variety of security topics, including reverse code engineering, buffer overflows, shell code development, web exploitation, and SQL injection.
Damn Vulnerable Linux 1.5 - the world's most insecure distribution (full image size: 166kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
- Parslinux. Parslinux is a Slackware and Slax-based distribution and live DVD with partial support for Persian (Farsi), as well as the default English language.
Parslinux 1.0 - a Slackware-based distribution with KDE 4 (full image size: 485kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
- Tiny Core Linux. Tiny Core Linux is a very small (10 MB) minimal Linux desktop. It is based on Linux 2.6 kernel, BusyBox, Tiny X, FLTK graphical user interface and JWM window manager, running entirely in memory. It is not a complete desktop, nor is all hardware completely supported; it represents only the core needed to boot into a very minimal X Window desktop, typically with wired Internet access. This minimal desktop can be extended by installing additional applications from online repositories.
Tiny Core 1.2 - the world's smallest desktop Linux distribution (full image size: 32kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
- wattOS. wattOS is a fast desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. Using the lightweight Openbox window manager as its default user interface, the distribution strives to be as energy-efficient as possible so that it can be used on low-specification and recycled computers.
wattOS Beta 2 - an Ubuntu-based distribution with Openbox for energy-efficient computing (full image size: 1,526kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- ArchPwn. ArchPwn is an Arch-based live DVD with a collection of application for security analysis and penetration testing.
- Ultra X Linux. Ultra X Linux is a new distribution based on Ubuntu. (Not available for download at the time of writing.)
- VoIP on CD. VoIP on CD is a Debian-based distribution with Asterisk, an open-source PBX and telephony package.
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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, 16 March 2009.
Chris Smart
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Nice tutorial to LVM (by Gigi on 2009-03-09 11:01:39 GMT from Singapore)
The LVM tutorial was quite good. Nice distrowach as always
2 • LVM tutorial (by yelamdenu on 2009-03-09 11:11:08 GMT from Netherlands)
Great to see a bit of technical stuff on Distrowatch, beyond the distro-specific things. Now that Linux is completely mainstream, and some of us are sort of getting a bit tired of the Distro Hop, let's educate ourselves more than ever. :-)
3 • No subject (by bugz on 2009-03-09 11:19:00 GMT from United States)
Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL) is a good idea to learn how to exploit a system also how to protect a system. And thanks for a good tutorial about LVM, how to see more next week.
4 • openSUSE - 8 months (by Xtyn on 2009-03-09 11:20:28 GMT from Romania)
That's funny, Ubuntu, Fedora and Mandriva, gnome and KDE have a 6 months release schedule but openSUSE opted for an 8 months release schedule. Good luck openSUSE but I don't think it will work that well. I was hoping for a synchronization between distributions.
5 • #4 openSUSE - 8 months (by yelamdenu on 2009-03-09 11:28:02 GMT from Netherlands)
That's funny, Ubuntu, Fedora and Mandriva, gnome and KDE have a 6 months release schedule but openSUSE opted for an 8 months release schedule. Good luck openSUSE but I don't think it will work that well.
I guess openSUSE is opting for being a bit more "stable" than the major biannuals, and that might be a good move. Not everybody is looking for the freshest software, and not everybody is a Linux lover who easily forgives major or minor glitches on his or her system.
openSUSE has never been the "coolest" among the distros, imho it's a good move for them to target that part of the "market" that's not demanding the latest Gnome or KDE or whatever per se, but prefers things to work glitch-free most of the time.
6 • No subject (by LightRider on 2009-03-09 11:29:21 GMT from United States)
After looking at the LVM section , I am so glad i have my copy of Partition Magic live cd . That's all i need to have.
7 • #5 about stability (by Xtyn on 2009-03-09 11:38:51 GMT from Romania)
I really don't believe that 2 months will make a big difference. For stability, distributions should not have a fixed release cycle, they should release "when they are ready", like Debian, Red Hat, Slackware etc.
8 • RE: 6 (by ladislav on 2009-03-09 11:40:27 GMT from Taiwan)
You spent $70 on Partition Magic when we have such great, free, powerful and flexible piece of software as LVM? You can't be serious!
9 • Let's educate ouselves (by Dimitri on 2009-03-09 11:44:13 GMT from United States)
#2 - hear, hear!
10 • Release cycles (by monkeyboy on 2009-03-09 11:53:09 GMT from United States)
Given the wide range of distros and their supporting development groups (paid professionals to part time volunteers) its no surprise that the release schedules of different projects will widely vary. Not that that makes waiting any easier,
11 • Too many *buntus (by Chris on 2009-03-09 12:06:17 GMT from United States)
It seems every week a new Ubuntu derived distribution emerges. Most of these have little more to offer than a new theme or desktop manager or a few custom applications. It's a shame that Distrowatch has to classify these pretenders as discreet distributions. Perhaps a new rule where all these 'buntus are grouped together under Ubuntu would be preferable. It doesn't seem fair to me that Ubuntu / Canonical does all the heavy lifting and Joe Blow slaps his own logo and custom theme onto it and declares a new distribution.
12 • #11 (by yelamdenu on 2009-03-09 12:13:07 GMT from Netherlands)
It doesn't seem fair to me that Ubuntu / Canonical does all the heavy lifting and Joe Blow slaps his own logo and custom theme onto it and declares a new distribution.
Welcome to the GNU GPL/FLOSS world. Hey, some of us oldies (say, >25 years of age) still remember that Ubuntu was based on Debian.
13 • Nice LVM tuto (by viktor on 2009-03-09 12:13:36 GMT from France)
and by the way, there's a typo announcing Karmic Koala for Nov 29 instead of Oct. 29 (I suppose there won't be any delay with this non-LTS release; Ubuntu 9.11 would be a weird and doomed distro number...).
#7 A development spanning 8 months instead of 6 doesn't make a persistent 2 months lag (or additional dev if you like): the discrepancy will grow to make OpenSUSE disconnected from Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. or Gnome/KDE releases. Ex. Ubuntu 9.04 in April'09 (Gnome 2.26) then OpenSUSE 12 in August'09 Ubuntu 9.10 in October'09 (Gnome 2.28) then Ubuntu 10.04 (Gnome 2.30?) and OpenSUSE 13 in April'10
#5 so your point does nothing to support OpenSUSE move. The discrepancy will mean they can chose a different Kernel than the previous Ubuntu release. New August will they just chose 2.6.29 or go on with a newer kernel?
14 • #13 (by yelamdenu on 2009-03-09 12:43:22 GMT from Netherlands)
#5 so your point does nothing to support OpenSUSE move. The discrepancy will mean they can chose a different Kernel than the previous Ubuntu release. New August will they just chose 2.6.29 or go on with a newer kernel?
All I think is that two months more than six to test a release is two months more than six of opportunity to squash bugs. Depending on laziness or the lack thereof, one may do much or little in that timespan. :-) As for the kernel, I thought that openSuse hack together something of their own anyway if they think it's necessary. I'm not really into that, frankly.
15 • OpenSUSE 13? (by greenpossum on 2009-03-09 12:49:37 GMT from Australia)
Where do you get OpenSUSE 13 for 2010? They haven't even reached 12, the next release is 11.2 and then maybe they will go to 11.3 or maybe marketing will decide to bump the number to 12, and then they'll have to work through the 12s. Then maybe in 2014, marketing will decide that 13 doesn't sound good and then jump to 20. :)
Who knows maybe we'll all have melted by then. :(
16 • PCLinuxOS (by jack daniels esq on 2009-03-09 12:51:11 GMT from South Africa)
It would appear that Texstar is finally in the Building Welcome Home Texstar BR>Jack
17 • New distributions (by Steve on 2009-03-09 12:56:17 GMT from United States)
I'm surprised to hear no mention of PCLinuxOS (PCLOS) Gnome 2009 which was released last week.
18 • RE: 17 New distributions (by ladislav on 2009-03-09 12:58:25 GMT from Taiwan)
There is no mention of it on PCLinuxOS.com either.
19 • re #5 latest and greatest (by Bill on 2009-03-09 13:01:52 GMT from United States)
As for latest and greatest KDE openSuse always has the latest release in a repository and I assume the same for Gnome.
20 • To Ladislav #8 (by LightRider on 2009-03-09 13:15:32 GMT from United States)
That was a typo on my part, the live cd that i use is Parted Magic which of course is free.
21 • Introduction to LVM (by hs on 2009-03-09 13:17:22 GMT from China)
Thanks for the LVM introduction.i wish you give another introduction on how to setup LVM during installation(preferably using Ubuntu alternate c.d) Thanks again for the nice work
22 • +1 for more geeky DWWs (by DrCR on 2009-03-09 13:26:54 GMT from United States)
Ooooh, LVMs. Have wanted to messed with them but have never gotten around to looking into it. Awesome to see a nice bit of geekiness here at DistroWatch!
23 • LVM (by Omari on 2009-03-09 13:49:22 GMT from United States)
If you're thinking of trying LVM, do jump in. It's so handy that now I don't know how I did without it. I use it on my desktop machine, which runs MythTV as well. I've got three hard disks in there--two are in one volume group and hold most of my data and TV shows; the third is a backup disk for my important data (I don't back up the TV shows.) Overall there is over a terabyte in there. Right now some of it is unused; with LVM I just grow a partition by a couple hundred gigs or so on an as-needed basis. Growing filesystems is easy, but shrinking them is hard. One day I might grab another, terabyte hard drive and pop in there. With LVM, I can just grow filesystems onto the new drive seamlessly.
MythTV now does not recommend using LVM (they say it is too hard) but the flexibility is well worth it to me. No more running out of space on one partition while another one has a bunch of gigs free. I don't use LVM on the laptop though, as the setup there is simple (just one OS) and LVM wouldn't add anything of value.
24 • REF#11 Not enough.. (by Anonymous on 2009-03-09 13:58:56 GMT from United States)
"It seems every week a new Ubuntu derived distribution emerges...."
The reason being, Ubuntu works. Plain and simple. On the other hand any SLACKWARE derivative doesn't.
The only reason I tried Zenwalk from last week was its hype . Never again! No more Slackware until they get out of the dark ages.
25 • RE: 17 New distributions (by AmblestonDack on 2009-03-09 14:04:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
There is no mention of a new release on linuxgator.com's front page, yet in the downloads it says PCLinuxOS Gnome 2009, but I'm not sure what the changes are as the specs sure look like PCLinuxOS Gnome 2008 to me.
26 • What is your preferred minimalist rescue system (by Anonymous on 2009-03-09 14:10:18 GMT from Canada)
I like the ArchLinux install cd/usb. It was always really helpful when a disaster happend.
27 • Damn Vulnerable Linux (by Anonymous on 2009-03-09 14:22:14 GMT from Canada)
LOL !
here is a good article about what you can learn from it : http://www.linux.com/feature/60267
28 • Zenwalk 6.0, not all Slackware derivatives are the same (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-03-09 14:49:39 GMT from United States)
#24 is a rant which makes little or no sense since Slackware derivatives are as varied as Debian derivatives. Some are so different from one another that it's hard to believe they are based on the same core code. I'll also point out that SUSE started out as a Slackware derivative. Even X configuration tools used by the various installers vary from distro to distro. Zenwalk uses vconf, Vector Linux uses vxconf, etc... That can mean very different results on the same hardware.
Look, I'm sorry you had a problem with Zenwalk 6.0. It installed flawlessly for me and it's anything but in the "dark ages". Did you bother asking questions on their forum or did you just use a problematic install as an excuse to rant against Slackware? Very often a fix is dirt simple.
Also, the idea that because you've had problems with a Slackware derivative on your hardware doesn't mean that all Slackware distros are problems. Here is a clue for you: Ubuntu just works on my netbook but on my Toshiba laptop X configuration fails and I get a black screen. dexconf just doesn't work with the graphics chipset in the Toshiba. Does that make Ubuntu crap? Does that mean Ubuntu is in the "dark ages"? The fix: the xorg.conf file from a distro that does detect the hardware like Zenwalk gets dropped into the Ubuntu install and everything works.
29 • DVL: a milestone! (by just john on 2009-03-09 15:01:18 GMT from United States)
Now, with Damn Vulnerable Linux, we have a distro that can go head-to-head with Windows!
Kudos!
30 • pclos-gnome (by cyril on 2009-03-09 15:09:42 GMT from Ireland)
pclinuxos-gnome2009 was released on the 6th
http://linuxgator.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1639
31 • Re: 27 • Damn Vulnerable Linux (by Anonymous on 2009-03-09 15:14:32 GMT from Switzerland)
:) Thank you for this weblink. Nice distribution, but I think there is still a more vulnerable OS out there – unfortunately I forgot its name but I think you’ll know what I mean :D
BSF: Nice LVM tutorial!
32 • Damn Vulnerable Linux (by Anonymous on 2009-03-09 15:32:48 GMT from Canada)
Linux is now REALLY ready for the desktop !
33 • Linux wrecks harddisks (by Frustrated on 2009-03-09 15:48:42 GMT from Hong Kong)
Comment deleted (troll).
34 • All in one liveCD (by Jesse on 2009-03-09 15:52:36 GMT from Canada)
The ULTILEX liveCD looks great. I have about three or four of these distros on seperate CDs for trouble-shooting and having an all-in-one would be nice.
It's also good to see Ubuntu offering more features, like the mainline kernel. I've never really checked out the distro before, but Ubuntu (I recently found out) is the only main stream distro that'll handle my new wireless card. They're really doing a lot of things right.
35 • preferred minimalist rescue system (by PP on 2009-03-09 15:52:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
TinyMe - Amazing little thing, and all multimedia OOTB.
36 • damn vulnarable linux (by Dual-Fractured Architecture at 2009-03-09 16:01:40 GMT from United States)
I just went to their site and tried to find out about it before going to the one listed in a comment above, and it was 'access denied'. Continuity fail
37 • RE: 31 (by IMQ on 2009-03-09 16:02:01 GMT from United States)
The other vulnerable OS not to be named is the very reason I has been using the less vulnerable OS, less known OS Linux.
Choosing the lesser of the 2 evils. Know what I mean? ;-)
38 • re 33 (by Relaxed on 2009-03-09 16:17:19 GMT from Canada)
It's not ext3, it's YOU who wrecked the disks. Anyway, ext3 is history, use ext4. Or you can still use FAT32, or even FAT16. Your choice.
39 • LVM (by moose on 2009-03-09 16:28:37 GMT from Canada)
The LVM tutorial was good for someone who knows their way around a Linux system and is hoping to learn more about Logical Volumes. Though I have to admit, my eyes glazed over around the time I got to the sentence below. Obviously newbies aren't going to be diving into this sort of thing.
"If you're using openSUSE, it has an excellent LVM management tool as a part of YaST. There is a kernel module you will require, as well as userspace tools. Install these via your system's package management took. Below is an example under Debian."
40 • LVM (by Anonymous on 2009-03-09 17:26:39 GMT from United States)
Nice story on LVM, I have tried to do this on my own for a while but when to use 3 LVM's and when you only need 2 was never explained as good as above. Needs to be a sticky in a FAQ somewhere.
A simpler way for me anyway is to use unetbootin on a flash drive and create a logical /User partition to keep changes. I then put the computer into suspend until I need it. It saves me a lot of Watts. I re-flash a new version using a USB key with a small distro like puppy and unetbootin on it. I just wish ubootin supported pup-save files, then I would have the best of both worlds.
41 • Best disk partitioning program... (by uz64 on 2009-03-09 17:29:08 GMT from United States)
IMO, it's gotta be cfdisk. Light and fast due to the fact that it's a command line program. Shows the contents of the disk in an easy-to-understand way. Easy to use thanks to its GUI.
GParted is nice for a graphical partitioner, but its features and dependency on X11 means that it won't be near as fast and lightweight. Plus, I guess I just prefer cfdisk's much more simplistic UI; it's not as full of features, and leaves the formatting to another program, which is the traditional UNIX style.
Parted Magic is nice (I recently tried the latest version), but I wasn't even able to boot it *at all* on a machine with 64 megs of RAM. Locked up before it loaded X. It's sad when full-blown operating systems of the time (Windows 95, 98, 98SE) ran just fine... but today, even a simple disk partitioning tool (!) won't run.
42 • Boot Problem (by Heady on 2009-03-09 17:56:14 GMT from United States)
Can anyone tell me what this means? I get it with a lot of distros, especially Puppy. I have tried all of the versions going back to v2 but I get the same thing. I have a Dell PowerEdge 2300 server, PIII, 1G RAM. I have tried the different boot options with no success. Anyway here is the error message:
"pup-412.sfs not found. Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console...
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off".
43 • WattOS - Should screen background be removed? (by Cleveland Consultant on 2009-03-09 18:00:57 GMT from United States)
I could not help thinking that if WattOS had as its primary goal being energy efficient, that would it not save energy to have the default background image removed and replaced with a black background. It just seems to me that it takes less wattage to not illuminate pixels than it does to light them up, especially on devices like LCD displays that are per-pixel transistors.
Just my thoughts. Perhaps it is trivial though.
44 • OpenSuSE (by Shrek on 2009-03-09 18:01:11 GMT from United States)
I'll take the longer release cycle if it gives me something that is more stable, or something that actually shows a change. The latest 'buntu' was kind of a fluff and pretty release with nothing of any value included. Latest kernel, sure, but nothing more than that.
On my desktop I have SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop which has an annual release cycle. Very few bugs. Our competition, MS, has something like a 7 year release cycle, lots of bugs. I am all about our distros maybe slowing down a little and getting things right.
Shrek
45 • #43 (by Notorik on 2009-03-09 18:09:31 GMT from United States)
Nice article on LVM. I am still working my way through it.
#43 Here is something related to what you are saying. It's from 2007 but still relevant:
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/does-a-darkened-google-really-save-electricity-104/
46 • Damn Vulnerable Linux? (by Gnobuddy on 2009-03-09 18:20:10 GMT from United States)
Damn Vulnerable Linux - an OS that's riddled with security vulnerabilities? It's been done already. It's called Windows! ;)
-Gnobuddy
47 • CRT vs TFT screen black (by capricornus on 2009-03-09 18:54:58 GMT from Belgium)
How dumb can we get? CRT's consume more for white than for black. So black is a saver. TFT's backlight is always on. If you want black, extra energy is used to cover the white light. But how much energy? How much is relevant?
Relevance is quite important in measuring or comparing eco-footprints. Not using my pc is much more relevant than the color of my screen.
48 • No subject (by john frey on 2009-03-09 19:15:07 GMT from Canada)
Great article on LVM Chris.
One thing I have not heard enough about is recovery from a failed disk with LVM. If i have a raid array using LVM I can rebuild using the raid tools but if I am not using raid what can I do? One disk removed from the LVM means a complete loss of data afaik. Each disk added increases the risk of failure so this becomes a greater concern than using individual disks. Backups, of course, but how to back up 3 terrabytes of data? I have added a sata expansion card but even so I don't have enough space to plug in another 3 terrabytes of harddrives for backup.
I'm ambivalent about Opensuse moving to an 8 month cycle. I have felt for a long time, ever since Mandriva tried this, that a 8 month cycle is the way to go. Releasing on a 6 month cycle is just too soon and we see more bugs that way. I think they are doing the right thing with the 8 month cycle but I don't like of their agreement with MS so I don't use that OS.
49 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-03-09 19:15:21 GMT from Canada)
openSuSE 8-month cycle is something that they were already doing since at least one version. Also it's only for the official ISO & default repos, but there are many more repos, including the Factory one ( the next version in developpment ), and many repos for Gnome & KDE, from opensuse community, stable version, unstable, and backport. So if users add a few repos they will be in sync with others Distro.
50 • openSUSE (by Xtyn on 2009-03-09 20:13:34 GMT from Romania)
from 10.0 to 10.1 it took 8 months from 10.1 to 10.2 it took 7 months from 10.2 to 10.3 it took 10 months from 10.3 to 11.0 it took 8 months from 11.0 to 11.1 it took 6 months
My point is that there will not be a big difference.
51 • suse (by Nordic African on 2009-03-09 20:29:15 GMT from United States)
One "big difference" we keep hoping for is bloat whittled down.
Ok, better word for "bloat" please?
52 • Another GUI LVM tool - for Red Hat based distros (by Scott Dowdle on 2009-03-09 20:46:28 GMT from United States)
Red Hat has system-config-lvm which is a nice GUI LVM creation / management tool It will even let you do online resizing. I have used it on a number of occasions and it can be a little confusing until you get used to the UI design.
I checked the change log on the app and to the best of my knowledge, it was born around Sept. 1st, 2004.
I wonder if any other distros have adopted it and if not, why not.
53 • #11 and 12 (by William Purkis on 2009-03-09 20:55:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
As ever with the hit list, I wonder how many actually use Ubuntu. Certainly not many of the reviewers who write about it state that it's their favourite. Poor old undervalued Mandriva is more likely, as with me, although I have used Mint for a short time. And if Ubuntu is so good why does everyone want to change it ?
54 • re 51 suse (by North Polarian on 2009-03-09 20:59:29 GMT from Canada)
Ok, better word for "bloat" please?
That would be "Mono".
And no, there is no way in the world that Novell will trim down Mono.
55 • re 53 (by corneliu on 2009-03-09 21:09:53 GMT from Canada)
Poor old undervalued Mandriva
Mandriva 2009 KDE 4 is OK but not great because of the upstream KDE. The Gnome version is excellent. I run Mandriva 2009.1 beta with KDE 4.2.1 and is really good. I'm sure Mandriva's HPD will go only up with this new version. The first release candidate is supposed to be released today.
56 • nice dww (by Jon Nihill on 2009-03-09 21:30:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
I liked the LVM part. I like the Voiponcd as well might give it a go. as always dww brings new stuff for me to waste my time on hehe
57 • In reply (by Chris on 2009-03-09 21:37:14 GMT from Australia)
33 • Linux wrecks harddisks Hi Frustrated, I'm not sure what the actual problem is - are you getting corrupt filesystem, or does the partition table die? What is your partition layout? I've only ever had one ext3 filesyste die on me and that was because of a faulty drive. ext3 is actually one of the most reliable filesystems due to its journalling of data and metadata.
If you have some more details, we might be able to help :-)
48 • Hey John, You're absolutely right - LVM in its default configuration provides no redundancy. This is because it's all acting like one hard drive sewn together. But what you could do (if you're worried about it) is put LVM on top of RAID. If you add more storage, get two drives and add them in RAID1, then turn that RAID device into a physical volume for use in LVM. I could possibly re-visit LVM at some point and do an installation walk through on top of RAID if people are interested.
-c
58 • wattOS (by greenpossum on 2009-03-09 21:59:12 GMT from Australia)
If they are serious about reducing power draw, they should ask users to connect a watt meters in series with the mains power so that any improvement can be quantified. The difference between old computers and new ones is nowhere near as large as the gap in CPU speed. Even an old P-III machine can draw about 40W. And if it takes me longer to get the job done, is that a good way to save energy? Better to turn off the computer when it's not going to be used for long periods.
But, by all means, if you know how to throttle CPU speed and turn on all kinds of power saving features, or if you are rescuing a computer from the waste stream, do look into it.
Incidentally this combination of Openbox and Ubuntu has already been done in Crunchbang Linux. It seems like we're getting to the stage where every combination of desktop manager and Ubuntu has been explored. What next, throw religion into the mix and get more combinations? Ah, that's been done too. :)
59 • RE: 57 (by Happy Hoser on 2009-03-09 23:43:22 GMT from Canada)
Re:Re: 33, LVM & RAID
Chris, obvious troll is obvious, don't you think? "Linux wrecks harddisks" screams FUD to me. But thanks for showing the linux spirit - communication, community, cooperation. :)
Anyways, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would enjoy seeing some coverage of LVM & RAID. Hope you'll revisit this in the future.
I would like to tip my hat to DW for the great coverage so far this year. The combination of distro reviews and coverage of more specific technical aspects of linux is really a boon to my efforts to bring my friends over to free software - please keep up the good work!
60 • openSUSE = Great Linux Distro (by Suseuser on 2009-03-10 00:55:11 GMT from Australia)
I have used versions 10.2, 10.3 and 11.0 with great satisfaction.
Right now openSUSE 11.0 is my preferred Linux option because it works very well with my 3G Mobile Broadband E160G modem and due to its provision of delta rpms (IMHO, one of its best advantages over Ubuntu and Fedora, amongst others). For anyone on limited 3G Mobile Broadband download plans (as I am, or even someone on Dial-Up), openSUSE 11.0 --> is a wise choice because the update downloads are a small fraction of what they currently are for Ubuntu, Fedora, and others.
Cheers
61 • Little comment about booting LVM installation. (by linux_oid on 2009-03-10 01:56:57 GMT from United States)
"The only issue is that you will require an additional partition for /boot and you need to use an initial RAM disk (initrd)".
I've installed Mandriva 2009.1 alpha and Ubuntu 8.10 with '/' on LV. Both distros offer LILO and bootloader has to be installed outside of LVM. Debian Lenny 5.0 offers LILO as well but I wasn't able to install it. Anyway, I've used debian 'grub-pc package' (another debian installation) to boot it. 'Grub-pc' is based on grub2 (grub-1.96) and grub2 is able to boot from LVM since grub-1.95.
OpenSUSE 11.0 is possible to install on LV, but it doesn't offer LILO to install and boot it.
Fedora 10 was the only one I tried that refuzed to be installed on LV and required '/boot' to be outside of LVM.
62 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-10 02:23:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the remarks about Ubuntu both for and against...and you know who you are, LOL.
I cannot see why Ubuntu should get such a caning...the ethos of GNULinux is to improve and innovate...on what has gone before. Ubuntu is based on Debian...but, at the risk of offending the purists, has gone a different route reference to software and how "pure" it is.
Ubuntu took a more pragmatic approach and avoided the need of having to d/l loads of apps post installation to round off the distro or having to resort to terminal on occasion.
Folk complain that "every other" distro seems to be a Ubuntu clone...so what? If some developers want to base "their" pet distro on a very stable version of Ubuntu nn is that a problem?
Despite what many folk might imagine, Ubuntu IS very stable...I have been using several versions on different machines for some time and they just work. Granted not all versions work on all machines but we are all aware of this so we live with it... by trying to find a distro that does.
My old scrappers are ancient...6 and eight years old...can't hold a candle to modern stuff but they just keep running.
It's because the distros do run on these old machines I have not had to buy a new one. Mind you, what with hardware being so "cheap" these days compared to when I first bought a computer I should perhaps be not quite so stingy and get a new one...
It cannot be a bad thing if Ubuntu is helping promote the "desktop" to the planet at large, surely? Who else has spent time and effort to lobby the computer manufacturers to the same extent as Canonical?
Canonical have managed to persuade virtually all the main computer builders to incorporate some version of Ubuntu in at least one model in their ranges. I should not be surprised if, owing to the recession/depression,and given their resources, it is mainly Canonical that keeps Linux in the "mainstream" public's eye.
With all due respect to those "small" developers who produce their own distros, it won't be their distro the great computer buying public will be clamouring to install will it?
The public at large have been educated to expect everything done for them with respect to keeping their machines updated/protected by either MS or Mac. If Linux is to be accepted as mainstream it has to do the same, absolutely no question about it...so it has to be a large outfit by definition...who will be there year on year.
Some folk on this forum are hobbyists, we all are to some extent, and, as said before, there's nothing wrong in that, but it won't be them/us who persuade Joe Public to switch over to Linux, especially if some distros are perceived to be "hard work"...I for one don't have the time to fiddle about with terminal stuff, and I don't fully understand a lot of it either, LOL.
This does not stop me enjoying the stuff I do understand...but not everyone will want to mess about even to that extent..they want a machine with an "invisible" O...that works.
So don't knock Canonical's efforts, without them a lot of us would not be able to use Linux at all...
63 • re #62 and the *buntu's (by bill on 2009-03-10 03:06:57 GMT from United States)
Used it and wasn't that impressed but was amazed at the forums and their user base but not enough to stick to it.
I think there's lots of reasons people dis them including: - they don't really give back to the community like other large distros (specifically projects like the kernel and OO) - the fan boys are too much, the blogs always imply the abilities are limited to Ubuntu only - as a KDE'er their implementation doesn't get the love that they give gnome - they don't have a 'control center' app that competes with what openSuse or Mandriva provides - they're not as complete a distro regarding server sw - people are jealous of their growth
64 • ULTILEX (by Anonymous on 2009-03-10 03:55:55 GMT from Australia)
Ultilex looks good, up to date, etc. But this is not the first time that a Multi-boot LiveCD has been made. An older (circa 12.04.2006) Multi-boot LiveCD is here http://multidistro.tlm-project.org/
65 • DWW (by Brian on 2009-03-10 04:34:37 GMT from United States)
Interesting, I have been wondering about LVM for the last couple months, but have not fully looked into it to see what it was. I really appreciate this introduction and guide to LVM.
I also appreciate the comment at the end about using a virtual machine first - I totally forgot about that! Great idea.
Also thanks for the information ULTILEX. It sounds very interesting.
66 • Re. 46: DVL (by uz64 on 2009-03-10 05:13:40 GMT from United States)
Yeah. I swear... those Linux devs can't do anything first, they're trailing behind Microsoft yet again. On the other hand, maybe this will be that elusive "Year of Linux on the Desktop" I keep hearing of every year.
Bad security is so... well, everything Microsoft put out before Vista. And I would still argue Vista is not as secure as it could be. I mean, come on... Cancel or Allow... wouldn't asking for a valid password potentially be more secure? If you're the first user on Vista, you're an admin. In other words, no password request... just click Allow. Let someone "use" your computer for a few minutes to do something, and all they need to do to really screw something up is hit "Okay"--no passwords to know beforehand; just click okay.
I know a lot of people who let their friends/relatives "use" their machine temporarily, never even considering logging into a different account first, or even *creating* a second account for other people to use. Not that those people are safe using their own computer themselves, of course.
Really though, I think courses on security, of all things, should surely be taught on Microsoft operating systems. If there's one thing Microsoft has nailed, it's producing some of the most insecure crap software on the planet. People need to learn from them. Microsoft has a large back catalog of perfectly suitable software that they could resell for this purpose. Of course, they won't, but the thought of them doing it is amusing.
67 • Re. 57 (by uz64 on 2009-03-10 05:32:33 GMT from United States)
According to Frustrated's post, he obviously has no idea what he was doing. Hard drives don't just "break" from having a certain filesystem on them and using it. They break from typical wear and tear over time, or perhaps a defect or bad treatment in some cases, but he claimed that ext3 destroyed multiple hard drives. I call BS right there. Sounds like a troll, and whadda know... looks like his comment was deleted and marked as troll. If he's really from Hong Kong, he can continue to use his pirated version of Windows. A filesystem can't just totally destroy a hard drive on its own, let alone multiple drives.
68 • Clarification on my post, 66: (by uz64 on 2009-03-10 05:37:26 GMT from United States)
Just in case anyone goes nuts over the tone of my previous post (66), yes, I was being sarcastic on the first sentence. I just forgot to add a smiley.
[Actually, I thought nothing of it really, because I originally thought it would be obvious that it's a joke; now that I think of it though, people will probably call "troll" and flame. Oh well...]
69 • Puppy Multiboot CDs (by Alexio on 2009-03-10 07:00:57 GMT from Romania)
@64: As I see that you are from Australia and you mention a Romanian project, I think it is my turn to point out a couple of multiboot Live CDs like Retro Pup or Puppy Fancy, using some very nice Puppy Linux remasters:
http://puppylinux.org/downloads/puplets/retro-pup-103
http://puppylinux.org/downloads/puplets/puppy-fancy-1211
Tested last night the Ultilex multiboot CD and the included Slax distro has some useful extra modules. Anyone interested in a Slax-based distro with KDE 4.2 may want to try the Updated Mobile Office CD from EDU-Nix.org - http://edu-nix.org/
70 • 'Powered by OpenSuse' (by DeniZen on 2009-03-10 08:26:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm just guessing admittedly , but something tells me that we wont witness a flood of 'new' distro's 'powered by OpenSuse'
Maybe some specialised Distro's for specific application perhaps, and a ready-trimmed lean and mean version wouldnt be a bad idea.
(not that a easily customised install of the current official OSuse actually _need_ be bloated anyway)
I'm just not sure that OSuse derivatives would be 'culturally popular' - for the same, and often detailed reason as the main distribution is - i.e. controversial to many.
71 • @ forest 62 (by DeniZen on 2009-03-10 08:45:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
I agree with much of your points made
re: "Folk complain that "every other" distro seems to be a Ubuntu clone...so what? If some developers want to base "their" pet distro on a very stable version of Ubuntu nn is that a problem?"
No, but it is a bit tedious now. Few *buntu derivatives offer much that the equivalent *buntu doesnt, or couldnt.
Re *buntu keeping your old hardware going. Thats great to know. But I cant help feeling that your older hardware could be running even better with alternative distributions (i.e. not based on Ubuntu) I like (U/K/X)*buntu, its great for people who want 'just works' and on newer hardware, and it has been responsible for many a Linux convert recieving a good experience. So hats off to Canonical / Ubuntu.
But - having tested it out on a number of older machines, including again recently - I always find that even the light desktop flavours of Ubuntu run noticably slowly compared to some adequately full-featured alternatives.
Though it may install without fuss - its not a good choice for keeping older hardware going - In my experience ;)
72 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-10 10:56:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #71
I'm up for anything...I can install of course, LOL. I use Ubuntu cos' it will install on just about anything and of course it well supported...but...at this instant I am using "flexxpup" via DOAS (my "new" acronym for distro-on-a stick). I opted for the "load into ram" and it runs quite smoothly.
So, if you have a moment, I have the wifi and a stack of CDs and plenty of time, so an idea of one or two of distros (more suited to older kit) would be most welcome, if possible those installable to a usb stick.
Thanks in advance.
73 • @post 54 by North Polarian (is it getting warmer up there?) (by Nordic African on 2009-03-10 11:22:05 GMT from United States)
Yeah, good ole .NET for linux.
People are flocking to Suse/Novell for that. I'm sure Silverlight is next.
74 • Parslinux 1.0 (by Krazy-Indians on 2009-03-10 13:46:22 GMT from India)
I am glad to see that linux distro makers show some interest in KDE 4 series.I hope the new Distro Parslinux 1.0 with KDE 4.2 will have some cutting edge features. Please publish a review as son as possible.
75 • Bios boot order and overclocking (by jack on 2009-03-10 14:47:57 GMT from Canada)
I just changed my son's XP computer to boot from the CD as first choice.(to run a live cd) He claims that I have messed up his hard work in overclocking his cpu. I have not heard or read of this happening. Can anyone give me some information Thanks
76 • #72 (by Notorik on 2009-03-10 15:26:30 GMT from Korea, Republic of)
Here are a few that I enjoy. But heck, try 'em all! They are all pretty good unless they don't work on your machine then they are the worst and the developers don't have a clue what they are doing(sarcasm).:
1. Austrumi (right click on desktop for menu) "DOAS" is a menu option.
2. Wolvix (Hunter/Cub) - Control panel, choose install to flash drive.
3. Pardus(haven't tried this "DOAS").
4. Antix(haven't tried this "DOAS").
On another subject, does anyone know if and when there will be an updated release of FreeSBIE?
77 • #76 (by Notorik on 2009-03-10 15:38:10 GMT from Germany)
Correction: Austrumi, left click on desktop for main menu. Right click for other menu.
5. Slitaz is fun too.
78 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-10 15:58:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank's Notorik...that's my afternoon sorted then.
Re #75 Jack, take no notice of your boy...if he's like mine, 17 going on 27 and suffers from teenage male syndrome...big head... knows everything.
Ignore it, he'll probably get married in a while...console yourself, you can get your own back by spoiling your grandson rotten...then your son becomes the common enemy...LOL.
BTW I have no clue at all re the overclocking thing...just thought I could cheer you up.
79 • RE: 75 (by IMQ on 2009-03-10 16:00:26 GMT from United States)
I very, very much doubt changing the booting preferences in the BIOS will alter any overclocking settings, performance, etc. Something else is wrong. I would check the settings for overclock.
I used to overclocked my CPU in the old days because it was fun. The thing I remember about OC is that voltage stability is very important. So the quality power supply is a must!
As a side note, anyone who is willing to overclock the CPU must accept the risk of things can go wrong at any time, sometime without obvious reason other than the very fact that the CPU is overclocked.
On the other hand, running Windows alone can be a problem. ;-)
80 • re: #75 (by Bill on 2009-03-10 16:23:54 GMT from United States)
there are 2 places in which to overclock - the bios and within Windows using specialized utilities
If he used the bios then how could what you did affect it? It can't, unless you wiped out the bios and reset it to default which is unlikely. And if he oc'ed in Windows then the oc would only be available from within Windows.
81 • @75 (by Anonymous on 2009-03-10 18:06:03 GMT from Canada)
He's just PO'd that you touched his computer. And if you did reset the BIOS defaults, then it's a lesson to him to properly document his settings, isn't it? ;)
Overclocking these days is pretty meaningless. Back in the day of the Celeron 300A and cCo step coppermines you got a real advantage. Today? You need a flipping program to tell you what you've gained (which comes down to bragging rights *yawn*).
82 • PClinuxOS 2009 GNOME (by capricornus on 2009-03-10 18:30:28 GMT from Belgium)
I just can't believe it: above OS just screwed up my harddisk's soft. Error 18. I tried twice. I controlled Setup. No way. Boot just stops. Never encountered this kind of problem. It is only a test pc, and 250 GB Sata are at 39 Euro, but I thought: I should report this to the whole community.
83 • @72 / Forest - Distros for old/er hardware? (by DeniZen on 2009-03-10 18:59:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Apols Forest, I have very little experience of LOAS - or now DOAS ;)
I don't know how lightweight a Distro you are looking for, or the specs of yur old hardware but, as you ask - and if it assists -
In 2006/7 I did spend a lot of time installing (a lot of) Distros on a lowly laptop (PIII with 192mb Ram) a couple of years back while off work with broken shoulder / arm.
And I recently tested a more modest number of Distros again for a low-ish spec Laptop I was given (1.5gz Celeron, 512mb Ram)
I tested only full-featured relatively 'standard' Distributions. I wanted to avoid pure Debian, because all my other Boxes run Debian, and I fancied a change. So! in order of 'merit - i.e. simply in my own experience, and with no bias nor evangelism ;) The best performing (lets just call it 'snappy') on older hardware - but - *full-featured*, and also hardware friendly distros that I tested have been :
512mb Lappy (in 2009)
1. Arch ('Chakra Project' installed from Live Disk) Brilliant. Utterly Brilliant. WarpSpeed fast - even with KDE 4.2.1. - truly. Slick. Solid. Has not missed one beat since installed. Boots in 29 seconds from Grub to KDM on an old Laptop ;) 2. See above ;) 3. Arch 'standard' install with XFCE (preferred the Chakra version) 4. Zenwalk - very swift, funky looks, very usable. Clever choice of apps. 5. OpenSuse (I know!- honest!) I tried the 'lean self assembly' method detailed on DWW a few weeks back as a base, but not to the letter. I was curious ;) really - not bad, But .. not my taste really, and I liked Arch better 6. Pardus. Very good all round, interesting tools. I liked Arch better. 7. Mandriva. Good all round - not to my taste
I tried some of the above out of curiosity TBH.
All ran very well indeed, and were very acceptable - but Arch was streets ahead, IME. I wanted to try the new Wolvix Beta, but neither that, nor Vector, nor Slack would boot unfortunately (all three hung on boot while 'detecting Adaptec SCSI' - I assume same Slack kernel). I probably could have spent more time trying those three than I did. I'll try harder with Wolvix once 2.0 is final. I would imagine Sidux would have been good too, but I stuck with Arch 'Chakra' as it simply flies (even with KDE 4.2)
Kubuntu / Xubuntu I found were 'polished' , but frankly they chugged a bit TBH. Xubuntu was no better than Kubuntu in that regard. Both slow. Mint KDE the same. (shame - i liked that ;) ) I do know how to tinker with a 'Debian' based System - I did give them fair go!
Fedora was the duck-egg .. it was simply unusable. So awfully slow.
192mb Lappy: ( from memory - back in 2006/7)
1. Wolvix Hunter. Excellent. Fast, all worked, slick, well featured. 2 Arch with XFCE. Fast ;) 3. Zenwalk & Vector - both snappy, both well spec'd. 4. Debian Etch with XFCE Puppy went great - but it was just not to my taste.
Xubuntu, was polished, but wouldn't run usably well - especially on such modest hardware.
I stuck with Wolvix until I had that Laptop no more.
But, all in all, I think Arch is amazing. If one follows the Arch install / post-install Wiki it's a doddle too (OK, not 'newbie', but not hard at all)
I'm beginning to imagine Arch would run on the kitchen Dishwasher ;)
Sorry if I've gone on a bit ;) You may have been looking for much lighter distros altogether - and 'milage may vary', but thats a just brief overview of (some of ) what I noted - perhaps it helps. D.
84 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-10 21:43:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #83
Thanks very much for your input...I was particularly struck by your thoughts on Arch, something to try quite soon.
I have looked at Zenwalk, Vector, Debian 5, Suse, Mint and Mandriva (to name but a few) but nothing really took my breath away...not yet tried Pardus so perhaps that might need some attention too.
Suse installed very easily but looked like a sample for a ball gown and not terribly intuitive (IMO), Vector would not boot, ditto Zenwalk.
I can see my usb stick project sitting on the back burner for a while...I can see an evening of trying out Arch, so thanks for that.
I shouldn't worry about going on too much...I do it all the time, LOL.
Thanks again.
And, re #82, this is coming from PCOS and I have to say there was no drama...d/l via flexxpup DOAS, burned by same and installed and booted first go on old Compaq EVO.
I used to get error 18 on an old HP Pavillion, cos' of too big a hard drive, which was a replacement for the original 40GB. Put a 40GB back in and no probs thereafter. You can tiddle about in the bios with setting the (new) h/d to "normal" or whatever...but I found it did not help.
I think this one gets filed under the "...not every distro fits every m/c..." but best of luck if you are determined to get it working.
85 • #83 (by anticapitalista on 2009-03-10 23:11:38 GMT from Greece)
Nice summary. Just wondering if you tried antiX?
86 • #78,79,80,81. (by jack on 2009-03-11 00:32:44 GMT from Canada)
Many thanks for your opinions. Forest- no matter how true your thoughts I didn't think it politically correct to forward them to my son!! Thanks
87 • Ref#84 (by Mike Cougar on 2009-03-11 02:17:14 GMT from United States)
Forest, I had the same experience with both Vector Linux AND Zenwalk, but it appears those involved with those try harder defending the product rather than fixing them! It's truly sad.
Nevertheless Mandriva has some exciting news going forward. The idea of ID'ing your hardware BEFORE you boot would be well advised for the Slackware derivatives to follow also.
88 • #87 -- Opposite of my experience (by Anonymous on 2009-03-11 03:38:00 GMT from United States)
@Mike Cougar: One of the reasons I volunteer for Vector Linux is that my experience is 100% the opposite of what you describe. Specifically, if someone in the user community reports a problem the developers are accessible and do everything possible to fix the problem. Of course, if it isn't a problem, if there is something the user is missing, they almost always IME get friendly, helpful support.
I fully accept that you had a problem booting up Zenwalk or Vector Linux. What error did you get? What were the symptoms? More importantly, did you report them in the forum so that the issues could get solved, fixed, patched, or whatever is necessary? FWIW, Vector Linux 6 does do some hardware detection at the front end of the install, as early as any other distro does.
I see posts about distros, all sorts of distros from openSUSE to Mepis to Fedora to Zenwalk to (you name it) where someone says "it didn't boot for me" and drops it there. I'll freely admit to doing that myself at times, most recently with Foresight Linux Mobile, because my interest level may not have been all that high. As I mentioned earlier the ever-popular Ubuntu can't correctly configure X on my Toshiba laptop. Yes, I found a work around, and no, I don't think Ubuntu is a bad distro. It does have an issue, one I really ought to report (note to self) on one particular piece of hardware I have. The same is true of the distros that didn't work for you. Ladislav reported a straightforward Zenwalk 6.0 install last week. So did I. So have others.
OK, I need to get to the point: It's perfectly OK for you to say something like "Vector Linux didn't boot right up for me" if you add that you didn't bother to take a little time to ask why. It isn't OK in my book to say something like "Zenwalk didn't boot for me. Zenwalk and Slackware derivatives are crap."
It isn't about defending a given distro. By those standards all distros are crap because none of them will work on 100% of the hardware out there. You can complain here which solves nothing or you can take maybe as little as a few minutes and be part of the solution. The choice is yours.
89 • #88 was me (sorry) (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-03-11 04:06:47 GMT from United States)
For the record I posted #88. Sorry for the Anonymous posting.
90 • Backoff slackoff Ref#88 (by Mike Cougar on 2009-03-11 05:54:12 GMT from United States)
The point is I shouldn't have to go to the forum and wade through documents just to find a fix.
I can almost guarantee that Mandriva, Ubuntu, Debian, Suse, Mepis will work on almost all computers. The list can go on for several distros that WORK. The short list that fails is Vector Linux and Zenwalk , period. They just flat bomb out.
The funny part(sic) is the one that someone loaded Zenwalk and it booted okay they from the same cd drive is stated it couldn't find the cd drive?!?! I also had the same experience.
This isn't just my questioning, but for the past couple of weeks I've seen several complaints with he same issues. What , they get Slackware type distros working of three different computers and call it a day!
My whole point is to warn those that, like myself, have a slower DSL download. Not to waste their time. I feel like I wasted 2+ hours downloading slackware type distros, and they failed miserably. Why in the name of god would I then waste my time and go to their forum and spend hours more just to get it installed correctly when I NO NOT have to go through that non sense with the TOP distros. They just work, period. Quite saying its MY computers falut. If that's the case then explain how the top distros work without ever having to go to any forum.
91 • RE: 90 Backoff slackoff Ref#88 (by ladislav on 2009-03-11 06:53:21 GMT from Taiwan)
Why in the name of god would I then waste my time and go to their forum and spend hours more just to get it installed correctly
Why in the name of god do you waste your time complaining here over and over? We got the message already. If you have nothing new to add, please keep your anti-Slackware rants to yourself.
92 • re #90 (by Glenn on 2009-03-11 10:27:35 GMT from Canada)
Hi Mike. I have problems at times when trying to install distros. It is really frustrating when you install a distro then the next time whern you go to install it using the same CD/DVD it does not work like it did the first time. I just had that happen with Fedora actually. I usually follow a policy when instaling (which I forget to do sometimes) is to go into the BIOs and reset the BIOS. The reason I do this is because some applications/software do not clean up completely and there may be some error bits/conditions left on. These will not necessarily clear when you cold boot i.e. power-off power. Another thing to watch for is if you have a hardware antivirus and it is enabled. This can often interfere with an OS installation. My recommendation when installing any OS is to clean your system up first and disable Antivirus as I suggest above. At the worst it can't hurt. :-)
This is an opinion based on experience and observation and is subject to correction. Thanks Glenn
93 • @92 (by Todd R. on 2009-03-11 10:53:40 GMT from United States)
I just dealt (again) with the only experience I've had with the "what did the old install CD do that will affect my new installation," namely setting the BIOS clock to the wrong time. I have no idea why this has happened and it happens with Slackware based distros, my favorites.
What occurs is: during install it askes for time zone, that gets set correctly and the clock in the new install works fine. I need to get the Vista hard drive back in to accomodate those here who use it for their particular work, and the time is set to some far away time zone, sometimes 5 hours off, sometimes 7 or 9.
All I have to do is click the clock and reset it, but I do wonder why this is happening on a fairly new computer.
94 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-11 11:10:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #88
Caitlyn, what an excellent point you made in para 3, last two sentences. Succinctly put...if you felt like that, then we all felt like that.
It all comes down to "can't be arsed". It's not a case of disliking "a" distro...it if won't load (for whatever reason) you can't tell if you like it or not anyway.
There are so many distros in the wild, you might say, and only so much free time a person has. So, from a hobbyist POV, what would rather do? Spend time on playing with a distro that works "out of the box" or, trek through the forums to find, hopefully, possibly, a fix...that might or might not work on your machine?
Certainly some folk slip into the realms of hyperbole when trashing a distro, but perhaps they tried a few times to get something to work when it just can't happen anyway. (hardware/software conflict reasons)
It may be that because there are so many distros out there that folk don't bother to find a fix (or make a note to the devs)...simply on the premise that if distro "a" won't do it for you, then distros "b-z" will be along in a minute.
After all, if your motor was broken and it spent more time in the garage being mended than on your drive, you would part ex it asap, and buy another one.
(And I daresay you would not worry for a moment that another mug was going to buy your old motor...)
You yourself reminded us last week, another good point...and I paraphrase..."not all distros run on all machines".
Which in a way was giving us "permission" to oil out from under and slide into the next distro.
95 • at 82PClinuxOS 2009 GNOME (by capricornus on 2009-03-10 18:30:28 GMT from Belgiu (by Chon at 2009-03-11 12:14:48 GMT from Thailand)
The one that you tried is not a PCLinuxOS release. It is a remaster based on an older version ( maybe even a test release ) So, it is your badluck, and I really feel sorry, but please don't complain.
The only official PCLinuxOS 2009 was just released yesterday, with a bug fix release today , called 2009.1.
96 • No subject (by NGCH on 2009-03-11 12:15:11 GMT from Singapore)
Thanks for the article on LVM! I've been using Fedora for a while now but I couldn't figure out how to make use of LVM, till this article came along. Useful articles like this are what make DWW worth reading. Good job!
97 • RE:95 He's not (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-03-11 13:10:39 GMT from United States)
He was not complaining. He was warning the community. This was remastered and put out by the PCLinuxOS community. If it doesn't work he has every right to give his experiences.
98 • @93 (by john frey on 2009-03-11 14:22:56 GMT from Canada)
Your Linux install is resetting your hardware clock to UMT. When you switch back to Windows it reads the clock and prints the time based on your local time zone.
Your install options likely include an option to set the bios clock for UMT. If you do not opt for UMT then the hardware clock will be set for your local time and switching back to Windows will work without a problem. afaik there is no option to tell Windows to read the clock as UMT so you will have to make the change in Linux.
Hope that helps.
99 • Ref#91Bias Abound (by Anonymous on 2009-03-11 14:23:52 GMT from United States)
Interesting that you say I'm ranting yet say nothing about the TOP ranter, namely Caitlyn Martin !!! Oh, I know, she writes for you. Talk about bias.
I'm sure you will delete this comment, but NOT before you read it. And that's the intended audience. Regarding your flawed logic, there are many readers that do not comment but are well aware of your tactics.
You would be well advised to follow your own statements.
You allow Caitlyn Martin to hype up Slackware and yet stop any opposing views. VectorLinux and/or Zenwalk are flawed. I just want to inform innocent viewers to be weary , that's all.
100 • @98 (by Todd R. on 2009-03-11 14:40:36 GMT from United States)
That does help, John Frey.
That choice has been ignored a time or two. I'll make sure this time and see if the change sticks, if the BIOS remains correct when the Windows hard drive is re-installed.
Thank you.
101 • good and bad (by john frey on 2009-03-11 15:03:14 GMT from Canada)
Hey Todd, glad to help out. For every useful post I get to make 9 mean spirited posts. So...
@99 Anonymous
Caitlyn is pro Slackware and if she rants she does pro rants, not anti rants. Not to mention that any fool that says "I shouldn't have to go to the forum and wade through documents just to find a fix" deserves nothing. I shouldn't have to suffer fools when I read the DW comments but there you are.
If you are going to work with computers you will have to wade through forums for a fix sometimes. It doesn't matter if it's hardware, software or users. Sometimes the answer will not be in my brain and I will need someones help. Any fool knows that. Well, not any fool, I guess...
102 • #99 (by Notorik on 2009-03-11 15:16:52 GMT from Germany)
Every week we have this same guy, only with a different name(Dick Cheny, Joe Biden, R. Workman) ranting about something. There is nothing inherently wrong with Vector, Slackware, Zenwalk. They are excellent distros. Slackware based distros happen to work better on some of my machines than Debian based distros for identifiable reasons. Ubuntu for example, doesn't work on some of my machines. You need to educate yourself on the distro before you download it (if downloading is such an arduous task for you). If you have hardware that has known issues with certain distros, then don't download them. I wish they all worked on all of my machines, but the fact is they don't. Some issues can be resolved by visiting the forums and others simply can't be resolved because of the hardware.
This software is free. You get something for free and then rant on and on about it. It seems rather unappreciative to me. Here's an idea, anyone who downloads a free operating system and just comes here to rant, doesn't get to download anymore distros. These malcontents will then be forced to pay for and use Windows. Fine, now you have something to complain about and everyone is happy. We don't have to hear you and you get to rant about something somewhere else.
By the way, only guessing here(not trying to be a grammer/spelling cop), I assume you meant that "you want to inform innocent viewers to be" wary(cautious) not "weary"(tired)?
I am not going to attempt to defend Caitlyn as she obviously doesn't need and probably doesn't want any help in that department.
103 • Wolvix (by Tom on 2009-03-11 15:25:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
Congrats to DistroWatch for recognising and rewarding this great little distro.
Everyone that knew anything about linux warned me to avoid Slackware so i did and after my 5th tiny distro found Wolvix which was "Slax" and by far the easiest install - suddenly i found myself actually understanding some of what had previously been baffling. Thanks to the Wolvix tutorial (i think they just call it the installer) i have been able to help many other people install linux. I've also helped people fix Windows booting problems and rescued data much more efficiently with this fast booting distro. It doesn't "just work", it works very well on almost every machine i've tried. I'm still only just getting to Level 4 in Space Invaders because Gparted loads up too fast - much faster than in other distro's. I don't understand why ;)
The only problem was that i was still telling people to avoid Slackware and got embarrassed when someone pointed out that "Slax" is Slackware! It's Wolven's fault, he made it too easy for this noob.
Thanks and regards to everyone out there in the feisty linux community. Especially thanks to Wolven, Ladislav, Oithona and Chris Regards from Tom :)
104 • Re 90, although it might be better to just ignore you (by Patrick on 2009-03-11 16:02:14 GMT from United States)
> The list can go on for several distros that WORK. The short list that fails is > Vector Linux and Zenwalk , period. They just flat bomb out.
If you were fair, you would say: "The list can go on for several distros that WORK FOR ME. The short list that fails FOR ME is Vector Linux and Zenwalk, period. They just flat bomb out."
No one would disagree with that statement. But as is brought out by several other people, Ubuntu and some of the others you list did NOT work FOR THEM. And Vector, Zenwalk, etcetera DID work FOR THEM. So stop acting as if your experience is somehow a universal truth that applies to everyone else. It is a very immature thing to do.
> My whole point is to warn those that, like myself, have a slower DSL > download. Not to waste their time. I feel like I wasted 2+ hours > downloading slackware type distros, and they failed miserably.
And it is very likely that those distros would work JUST FINE for those users you are "trying to warn". It is unfortunate you wasted two hours of your life. But to someone else, these distros may turn out to be the best thing they ever found. For THEM, and on THEIR hardware. Nothing to do with you, and your hardware. Shouldn't be such a hard concept to get through your thick skull.
[And just for the record, I don't use any Slackware based distros myself, I'm more partial to Debian based distros.]
105 • Speaking of light distros... (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-03-11 16:35:34 GMT from United States)
This may be a useless question but does anyone know of a light distro that would run on a Pentium 2? I know that's asking a lot of any modern distro. Thanks.
106 • @ 85 - Antix (by DeniZen on 2009-03-11 16:51:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
No, I didnt try Antix, but I probably should have - I've read good things. I was using an opportunity to try out distributions that were not 'pure' Debian / Lenny based (I have lots of Debian boxen already) and I think Antix/Mepis is largly Lenny?. I appreciate there are extra's over-and-above Lenny, so I may give it a shot. Only fair - I tried out some *buntu's after all ;) Although my DE preferences are generally KDE or XFCE
107 • re#103 and others (by hab on 2009-03-11 17:03:22 GMT from Canada)
Tom, your comments caused me ro reflect on my own history with linux. I was not aware that supposedly knowledgeable linux people were recommending against slackware. It was the first distro i could get installed back in oct/95. I had suse, debian, redhat and slackware on a walnut creek cdrom set and the only one i could get to install initially was slackware 3.1 (IIRC). Subsequently i have managed to get the others to install but i still hold a soft spot for slackware and slack based distros.
Some of the comments and remarks about bios and installation woes made me reflect on the fundamental misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about bioses and indeed the boot process in general.
Many distros allow the addition of switches, eg. scsi=off, acpi=off, that directly affect the boot process. Read the documentation for your distro.
And of course don't discount the possibility of and old cdrom firmware not allowing the boot of your overburned disc. Desktop boxes are trivial to fix. Just drop in an new drive. Laptops not so much. In fact in many cases laptops can be somewhat problematic. They are really handy 'cause they pack around so easily but they can be a real pain in the ass to fix and/or modify. A partial (short) list of distros i play with and stay up on in no particular order: redhat, mandriva, wolfix, pardus, pclinuxos, parsix, debian, gos, ubuntu. I usually fire up a virtual machine and see what it boots and looks like and then install it on a real box if it works and i like it
cheers
108 • #105 (by Notorik on 2009-03-11 17:06:28 GMT from United States)
I have a very old Dell Optiplex 5166 with 128 MB RAM, 75 - 200 Pentium Processor, 2 GiG ATA Quantum Fireball hard drive, 166.20 MHZ. I am running Puppy ("Puplet" NOP 4.1.0) on this machine very nicely. (Uneccessary disclaimer - It may not work for you...). There are of course many others, Slitaz, Tiny Core, DSL, Austrumi, Wolvix Cub, AntiX...(next guy can add more)
109 • To boldly go .. etc (by DeniZen on 2009-03-11 17:40:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Some points made above regards the notion that if a Distro doesnt work for you that you have a number of options.
1. You could say, OK, that wasn't a great experience great - and move on to another that works. If you happen to be a Newbie, then its probably a wise thing to do in fact
2. Try a bit harder. And that depends (as others already note) how much you desire to ignore the alternative choices, and resolve to make the 'misbehaving' Distro install/work.
Personally, I think its only fair to at least 'Google' for a solution, or visit the Distro's forums to see if there is already a thread resulting in a fix, or at least an understanding of the replicated issue. Ideally post your problem to assist others, and the devs.
Thats certainly a better option if you dont have unlimited bandwidth to download ISO's ad-hoc.
3. Just Rant like an infant. And stupidly declare the 'offending' Distro to be rubbish / evil. Pointless. Clearly it is not likely to be 'rubbish' to most other users, or it would just wither on the vine - sharpish.
As an example I noted in Post 83 , of my own (loose) summaries regarding recent Distro hopping experience, and that I had 'moved on' after failed installs (kernel issue, early in boot) of Wolvix - current beta, Vector - current release, and Slackware - current release. I did spend some time looking for a fix, and actually I found an answer. An issue apparently common to all three of those Distros - the kernel on the install disk - and *my* particular hardware. Turned out to be a bigger job than I then had time for, and so I've marked it for another try when I have time / if I have time. If I was not so keen to see how Wolvix goes, maybe I would not bother TBH.
'Oddly', Zenwalk went on fine, and ran very well. (Mr Cougar - please note that)
Point is, I would never damn any of those Distributions for that experience, and clearly it is just plain dumb to damn all current 'Slack / Slack derivatives' . I made an observation above about one Distro i evaluated (Fedora 10) - being painfully slow (in general use, in updating and in boot time). I looked for ideas, tried a few things, installed twice, but I felt 'beaten' I chose to move on. I was not that committed, and my Forum responses were (perhaps understandably!) not that favourable on the whole ;) It woud be madness to 'condemn' Fedora on that basis. Others experience is obviously much better. It happens to be Linus T.'s Distro of choice too - and he's probably a discerning user ;) Its number 4 in the DW 'chart'. All for good reason.
I believe that, if you are truly interested in a Distro, persevere, and contribute. Become the Community. And in that way, HELP others. Not by heated 'warnings' in general Forums.
If you are not so committed to the Distro, fine, maybe just move on to another.
But for goodness sakes - dont just 'rant' about it, or attack other posters - who rightly point out clearly that it must work well for most people.
Ranting (or, conversely, being a partizan, fanboi zealot!) *helps no-one*, and fixes ... nothing.
110 • @ 105 - Eddie - 'ultra lites' (by DeniZen again on 2009-03-11 17:56:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
Pentium II may seem like stretching it now, but of course once upon a time, thats what most of us had - in the late 90's / early 00's:) and many of us ran Linux / X and a DE then.
A suggestion for a current, well featured Distro that should run (very) well, (and actually have a good dollop of funkyness too ) might be DSL (Damn Small Linux).
Rescuing ancient hardware is good fun - good luck, and enjoy ;)
111 • re#109 and assorted old hardware (by hab on 2009-03-11 18:13:19 GMT from Canada)
I am writing this on a toshiba tecra 8000 lappie with a pentium II 266mghz 192 megs ram and a 4G harddrive running right now on pclinuxos updated to the latest from the repos.
A fairly modern distro on an ancient box, so it is doable. It's not terribly quick but it is usable.
@deniZen Your comments about ranting are spot on. Rather than find a solution lets just rant and make unsupportable statements. Like i said months ago, where i live, in the winter people bitch about the cold. In the summer they bitch about the heat?????? I guess people just like to bitch. Go figure!
cheers
112 • Warp Speed Mr. Ubuntu .. ;) (?) (by DeniZen yet again .. on 2009-03-11 18:14:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
From what I have read, and fully substantiated by a Work Colleague who has been testing the Alpha's (and getting all excited), Ubuntu 9.04 has apparently acquired a truly monumental speed boost.
Well now .. ;)
If that turns out to be so, then the bar will be truly raised
113 • Simply Mepis (by Adam Drake on 2009-03-11 18:49:01 GMT from United States)
I was looking for a distro that easily installs to a flash drive and also supports the newish Broadcom Wireless on my Dell laptop from work. Simply Mepis is the answer. Mint doesn't install as well on the flash drive. Dream Linux was, well, a dream on the flash drive, but for all the GUI tools, I couldn't get ndiswrapper to work with the driver from Dell. The only problem I had with Mepis was that I had to set the root in grub to 0,0 before it would boot.
This whole thing might be off topic, but I'm super excited I got it to work and wanted to share. Next, I'm downloading XFCE and creating a swap partition. KDE is killing me...
114 • LOL! (#108) (by Anonymous on 2009-03-11 19:00:45 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (disrespectful, off-topic).
115 • re#114 (by hab on 2009-03-11 19:08:37 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
116 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-11 19:23:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #113
Adam, your Broadcom Wireless doodad wouldn't happen to be draft n based on an Atheros chipset perchance?
I bought a TP-Link usb dongle thingy (it is a work of art, no, really, it is beautifully built and is a shining example of what manufacturers should aim for. to replace an older but deceased b/g model by a different manufacturer. It died cos' it got too hot...and I dropped it...
Anyway, the new one is of course draft n, (well, move with the times) and, in my naivety, I had hoped some of the distros might have supported it...well actually no.
I then decided this bit of kit was an investment for the future...you buy it for £n and a year later it is worth 1p...just like real life...
Then you mentioned Mepis, for which I thank you.
117 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-11 20:11:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
118 • No subject (by hab on 2009-03-11 20:27:08 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
119 • Lightweight distros, my "rants" :) (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-03-11 20:35:39 GMT from United States)
@Eddie: As already pointed out a lot of distros will run on a Pentium II. Some will even run well. You didn't tell us how much memory you have. The amount of RAM would really determine what distro I would recommend. For example, I saw recommendations for Wolvix and Austrumi. Those are live CDs with installers based on the Linux-Live scripts. They won't run in <96MB of RAM and IME anything less than 128MB may be problematic. There was a recommendation for Damn Small Linux. IME that distro runs better than any other on systems with very limited resources, like only 32-48MB of RAM, but it uses a 2.4.31 kernel and old apps and I find it rather limiting. DeLi Linux fits into the same category: a good choice for the very low end but not something I'd run with more memory.
I'm almost afraid to mention this now, but: if you have 64MB of RAM or better you may want to look at Vector Linux Light. No, not the Standard version unless you have >128MB of RAM, but the Light version. VL Light 6.0 beta 3 released this week. There is a package of fixes to install to correct known bugs in that release but otherwise it seems remarkably stable. See: http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=8865.0
On my supposed "rants": Last week I was accused of hating Slackware. This week I was accused of pro-Slackware "rants". Which is it? :) Of course I have to chuckle. Some of my upcoming reviews and articles for O'Reilly will be about distros that have nothing to do with Slackware. The reaction here should be interesting to watch.
120 • Was a good point in there some where. (by Anonymous on 2009-03-11 21:18:09 GMT from United States)
I too have seen too many INIT 17 or 18 GRUB error lately on many Debian based installs.
But, I have 2 different machines that are getting X errors. Mandriva XFCE, after the first boot after install it came up in 640x480 then I tested and changed it to 800x600 16bbs. everything was fine for that day until I rebooted. I now either get a message looking for /DEV or drops to a command line with a x error and offers to dump information.
The other did it on the first boot after I installed and set up the users with ZenWalk 6.0. It was trying to do a mode that I know will not work with this PC (not enough video memory). Yes, I did tell it to do 640x480 splash screens and it stayed in a window in a spash screen through all the messages but went into a command line that I could type over the splash screen. Is there a parameter in startx to set it to 640x480? Safe mode doesn't seem to help.
121 • #120: Setting X resolution (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-03-11 21:43:05 GMT from United States)
X resolutions are determined by autodetection in the newest X.org server or by what is in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file in distros that still use slightly older revisions of X. The good news is that even with the latest X you can add what you need to an xorg.conf file and get the settings you want.
As root make a backup copy of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and then edit it with your favorite text editor. You should be able to find a section that looks something like this:
# "1024x768" is also a conservative usable default resolution. If you # have a better monitor, feel free to try resolutions such as # "1152x864", "1280x1024", "1600x1200", and "1800x1400" (or whatever your # card/monitor can produce)
Subsection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 32 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubsection
EndSection
If you remove the 1024x768 then 800x600 becomes the highest resolution used. If you want to limit your systemto 640x480 you can remove 800x600 as well. Notice that there is one section for each depth. You could make the change only for your default depth (say 24bpp) and then use startx to boot at another (lower or higher) pixel depth when you want 800x600 back. Default depth is also set in xorg.conf in a section that looks like this:
# If your card can handle it, a higher default color depth (like 24 or 32) # is highly recommended.
# DefaultDepth 8 # DefaultDepth 16 DefaultDepth 24 # DefaultDepth 32
You uncomment the one you want and comment out (leading #) the rest. If you then wanted to start at 800x600x16 you could start your X session with:
startx -- -depth 16
Unfortunately startx does NOT have an option to choose resolution.
HTH, Cait
122 • PCLinuxOS Land (by ConstantObserver2 on 2009-03-11 21:49:35 GMT from United States)
Great to have Texstar in the forums and 2009.1 is performing beautifully. : )) All is good in PCLinuxOS Land.
123 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-03-11 22:06:19 GMT from Canada)
If all is good in PCLinuxOS Land, then by comparison all is excellent everywhere else. It seems to me that PCLinuxOS is gaining speed downwards...
124 • Re: Pardus & Lightweight distros (by Sertse on 2009-03-11 22:12:57 GMT from Australia)
I love Pardus, and would use it more if I didn't like my minimal installs more, but you'll might be disappointed if you're using it because it's lightweight.
Pardus is made as a full featured out of the box distro, like Ubuntu, Mint, OpenSuse, Mandriva etc. It is one of the best and undervalued OOTB distros, but I won't classify it was lightweight.
The main reason to use Pardus is good quality control and backing; it is part of the Turkish government's ongoing research into using open source technologies in their country.
125 • @ 121 (by Anonymous on 2009-03-11 22:53:01 GMT from United States)
If you are using the proprietary drivers you will need an xorg.conf no matter which release you use. Proprietary drivers are not autodetected.
In fact X.org developers have specifically removed patches that allow xserver-xorg to auto detect proprietary drivers, because we do not need that feature.
126 • Lookin' Good (by Steve on 2009-03-11 22:58:46 GMT from United States)
Just wanted to say I like your new Logo / Banner. Very nice!
127 • #125 - Proprietrary drivers (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-03-11 23:17:08 GMT from United States)
#125 makes a very valid point about X.org trying to not support proprietary video drives. Thank you for responding to my post.
I disagree with the claim that "we do not need that feature". If everyone buys Linux compatible hardware from vendors that support open source drivers then we wouldn't need anything proprietary. I don't think you are going to convince many people to avoid the latest and greatest nVidia and ATI chipsets except for a relatively small group of FSF-type purists. Indeed, this lack of support would be another reason for Microsoft fans to claim that Linux sucks because it doesn't support current hardware.
The good news is all but a few purist distros do their best to add back the needed support for proprietary drivers. That includes Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva (but not Mandriva Free), SUSE, and lots and lots of smaller or derivative distros.
I, like others here who have posted in recent weeks, have a lot of issues with the direction that the X.org developers have gone in. The over-reliance on autodetection is not a good thing IMNSHO. A few weeks ago in the DWW comments someone went so far as suggesting going back to XFree86 which is still very much in development. The problem is that most Linux users, even highly knowledgeable and technically inclined ones, aren't about to rip out their X susbsystem, replace it, and in some cases recompile apps that depend on various bits of X.org. I, personally, would love to see at least one distro go the XFree86 route and see if its truly a better option at this point.
128 • @125 (by paul b on 2009-03-11 23:20:28 GMT from United States)
I just installed PCLOS 2009.1. It detected my video card and installed the appropriate driver with next to zero prompting. The only thing I had to do was set it up for dual monitors. The install didn't seem to deem the second monitor worthy of activation.
This distro like Granular also has the super smooth samba setup (no surprise since Granular is derived from PCLOS). I think I am getting spoiled.
129 • Bombshell release (by Nobody Important on 2009-03-11 23:20:47 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS flies out of nowhere! I've been playing with Fedora 10 and KDE 4.2, but it isn't to my taste. PCLOS couldn't have come at a more perfect time.
I love the new banner for the site. Loads faster, too.
130 • Re:#124 Pardus (by jack on 2009-03-12 00:18:40 GMT from Canada)
I found that it scrolled the slashdot page in a choppy fashion (compared to kubuntu 6.06)
131 • @100 (by john frey on 2009-03-12 00:54:19 GMT from Canada)
Oh dear, I so like what you have to say most of the time Caitlyn except when you get into your pro - proprietary software "rant."
Fortunately ATI has opened up their hardware specs and are letting the community build free drivers for their cards. The main reason that is happening is the continual push from the "FSF-purists." (they are good for something) One of their points is that the community can build better drivers at a much lower cost to ATI. That means the top 2 video chip sellers, ATI and Intel, are on board. Nvidia will have to join up sooner or later. In the mean time support the hardware that is open.
WE DO NOT NEED THAT FEATURE!! AMEN.
132 • Not @100 (by john frey on 2009-03-12 00:56:11 GMT from Canada)
Should have been @Caitlyn :-P
133 • pentium ll (by dave on 2009-03-12 00:58:20 GMT from United States)
as far as the old hardware is concerned caitlyn beat me too it.indeed its not the pentium ll that would be severely limiting but the amount of ram that typically came with a pentium ll machine.ubuntu wont run in live mode on my machine with 256,although it will install and run fairly well.in my experience 128 is the lower end and for most 256 is required.
134 • @105 and more (by Woodstock69 on 2009-03-12 01:21:35 GMT from Papua New Guinea)
Some distro's that I've tried lately are TinyMe and Debris. Both are very small by comparison and have minimal installs. I'm VERY fussy about my distro and what it comes with as I don't have a fast Internet connection at the office and none at home. But these two impressed me. Works on an HP nx6320 dual core with 2 gig of ram (though neither could get the external monitor working in other than clone mode).
Debian 5 KDE and LXDE are also work great (though on the laptop didn't like my logitec usb speakers noticed by it introducing a crackling popping sound) and I have even considered replacing openSuSE 11.1 with one of them. I remember trying to install Debian 2 many moons ago and fought a furious fight before giving up in much sadness and trying Mandrake, Fedora, Vector and finally settling on openSuSE. That machine is a Pentium 4 single core, intel 850G motherboard, 768MB RDRAM, ATI 9550 card and Extigy USB sound. TinyMe and Debris work quite fast on that rig also.
I've also installed LM KDE 6 RC1 on the laptop and I have to say that KDE4 has come a long way. One annoyance is the lack of dual monitor functionality though. The forums are a nightmare to find relevant info and solutions on. Mainly get hits for ATI dual head cards, not simply getting an external laptop monitor out of clone mode. Worked great in LM 5 KDE3. Just a click of an option, but it's not there in LM 6 KDE4.
I think that KDE4 has a bit of a ways to go with adding options to the degree of KDE3, but it's getting there. 6 months ago I wouldn't touch KDE4, now it's installed dual boot with windoze on my work laptop. Slowly migrating all the windows stuff over to Linux. In fact I'm posting with it now in LM 6 KDE. Still don't get the whole plasma/widget thing though, can't see any advantage over the old desktop style and is actually hindering my productivity (until I learn its nuances) and dolphin is twisting my head so I use konqueror mostly. Maybe it'll click soon...
Love the improvements to WINE. Would be lost without it. Still some work to be done and I think they can concentrate a little less on games, but invaluable nonetheless.
As always a lively comments section and a great DWW.
135 • Ref#123 (by Mike Cougar on 2009-03-12 02:49:49 GMT from United States)
I don't fully understand your comment unless you mean by download as in the "hit list".
I'm not much of a fan of PCLOS forum, but I do like the distro. I also like Mandriva. There sort of cousins. PCLOS runs on my very old PII 96meg ram laptop.
I will try PCLOS and see how it has has improved.
136 • Ref#129 (by Anonymous on 2009-03-12 02:52:18 GMT from United States)
"I love the new banner for the site. Loads faster, too"
The new banner does look better. Much improved, or maybe just different. I don't ever remember seeing a new banner before.
Come to think of it, the web site does boot faster.
137 • RE: 125, 131 - "We don't need that feature" (by HH on 2009-03-12 04:12:18 GMT from Canada)
Well congratulations to you, but what about all the linux newbies to whom creating an xorg.conf is a daunting task? Ah, who needs them anyways, right?
When I read #125 I initially took the "we don't need that feature" as sarcastic, but then I'm one of the people disappointed with the recent moves xorg has made. Removing a standard key-binding because it conflicts with an editor's (a hacker's editor bindings are far more important than the end user's ability to easily kill xorg, right?) and making it harder for end users to run graphics drivers (serves them right for buying that hardware, right?) - these are actions that speak of arrogance and a lack of commitment to the "lowly" end-user.
Xorg should be working to make linux adoption easier, not harder.
138 • re #123 (by beany on 2009-03-12 04:51:29 GMT from United States)
"seems to me that PCLinuxOS is gaining speed downwards..."
ouch I suppose you have a point, just nothing really all that important to say.
I'm happy to se PCLinuxOS has come back around and delivered nicely. Works right out the can in my EEEPC 900 even.
It's nice to see your favs rise in the distrowatch ranks and some people love to see a few fall. I'm not an Ubuntu user and have no disregard for it or it's current ranking. It's wonderful distro choice for many.
139 • PCLinuxOS (by Mike Cougar on 2009-03-12 06:04:27 GMT from United States)
Wow! Quite impressed. It all works. And does so beautifully. I haven't been a big fan of this distro for quite a while, but I must say, I'm quite impressed. I just finished downloading and buring the disk. I downloaded the gnome version. It does have a beautifull inface that's for sure. I need to install and see how everything runs. So far, so good.
140 • pclos (by LiamG on 2009-03-12 11:03:30 GMT from United States)
It's great to see Texstar back, but with him and the ripper gang splitting up it will be interesting to see what happens.
http://tinymelinux.com/doku.php/news:tinyme-split
141 • @ 135 (by DeniZen on 2009-03-12 11:04:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
"PCLOS runs on my very old PII 96meg ram laptop."
I'm astounded. Is thats with KDE - or CLi only?
If 'with KDE', when you say it "runs" - do you suggest it is 'usable' or does it simply (eventually) load a desktop?
142 • Thanks to all. (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-03-12 12:02:57 GMT from United States)
Thanks to everyone for the recommendations for a light distro to run on a pentium 2 machine I'm trying to resurrect. I agree about needing as much ram as I can put in the machine. This is a work in progress and is being done for the fun of it. Thanks again.
143 • No subject (by Eyes-Only on 2009-03-12 12:30:58 GMT from United States)
I was completely unaware of the new banner for DistroWatch until someone mentioned it back there and brought it to our attention. So I just had to be a "curious cat" and go back to take a gander for myself. NICE artwork and a job well-done! Kudos to whomever the artist was. Very chic and stylish!
I've been "into Linux" now for 4 years---and was completely baffled by this week's article on "LVM". But that's quite all right just the same! Linux is such a huge world that we can all find our own special niche here. Mine just happens to be desktops/window managers, getting them up and running, theming them ( for myself ), testing software, etc.
Mostly though? I've enjoyed the comments this week most of all! This is where I learn so very much---as such a knowledgeable group of people voice their opinions here, relate their experiences, help others with problems, tell which distro works best with their hardware setup, and so on. I keep reading straight through until Sunday ( and appreciate the occasional laugh along the travel! ).
Thanks Chris, Ladislav, and the Linux Community @ Large for yet another great and inspiring DWW! :)
Amicalement/Cheers!
Eyes-Only "L'Peau-Rouge"
144 • Old pcs? (by M1k on 2009-03-12 12:36:07 GMT from Italy)
MacPup....lovely....fast... running on my old k6-300 My wife uses it to navigate on internet... try it!
145 • The antix mepis linux distribution (by Priscilla on 2009-03-12 15:51:56 GMT from United States)
I just want to comment two things. One that this one is settled on now on two machines that have seen many linux distributions just in the 18 months I have been here. The speed on the older computer here surprised us and it worked straight away with no "tweaking" other than theme.
It is also on a one year old notebook computer made by Toshiba Satellite. And is blazing fast! The internet set up by itself with only our key and password needed. We had a LOT of trouble with that with other linux, either no connection or dropped after a time.
The other thing on my mind is the ongoing prejudice in here for some distributions of linux with people getting admonished for critisising or advocating one or other linux. There is "caitlyn" with daily advocating of her's and her yelling at others who advocate other than her's. Not a powerful argument for fairness here (who is he or she anyway, part owner of this distro watch?).
There is a noterik named individual who seems to have to deeply critisise individual posting here when opinions are stated (is she or he another owner editor or contributor of money??).
This website is world wide in popularity, it seems. Prejudice one way or other harms linux. Linux is in a war with Microsoft. Why have our own soldiers in that way fight each other?
It is natural to see a linux you like or works better than others. What is not so natural is pretending like your choice is the only valid one.
146 • RE: 145 - Who Caitlyn Martin is. (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-03-12 18:13:55 GMT from United States)
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2654
147 • #145... Yelling? Really? (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-03-12 18:31:00 GMT from United States)
How do I "yell"? Where do I ever even criticize someone for liking a different distro? Show me even one example. Please. I run seven different distros here currently.
Prejudice? Sorry, I don't see it. My relationship to DistroWatch? I wrote for all of three weeks on a fill in basis. I have no financial interest in DistroWatch. The only prejudice I see here is in a few people posting under different names who really don't like *me*. No matter what I post here I can't win with them, even when I post is little more than technical support. Oh well....
Who am I? Someone who does Linux and UNIX consulting and support for a living and has done for 14 years now.
@146: Eddie Wilson: Thanks for the reminder that once again I need to ask O'Reilly to update my bio. I haven't been in Green Bay in a while.
148 • @145 (by Notorik on 2009-03-12 19:28:56 GMT from United States)
I agree with your last 2 comments. Apparently you are misreading me and my intentions. I have several points to make here.
1. I am not associated with this website or any distro. I do not speak for the owner of this website or anyone else. My opinions are my own.
2. You must be intentionally trying to misunderstand me because I have clearly stated that I don't like to see any distro trashed just for the purpose of going on a rant. If you have facts and can articulate the problems you are having either here or (preferably) on the offending distro's forum, then you may find someone to help you solve the problem.
3. I do not dispute an individuals right to express an opinion about something. I do take umbrage to an opinion expressed in a disrespectful or degrading manner. However, as I have stated previously, I don't control this forum. I have attempted to provide whatever (limited)information I might have on a given topic that I feel maybe someone else can benefit from. I also respond to some opinions that I like, agree with, or dislike. However, on a forum like this there are certain rules of civility and decorum that are enforced regardless of what I think.
4. I have no interest in "deeply" criticizing anyone. If you have been following closely you would have seen where I posted the following definition with regard to prejudice/ethnocentrism. This was posted in response to some who feel the necessity to nitpick English spelling/grammer in an international forum with multitudes of non-native English speakers:
eth⋅no⋅cen⋅trism
–noun 1. Sociology. the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture.
2. a tendency to view alien groups or cultures from the perspective of one's own.
Can you can give me an example of when and where I have made any statement that is prejudiced?
5. As for Caitlyn, I don't know much about her except that she writes some really good stuff but I disagree with her about Puppy Linux which I like. I like DSL too but for me, Puppy runs better, is more feature rich, and has the Slackware repository at it's disposal for expandibility. DSL is reaching the end of it's life (If I understood correctly. If not I'm sure someone will correct me...) according to it's own website. I also really like Wolvix (Congratulations to Wolven on 2.0 Beta).
149 • #148: A lot to agree with, DSL end of life? (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-03-12 19:50:06 GMT from United States)
For a change I agree with almost everything Notorik has said above. It is an excellent post. I also feel the Wolvix people should be congratulated. One of my favorite distros (dare I admit that?) is, after a long gap, coming out with a major revision. I am eagerly looking forward to the final release.
Is DSL approaching the end of life? Despite the disputes between Robert and John, between Robert and John Murga, etc... I don't think that's accurate based on what I read on the website. Robert is now doing TinyCore and John is continuing with DSL. What is coming to an end is DSL at 50MB size. What I read (and I have NO inside information at all) is that the next major revision will be a 100MB version with a modern 2.6 kernel. I think that sort of progression makes sense. It is about where Puppy Linux is, isn't it?
The information on DSL and its future is at: http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=4;t=20537
150 • Wolvix fun :) (by Tom on 2009-03-12 20:31:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ok, my list of favourite tiny ditros for Eddie Wilson PII Cpu 166MHz but i haven't seen Ram size yet and i've been very lazy with research
SliTaz (if this doesn't install & work then try http://www.toms.net/rb/ ) http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz
Wolvix http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix
AntiX & possibly puppy but the puplets are good for hunting
TinyMe and Dsl had some nice things but i thought they and puppy were a bit over-rated - of those i only gave puppy a fiar go tho and that works superbly well sometimes. I still prefer Wolvix for this tho & sliTaz is truely tiny.
I think it's great the way we all howl at each other. Some people think that "community" is all about "love, peace and pasta" but the reality is much more interesting. I just hope that people aren't always as serious as they sound - i know i'm not. Linux is much more lively :) Freedom and democracy often breed lively 'discussion' which leads to greater invention :) Happy hunting and regards to all Tom :)
151 • ooops, typos (by Tom on 2009-03-12 20:34:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
I meant 'Fair' instead of 'fiar' and obviously meant 'hunting through' ;)
152 • @113 (by Adam Drake on 2009-03-12 20:52:06 GMT from United States)
During my search to find the perfect usb installable distro with broadcom wireless support, I tried PCLinuxOS Gnome on my flash drive and it works even better than SimplyMEPIS and DreamLinux, so I'm sticking with it for now.
It's still not as fast as I would expect for a Dell Latitude D630 with a Pentium Core Duo and 2G of ram.
QUESTION: Does anyone think it would perform better if I created and activated a swap partition on the drive of the laptop vs using the 8G Sandisk Cruzer for everything?
Thanks,
Adam
153 • REF-140 PCLOS (by Mike Cougar on 2009-03-12 21:15:45 GMT from United States)
Wow that was an interesting read regarding TinyME. Texstar appears to be gone from PCLOS for good. Woebegone for any new PCLOS releases. Sad to see its demised.
I do like TinyME and look forward to any new updates.
154 • @152 (by Taigong on 2009-03-12 21:36:13 GMT from Canada)
The PCLOS live USB installation tool forces you create a persistent storage space (mini 50) during the installation. If you can somehow bypass this part, make a live USB without persistent storage, you might be able to significantly reduce the boot up time. My experience with Ubuntu live USB is: with persistent storage, 1' 50" from push the power button to system ready; without persistent storage, 1'15". I tried PCLOS with persistent storage today using the same USB drive on the same PC, it took 1'48" to boot up. So my guess is that if you are capable of avoid creating persistent storage space, you may make it faster, too. By the way, my old MCN live USB also took only 1'15" to boot up on an older P4. Too bad it won't boot up on the new Core2 Due machine.
155 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-12 22:13:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #154
I am intrigued about not having a persistent storage...I was under the impression you needed this storage area to store any files you might d/l...for onward saving to the ext hard drive say.
I find on the flexxpup, (to type this funnily enough), is that the ram dumps to "pup store" every now and again. I was under the impression (delusion, lol) this is what they meant by having the "persistent" storage.
I have tried to store d/l files to an external h/d directly off the internet, but got a message that files would be overwritten if I venture to be so foolhardy as to try it.
Any glimmer of light on the subject would be welcome.
156 • RE: #135 PII 96mb of ram (by Anonymous on 2009-03-12 23:04:16 GMT from United States)
Maybe now that there is a new PCLOS out there will be new versions of PCLOS mini (Xfce) or Sam or TinyMe. They would all work with 96mb of ram. Maybe the new versions may have a install off the menu as I have found they only need more memory to run the installer and the live CD.
I agree with everyone else, If you could get more memory it would run just about anything but you may not like the performance with KDE. There have been some XFCE/Gnome hybrids that run Comfiz-Fusion pretty smoothly on low end machines. Just don't go wild with the 3D globe or cube spinning desktop and it will run surprisingly well.
BTW, Thanks Cait., I will try the startx with the depth parm or try the resetx parm on the main menu before I reinstall the OS on the two boxes (Mandriva 09', ZenWalk 6.0). The other box with the install that caused me to put the image on the hard drive (Artist-X) I will try adding a /usr partition in ext3 and see if the settings stick. But, it is running great for over a week in suspend.
157 • Re 153 (by Bruce Mellencamp on 2009-03-13 02:17:09 GMT from United States)
Where in he** does it say Texstar may be gone from PCLOS for good? How do you come to that conclusion? My take on it is that Kdulcimer and a few other devs have left to do the TinyMe thingy. Anyway, it's not PCLOS. It's PCLinuxOS. PCLOS is another distro. Geez.
158 • No subject (by Bruce Mellencamp on 2009-03-13 02:52:20 GMT from United States)
I meant to say PC/OS is another distro. Geez myself.
159 • RE: 143 New DW Banner (by ladislav on 2009-03-13 03:57:10 GMT from Taiwan)
The original idea to redesign the logo came from Fabián from VARGUX http://vargux.blogspot.com/ (in Spanish), who sent in some designs. I ended up using his globe image, but I thought I could still improved on the text, thanks to the "Alpha to Logo" filters in GIMP. So after a bit of playing around the GIMP, DistroWatch has a new banner. It's fresher and crisper than the old one and it stands out a bit more - I hope you like it :-)
160 • Light-weight modern distros for old laptop #!crunchbang, Vector, & Puppy (by awong on 2009-03-13 06:22:24 GMT from Canada)
I am currently using #!crunchbang Linux 8.10.2 for my 10 year old Toshiba Satellite 2595CDT Celeron 400MHz, 192Mb SDRAM, 6.4Gb IDE Hard Drive. It runs fairly smooth. The reason I want a modern distro/kernel is to make use of a D-Link DWA-652 wireless-N card.
I also tested Vector Linux Light beta 2 (not 3) and it ran fairly well, except in my case I had to transfer over a xorg file, in this case from Puppy Linux (as a rescue CD), to get Vector Linux Light to start X properly. Puppy Linux ran quickly, but did not have the wireless-N drivers working out of the box.
161 • @ 156 - 96mb Ram (by DeniZen on 2009-03-13 07:38:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
I honestly dont believe that XFCE is going to function *well* top of any running Linux system that has 96mb ram - esp on a PII I say that as I tried that myself with a 128mb PIII laptop and while XFCE 'ran', it was not enough memory to 'use' I soon realised that had to jiggle the memory to 192mb, (ebay to the rescue ;) ) and then XFCE ran well.
If the criteria is to get a 92mb PII to 'run' XFCE then it may succeed well enough. If the criteria is to use that machine for some work or play, then IMHO a specialist minimal distro with JWM, *Box or IceWM is almost certainly required. XFCE is not a truly 'lightweight' DE. Its just comparatively lighter than Gnome or KDE.
162 • Is PCLOS 2009.1 a 2007 Base + all updaes ISO? (by Clarification Required on 2009-03-13 07:48:25 GMT from Australia)
To my understanding, PCLOS 2009.1 = PCLOS 2007 + All/Latest Updates. PCLOS 2007 was based on a Mandriva 2007 (late 2006) base and thus, IMO, getting a bit long in the tooth (getting old).
163 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-13 09:50:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref 162 and others.
I am sensing some confusion, LOL.
There is PCLinuxOS, see here: http://www.pclinuxos.com/
(Texstar writes their copy.)
and there is PC/OS, see here: http://www.pc-os.org/
Hope that solves the puzzle, if anyone was not aware...
164 • @162 -- PCLinuxOS (by davecs on 2009-03-13 09:54:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
You understand correctly. Anyone with a 2007 install could update to the current system. Is that a bad thing? As long as the compilers work all packages can be tweaked. When that's no longer possible it will have to be rebuilt from the ground up. This means that users don't have to re-install every 6 months!
PCLinuxOS is aimed at helping new users switch to Linux, but remains a solid, stable and fast distro for everyone else. If the programs visible to the user work correctly, if the kernel is updated and new hardware works, what's wrong with that?
By the way, in using Mandriva 2007 as a base, they made a number of changes to the base system. It's not a clone or a simple remaster.
165 • A rant about tiny distros (by Tom on 2009-03-13 10:41:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
As a noob to linux it took me a while to realise that i could do things during bootup. Reasons why i liked Wolvix as a noob with an old PII no tricky questions during bootup it stayed on the Cd didn't attempt fill up Ram fast bootup Typing 'techie' stuff in was a bit beyond me so the first option i noticed was a button allowing me to choose "Fluxbox" and i paniced a bit when i realised i didn't know the default and might have chosen the "wrong" option and wondered if that would damage my machine. Ok, it wasn't my main machine but i still didn't want it wrecked.
Nowadays i can laugh about how scared i was but it took me a long time and some therapy to overcome my anger at the way Windows had made me feel. I spent years trying to appease the big bully and had even learned enough to get a job as IT Manager and User Support where i was shocked to see the lack of knowledge of the previous post-holder let alone the staff. Now i'm happier and more relaxed thanks to linux and all of you.
We may seem to be bickering amongst ourselves about this distro is better than that but i don't see it that way. It's exciting when you find something great and you want to share it with people. You don't want people to face the difficulties you have had and want to guide them through it to your favourites.
Where possible to a noob i'd say try out a variety, use a multi-boot so you can settle on one distro for a while but still be able to test out different ones. Even better is an secondary machine where you can try them out and have fun trying.
Sorry for the rant Happy hunting to all, regards from Tom :)
166 • ooops again (by Tom on 2009-03-13 10:43:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
all my neat spacing vanished :( lol, ahh well i'm sure you can skip over it just as easily without the spaces ;)
167 • antiX wifi woes (by frisco on 2009-03-13 12:44:20 GMT from United States)
I need to get info about updates run on Debian based distributions. Mepis antiX is excellent and looked like the "distro of choice" for two of the four machines we're running.
Now we ran Synaptic Package Manager last night and our reliable networking was lost upon reboot. We worked hard for about one hour attempting to recover (it is the horrid rtl8187b network adaptor which antiX was dealing with very well, no dropouts, etc) connection, but the Realtek is now not recognized at all by the networking tools in antiX. :(
Old story, different distro.
We did try ndiswrapper to no avail, and have posted in the antiX forum about this.
But meanwhile is the question about updating in Debian based systems.. it appears that it is not possible to "roll back" to the previous state before the update. ?? Any insights, notions, experiences amongst you here?
--- frisco (and gang at The House)
168 • RE: 160 Brilliant!! (by Landor on 2009-03-13 13:52:26 GMT from Canada)
Awong, I don't get to see this much in here, especially in the the area of xorg. You did something that I myself have done for years and wonder why any person never thinks about it when they go on about Xorg failing to setup properly for them. The most intelligent thing to do, copy over a working .conf.
I myself have one that's configured perfectly for all my boxes as a backup. Well, except for the test box with the Via Unichrome chipset. I have two for that, one that's standard VESA and one that's configured for the chipset, depending on if the chipset is configured properly at boot.
For those that have Xorg problems:
"IF" you have a working/perfectly setup .conf file back it up then use it for testing etc! There's no fiddling, no mucking about or worry about ruining some monitor, use it! It's the easiest and by far the quickest most intelligent solution.
Keep your stick on the ice..
Landor
169 • Wolvix install to Usb stick (by Tom on 2009-03-13 13:53:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
http://forums.wolvix.org/index.php/topic,71.0.html
170 • 102 (by Joe Biden on 2009-03-13 13:58:59 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
171 • @154 PCLinuxOS (by Adam Drake on 2009-03-13 14:24:02 GMT from United States)
The USB live install did not work for me, so I did a standard install to the flash drive. It boots fine, but once it's running, it freezes periodically and I'm forced to wait for it to catch up or whatever before it will respond to input again. That's why I'm thinking it's a (virtual) memory problem...
172 • @ 168 - copy of xorg.conf (by DeniZen on 2009-03-13 14:27:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
Landor,
That _might_ not work out, (in the circumstances that the tip was designed for)
Different distro's _may_ give hardware different device names. (e.g. pointer device etc) Thus that .conf would prevent X from loading.
Copying the relevent Display & Screen sections might assist maybe? (Working out the 'relevent' bit is not that easy ;) )
xorg.conf is (increasingly) deprecated, is all but 'blank' these days. The xorg.conf file appears to be relegated to some kind of override?
173 • PC/OS - the acronymn (by pearson on 2009-03-13 14:31:11 GMT from United States)
I usually smile when I read about PC/OS, especially when it's just called "pcos". I've read a lot about PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrom, known as PCOS. It's not a good thing ;-)
Note: this is *not* a slam against the distribution PC/OS, or even the name. I just thought I'd share the smile I usually get.
174 • #155 (by Taigong on 2009-03-13 14:37:26 GMT from Canada)
The difference between with and without persistent storage space on a live USB is that with persistent space, you can keep your bookmarks and save downloaded file directly onto the the live USB. Without persistent storage, it behave just like a live CD, you lose your bookmark (if you did so) when you turn off the computer. For saving files, yes, you can save them onto another external harddrive or USB drive. I have done that with both MCN and Ubuntu live USB without persistent storage space. Another option is that if you mount the internal hard drive writable, then you can also save the download files onto it.
175 • @ 173 (by DeniZen on 2009-03-13 14:57:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
:)
And I always thought that PCLOS sounded a bit like a phonetic interpretation of ' PC Loss' ;)
176 • Wolvix Usb anyone? (by Tom on 2009-03-13 16:04:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
http://forums.wolvix.org/index.php/topic,1085.msg5177.html#msg5177
I'm wondering if the issue mentioned is also affecting PCLinuxOS Usb? Also is it possible to put a linux-swap or a swap-file onto the usb stick - would that improve performance? I'll know the answer to half of this shortly
Good luck and regards to all Regards from Tom :)
177 • Heh (by Nobody Important on 2009-03-13 16:10:52 GMT from United States)
Slashdot thought the "PCLinuxOS" name was kind of silly too, but I think of it as a tone of endearment. At least you know what it is when you hear the name. I can't tell you how many people go, "Ubuntu looks great, but what's up with the name?" when I introduce them to my desktop.
Tried PCLinuxOS 2009.1. It booted to an unmoving white terminal prompt line, which a lot of older distros do (Sidux had this issue too). I have an integrated graphics card and a nVidia 6200 card, and I use the latter, but a lot of older distros get confused by that (though sometimes the ingetrated one works better, I'd rather use my fancy nVidia card). Are there any solutions out there? Anybody else with this problem?
I loved PCLinuxOS 2007 and loved it back in the day; I'm disapppointed I can't get in to test the new one. I'd post on the forums, but I read a few posts and decide I'll try and stay as far away as I can from those guys. No offence, but they kind of scare me.
178 • #177 (by Taigong on 2009-03-13 16:45:17 GMT from Canada)
Did you try to boot with the safe mode? I tried PCLOS2009 last night on an old P3. It froze on default setting. So I tried the safe mode and it worked. I end up installed it on to the hard drive. My feeling is that PCLOS2009 is not as responsive as the old Mandriva 2008.1, but is acceptable.
179 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-13 17:33:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #174
Thanks Taigong, I felt I almost understood what you suggested, LOL. so thanks for the tip. On the flexxpup I'm playing with as I type it gives the option of "unmount" or "open files" when clicking on the drive icon.
I'll have another bash at that and see what occurs...
And, re #177, I too have seen the terminal prompt, so, can I echo the request, er...what then?
180 • @176 USB Swap (by Adam Drake on 2009-03-13 17:37:49 GMT from United States)
I created a 2 GB swap partition on my hard drive an added it to fstab. I even tried disabling the swap on my USB drive to make sure it only used the new one. It didn't help the performance. I think that the r/w to the flash drive is just too slow (still using PCLinuxOS). Dream Linux seemed a lot faster and didn't freeze periodically. Too bad I couldn't get the wireless situation straightened out on that distro...
181 • #171 (by Taigong on 2009-03-13 17:41:34 GMT from Canada)
Did you mean you installed PCLOS using USB as a hard drive when you said you did a normal install? If so, what will happen if you put this USB into a different PC? The reason I ask that is a normal hard drive installation is configged specifically for that computer and it will not try to detect the hardware every time when it starts, like a live CD or USB. I would image there will be some problems.
182 • re#181 (by hab on 2009-03-13 18:14:18 GMT from Canada)
Taigong, i believe that what you say is not correct. I have multiple machines and there are times when i swap harddrives around. It is my experience that linux will boot on another box when i swap drives around. It will not boot to a graphical interface but it will boot to a terminal and allow me to change video settings or i can edit xorg.conf.
I recently changed a comp. for a friend involving a new motherboard, video card, and ram. I moved his old harddrive to the new machine, it booted into linux {terminal mode) and i set the video to the new card and he was off and running. Winxp on the same drive could not be coerced into life! He ended up reinstalling windows. I don't touch windows anymore so that was entirely his responsibility!
Linux does not to the best of my knowledge, install a specific set of software for each machine. It does hardware detection every time it boots.
cheers
183 • RE: 172/181-2 (by Landor on 2009-03-13 19:29:53 GMT from Canada)
#172
You're correct yes, but not totally either. Devices can be an issue regarding naming convention, but from person experience and all my systems are different, I haven't run into this issue "as of yet" (is that pure luck perhaps? maybe) You are right on the issue of the .conf file now being used to overrride settings, but it still does override them none the less :)
#'s 181-2
In the case of compiling your own kernel it would then only identify specific hardware at boot. Some things like hard drives and such "may" and I use that very loosely, "may" not be an issue with your own rolled kernel, depending of course if the drivers are the same between systems. In changing a hard drive's order it's not an issue where it won't work as Hab said, just needing to be reconfigured.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
184 • further to #168 (by hab on 2009-03-13 19:54:25 GMT from Canada)
Landor, another trick i've used on occasion with a live cd installed to a drive and the install not booting to a graphical interface or to a messed up graphical interface is to boot from the live and working cd, mount the partition with the installed, not functioning correctly installation and copy over the working xorg.conf from the cd to the installed not working correctly linux. This has saved me a lot of time on the occasion that a linux install does not work right.
cheers
185 • antiX wifi issue [SOLVED] (by Frisco on 2009-03-13 20:23:19 GMT from United States)
As posted in antiX forums, the networking issue which cropped up following an upgrade resolved itself. We don't know why for sure, it came back after shutting down the OS completely and then booting up (not a reboot from x).
I am wondering if it has to do with some script during the upgrade not fully completing before my reboot, making it a moot issue.
Either way, I'm putting this in here because antiX remains our distro of choice for two machines here after a LOT of attempts with other distros.
186 • #182 (by Taigong on 2009-03-13 20:36:13 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It actually demonstrated that my guess is correct. When you swamp the hard drive, it will not boot properly and completely. It only boots to a terminal and require configuration. This because it was configged for a different PC. That is the problem I meant. This is not like a live CD or live USB anymore. A live USB works like this: you plug in the USB, push the power button, in a little more than a minute, the computer is ready for your daily work: surfing the net, typing a report, analyzing data, burning a CD, scanning a document, etc. All of that without any configuration on a computer you never used before, say in a hotel or somebody else PC in the office. That is what live CD or USB is about. If you can only boot to a terminal, then it's a failure for a live USB.
187 • re#186 (by hab on 2009-03-13 21:07:39 GMT from Canada)
You misunderstand! I am not talking about a live cd but the installation resulting from a live cd install.
When you swap harddrives into a different system and the system will not boot to a graphical interface or a messed up one, it is hardly a boot problem. This is only a failure of the configuration of the video subsystem. Not a show stopper for anyone with a little linux knowledge.
Think about it this way. If in any comp. the video card goes south and it is replaced with a different one than linux will still boot but reconfiguration of the display subsystem at this point in time for most distros has to be done manually.
Have you ever replaced a video card in a winshite box? The hassles and headaches from that exercise make linux seem pretty damned easy and convienient.
cheers
188 • re#186 (by hab on 2009-03-13 22:02:34 GMT from Canada)
I believe that a misunderstanding and lack of knowledge of unix like systems is at play here.
A unix or clone that does not boot into a graphical interface is not considered to be incompletely booting or failing to work. Unix and linux as a unix clone exhibit the lack of need (at least by the system, not nessessarily the user) of a graphical interface and its absence is not considered detrimental.
With unix and linux a graphical interface is superfluous and the machine can easily and effectively be run from the command line. In fact apart from perhaps twiddling icons anything done from a graphical interface can be done from the command line.
cheers
189 • swapping drives (by Tom on 2009-03-13 23:51:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've heard of this issue but seem to have been lucky so far. Often a drive i pull out of one machine and plug into another boots up fine into a usable desktop. Linux seems a lot more robust but even Windoze often seems to have done little more than grumble "Found new Hardware" ... "Usb device detected" (i feel like patting it on the head and saying "Well done, good boy" lol, Windoze seems to purposefully start at the least relevant devices and then ends up installing a driver for the screen that i've been watching the whole time anyway. rofls
My main machine died earlier tonight :( so i'm writing this from a hastily installed Wolvix 2.0 beta on a PII but with 512Mb ram & a healthy swap admittedly. I need to find a command that shows me cpu speed although i could just reconfigure conky. Also wondering if it's possible to find out 'how fast' my hard-drive is. I know Wolvix isn't made to be run on old machines but its still quite fast.
Happy hunting to all :)
190 • RE: 184/189 (by Landor on 2009-03-14 00:37:00 GMT from Canada)
# 184
Thanks, I'll have to remember that one when I'm out and about doin' an install for someone/working on another system.
# 189
Simple command that one is :)
hdparm -tT /dev/hda (replace the a if there's another drive with the corresponding letter, or change it to sda for SATA drives)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
191 • RE: 190 (addition) (by Landor on 2009-03-14 00:38:33 GMT from Canada)
Forgot, it has to be run as root or using sudo...depending on the distro
192 • Thx :) (by Tom at 2009-03-14 03:31:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
great that gave me 6Mb/s so i think it's not that thats causing my uploads to be so slow. Thanks Landor :)
193 • @177 (by Warp0 on 2009-03-14 03:42:18 GMT from United States)
The other thing to try with older computers is the noscsi boot option. Press F3 then noscsi then enter .. fixed boot lock on my X20.
194 • re#189 (by hab on 2009-03-14 03:43:28 GMT from Canada)
Tom in my experience in swapping drives is that when i swap from one comp to another if the video chip(sets) is/are from the same manufacturer ati, nv, etc. than the system will usually boot to a graphical login or user account. Especially if the chips are only one or a couple or three generations apart.
It is only when i cross video chip(sets) that i have to manually reconfigure. I believe that if you reflect on the changes you made that that is probably case.
cheers
195 • #188/189 (by Taigong on 2009-03-14 04:16:50 GMT from Canada)
Read my comments in 181 re 171 again, I was asking question about using normal installation onto a USB as an alternative to live USB installation. Because I thought it would not be the same as a live USB. Although you didn't understand what I was talking about, but what you described was just as what I guessed.
The advantage of using a live USB, or live CD for that matter, is being able to carry your OS and application around and being able to use it everywhere without installation or configuration. For a live USB, not being able to boot to the environment for the daily work needs would be considered a problem. Just imagine when you boot that USB in office, you need to do a configuration, then when you take it home to boot in your home computer you need to configure it again, then when you use it in another computer you need to configure it again, and then... and then ....This may be fun to somebody. But to me and 99% of the computer users who use computer only as a tool, not being a tool used by the computer, that is not acceptable.
"A unix or clone that does not boot into a graphical interface is not considered to be incompletely booting or failing to work. " You should also include MS DOS in there.
"Unix and linux as a unix clone exhibit the lack of need (at least by the system, not nessessarily the user) of a graphical interface " GENIUS!! A graphical interface is the interface between user and the computer (GUI), of course not required by the system.
"In fact apart from perhaps twiddling icons anything done from a graphical interface can be done from the command line." So you can start Firefox, OpenOffice, GIMP, form the command line, right?, RIGHT??? And you try to tell us that all of the effort for the development of KDE, GNOME, Xfce, Enlightment, and ........ are not needed. My observation is that more, if not most, recent effort in developing those distros has been put into creating better GUI.
196 • re#194 (by hab on 2009-03-14 05:19:05 GMT from Canada)
Sorry but your lack of unix knowledge is showing. Oh and btw holding up straw man arguments just does not wash either.
Of course linux can be installed to a usb key in either way. As a live boot ala a live cd or you can treat the usb key like any other harddrive and partition it as say /, /home and swap. Install your fav distro and away you go. With 8G usb drives going for 15-20$ canadian this is a an easy and convienient way to pack a lot of crap around. I myself am waiting for circa 100G affordable drives.
We are talking a real os here not a bunch of interrupts strung together to make you think you've got an os. I honestly can not think of any list i'd want to include ms dos on. Except possibly a list of broken, brain damaged reimplementions of a unixish like system.
In point of fact most web servers are remotely admined over a command line. You understand a headless web server can deliver graphical web pages. For the functions you mention try lynx, for pretty pictures use links instead. I must admit that i can't, right off hop find a command line office program altho there are probably some. Graphical editing proggies predate the widespread adoption of guis so i am sure there are some still around.
Go back and look at the history of unix. It was cli driven looong before a gui was even a glimmer in a developers eye.
I am not remotely opposed to guis but neither am i at all intimidated by a cli cause in the early days of linux you had to deal and understand the cli before ya got all gui.
cheers
197 • No subject (by A Modern Man on 2009-03-14 05:55:10 GMT from United States)
CLI had there day. So did a Model-A Ford. The turn of the century Model A has long been replaced by V8's, Hybrids, automatics, etc,etc. GUI's have replaced CLI. Who in there right mind wants to fritz around with command line nonsense when a simple point-and-click works much easier.
198 • re#197 (by hab on 2009-03-14 06:10:08 GMT from Canada)
So, ya learned to drive on auto trans. Hop into a standard and lets see how ya do! Bit of a bitch that. Coordinating clutch, brake and accelerator!
Ya learned to drive on a standard. Hop into an auto. Gee this soooooo flippin' easy.
cheers
199 • No subject (by RxB on 2009-03-14 06:58:57 GMT from United States)
>175 When reading "PCLOS", I imagine a PC being fired from a U-Boat's torpedo tube.
A good read about partitioning this week, even with the very tricky LVM bits.
200 • @198 (by Anonymous on 2009-03-14 09:58:54 GMT from India)
CLI and GUIs oth have their places. For certain things, experts will many a time prefer to use CLIs.
As far as car analogy is concerned, have you ever driven a good manual transmission with great gear box and a responsive steering? Some of us would pick a great gear box any day over auto transmission.
201 • to gui or not to gui (by Tom on 2009-03-14 11:00:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Who, in their right mind, wants to fritz around with command line nonsense when a simple point-and-click works much easier." lol, err most servers find a gui adds extra vulnerabilities. So if you've ever been on the web you'll probably have bumped into a few pages hosted on machines that have no gui themselves.
So network admins, system admins, programmers/developers, technical support staff and people who like to get a bit more out of their machine all probably prefer a gui-less environment for many tasks. When you say "in their right minds" then i'd have to say that could be asked of any human endeavour or lack of.
If we are just talking about a package that can read/write office files then "nano" springs to mind although it's limited and i suspect there are "worderfect"y type packages. I once wrote a website that was quite fast, so fast that one of my companies competitors rang me up to find out what i had used to make it. He was expecting "Dreamweaver" or something and when i said "Notepad" there was a very long silence from his end and then he hung up. A short while later we were forced to close my part of the site because of legal action claiming it was "too fast and anti-competitive". lol
On the other hand i do find it a lot easier to use pretty gui's and enjoy desktop efects when i'm doing officey type things but who, in their right minds, would want to work in an office ;)
Good luck and regards from Tom
202 • sorry (by Tom on 2009-03-14 11:28:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
I wish i could retract my last post. I'm sorry, my main machine has just died so i'm not a happy bunny. Fortunately there are plenty of distros that have been able to resurrect my old PII but it's not torrenting uploads well at the mo :(
203 • RE: 192/195 (by Landor on 2009-03-14 12:52:05 GMT from Canada)
RE: 192
Glad I could help. I seemed to have missed you asking about cpu info in the same post so here you go.... cat /proc/cpuinfo is what you want, and "doesn't" have to be run as root/sudo.
RE: 195
That is a bit wrong. "IF" you're running a kernel that's patched and has every loading, even the kitchen sink, the only thing I can think of that would pose a problem is your video card/chipset settings in xorg. So you could do a full install to usb (which may boot quicker of course) and take it from system to system based on that. The only thing you'd need to do is switch the driver in Xorg to VESA permanently, that would allow it to basically work on "almost" all systems. You might find other issues too, but they're expected ones, like wifi for instance.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
204 • Wolvix 2 beta (by capricornus on 2009-03-14 13:43:48 GMT from Belgium)
As a major fanboy of Hunter, I was rather disappointed by version 2 beta. What added value is there to see? Is CrossOver working better, no, this XFCE still refuses to recognize what is installed. Is VLC there, no, it is not there, not in the reps, and to be installed properly. A shoutcast-mp3/aacplus is not played properly, nor by mplayer, neither by an alternative. So I switch back to the excellent Lenny 5, Debian pur sang, of which I thought it was nearly dead or so. It is remarkable easy, stable, complete and fun to handle. And quick.
205 • Wolvix 2 (by Tom on 2009-03-14 14:35:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
@ 204, Capricornus Wow, it's a shame not to see that posted in the Wolvix forums where it might get noticed and provoke some changes. Their forum has several boards discussing different aspects of wolvix 2 and one that might be relevant is the "e: Suggestions of applications for Wolvix 2.0.0" or perhaps "Release Candidates & Beta versions" or "Graphics & Multimedia". It's not as though they are ignoring suggestions or are difficult to talk to. Try letting them know your thoughts
@ 203, Landor (again) Brilliant, thanks for that. A very informative command and very useful, thanks )
206 • klikit linux-TUTORIALS (by jack at 2009-03-14 14:49:18 GMT from Canada)
I have just heard of this in OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/comments/21128
I checked DW and found that it has been out about a year and there are NO reviews. This is both interesting and discouraging Interesting because the forums seem to have a fair number of posts. Discouraging because it shows me that there is a lot ( a tremendous amount) that I know nothing about wrt Linux. There is a link to a very detailed explanation on how to partition a hard drive. It is written so simply that even I can understand it. Well except that it seems that "cosbear" runs all the time as root. But that is probably my misunderstanding. So, a plea for someone competent to do a review.Please!
207 • #206 (by jack on 2009-03-14 15:14:56 GMT from Canada)
the url for the tutorial
http://www.elkspirit.net/wiki/3PartInsIntro.htm
208 • helpful hints (by john frey on 2009-03-14 17:18:46 GMT from Canada)
Taigong said, "So you can start Firefox, OpenOffice, GIMP, form the command line, right?, RIGHT???"
Yes I can, and so can you. Open a terminal in an X session and type any one of those words and you will see the program start up. In fact, when a program is not starting properly one of the 1st things I try is starting it from the command line where I can often see error messages that are not being displayed in the GUI.
Just about everything in Linux is driven from the command line. You might run into the terms "front-end" and "back-end". Often these refer to the GUI display and the command line program that provides all the functionality, respectively. Any desktop icons, quick launch icons and menu icons you click on are simple command line scripts like /usr/bin/foo to start the program. Sometimes they come with extra options for compatibility, security, whatever.
A complex example from one of my own desktop icons is: /home/warpengi/.mozilla/firefox/io5fs6aq.default/extensions/VMwareVMRC@vmware.com/plugins/vmware-vmrc -h "192.168.3.88:443" -M "32"
That command launches the VMware remote console (vmware-vmrc) extension in Firefox. The option -h tells it to establish an https connection with the ip address and port number. I'm assuming the -M "32" tells it which virtual machine to connect to. Everything else (/home/warpengi/.mozilla/firefox/io5fs6aq.default/extensions/VMwareVMRC@vmware.com/plugins) is just the path to the application.
A simpler example: /usr/bin/kmail launches kmail. (shockingly obvious, I know)
Often running a command with -v will increase the verbosity or the amount of feedback you get. Once again, helpful when something is not working and you want to find out why.
209 • cli (by Claude on 2009-03-15 01:29:46 GMT from Canada)
Info given here much help! And thank! (The english bad . Sorry)
210 • #208 (by Taigong on 2009-03-15 03:15:40 GMT from Canada)
What you said is not shocking at all. What happened was that you were fooled by the illusion that you can start an application from a command line without graphical interface. Actually, your so-called "x session" is just another way to say the graphical user interface. Therefore, what you did is just like clicking the iron. The command line instruction you described only works when the graphical interface is up and running. Most likely you opened that terminal by clicking the icon from the graphical user interface, right? Since you seem to be pretty good with CLI, please try this. Boot your system into text mode, log in, then without start the X, type your CLI you described above, see if it works.
211 • re#210 (by hab on 2009-03-15 04:00:38 GMT from Canada)
Taigong, please do not take this personally but i think it is safe to say that there are a few of us old unix geezers out here who are ROTFLMFAO at your statements.
Either your understanding of english is limited or you appear to be suffering from cognitive dissonance.
I flat don't care what you believe and i am perfectly willing to leave your miss perception and lack of understanding uncorrected. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.
cheers
212 • re 211 (by Anonymous on 2009-03-15 05:28:31 GMT from Romania)
I'm very happy for you that you're having such a nice time. But how about stoping the Unix God attitude and trying to use your superior Unix knowledge to minimize his "lack of unix knowledge". Just stating that you're smart and he is dumb won't help. Put your knowledge to use and explain the issue in words that a mere mortal like him can understand. If you're not able to do that, at least leave the mockery aside.
213 • @210 (by john frey on 2009-03-15 05:39:47 GMT from Canada)
My so called "X session" is a graphical user interface. Huh. Well I guess you learn something new every day;-) LOL.
Seriously, though. I don't want to poke fun (well I do but I'm going to refrain). Seriously, starting an application form the command line without a gui is no illusion. I've been running applications like vi, ssh, and wget without a gui front end for years. Someone mentioned hdparm earlier. That was a useful application but these days I'm mostly running SATA. There must be hundreds, maybe even thousands, of cli applications that run without a gui.
I think we can agree that we can't run gui applications without an x server. That's a no brainer. Although I should add there are applications that run with an ncurses front end and they look and act much like gui applications even including point and click with the mouse. That's a whole 'nother subject.
I pressed F12 and my yakuake (how did I ever get by without that marvelous app?) window dropped down. I tabbed to the login for my local machine and typed Firefox in my previous example. That's how I accessed my terminal. No icons needed because it is running all the time.
It is not necessary to reboot into text mode to access a terminal login with no X. You can simply press ctrl - alt - F1 (F1 to F6 may all be options), login and perform your tests then press ctrl - alt - F7 to get back to the gui. Try it sometime.
In short, the number things we can do in linux is nothing short of astounding to me. I'm sure glad I learned some cli stuff so I'm not limited to the gui which, although indispensible, is sometimes clunky or simply incapable of doing some of the things that can be done on the command line.
214 • re#212 unix god (by hab on 2009-03-15 06:08:41 GMT from Canada)
Listen, it is not MY job to teach anybody anything. It is up to them to decide what THEY want to learn. Somebody's ignorance is THEIR problem, Not mine. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink!
It is not even remotely about unix being god or any of that crap. It is only about knowing history. If you want to speculate about where linux and computing (or indeed any endeavor) are going it is a good thing to know where it has been.
cheers
215 • re 214 (by Anonymous on 2009-03-15 06:14:47 GMT from Romania)
Do as you wish, but as I've said, try to leave the insults aside.That's all.
cheers also
216 • re#215 (by hab on 2009-03-15 06:26:36 GMT from Canada)
You have me at a disadvantage because you seem to be implying that i have said something insulting. Or insulted somebody.
I haven't the faintest idea what you are referring to.
cheers
217 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-15 11:08:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #213 and associated comments...
Well, I'm not bothered about all the semantics etc, I suggest all this animated discussion really is just misunderstanding and use of "language" clash, bit like being married...you would have sworn that when the other half said the "I do" thing they understood who wore the trousers...LOL.
And of course, as has been mentioned a while ago...sometimes if English is not your mother tongue it is easy to offend without meaning to do so in the slightest.
Anyway, despite the above I was really gratified to learn about the cntl/alt/Fn stuff so thanks for that, no really. I have bought, at some expense, various books on Linux and the only problem with a book the size of a telephone directory is finding the address from a number...if you follow me (I'm talking UK here BTW).
And to stay on topic I had a play with the Wolvix 2 beta and for what it's worth it looks quite interesting...makes a change from the usual Ubuntu brown,
Noted that Wolvix is quite fussy tho' in that when i signed off last night with the ext hard drive attached, Wolvix refused to boot until it was re-attached/switched on. Found also some settings had not persisted, but there again it is a beta version. (mental note to pass this on to devs, as in following CM's advice...)
And did anyone play with the moonOS? i was quite taken with the artwork but found it a bit fiddly to use, cf to U8 say. night be described as "more is less" sort of thing.
And finally, to borrow from Landor's "keep your stick on the ice"..."keep your eye on the ball"...for fear of losing sight of Cinderella...off to therapy now.
218 • Site Suggestion (by John Grace on 2009-03-15 13:44:43 GMT from United States)
TO Ladislav. IF you could limit users IP address to one or two comments per week, that would eliminate the useless nonsense and repeated comments. Most of the last twelve posts would be better served for email exchange not Distrowatch comments section. Most of us have to wade through useless and unneeded replies.
219 • #217 (by jack on 2009-03-15 14:06:49 GMT from Canada)
"Anyway, despite the above I was really gratified to learn about the cntl/alt/Fn stuff so thanks for that, no really. I have bought, at some expense, various books on Linux and the only problem with a book the size of a telephone directory is finding the address from a number...if you follow me (I'm talking UK here BTW)." I second this Try to find how to reduce the pixel count of a photo to send it by email. Especially since most cameras are now more than 5 mega pixel. Just go into a bookstore and search the index of every linux book for "photo reducing pixel count for email."( or photo- anything) good luck ps. I do not agree with #218
220 • regarding post 218 (by Frisco on 2009-03-15 15:40:55 GMT from United States)
Ladislav's email address is distro@distrowatch.com, it's at the bottom of the page.
I've communicated with him via that email address. Your #218 post here might be considered self-defeating, given the nature of it and its complaint. :o)
I agree with it, by the way; two posts per IP address could cut some of the noise. But there is also some value in above exchanges about the command line workings, etc, in my opinion.
Hey, I could have emailed you with that. lol
221 • Wolvix forums & notes to devs (by Tom on 2009-03-15 16:11:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
@ 217, Forest & @ 204, Capricornus
It's good to see comments about distros in here, it does seem the right place for it but it'd be good to see such posts repeated in http://forums.wolvix.org/ Well at least the parts that were about Wolvix anyway. Sorry if i sounded dismissive before, i've been having a lot of bad hair days this week. The two main developers for Wolvix are often in there and are pretty cool to chat with.
@ 218 John Grace Very funny, i liked your post a lot - oooo the irony. People say that americans don't get irony but that was superb :) I kinda agree with it but i haven't said much before and might not post again. This week has been a strange one for me. I thought all the arguing was very sweet and quite funny. I agree with whoever said it was like watching a married couple arguing heheheh. Also i think it's better that people get these feelings out rather than "bottle them up" which can lead to explosions if shaken.
Good luck and regards all happy hunting too, from Tom :)
222 • 2 comments per IP??? (by Azzorcist on 2009-03-15 16:17:12 GMT from Indonesia)
Only 2 comments per IP? That would limit the respond post(s) from UNIX/Linux master like Caitlyn Martin isn't it???
223 • No/Less dependency Linux. (by Azzorcist on 2009-03-15 16:26:31 GMT from Indonesia)
Does anyone knows a Linux distro that behave like Windows or Mac OS X or better to say PC-BSD. I mean one installation into a specified folder. Like Program files folder in Windows or Applications in PC-BSD. I like the philosophy that base system should be stable and apps should be cutting edge. The way to achieve that i think by using that model. One installer file and install all the file in own folder. I'm getting s*ck (like Jurgen of Frets on Fire said) with dependencies, even version must match. :(
224 • Ref #218 - Limiting posts per IP# (by dialup on 2009-03-15 17:46:32 GMT from United States)
Wouldn't work because a determined poster could use dialup for excess posts. Just log off/on to get a different iIP#.
225 • #223 (by jack on 2009-03-15 18:11:02 GMT from Canada)
Does klikit-linux work like that? I think (?) that it puts each app in a separate folder; I don't know, but would like to know
226 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-15 18:56:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #218
John Grace, you are of course entitled to an opinion, but so is everyone else.
How do you suppose the forum would get edited anyway. There is no moderator per se and folk do have to sleep/work etc, so your idea is pretty difficult to achieve in practice.
Oddly enough folk do keep to the topic but they can and do exercise poetic license. There is very little true tekkie spik on this forum anyway, and, if that is what you are seeking I suggest the help forums may be more suited to the discussion you would like to read.
Personally I find this forum is ideal for my level of interest and the general tone is about right...You might have noticed there are very few posters anyway...no more than fifty...if that.
You may possibly underestimate how tolerant folk are when it comes to off topic discussion. We are all adults on the forum and digression is just part of the human condition.
227 • distro (by Jan on 2009-03-15 18:59:13 GMT from Netherlands)
Bayanihan 5 available at apt.bayanihan.gov.ph
228 • kids are banned? (by Tom on 2009-03-15 19:15:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
I thought there might be kids and young adults here too. Most of the kids round where i live keep teaching me new and more horrendous swear words than i can imagine hearing from a grown-up, including chefs lol. I just wonder if they know what some of these things mean but i suspect they probably do :( Over a decade ago The British Science Museum got fed up of kids leaving rude words on their fancy new computer terminal in the foyer so they wrote a clever program to remove all the rude ones. A few days later they caught another couple of kids ahcking into the database and adding new words they'd never even heard of.
If you ever have trouble getting some new gadget or electronic item to work just hand it to the nearest 7 year old and let them teach you how it works.
229 • GoboLinux and the CreateRootlessEnvironment script (by Alexio on 2009-03-15 21:36:28 GMT from Romania)
@223 : I think that what you are looking for is GoboLinux - http://gobolinux.org/?page=at_a_glance
The link on this site is http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gobo
You can also try to use the CreateRootlessEnvironment script: http://svn.gobolinux.org/tools/trunk/Scripts/bin/CreateRootlessEnvironment
¨The "rootless" package allows for building a mini-GoboLinux directory hierarchy inside your $HOME. Very useful for non-root users or GoboLinux addicts trapped inside some other distribution¨
More information at http://gobolinux.org/index.php?page=rootless
230 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-15 21:38:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re #228
Good argument Tom...LOL.
I meant, as I'm sure you knew anyway, LOL, that most visitors as far as I can see, be they kids or young adults or even old adults, me, behave like adults and are fairly tolerant...
Some other adults (?) are not so tolerant and throw the dummy out of the pram if something...say tone of the forum, ahem..is not how they want it.
And, as you pointed out...even the PC savvy tekkie blokes at the BSM can learn something new from their younger customers...volcabulary and nothing is safe from little fingers, least of all their precious computer system, LOL.
231 • Linux in Schools (by Devlin Seven on 2009-03-15 21:52:45 GMT from New Zealand)
I Love Distrowatch, it makes superb reading!
I work for a high school and I have looked at running Linux desktops in the classrooms. The issue for me is user authentication and controlling what the user gets at their desktop. We also have the issue initially of integrating Linux with a Windows network. I can get Ubuntu to authenticate with Active directory but I lack the skills to provide the lock down required.
I was wondering if a school out there somewhere might like to document what they have done as an article?
When I read that so many large organisation have switched to Linux I wonder how, how are they controlling these large networks? We have approximately 450 machines, 1350 users.
232 • A Linux distribution designed for schools (by Alexio on 2009-03-15 22:25:59 GMT from Romania)
@231 : You may use the Karoshi distro as a server - http://karoshi.linuxgfx.co.uk/
The link on this site is http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=karoshi
More information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi_Linux
233 • re#231 (by hab on 2009-03-15 22:59:17 GMT from Canada)
Devlin, this distro may be of interest to you http://www.edubuntu.org/. From their page "Edubuntu's objective is to create an integrated and usable experience for educational users by enhancing Ubuntu with educational applications, tools, content, and themes." Altho if you are trying to button down client computers in a high school environment it strikes me that recruiting some of the best and brightest from the interested student body to aid you in your effort might be easier and the results more immediate.
Pretty much any linux distro will give you the tools you need to set up whatever security you want or need. And they are all free. Unfortunately the knowledge and the experience to put the tools to use. Well' they carry their own price. sigh!
cheers
234 • @218 (by Woodstock69 on 2009-03-16 00:00:04 GMT from Papua New Guinea)
Some times the comments section can get tedious, yes, but If you find that there are too many irrelevant posts here, try this if you have a mouse wheel....
Locate mouse wheel Place finger on mouse wheel Move finger (and wheel) towards yourself
This has the effect of scrolling past the offending posts. Works for me.
I for one don't want to see too much moderation here. Ladislav does a good job of it already and everyone gets a right of reply as long it's relevant and "polite".
If we want to go down the road of unbridled censorship, then we can all relocate to mainland China.
And before you say it, I'm not criticising China, just it's censorship policy (and the US, UK, Aus, Rus, etc, so there....)
Anyway, not long before a new round of posts and comments and these will be last weeks issues....
235 • No subject (by forest on 2009-03-16 00:24:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #231
Ref your query on schools and Linux, try here:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39247744,00.htm
Hopefully you can liaise with them if you should think fit. Possiblity of hands across the sea sort of thing and of course no problems with language....
236 • No subject (by REf #235 on 2009-03-16 00:27:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
oops, should have added that was over two years ago...so the system will have been thoroughly logged, researched, rebuilt, so hope that's of interest.
237 • re#231 (by hab on 2009-03-16 01:25:44 GMT from Canada)
From edubuntu's faq. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EdubuntuFAQ?
cheers
238 • #211 (by Taigong on 2009-03-16 04:39:52 GMT from Canada)
Your comments doesn't worth to be taken personally. When I read between the line in your comments, I can see you really, really took my comments personally. You started with an effort trying to show off some knowledge of Linux, but ended up embarrassing yourself. Take it easy, man. Making mistake is OK. Don't get angry, because that will trigger more mistakes.
239 • #213 (by Taigong on 2009-03-16 05:19:28 GMT from Canada)
Of course, CLI application can be started without GUI. When I was doing forensic analysis on hard drive pulled from suspects machine, one of the first things I do was to use dd from the command line to copy the whole hard drive to an image file and run a hash to fingerprint the file, which will then be checked every time the image file is copied, all using command line instructions. And there are many many command line applications out there, just like there use to be 10x more DOS application out there, too (remember Word Perfect, Quattro Pro, dBase, etc). But that was not the point. What I asked specifically, was to start Firefox, OpenOffice, GIMP, with a machine only booted to command line. What you described in your previous comments about starting Kmail and VM was really an illusion of using command line because you are actually running them under GUI. And if you are an experienced Linux user as you said you are then you know that for sure.
"It is not necessary to reboot into text mode to access a terminal login with no X. You can simply press ctrl - alt - F1 (F1 to F6 may all be options), login and perform your tests then press ctrl - alt - F7 to get back to the gui. Try it sometime." Your GUI is still running, isn't it???? Don't try to avoid answering my question by showing off some tricks, that doesn't help. Just tell us, can you or can you not, start Firefox, OOo from command line, when you only boot the machine to command line without GUI or X as you would call it. Yes or No?
240 • I may have found it! and RE: Taigong! (by Landor on 2009-03-16 06:06:07 GMT from Canada)
I think I've found my main system! I'm going to switch over to RHEL (Well, CentOS 5) for my desktop. All my hardware works on the test box for now. Anything I want to update to something newer I "basically" can of course, via compiling..etc.. But for the key thing, KDE 3.5 for a lot longer than with Debian Lenny is my guess. If that changes, drop down to the 4 series. :) I used it in VirtualBox first, now it's installed on a single drive and I'm going to switch over my home partition to encompass the drive on the test box that Sidux is currently residing on and in all truth, I'll be glad to see it go. Hopefully this will be the last primary install for a couple years at the least. Taigong:
I don't care how many times I see it I always smile and or laugh when I hear someone state as if in passing thought, especially after some of their own, hmm, not so pure interaction, that they are in some form of the investigative arena, or were. Best one I ever heard was about 9 years ago when some woman's brother in-law's cousin and her friend who was present (in a chat area no less) both worked for the "Australian" FBI...that still makes me smile to this day.
Taigong? Your statement in 238 would have carried far more weight if you hadn't run off on a tangent yourself in 239. Very clear the reality. Can you dig it?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
P.S. Delete Away!
Number of Comments: 240
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• Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
• Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
• Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
• Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
• Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
• Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
• Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
• Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
• Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
• Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
• Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
• Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
• Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
• Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
• Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
• Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
• Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
• Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
• Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
• Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
• Full list of all issues |
Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
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Random Distribution |
LG3D LiveCD
LG3D LiveCD was a bootable Linux CD incorporating Project Looking Glass, a Java-based technology that attempts to bring a richer user experience to the desktop and applications via 3D windowing and visualisation capabilities. An open source development project evolved from Sun Microsystems' Advanced Development division, the LG3D live CD was based on SLAX, but it includes extra applications and technologies, such as Firefox and Gaim, working NVIDIA graphics driver, and copy2ram support. It was also possible to run it from a 256MB flash memory device.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO |
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Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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