 DistroWatch Weekly |
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • CentOS is interesting (by stuckinoregon on 2009-07-20 15:44:52 GMT from United States)
But Debian beating Wolvix into the comments is even better.
2 • Mandriva MLO Live CD announcement in English (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-20 15:51:54 GMT from United States)
While Chris is correct that the Mandriva MLO Live CD announcement was originally in French I did translate it for Linux Today. The release announcement in English is at: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2009071403135NWDTMD
3 • ULTILEX (by mr-youse on 2009-07-20 15:57:32 GMT from United States)
Great DWW! Interesting article about CentOS, especially interesting since I am in the market for a netbook. ULTILEX sounds like a wonderful little project. I tried it last time it was mentioned on DW, and I look forward to trying the updated version! Thanks a bunch!
4 • CentOS "with known and serious security vulnerabilities even after patching" (by Scott Dowdle on 2009-07-20 15:58:26 GMT from United States)
What are you talking about?
Firefox 3.0.11 is the current release of Firefox in the 3.0.x series.
5 • Fedora 3.0.11 is no longer maintained, patched AFAIK (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-20 16:02:13 GMT from United States)
@Scott Dowdle: Unlike the 2.0.0.x series I believe the 3.0.x series of browsers from Firefox is no longer maintained and deprecated in favor of 3.5 (or now 3.5.1). Am I wrong about that?
6 • CentOS (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-07-20 16:17:17 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the review. I was thinking about trying CentOS on a regular desktop workstation. Are there any differences in installation and performance on desktop machine?
If you'll forgive my candor, I must admit that I was a little confused by these two statements because they seem, at first glance to be contradictory and I am not sure how they can be reconciled logically :
1. I was also disappointed with some of the patches applied. For example, Firefox 3.0.5 is included out of the box with CentOS 5.3. As you'd expect Firefox was on the list of packages to be upgraded. Unfortunately the new, improved version was Firefox 3.0.11 which is still severely out of date and has many known and serious security vulnerabilities. For some applications it clearly is necessary to go to upstream sources to fully secure the system. What's in the CentOS repositories is simple inadequate.
2. On the other hand, if you plan on taking a netbook or any notebook into a business or organizational environment where security is a paramount concern you'd be hard pressed to do better than CentOS.
Overall what I came away with is the idea that CentOS is best left where it lives, in the enterprise world.
7 • freebsd 8.0 beta 2 (by mr.bsd on 2009-07-20 16:27:01 GMT from United States)
Happy that FreeBSD came out with another beta of 8.0. I have just tried it and well.. I get segfaults while getting ports and other activities. Nice update to beta 1 but definitely not there yet.
8 • @5 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-07-20 16:28:48 GMT from Canada)
Yes, you're wrong. They're working on 3.0.12 and 3.0.13, for instance:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_3.0.12
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_3.0.13
9 • Response to #6 (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-20 16:29:22 GMT from United States)
While the Firefox upgrade (and at least one other I spotted) is late in general CentOS is very good about security. It has SELinux fully integrated and has an excellent graphical troubleshooting tool for SELinux. It has support for LDAP, NIS, NIS+, Radius, etc... all the authentication methods normally used by businesses, government and other large organizations. I was referring to the security features. Heck, some desktop distros and Slackware don't even implement PAM.
Regarding your desktop: CentOS is going to install a lot of things designed for the enterprise that you don't need. If you have a lot of horsepower your system may still be fast but you are still well advised to disable unnecessary services. It's a good idea in terms of security and if you ever push your system to the limits it will free up valuable resources (memory and CPU cycles).
As far as desktop hardware is concerned the support will depend on what you have. If it's newer than early 2007 it will depend entirely on what Red Hat has backported. The EL kernel may have a 2.6.18 version number but it includes a ton of backported patches and additional hardware support. It's something of a Frankenkernel. Red Hat has the kernel engineers on staff to make that work and they believe it enhances ongoing compatability with third party software, generally proprietary enterprise applications like Oracle. So... it may just work for your desktop. If so the installation will be relatively painless. If not you'll experience at least part of what I experienced.
Béranger likes CentOS for general use. He is, of course, a seasoned Linux/UNIX professional. If you fit into that category then once its configured you may come to the same conclusions he has. If not you might find it to be a lot of work initially.
Generally I agree that CentOS is designed for and best in the enterprise. That can include smaller businesses as well. For someone like me that supports RHEL/CentOS professionally having it on the netbook is an advantage.
10 • CentOS 5.3 (by Mahmoud Slamah on 2009-07-20 16:30:54 GMT from Egypt)
CentOS 5.3 is robust and have many advantages
11 • @5 (by sd on 2009-07-20 16:31:43 GMT from Germany)
"Am I wrong about that?"
Yes, you are wrong:
http://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/
centos/5.3/updates/i386/RPMS/firefox-3.0.11-2.el5.centos.i386.rpm
Firefox 3 is still supported by Mozilla, up to six months after the new 3.5 release.
And, by the way, you know that RedHat is always backporting all patches to its browsers e.g. even to Seamonkey 1.0.9 in earlier RHEL/CentOS versions.
So, there is no problem with browser security in any of the supported RHEL/CentOS versions.
12 • Looking for distro suggestions. (by MRaugh on 2009-07-20 16:32:27 GMT from United States)
Last night I picked up a new desktop to replace a dead machine that isn't worth reviving (at least not right now). This being a pretty diverse and opinionated group, I'd like to supplement my research by asking for suggestions on an appropriate distro to use.
Hardware is: Quad core Intel CPU, 4GB RAM, dual 500GB SATA drives, NVidia GeForce 9500 with dual 1680x1050 screens (GeForce and screens recycled from the dead machine).
User is: fairly experienced (3-6 years) with Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, MEPIS, Red Hat/CentOS, Debian; smart enough to Google for answers and tinker a little if need be, lazy enough to want things to mostly "just work," but geeky enough to try something new; fond of XFCE with Compiz, uninspired by Gnome, still confused by KDE4.
Purpose is: Primary home PC. Important apps include VMWare Workstation, Skype, vpnc, Audacity, Avidemux, AcidRip, mkvtoolnix, and the usual suspects that every distro provides(ie, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc.); the more of that stuff is in the repositories (aside from VMware and Skype, of course), the better.
The big question is 32-bit or 64? Do modern 64-bit distros support the multimedia codecs I'm going to want and libraries I'll need? I've only used 64-bit on servers to date, so I'm unschooled in how they handle desktop and multimedia stuff. Is there any benefit to using a 64-bit Linux on a desktop with 4GB RAM?
Candidates I'm looking hard at are Fedora, OpenSUSE, Sidux, and Jaunty. In general I look for broad repositories and ease of integrating non-free stuff. The dead system was Xubuntu Intrepid, so a change could be refreshing.
Stability matters. I'd like recent apps (OpenOffice 3.1, for instance) but I don't want a system so bleeding-edge that I have to stop what I'm doing to fix it on a regular basis.
All suggestions are welcome. Thanks, gang!
-MR
13 • #8, #11 - Article corrected (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-20 16:35:57 GMT from United States)
I have removed the offending paragraph from the article regarding Firedox.
I will note that in general CentOS has to wait to get things from upstream so they are a little behind Red Hat in patches. The lag is usually short but it is there.
The link in #11 is pretty meaningless since I acknowledged the 3.0.11 package in the original (now removed) paragraph.
14 • Pardus 2009 (by IMQ on 2009-07-20 16:43:10 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know what languages are support in the regular CD?
Thanks.
15 • CentOS and others (by Jesse on 2009-07-20 16:51:45 GMT from Canada)
At the beginning of the CentOS feature it says that, "Nobody has ever accused CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise Linux of being easy to install and configure." However, that's one of the strong selling points (for me and other Linux users I know). Red Hat is very easy to install and configure. Granted, other distros have caught up, but Red Hat is pretty point-n-click easy.
On another note, I really like the idea of ULTILEX. I use a lot of LiveCDs for trouble-shooting and data recovery. Having a whole collection on one disc is a great idea.
16 • CentOS on a Netbook (by dragonmouth on 2009-07-20 16:52:24 GMT from United States)
With a "little bit" of work one can also stuff a V-12 engine into an MG Midget.
17 • Re:14 Pardus 2009 (by Ekin Akoglu on 2009-07-20 16:54:06 GMT from Turkey)
English and Turkish...
18 • Pardus looks good but that's it (by capricornus on 2009-07-20 16:54:29 GMT from Belgium)
I was impressed by the graphics. Everything seemed to work. I now have a good test pc with a straightforward wired LAN that every distro can handle, but ... yezz, but Pardus. So it sits on my pc, waiting for the alternative I still have to download and install...
19 • Re:14 Pardus 2009 (by Anonymous on 2009-07-20 17:01:04 GMT from Netherlands)
Pardus supports 11 languages and as far as I know they are followings:
Català
Deutsch
English
Español
Français
Italiano
Nederlands
Polski
Português(Brasil)
Svenska
Türkçe
20 • re#distro choosing (by hab on 2009-07-20 17:01:31 GMT from Canada)
I just entered "linux distro chooser" into google and it puked back multiple sites, so maybe better than having us natter at you about our fav distros you can follow your own muse, so to speak.
With your hardware i'd be looking seriously at 64 bit.
Good that you indicate your ability and desire to explore and learn a little. Refreshing attitude these days it seems. Instant gratification and such!
For 32 bit distros i find dreamlinux nice. Moonos too!
cheers
21 • sidux 2009.2 (by juarez on 2009-07-20 17:04:51 GMT from United States)
The KDE4 integration into sidux is sweeeet.
22 • Kubuntu? (by Tom on 2009-07-20 17:22:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
If MRaugh of 12 was a noob i would say Ubuntu or Kubuntu and stick with 32bit version. The machine is more of a top-end machine than i'm used to dealing with. I think 32bit only addresses about 3.5 Gb ram? I never seem to need that much tho :)
23 • ExTiX (by Leo on 2009-07-20 17:24:17 GMT from United States)
Excellent, fantastic idea! Leverage on others' work and add some value. The persistent data is a godsend. I was hoping to test TinyCore. This will make it trivial!
24 • Hey! (by Kekkonen on 2009-07-20 17:29:45 GMT from Finland)
You wrote Sidux wrong (Siddux)
25 • RMS != father of open source movement (by lucky13 on 2009-07-20 17:35:49 GMT from United States)
The first BSD license predates Stallman's first version of GPL by a few years. BSD code was free and open -- for any use, including use in proprietary systems -- before there was GNU; I know some will say that it wasn't clear how free and open it was given the AT&T suit, but Cal/BSD prevailed in the end. Men like Bostic, Joy, McCusick, Leffler, et al, whose contributions led to standardized protocols like TCP/IP and who went to court to keep their code free deserve a hell of a lot more credit than they get. It shortchanges their contributions to free software when you give publicity wh*res like Stallman, whose contributions are certainly noteworthy, all the credit or more than he deserves by referring to him as the "father" of something that was already freely available when he purportedly "fathered" it.
26 • Quite a surprise... (by Béranger on 2009-07-20 17:46:32 GMT from Romania)
...but I don't have an "h" in my name!
CentOS is more of an "XP of the Linux world", if you know what I mean.
And it doesn't address very well the wireless issue. I'd suggest another solution for the lazy people (when comes to whatever is around the kernel, I am lazy; and I hate ndiswrapper):
http://beranger.org/v3/wordpress/2009/07/15/wl-330ge-the-best-idea-since-the-sliced-bread/
My own repo is currently under heavy reconstruction right now. In a coupla days I'd need some more testers though :-)
27 • CentOS (by Niki Kovacs on 2009-07-20 17:52:08 GMT from France)
Hi,
Thanks for giving CentOS a thumbs-up. I'm running a small Linux-centered IT-business here, and I recently published a cookbook-style book about Linux, entirely centered on CentOS 5.3: http://www.microlinux.fr/documentation.html
Some time ago, I did a successful install of CentOS 5.3 on an MSI Wind notebook. I admit I had to jump through several burning loops in order to get everything to work, but hey, where would the fun be otherwise :o)
cheers from the sunny South of France!
NK ("Kiki Novak" is just my pen name)
28 • CentOS 5.3 on the desktop (by Caraibes on 2009-07-20 18:01:27 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I understand my hardware is much easier to setup than a notebook... I have a regular 64-bit desktop...
I run a multiboot with CentOS 5.3, Ubuntu 9.04 & winXP...
I am quite glad with CentOS... I used this guide to install:
http://www.howtoforge.com/installation-guide-centos5.1-desktop
Also the ElRepo to get extra goodies: http://elrepo.org/tiki/tiki-index.php
And the Kiki Novak's book is a must (if you read French):
http://beranger.org/v3/wordpress/2009/05/22/linux-aux-petits-oignons/#comments
http://www.microlinux.fr/
I must say that my Ubuntu install boots 4x faster than my CentOS, and that It is generally faster in most domain...
But I would agree on the concept of LTS/Enterprise release. Stability...
29 • Hmm (by Nobody Important on 2009-07-20 18:23:15 GMT from United States)
I don't mind CentOS, but I'd prefer something else. It just doesn't seem to be something you would put on a netbook. Too old, focused elsewhere, etc.
If you want the stability but not the age, I'd stick with Debian Stable, personally. I haven't tried it with any netbooks, but I know they added a *bit* of support in Lenny, along with only a few hints of whatever the upstream developers were doing.
But I agree with a few comments above. More Linux distros need this longer support cycle. If rolling distros worked (never met one that did, personally) perhaps that would be the way to go.
30 • 64-bit (by Nobody Important on 2009-07-20 18:25:43 GMT from United States)
I've been fiddling with 64-bit distros (mostly Ubuntu and Debian) and haven't noticed any problems. The performance jump makes it worth the hassle to switch. Music files can be encoded in nearly half the time on a better processor.
31 • No subject (by Peter Besenbruch on 2009-07-20 18:34:45 GMT from United States)
[i]Last night I picked up a new desktop to replace a dead machine that isn't worth reviving (at least not right now). This being a pretty diverse and opinionated group, I'd like to supplement my research by asking for suggestions on an appropriate distro to use.[/i]
Your machine lies on the border of 32 or 64 bit use. I have not tried 64 bit versions of Debian, but I know that most codecs are available, and that Flash can be made to work in 64 bit mode. My advice: If you plan to add more RAM later, go 64 bit. Otherwise, 32 bit will be fine.
I am partial to Debian Linux. Over quite a few years of testing distros, I like Debian's combination of flexibility and ease of maintenance. It installs lean and fast. Even with the out of date, stable branch, it's easy to keep up to date on the software that matters. Good luck to you.
32 • No subject (by Piotr Kubaj on 2009-07-20 18:41:36 GMT from Poland)
I liked CentOS for stability, but that distro along with RHEL stopped developing long ago. Debian 5.0 has much more advanced software (the simpliest example is kernel: 2.6.18 in CentOS, 2.6.26 in Debian). In terms of using CentOS on desktop, it definitely fails. Debian contains much newer software and is stable just like CentOS.
33 • thinkpad 770 (by Mandy Morris on 2009-07-20 18:59:01 GMT from United States)
Hello again from a new mint linux user on my old gateway. My friend I mentioned last week liked linux on the old computer and has now one on his ibm thinkpad with its 366 mega hertz cpu and 128 mega bytes ram and 14 giga byte hard drive (worse than mine! lol).
He selected on saturday and had me download and burn antix from the people who make mempis. I took it over and left it saturday night and he forgot to tell me no cd or dvd! There is a floppy and one usb port.
I will start over when I have time and just wanted to remark about it here because antix is a great size for that old 1 giga byte hard drive. He also has no network adapter so needs no wifi drivers etc and it is cabled to a router in his house.
34 • CentOS (by Glenn Condrey on 2009-07-20 19:02:48 GMT from United States)
I learned to use linux, primarily from Debian based distros.
My first was Xandros, then Ubuntu, and finally Sidux.
I have noticed a disturbing trend however. I first noticed it wth Ubuntu 8.10....and finally Sidux and even Debian Lenny as well....they no longer boot my computer.
My computer isn't new...but not a pre-historic dinosaur by any means.
Its a Hewlett Packard with a Pentium 4, cpu, 2 gigs of memory..and onboard graphics (which I do not use, and there that is my problem)
I have a ATI Radeon X1300 PCI graphics card...and because of it newer linux distros wont boot.
I dual boot (I only need Windoze for gaming) so removing my graphics card isn't even a consideration.
CentOS 5.3 works beuatifully on my system when I run it.
For the time being, I have decided to stick with a older version of Ubuntu that still works with my system....8.04.
But if I change my mind....CentOS will be the system I use.
Its easy to configure....and I enjoyed learning how to mount my NTFS drives and things of that nature.
Good article Caitlyn.
35 • Microsoft releasing code with the GPL (by Untitled on 2009-07-20 19:03:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/20/microsoft_windows_drivers_linux/
36 • @25 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-07-20 19:11:21 GMT from Canada)
RMS certainly wouldn't want to be known as the father of the 'open source movement'. He is the father of the free software movement, which is rather different.
37 • Scott Shawcroft's study (by Adrian on 2009-07-20 19:13:43 GMT from Poland)
Nobody commented about Scott Shawcroft's study yet? The difference between Arch and other distros (in terms of upstream lag) is quite amazing.
38 • @12 • Looking for distro suggestions. (by RollMeAway on 2009-07-20 19:27:27 GMT from United States)
"dual 500GB SATA drives"
How could you possibly limit yourself to one or two operating systems?
I have one machine with dual 200 GB drives, and 39 distros to boot into.
You should easily be able to exceed 100 distros!
Have fun!
39 • tried, tested and reliable if somewhat older applications (by Xtyn on 2009-07-20 19:27:52 GMT from Romania)
While I have no objection to tried, tested and reliable if somewhat older applications I do object to having apps with known and serious security vulnerabilities even after patching.
Sounds like Debian to me. Why don't you try Debian on your netbook? It would be easier.
40 • Keeping up to date (by Jesse on 2009-07-20 19:30:46 GMT from United States)
In my experience, it seems that there are packages distros want to keep up to date and others they just don't care about. OpenOffice.org, the kernel, KDE and Gnome are usually kept near the bleeding edge. However, a lot of tools get left behind.
I can understand this with apps like Filezilla, who release (it seems) a bug fix every few weeks. But some dev tools Gambas, some FTP servers and various utilities are often months or years behind schedule in many distros.
Every so often I'll file a bug report to a distro and tell them they're falling behind. I usually get a WONTFIX reply or the bug report is left unanswered. Very frustrating.
41 • #26, #24 - Corrections (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-20 19:33:19 GMT from United States)
#26: Béranger - My apologies for misspelling your name. It is corrected now.
#24- I also corrected the typo the second time sidux is mention.ed.
This seems to be my week for errors and corrections. Again, my apologies.
42 • CentOS/RHEL on the desktop (by Steven Rosenberg on 2009-07-20 19:35:39 GMT from United States)
I've had quite a bit of success running CentOS on the desktop. In my case, it was CentOS 5.2 and a Gateway Solo 1450 (circa 2002) laptop.
I probably had fewer problems with CentOS on this particular laptop than I did with any other distribution.
The machine is currently dual-booting CentOS 5.x and Ubuntu 8.04. Since my 5-year-old is using it now, it runs Ubuntu all the time because she's not exactly a big user of business software, and all her games are in Ubuntu. But if I need to tap into CentOS, I do have it there.
43 • #39 - Debian won't do in the corporate world (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-20 19:39:21 GMT from United States)
Xtyn: My purpose in installing CentOS was to replicate my business environment. In the U.S. corporate Linux is nearly 90% Red Hat. My customers use Red Hat or CentOS so CentOS it is. Most of the rest is SUSE (Novell) with Ubuntu (Canonical) starting to make some inroads. Businesses are much more comfortable with a distro backed by a large corporation. The lack of support offerings from the source are the main reason why Debian won't do. In addition, I live near Raleigh, the home of Red Hat. I do prefer to support our local economy.
44 • @ #12 - Looking for distro suggestions (by Zoltan at 2009-07-20 19:43:54 GMT from United States)
sidux is the obvious choice, it succeeds where most others fail.
It's fast and it will be whatever you want it to be.
45 • Beranger (by Notorik on 2009-07-20 19:46:17 GMT from Germany)
This guy keeps saying he is through with DW. I remember he said he wouldn't be back 2 months ago. It is ridiculous to use CentOS on anything. Use Slackware if you want to screw around. At least Slackware is fairly current and it works. I like to have many choices but CentOS is not adding anything valuable to the selection.
#41 Why don't you pay more attention to what you are doing?
46 • Re: Looking for distro suggestions (by Sankaran on 2009-07-20 19:49:40 GMT from India)
>Hardware is: Quad core Intel CPU
All linux distros should do well here, well I have a core i7 which is a quad core and it does not support any distro which has a older kernel. A distro which has 2.6.27 and above should run fairly well on a quad core
Debian lenny 64 bit: 2.6.26 (Manages RAM well, but prints a lots of warnings before booting)
Fedora 11: 2.6.29 32 bit--> Extremely fast and responsive as Fedora has optimized and compiled for i586
Fedora 11 64 bit: Very fast
Ubuntu Jaunty 32 bit 2.6.28 --> Not as responsive as Fedora 11 but very good
Ubuntu Jaunty 64 bit 2.6.28 --> Very fast and responsive
> 4GB RAM
I have 6 GB RAM and is not supported by any 32 bit distro except Fedora/openSUSE out of box
Anything above 3.2 GB RAM wont get supported by plain 32 bit kernel
Only Fedora 11 or openSUSE with PAE kernel supports above 3.2 GB upto 64 GB in 32 bit
With ubuntu you can get above 3.2 GB support but you will be pressed to install server kernel or compile your own kernel
Better choose 64 bit kernel
>dual 500GB SATA drives
Change in your bios to use AHCI if it is configured to use IDE
Ubuntu Jaunty or Fedora 11 supports ext4 so you can get a very good distro
Out of the above 2, Fedor 11 has backported 2.6.30 kernel fixes for ext4 data loss, so if you choose installing latest ext4 without data loss Fedora 11 is the way to go
> NVidia GeForce 9500 with dual 1680x1050 screens (GeForce and screens recycled from the dead machine).
Fedora 11 by default supports nouveau kernel which is still under heavy development and has still lots of open bugs, It works fine with 2D graphics but 3D will not be good with nouveau. If choosing Fedora 11 you should enable rpmfusion and follow guides to install nvidia drivers
Ubuntu Jaunty does the best with nvidia by providing proprietary drivers. I have nvidia proprietary driver version 185.18.14 which is super good with all compiz effects (I have an nvidia card 9800 GT with ubuntu running)
Debian supports nvidia prop drivers but their drivers in the repos are very old
> User is: fairly experienced (3-6 years) with Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, MEPIS, Red Hat/CentOS, Debian; smart enough to Google for answers and tinker a little if need be, lazy enough to want things to mostly "just work," but geeky enough to try something new; fond of XFCE with Compiz, uninspired by Gnome, still confused by KDE4.
well I am waiting for KDE 4.3, i am played with latest kde 4.2.4 live cd with sidux and i find it full of fun
XFCE --> the latest xfce is very good when I tried it with arch linux, but since you have nvidia card, xubuntu will be the way to go
> Purpose is: Primary home PC. Important apps include VMWare Workstation, Skype, vpnc, Audacity, Avidemux, AcidRip, mkvtoolnix, and the usual suspects that every distro provides(ie, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc.); the more of that stuff is in the repositories (aside from VMware and Skype, of course), the better.
With ubuntu I enabled virtualbox repos and have lots of PPA (Personal Packaging Archive). I even got firefox 3.5 and played with it using the PPA. You can get hold of any latest s/w from a PPA by googling
> The big question is 32-bit or 64? Do modern 64-bit distros support the multimedia codecs I'm going to want and libraries I'll need? I've only used 64-bit on servers to date, so I'm unschooled in how they handle desktop and multimedia stuff. Is there any benefit to using a 64-bit Linux on a desktop with 4GB RAM?
32 bit is horribly slow compared to 64 bit as 64 bit enables lots of optimizations. I have windows 7 64 bit rc for testing and Ubuntu 64 bit jaunty. I feel windows 7 has a very powerful caching. Once you open app, it is cached in RAM and next time it comes very very fast. But I feel Ubuntu is better as it is always fast even without that much caching
I got alpha version of 64 bit flash player and installed it manually and I dont see any problem in running flash (actually I disable flash) and I have 64 bit jre installed from synaptic
The best thing about 64 bit comes when you play movies, transcode from one format to another or compile a kernel (it takes 12 mins to 16 mins in my box under 64 bit and 18 to 24 mins under 32 bit to compile a kernel)
>Stability matters. I'd like recent apps (OpenOffice 3.1, for instance) but I don't want a system so bleeding-edge that I have to stop what I'm doing to fix it on a regular basis.
Ubuntu Jaunty does not crash and it is fast enough, but I felt Fedora 11 was fast as well as very snappy (apps open very very fast, may be due to 1000 Hz kernel whereas ubuntu is 250 Hz kernel) Under ubuntu we can get any latest app using PPA
47 • Pardus (by Alan UK on 2009-07-20 19:59:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
@18 - Wired LAN.
Right-click on the icon next to the clock. Select "Open Network Manager".
@14, 19.
There are two Pardus iso's. For languages other than Turkish and English, download the international one.
@12
"...still confused by KDE 4."
Yeah, me too. I've been a happy Pardus KDE 3 user up to now. I'll perservere with KDE 4 and see how it goes.
48 • #46 (by Notorik on 2009-07-20 20:08:28 GMT from Germany)
Use Reiserfs. It makes no sense to use ext 4 instead of reiserfs. You should go with Ubuntu Jaunty. Nothing confusing about KDE 4. The menus slide sideways, big deal.
49 • Opensuse my hero! (by JD on 2009-07-20 20:43:46 GMT from United States)
Wow ok if Linux Mint overtakes Opensuse on the HPD page i think I'm gonna cry!
cus thats just pathetic and sad! no offense and all
50 • Mandriva (by McLovin on 2009-07-20 20:50:59 GMT from United States)
I liked mandriva 2009.1 the only problem is when i started it using the proprietary nvidia drivers (9.68 i think) i got a lovely black screen with a blinking cursor. this is because i think there using a too new of a kernel with nvidas outdated driver .
does anyone know if this is why ? does the legacy 9.68 work with kernels newer then 2.6.28 ? i know i need to upgrade but hey i don't have money right now!
if nvidia was smart they would release there drivers under the gpl so they wouldn't have to do as much work and all. you know?
51 • Netbooks... and linux.... (by Becky on 2009-07-20 21:07:12 GMT from Germany)
I was impressed by the front article... as I've just done similar.
I have a brand new Tosh NB200 - which has been 'boosted'... to 2GB RAM and a 500GB HDD. This now runs Vista, OpenSolaris (as Toshiba seem to like this...) and Mint 7 linux. I'm not sure what's happened but the first two work the sound fine, the webcam works in #1 and #3 - and the O2 broadband dongle that worked before I boosted the machine now refuses to work under Mint?
However, because this is intended to allow me to work in ridiculous places and run my business, at a pinch.... thank the gods for the graphics being dual-head - I'm quite impressed. This would be a state-of-the-art machine from just a few years ago... and it's quite pleasant to see linux work so well. Now if only I could work out what was wrong with the sound system under Mint 7, I'd have an even more useful machine...
And before anyone comments, I'll hold my hands up and admit that I do VB/VBA development (amongst other things)! Got to make a living somehow!
52 • @36 (by lucky on 2009-07-20 21:25:15 GMT from United States)
If he'd rather be the "father of free software" he should endorse licenses without the encumbrances of GPL. That would include the BSD license, which, as I pointed out previously, preceded his GPL by several years and is (ahem) actually more free.
53 • economy vs community (by Xtyn on 2009-07-20 21:29:12 GMT from Romania)
"I do prefer to support our local economy."
What about the community?
By the way, I'm not a Debian advocate just because of the community but because it's a great OS and I think it would do better than CentOS on your netbook, although I have nothing against CentOS or RedHat.
54 • Fastboot Linux (by Alan on 2009-07-20 21:46:07 GMT from United States)
It is all well and good for Presto and Hyperspace to claim to be interested in Linux, but why then do they REQUIRE you install on a MICROSOFT-EQUIPPED MACHINE? I need a fast boot solution and the only ones available want me to buy and install Windows so I can use Linux? I've posted questions to each of them on their forums why they are not willing to now or in the near future supply a non-Windows-dependent version of their software and have only received responses that they might consider it (maybe) in the (undefined) future.
55 • centos (by kit weston on 2009-07-20 21:54:09 GMT from France)
"feint of heart"? Pun. typo or can't spell properly yet? Please explain...
56 • RE: 17, 19, 47 (by IMQ on 2009-07-20 21:54:32 GMT from United States)
Thanks.
I suspected the regular CD would support at least Turkish and English, but I wanted to be sure before downloading.
57 • Richard Stallman (by Amy on 2009-07-20 22:15:27 GMT from United States)
Not That i don't appreciate everything he's done and all but he seems a little too radical and fanatical sometimes with his views it's "his way" or no way! i'm sorry but who doesn't use mp3 codecs? maybe really old people with no mp3 players like him. the GPL is very restrictive and essentially isn't "Free Software" at all!
i don't like how he has to cut down every other project that includes proprietary drivers! i know i want 3D support! and thats the only way to get it for now! so stallman try to keep an open mind and don't hate just because it isn't "your way!"
it sometimes makes me want to make a totality GPL FREE and all BSD licensed distro! abandoning the GPL tools! but keeping linux of course. Linus seems to know that the GPL (the new one) is a little crazy! am i right? or am i dumb and don't know what i'm talking about? if so i'm sorry :(
58 • #57 Amy! (by JD on 2009-07-20 22:18:09 GMT from United States)
I Think Your Right! he needs to be more open minded and keep his mouth shut when he doesn't have nice things to say!
You Go girl!
59 • @58 57 55 48 45! (gawd) and onward and upward.. (by Sean on 2009-07-20 22:33:41 GMT from United States)
Looks like it's going to be a caustic week here at DW comments area.
How about a nice cup of green tea, everybody.
60 • #55 (by Notorik on 2009-07-20 22:40:34 GMT from United States)
It's CentOS not centos.
#57 Stallman is 100% correct. We need him over there on the (so-called) "fringes". There are always people with strong views on either side of an issue. This has to be or eventually the pendulum will swing too far one way. In this particular case the pendulum is already way over to one side, Microsoft. I'm going to have to disagree with you #58, I think he needs to keep on pissing people off.
61 • Stallman (by anticapitalista on 2009-07-20 22:59:15 GMT from Greece)
Agree with #60. It is good to piss people off as long as it is for the right reasons. antiX-M8 codename pissed off quite a few people. The next one (antiX-M8.2 out soon), probably less so.
About DWW articles. I have found them to be a huge improvement over the last few months. Hope it continues.
62 • (B)le(e,a)ding edge ? (by hab on 2009-07-20 23:31:31 GMT from Canada)
Wanna see how cutting edge your distro or deriv. is. Go here: http://oswatershed.org/
Maybe not so cutting edge?
h
63 • No subject (by colonelcrayon on 2009-07-20 23:50:31 GMT from United States)
Re CentOS on netbooks: You might want to try one of the Scientific Linux live CDs (http://www.livecd.ethz.ch/). They have some newer drivers that work well for me, though I'm not sure about your hardware.
64 • @60 (by Nobody Important on 2009-07-21 00:33:00 GMT from United States)
When is 8.2 coming out? I'm looking forward to it.
I was going to give AntiX a go, but I decided to wait for the update. I am getting rather tired of OS installations, funnily enough.
65 • #59 Correction, if you can do better (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-21 00:45:32 GMT from United States)
#55: The typo is corrected. Yes, I had a bad day. It happens when I have to do my own proofreading while I'm significantly under the weather. I still kept my commitment to Ladislav and produced, overall, what I consider to be a quality article.
I'll make the same invitation I made a couple of weeks ago to those who like to throw proverbial stones: write your own article and submit it to Ladislav. If you write perfect, error free articles that are better than mine you really should be writing the features. I am quite certain Ladislav will be happy to publish the best quality articles he receives and I won't stand in the way of a superior writer.
#59: This time of year I like my green tea iced with lime. Delicious.
66 • wallpaper on Caitlyn's netbook (by Clay Thedill on 2009-07-21 00:48:02 GMT from Australia)
.
g'day Caitlyn, wow, what's that clouds+field wallpaper on your netbook!?
(p.s. thanks for the top stories lately!)
67 • #66 Colorado farm wallpaper (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-21 00:51:26 GMT from United States)
@Clay: That either came with a VectorLinux build or maybe with Fluxbox once upon a time. It's called colorado-farm.jpg
68 • @60,61 (by lucky on 2009-07-21 01:03:17 GMT from United States)
Why should anyone, RMS included, be to software what fundamentalists are to religion? Extremism in any form is no virtue. The world is big enough for everyone. If your view of freedom can't encompass tolerance for proprietary software or beliefs that oppose yours, then you miss the whole idea of what freedom is all about. It's not the personal choice to avoid non-free software that's troubling, it's the doctrinaire pontifications that nobody else should ever use it. There are a lot more evil things in this world than whether someone lets you see, change, or distribute source code.
Moreover, platitudes about freedom to access source code usually fall on deaf ears and are specious to most of the world. To bend Raymond's comparison a bit, the masses who rely on programmers -- whether users of Windows, Linux, or OSX -- are in a way like those unlearned in Latin when that was the language of scholars and theologians. Those today who aren't programmers are still not free because they must employ a similar measure of trust without regard for OS and/or applications are in the same boat with those of earlier centuries who were allowed access to books or scriptures they couldn't understand. Thus, RMS is a modern day Quixote. An absolutist one at that. Not sure what's so admirable about it, but some disturbed people worship serial killers. (Go ahead. Invoke Godwin for that.)
Finally (61), I'm one of those repulsed that anyone would choose names of extremist political movements for distro releases. If one of the goals of open source is building community, I don't think giving things names about bloody uprisings and terrorism are the way to go. If you have axes to grind, you should grind them in private. Yet you're free to do as you will and I'm free to ignore you.
69 • @68 (by sd on 2009-07-21 01:38:03 GMT from Germany)
"Those today who aren't programmers are still not free because (...)"
You miss one important point: Even if you cannot write one single line of code, you are still able to compile your own kernel, to install a new Xorg or XFree86 version, to adapt GNU/Linux to your own needs. For a non-programmer it is even possible to update and maintain a distro which is EOL. All he needs is the source code, a few how-tos and time. So the source code is a precondition for this. This is freedom.
70 • @68 (by Nobody Important on 2009-07-21 02:25:41 GMT from United States)
I'd like to introduce you to DWM. It's a window manager whose configuration is entirely done in source code.
In all honestly, you seem bitter. Have a donut while you peruse my ideas.
I disagree with your overal idea that if you are not a programmer you are not free. You separate the masses into "Yes programmers" and "No programmers." the world is not nearly so easily divided. And what is stopping anyone from learning the language and looking at what they wish?
Your dismissal of source code is astonishing. Have you no honor?! You miss the idea of the GPL in the first place - by making these things available, people can take my code and use it in theirs. Just because - mind boggling - YOU and the USERS don't UNDERSTAND this "language" of mythical creation! Dear lord, mate, have you completely lost it?!
Much like Creative Commons, if I say, "this is my book; you can add to it," then you could add to it and make it better. Are you saying my book is worthless to everyone if I wrote it in pig latin? There are people out there that know Pig Latin! Pull yourself together, good sir!
Same with software. It builds upon itself. Why should two projects use two different implementations when a copy and paste would suffice? It's not plagiarism, it's freedom! I value this even though I know only a smudge of C++ and little else, because it saves man hours and also allows me, if I so choose, to leanr more C++ and understand my software.
Furthermore, your dismissal of RMS is also rash. I understands he uses Debian, which is not completely free anyhow. He wants a full OS that can be modified and changed and shared. He doesn't want software held back by politics and profits. He knows it could be better. He yells for such changes. His stance is known and respected.
He doesn't like programs that he himself must take for face value and trust - this is his choice. You seem to harp on such ideas, no? I'm slightly baffled by the idea of "having choice of running propitiatory software." Well, no one is trying to take that away, now are they? the GPL allows no mention of it, but that's no excuse. Microsoft doesn't mention GPL software that often, now do they? A tit for tat, in my book.
I respect RMS because his ideas are so ideal and wonderful that he moves to change what he views as a wrong. You may not agree with him, but you can respect him for that. Extremism is indeed a virtue.
This is why free speech is so important. I doubt I agree with Anticapitalista's choice of codename (I don't really give a damn because the software is worthwhile to me) but I defend his right to name what he will! I will also defend your right to disagree with him, as long as you are nice. I am not one of those Godwin quoting Nazi's, you silly.
So put on your angry hat and sit in the corner for a while. Each part of Linux has its piece, the free software movers included.
71 • RE: 61 and the current distrowatch trend.... (by Landor on 2009-07-21 02:40:10 GMT from Canada)
Hey Anti!
First off, sorry for my quick disappearance over there, life and another personal project happened very fast as it does.
I for one didn't find the codename (nor any of them) offensive in the slightest. Reason being though, we both share similar views in that area I'd imagine. But also, life's what it is, it would be all pretty sad if it was apples and oranges, rosebuds and sunny skies every single day. Many seem to forget the equation of "difference" in our world.
Speak of that, and the current comments about Stallman. I'll quote something I posted here almost two years ago:
"Speaking of groupies, and bring this back to Linux. Although I have found that the normal exuberance? related to their distro uncalled for, I have changed my thoughts on the mattter. Without said dedication to Linux in general it wouldn't be where it is today. Without those promoting it even zealously it would be left to those like myself who just tell people about it, try once to get them to take a peek, then leave it at that. I don't think in that case it would've evolved into what it has.
So for those who have been called zealots, fanatics, fanbois, touters, we probably wouldn't be where we are without you, just as much as Linus and the Devs."
One other thing...
I can't say I've enjoyed the direction of the articles as of late. I find the current and recent articles poor in my opinion. For example, this week's article there was a statement that the idea for the choice of distro on the laptop was from the blog a month ago. Now I can't, nor anyone else, say how long the process has been going, but I find two sections near the end of the review utterly useless and 0 need for them to placed in it. Reason being, who wants to read about something not working but the person didn't have time to find out why. I've also found the writing style less than appealing, along with dips in propaganda and faboyism. An example to that point as well, I've seen (in my opinion only of course) an absurd comparison of Vector Linux as a benchmark (so to speak) against a popular "main distro". Coupled with the ongoing fanboyism in regard to the Slack-based distro "W", I've found distrowatch very unappealing to say the least.
I will point out one thing though, The news articles that Chris Smart is bringing are a nice read and he seems to bring in ones that I always seem to have missed somehow. Kudos to Chris, and it's a definite shame he's not writing the reviews now. A clear mistake on DW's part in my opinion only of course...
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
72 • wallpaper on Caitlyn's netbook 2 (by Clay Thedill on 2009-07-21 03:02:30 GMT from Australia)
ah! thankyou :)
may have been used by kde4 too, anyway e.g.:
https://www.acrescout.com/images/ccms/wallpapers/
p.s. winter atm in oz, but any time of year I like my green tea spliced with mint ;) MM-mm!
p.p.s. still lovin' DW reviews & articles :D
73 • sidux spelled as siddux in the Released Last Week section (by Eric on 2009-07-21 03:09:04 GMT from Canada)
Just to point out, at the time of my posting there is a double-d in the sidux link in the "Released Last Week" section as such: siddux
Thanks for another DWW
74 • @70 (by lucky on 2009-07-21 03:16:19 GMT from United States)
I'm quite familiar with dwm; search for it on my blog (linked to my nym). I'm also quite comfortable compiling. That's beside the point because I don't have to compile anything to use libre/open source software even in Windows. Nearly everything I use in Linux is also available as Windows binaries. That includes emacs, Sylpheed, OpenOffice.org, etc. There are things that work flawlessly and wonderfully for me under Windows that are an absolute pain in the ___ in any other OS. That includes my wireless card as much as my MTP media device (just re-downloaded, re-patched, and re-compiled libmtp, fwiw, to move podcasts to my S3).
For all you had to say, you completely ignored the main point of what I wrote: that *most* computer users don't want the code because they don't understand it. I'll go further and say they (most users -- not most Linux users, not most BSD users, but most computer users) also don't *want* to compile anything. They want to download or install from CD something they click and it runs without any issues.
In addition to not knowing my frame of mind or motivations (not bitter at all nor have I lost my mind, I'm just realistic), you also misstate the terms and conditions of licenses by not providing the conditions under which you may use the code or alter it -- the GPL adds caveats under which you may use it, and those caveats make it a less free option than other licenses like BSD, MIT/X, etc. Moreover, CC isn't one license but a mixture of them by the time licensors add whatever conditions they want.
Finally, I'll humor your statement about the value of a book by saying it's only of value to anyone who understands or appreciates whatever language it's in or about. At the end of the day, 90+% of computer users are never going to compile code let alone audit it or alter it -- to such, source is worthless unless it's compiled for them. The value of "free software" to most users has to do with free as in beer, not free as in freedom. Source code is only of value to the relative handful of users in the whole world who actually want it. No amount of delusions or platitudes about why everything should be opened up will change that and it's broadest appeal amounts to preaching to the choir.
75 • #71 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-07-21 03:32:00 GMT from United States)
I am again confused by what seems to me to be a contradiction. You quote Stallman (I assume you are in agreement with his statement) saying the following:
"So for those who have been called zealots, fanatics, fanbois, touters, we probably wouldn't be where we are without you, just as much as Linus and the Devs."
Then you go on to say:
"Coupled with the ongoing fanboyism in regard to the Slack-based distro "W", I've found distrowatch very unappealing to say the least".
It seems that you agree with Stallman then you disagree with him but only when one of the "fanboy's" mentions Wolvix. My apologies if I missed the point. I have recently tried Wolvix and it really is a top-notch distro so I can understand why someone would want to "spout off" about it. I mean it is really, really good.
I am not trying to be critical, I just don't understand how you can say the opposite of what you just said in the preceding paragraph and maintain any kind of logical consistency.
76 • Caitlyn (and other) Bashing (by Arron on 2009-07-21 03:40:33 GMT from Australia)
Please stop the flames, be constructive or do not bother to press enter.
I have been a DW DWW reader for (too many?) years, and would offer you all the following over a decent cup of coffee / white tea or whatever your preferred "poison" is...
Caitlyn, I know how thankless it can be to put together a publication under pressure AND get it all "perfect". Feel free to email me and I will proofread it for you on most weeks. Thanks for the well written, occasionally rushed articles. You have done well IMHO (as did Ladislav in DWW for years before you).
Critics - "put up or shut up". Half your comments are only semi-literate - please proofread your own comments before pressing enter. Suggestion - try writing a review under pressure and see what it looks like... then criticise others if you meet the standard.
A minor quibble – we use debian / slackware in a lot of enterprises – FWIW, I believe any *nix distro can be made to work in that environment with the kind of tinkering you describe in the CentOS article.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Arron (Australia)
77 • RE: 71 (by Landor on 2009-07-21 03:58:17 GMT from Canada)
First, I find your apologies in the second last paragraph suspect indeed. Mainly due to this one line that no matter someone's place in the great celestial/planet race, I found quite insulting:
"I just don't understand how you can say the opposite of what you just said in the preceding paragraph and maintain any kind of logical consistency."
Regardless though, it matters not. The foremost thing you made an err in is the fact that I did "not" quote Stallman. I quoted myself. It only had reference to the fact that yes, I think Stallman is a Zealot. A Zealot that our community needs.
Not once though did I say I like Zealots, or Zealots posting weekly, over and over, about their knee-jerk distro and it has 0 bearing on the current comments or the issue of DWW. A person may understand a need (and it seems understanding things is hugely lacked) but it doesn't mean they agree with that need, at all.
Anyway, I should have been nicer, who knows, I might have ended up with Plutodor one day....
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
78 • OpenSourceWatershed (by Scott Shawcroft on 2009-07-21 04:25:28 GMT from United States)
@37: Adrian, thanks for the feedback. Looks like I was trumped by RMS. Thanks for the post Chris!
79 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-07-21 04:31:44 GMT from United States)
Nice to see the second quarter sidux release come out in the middle of last week. As usual, it is fast and it makes it easier to install a Debian Sid based system quickly. The sidux team also does a good job monitoring packages to put on hold so packaging issues will not arise, and occasionally they will have time to fix a package and send it to the Debian maintainer. Worth using for Debian Sid fans.
80 • wallpaper on Caitlyn's netbook 3 (by Clay Thedill on 2009-07-21 04:35:44 GMT from Australia)
(btw, credit: "Colorado Farm" by Scott Ingram, re. excellent http://linuxtoy.org/archives/kde-40-wallpapers.html
ok i'll stop there ;) )
81 • RMS and Free Software (by john frey on 2009-07-21 05:45:18 GMT from Canada)
Is not a fundamentalist but rather an activist and an advocate. Fundamentalists use violence and kill people who disagree with them. You will never find Stallman suggesting violence or killing to further his beliefs. So stop with the stupid labels.
Stallman is the father of the Free Software Movement. No he did not invent the idea of sharing or collaberation nor does he ever claim to. He created the Free Software Movement and the term Free Software because he had experienced open collaberation with software and saw corporations moving towards restrictive and proprietary (primarily unix) systems. Nobody was calling it Free Software before Stallman.
We keep hearing the argument, over the years, from those new to FLOSS that BSD style licenses have no restrictions and thus are freer than GPL software. Now I don't know of any license with no restrictions or requirements at all but I stand to be corrected by those who do know of them. The BSD licensing that I know about requires that the software include accreditation to those who contributed before. That is a restriction. You are not allowed to use the software if you don't comply.
One might claim that creating regulations removes freedom but that is juvenile thinking of the sort that does not yet understand there are more aspects to freedom than self-centred desire. I personally am very tired of the example of "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" but it illustrates the point. Freedom to enjoy the movie/play and freedom to shout "fire" are mutually exclusive. We can only allow one.
Licenses that allow source code to be made less free do nothing to perpetuate freedom of the code. It is RMS belief that without licensing to perpetuate the freedom of the code it will eventually lose all freedom. Knowing the nature of the corporate and market system I have to agree. We don't have to choose one, but if we don't we will end up with nothing but proprietary.
The term Open Source was created to cater to corporate interests. Why? Maybe because corporate interests hold freedom in contempt. So if we allow the Open Source idea to take over or we simply choose not to care about Free Software we allow the corporate interests to take over and they will stifle your freedom as surely as you and I need to draw another breath.
82 • Pardus 2009 (by KenP on 2009-07-21 07:20:34 GMT from United States)
I would like to see a review my dw on Pardus 2009, especially because its an excellent KDE4 distribution.
A good review would definitely put some KDE4 nay-sayers to rest.
Thank you.
83 • UNR (by Tom on 2009-07-21 07:37:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sorry about even asking this but does anyone know which DE Ubuntu Netbook Remix uses? Any links to the DE's homepage would be handy ;)
Thanks and regards from Tom :)
84 • knoppix development (by LHOMME-DESAGES bernard on 2009-07-21 07:53:43 GMT from France)
ou en est le développement de knoppix 6
possibilité de l'installer sur disque non SATA?
85 • several (by Somebody on 2009-07-21 08:54:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
"dead machine that isn't worth reviving" (31):
- no such beast. Ever since IBM's PC1, hardware has been designed with modularity. You isolate the fault and replace that module. Everything is worth saving from landfill. If it's a modern machine like a P1/PII/Cx400/etc then run PuppyLinux, if it's older try Menuet, Kolibri (off floppies) or SliTaz/Tiny Core if you can squeeze enough memory into it.
"Why don't you try Debian on your netbook?" "CentOS, but I'd prefer something else. It just doesn't seem to be something you would put on a netbook." (29) :
- soon, all netbooks will move over to ARM RISC/MIPS - the only rational option. That, hopefully, will kill Macro$haft once and for all. Debian is ready, already, with a suitable solution.
86 • #77 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-07-21 09:09:19 GMT from United States)
I can understand how my post #75 came across badly. Perhaps it would have been less offensive if I had just requested clarification. I honestly did not (do not) understand what you (sorry I thought you were quoting Stallman) were saying. I offer you my sincere apology.
I don't mind the "fanboy's" postings, they are easy to spot and hurt nothing. I find them to be more of an expression of the joy that naturally flows from the discovery of freedom.
I don't see Stallman as a "zealot" but as an articulate, and dedicated advocate of basic human rights (actually the rights of all beings) on many levels including software. I think #81 succinctly articulates what my thoughts are on this issue.
87 • No subject (by forest on 2009-07-21 09:11:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
Changing the tone of the forum...yet still on topic...and for an amusing article on Firefox, see this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/13/firefox_and_us_state_department/
Makes you wonder...in this article, (on page, that is) there are links to yet another article on how MS is "beginning" to realise it might, just possibly, be a good idea to start collaborating with other OSs, so to speak.
Ref #84, I translate that to mean:
Q: "Can you install K6 on an IDE drive?"
A: " Probably. Why not just try and see...you are bound to learn something anyway...whatever happens."
88 • knoppix (by Tom on 2009-07-21 09:59:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
I thought Knoppix was specifically written to only work as a Live Cd. When i wanted to install it i took their websites and main devs advice to "forget it & try Mandriva instead" lol
89 • No subject (by forest on 2009-07-21 10:26:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #88
I have to confess I only got it onto a usb stick, LOL.
I can't remember if I bothered with an h/d install. I was in my DOAS phase...
Sill, if the the Man of Desages, Bernard, wants to give it a try then again why not?
I have noticed that a lot of the stuff you are not supposed to be able to do can be done if you are interested and can spare an afternoon or evening. As in I found you could use the usb stick app in U9 to install other distros other than U9.
Give it a bash Bernard. And perhaps you might let the forum know the outcome, whatever happens.
90 • CentOS on laptops, and some strawmen (by Miq on 2009-07-21 10:27:57 GMT from Sweden)
Wow, that was a truckload of strawmen dumped on RMS there by @68. There is a Swedish saying that eating blueberries makes you sweet. Are there any nice pie stores around where you're living? Also, try Caitlyn's lime-sweetened green tea, should be a delish combo.
---
Anyway, I have had very good experiences installing CentOS 5.3 on older laptops (from the 1 ghz CPU era). In fact, compared with a slew of other sleeker distros (f.i. Vector and Wolvix) I had the best out-of-the-box hardware detection and configuration success. However, fixing the rest of what needed patching was somewhat more difficult than using more recent and desktop-oriented distros.
I'd also like to say that I had much issues with the Vector Linux installation tool, which deviated wildly from what has slowly become the standard Linux installation experience and work process.
91 • Richard Stallman's 100% free software laptop :-) (by yelamdenu on 2009-07-21 10:34:07 GMT from Netherlands)
For those interested in what Richard Stallman, since he did mention it in the interview, is using for a computer, see here for a review:
http://www.osnews.com/story/21530/The_Loongson-2_MIPS_Lemote_Yeeloong_Netbook
It's even for sale. :)
92 • No subject (by forest on 2009-07-21 11:10:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #89
Knoppix on HD query, try here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=knoppix+hard+disk&revid=1629677030&ei=tqBlSpuyGMnRjAfDgP2gAQ&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=5
93 • CentOS hardware support (by Dag Wieers on 2009-07-21 11:20:34 GMT from Belgium)
Hi,
I noticed that you said CentOS doesn't support the rt73 wireless card, but according to what I can find (at the sourceforge site) you have to use the rt2x00 drivers, which ships with CentOS 5.3 (Red Hat even ships a seperate rt73usb-firmware package that we also offer from ELRepo.org).
Maybe you lacked the proper firmware, or your specific type of device was not supported by the stock rt2x00 driver, in both cases we would like to know to improve ELRepo.org.
For your webcam, normally the kmod-video4linux package from ELRepo.org ships all known webcam/tv/dvb-t drivers backported to the 2.6.18 kernel, I don't know if you tried this one. If you did, again it would be nice to get more information about it to find a fix for it so others don't have the same issue.
In both cases we need the PCI or USB identification in order to verify the hardware type and match it with existing drivers. If you can help us with that, you can help other people as well :-)
Thanks in advance !
94 • In praise of CentOS (by Dimitri Yioulos on 2009-07-21 12:15:02 GMT from United States)
At the time my present company was coming to life (June, 2004), I had to make a decision as to which Linux distro to build its information system on. (I had long before made the decision to use Linux, for all the reasons well-known to DWW readers).
I was a satisfied long-time user of Redhat products, so that choice was also made in advance. However, our company was somewhat under-capitalized, so a free alternative to Redhat's offerings was sought. At that time, the two extant Redhat clones were Whitebox Linux, the father of RH clones, and the newly minted CentOS. With all due respect to Whitebox, it was a one-person effort, and I just couldn't take a chance on it. So, I chose CentOS, what with it backing by a foundation.
Now, five-and-a-half years later, I'm patting myself on the back for making a great choice. CentOS has supported mission critical applications wonderfully for what is now a successful 65-person company. It's been stable, reliable, and powerful. The community around it is great, as well.
With that, I'd like to say thanks to the maintainers of CentOS for a great OS. I'd also like to thank Redhat for making available the binaries with which CentOS and other clones are built.
95 • #76 Caitlyn's Reviews (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-07-21 12:16:16 GMT from United States)
I agree. Not every review or article is going to be something everyone is interested in but, please have a little respect for the person who is trying to provide useful information to the community. I find Caitlyn's reviews interesting, pertinent, and at times invaluable. For example please see the review of CDlinux. I think there are some here who "love to hate" Caitlyn for some reason.
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090706
#88 Isn't Knoppix really outdated? I haven't seen a release for a long time. Does anyone have any information on the future of DSL? I know what it says on the website but that was a while ago.
#60 & 61 I find it absurd that you think it is necessary to have the goal of "pissing people off!" This is no way to live your life.
96 • 84, 88, 89 & 92 (by Tom on 2009-07-21 12:37:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sorry Forest & Bernard. I do agree that it would be interesting. The knoppix website did seem to give step-by-step instructions for a full hard-drive install but that was way beyond me then and probably still is. My assumption had been that because knoppix was such an excellent LiveCd (& presumably the LiveUsb (DoaS) is too) that therefore the hard-drive install would also b easy and excellent. Instead i was firmly pushed towards Mandriva which was a much more exciting and easier install, especially as my first gnu&linux. Somehow other distros just don't seem as excitingly colourful - but i've learned that surface eye-candy is not always the best thing to aim for. Still Mandriva and knoppix are the hooks that drew me into the gnu&linux world :)) A hard-drive install of knoppix would probably teach a lot about linux and would be very interesting to hear about in here :))
97 • Knoppix and Pardus (by Sertse on 2009-07-21 12:44:49 GMT from Australia)
Re:95 Knoppix had an release at the start is this year, it's main innovation the ADRIANE desktop, catering to the visually impaired. The desktop speaks!
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=05299
Replying to several Pardus comments: The Pardus CD comes in two versions, the normal CD which is only in Turkish and English, and the international CD with 14 languages.
To answer someone (forest) from the end of the last DWW, Pardus' management is somewhat like what Novell relationship with OpenSuse was/is. Yes, the Turkish Govt could, in theory override everything and take control, but in practice it won't really happen. Currently it's probably more at the stage of how Novell/Opensuse was like before the most recent changes earlier this year (See http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090608#news), and like Novell/Opensuse even then, Pardus has active relations with the community, particularly in the Turkish portal, http://www.ozgurlukicin.com/ and they have a community manager on the team from that community.
I'll try to find verifable sources for what I saying (a bit busy today) later, but while I suppose it's good to be skeptical, it isn't as dastardly as it seems ;)
Also! Pardus is a awesome KDE 4 distro, and very solid.
98 • Thanks and follow-up (by MRaugh on 2009-07-21 12:51:17 GMT from United States)
First off, thanks to everyone for their input. You folks are awesome. Based on the comments here, I'm going with a multi-boot setup. I'll start with 64-bit Jaunty because it's the devil I know and I can get the machine doing what I need it to do quickly. That gets 100GB; the rest will get divvied up to experiment with other distros in my geeky free time, starting with 64-bit sidux (seems like a good balance between leading and bleeding, and it's got all those Debian repos), Fedora, and Arch. Give me a few months, #38, and my grub menu may run into multiple pages. ;^)
#85: The machine has killed 3 hard drives in 4 years and makes very strange fan noises. I'm thinking it has a cooling/airflow problem, which will take some significant time and tinkering to diagnose and repair and test before the machine can be trusted again. I lack the patience and the willingness to put up with more downtime to deal with it; instead it'll make a fine spare-time project for my son, after which he can either use or sell the box as he wishes.
CentOS: I'm a long time user and fan. My home network is centered around a CentOS 5 server and I use it extensively in the test lab because of the binary compatibility with the RHEL we use in production. I love CentOS as a server and while there's no reason it can't be used as a desktop there are definitely downsides to doing it. Hardware that servers don't tend to have, like wireless cards and gaming-grade graphics adapters, aren't well supported on a server-centric distro. Most people want to be a bit more current with their primary apps, too. That doesn't make it impossible, just more difficult -- the user has to do more searching and twiddling to get a good result. I found Caitlyn's article fascinating as an example of what's possible for anyone suitably motivated and skilled.
Debian in the enterprise: Caitlyn, I do know of some enterprises -- the US Federal Government being one -- where Debian is used and accepted. But even there it tends to be used for research support systems, test labs, and utility roles for exactly the reason you advanced: if there's vital data on the line or a mission-critical application to be run, these organizations want a support contract. They need someone they can call at 3am when a critical file system has gone missing. Debian can't provide that.
RMS: Remember that every movement needs its extreme voices. People listen to what RMS has to say and are shocked out of their comfort zone; they look around them and think, "Okay, he's kinda nuts, but he does have a point." And the center moves a little bit our way as a result.
-MR
99 • @81 (by lucky on 2009-07-21 13:03:31 GMT from United States)
First, I'm not new to open source so stop with the lies about license wars being the domain of neophytes. If it weren't a serious issue, why haven't the BSDs included more GPL'ed code in their releases rather than feverishly rewrite their own untainted code? You should look more closely at the issues involved before being so flippantly dismissive.
Simplistic, naive arguments against corporations don't float. Companies are no different than individuals -- they expect to make enough for their efforts to justify rolling out of bed in the morning. Oppression, too, doesn't rely on groups to carry it out; individuals are quite capable of engaging in it.
Corporate greed -- if not for that, the Linux kernel would be a big casualty. Companies like IBM, Novell, Redhat, Intel, Oracle, etc., have contributed most of the changes in Linux 2.6 (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php) -- "over 70% of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work." So much for your feeble thesis that companies must be restrained (look at similar dynamics at companies who contribute code to the BSDs simply so they don't have to patch new releases with their own changes).
The BSD license's stipulation to using code is that it must include a copyright notice. Same as republication or use of any other copyrighted material; that's not a restriction or obsacle to using it (as others like Microsoft have done -- the Internet wouldn't have grown very fast if TCP/IP had been GPL rather than BSD). This is far less onerous than the GPL requirements that distributed binaries include the actual source from which compiled, that any distributed changes be made available, etc. Since the FSF said a couple years ago that downstream distros are responsible for making sources available and not merely point to upstream distros' source repos for any/all unmodified binaries, I wonder how many sub-distros and "remixes" truly comply with GPL. A year ago I had several packages I'd submitted removed from one distro because there was no plan to comply with those terms -- nobody had ever asked for the sources but the requirement is what it is.
Back to the issue at hand. How can someone be the father of something which existed before he supposedly created it? Think.
100 • @65 (by Sean on 2009-07-21 13:06:44 GMT from United States)
Caitlyn, either I'm misunderstanding your post title "if you can do better" as being directed at me, or you may have misunderstood my reference to notorik's caustic, "#41 Why don't you pay more attention to what you are doing?" directed at you. I bothered by several posts including the remark by him aimed at your gracious apology. That was small of him (or her) to say the least.
But, fwiw, I think your invitation, to those who post critiques of your reviews, to write "better" ones and submit them, etc is a bit snide and maybe isn't allowing for the expected, natural process of feedback. Most published reviews have a comments or remarks section following the review. I've seen exchanges back and forth between a reviewer and commenter who disagreed with this or that.
To expect either no feedback or only positive feedback seems a bit naive. :o)
101 • @74 (by Nobody Important on 2009-07-21 13:18:43 GMT from United States)
Is it true that some people will not see the effects of open source, or even ever look at source code? Yes. But if you explain how it works, they'll see why it's a good thing.
For example, you are familiar with dwm, so you'd know all of its derivatives that add extra features, such as Awesome or Ratpoison. Just because I personally have no use for the source code doesn't mean I don't benefit from it being available - these are excellent window managers. Look at the issue further - things like Xorg were forked off of their originals because they were stagnant, and look at the sate of X now. It's as strong, robust and feature filled as its ever been.
This reminds me of people who don't like to pay taxes. They complain and say, "Why should I pay taxes for roads when I don't use roads? I use sidewalks." But you're not just paying for the road, you're paying for a society that uses and depends on roads in its everyday environment. By paying taxes, you insure that people you know and society in general can be mobile. It doesn't affect you personally, but you still benefit from it in ways you probably don't realize.
Same with source code availability. Projects become stronger and more powerful behind the scenes, where the typical user cannot see them (or, again, are uninterested in learning how to read source code, which is not the fault of the GPL). But when a user starts up free software, they know that the program will not only be free for the rest of that program's existance, but that if they need to, they can edit the program to their needs, with the right (freely available) knowledge and information.
@81: The BSD and GPL licenses are designed to take away freedoms from the developers so that the user has more.
102 • @81 (by john frey on 2009-07-21 15:26:34 GMT from Canada)
"How can someone be the father of something which existed before he supposedly created it? Think."
I don't know, how can Iggy Pop be called the father of punk rock? Music existed long before he arrived on the scene. How can John Maynard Keynes be called the father of modern economics? Economics was around long before him.
You're either thick or being willfully ignorant. In either case further debate is useless.
103 • @52 (by Adam Williamson on 2009-07-21 15:37:03 GMT from Canada)
Don't be disingenuous. I'm sure you know perfectly well what issues RMS and the FSF have with BSD-style licenses, and why he draws a distinction between 'free software' and 'open source'. This is widely known (and publicly advertised) information, and I see no point in starting a proxy argument about it (nor do I want to be RMS' proxy). Whether you agree with it or not, the man's position is clear.
104 • Pardus 2009 (by LinuxLover on 2009-07-21 15:53:42 GMT from Canada)
I am extremely impressed ......
This is by far the best distro I tried recently. I installed it last night on an old PC with only 512MB of ram and 3.2 GHz P4 CPU and everything worked just fine. KDE 4 in Pardus is the most responsive one I have tried so far
. . . . two thumbs up
105 • #100 For Sean, general response (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-21 15:57:14 GMT from United States)
#65, all but the line about green tea (which was a response to you) was written to #55, kit weston, and the other posters you considered caustic, including notorik. As already noted in a couple of comments there are a few people who really don't like me and post something negative about me or my writing at every opportunity. There are some people I can never satisfy.
To me negative comments can be broken into two categories. The first, constructive criticism, I actually appreciate. Those are comments that I can learn from and which help me improve. At the very least, even if I disagree I can acknowledge a different viewpoint as valid. The second category are what I call the "stone throwers", folks who pick and attack for that purpose and seemingly no other. Those comments I generally ignore.
My comment in #55 wasn't snide. It was a challenge, one that I wouldn't mind seeing someone take up now and again. Ladislav posts guest features from time to time. Sometimes another perspective is interesting and positive.
As some of you will remember, Chris Smart recently got married. (Congratulations again, Chris!) Between that and some professional commitments he decided to back away from feature writing for now. That was his choice. Ladislav asked me to write the features on a regular basis except when he, at times, chooses to do it himself or when he has a guest feature.
Maybe a month ago Ladislav got fed up with the bashing that seems to be a regular feature here no matter who writes and said that nobody was forcing anyone to read DWW. I thought that was a bit rude at the time but maybe it needed to be said. Maybe it needs to be said again.
This week's article wasn't written because of a blog post. What I said (when not taken out of context) is that a blog post inspired me to consider replicating my business work environment on my netbook. I thought some would find my experience (the good and the bad) interesting so I turned it into an article.
I get tired of reading (and writing) an ordinary review every week so I try to vary things. This week was a recounting of something I tried, last week was a historical piece, we had Ladislav's excellent coverage of LinuxTag, a few weeks ago we had an interview. In depth reviews and first looks will still be a regular part of DWW features while I'm the primary writer but they will turn up maybe 50% of the time.
Also, I appreciate all the suggestions for what to review. I do make note of them. Obviously we only have 52 weeks in a year and half of that would be 26. I can't do them all but I try to spot things that come up repeatedly.
I'm never going to please everyone with my writing. If I please Ladislav (who is the boss here) and a large percentage of the readership I'll be happy with that.
106 • #93, hardware support in CentOS (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-21 16:24:54 GMT from United States)
@Dag Wieers, thank you for your comments. I'd also like to thank you for all your work and dedication to RHEL/CentOS repos over the years. I have used and recommended your packages often.
I may not have been clear enough in my description of the wireless problem and solution. My system does not have a RaLink RT73 USB wireless adapter. It has an onboard wireless chipset that does use the rt73usb driver, however. lsusb identifies it as a Qcom RT2573. lsmod output on a working system follows:
caitlyn:$ lsmod | grep rt73
rt73usb 22400 0
crc_itu_t 2688 1 rt73usb
rt2x00usb 9728 1 rt73usb
rt2x00lib 24320 2 rt73usb,rt2x00usb
So, yes, it requires both the rt73usb module and the rt2x00usb/rt2x00lib modules.
I can try removing what I built and installing the firmware package and then see if that works.
The webcam in this netbook is a very special snowflake and most distros don't recognize it. Ubuntu Netbook Remix 8.04 LTS as shipped by the manufacturer worked out of the box but nothing else I've tried does including distros with excellent webcam support (i.e.: Ubuntu, Mandriva). I have to find my notes on how I made it work in VectorLinux and where I downloaded the driver source from. I will, however, try the package you suggested. I'm just not very hopeful that will do it. If not I'll dig up what info I do have and send it on. That you for your willingness to try and help others who have the same device.
Again, thank you for your comment and all your ongoing hard work.
107 • Various (by anticapitalista on 2009-07-21 16:34:39 GMT from Greece)
#64 antiX-M8.2 should be available before the end of this week.
#68 As you well know antiX-M8 'Intifada' is not named after any 'extremist political movement' or 'terrorism'. I won't go into detail as the post will no doubt be deleted if I do.
About 'pissing people off' (note I wrote '... piss people off as long as it is for the right reasons'). Well I'm just following the fine tradition of 'pisser offers' such as Spartacus, Ghandi, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Toussaint Louverture, Sitting Bull, John Brown, the Levellers, Luddites, Diggers, and a whole host of people - without them our world would be a lot worse.
108 • #20, #73 typo corrected (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-21 16:36:25 GMT from United States)
I thought Ihad acknowledged and corrected the typo on the second mention of sidux yesterday. It is definitely corrected now. Thank you again for bringing it to my attention.
109 • Distro for a low resource system (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-21 16:42:47 GMT from United States)
I received a comment by e-mail addressing this issue which may be valuable:
...maybe you could add a comment in RE: using CentOS on older HW -- there was somebody telling about "the 1 GHz era".
There is a Scientific Linux 5.3 MiniLiveCD (installable) with IceWM, which is fabulously low in demands:
http://beranger.org/v3/wordpress/2009/06/11/improved-scientific-linux-53-mini-livecd/
---
Note: I haven't tried this myself.
110 • @81 (by Rex on 2009-07-21 16:53:40 GMT from United States)
"Licenses that allow source code to be made less free do nothing to perpetuate freedom of the code. It is RMS belief that without licensing to perpetuate the freedom of the code it will eventually lose all freedom"
This is a false statement.
First code does not have a freedom aspect. It is a thing. Things are neither free nor unfree. So it mangles *human* understanding to write this way. RMS is wrong if he believes such because code cannot lose what it never had.
Second, while it is indeed nice to see unrestricted code continue to remain unrestricted for use, it is never the point to mindlessly "perpetuate the freedom of the code" but it is the point to produce code whether proprietary or not which does something that *humans* want done. To that end, it is a fact that many sharp and creative minds will not apply themselves to a task unless they can make a profit. Those minds are lost to progress if one dogmatically insists on absolute dictatorship of the sort RMS obsesses over.
"We don't have to choose one, but if we don't we will end up with nothing but proprietary."
This statement is over the top. That is unless proprietary forces can somehow prevent new code from being written. In any case freedom includes the opportunity to spend or not spend our money on proprietary software which means that humans are free no matter what. Though human freedom does not mean that every human has some absolute right to exactly the same things that another human has! Or does it?
111 • RE: 110 (by Landor on 2009-07-21 17:05:02 GMT from Canada)
That is truly absurd!
If a home doesn't have a lock for security, then there's no way a person can protect the "freedoms" of their home.
The GPL is in essence "a lock" against those that would freely take and very well create proprietary. Eventually causing everyone to only create proprietary for the protection of their code. The GPL ensures that those freedoms (choice, goals, wants) of the dev for their code exist.
That is a more simple explanation of the line "We don't have to choose one, but if we don't we will end up with nothing but proprietary."
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
112 • No subject (by forest on 2009-07-21 17:07:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #97
Sertse, we could be nattering away at cross purposes here...ref Turkish distros, not necessarily Pardus btw; who knows what "in house" govt distros there are?
Is my contention that, seeing as how the Turkish military, and by extension their secret squirrels under whose aegis some software is developed, allegedly, LOL...then the Turkish govt is very much in the loop.
I posted a link several weeks back on this topic, in this forum, which gave a lot more info.
In the same way, you could, also by extension, say the French govt are very interested in distros, eg, Ubuntu for running their National Police IT network.
I gather too that Mandriva is used by the French agriculture ministry. I cannot believe the French would/will consider adopting anything they don't have full control over...if need be...
Who can say what checks and balances have been coded in? The vast majority of users will NOT be hobbyist so may have no idea at all what code is buried in the software.
To repeat, the Chinese are still jolly keen to incorporate Green Dam into their homegrown stuff...if they do it why not others? The Chinese might be able to sniff out any machine not tricked up with GD quite easily, after all, MS boast they can detect hooky copies of their OSs.
Similarly, here in UK, we read that GCHQ are being obliged to keep an ear and eye open on any and all computer based comms, ostensibly to combat terrorism, but nobody would believe any intelligence gathered on domestic crime would be discarded...the authorities would be considered a trifle negligent if they did not employ any and all means to combat crime in any form.
GCHQ are obliged also, we read, to give best advice, as it is termed, to HM govt on all matters pertaining to computers for use in comms, which is of course their field of expertise.
I am willing to gamble cash money that before too long an HM govt distro is up for development...probably for local government at first (easiest to implement probably), then schools, then as an alternative to MS.
Mind you, given their lamentable record on use of computers in UK...all eyes on the NHS database/ IT network fiasco...you'd probably be better off using MS Vista.
113 • No subject (by colonelcrayon on 2009-07-21 17:13:15 GMT from United States)
What I cannot create, I do not understand.
- Richard Feynman
114 • Re #81,110,111 (by Rex on 2009-07-21 17:28:55 GMT from United States)
So you wish to compare people who write proprietary software to people who break into houses? Wow!
Do you deny that more minds are brought into the development field by the possibility of money making?
Are you claiming that the proprietary writers of code will have the power to ban non proprietary code writers from writing new code?
Finally, are you so fanatical that "if" there were only proprietary software or proprietary cars that your loss of human freedom would be so great that you would neither compute nor commute? You don't go to any proprietary ice hockey games perhaps?
115 • Pardus (by Anonymous on 2009-07-21 18:10:10 GMT from United States)
Pardus would be my nomination for distro of the year, but the only thing keeping me from using it is the lack of 64bit version. I have tried to get more info on when or if they will ever do one, but I have not gotten any response. Any ideas?
116 • @114 (by Anonymous on 2009-07-21 18:16:21 GMT from United States)
doesn't more minds entering delevopment have more to do with academia?
117 • Stallman and free software (by Bobby Bob on 2009-07-21 18:50:32 GMT from Canada)
From #81: "The term Open Source was created to cater to corporate interests. Why? Maybe because corporate interests hold freedom in contempt. So if we allow the Open Source idea to take over or we simply choose not to care about Free Software we allow the corporate interests to take over and they will stifle your freedom as surely as you and I need to draw another breath."
First, Open Source is not just another term, it is a slightly different ideology. Second, corporations don't care either way about freedom--aren't Red Hat, Canonical, and Novell corporations that deal with free software? No, all they care about is money. If money can be made with free software then someone will figure it out. Freedom is not part of their equation.
Now my own views on Stallman and free software are as follows (just my 2 cents). There is nothing about software that says it _should_ be free. The fact that it can be delivered at 0 cost and there is no manufacturing costs only say that it is _possible_ that it can be created for free. And I think the only freedom that free software gives is as an alternative to the monopoly that is Microsoft. Without *BSD/GNU/Linux/Firefox/etc Microsoft would have controlled just about every protocol from TCP to HTML and we would have been totally at their mercy.
This would have worked just as well if not better with commercial software, however. The problem was by the time other companies figured out Microsoft's game, even the massive IBM couldn't compete and make money. The thing that makes free software special is that it doesn't _have_ to make money to stay alive. And it is now to the point where it gives people a half decent alternative to Microsoft and other commercial products, and it keeps getting better. This keeps Microsoft et al from controlling everything outright and forces them to at least improve their products in order to sell them. Without this alternative Microsoft would just force you to buy a new license for everything every year whether you wanted to or not. But they can't now because people would be willing to sacrifice a little convenience for money and jump over to GNU/Linux/*BSD/etc..
But I think Microsoft and commercial software in general is also necessary. Without it, free software has nothing to shoot at, nothing to compete against. And without motivation, development will grind to a halt. The competition works both ways.
So I think free software today is less ideologically necessary than it is practically necessary.
118 • linux on netbooks (by gb on 2009-07-21 19:51:04 GMT from Italy)
by default the centos installer suggests ext3 filesystems.
I think that the journaling activity (i.e. repeatedly overwriting the same few disk blocks) can quickly kill solid state devices usually found in netbooks: I'd go for an ext2 filesystem instead.
119 • Revolution OS (by Untitled on 2009-07-21 20:23:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think Revolution OS does a good job of explaining Free Software and Open Source and Linux in general.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409
For anyone who hasn't watched it yet and is interested about those things.
120 • GPL/BSD/ licenses vs Open Source CDDL licenses etc (by FedoraGuy on 2009-07-21 20:39:52 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (Disrespectful).
121 • sticks (by Tom on 2009-07-21 21:11:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hey, good to see you back lander, i hope all's well :)
I still haven't had a chance to read even the articles this week, let alone keep up with the chats! What do people think of the news that microsquish will be writing OpenSource code for the linux kernel?!?!
Good luck and regards all from Tom :)
122 • #118: Netbook storage (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-21 21:30:18 GMT from United States)
@gb: Testing has actually shown that the lifespan of solid state devices may be longer than conventional hard drives. The idea of not using a journaling filesystem has pretty well been debunked. In any case my netbook has a conventional 80GB hard drive so this is a non-issue for me.
123 • Microsoft and OpenSource code (re 121) (by Bobby Bob on 2009-07-21 21:37:08 GMT from Canada)
Microsoft is losing to Google. Google and facebook and twitter and youtube and whatever else is out there that I don't even know about are pushing standalone software, Microsoft's bread and butter, into obsolescence, and Microsoft is behind in the game. Microsoft wants to start to look like good guys now. They don't want to be so much the evil empire so that no matter how good their new online products are people won't just by default go to the "good people" at Google. Sun, Google, Novell, Oracle, Adobe...just about everyone except Microsoft has had their hands in the free software pot. And now that Google is making an open source OS, Microsoft sticks out like a sore thumb. Microsoft is also probably hoping to make contributions that are so critical that Linux won't be able to be competitive without Microsoft's help...which will give them control. That is almost happening already with Mono, I think. Microsoft is like the Borg...they assimilate and then they take over. They are saying if you can't beat them, join them, and then kick them out of the game.
But that is all just speculation on my part. I know nothing :-)
124 • RE:121/123 and a "Hey" (by Landor on 2009-07-21 23:08:10 GMT from Canada)
Before I forget, Hey Glenn, how's it been?
Hi Tom, things have been pretty good, ty, and you? Life just got super busy is all, and the opportunity to really make some headway on an old old project of mine came to bear.
As per #123 (so a reply for both), I "personally" believe that their intentions are dubious at best. I'm quite sure the powers that be controlling the kernel will watch any and all things to do with coming from MS under the virtual microscope.
On the front about "cloud computing" ( I hate catch phrases), I think Google has dropped the ball themselves as well. Facebook is definitely in the fore when it comes to this. Some may disagree, but it is far more easy to integrate other sites and such (for example: Twitter) into your Facebook account. Facebook, combined with such other sites has become a massively driven force. I can only see Facebook growing, and making huge leaps in cloud computing. On the other hand though, I won't deny that Google does have some very nice options available. One of which is Google sites that I've been looking at a lot lately.
Anyway, that's my take on things is all.
BTW, I did put CentOS on a lappy a while back. A low end Lenovo that I picked up with some discounts for just barely over 400 CAD. It was a bit of a treat to get it on there, but it worked fine basically. Some things I didn't expect to work at all on it. Like brightness, Lenovo Care, etc. They currently don't work in any new release. Mepis is on it now. All my systems (except for this one) are Debian Lenny proper or Mepis/AntiX based now.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
125 • No subject (by forest on 2009-07-21 23:13:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #123
Sort of like a Trojan Horse a la Borg you reckon...well, its happened before...perhaps it is a timely reminder...beware of MS bearing gifts.
Mind you, they have "got" to comply with this licence thingy...like they always do...hmmm.
Actually BB, you may have the right of it.
126 • No subject (by forest on 2009-07-21 23:34:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
127 • Inspirational thought (re #123) (by erniek on 2009-07-22 02:09:05 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
128 • A lower-stress way to do CentOS on a Netbook? (by RO on 2009-07-22 02:38:53 GMT from United States)
For a PHP/MySQL online class early this year, I decided to use my Asus 900A since it had 2GB RAM, and a 1.6 Ghz Atom CPU - more powerful than anything else I have ;-}. I installed EasyPeasy on the 16GB SSD I got for it, but being a cheap one, its write speed was awful. So I decided to maximize the RAM and CPU by using a USB 5400 RPM external HDD with CentOS running under Virtual Box, and it worked great. Hardware driver issues were thus minmized, and I could use the native EasyPeasy for personal stuff that it could handle well with Firefox and Thunderbird for internet uses, and OpenOffice for docs/spreadsheets.
Just another way to optimize ...
129 • @12 (by Puppy power on 2009-07-22 03:30:47 GMT from N/A)
With older hardware like yours, I'd suggest Puppy.
130 • Seriously Get Sidux Linux! (by JD on 2009-07-22 03:51:41 GMT from United States)
I Was Very Impressed with the latest release of Sidux, KDE 4X is actually fast and responsive in it! I like to think of Sidux as Debian Sid on steroids! Not quite as user friendly as i would have hoped (to pass it to others) but i managed to get it working! The Best Part is it always keeps up with the new kernel! Great Job Sidux Team! and Distrowatch Weekly!
131 • pet gripe - hibernating live cds (by gnomic on 2009-07-22 05:36:48 GMT from New Zealand)
Speaking as one who is a live cd enthusiast, and thanking everyone who has ever created a live cd (with one or two minor exceptions where the author(s) chose the wrong hobby), may I have a wee grizzle?
It's the dread hibernation on laptops. Let's say I'm in a library and have a number of web pages loaded for later reading. I close the lid of the ThinkPad and cycle off back to base. Then I open the lid. Most commonly the machine springs back into life. In certain cases however, some eternal optimist has decided the machine will hibernate on the lid closing. Unfortunately this optimism is commonly unjustified. Either there is a blank screen, or at best some unresponsive fragments of the X Window session. Often the live CD is still running, but the gui is kaput.
Perhaps it is unfair to name names since I don't recall all instances of this behaviour, but Fedora and PCLinuxOS spring to mind from recent episodes of frustration. Maybe we could not try to hibernate in these circumstances unless success in reawakening can be guaranteed? The probability is that it can't be, given the range of hardware out there. In fact I have only ever known an installed version of SLED to succeed. Thanks for listening :-)
132 • Who'd have thought it?! (by forest on 2009-07-22 09:17:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Continuing the saga...
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/150791,microsoft-give-away-linux-kernel-drivers-for-free.aspx
133 • Ubuntu (by Tom on 2009-07-22 11:03:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
Does anyone know the proposed name for the release due to follow Kosmic Koala? Lycanthropic Lemurs perhaps? Licentious Luddites? Lavicious Lapwings?
134 • FAO devs (by forest on 2009-07-22 12:37:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sincerely hope this is of some cheer to those who would like to enter the computering industry:
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/The-Wide-Open-Career-Landscape-of-FOSS-Tech-Support-67655.html
If nothing else, following perusal of the info, you will be a tad better informed.
135 • Ubuntu names (by Freddy Fræk on 2009-07-22 13:14:48 GMT from Denmark)
@133 : my personal favourite was the 8.04 Hairy Hardon ;-)
136 • Re: 133 (by Jochem Kossen on 2009-07-22 14:09:48 GMT from Netherlands)
Ladislav's Linux ;-)
137 • Launchpad is now open source (by Xtyn on 2009-07-22 14:23:19 GMT from Romania)
Launchpad has been open sourced, it's under the AGPLv3 license. AGPL is for software that's on networks.
More details here:
http://blog.canonical.com/?p=192
138 • No subject (by Rex on 2009-07-22 15:47:47 GMT from United States)
LacononicalLappies
139 • CentOS hardware support (by Dag Wieers on 2009-07-22 15:56:34 GMT from Belgium)
@Caitlyn Martin: You're welcome.
With ELRepo (http://elrepo.org/) and RPMforge (http://rpmforge.net/) we are trying very hard to make CentOS-5 better as a desktop product, and it would certainly help this initiative if you could report back about both the rt71usb driver (and ELRepo firmware) as well as the kmod-video4linux package.
Especially wrt. the video4linux concerns you have, our kmod-video4linux package is a backport of the latest drivers, so if Ubuntu can do it, we should be able to do it too :-D
One thing we definitely need to do is add your experience to the CentOS wiki for this particular laptop, as it may help others with the same laptop, or with the same hardware. If you don't have the time for this or do not want to mess with wiki-editing (I understand!), send me a mail and I will do the wiki-editing for you.
PS You made it obvious that you were less happy that it requires manual interventions to get hardware and software working the way you are used to. The only consolidation I can give is that with CentOS, you only have to do it once every 5 years. Or, as we say, when the hardware expires :-)
PS2 And CentOS-6 will close the gap again for some time...
140 • #139 (by Albert Hall on 2009-07-22 16:51:16 GMT from United States)
I think you meant to use the word "consolation". This might help clarify the difference. If it was just a typo please disregard this.
Consolidation:
con·sol·i·da·tion
Pronunciation: kən-ˌsä-lə-ˈdā-shən
Function:
noun
Date:
15th century
1: the act or process of consolidating : the state of being consolidated2: the process of uniting : the quality or state of being united ; specifically : the unification of two or more corporations by dissolution of existing ones and creation of a single new corporation3: pathological alteration of lung tissue from an aerated condition to one of solid consistency
Consolation:
con·so·la·tion
Pronunciation: kän(t)-sə-ˈlā-shən
Function:
noun
Date:
14th century
1: the act or an instance of consoling : the state of being consoled : comfort2: something that consoles ; specifically : a contest held for those who have lost early in a tournament
— con·so·la·to·ry Listen to the pronunciation of consolatory kən-ˈsō-lə-ˌtȯr-ē, -ˈsä- adjective
141 • Where do these figures originate?! (by forest on 2009-07-22 17:15:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3831096/Google-Chrome-OS-Desktop-Linuxs-Last-Chance.htm
Now, it transpires, GNULinux has less than 1% of the desktop...either that or the zero key does not work...
It seems to me that a lot of the hacks are obliged to produce copy on demand, then spam it out with questionable statistics. Have none of these folk heard of China, India, laptop for every child, netbooks, cell phones?
And we have not, as yet, really got onto Africa yet...(other than Canonical, LOL).
Do these hacks know about this:
http://www.lpakenya.org/home/
Or even, from an unimpeachable source, (granted two years ago) of African interest:
Statistics
DistroWatch in Africa
Africa can hardly be considered a power house when it comes to interest in DistroWatch. The total number of visitors from this continent during the first seven months of 2007 barely surpassed 100,000 visitors, which is less than the number of visitors coming from Bulgaria or the Czech Republic. Furthermore, three quarters of all African readers of DistroWatch arrive here from just three countries - South Africa (42.6%), Egypt (20.2%) and Morocco (11.3%). The good news is that compared to the same period of the previous year, the readership has increased in almost all African countries, with the overall growth at 23.4%. More details below. (The figures are courtesy of the GeoLite Country IP-to-country database from Maxmind which claims an accuracy of 98%.)
Rank Country/Territory 2006 2007 % Change
1 South Africa (ZA) 41,630 45,866 +10.2%
2 Egypt (EG) 18,555 21,770 +17.3%
3 Morocco (MA) 9,803 12,164 +24.1%
4 Algeria (DZ) 3,829 6,820 +78.1%
5 Tunisia (TN) 1,364 3,283 +140.7%
6 Kenya (KE) 1,443 1,895 +31.3%
7 Zimbabwe (ZW) 1,227 1,863 +51.8%
8 Nigeria (NG) 1,367 1,662 +21.6%
9 Ghana (GH) 995 1,422 +42.9%
10 Libya (LY) 1,778 1,420 -20.1%
11 Senegal (SN) 1,103 1,140 +3.4%
12 Côte d'Ivoire (CI) 623 870 +39.6%
13 Sudan (SD) 164 736 +348.8%
14 Namibia (NA) 234 693 +196.2%
15 Mali (ML) 36 653 +1,713.9%
16 Uganda (UG) 561 627 +11.8%
17 Cameroon (CM) 169 581 +243.8%
18 Malawi (MW) 77 541 +602.6%
19 Togo (TG) 12 498 +4,050.0%
20 Tanzania (TZ) 587 498 -15.2%
21 Madagascar (MG) 225 454 +101.8%
22 Zambia (ZM) 66 315 +377.3%
23 Mozambique (MZ) 213 205 -3.8%
24 Angola (AO) 57 204 +257.9%
25 Cape Verde (CV) 69 198 +187.0%
26 Ethiopia (ET) 79 188 +138.0%
27 Botswana (BW) 171 178 +4.1%
28 Réunion (RE) 115 133 +15.7%
29 Gambia (GM) 69 131 +89.9%
30 Eritrea (ER) 17 120 +605.9%
-- Rest of Africa 639 575 -10.0%
Total Africa 87,277 107,703 +23.4%
-- USA (US) 6,045,984 7,135,032 +18.0%
So, hacks and journos, don't give us a lot of old toot about your iffy stats.
Why not do some real investigative journalism and not just rehash some press release from somewhere in Redmond.
142 • CentOs article (by Tom on 2009-07-22 17:25:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well i thought it was brilliant. It's exactly the sort of thing that i really appreciate reading. Currently if i run into troubles getting a distro onto a machine my only option is to ditch the distro and try something else. I'm aware there are clever things that can be done and it's good to read about some of these in a real-world case. Theory bores me to the point of narcolepsy and beyond ;) Caitlyn made it very clear that CentOS wasn't designed to run on this type of machine which isn't likely to be used in the corporate environment that CentOS is likely to be used in (unless it's Caitlyn's). I really don't see this as a criticism of CentOS. It was clear that CentOS is an excellent choice for a corporate environment and probably an excellent choice for even a tiny business's machine.
Thanks Caitlyn :)
Regards to all from
Tom :)
143 • Forest (by Tom on 2009-07-22 17:37:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Wow, Togo seems to have had the most impressive % increase, was that by WoM?! Tables do go funny in here, i tried an html table a couple of weeks ago but it got blocked, probably a good thing :)
I thought the "laptop for every child" fell over and totally bit the dust with most of the machines ending up heaped in a backroom somewhere in Venezuela with only a few machines making it out into peoples hands and those being the hands of local bully-boys. I thought everything was on-track until microsquish muscled in and demanded that the machine be loaded with Windows rather than the carefully localised linux that had been developed for it. Does anyone know the truth of this? i seem to remember someone giving a link to a mainstream press article about all this several months ago.
144 • multiseat (by Jairo Mayorga on 2009-07-22 17:50:49 GMT from Colombia)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
145 • @105 of Caitlyn (by Sean on 2009-07-22 17:53:31 GMT from United States)
Nice, clear and succinct explanation; thank you very much.
The challenge is a great one, then. So many post about their knowledge of distros and reviews of distros. I eagerly await reviews by the challenged ones.
146 • Windows Home Server situation (by JCM on 2009-07-22 18:53:19 GMT from Costa Rica)
Hello
My cousin use Windows Home Server (WHS) 160 days trial in an old PC and he can't afford the software cost or a hardware upgrade. I tell him that maybe a GNU/Linux distribution with the correct application combination will work for him. So, I need the community experience to help me answer his question.
The hardware configuration is:
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz (Prescott)
Intel Desktop Board D915PBL
Nvidia Geforce 8400 GS
1 GB of ram
He use WHS for interact with a Windows XP system by Remote Desktop Services, use Winbatch applications, back up and restore files and PCs, system restore, access data anywhere, organize files, store files, stream digital files, and share files with remote connection.
Thanks
Reply With Quote
147 • CentOS (by Jan on 2009-07-22 19:01:40 GMT from Netherlands)
When Cent 5.3 came out, on Linuxtracker the number of downloads within a few days was of a baffling amount.
I have never seen such a figure on Linuxtracker before, much more than Ubuntu or whatever.
When you look at LinuxQuestions, the ranking amount of downloaded ISO's, the distros related to Red Head (Red Head, CentOS, Fedora) are the most frequent.
This surprised me considering the supposed user-unfriendliness (and fanatically keeping out of media-codecs and proprietary-codecs, which I found out with Fedora (already some time ago)).
Is the above a misconception of me, or has someone an explanation for the above?
Greetings
Jan
148 • corporate users (by Tom on 2009-07-22 19:41:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Jan corporate use of linux seems to be hugely in excess of home-users who have only usually been using 1 machine until very recently. As linux is a very much more secure server OS a lot of companies will have a linux server and some sort of tech support for that. It then makes sense to extend linux to their desktops as well and just extend the tech support. While those distros may be difficult for home users they are relatively easy to install by network deployments in a way that allows all the machines in a building to be upgraded or installed to from a single point in a familiar office. I would guess that a lot of corporate IT people were downloading the latest releases so they could have a good go with it and stay ahead of their companies requirements. Just a guess tho ;)
149 • @146 by JCM (by Tom on 2009-07-22 20:43:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think we are a bit stuck here. The machine seems quite high spec so it should cope well with pretty much any linux OS. Most Server Editions don't have a gui desktop so they tend to operate from a command-line interface (Cli) only. If the machine is also going to be used as a desktop machine for gaming and stuff as well as doing server functions then you have a choice of 2 basic approaches
1. Get a Server Edition of a distro and install Gnome or some other desktop environment or
2. Get a Desktop Edition and add server functionality to it
Some distros such as TinyCore give a third option which is just get the standard OS and add the various functionality you need in a pick&mix type way :) Smaller distros are probably going to be ridiculously fast and that might be worth aiming for. For a Home Server i would probably still go with Ubuntu for an linux-noob
150 • @146/149 - Linux server to replace Windows (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-22 23:10:46 GMT from United States)
"Most Server Editions don't have a gui desktop so they tend to operate from a command-line interface (Cli) only. "
Not true at all. All of the major Linux servers (Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu LTS, Mandriva Server Edition, etc...) all have graphical interfaces available. Some administrators choose not to install them, largely for security reasons, but they are available and usually are installed by default.
Smaller distros and TinyCore qualify, in my opinion, as the worst possible advice. Many are incomplete solutions and most are desktop oriented, lacking the applications and features needed on a server, even a small business server. Most will lack the backup software, web server software, the streaming software, etc.. that JCM lists as requirements. Many don't get security patches out promptly the way the big distros do. (Sorry, Tom, nothing personal, but I do this for a living and would never push one of my clients in the direction you suggest.)
Ubuntu is a desktop-oriented distro. There is a server edition and that might be fine but plain old Ubuntu tends to be cutting edge and has neither the stability nor the reliability for a small business server.
My recommendation would be CentOS, the no-cost clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which runs close to 90% of the Linux business servers in the North America. Second choice would be OpenSUSE.
151 • non-windows servers (by Sean on 2009-07-22 23:35:21 GMT from United States)
Netcraft shows a lot of FreeBSD in addition to many linux flavor servers.
Hmmm...
152 • #151: BSD Servers (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-23 00:04:03 GMT from United States)
The BSDs, particularly FreeBSD, are very popular with ISPs. I would expect them to show up a lot in the Netcraft survey. The learning curve coming from Windows would probably be higher than Linux and the hardware support is somewhat more limited. Support for Linux is also a bit easier to come by.
For an even moderately experienced *nix user I would say that FreeBSD is an excellent suggestion worth considering,
153 • Fedora works well (by Piero Pietri on 2009-07-23 01:26:13 GMT from Canada)
To MRaugh
I'm a user whose experience is like yours. I use Fedora 11 64 bit and everything is fine. Just make sure you get instructions for installing the kmod drivers for Nvidia at rpmfusion. Other instructions are often incomplete or approximative.
Adobe offers a 64 bit package. You download it from their site, ungzip and copy it to a directory. This version doesn't support cameras yet but works fine otherwise.
Brasero is broken, as usual. Remove, unchecking anything not directly related, namely sound-juicer and Rhythmbox, and install K3B.
For WMV, remove Totem, install Mplayer. Make sure you don't check XMMS for installation doing so.
As a file browser, Emelfm2 is great.
SMPlayer is great for playing videos, RhythmBox for music.
If you have a laser printer using inkjet drivers (not postscript) make sure you enable the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) while setting it up.
If you want to install compiz, it's very easy now. (A video card with at least 521 MB of RAM is preferable. otherwise some configuration is necessary.
You'll then be up and running with a very secure and fast system.
154 • re#152 bsd (by hab on 2009-07-23 02:08:21 GMT from Canada)
BSD usage is actually quite widespread and significant.
Just for the sake of completeness here are some bsd links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bsd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD
I have played with all three flavours of bsd and i would agree with Caitlyn that FreeBDS is an excellent server os. Their website is here: http://www.freebsd.org/
NetBSD is probably the better choice for a hobbyist wanting to get their feet wet in a 'real' unix: http://www.netbsd.org/
If your computer security needs are paramount probably the best bet would be OpenBSD here: http://www.openbsd.org/
Macophiles are running a derivative strain of bsd on their boxen. Think darwin, here: http://www.gnu-darwin.org/
And whatever embedded usage there is out there that we don't know and don't think about!
h
155 • @154 (by Nobody Important on 2009-07-23 02:58:35 GMT from United States)
If you have a toaster or obscure processor, NetBSD all the way! They have a port for every type of chip out there.
I await the sixth release, when they will attempt to make a functional X with desktop common across all fifty-plus architectures. A worthy endeavor! Much like Arch, NetBSD baffled me several times in the past usage-wise, but their work is always compelling and often enlightening to witness.
FreeBSD is an extremely solid choice if NetBSD is a bit too "out there" (it is, admittedly, easier to install), if you're really hankering for a BSD.
If you want a Linux distro, Debian gets my vote. Stable, only slightly outdated (easily remedied), and with a plethora of desktop applications to accompany the server options. The installer actually allows you to select which type of server you want in addition to the desktop!
156 • Pardus 2009 mostly positive (by RollMeAway on 2009-07-23 04:45:37 GMT from United States)
By FAR, the best KDE4 (4.2.4) I have experienced! I believe I have tried most if not all.
After installation you are prompted to select one of seven themes, not the same old default.
Further prompts for wallpaper, network, mouse click preferences, etc.
In short, you boot into your first desktop, very much to YOUR own liking.
Many more items are present in the kde SystemSettings menu. Even a prompt for those
needing root authority. It is very obvious much time was spent setting up this distro.
On the negative side, I installed to sdb4 partition, and grub was setup for (hd0,3)
instead of (hd1,3). Suse is the only other distro I've experienced this. Had to edit
menu.lst and reinstall grub.
The package manager gave a dbus error when trying to connect to repo.
Found a python script through the forums and quickly fixed that.
Some may recall my previous comments on KDE4, generally negative.
Overall, I really like this distro. That is saying a lot for me.
157 • #156 (by Jack on 2009-07-23 05:01:32 GMT from United States)
Long time reader, first time "poster". I like Pardus too. It took me a while to get used to the KDE 4 but now I like it.
158 • Some folk hoping every cloud has a silver lining. (by forest on 2009-07-23 06:53:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Stuff you never knew about "free" software...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/23/open_source_and_clouds/
159 • 146 Jcm & 150 Caitlyn (by Tom on 2009-07-23 08:26:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
No offence taken :) I am indeed completely clueless about servers but hoped that posting my limited understanding might provoke some discussion eventually. I would go with Caitlyn's advice about this.
160 • Centos on Netbook (by Michael on 2009-07-23 09:25:45 GMT from Spain)
A few weeks ago I installed Centos on a netbook from a friend of mine. The case was really a bit strange, for it did neither accept windows xp nor 2000. The only OS which runs without problems is Centos. I also tried other disties but none could be installed as easy as Centos. It was the first time I ever installed Centos.
Not a representative experience, just a remark
161 • Linux Success Story (by Adam Drake on 2009-07-23 12:43:28 GMT from United States)
I'm signed up with two little brothers (who are actually brothers) with the Big Brothers Big Sisters group here in Ohio. If anyone doesn't know what that is, it's basically a way for kids without positive role models to hang out with responsible adults and have fun sharing hobbies, etc.
Anyway, the boys received an old HP tower and monitor from their aunt. It had Windows XP installed and was pretty much junk after all the "customization" their uncle did to it. They asked me to look at it and I offered to wipe the drive and install Linux (I had no extra Windows licenses and anything would be better than what they had). I chose the latest PCLinuxOS Gnome to install at the time (must have been sometime between the release of PCLOS 2009 and Mint 7).
Long story short, I stopped by yesterday to pick them up and noticed that they had moved the task bar to the more familiar bottom of the screen and changed the desktop background to a pic of their dog. I asked them how they were liking the games and so forth and they said they loved it. Their mother also said that her sister and mom would like to have me "fix" their PCs by wiping them and installing Linux. :)
162 • @152 (by Sean on 2009-07-23 13:00:07 GMT from United States)
I was wondering why the BSDs weren't mentioned in your post 150 (and earlier posts about servers), Caitlyn, until my 151. Is it because this was a discussion mainly about linux servers?
BSD appears to dominate the server deployments (slightly).
I was visiting a college of nursing earlier this week, one of the largest in the U.S., and met with their systems administrator who I talked with at length about his 458 station network, "served by NetBSD." That element of the conversation did not seem significant at all until yesterday when this comments area turned its attention to servers and your post up there recommending openSuse, etc.
163 • PCBSD 7XX (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-07-23 13:32:27 GMT from United States)
Nice to see the BSD's getting some chatter. I just attempted to install PCBSD on my machine. I don't have a dvd player on the machine I wanted to install it on so I burned the 3 cd's. The burns were bad so I had to do it all over again. The install went without any problems. I like the installer. It is very easy to use and has a nice gui. You are given the choice of programs you want to install like Thunderbird, Firefox, Pidgin, Open Office, and others. After I finished the install I rebooted to the login screen where things unfortunately fell apart. It tried to boot into KDE 4 but the screen resolution was all wrong and it never did completely load the desktop. It kept flipping me back to the login screen. There is probably an easy fix for this but I don't know enough about it to do it. I also didn't ask for help on the forums. I just wanted to do a basic little test without going in depth. It didn't work for me out of the box but maybe it will for some of you if you decide to try it.
164 • bsd vs linux (by Tom on 2009-07-23 13:43:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
Is there a fight for dominance between linux & bsd? I'm still looking for the link someone here gave a couple of months ago showing which OS's super-computers were using. From the the neat graphs and graphics we could see that about 60% of Super-computers use linux. I can't remember what the 2nd largest group of OS's was but it was great to see that Windows didn't even make 1%. Anyway we are clearly talking about much smaller networks and the question was broached on behalf of someone who is clearly new to the idea of non-Windows - Caitlyn made it clear that there were 3 main reasons she hadn't suggested Bsd in this instance
1. Steeper learning curve with Bsd
2. Hardware support a bit better in linux
3. Easier to access support and help for linux
Also this forum is more of a discussion between people that might have different areas of expertise, knowledge, experience - it's not a place for 1 person to dominate imo.
165 • @150 and 149 (by JCM on 2009-07-23 13:47:39 GMT from Costa Rica)
Thanks for your advice, Tom and Caitlyn. I will ask in the CentOS project forums.
166 • No subject (by forest on 2009-07-23 14:20:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Now we have got the, "Well actually, everybody, we really are the "Good Guys", no really we are...honest..."
See here:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/server-virtualization/microsofts-linux-play-no-harm-no-foul-336
And (very slightly tongue in cheek...but still on topic, dear reader, as you will discover...), ref #161, I am pleased to note you are making your young charges aware of the good OSs in life...and steering them away from the slightly iffy ones...an OS giant with their very slightly dubious tactics on promoting their O.O office suite, to name but one, say...
I am very much in favour of getting nippers onto the internet...there is so very much they can learn about about our planet, available at the tips of their fingers.
It must be said tho' that even the internet takes second place to reading a book...you may not be able to get internet access at home for financial reasons possibly, but there is always, very nearly, a library...possibly with internet access...so it's a win:win situation all round...especially if said library is GNULinux powered...see here:
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/GO/webacces/
Who still says MS has 10% of the desktop? What is it they say? Lies, damned lies and Redmond Statistics...meh!
167 • No subject (by forest on 2009-07-23 14:53:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
oops er um 90%...blush.
168 • 10%? (by Tom on 2009-07-23 14:55:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
I thought they had a bit more than that, in the USA, in the home-user market and talking about desktop machines, not iphones, routers or any other devices right?
169 • jumping ahead of the game (by Tom on 2009-07-23 14:58:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
170 • Tom #164 (by Jerry B. on 2009-07-23 15:00:36 GMT from United States)
I understood and agreed with all but the last sentence in that post, Tom (not necessarily disagreeing with that either, just don't understand the "1 person dominate" thing).
??
Is somebody trying to dominate the distrowatch comments?
171 • 170 (by Notorik on 2009-07-23 15:12:27 GMT from United States)
I did not get that either.
172 • re#166 state of linux (by hab on 2009-07-23 15:12:39 GMT from Canada)
Here is a link off the page forest links to that sums up the picture of free/open source sotfware going forward: http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/future-open-source-604?source=fssr
Free software is in pretty decent shape, with a fractious and squabbling crowd moving it along. As it should have.
IT IS a community, with all the pros and cons of any community. And nobody holds a gun to your head forcing you to join. Or not.
h
173 • 170, no (by Tom on 2009-07-23 15:14:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sean & Caitlyn made good contributions to the server question. I was worried that Sean was "having a go" at Caitlyn for not mentioning Bsd in the 1st place but then why should anyone try to cover all angles when not doing so opens up the discussion for other people? Now that i've re-read Sean's post i realise i was paranoid. I'm now slightly worried that Jcm thanked me and not Sean but again i think that it's just a bad-hair day for me. ;)
174 • ibm 1999 thinkpad (by Mandy Morris on 2009-07-23 15:39:47 GMT from United States)
The floppy install of antix mepis is running on his hard drive now. The struggle was getting it onto a floppy but he found out how and did it then to his hard drive (a 14 giga byte hard drive).
The cpu is 366 mega hertz and the ram is 128 mega bytes. He says he loves the linux on his old computer and that it feels "rescued from the dust pile." :)
175 • ms gpl code 'gift' (by hab on 2009-07-23 16:28:44 GMT from Canada)
Apparently the real reason for ms' "gift" of code under the GPL.
Gee who'd a thunk that? ms fracking with us? Naw. Couldn't be.
http://www.osnews.com/story/21882/Microsoft_s_Linux_Kernel_Code_Drop_Result_of_GPL_Violation
And so many people question why we avoid their crap like the plague.
Their act gets lamer and lamer. El reg has some commentary here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/23/microsoft_hyperv_gpl_violation/
cheers
176 • antiX (by Sean on 2009-07-23 17:55:20 GMT from United States)
I need to find out if it's "anti X" or "antics" in pronunciation. :oD
177 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-07-23 18:45:45 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
178 • #162 - BSD vs. Linux (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-23 18:51:20 GMT from United States)
@Sean: Where do you get the idea that BSD dominates server deployments. From what I've seen the BSD market share is somewhere between small and tiny outside of ISPs. The figures I've seen (including ones quoted by Microsoft) put all *nix deployments close to 60% with Windows taking the rest. The blast numbers I saw put commerical UNIX (all combined) at about 19%, Linux anywhere between 30-35%, a few percent for Novell NetWare (which is Linux based), and a few percent for BSD. I have never heard anyone claim that BSD has a dominant or even a major market share until your post. What is your source? If it's Netcraft please remember that they only count a subset of web servers, not servers as a whole.
I didn't mention BSD because the original question was about Linux distributions. In any case my preference would be Linux for reasons I've already stated. However, if someone is more comfortable with or prefers BSD there is no technical reason why they can't build a secure and stable server with BSD so long as the hardware support is there and the applications they need are there.
I'll also point out that there are a lot of ISVs developing specialized or enterprise software for Linux and far fewer for the BSDs.
179 • sexist remarks (by Jerry B. on 2009-07-23 18:53:59 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
180 • and.... (by Jerry B. on 2009-07-23 18:55:41 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
181 • #180 (by Albert Hall on 2009-07-23 20:00:58 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
182 • the GPL boy/girl (by Sean on 2009-07-23 20:49:38 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
183 • distros (by Tom on 2009-07-23 21:10:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Comment deleted (Off-topic).
184 • typo (by celle on 2009-07-23 21:35:31 GMT from United States)
"Ubuntu uses GNOME as its default operating system"
Since when is GNOME an operating system?
185 • BSD severs (by Sean on 2009-07-23 21:51:54 GMT from United States)
The "outside ISPs" is quite a qualifier.
186 • #185: I don't think so (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-23 23:14:38 GMT from United States)
@Sean: I don't think so. What percentage of the total server market is composed of ISPs? 2%, 5%??? I don't know but I'd bet my bottom dollar that there are far more servers in banks, for example, than ISPs. Many times more.
187 • linux/bsd server usage (by hab on 2009-07-23 23:42:45 GMT from Canada)
Netcraft here: http://news.netcraft.com/ shows some interesting stats in the table on the front page. freebsd 4, linux 3, windows 1, unknown 2.
Some more research is required.
h
188 • KDE 3.5 and PCLinuxOS (by 1linuxfreak on 2009-07-24 05:23:52 GMT from United States)
Seems that KDE 3.5 on PCLinuxOS 2009.2 crashes at startup and then PCLinuxOS hangs on shutdown and I have to hold power button down to power down laptop .
Since being ban (because I commented that PCLinuxOS needed KDE 4) from PCLInuxOS's site and not able to report these errors , I guess it has become rather clear PCLinuxOS is not a good choice for a Linux Distro .
DO NOT recommend PCLinuxOS any more !
189 • @188 (by 2linuxfreak on 2009-07-24 08:31:43 GMT from United States)
Please use the new PCLOS forum complaint submission form.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/complaint.html
190 • PCLinuxOS @188 (by Jerry B. on 2009-07-24 11:05:10 GMT from United States)
We had not been able to get any of the 2007 releases to detect Intel graphics chips on our Acer laptops or nVidia on our PCs.
I'm not sure if there was a complaint form at the PCLinuxOS forums then.
2009.1 installed with no hesitation on all three machines. "Point 2" went onto a fourth machine, a new HP PC, with no problems.
To come to a forum anywhere, here included, and make a post saying to not recommend a distro because your problem is not resolved seems strange given the plethora of computer hardware types in the world, etc. It also speaks to why you may have been shunned at the distro's forums, 2linuxfreak.
191 • 1. Pardus. 2. Caitlyn. (by Antony on 2009-07-24 11:23:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi,
@115: Ditto the 64 for Pardus.
-------------
Caitlyn, thanks for your efforts.
I am a bloke, but I reckon there could be a bit of a picking on the woman thing going on here (maybe subconsciously to an extent). It is a natural, unfortunate element of human nature - to try and build oneself up by 'feeding' on perceived weaker targets. We are all guilty to some degree - it is still a bit crap though.
It annoys me when I see people taking the time and effort to freely provide something for others, only to be told that it is not good enough - come on, for gawds sake!
I really do find it distasteful, to continually come across this kind of behaviour directed towards distros. Where is the logic, huh?
Soon people will just not bother anymore - and serve us right!
Ayway, thanks for the read and your time.
Off to the bunker now for me :)
Antony.
192 • @115 and 191 (by Rich on 2009-07-24 11:48:13 GMT from United States)
No time to find it now, but I recall reading an announcement on I think the pardus world forums(but It may have been the distro site) they are working on a 64 bit release for 2010.
/off to work
193 • Hi Tom (by TomTom on 2009-07-24 11:49:20 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
194 • Cultural perceptions of GNULinux for make benefit all peepuls... (by forest on 2009-07-24 11:50:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
195 • No subject (by kyraxyg on 2009-07-24 11:57:48 GMT from Turkey)
A university in Turkey has taken the opportunity for making 64bit pardus in coordinance with Pardus team. It will be ready for use in 2010. But meanwhile PAE kernel can be used for 4gb ram.
196 • Pardus (by Anonymous on 2009-07-24 11:59:41 GMT from United States)
Please review the latest Pardus release.
197 • Dw this week (by Tom on 2009-07-24 12:09:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've really not to grips with this week yet. lol
Just above "Released Last Week" was an excellent little paragraph about Scott Shawcroft's work and some very interesting stats about length of time different distros take to filter in new releases of upstream packages. He seems to have picked one good well-known distro from each family to help people with comparisons about their 'fav' distros. An awesome piece of work!
Hab, thanks for the link to NetCraft. It wasn't the link i've been looking for and displayed the wrong information (the line for Windows was too high for my liking ;) ). Anyway, it was interesting to see and thanks for the link.
Forest, sorry about pulling your leg there - i just thought it was very funny even tho the under-laying message was still serious and unchanged by the typo. I agree that it's something outside our comfort-zone and so it's difficult for us to talk about. Many countries do seem to have excellent distros approved and resourced by their government (not always a good thing as we see with green-dam, which does seem to have been dropped for the moment). Obviously my favourites are the Spanish ones because of the political structure of their government but also Pardus and doubtless many others are worth exploring. I would guess there are some conflicts between marketing, dealing with microsquish and other issues perhaps leading to different people making different claims. It would be really interesting to know whether there is widespread adoption and usage of these distro by people of the appropriate nationality or is there the type of resistance that we would typically find to something like that in the UK? If the British government officially supported & "resourced" a distro then it would probably kill the distro completely.
Good luck and regards to all from
Tom :)
198 • Latest codename for Ubuntu (by TomTom on 2009-07-24 12:15:40 GMT from Canada)
Hi, I'm two words, that apart don't mean much but when you put them together, I'm some cute and possibly furry animal that you may not have heard of before, but now you imagine as me as being tame and harmless, although personally I wouldn't want to get in a scrap with a badger, and now you want to try me because cute and furry animals with endearing nicknames are less scary to install on your computer, and because I'm trying to bring Linux to the masses and the masses don't like to be scared, anyways that's what my marketing people said....but I still wouldn't mess with a badger, especially a breezy one.
199 • Pardus x86-64 (by Anonymous on 2009-07-24 13:01:15 GMT from Turkey)
@115 and 195
Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University (Turkey) will make x86-64 port of Pardus. It will relase in June 2010.
200 • NetBrix - Organic Linux OS for any device (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-07-24 13:57:11 GMT from United States)
Here is something interesting from Slitaz:
http://forum.slitaz.org/viewtopic.php?id=2413
201 • Ubuntu-Buddha (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-07-24 14:20:01 GMT from United States)
You knew it was coming, now here it is...
http://buddhabuntu.8m.net/
Please add it to the list with the other religious Ubuntu remixes.
202 • BSD (by Sean on 2009-07-24 14:30:23 GMT from United States)
As I run around the net seeking info on BSD servers and Linux servers, I come away impressed with the influence of both on the internet and computing in general.
But I must say I am most impressed with BSD's dominance in the server world, given that BSD licensing is what allowed Microsoft and Mac to develop server solutions historically.
The comparison stated variously as, "Linux is just a kernel. FreeBSD is an entire operating system," is out there amongst geeks in discussions about the desktop. But the comparisons about servers lead back to BSD overwhelmingly when taking Microsoft and Mac into the numbers.
From http://www.articlesbase.com/operating-systems-articles/linux-vs-bsd-250471.html:
"BSD license allows users/companies to modify a program's source code and not to release changes to the public. In other words, BSD licenses allow commercial use and incorporation of a code into proprietary commercial products. This is how Microsoft incorporated BSD networking into their products and how Mac OS X earns money through muscles of FreeBSD."
We who love open source and FOSS lean away from the non-'nix products and in the direction of Linux especially. But in talking about servers in this world.. well, BSD is a bought and sold mover and shaker much more than Linux when understanding the BSD influence on Microsoft especially it appears.
203 • pardus 2009 (by Anonymous on 2009-07-24 16:38:44 GMT from Canada)
Tried it on a celeron 2gig with 512 mem and intel graphics. It got to "automatic root login" followed for a split second by a cli prompt and then a black screen. After about 5 minutes I checked the screen ; it reported that it was in power saving mode and to hit any key. No result.
I then tried it on a p4 . 1.5 gig with 512 mem. It loaded to a screen that was going to install it--I had not realized that it was NOT a live cd.
Hope springs eternal
204 • Follow up to the feature article (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-07-27 04:49:23 GMT from United States)
I wrote a follow up to last Monday's feature article in my blog this weekend. See:
http://ever-increasing-entropy.blogspot.com/2009/07/ongoing-centos-53-on-netbook-saga.html
205 • Buddhuntu (by Miq on 2009-07-27 10:01:21 GMT from Sweden)
"You knew it was coming, now here it is...
http://buddhabuntu.8m.net/
Please add it to the list with the other religious Ubuntu remixes."
Yes! This makes me happy! :)
206 • RE: 205 Buddhuntu (by ladislav on 2009-07-27 10:15:50 GMT from Taiwan)
Every distribution that includes "buntu" in their product name has to first show me that they have a permission from Canonical to use that name. Without it, it won't even get on the waiting list.
By the way, today's DWW will be a bit late - expected publication time is around 13:00 GMT. Sorry for the delay :-(
207 • Sab 4.2 (by Sean on 2009-07-27 11:59:49 GMT from United States)
(the late DWW will be worth the wait, I'm sure, Ladislav)
The Sabayon 4.2 I installed on my laptop a few weeks ago is running great and survived without a hitch the latest Sulfur update which included many packages and the kernel update. I admit to being hesitant to run it and was ready for something breaking.
Nothing broke and all is well. I'm very happy with this distro and wanted to post about it here as most of the talk, me included, is about other linux distributions.
Number of Comments: 207
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Archives |
| • Ussye 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
Project Trident
Project Trident was a desktop-focused operating system based on Void (previously Trident was based on TrueOS). Project Trident uses the Lumina desktop as well as a number of self-developed system administration utilities. The Void-based distribution was installed on the ZFS filesystem to provide snapshots and rollback features.
Status: Discontinued
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
