 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 315, 10 August 2009 |
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Welcome to this year's 32nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Pardus Linux is one of those lesser-known distributions that many people overlook in favour of the usual big names. But this independently-developed project, generously financed by the Turkish government, is a rather surprising package - a user-friendly operating system with an excellent package management system and a wealth of custom utilities. Read our first-look review of the recently released Pardus Linux 2009 to find out more. In the news section, KDE 4.3 makes its first appearance in many popular distributions, Mandriva's "Cooker" continues its rapid march towards the next stable release, Sabayon Linux publishes an update over its next major release, and OpenBSD announces the release date for its upcoming version 4.6. Finally, don't miss the announcement about the new Yellow Dog Linux on a Stick, a 16 GB live USB Flash drive for Sony PLAYSTATION 3. Happy reading!
Content:
- Reviews: First look at Pardus Linux 2009
- News: KDE 4.3 in distributions, Mandriva "Cooker" and Sabayon Linux 5.0 updates, Yellow Dog Linux on a stick, BSD Magazine special, Open Invention Network
- Released last week: Linux Mint 7 "KDE", Arch Linux 2009.08
- Upcoming releases: OpenBSD 4.6 release notes, Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 4
- New additions: PLoP Linux, Super OS
- New distributions: Grusha Linux, PTS Desktop Live, Scentlinux, Zencafe GNU/Linux
- Reader comments
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Caitlyn Martin) |
First look at Pardus Linux 2009
Back on December 1st of last year the DistroWatch Weekly included a report of a detailed case study of Pardus Linux which was published at OSOR.eu. It detailed how Pardus was being used in both the public and private sector in Turkey and how the distribution was saving Turkish taxpayers millions of euros. Pardus Linux is somewhat unusual in that it is a government funded distribution. It was created and is maintained by The National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology (UEKAE), an affiliate of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. I had read a number of positive reviews and comments about Pardus before that and I decided the next time the distribution had a major release I'd take a look at it. That release, Pardus 2009, came on July 18th and I've been running the distro ever since.
Pardus is also different in that it was developed from scratch and it is not derivative of any other Linux distribution (although in its early days it was based on Gentoo Linux). It offers packages for both desktop and server use. It is currently only available for 32-bit x86 compatible systems. Development of a 64-bit version of Pardus is scheduled to begin in September. For this review I am focusing on Pardus on the desktop. Once again I used two systems: my seven month old Sylvania g Netbook Meso (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD) and my 6.5 year old Toshiba Satellite 1805-S204 (1 GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD). Both systems meet minimum requirements for any current Linux distribution and both have hardware which is challenging with some distributions.
Pardus is downloadable as a single CD installable ISO image. A live CD edition is not available at this time. There are two ISO editions. The standard edition supports the Turkish and English languages with Turkish as the default. The international edition supports 11 additional languages with English as the default. I downloaded and installed the international edition for this review.
Installation and configuration
Installation on my netbook with an external USB DVD drive was straightforward and really not any different than on any desktop system. For those who cannot boot off an external drive the Pardus Wiki has instructions to install from a USB stick or drive. Installation from an ISO image on a hard drive is also documented in the Pardus forum. Network installations are not presently supported.
Pardus uses its own graphical installer called YALI (Yet Another Linux Installer). YALI is probably the simplest hard drive installation program I've tried to date. After a welcome screen it offers the option to verify the installation media which I did for my first install. You can then choose the keyboard layout for your system and your time zone. Next, a user account is set up and the password for the administrator (root) account is set. If you want to use the entire hard drive for Pardus you can let the installer handle partitioning for you automatically. If you choose to manually partition the hard drive(s) this portion of the installation will look very familiar to anyone with any experience installing Linux or using tools like GParted. By default, Pardus uses ext4 for the file system. Other file system choices are ext3, ReiserFS and XFS. Neither LVM nor RAID is supported by YALI. I chose ext4 for my root partitions on both systems but left my existing home partitions (ext3 and XFS respectively) intact. YALI only allows for setting up the / (root), /home, swap, and /mnt/archive partitions. Other commonly used partitions such as /opt, /var, and /usr/local, or custom partitions cannot be created or configured within the installer.
The next step is selecting where to install the GRUB bootloader. I chose the default, the master boot record (MBR) of my hard drive. At this point YALI went ahead and installed Pardus to my hard drive. The installer does not include the opportunity to customize the software selection in any way. Every install is essentially the same. Install time on my netbook was about 15 minutes. On my ageing Toshiba, with its incredibly slow internal DVD drive, it was close to two hours. Once Pardus is installed the system is rebooted.
The first boot takes a bit longer than I expected but that only was true of that initial boot. Once the KDE 4 desktop is up, an application called Kaptan walks you through the rest of system configuration and customizing the look and feel of your desktop. Kaptan, like YALI, is extremely easy to use. In general, I found the entire installation and configuration process to be user-friendly but also rather inflexible. Of course, an experienced user can do any additional customization once the system is up and running.
The only surprise once installation was done was that I found that I had no working network if I didn't go through all the configuration steps using Kaptan. It turns out that YALI had correctly detected and configured both my wired and wireless networking hardware but starts nothing automatically. If you don't want to go through all the wizard-like Kaptan configuration steps, you will need to go into the Network Manager application (not to be confused with NetworkManager, as found in Ubuntu or Fedora) and create a profile for each network interface before they will function. Doing so proved to be simple. In the case of wireless all I had to do was input my ESSID and passphrase and I was up and running. The option for scanning for available wireless networks is also available.
X configuration worked perfectly on my netbook and the system did come up with the expected 1024x600 pixel resolution. Things didn't go as smoothly on the Toshiba which has a somewhat quirky Trident CyberBlade graphics chipset. Both during installation and when I booted up to the GUI I was faced with a small display in the middle of my screen surrounded by lots of black space. I've experienced this with other distributions, mainly those based on Slackware Linux. Like many recent distributions, Pardus creates a minimal xorg.conf file. The only way to correct the problem is to create a Monitor section in the xorg.conf file with the proper horizontal and vertical refresh rates. Fortunately, I have a known good xorg.conf file saved for this laptop and once I copied that to the Pardus installation, everything was back to normal at 1024x768 pixels.
With the exception of the Trident graphics on the Toshiba, all the hardware in both the laptop and the netbook was correctly detected and configured, including the webcam in my netbook. Pardus is the first distribution I've tried that got my netbook hardware completely right at install time without my having to install a driver or alter a configuration file by hand.
Running Pardus Linux 2009
Pardus features a KDE 4.2.4 desktop by default. No other desktop environment is installed by default or offered in the base repository. I'm generally not a fan of KDE, largely because it tends to be more resource intensive than other desktops. I've been impressed with the look, feel and also the performance of KDE as implemented in Pardus 2009. I've found that my netbook is still quick and responsive. On the old Toshiba, KDE 4 takes a while to start but actually performs better than I expected, with only occasional slight sluggishness.
Pardus 2009 default KDE 4.2.4 desktop
(full image size: 368kB, screen resolution 1024x600 pixels)
Pardus includes the latest and greatest versions of a wide variety of applications. OpenOffice.org 3.1.0 and GIMP 2.6.6 are installed by default. Those who prefer KOffice will find version 2.0.1 in the repository. Firefox 3.5.1 and Konqueror are the web browsers included, with Arora 0.7.1 and Opera 10.0 beta 2 also available. Plugins for Flash, MPlayer and Java are part of the default installation. A rather wide variety of multimedia applications are also installed or available in the repository. Turkey has no equivalent to the DMCA in the United States so all the multimedia codecs are included as part of the base installation. Everything from MP3s to movie DVDs will play right out of the virtual box. Users in the United States and in other countries with similar laws will need to remove libdvdcss and any offending open source codec packages to bring their systems into legal compliance.
Printer, digital camera, and webcam support are all excellent out of the box. I had no problems at all setting up both my Epson and HP printers. A variety of proprietary wireless and video drivers are included in Pardus which will be troublesome to those who want a purely free software environment but will delight those who want their hardware to "just work". Hardware support is undoubtedly aided by the fact that under the hood Pardus 2009 features a very recent 2.6.30.1 kernel. An updated 2.6.30.4 kernel is now also available and can be easily installed with the PiSi package manager, either the graphical or command line editions.
I have found a few minor bugs. On two occasions I clicked on the battery monitor applet and the window opened as expected. When I tried to adjust settings, the applet crashed and took the window manager with it, effectively restarting my session. This problem is intermittent and I have no idea if it is unique to Pardus or a general issue with KDE 4.2.4. I have also had OpenOffice.org Writer lock up on me once.
Another issue -- not a bug per se, but rather an annoyance -- is the way the Pardus Network Manager works. If I start working on my wired connection at home and then unplug the Ethernet cable and pick up the netbook or laptop to work somewhere else, I expect wireless networking to come up automatically. Both NetworkManager and wicd support this functionality. The Pardus Network Manager does not. In addition, sometimes the graphical network manager won't allow me to change network interface at all. I have to do it old school from the command line or else restart the system. In fairness, I should point out that wicd is available in the "contrib" repository so it shouldn't be difficult to replace Network Manager with what I consider a more capable alternative at this point.
One problem common to all the recent releases of major distributions is a regression in the Intel video drivers that seriously impacts the Intel Express Graphics 945GM chipset in my Sylvania netbook. The Intel video driver included with Pardus is version 2.7.99.902, pre-release code for the latest 2.8.0 driver. This driver resolves some but not all of the issues I've experienced. UXA and DRI2 are now enabled by default and EXA and DRI support has been eliminated. Unlike the Fedora, Mandriva, and Ubuntu releases in recent months, this driver is not unstable on my system with UXA enabled. I have experienced no X crashes at all. Video performance is also much improved. I do still see some weird video artefacts with 3D effects enabled in KDE, mainly vertical lines across new windows for the first second or so they are open or on pop-up menus, similar to what I described in my review of Mandriva 2009.1. I have no such problems, indeed no problems at all, with 2D graphics. Thanks to the performance improvements and a now stable driver, I no longer consider the Intel video regression to be a serious or show-stopping bug in Pardus 2009. It's down to the level of an annoyance I'd like to see fixed.
In point of fact I've found no serious or show-stopping bugs in Pardus at all. No distribution is perfect and all have some issues. In general, I found the Pardus implementation of KDE 4 to be the nicest I've tried to date and I have generally been very impressed by what the distribution offers.
Package management, additional repositories, and security updates
Pardus uses its own unique package manager called PiSi which, in turn, uses packages in a unique format. PiSi includes both a graphical and a command-line interface. I found the graphical version easy to use but a little slow when searching the package database. One nice feature found in most user-friendly Linux distributions nowadays is some sort of notification icon on the panel when new package upgrades are available. Pardus has no such feature. You have to go into PiSi and click on "Show Upgradable Packages" to see if anything new is available.
PiSi package manager, GUI interface
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The command line edition of PiSi offers a lot of additional functionality not available in the GUI edition. One particularly interesting feature is the "emerge" option. Similar to the emerge command in Gentoo Linux, this option allows the installation of source packages into Pardus. A detailed guide to PiSi CLI usage is available in the Pardus Wiki.
While the selection of packages in the base Pardus repository is somewhat limited, there is an official "contrib" repository and several small unofficial repositories that offer additional packages for Pardus. Those who aren't fans of KDE 4 will be pleased to know that the "contrib" repositories include both GNOME 2.24 and Xfce 4.6.1 desktops, as well as many packages from the Xfce Goodies project and a fairly nice variety of additional applications. I installed Xfce, my preferred desktop environment, and found it to be a flawless implementation. Information on adding the additional repositories can be found in the Pardus forum. Even with the additional repositories, the selection of packages for Pardus is not nearly up to the level of distributions like Mandriva, Ubuntu, or openSUSE. The selection does stack up very well compared to other second-tier distributions and does provide a decent variety of software choices.
Pardus 2009 with the default configuration of the optional Xfce 4.6.1 desktop
(full image size: 241kB, screen resolution 1024x600 pixels)
For those interested in compiling from source or building packages for Pardus, you will first need to install build essentials, similar to what Debian requires. Excellent documentation on building PiSi packages and contributing them is available in the Wiki.
Approximately 50 package upgrades have been available to me since I installed Pardus, including an upgraded 2.6.30.4 kernel and the related headers, sources, and modules. I am normally distrustful of automated kernel installations but I decided to test this on Pardus using the graphical edition of PiSi. The process went absolutely smoothly and, on the next boot, an additional GRUB menu entry with the new kernel was available. PiSi correctly installed the new kernel side by side with the old one. In general, I have had no problems whatsoever with the package upgrade process using PiSi either at the command line or in the GUI.
My only concern at this point is the speed with which the Pardus developers are able to get some security patches to the user community. While the steady stream of package upgrades indicates that the issue is taken seriously, there still is no package for Firefox 3.5.2, a security patch which closes known vulnerabilities, including two Mozilla classifies as "critical". I asked about this on the Pardus forum and was informed that building and testing the package may take a few more days. I have checked the Pardus test repository and so far there is no package. The only option for the security conscious is to get the update from upstream which effectively, at least temporarily, defeats the package management process. All the other distributions I currently have installed on my systems -- Ubuntu, VectorLinux, Slackware Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Scientific Linux -- have been able to release updated Firefox packages within 24 - 48 hours of a Mozilla release.
Internationalization and localization
As I mentioned at the outset, the international edition of Pardus supports something like 13 languages. The Pardus definition of support is a little different that some other distributions. These are the languages you can select in the YALI installer and these are also the languages that the Pardus-specific applications and tools like PiSi, Network Manager, the System Settings tools and Kaptan are translated into. As it turns out, other languages do work very well indeed. The set of KDE i10n packages, KOffice i18n packages and glibc locales included in the Pardus repository are complete. I had no problem setting up a very functional Hebrew desktop using Pardus. What I did find missing are Aspell dictionaries and some language packs for "unsupported" languages but those are generally not difficult to install from upstream sources.
Pardus by default uses KDM as its display manager. Unfortunately, KDM does not support selecting an alternative language when logging into the system. However, GDM is available in the "contrib" repository and changing the default display manager from KDM to GDM is well documented. In addition, Pardus graphical system configuration tools include the ability to change the user default language and locale from within the GUI. Panel applets in both KDE and Xfce to change the keyboard layout on the fly also work perfectly well.
In general, internationalization and localization in Pardus is well thought-out and should work well regardless of your choice of language. Users of "unsupported" languages will, at worst, have to get language packs, some dictionaries, specialized applications, and perhaps specialized fonts from upstream. While official support of additional languages would certainly be a plus and language support is nowhere near as complete as what is offered by the major distributions, in general, adding language support should be painless for a moderately experienced Linux user.
Conclusions
While I had heard and read good things about Pardus for a few years now, I had never tried the distro until the 2009 release. I haven't been this enthusiastic about a new distro I've tried in quite some time. I didn't find any serious bugs which prevented me from working or which really got in my way at all. The implementation of KDE 4 is probably the best I've seen and represents the first time I've truly been comfortable working with the latest incarnation of KDE as my desktop environment. The implementation of Xfce is also first rate. Pardus also offers an excellent variety of unique graphical system administration tools that are intuitive and work as expected. Anything available in the GUI also has a command-line equivalent. In the case of PiSi, the Pardus package manager, the CLI edition also offers additional functionality.
Pardus is generally very user-friendly. There are a few convenience features found in the major distributions, such as automated upgrade notification and automatic network interface switching, that are still lacking in Pardus. These aren't bugs but rather are missing niceties that I've gotten used to in other distros. The Pardus developers do encourage filing wish list items in their bug-tracking system and I may just have to add a few. Internationalization and localization is well done and is nearly, but not quite, complete for "unsupported" languages. It is very complete and functions flawlessly for officially supported languages. I found the forum, Wiki, and in general the English-language documentation for Pardus to be excellent. When I did post in the forum, I received a quick, friendly, and helpful response. That's all anyone can ask of the community behind any distribution.
Pardus has a lot to recommend it and definitely rates a try for anyone who wants an excellent KDE 4 implementation. Pardus isn't perfect, but its flaws and shortcomings are relatively minor compared to many if not most other distributions I've tried, including recent releases of some of the big names in Linux. It's easy enough to install and use that I would certainly consider it a good candidate distribution for a new Linux user, yet it doesn't lack the features and, apart from the YALI installer, the flexibility an experienced user will desire. I am definitely impressed with Pardus 2009.
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| Miscellaneous News |
KDE 4.3 in distributions, Mandriva "Cooker" and Sabayon Linux 5.0 updates, Yellow Dog Linux on a stick, BSD Magazine special, Open Invention Network
 The biggest event of the week was, of course, the release of KDE 4.3, a long-awaited major new version of the popular desktop suite. openSUSE was one of the first distributions to provide KDE 4.3 - both via its web-based install system and as unofficial live media: "Get the latest KDE hot off the presses! The KDE project announced the stable KDE 4.3 release this week, and openSUSE users can get the goods right away. The KDE 4.3 release is available via One-Click Install for openSUSE Factory, 11.1, 11.0, and 10.3. Stephan Binner has provided a KDE 4.3 live CD using the openSUSE Build Service and KIWI. The live CD is a pure KDE showcase based on current openSUSE 11.1 packages. Note that the live CD and packages are not an official openSUSE release and have not been as fully tested as final openSUSE releases. The latest KDE includes a number of new features, application updates, performance and usability improvements, and much more. See the KDE 4.3.0 release announcement for a list of improvements and updates."
The latest release of openSUSE 11.2, milestone 5, comes with KDE 4.3
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Most other distributions, including Arch Linux, Fedora, Mandriva Linux and Kubuntu (but not Slackware Linux), were quick to update the KDE packages in their development repositories to the latest stable release, while Debian GNU/Linux has released an unofficial KDE 4.3 live CD for the i386 architecture.
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 The developers of Mandriva Linux have been hard at work preparing "Cooker", the distribution's development branch, for release as version 2010 in early November 2009. But what exactly has been getting the most attention, besides the above-mentioned KDE 3.5 update? Frederik Himpe has been publishing regular summaries of the latest Cooker updates: "Pam was updated to stable release 1.1.0 and Hal version 0.5.1 is now in Cooker; GNOME 2.27.5 is now available, Totem's YouTube plug-in is working again; Python 3 is now available but for compatibility reasons, Python 2.6 will remain the default Python; F-Spot has been updated to version 0.6.0, one of the nice things is a folder bar which you can use to organize folders to your liking; VirtualBox 3.0.4 entered Cooker; Emacs 23.1 includes many major improvements - UTF-8 support, font anti-aliasing, running text terminals and X displays in one Emacs session, Ruby support and more; urpmi and it's back-end perl-URPM have seen many improvements which should help resolving complex dependencies...."
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 Fixstars, the company that develops the Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) distribution for PowerPC processors, has announced the availability of a bootable Linux USB drive for SONY PLAYSTATION 3: "Fixstars today announced the availability of 'YDL on a Stick', a USB flash drive containing a bootable edition of Yellow Dog Linux 6.2 for the Sony PS3. With 'YDL on a Stick' installation has never been easier -- simply plug-in the USB stick, install the bootloader, boot into YDL -- and you're running Linux on your PS3. 'YDL on a Stick' comes with a customized edition of YDL 6.2 on a 16 GB OCZ Diesel flash drive. It offers the full functionality of the 6.2 release, including: an updated Linux kernel 2.6.29 for 64-bit systems, OpenOffice.org 3.0, Firefox 3.0.6, IBM Cell SDK v3.1.0.1, Xfce 4 - a fast and lightweight desktop environment." YDL on a Stick for Sony PLAYSTATION 3 is available from the company's online store for US$59.95.
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 Kelly Schwartz (aka "wolfden") has published an update on the release of Sabayon Linux 5.0, a major new version of the increasingly popular Gentoo-based desktop distribution: "As our roadmap shows, the Sabayon Linux 5 release date is coming fast. Unfortunately we are looking at a late August or first part of September for a final release, but we hope to have our first beta disk for the testing team shortly. Remember, you will be able to roll your 4.1 or 4.2 to 5.0 by hopping to branch 5. Joost has been busy with getting branch 5 ready and Fabio has been busy hammering it into shape. Our testers have been busy testing branch 5 and reporting bugs, they are doing a great job. Ian has been working out the artwork for Sabayon Linux 5. I haven't even seen it myself yet, but I am sure it will be fantastic. Fabio has also implemented i18n support on installer, as well as encryption." It looks like the Sabayon development team is working hard to bring us the latest and greatest the Linux world has to offer.
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  FreeBSDNews reports that BSD Magazine, the only English-language print magazine devoted to the BSD operating system, is giving away a free CD containing BSD Magazine and Linux+ archives to all new subscribers: "As most of you will know by now, the BSD Magazine will continue to stay. For a few weeks its future existence was in doubt, but with a number of last-minute subscriptions and magazine sales, the publisher has decided to give the magazine another chance. Chief editor of the magazine, Karolina, contacted me to let you all know about a special subscription offer that's on: take out a one-year or two-year subscription of the BSD magazine, choose issue 3/2009 as your starting issue, and you will receive a free CD with the BSD Magazine and Linux+ magazine archives! Also, the magazine will contain 90 pages going forward instead of 60." If you'd like to take advantage of this offer, you need to subscribe before 20 August!
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Finally, here is something that could be of interest to some distribution developers. Open Invention Network (OIN) is an intellectual property company that was formed in order to protect Linux from patent issues: "Open source software development has been one of the greatest sources of innovation. It has reduced costs, improved functionality and spurred new industries. In particular, the Linux community has been able to make tremendous strides in improving the customer experience because developers can take what has been written and build on it -- without having to develop the same base of software code building-blocks from scratch." According to OIN's Frank Casey, the company was formed by IBM, Red Hat, Novell, Sony, NEC, and Philips in an attempt to protect the Linux community from patent issues that might dampen its growth and development. They have been trying to spread the word to as many Linux distributions as they can in an effort to get them to join OIN. For more information please visit OpenInventionNetwork.com.
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| Released Last Week |
Linux Mint 7 "KDE"
Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of the "KDE" edition of Linux Mint 7: "The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 7 'KDE'. Based on Kubuntu 9.04, Linux 2.6.28, KDE 4.2.4 and X.Org 7.4, Linux Mint 7 'KDE' community edition features a lot of improvements and the latest software from the open source world." Highlights: "KDE 4.2.4 and Amarok 2.1 - the latest and shiniest KDE desktop and applications; mintInstall improvements - featured applications, pre-filled information, seamless screenshot downloads, improved GUI layout; mintUpdate improvements - changelogs, package sizes, usability; mintUpload improvements - ads-free, GUI improvements, graphical service manager, SCP/SFTP support; mintWelcome; command-line goodies - APT version, RTFM...." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
The "KDE" edition of Linux Mint 7 was released last week
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openmamba GNU/Linux 1.1
Silvan Calarco has announced the release of openmamba GNU/Linux 1.1, a maintenance update of the general-purpose distribution offering out-of-the-box support for popular graphics drivers and media codecs, among other features: "The new 1.1 release of openmamba GNU/Linux is available for download. It is a maintenance release with support for recent hardware platforms and fixes to improve system usability and stability. This release includes: all software updates made available after openmamba 1.0 release; 2.6.28.10 kernel with wireless and audio drivers backport with support for the most recent devices; wicd network manager for easier access to wireless networks; X.Org Server 1.4 with updated video drivers...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details.
Slax 6.1.2
Slax 6.1.2, a small Slackware-based live CD featuring the KDE desktop 3.5, has been released. What's new? "Upgraded Slax kernel to 2.6.27.27, which contains many bugfixes; added xz package (LZMA compressor and decompressor); added support for TXZ Slackware packages; upgraded Midnight Commander to understand TXZ packages; fixed incorrect reporting of module file path in Slax Module Manager (if size of module was smaller than 1 MB, it didn't show module file at all); fixed incorrect slaxsave.dat (the 1 GB one); added 2 GB slaxsave.dat file to the ZIP archive; added Firefox 3.5.1, as a separated module 007-firefox.lzm, this version integrates itself into KDE; added Slax drive support." Read the rest of the changelog for a complete list of changes.
Estrella Roja 2.5
Estrella Roja 2.5, a Debian-based distribution and live CD made in Argentina, has been released. This version is still based on the stable Debian GNU/Linux 5.0, but includes some stability improvements and a number of backported application updates, such as Pidgin 2.5.8 (with many plugins), Firefox 3.5.1 and Nmap 5.00. Some packages were replaced by their functional, but lighter equivalents, e.g. Network Manager has been replaced by wicd. Also includes some bug fixes to udev, new scripts, Truecrypt 6.2a and the Firestarter firewall. The KDE 3.5 theme has also been updated to a more modern variant, while new links to the distribution's web site have been added. Please read the brief release announcement (in Spanish) for further information.
Trisquel GNU/Linux 2.2
Rubén Rodríguez Pérez has announced the release of Trisquel GNU/Linux 2.2, a 100% libre, Ubuntu-based distribution for home, office and school deployments: "Trisquel GNU/Linux 2.2 'Robur' is ready for download. This is the third and last maintenance update for the 2.x LTS branch, which will be supported until 2013. The six ISO images released today - 32-bit and 64-bit for all three editions - include more than 200 package updates, a new and cleaner GTK+ theme, and four new pre-installed languages - the list now includes English, Basque, Catalan, Chinese (simplified), French, Galician, Hindi, Portuguese and Spanish. This language selection matches the one in Trisquel 3.0, which is almost ready for release." See the full release announcement for additional information.
Arch Linux 2009.08
Dieter Plaetinck has announced the release of a new set of installation CD images for Arch Linux, version 2009.08: "These images are built from a current snapshot of core, which includes Linux kernel 2.6.30.4, udev 141 and Pacman 3.3.0. Changes compared to 2009.02: more up-to-date software; usage of new AIF installer, which brings better disk editor with support for dm_crypt and LVM setups, support for automated installations using configuration files, a framework to build your own installation procedures, better date/time setting with NTP support, re-factored GRUB installation routines and usability improvements; Aufs instead of Unionfs; enhanced boot device detection on image start; bug fixes (XFS freeze, mirror setting, clock corrections, network settings)." See the release announcement and release notes for more details.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
OpenBSD 4.6
The OpenBSD project has published a feature list for the upcoming release of version 4.6, scheduled for 1 October 2009. As usual, a long list of improvements, new driver additions and other features can be found on the OpenBSD 4.6 Release page. The new product is now available for pre-order from the project's online store (C$50 + shipping and handling).
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Update on ATI driver versioning
A change regarding the version number of ATI proprietary driver (ati-driver in the package list) was implemented last week. Based on the feedback by Matthew Tippett, AMD's Linux Core Engineering Manager, we have now changed the version number of the latest ATI Catalyst driver from 9.7 to 8.632. The main reason is that the number 8.632 refers strictly to the ATI driver only, while the number 9.7 is more like a suite containing other drivers and applications. To find out which driver version is included in each Catalyst release (since the file available for download contains only the Catalyst version, i.e. 9.7 in this case), it is necessary to check out the release notes (the latest ones are available here).
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New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Grusha Linux. Grusha Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution designed for Ukrainian and Russian speaking users.
- PTS Desktop Live. PTS Desktop Live is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution designed to provide a free software platform for carrying out system tests and hardware benchmarks in an automated, reproducible, and effective manner. PTS Desktop Live is designed around the Phoronix Test Suite with the operating system itself consisting of a stripped-down Linux environment, then built upon that is the Phoronix Test Suite with its test profiles and suites.
- Scentlinux. Scentlinux is a multimedia-oriented distribution based on paldo GNU/Linux, with Xfce as the default desktop.
- Zencafe GNU/Linux. Zencafe GNU/Linux is a Zenwalk-based distribution designed specifically for use in Internet Cafés. It included auto-recovery features and Internet Café management software.
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DistroWatch database summary
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And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 17 August 2009.
Ladislav Bodnar and Caitlyn Martin
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Pardus (by spud on 2009-08-10 09:53:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Excellent review, thanks. Must try this one. Will be interesting to discover if it runs on older kit (older than a Celery1Gb) with limited resources. Some indications on this score might be include in future reviews? I am still encountering a few Cx300 machines(!) and there's plenty of PII's around.
2 • re: 1 (by spikeb on 2009-08-10 09:57:18 GMT from United States)
those sound more like XFCE or LXDE machines to me.
3 • Pardus (by A linux lover on 2009-08-10 10:03:35 GMT from Australia)
Thanks Caitlyn for the review of Pardus. You have encouraged me to give it a try. I have broken my current linux install through carelessness so this is an opportune time to try something new.
4 • Super OS (by DrCR on 2009-08-10 10:14:23 GMT from United States)
I'm not a marketing guru, but there's something unattractive, even repulsive, of a distro called Super OS. Even Ubuntu+1 or UbuntuFTW would be more attractive.
Always enjoy the distrowatch weeklies. A big thanks to the DW team!
5 • OpenBSD in october? (by Andre on 2009-08-10 10:22:11 GMT from Norway)
WTF, OpenBSD in october? Did they change the release cycle? I wasn't expecting 4.6 before november.
6 • Sab 5 (by Sean on 2009-08-10 10:23:54 GMT from United States)
Nice DWW again.
Thank you for including the paragraph about Sabayon 5 coming along in a few months. For me, a Sabayon 4.2 satisfied user, one remark jumped out at me from the page: "Remember, you will be able to roll your 4.1 or 4.2 to 5.0 by hopping to branch 5."
Happiness abounds. :o)
7 • Pardus (by Xtyn on 2009-08-10 10:32:18 GMT from Romania)
When you remove an application, does it remove the (unneeded) dependencies?
8 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-10 10:38:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref Pardus, I don't generally comment much on reviews themselves but this one deserves a mention for depth...first time I heard of a Hebrew "test". Well done CM.
9 • What's in a name (by Felix Pleşoianu on 2009-08-10 11:13:17 GMT from Romania)
@DrCR The very reason they had to change the name in the first place was that Ubuntu is a registered trademark. Super OS may not be the most inspired name, but it's certainly better than one that would get the authors in legal trouble.
10 • Pardus (by Rahux on 2009-08-10 11:27:52 GMT from Australia)
Excellent review. I tried it after all the comments on the last DistroWatch Weekly and have fallen in love :) Might switch briefly to Open SUSE 11.2 to play with their KDE 4.3 implementation though.
I have a new-found respect for Turkey.. The release may do wonders for geek-tourism :)
11 • why is the best (by Bojan on 2009-08-10 11:53:17 GMT from United States)
Hi and thank you to Ladislav for his long, hard work.
I am a long time reader of the DistroWatch Weekly and I like it.
Some user likes one distro another other... It is normal. But I like to know what is the reason? Why is for example Arch the best? Many users say it is easy to install. I belive it. All distros are easy to install also BSD is not difficult (I am a FreeBSD user) but how secure are distros, how difficult are settings...etc. Belive me no one distribution is not safe by default. Also OpenBSD will be soon as Windows XP if you don't know how to keep it safe. Is it surfing with Arch, Debian...FreeBSD safe? I'll be appreciated for any answer, comment...
Thanks in advance...
Bojan
12 • #11 ...and the best distro is... (by Xtyn on 2009-08-10 11:57:40 GMT from Romania)
The best distro is the one you like.
End of story.
13 • Pardus (by Antony on 2009-08-10 12:17:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Nice review CM. Pardus will become quite popular I'm sure.
I used Pardus sometime back and liked it a lot - it showed great promise. I am eagerly awaiting 64bit edition.
Caitlyn, do you think it could become your primary distro perhaps?
Thanks.
14 • PS3 USB (by Shuckle on 2009-08-10 12:18:37 GMT from Finland)
That PS3 yellow dog USB drive looks very interesting.
Any ideas if it can be downloaded and built without cost in other words
using normal USB instead of bying it?
15 • Sabayon release postponed (by Turiec on 2009-08-10 12:22:10 GMT from Slovakia)
As it is written on the Sabayon homepage:
"As our roadmap shows, the Sabayon Linux 5 release date is coming fast. Unfortunately we are looking at a late August or first part of September for a final release." (meant version 5.0 which was announced for 12009-08-10)
16 • Arch Linux (by anon on 2009-08-10 13:05:36 GMT from United States)
Yay, another Arch Installer release. Changes are nice, but the next release will include a dual architecture installer! :) Happy Arching.
17 • Pardus 2009 upgrades notification icon (by Pepello on 2009-08-10 13:07:56 GMT from Germany)
Nice review, but i'd like to point out that both in the kaptan welcome screen and the option screen of the pisi graphic interface you are presented with an option to turn on the upgrades notification icon and even set how many times it should check out for updates :D
18 • Pardus (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-08-10 13:15:28 GMT from United States)
Excellent DWW. I thoroughly enjoyed the Pardus review. I have had similar experiences with Pardus. However I did have some problems with the latest version. I went through the whole install sucessfully and then it wouldn't boot up. I think I read that someone else had the same problem and had to change the hard drive selection. Nice review Caitlyn. I am looking forward to that DragonFly BSD review.
On an unrelated note I am trying out PCBSD. After some initial problems with my display that were easily resolved, it booted into a nice KDE 4 environment. I am very surprised with how quickly it booted up. On the initial boot, the system updates were installed automatically. Firefox has flash installed, and my sound card was detected. It also detected my etho and auto configured it correctly. The install was rather large (3 cd's) but it was painless. Very impressive for a BSD.
19 • Pardus (by Aximus on 2009-08-10 13:19:35 GMT from Turkey)
Pardus 2009 is great, thanks for the review.
20 • Getting more intrigued by Pardus (by windmonger on 2009-08-10 13:24:46 GMT from Philippines)
I've read nothing but praises for Pardus 2009, particularly its reported superior rendition of KDE. But after reading the review by Ms Martin, I am intrigued enough to try it out as soon as I can. I'm not sure I would be willing to give up Ubuntu Netbook Remix as my main platform and change it with Pardus. But the exploration should be worth it.
21 • I agree (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-10 13:54:35 GMT from United States)
I have to agree with the review. Pardus is an extremely classy, well done distribution. Pardus 2008 was amazing (my only con that I encountered was a lack of spell check in OO.o) and I have to say the same about 2009. It's by and large what Kubuntu WANTS to be, but faster and more robust!
I did some testing with distros on my spare dekstop last weekend, and Pardus received good marks for its installer, ease of use and excellent KDE implementation. While KDE 4.2.4 is still a bit feature lacking, hopefully KDE 4.3 fixes that.
I also tested sidux, which was easy as pie to install and then update (though I did use the 64-but Xfce version), MEPIS, which did its job but looked and felt somewhat unpolished and unprofessional, Debian, which has issues with my network, and Ubuntu, which had that Intel driver regression issue that recent sidux updates fixed.
22 • testing distros (@21) (by Sean on 2009-08-10 14:07:28 GMT from United States)
Nobody Important, we run through many distros on 11 machines now over time, and settle on this or that distro for this or that machine, meaning some distros sure install, perform and update differently on different machines.
One of our staff came in here earlier this year and posted some of the specs on a few of the machines, along with the distros tried, but got a "who cares" posted response from a user here we now scroll by when we see their username.
I bring this up because we care about what distros are reported on here along with a bit of the specs on the machines tried. Could you tell us what the machines are that you're installing on?
23 • useless DMCA (by Anonymous on 2009-08-10 14:09:26 GMT from United States)
"Everything from MP3s to movie DVDs will play right out of the virtual box. Users in the United States and in other countries with similar laws will need to remove libdvdcss and any offending open source codec packages to bring their systems into legal compliance."
Yea, that will happen. I want to listen to my music and play my videos. Not remove there capabilities!
What. I'm suppose to hold the dvd's up to my head and imagine what's playing.
That's why laws are made to be broken. They ARE NOT the voice of the common man. Some powerful companies got the law passed. NOT the general public
24 • Mint with KDE (by Anonymous on 2009-08-10 14:11:05 GMT from United States)
Mint is looking interesting. Maybe I'll try that.
25 • Pardus, Arch, and stuff (by davemc on 2009-08-10 14:17:44 GMT from United States)
Nice review of a unique and well put together Distro Caitlyn. Pardus is indeed interesting. Its Turkish roots and totally unique base give it top props in my book.
Xtyn - now that is an interesting question, isn't it?
#16 - A "Pacman -Syu" and I had the new release in like 3 minutes. Was it as good for you as it was for me?
26 • Pardus package updates (by Matt on 2009-08-10 14:28:39 GMT from United States)
During first login after the installation you are taken through a setup wizard. One of the pages of that wizard deals with Package Management. On that page you have the option to add the "contrib" repository, auto-check for update (with the option to specify an interval), and to tell PiSi to live in the panel. If you setup the options correctly, Pardus will notify you from the panel whenever there are updates.
27 • @22 (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-10 14:29:47 GMT from United States)
Sure. Actually, my desktop is intentionally the most generic computer I could possibly build for Linux in particular. Hopefully somebody finds all these notes interesting; if not, skip my post.
My desktop is an Intel Dual Core E5200, 1 GB of RAM, an old (and noisy) 40 GB hard drive, and Intel graphics. The entire thing cost me less than $200 to build. As a bit of an oddity that only Linux could accomplish, I'm using the Nintendo Wi-Fi adapter as my wi-fi card (which was originally intended to send signals to the Nintendo Wii and DS!) without a single issue. Everything in this machine works without closed firmware of any sort, so it's a great testing platform.
The recent Intel graphics issue has made it a pain to find a good distro that works, so I have to find a good balance between supporting 3D (I like my occasional Quake III match!) and still having support for the Nintendo Wi-Fi adapter, which gained out of the box support around Kernel 2.6.27.
Most distros work just fine on the machine, aside from the above issues, so it's just a matter of finding something I like outside of my usual Debian and Ubuntu routine. Right now, sidux looks to be the best of the bunch, until I find something else to test. I had Pardus on there without a single issue, though I didn't test the 3D.
My laptop I use right now is from the university close by; it has a Core Duo E9300, 4 GB of RAM, and nVidia Quadro 150M graphics. I just reinstalled Ubuntu on there because I didn't get 64-bit the last time. Ubuntu 9.04 works fantastically on this machine; it runs Enemy Territory Quake Wars with everything turned on (something Windows Vista cannot do!), it boots in 10 seconds or less, and it doesn't get hot. I used to have Fedora 11 on here with KDE 4.2, which worked well enough, but I missed Gnome.
My other, older laptop is a Pentium M with 1.25 GB of RAM and a Radeon 9200 graphics card. I know it can run Quake 3 and other idTech3 games just fine (such as Tremulous or Urban Terror) but newer distros no longer support its 3D support when ATI dropped it. So I use Debian 5.0 on the machine with middling success. Debian again does not like the Wi-fi card, but as a back-up machine it works well. Pardus 2008 flew on this machine, as well as Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04, and all three supported the Wi-Fi card.
28 • @18 (by stuckinoregon on 2009-08-10 14:54:56 GMT from United States)
@Elder V. LaCoste - This is a really impressive PC-BSD release. The only real issue that I've had with it is that for some reason when trying to run something like ET or other GL games. For some reason the ATI with 3D is not recognized as being GL ready or enabled. I even tried installing the driver from ports but no luck. That aside thoug, I'm growing more fond of it every day.
BTW, there is a network install option on PC-BSD. You just grab the Boot Only CD image. Makes it much nicer as long as you have HSI.
29 • #4 UbuntuFTW (by Justin Whitaker on 2009-08-10 15:02:51 GMT from United States)
I love that name.
"Hey, which distro is that? Ubuntu FTW!"
Full. Of. Win.
30 • Additional comments (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-10 15:05:32 GMT from United States)
I should also say that the above $200 desktop has been quite a hit with my family and friends.
I usually outline what the cost entails and what they can do to keep it at $200. With that they get a processor -usually a higher end Celeron or lower end Pentium Dual Core, a gig of RAM, a motherboard with Intel graphics, a small hard drive, a low end case, and a DVD drive/burner. This adds up to around $250 or less, depending on sales Newegg has. If they have any pieces left over from an old computer, I use those to save costs.
Usually this computer works fine for them out of the box, though sometimes a cheap Wi-Fi card is added, or they need more hard drive space, or they want a cheap graphics card. Easy enough, and still under $300.
I explain that this does not cover the cost of Windows. They usually don't want to remove XP off of their old computers and migrate the installation (though I probably wouldn't reinstall XP even if they asked), so I give them choices. I explain that while the Windows 7 release candidate does work well on this machine - not stunningly well, but it works - the system will stop functioning in March or April unless they purchase Windows 7. Windows Vista, I explain, will not work well without more RAM - at least a stick or more. And any Windows OS added to the computer will cost $100 or more. (This is when they start wincing)
Then I outline Linux and show them my Ubuntu desktop on my laptop, which is configured to look a bit like Windows 7. I tell them that it's free and I will configure every little bit free of charge. My configurations are simple: just install all updates, restricted extras, drivers, and the font package ttf-droid. I configure it all. If they're a gamer, i install the demos for Penumbra and other things such as Wensoth, Nexuiz, etc.
I've not had a single person turn me down on Ubuntu yet. At the very least, they've agreed to a dual boot. And everyone's been very pleased so far with their systems, so if anything that just shows how far Linux can save you a couple of bucks!
31 • Skipping ;) (by Peter on 2009-08-10 15:46:17 GMT from Slovakia)
Very nice review, Caitlyn. I really like to see reviews written after actually using the OS for some time.
Your only (obvious) mistake was to skip the Kaptan. I wonder whether there is a possibility to run Kaptan again.
And would like to know the answer for Xtyn's (#7) question as well.
32 • No subject (by Pepello on 2009-08-10 17:04:01 GMT from Germany)
@Peter: you can run Kaptan as many times as you want. I don't know if there's an entry in the menu, but if you hit alt+f2 and write kaptan, there it shows and you can run it :D But maybe i didn't read the review well: where did he say he missed Kaptan?
33 • No subject (by kaprikornis on 2009-08-10 17:10:28 GMT from Belgium)
"The only surprise once installation was done was that I found that I had no working network if I didn't go through all the configuration steps using Kaptan. It turns out that YALI had correctly detected and configured both my wired and wireless networking hardware but starts nothing automatically. If you don't want to go through all the wizard-like Kaptan configuration steps, you will need to go into the Network Manager application (not to be confused with NetworkManager, as found in Ubuntu or Fedora) and create a profile for each network interface before they will function. Doing so proved to be simple. In the case of wireless all I had to do was input my ESSID and passphrase and I was up and running. The option for scanning for available wireless networks is also available."
O yezzz, this izzz exactly what a newbee wantzzz. Thizzz kind of problemzzz.
34 • Responses (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-10 17:11:31 GMT from United States)
#23: The DMCA is the law of the land here in the U.S. I do consulting work for a living and the last thing I want to do is show off that I'm breaking the law on one of my systems. The DMCA does not require you to give up ANY functionality. It requires you to purchase and install legally licensed software. The Fluendo codecs and DVD player offer just that. Many preloaded Linux systems (i.e.: from Dell) come with the Fluendo codecs already installed. I'm certainly not going to write a review encouraging violations of U.S. or European or any other laws which is why I raise the issue of DMCA compliance in each review.
#1: I don't think Pardus would be a good candidate for hardware that is any older or slower than my Toshiba. KDE4 was very slow to boot on that system and is still too resource intensive for a machine with 512MB of RAM and a 1GHz Celeron CPU. Oh, it runs OK until you try to do a lot with it. Switching to Xfce was a big improvement. I still don't consider Pardus particularly lightweight.
#4: Those names would violate Ubuntu's trademark as #9 points out.
#7: Xtyn, that's an excellent question. I didn't try that and I probably should have done. I'll find something to install that I really don't care about, try it, and let you know.
#13: I honestly don't know at this point. I'm still happy with VectorLinux and I'm really not much of a distro hopper by nature. To me the big issue is whether or not Pardus can get security patches out on a timely basis. Right now they seem erratic to me. I've been disappointed at how long it has taken to get the updated Firefox package out.
#26, 31: Yes, Kaptan can add contrib. It can't add the unofficial repositories which is why I linked to the Wiki to explain how. It's just entering a line in the GUI version of PiSi and I thought people would want to know how to do that.
Regarding updates, I did run Kaptan on one machine and not on the other. I think experienced users will find Kaptan a bit of a pain and want to get on with things. Either it skipped the update notification question or I somehow skipped it on the one machine where I did go through Kaptan. It can be rerun later so I will check that functionality.
35 • #33: Silly comment (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-10 17:14:22 GMT from United States)
A newbie would go through all the steps in Kaptan and not run into that issue. You want to say Pardus isn't perfect, I agree. What's with all the z's? Trying to sound like a Silurian on an old Dr. Who episode or something?
#32: It's she, not he. :) I did skip Kaptan on the Toshiba where it was incredibly, painfully slow.
36 • Pardus in 512 MB ram? (by Ro on 2009-08-10 17:14:36 GMT from United States)
I was fully impressed with Pardus as well.
I am surprised Caitlyn found it usable in 512 MB ram.
All KDE4 installations, I have tried, from any distro, has immediately used swap.
While KDE will run in 512 MB, I have found it too slow.
I believe 1 GB ram should be required for KDE4.
37 • #36: Pardus in 512MB RAM (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-10 17:40:51 GMT from United States)
@Ro: You are correct that KDE hits swap and hits it hard when loading the desktop. Once the desktop is fully loaded that is no longer true. Disable 3D animation and you can run KDE 4.2.4 in 512MB of RAM without it being too painful. KDE apps or OpenOffice are another thing.
If someone wants to run Pardus on a system with 512MB of RAM I would immediately install Xfce and use it from then on. You can't rip out KDE because the custom Pardus apps and utilities have dependencies on KDE libraries and QT but you can remove some of the heavier apps. You can set Xfce as your default desktop in kdm or gdm and you'll never have to start KDE4 again. Then Pardus is very usable in 512MB of RAM :)
38 • Pardus2009 (by ParduxLuv on 2009-08-10 17:49:18 GMT from United States)
I agree with #36. Even with 1GB, I found Pardus KDE4 to be sluggish. If you check mem usage, the default install uses up circa 700 MB of RAM. Of course you can disable various services running in the background and bring it back down to about 500 or less, it's still a hassle to stop and start certain services. I still find Pardus to be an excellent distro however. Fell in love with it back in 2007. Each new releases are more solid than ever (also seems to be using up a bit more memories with each releases but that's the case with almost all the mainstream releases anyways).
39 • Pardus (by Alan UK on 2009-08-10 17:55:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've been a Pardus user for a year or more. Pretty much suits my requirements straight out of the box.
Regarding Pardus 2009.
Initially not a fan of KDE 4, I'm slowly warming to it. I've been messing with it on my 2nd pc. So far, no real probs.
The default filesystem is ext4. I had issues with grub not being seen on startup.
Installing using ext3 solves this as far as I can tell. Grub apparently has problems with ext4.
40 • No subject (by capricornus on 2009-08-10 18:01:52 GMT from Belgium)
Caitlyn Martin, what hot flame hit you? just ease please, this page has to be read, you' ll remember, we/I love what you contribute, but don't get overheated by flamezzz. ;-)
41 • Pardus (by Alan UK on 2009-08-10 18:03:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
Nearly forgot. To update Pardus, I type " sudo pisi up " in a terminal.
42 • @28 (by Elder Vintner LaCoste on 2009-08-10 18:54:13 GMT from United States)
Hi S.I.O.,
I just had to wipe it (PCBSD) off my hard drive because it was just too sluggish on my machine. Too bad, I really think it is becoming a very usable operating system. I am using an old Dell PowerEdge 2300 server with a little over a Gig of RAM. The processor is a Pentium III Coppermine.
I just installed OpenSuse 11.1 and I am having the same problem with sluggishness. It just took Firefox about 3 minutes to open. Here's the "kicker", both Wolvix and Ubuntu Jaunty run just fine on this machine with several window managers installed including Gnome, KDE 4, and XFCE among others. I am going to give the new Sam Linux a try.
43 • @42 PC-BSD woes (by stuckinoregon on 2009-08-10 19:35:47 GMT from United States)
Really unfortunate. Luckily on my side my machine has a little better stats and seems to be as responsive as any other KDE implementation.
For a machine with stats as you describe, I would forego the derivatives and go straight to the root, either Debian or Slackware. I lean more towards Debian because of the package management and the way it handles day-to-day operations. Not a fan of the Mandriva/Mandrake derivatives.
44 • DMCA (by Anonymous on 2009-08-10 20:03:52 GMT from United States)
The DMCA may be the law of the land in the U.S but most of us do not do consulting work for a living and use our computers in a home environment. We just want to be able to watch our dvds and play some music.
45 • Re. 4: Super OS (by Anonymous on 2009-08-10 20:13:48 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (disrespectful).
46 • i like that name (by twodogs on 2009-08-10 20:19:31 GMT from United States)
@DrCR post #4
UbuntuFTW - rofl
i love this name!! *opens beer and toasts*
47 • family machines/testing distros (by NK on 2009-08-10 20:23:24 GMT from United States)
@30 Nobody important
I go one step further and say that after they buy the windows OS, that I am unable to support it further at all. That's usually a deal sealer right there. Also, I am quite thankful that Microsoft is cracking down on pirate copies with WGA because days of old I was cajoled into putting windows on machines "for free" "like everyone does for free." But their came a time where trying to recover data off trojaned/virus machines became too time consuming (I could never just swipe the hard drive) that I put my foot down. I can now honestly explain that you can not put windows on "for free" and that it is not really "free."
48 • Pardus, the true user friendly distro (by Landor on 2009-08-10 20:28:05 GMT from Canada)
I've always considered Pardus (well, before their kde4 move) the true "user friendly distro".
I've often looked at entry level distros and even with that so many factors have to be taken into account. The age of the person, do they tinker, will they absently do things that will mess things up and such. Pardus fits the bill perfectly for someone who doesn't want to do a lot other than get online, listen to some music, watch videos, e-mail, play "installed" games(card, board), etc...etc..
I'm not saying Pardus isn't anything more than that either, not by far. What I am saying is that if I wanted my older aunt, or someone even new to computers (and yes there's still many out there) to have something that they'll just use, Pardus is the closest one in my opinion for being that (I hate this term) out of the box.
Any distro that truly wants to be user friendly could take some hints from that project in my personal opinion.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
49 • Sam Linux/pclinuxos (by NK on 2009-08-10 20:28:55 GMT from United States)
could someone explain what the motivation is for moving away from pclinuxos by Sam Linux??
50 • @43 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-08-10 20:39:24 GMT from United States)
Ok, Sam Linux really wasn't my cup of tea at all. I am downloading Debian per your suggestion. I was running Wolvix with Openbox, E17, Xfce, Fluxbox, Window Maker, and a couple other window managers all installed at the same time. I did not have any noticeable drop in performance. I am going to try Debian but it seems to me that on this machine Wolvix is becoming the clear over-achiever.
51 • Pardus, again (by Eddie on 2009-08-10 20:49:04 GMT from United States)
I installed Pardus 2009 on a 1.4 GHz PC with 512 megs of memory. I don't do any multimedia on this machine, but for office-type work Pardus rolls along very nicely (a little slow starting up, but I don't care). The 2008 versions consolidated the KDE control centers into a wonderfully usable center, Tasma, but even though they lost Tasma with KDE4, Pardus is still a relatively straightforward KDE implementation. It's really one of the most smooth & professional distros I've ever tried. (I'm definitely going to put the Gnome desktop on it and see what happens.)
Names: In this week's DWW, I saw that PLoP Linux has been added to the database. I could triple boot it with X-PUD Linux and LinPus and be happy.
52 • Don't judge by looking at one package (by Memotux on 2009-08-10 20:58:28 GMT from Turkey)
I don't know why Firefox fix was late, but as far as I know, Pardus has a security team and they are quite active and fast about fixing vulnerabilities:
http://security.pardus.org.tr/en/2009
53 • @7, @34 (by noname on 2009-08-10 21:18:03 GMT from Sweden)
Xtyn, Caitlyn:
No, pardus doesn't remove uneeded dependencies on package removal. For me thats a total showstopper. Other than that, pardus is excellent.
The "bug" is two and a half years old btw! I'm attaching a bug report, which is linked to the original bug report.
http://bugs.pardus.org.tr/show_bug.cgi?id=10522
54 • Toshiba Cyberblade problem (by Seth on 2009-08-10 21:22:54 GMT from United States)
I have the same problem with the video
Anybody have a example xorg.conf?
55 • drive ID, KDE distros (by jimbob on 2009-08-10 22:29:25 GMT from United States)
Excellent Review.
One of my desktops has two drives. The boot drive is PATA and the data drive is SATA. Pardus2009I, Mint7KDE, as well as Mepis 8, get a little confused about drive IDs. (Mint's KDiskFree doesn't even show the partitions) Mint and Mepis need the Grub menu.1st edited (change hd1 to hd0). PCLOS 2009.2 gets it all right.
PCLOS fstab uses hda for the PATA drive, where the others use sdb.
Other than the drive issue, these 4 KDE distros work very well - preference would be a personal thing. Every KDE fan should spend some time with one of these - Pardus or Mint for KDE 4, Mepis or PCLOS for KDE 3.
The crazy thing about showing these 4 distros to my family, is the impact of the wallpapers. To give the distros an equal chance, I need to use common backgrounds and wallpapers. That probably shows how good Linux is now, though, when the darn wallpaper becomes an important factor. (actually, KDE 3 was a unanimous choice - split between Mepis & PCLOS)
56 • #54: Relevant section of xorg.conf for Toshiba CyberBlade XPi (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-10 22:31:42 GMT from United States)
@Seth: Here are the relevant sections from my xorg.conf:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "monitor1"
VendorName "Generic"
ModelName "Flat Panel 1024x768"
HorizSync 29.5-90
VertRefresh 60
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "Trident Microsystems"
BoardName "Trident-based cards"
Driver "trident"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
I hope this helps.
57 • Re: 12 • #11 ...and the best distro is... (by Xtyn on 2009-08-10 11:57:40 GMT fr (by Bojan on 2009-08-10 22:55:04 GMT from United States)
12 • #11 ...and the best distro is... (by Xtyn on 2009-08-10 11:57:40 GMT from Romania)
The best distro is the one you like.
End of story.
Is the above answer the answer from the average Linux user???
What is than wrong with Windows?
58 • #57: Response (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-10 23:20:09 GMT from United States)
> What is than wrong with Windows?
Virii, trojans, worms, spyware and other malware.
High cost.
Poor performance forcing you into newer hardware.
Forced upgrades when Microsoft drops support for your version and security patches stop coming.
A cavalier attitude by Microsoft towards security which makes you wait up to a month for vital patches.
Vendor lock-in.
Need I go on???
59 • Re:58 • #57: Response (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-10 23:20:09 GMT from United (by Bojan on 2009-08-10 23:57:25 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the answer. Okay, I agree that there are no many *ware and virusis and...for Unix/Linux but my question is it is Linux default installation more secure than Windows default installation?
What is user friendly? Easy installation and that is it. Belive me that is Linux or OpenBSD default installation not much more secure than Windows.
BTW I don't have and I never had Windows on my computer. I had Slackware and Debian and than start using FreeBSD.
Thanks.
60 • #59 response (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-11 00:06:28 GMT from United States)
> Belive me that is Linux or OpenBSD default installation not much more secure than
> Windows.
@Bojan: Sorry, but I don't believe you. Linux and OpenBSD don't automatically have the user with administrator/root privileges. IE is installed by default on Windows and has more security holes than Swiss chesse. Once you add the ability to run VBscript out of the box, the security failings in Outlook/Outlook Express, etc.. Which Windows versions come with a built in personal firewall that is well configured by default? Many Linux distros do.
I do a significant amount of security for a living and many Linux distros (most?) are much more secure out of the box than Windows. Yes, you can secure Windows but it is not well secured out of the box.
61 • #60 (by Andrew on 2009-08-11 01:13:47 GMT from Australia)
...I was unaware that Swiss chesse had security concerns, though it would explain why Vista ran like a dog on it.
On a side note, I tried to run Ubuntu on it though it failed to boot, and make the CD incredibly sticky.
62 • FEDORA 11 (by Anonymous on 2009-08-11 01:15:13 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know how to install Fedora 11 WITHOUT installing /boot onto ext3.
I just want to be able to install Fedora 11 onto a ext4 file sytem. I'm using /boot from another linux partition.
63 • Security, hmm... (by forest on 2009-08-11 01:19:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the above remarks on security, see here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10291022-83.html
It seems GNULinux does have probs on occasion but they are fixed quite rapidly. The point is that just because GNULinux is pretty "immune" to nasties generally it cannot be said to be perfect...as some folk, not on this forum I hasten to add, would have us believe.
However, what could be said to be worrying is the attitude of some of the commentators to the above linked article...they seem to ignore the fact that there WAS an existing issue to be patched in the first place.
From last week's forum you may recall a post by Robert Thompson, reference the possibility, under specific circumstances, of hacking into a distro. RT appeared to debunk certain myths about a hacker's chances of breaking in undetected.
Caitlyn remarked on how many distros are equipped with a firewall to stop stuff getting in, but, according to Keir Thomas (he of Ubuntu books fame) the firewall (in Ubuntu at least) lets everything out unless you configure the out policies, this link might be useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitelist
I have to say, or repeat, it would be quite useful to know more about "security" as a whole, so perhaps a tutorial might be in order...if only at a very basic level with links to "required reading" say.
64 • KDE...4!! (by dave on 2009-08-11 01:26:42 GMT from United States)
There you have it folks!! Caitlyn says kde 4 is likeable.So finally after all this time indeed kde has got it together for the desktop.goodbye 3.5 you were nice and you had it together but the time had to come and as of today monday august 10 kde 4 is ready!!!! Ha ha just kidding although you've got to admit indeed kde is now better than ever.
65 • 60 • #59 response (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-11 00:06:28 GMT from United Stat (by Bojan on 2009-08-11 01:26:49 GMT from United States)
As I wrote before I am Unix user too and I didn't want to blame Linux but many users think how safe is for playin online games, talking with Skype, surfing everywhere and think how safe are. They are NO SAFE!
And comments like: this one is the best and tat one is the best...but WHY?
The answer "The best distro is the one you like.
End of story." is not the answer. Sorry.
66 • #65: The answer depends on what you are looking for (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-11 02:06:58 GMT from United States)
Bojan: There is no one best distribution. None are one size fits all. It depends on your hardware and what you plan to do with the system. The question, the way you asked it, has no answer.
As far as whether users running Linux are safe or not, it really depends on how they've configured their system, doesn't it? You can't say they not safe because you just don't know. You can't say they are safe either.
67 • Pardus (by ismail arslangiray on 2009-08-11 02:41:13 GMT from United States)
It is a great distro. I first installed in 2008. They are doing a great job. Only I like to see a live edition. In order to see in works, you have to install and go thru too much hassle.
68 • #64 (by Notorik on 2009-08-11 03:06:22 GMT from United States)
Ha, ha, Dave. You're hilarious. I don't have a clue what you are talking about. KDE 4 IS very nice. What is your point? Do you have something to say?
69 • Goodbye my dear friend....XMMS (by Merlin on 2009-08-11 04:16:30 GMT from Canada)
You kept me entertained during long nights of reading seemingly endless man pages, resolving dependencies, compiling programs and surfing the net. You were definitely a night owl. You were simple and practical, yet your dancing visuals were engaging and provided a mindless retreat to my tired eyes. Some people said some not-so-nice things about you, yet you thrived. You sparked a new generation of your own kind. Rivals were born of your very source code. If a cacophony of binary code could have a soul, you were as close to that as possible. But alas, times change, libraries become unmaintained, and people forget. But I will not forget you my dear friend.
Yours truly....Merlin
P.S. Try QMMP, it's a pretty decent clone of XMMS using modern libraries, and my new late night music source
70 • #53 Pardus (by Xtyn on 2009-08-11 06:56:12 GMT from Romania)
No, pardus doesn't remove uneeded dependencies on package removal. For me thats a total showstopper.
I heard about it but I wasn't sure, that's why I asked. For me, that's pretty bad. I install lots of stuff, some of it I want to completely remove. This is why I like the "apt-get purge" and "apt-get autoremove" from Debian and other distros that use APT.
I tried Pardus once, can't remember what version, probably 2007. The only thing I remember is that I thought PCLOS 2007 was better. PCLOS 2007 was a very good release.
Since then, I've switched to Ubuntu and Debian.
71 • Comment 45... deleted (by Anonymous on 2009-08-11 09:33:10 GMT from United States)
Funny, #4 is allowed to say that there's "something unattractive, even repulsive, of a distro called Super OS". Yet, when I claim (#45) that it's "not as repulsive as PCLinuxOS," (talking purely names here) it gets deleted because it's "disrespectful." Nice one. Kind of like Distrowatch is disrespectful (or is that selective?) of Ubuntu Satanic Edition by refusing to list it, yet they took bribe money to list Ubuntu Christian ASAP. The hypocrisy seems to run rampant here.
DistroWatch is losing my respect by the week. I imagine it won't be long before I stop visiting this increasingly-pathetic site... surely others can pick up where DW left off (assuming I need the information provided here much longer). Who knows, maybe others don't have a superstition over the word "Satanic" either. Then again, I'm realizing that the information is becoming increasingly irrelevant to me.
Note: I don't believe religion and operating systems should mix, period. But at the same time, it's disgusting to allow Christian and Muslim distros, while banning Satanic ones. Hell, Christianity offends me and their distro is listed... yet Satanic Edition is unmentioned. Nice balance there. Either allow none of them, or allow them all. And no special treatment (bribes...).
Very disappointed.
72 • RE: 71 (by ladislav on 2009-08-11 10:02:22 GMT from Taiwan)
As I've said many times before, any distribution that uses a trademarked word in its product name will have to show me a permission from the trademark holder. If they don't, they won't even get on the waiting list.
73 • @71 @64 (by Sean on 2009-08-11 10:16:55 GMT from United States)
Something so very right about disappointing a self-professed "satanist."
Dave, KDE 4 looks/acts clunky on older machines (ok, on OUR older machines), so having a reviewer here declare it fine (just like declaring a distro fine) makes little impact on us until we test it with our stuff.
I mean, didn't it get emphasized here many times before that software, including WMs or OSs or anything is hardware specific with regard to performance, etc?
74 • #72 Ubuntu CE (by Xtyn on 2009-08-11 10:34:11 GMT from Romania)
From what you're saying I understand that Ubuntu CE has permission from Canonical...right?
75 • Re: 74 Ubuntu CE and Pardus (by Sertse on 2009-08-11 10:40:48 GMT from Australia)
Their FAQ says so: http://www.ubuntuce.com/faq.htm
"However, we have contacted them regarding our project and they have given us guidelines to follow and have thanked us for supporting the Ubuntu Community and introducing Ubuntu to the Christian Community"
I also note it also was given a subforum within the actual ubuntuforums - http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=168
Anyways:
Glad to see a Pardus review, and a positive one at that. Heh, I'm probably one of the more vocal supporters of Pardus, but this week I don't have anything to say. It's a good, very polished distro. :)
76 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-08-11 15:03:06 GMT from Brazil)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
77 • Best Distro, Security Issues, Religios Posts (by Adam Drake on 2009-08-11 17:02:40 GMT from United States)
Wow. We're hitting all the hot spots this week!
Bojan: Ask 100 different Linux users what the best distro is, and you'll get 200 answers (probably more). Here's the best answer I can give:
Try Linux Mint. I like it because it works on my hardware, supports many media formats out of the box, and it is based on Debian and Ubuntu. Since it's based on Ubuntu, I can search for "Ubuntu" answers to any issues I have and 9/10 times they work for Mint. Being based on Debian means there are like a gazillion .deb packages out there for anything you need to do. I have an easier time finding quality, free "as in beer" software for Mint than I do for Windows or any other OS.
I've never had a security problem using Linux at home as a multimedia station. I also never have security problems with my heavily secured XP laptop I use for work. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe I don't do stupid stuff with my computers.
Ladislav: I would just delete post 76 and anything like it because it's off-topic.
78 • Sam2009 (by forest on 2009-08-11 17:17:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
Anyone tried Sam2009?
Live CD booted up without drama...asked about keyboard etc etc.
Found wifi dongle, entered PW and connection in seconds..
Media players played avi, wmv, mp4, mpg, xvid avi, mov, rmvb, flv, asf, mp3 files without issue with sound, no tiddling about with levels. No obvious unrar so you would have to do that yourself.
WP just worked and printed out an existing OO.o file on a network printer..
Bottom line; behaved as expected.
79 • Linux (by GNU/Linux juntaDados CDD 1.04 on 2009-08-11 17:54:10 GMT from Brazil)
LiveCD Linux distribution dedicated to audiovisual production activities in Points of Culture and spaces that promote actions of Digital Culture. This Linux distribution has the main tools for handling audio, video and image than complete environment for developing software in Python, Ruby, C / C + + and PHP5. Distribution based on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) can be used in LiveCD mode (Boot from CD) or completely installed on your computer.
80 • Sam 2009 (by RollMeAway on 2009-08-11 19:02:38 GMT from United States)
I have tried Sam linux in the past, and found it interesting.
This release comes with the notification they are changing direction,
and will not support the current release for long.
Why bother?
81 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-11 19:20:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
82 • google calls home? (by jack on 2009-08-11 19:21:11 GMT from Canada)
KDE announces that:
"the new Translatoid widget translates words and sentences right on your desktop using Google Translate"
Does this mean that google does not call home evey time one uses the app?
And, more generally, does google call home every time you use one of its apps?
It could build an extremely detailed dossier on a person
83 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-11 19:30:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #80
Quite right unfortunately, why bother? It was nothing out of the ordinary, it just worked for general unexacting tasks without issue in a satisfactory manner, hence the "behaved as expected" comment.
84 • Mandriva Cooker versus openSUSE Factory (by Anonymous on 2009-08-11 20:05:56 GMT from Italy)
If you want to run Mandriva Cooker, you can immediately have all the repos you need. It is a bit like using Debian testing or unstable.
Except for the bugs (normal for an OS being developed) you can have a fully functional distro.
Not so for openSUSE Factory, You won't find any extra repos. For instance Packman is the equivalent of Mandriva PLF, but it is unavailable for Factory. I have also seen that Mandriva Cooker has "task KDE3", which is very important for me, nobody will convince me to use KDE4 any time soon.
Concluding, I find that you could use Mandriva Cooker as your daily OS, if you don't mind the bugs. Not so with openSUSE Factory. Such a distro doesn't really get tested very much, IMO.
85 • @ Post 11 11 • why is the best (by Distrowatcher on 2009-08-11 21:14:50 GMT from United States)
Bojan,
I have asked similar questions here before with limited response (or negative responses if one wishes to truthful).
But after thinking about it a while, that is a difficult question to answer for some, including myself.
I like distro XXX because I started with it and am most familiar with it.
I like distro YYY because it is easy to install.
I like distro ZZZ because it runs best and detects all my hardware.
There are too many factors involved to give a short definitive answer.
I have tried at least 60% or more of the distros on DW and many that are not here. I am fortunate because I have much hardware to play with.
First, I liked LFS and Rock. It was challenging. But I don't care about the challenge anymore (or IT as a whole). I grew tired of my IT job. Being outsourced or being replaced by an H-1B visa holder because they work cheaper but are less effective and efficient showed me the light.
So for me, the best distribution is the best one I can install on a novice's machine - dual boot so they can still keep their windows. That would be Mint Linux. Easiest for the switch from proprietary to OSS. Most thank me but I tell them to thank Mint by a donation.
An operating system is an operating system. I nor most people don't care about the OS. As long as a person can run their apps is what counts. A computer is simply the applications they have loaded on it (plus saved files).
86 • #58 Carefull (by Anonymous on 2009-08-11 23:01:09 GMT from United States)
I know you mean well, but;
Poor performance forcing you into newer hardware.
Forced upgrades when Microsoft drops support for your version and security patches stop coming.
----
If this were not true of Linux then I would still be using my 386-16Mhz PC.
and I would still be running the Slackware from the early 1990's.
I currently use Debian Lenny.
I have a P-90Mhz laptop with 72 MB of ram and somewhere after Woody or Sarge, the simple memory requirements "just for the apt cache"
simply cripple the machine, it really slows with swapping.
Sure now with 512MB of RAM and newer processors Lenny is very snappy.
By the way I purposely remove all Gnome and KDE stuff that I can.
I use Window Maker for my desktop.
No Dbus no Avahi No HAL, etc
That's just me.
Forced upgrades are just as much here as any where else.
At work we still use Win 3.11 and Win98 - not supported but needed.
Thanks for your's and all the articles here.
87 • Re: 85 • @ Post 11 11 • why is the best (by Distrowatcher on 2009-08-11 21:14:50 (by Bojan on 2009-08-11 23:41:10 GMT from United States)
I agree with you too :) but if you compare with OS with cars. What do you expected (should be normal) with each car (Mercedes, BMW, Toyota...) - SAFETY. What I expected on the first place from OS is SECURITY! Decorations and bloting whar are now in the Linux world are secondary. Just look at KDE4. It is step back from 3.5. Why? Ask user who knows which Linux is the best.
But nowtoday safety or how linux is secure by default is "bla bla". Users need to take a book, FAQ or whatever in their hand and before install Linux read about the system. But many users are the same as Windows users: point and click.
88 • Pardus review updates (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-12 05:29:17 GMT from United States)
I ran (or reran) Kaptan on both systems. I did get a PiSi icon (a kittie sitting on a box) in my notification area and there was one new update. However, the icon didn't change after the update was installed. I still have my doubts about how functional the notification icon really is. We'll see...
Regarding network configuration, I should point out that the process in Kaptan or outside of Kaptan in Network Manager is exactly the same. You need to create a profile for each interface as I described in my review. It is never truly automatic.
The update did not include Firefox 3.5.2. While I don't judge Pardus based on a single package I do feel that a security update like this, where the upstream provider has judged it to be "critical", should at least make it to the test repository quickly. Another Pardus user has filed a bug report on this issue so I hope it is resolved soon.
My overall impression of Pardus remains very favorable.
89 • DMCA (by glyj on 2009-08-12 06:06:47 GMT from France)
@23 @34
I must add that now mandriva shipped to powerpack subscribers the Fluendo DVD player.
regards,
glyj
90 • Pardus Review (by mavi06 on 2009-08-12 07:51:51 GMT from Turkey)
It is the best "useful" review that i saw thanks to Caitlyn.
I have been using Pardus by November 2006. The number of the Pardus users in Turkey really grows very fast. It is very good to see that because before Pardus ver y small amount of people use Linux in Turkey. So unfortunatelly we all a little "fanatic" about Pardus.
I have still small problems about Pardus for example wireless connection roblem with ad-hoc and WEP. Forum s very useful to help you about any problem.
It looks like PISI (PISI is a word in Turkish means small cat, kitty) has a problem with showing updates. I already notice that. You may choice update automatically from settings. It may help.
I and my 5-year-old daughter in 3 PC using Pardus 2009. My daughter pc is an old one with 1 gb DDR 400 ram. It s work properly.
In turkey finding "cracked" Windows is really easy. So growing number of OPardus user is important and giving pleasant. Thanks.
91 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-12 08:45:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
And, reference distros in use elsewhere on the planet...tho' it must said we are talking potential users (nippers) here, NOT machines running GNULinux with a KDE top...but it's a step in the right direction, exposure to GNULinux during their formative years:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9272932512.html
and, for those devotees of KDE generally this might be of interest:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4333848905.html
92 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-12 09:39:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #91, first link...one power cut later...pesky toaster and RCCB...ref the rural locales with power supply limitations...wonder if the authorities have considered having the hard drives out...and they read an excellent post last week of using usb sticks...it might help a tad.
Let us hope these folk read DW.
93 • @86 (by Sean on 2009-08-12 13:06:07 GMT from United States)
Said, "At work we still use Win 3.11 and Win98 - not supported but needed."
Just curious because we had to cover two of our eleven machine OSs (ME) with XP and Vista, then of course linux (Vector) because of factors you mention, but why are Windows 3.1 and Windows 98 "needed" as you say?
94 • KDE4 (@64) (by Michael Raugh on 2009-08-12 14:45:28 GMT from United States)
Is very pretty and seems stable at 4.2x and up, but still lacks a couple of creature comforts that used to be in 3.5. I miss being able to click anywhere on the desktop to get an application menu, for instance. But it's coming along quite nicely.
-MR
95 • #88 Firefox Security Update (by Ron T. on 2009-08-12 15:34:25 GMT from United States)
For the average user this isn't critical.
96 • @86 (by Jose Mirles on 2009-08-12 16:09:09 GMT from United States)
Caitlyn Martin is correct. You are constantly upgrading hardware with MS. With Linux,m you are not stuck with just Lenny. You have an underpowered PC, then use Tiny Core, Puppy or any of the distros that are supported and work with lower power PC's. You can't do that with MS. You can use an unsupported OS like Win 95 or 98, but you will be on your own.
Vista came out and recommends two gigs of ram. GX150s (PIII's) max out at 1 GB of ram.
Linux works very nicely on these.Sure we can make ridiculous comments like "it won't work on a 386" but really, do you think that was meant in comment 56?
97 • #95: I disagree in the strongest possible terms (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-12 16:42:59 GMT from United States)
The good folks at Mozilla disagree with you. They have labeled two of the security vulnerabilities "critical."
I also disagree with you in the strongest possible terms. An avergae user does not want a system with a known vulnerability that could leave their system open to an intruder.
98 • @68 74 94 (by dave on 2009-08-12 16:43:59 GMT from United States)
@ 68 I was simply saying that kde 4 is now better than ever.Being a fan of kde 4 I was glad to hear caitlyn say she liked it.Also as 94 pointed out it is missing some things from 3.5 but the overall functionality is as good or better than 3.5 imo. As 74 said yes it is still a heavy application on older hardware and its performance does depend on your particular setup.as long as your not in the dark ages(4 or 5 years ago)
then its performance is quite nice as caitlyn pointed out.I would like to hear a little more from her as to what it is now that she likes that she didnt like previously. I suspect it is the performance itself.As far as performance goes it probably is as optimized as its going to get without losing functionality.
99 • @98 (by Notorik on 2009-08-12 17:12:43 GMT from United States)
Ahhh, yes, I do agree. Thank you for that clarification.
100 • Re: #69 & #58 (by kilgoretrout on 2009-08-12 17:23:54 GMT from United States)
Re #69: Merlin, have you tried audacious; it's pretty much a direct descendant of Xmms and the app that's usually recommended by Xmms fans.
Re #58: Agree with your observations about window's shortcomings. However, the plural of virus is viruses, not virii. Just my pet peeve.
101 • plural of virus (by Sean on 2009-08-12 17:59:23 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
102 • Ref #97, @Caitlyn - slight correction (by Pearson on 2009-08-12 19:25:23 GMT from United States)
Caitlyn,
You wrote:
An avergae user does not want a system with a known vulnerability that could leave their system open to an intruder.
I think that would be more accurately written as "An average user should not want [...]". I'm afraid that the average user doesn't care nearly as much as he/she should.
103 • Forced upgrades by Microsoft? (by Anonymous on 2009-08-12 19:35:17 GMT from Italy)
Of course I could still be using my first car which I bought 34 years ago, a Fiat 500.
Some people still use such cars, or even older for that matter.
They still do what a car is supposed to do: carry you from A to B.
My mother could still be using my grandmother's fridge, about 50 years old now. It was still working fine when we sold the property where it was located.
And of of course I could still use my Commodore 64, which I donated, in perfect working condition to a computer museum (but now I couldn't write this post, no internet support I am afraid).
So did anybody "force" my mother and me to "upgrade"?
Nobody did, but what about progress? What about Life, for that matter, because if you stop moving on you are dead already.
104 • RE: 101 & KDE (by Landor on 2009-08-12 19:38:36 GMT from Canada)
The use of Viri/Virii is quite wrong, and considering it's usage by some as a definitive example of every day usage, wrong again. If someone calls a usb stick a pooker wooker that does not even come close to defining it as a proper word/name for the item/device.
I was happy to see the info regarding cooker and KDE3. It was something I was unaware of. I'm guessing that it's left in cooker as an added "bonus" for those that are helping out the development team and do not want to make the switch to the 4 series.
There's a lot of options for people who don't want to switch to KDE4. Here's one for Lenny with the 2.6.30 kernel (which of course gives people like myself the option of Lenny who have new hardware/want better functionality.
http://kmuto.jp/b.cgi/debian/d-i-2630-lenny.htm
Also, those that don't mind getting their fingertips dirty can go workout with Gentoo. 3.5XX is still in stable (well, last time I checked, but I'm guessing that's changing very soon)
I'm scrounging around for an actual iso for an RHEL based system with a new kernel (wish me luck) so I can keep 3.5XX as long as I can.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
105 • plural of virus from the wiki (by Sean on 2009-08-12 19:47:29 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
106 • oy vey (by Sean on 2009-08-12 19:49:56 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
107 • #104 (by Notorik on 2009-08-12 20:15:27 GMT from United States)
I usually just ignore your commentary because it is so far off from what I think. I must say though that I really enjoyed this because it made me laugh, and it's true:
"If someone calls a usb stick a pooker wooker that does not even come close to defining it as a proper word/name for the item/device."
.
108 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-12 20:16:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Being bipartisan...something for Arch fans, hopefully cheer someone up see here:
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7469/1.html
109 • Thanks, Landor (by Anonymous on 2009-08-12 20:48:11 GMT from Italy)
Thanks for the heads up on Lenny with kernel 2.6.30 + firmware + ext4 support, it is Debian as it should be :)
110 • Yawn (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-12 21:12:26 GMT from United States)
Welll, there's a bunch of hullabaloo going on around here.
Firefox says that virii is wrong and that viruses is right. Firefox knows all.
While I prefer security and tend to turn things on if they do help, I can't say I understand this constant paranoia that makes every little Firefox patch critically important. I mean, if Firefox 3.5 has only seen two patches, doesn't that mean there's thirteen gaping holes worth of patches still in Firefox?
And since I get security updates to my Ubuntu install every day, doesn't it mean it wasn't secure yesterday? And the updates I'll get tomorrow are also unpatched today! The only logical thing to do at this point is to turn off the computer!
Having seen the level of hullabaloo around here, perhaps that would be the smartest action.
111 • Fedora 11 (by Verndog on 2009-08-12 21:53:11 GMT from United States)
I finally got Fedora 11 installed on a usb hard drive. I have to admit, I am impressed. I don't know how they did it, but I don't have any issues with my integrated Intel video chip.
What I was trying to do was to get Fedora installed on my internal hard drive, but it wouldn't let me without making a separate ext3 /boot partition.
Now that I have it all updated and "pirated" mp3 and video codecs installed (I live in the US), I will use Clonezilla to backup and then use partclone.ext4 to restore to internal drive. Then use Ubuntu Grub2 to attach Fedora.
Apparently, from what I was able to read, Fedora 12 will allow what I'm trying to accomplish.
Fedora 11 is very fast for even a slow usb, older ide hard drive. Can't wait to see how it preforms on my internal sata drive.
112 • Pardus (by Tom on 2009-08-12 22:01:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
Wow, an excellent review. Thanks Caitlyn :)) It's taken me ages to read it but now i am a lot less cautious about trying Pardus - it does sound impressive. Now time for me to wade through the comments ;)
Good luck and regards to all from Tom :)).
113 • #93 & #96 (by Anonymous on 2009-08-12 22:07:02 GMT from United States)
@#93
we use proprietary applications which were written tightly with the OS and
CPU timing at the time of writing. This makes it easier to just keep old hardware and the old OS around to keep the apps functional.
@#96
Simply the fact that it is hard to find a modern Linux Distribution that does not keep increasing the hardware requirements.
When I started to use Linux (Slackware) and never looked back.....
The system ran on a 386-16Mhz CPU with TWO Megs of RAM!
For X window I used 8 Megs of RAM with some swap space, and it ran fine.
I have tried most Distributions before Fedora came out and settled on Debian
since they seem to have the most consistent packaging and lean system,
somewhat like when I used Slackware way back then.
But as time goes forward old hardware gets dropped and the systems use
more and more resources. (RAM DISK ETC)
I know I can run Debian on a small old system but using any normal install
will require over 32 or is it 64 Megs of RAM just to pick packages to use.
It pulls the whole Deb catalog with descriptions into RAM.
I cheat and put the old computer hard drives into a newer machine and then
I run the package manager with loads of RAM, and it flies! very quickly.
When I run the package manager on the old hardware it may take over a Day
to set up an old slow PC.
Old PC's are not really slowed by the processor, but by the IO bandwidth.
Disc speed, Video IO speed and or lack of Network cards etc.
Linux is better at old hardware, but the progress treadmill of upgrading is still here. The only OS that does not need more and more is probably a dead OS.
Thanks for your attentions....
114 • Misconceptions about my views of KDE4 (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-12 22:26:16 GMT from United States)
Let me make this really, painfully clear. I do NOT like KDE4. I also do NOT like KDE 3.5. I don't like KDE period because I find it overly big, bloated, and resource hungry. My desktop environment of choice remains Xfce4.
I never hated KDE4 or saw it as intrinsically inferior to KDE3. KDE4 is visually apealling and doesn't lack functionality. OK, it did lack functionality in the early releases but that was fixed with the 4.2.x series. It's still bloatware in the extreme.
What I said about Pardus is that it was the first KDE4 environment I was really comfortable with, and yes, performance was significantly better than Mandriva 2009.1. Of course part of the problem with Mandriva on my netbook was an unusable, unstable, Intel video driver with miserable performance. It's partially fixed in Mandriva now but I decided not to stick with that distro this time around.
I also said the Xfce implementation in Pardus was first rate :)
If people are looking for me to endorse KDE4 they are looking in the wrong place.
#98: If a four or five year old computer is the "dark ages" then some of my systems are positively prehistoric. One of the things I like about Linux is that it can support older hardware and keep it running well. A perfect example is VectorLinux Light, which is quite fast on my Toshiba laptop, which is approaching seven years old. Pardus with Xfce runs reasonably well on that system, too.
115 • Pardus (by Tom on 2009-08-12 22:35:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Pardus press-releases page doesn't include a link to this excellent review. Who can fix this?
116 • @114 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-08-12 23:45:43 GMT from United States)
From Wikipedia:
"Form follows function is more of a principle then a phrase that is used in architecture, software engineering and product design. In architecture it was used in the sense that the designs of a construction would be based on the intended use to which the constructed site would be put to use. In architecture it is often seen used along side the phrase "ornament is crime" which refers to the fact that building something as part of the design without any practical application is a waste. The two phrases as early as 1910 found usage in product design. Designers put these concepts to practical use in the manufacturing of simple things like toothbrushes, teapots, chairs etc. The phrase has found use in modern days in software engineering where it is seen applied to modern businesses' Enterprise Application Architectures."
I see this debate going on here day after day. There are the people who like KDE 4, and those who don't like it. I am on the side of those who like it. "Ornament" is not a crime.
As a system administrator or "consultant", you are probably most concerned with functionality/performance ( I don't know any of this for a fact I'm just guessing ). Now me, as a home user, I am into performance AND aesthetics. I want an operating system that will make my friends go, "wow"! My first impression of Xfce was "huh?" I was really nonplussed by the stark, "boxy", ugliness of it. It works beautifully but it is butt ugly. I like KDE 4 just for those reasons, it is aesthetically appealing and I think it is a nice balance between form and function. Now I do agree that performance will suffer on older equipment so you shouldn't try to use it if you have low specs.
I guess my point is that art, beauty, and aesthetics are all valid concepts that should be incorporated into an OS. To just focus on functionality over all else is counter to human nature. I don't know where you stand on this so I am sort of just using your dislike of KDE 4 as an excuse to spout off. I'm done spouting now.
117 • It's official (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-13 01:34:08 GMT from United States)
It was post 116 that did it. This comments section of DWW has officially gone insane!
No, I'm serious. Everybody who is reading this right now, go, get off the computer, and go find the nearest burnt disc of Linux you can find and stare long and hard into it. Preferably the side where you can see yourself. It's more dramatic.
Dear lord, people. I've just been Nobody Important on this forum for at least a year or so. I enjoyed the candor, but now it's just devolved, week after week, into mindless "I don't like this" or "you don't like that." Nothing even resembling intelligent discussion. I miss the old days when we'd all have a good, rowdy talk about something interesting, rather than just sit around and accuse people of bias and fraud.
This week it's more constant bickering over security, KDE, and meaningless finger pointing. Another week and it's Mono, and another week it's whether Ubuntu's "too popular." Or elitism. Or Wolvix. I suppose this is the Internet, where every little comment turns into hyperbole, but you can never have it any other way.
Keep your flames, arguments, and flat-out nonsense on the ice. Maybe they'll be easier to ignore when the newbies to Linux come looking for some info on what distro to try.
118 • Oh never mind (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-13 01:38:59 GMT from United States)
Post 116 wasn't what I meant, and i can't recall what I was referring to. Probably my own post back up on 110.
Forget it.
119 • Stuff (by Anonymous on 2009-08-13 03:42:31 GMT from United States)
So why does the general trend in PC's:
seem to always use more to do the same?
I still have a TRS-80 model IV which runs Visi-Calc spreadsheet
That is using a 4Mhz Z-80 8bit processor with 48Kilobytes of RAM.
Also runs Scripsit word processor , etc.....
Today average new PC's use 1,000+Mhz CPU's and 1,000,000+Kilobytes of RAM
These machines on average take longer to boot up, but still do the same things.
My GNU? SC spreadsheet is not 1,000 times faster, is it?
If one compares that then lots of stuff today is Bloated and Slow.
Who cares... When most people never used anything that old eh?
Progress is good, but it seems a bit inefficient.
120 • My two cents (by Joe on 2009-08-13 05:24:47 GMT from United States)
- Thanks Caitlyn. I enjoyed the article on Pardus 2009. I was inspired to install it on one of my M700's equipped with a 750MHz CPU and 448MB of RAM. Had to enable eth0, but otherwise everything seems to be working well. It's a wee bit slow on this hardware, but no slower than any of the other mainstream distros that I've tried of late. I may just have to try the xfce desktop to see what kind of a performance boost I get. Again, thanks -- it was a good read.
- #58. I agree. And, I'm not a Windows hater. Supporting Microsoft based computers helped me keep a roof over my head and food on the table for quite a few years. I guess I'm just getting tired of MS dropping support as an OS ages, constantly having to upgrade my hardware, and paying prices that I consider too high for what I get.
- #102. I have to agree with your assessment of the "average" user. Many of my corporate customers felt that security restrictions were liabilities -- until they were burned once (more often than not they were self-inflicted wounds). Most of the home users I know don't bother keeping their anti-virus software subscriptions current, let alone update the anti-virus databases; and, don't think about security until their system is infected by spyware, a trojan or two (or more), etc. And, when it's time to rebuild their systems, they don't have any idea where their recovery CDs are and expect me to just reinstall Windows (something I've always refused to do). At this point, they have to find their CDs, purchase new CDs, or look at an alternative OS that can be installed at little or no cost. And, what version of Linux would I recommend as an alternative OS? It all depends.... ;-)
121 • #119 (by Joe on 2009-08-13 06:11:04 GMT from United States)
- Speaking of days gone by, my introduction to PCs was a breadboarded affair using an 8080 CPU, RAM, 8 LEDs, and 8 switches that we programmed using binary. Our biggest initial challenge was to keep the memory refreshed so we didn't loose our data. Shortly after we built it, Heathkit (if anyone remembers that name) introduced 7-segment LEDs and a HEX keypad, and we subsequently "upgraded" our breadboarded PC. We thought it was so cool to be able to program using hex instead of binary.
- My first real PC was a TRS-80 Model I with a CPU that ran at 1.77MHz with a single-sided 5 1/4" floppy and cassette deck for storage. I remember adding a "turbo" mod that would boost the speed to 2.5MHz (and I would "demo" my turbo mod at every opportunity). I used MS-DOS, then LS-DOS. I did a lot of assembler and basic programming in those days. My next PCs were the Model 4P (the case looked like it enclosed a sewing machine rather than a computer) and a Tandy Color Computer. I remember only too well using Scripsit and VisiCalc.
- Although I felt very capable of squeezing every bit of performance that could be squeezed from an 8-bit CPU, I much prefer where we're at today. The hardware is significantly better and the software is excellent. I like the wide variety of distros available. Instead of having to program everything from scratch (like the old days), I get to enjoy the fruits of the labors of the many BSD and Linux teams. And DistroWatch is where I come to see what's new, find out what other people think, and add my two cents, for what it's worth.
122 • Fedora revisted (by Verndog on 2009-08-13 06:37:36 GMT from United States)
Well, I finally got Fedora 11 installed and running on my internal hard drive. What I decided to do was to use gparted to copy the usb partition to my internal partition. That was basically it. I remembered that I needed to edit fstab but in my haste to figure out grub2 I forgot. Fedora's output of fstab errors was a tad bit scary. All was needed was just remove the reference to /boot on a ext3 partition.
I'm amazed at how well Fedora 11 runs. I kept seeing Fedora run up on the charts and kept hearing about the snappy boot process. I remember my last Fedora install. Somewhere arount 5 or 6. What a difference, to say the least!
123 • @joe (by david on 2009-08-13 11:51:03 GMT from United States)
Joe,
would it be possible to get a distro review form you???? your past experience and vast knowledge would lend itself well, i believe.
124 • @117 (by Merlin on 2009-08-13 11:51:08 GMT from Canada)
LOL, I think a lot people on this "forum" can't wait until Monday to start blasting their differences. It certainly doesn't seem like a comments page. To me a comments page is like a guest book at a tourist attraction - you write a quick comment such as "Loved the scenery, signed A. Nonymous from Toronto, Aug. 11, 2009". That's it! You don't come back, day after day to see if anyone has disputed your guest book comment.... "That joker who loved the scenery doesn't know what they're talking about - it's terrible, signed I.M. Freaky from Niagara Falls, Aug. 12, 2009", and then write your own rhetorical comment back in the guest book..."Hey Freaky, go check out Wikipedia - this is one of the seven wonders of the world! You're lucky I wasn't back here yesterday checking this guest book!!, signed A. Nonymous from Toronto, Aug. 13, 2009"
Unfortunately, this is what the Internet is doing to us....sigh....sometimes technology and progress has it's downsides. I'm of the older generation whose grew up without computers in the 70's - and we actually had stuff to keep us busy too. I love my Linux and computers, but I think people need to turn off there PC, cell phone, handheld, and whatever else they have and "get outside more often"!
125 • @124 (by Merlin on 2009-08-13 11:52:57 GMT from Canada)
P.S. I'll be checking back to see if anyone has responded to my comment tomorrow. Sad!
126 • @117 (by Tim on 2009-08-13 12:05:14 GMT from United States)
What I am noticing is that with all of the arguing and disagreement going around in here, a person with a legitamate question can't get seen. I had that problem a few weeks back. Thank goodness Tom saw my post before all of the arguments took off. He was the only one that responded because nobody else could see anything but fighting.
"Keep your flames, arguments, and flat-out nonsense on the ice. Maybe they'll be easier to ignore when the newbies to Linux come looking for some info on what distro to try."
I agree with this and it is not just for the newbies.
127 • @126 (by Notorik on 2009-08-13 13:10:54 GMT from United States)
Unfortunately Tim, the process of sharing ideas has historically been a messy business. Argument and dissent is how we humans hash out our differences, find new ways of thinking, and possibly come to some consensus on rare occasions. To ignore or dismiss any kind of discourse that is a bit "heated", or uncomfortable and label it as "flat-out nonsense" or flaming, is a bit naive. I think DWW has never been better. The review of Pardus this week was excellent. The comments have been no stranger than usual with the notable exception of Nobody Important "flipping his lid".
128 • Correction (by Notorik on 2009-08-13 13:13:27 GMT from United States)
"It is through argument and dissent that we humans are able to hash out our differences..."
129 • @127 (by Tim on 2009-08-13 13:32:12 GMT from United States)
Thanks Notorik. I appreciate your comments. I really like coming into DWW and have learned a lot from folks on here. I guess the disagreements are pretty much everywhere you go any more.. :-)
130 • the boat again (by Tom on 2009-08-13 15:44:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
Aww heck, i'm off to the boat again. Just worked out how to get wireless working in Ubuntu (thanks Mark R :) ) I'm still taking Wolvix Hunter and now Pardus too. Hopefully i can have a good look around at Pardus on an old hp laptop.
Good luck and regards to all from
Tom :)
131 • kde (by dave on 2009-08-13 15:53:38 GMT from United States)
Okay caitlyn thank you for clarifying.you hate kde4.you just thought its implementation in pardus was good.I didnt mean to start trouble,atleast we can agree that it's newest implementation is better than in the past.
Indeed it is hardware intensive,but its made for todays computers.Not everyone has an old pentium 3 they are holding on to.Kde represents today's computing needs its meant to be bleeding edge.Truly the developers are competing with windows to bring us a very powerful but still free desktop manager.Indeed as a previous poster pointed out people like a fancy desktop,they like things to be modern and new looking.Weather you hate it or not it is the best linux has to offer as far as bleeding edge.some people have brand new machines with dual cores and quad cores and for them kde is all linux has to offer,for a modern desktop to match their modern machine.There is enlightenment but it doesnt have even close to the functionality as kde.
Kde needs to be bloated in,order to bring us its modern look.
I got an old machine and kde sucks.well thats true.I got a modern machine and kde rocks!! is also true.So anyway I am very proud of what kde has to offer for those of us with modern computers and thank god its there as a choice.The folks at kde to me are at the forefront of the battle with microsoft.I absolutely love linux and the choices it brings to my table.Even if you hate kde because it's slow on your computer you HAVE to respect what they are doing.
132 • Re #131, @Dave - well said! (by Pearson on 2009-08-13 16:07:15 GMT from United States)
Dave,
I think you explained very well what makes Linux more appealing (to me, at least) than Windows or OS X - choices. When buying a car, I can buy a small, extremely fuel efficient car or I can get a big ("bloated") not-so-efficient one, depending on my needs. No one car is perfect for everyone, and no one Desktop Manager is perfect for everyone.
Case in point: I'm beginning to "feel the pain" on my 1GHz Pentium with 256MB or RAM running XUbuntu 8.04. I'll probably put more RAM on it, and may move up to Lenny just to keep Firefox from "freezing" occasionally (actually it just gets non-responsive for a while, especially when Flash has been loaded).
133 • Stop putting words in my mouth, other responses (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-13 16:42:55 GMT from United States)
#131: Dave, stop putting words in my mouth. I do NOT hate KDE4. Hate is a very strong emotion and I just don't get that worked up over desktop environments. I recognize that KDE4 is both pretty and functional. I should say it is functional if you want to waste your system's resources on the desktop. I don't like bloat.
You say KDE4 is great on a fast machine. Perhaps, but only if you don't do anything that pushes that machine to its limits. A bloated desktop is still taking resources that could be used for something else.
#102/#120: Pearson and Joe: Both of you are correct. My comment should have read that the average user should care about a Firefox security patch or that they would not like the consequences if the vulnerability was exploited and used against them on their system. I agree that far too many users don't know about or care about security.
@117: Nobody Important: I'll refer you to the subject line of this post. I don't think my personal likes or dislikes are important to anyone but me. After three or four posts saying how much I like KDE4 I just got tired of people putting words in my mouth. The purpose of a review is to evaluate the product, in this case a Linux distro. I can recognize a good implementation of KDE4 when I see it, one KDE users will like, and report on it honestly. I hope that is what I did this week.
#116: Elder, we'll agree to disagree. Between themes and wallpaper I can make any of today's desktop environments pretty or ugly. I can tailor Xfce to my tastes quite nicely.
134 • Great article re: Debian, packagers and end users (by PG on 2009-08-13 17:01:46 GMT from United States)
titled: Debian contempt for "end user" values has to stop!
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/debian_contempt_end_user_values_has_stop
I have no ax to grind nor have I ever used Debian just thought this was a really well written article and very thought provoking.
135 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-13 17:21:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Re the Bloat Question, see here for an article and package to "assess" bloat.
Apols if you already knew this, and hope it helps for those who did not:
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6819/1/
136 • @133 (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-13 17:21:51 GMT from United States)
I was referring less to you and more toward your detractors.
137 • @134 (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-13 17:34:05 GMT from United States)
That author really needs to stop blaming the whole rather than the person. Each of their issues can be attributed to single decisions, not Debian in total. It's not like the board elected to remove a font he really liked.
And I disagree with their premise. Debian is what it is. It's never advertised itself as an end-user distribution. It's always said, "Debian is a big bunch of packages" that we all magically pull an OS out of.
@119: Computers are doing a hell of a lot more now than they did ten years ago.
We have internet speeds to rival yesterday's hard drive access speeds. We have high definition video that displays more pixels than a monitor from five years ago. We have the common place electronic music libraries in nearly every modern computer, compressed in ways we never dreamed of win Slackware 4. We have more gadgetry, devices, and changes in every electronics store that a computer is supposed to be able to interface with than I have hairs on my head.
Computers are a lot more complex because they do a lot more. As they gather more functions, they will require more power to do so. This is also hand in hand with economics - computers grow in power because they can. The economy will support it if they do.
When you start to think about how much you can do on a single Ubuntu disc (and nothing else!) and how many devices have to be supported and tested, you start to realize why a floppy disc just doesn't cut it.
138 • One more, for the road (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-13 17:42:46 GMT from United States)
I really need to consolidate all of my replies.
@127: You probably weren't here for last week, then, where this place turned into a bunch of people yelling at each other about security. I asked a few questions, which were ignored in favor of more yelling. eventually the yelling ended, but none of it was fun and it was all rather embarrassing.
Perhaps this week I perceived more of the same around Caitlyn's "hate" of KDE4 (which I don't see at all - like I said, the review was fine). Maybe there wasn't as much antagonism as last week. Who knows?
139 • Re:135 (by Anonymous on 2009-08-13 18:09:45 GMT from Canada)
It is frequently mentioned that Ubuntu has very large repositories.
The following comment is from the site listed in #135:
Unfortunately, Ubuntu Jaunty user have a complication: there's a package you can install, but it doesn't work. Check out Ubuntu bug 370735 for various fixes.
I cannot remember seeing any other cricism of Ubuntu's repositories. So how many of the thousands don,t work?
Is there any way of assessing this?
Thanks
140 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-13 18:38:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #137
In response to #119...A fair summation of "modern" PCs, they can do more simply because they are far faster, have much more RAM etc etc.
I feel on occasion the folk who get real pleasure out of "using" a distro on an antiquated machine forget, sometimes, this forum is not exclusively for hobbyist distro watchers.
In fact I would posit they are fast becoming the minority faction of the community what with the very rapid spread of "national" distros (witness DW itself) across the planet.
Which brings me to the security question yet again, ref # 138. True there was a bit of a free for all, but nobody could claim at the end of play R Thompson, US, pulled his punches...we all know Linux is not invulnerable, can be hacked if not set up with security in mind and anybody who thought differently might best be described as naive.
How many folk have not set up their firewall to stop outgoing traffic...we know who we are...
141 • Re: 134 Packagers and End User (by Untitled on 2009-08-13 19:00:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
PG, I'm afraid I disagree with the writer of this article.
I'll quote from his article: "I didn’t contact these developers [...] because there’s really no point — I know and you know that these attitudes are endemic throughout our whole community".
I'm not a developer or a packager but only an end user myself, but I think that if he's not tried to do something about it then he really can't complain about nothing being done just because he thinks packagers have an attitude.
Here's my experience. A few weeks ago I was trying to install Debian Squeeze. I downloaded the weekly ISO file and it threw some error messages and never got very far. I tried a week later, and it was the same thing, so I realised this wasn't just a bug in a particular weekly build. I reported it to the Debian people and they answered pretty quickly. They needed some more information from the logs and then came back and said they identified the problem and that I should wait a few days and it will be fixed. A couple of days later one of them sent me an email to let me know it was fixed and that I should try it again -- and indeed it worked.
I've had a similar experience with the KDE people. I'm using the development packages so went through all the betas and RCs and although not all bugs I reported were fixed (yet?), most of them were and the response from the developers was very positive. Actually, one developer even thanked me for the bug report, which was very nice of him.
I don't expect all the bugs I report to be fixed on the spot, or ever, but I certainly don't expect them to be fixed if I don't report them.
142 • @133 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-08-13 21:19:34 GMT from United States)
Lol, I understand your point. I don't think we have to disagree completely though. I really enjoy Ubuntu Jaunty with KDE 4 on my fast machine. I don't play any resource intensive games or do any "high level" computing that would require me to reserve system resources. I like the "eye candy" of KDE 4 and don't mind spending my resources on it. It comes down to personal choice and I don't think there has to be any wrong answer here.
Now on my other machine I have taken to running Wolvix, thanks to Tom's incessant posting here :) It is an older machine and there are issues that can only be resolved (at my knowledge level) by using a Slackware based distro. Wolvix comes with Xfce as the default but there are many other window managers available in the repositories (look under "Desktop & Applications" in the forums). I think the only one missing is KDE 4.
I just wanted to stress that beauty and elegance are often regarded as non-essential and unimportant elements. Apparently no one has figured out the optimal combination of form (meaning elegance/beauty in this instance) and function (contextually defined as efficiency) yet. Sadly, it seems, that you must always sacrifice one to satisfy the other.
I agree that you can make just about any desktop environment look "pretty good" but Openbox is no KDE 4 no matter what wallpaper you slap on it. Now you could make an argument for Openbox with LXDE and I would have to agree except for the issues with the file manager. You also don't have the flexibility of Xfce. Enlightenment has been looking promising for a long, long, long, time...still waiting...
I am a bit puzzled as to how some readers came up with the idea that you "hate" KDE 4...
143 • my big mouth (by dave on 2009-08-14 00:04:04 GMT from United States)
Okay once again I must apologize I got a little extreme and turned "I don't like" into hate and i shouldn't have,my sincere apologies to Ms Martin.Truly it is a strong word and I used it out of context.Please if I may let me rephrase that.Caitlyn does not like kde 4.Originally I was also mistaken and misunderstood her saying something like it worked well with Pardus,and turned it into she liked kde.Damn I should have kept my comments to myself this week.I'll be back when i've got something mark twain would approve.
144 • Repurposing older PCs. (by Joe on 2009-08-14 02:18:46 GMT from United States)
- There are many reasons why I love the various Linux and the BSD distros that so many teams around the world are working on. They help me stay on the cutting edge -- helping me get the most from my newer PCs. They help me breathe new life into my older PCs, proving they haven't outlived their usefulness simply because the OS that they originally came with is no longer supported by Microsoft.
- Linux, along with the support community around each distro, helps me build workstations, servers, firewalls, NAS boxes, PCs to control CNC machines, multimedia systems, and internet appliances that may have no purpose other than to serve up the current time, weather, or latest news from around the world.
- In addition to the typical review, I'd like to see occasional reviews that look at some of the "specialized" distros to see how well they meet their intended purposes. I'd like to see some of the "typical" reviews include information on how that new distro might fit into an end user's arsenal. What is that new distro best suited for? Who's it's target audience?
- I'd like to see more support for new members of our community, like the help that was provided to Mandy a few weeks ago that helped her get going with Linux and the recommendations that helped her assist a friend repurpose an older laptop. We saw some of it this week when someone shared their xorg.conf file.
- I'd like to see the occasional sharing of tips and tricks that help us get the most from the distros currently under discussion.
- I'd like to see less turmoil. We're like a big extended family and we should respect each other's opinions, whether we agree with those opinions or not. Snide, sarcastic, and condescending remarks aren't helpful. Correct when corrections are due, but do so politely. There's an old saying, praise in public, but correct in private. If you get angry, buy a stress ball, wait until you have a cooler head, then respond. If you step out of line, apologize, try not to repeat offending behavior, and get back to helping us advance the world of Linux.
145 • openSUSE still NOT PROVIDED (OFFICIAL) UPDATE for MozillaFirefox (3.0.13) (by Not Happy on 2009-08-14 02:27:05 GMT from Australia)
Results from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla:/maintained/ope nSUSE_11.0
MozillaFirefox (3.0.13)
Mozilla Firefox Web Browser
Results from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla:/legacy/openSUSE_11.0
MozillaFirefox (3.0.13)
Mozilla Firefox Web Browser
Results from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_11.0
MozillaFirefox (3.5.2)
Mozilla Firefox Web Browser
http://packages.opensuse-community.org/
----------------------
This was supposed to be a serious security patch and Ubuntu supplied a patch within a couple of days. Novell is being SLACK, IMHO!
I am an openSUSE (11.0) user (has been my preferred distro for 3+ yrs) but this is not very responsible behaviour from Novell.
Cheers
146 • RE: 109 & 145 (by Landor on 2009-08-14 02:40:07 GMT from Canada)
109:
No need for thanks. He's also part of the Debian Dev Team I do believe. I used KernelCheck to shoot up to the latest stable kernel on an Ubuntu and Mepis install. It's worked well on those twol. That's just another of tons of options (I'm guessing) for getting the latest and greatest along with what many consider stable.
145:
Did you e-mail the devs to find out what was going on? Sometimes the ball gets dropped, yes, but also, there's the human factor that from time to time can play a definitive part in the equation.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
147 • Firefox 3.5.2 package in the Pardus-2009-test repo (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-08-14 05:34:05 GMT from United States)
Yep, they finally got the package out :) They were reminded by a few people in their user community, all in a polite way, which is a good thing IMHO.
Oh, and no, I am not judging Pardus security by one package. There have been a steady stream of updates and hopefully this was just one that took a little longer for unknown reasons.
148 • @144 by joe (by Sean on 2009-08-14 11:19:00 GMT from United States)
"We're like a big extended family and we should respect each other's opinions."
Umm... "families" are not all the same. I dare say most have arguments and fights and also have family members who do not "respect one another's opinions."
If you want to use the family analogy for linux users at large, go ahead. I think it's silly.
To me, linux users world wide are so varied in attitudes and even reasons for using linux at all that we have only in common the fact that we know about the existence of linux and some of us use it (from seldom to occasionally to often to always).
149 • @144 (by Tim on 2009-08-14 12:01:12 GMT from United States)
"Linux, along with the support community around each distro, helps me build workstations, servers, firewalls, NAS boxes, PCs to control CNC machines, multimedia systems, and internet appliances that may have no purpose other than to serve up the current time, weather, or latest news from around the world."
Thanks Joe for the comments. I too have reused older hardware with a few distros for a very efficient IDS/firewall system, and a home based NAS system. It is amazing what a person can do with Linux and older hardware. I just wish that I could get my family as interested in it as I am. A friend of mine built a system that capture lightening hit and take pictures of the strikes. :-)
150 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-14 12:37:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
Families...one of the most dysfunctional groupings going, LOL.
Reference the "re-purposing" of older hardware, undeniably interesting, keeps you out of mischief, but not terribly green, and a waste of energy resources...I'm thinking Kyoto Agreement here BTW.
We read of projects in the rural parts of Brazil being short on energy resources and compromising, possibly, attempts to bring education to the nippers...and then we read of individuals running several computers simultaneously...you could not make it up really.
As for taking snaps of lightening strikes...but probably not as ridiculous as actually chasing storms or twisters or whatever...we get docu-dramas aired in UK on such subjects...usually a lot of overgrown schoolboys racing around in their 4x4 vehicles simply being being pests and a nuisance to the real authorities.
Returning to topic, if you are experiencing problems with internet connections, specifically wifi, this may be of some interest:
http://resources.zdnet.co.uk/articles/comment/0,1000002985,39714325,00.htm
151 • Ref #1500 (by forest on 2009-08-14 12:44:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
oops...lightning!
152 • @149 (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-14 13:44:09 GMT from United States)
Heck, I've been able to use Linux and turn old, dusty boxes that run virus-laden versions of Windows 98 into multimedia powerhouses! You'd be amazed at what Debian can do, even with Gnome. And even going lower than that, AntiX or Puppy. It's astonishing to see a box with specifications well under mine run Puppy no faster than my $300 computer at home.
Now that I wouldn't grab computer offers if I saw them, but I'm starting to wear thin on the upgrade treadmill now that Linux is my primary OS. My computers will be able to run Linux for a decade (if not more!), so why worry?
153 • Oh, and (by Nobody Important on 2009-08-14 13:45:14 GMT from United States)
Tuquito has the nicest webpage of any Linux OS I've seen yet. I know a little bit of Spanish, so I might have to download the distro and see what it's like.
154 • @153 (by Sean on 2009-08-14 14:38:08 GMT from United States)
Yeah but they spelled Taquito wrong.
It's a joke! lol.. er,
..heck of a distro heck of a distro. :o)
155 • @153 (by just_me on 2009-08-14 15:03:54 GMT from Spain)
Ok... you'll have to wait a little: 15 KB/s right now for me.
156 • Re: above posts (by Sertse on 2009-08-14 15:12:15 GMT from Australia)
but but, how can you look past the fact the distro switch from Debian KDE to Ubuntu Gnome as a base?? That's massive....
The website is pretty shiny and sparkly though....lol, Might need to rake a pee at it haha. I'm so easily swayed
157 • @148, 150 (by Joe on 2009-08-14 15:35:04 GMT from United States)
- Think of "family" as "A group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation" Merriam-Webster Online, family, 3a. In our case, an interest in Linux serves as the common thread.
- Even if the "family" becomes a wee bit dysfunctional at times, it shouldn't stop us from trying to keep things on an even keel or to make things right.
- Older PC doesn't necessarily mean energy hog. I use a Kill-a-Watt meter to let me know how efficient (or inefficient) my new and re-purposed PCs might be. I think the first step to "going green" is to become "aware".
158 • #152 (by Notorik on 2009-08-14 15:38:16 GMT from United States)
Better not mention Puppy here or the "security paranoid" goblins will eat you. My God, if you run as root the world will end. It's funny how Puppy has been at the number 8 spot in the top ten on DWW for quite some time now and we have yet to hear of a single incident. I'm just sayin'...
159 • @joe (by Sean on 2009-08-14 16:27:09 GMT from United States)
If you're trying to defend the notion of linux users being civil with one another in discourse, that's a good thing to remind people of in my opinion.
But I was having fun pointing out the "family" is not really the best unit to align ourselves with, as linux advocates/users.
"Army" works for me. It is forced discipline and forced "getting along," but it is effective to a greater degree than "family," for sure.
How about "community." That allows for all sorts of expression and can be self-policing; just like it is now.
I think that we're a community, but by no means a family and I am glad of that. :o)
160 • @159 (by Joe on 2009-08-14 16:40:38 GMT from United States)
"Community" works for me as well. :-)
161 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-14 16:43:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #157
Bound to be deleted, because I don't think I could, convincingly, slide a GNULinux theme in here even by pondering whether or not said meters ran GNULinux code...but you are perfectly correct, Joe...the first thing to do is to be "aware" of signing or ratifying the Kyoto agreement, LOLOLOLOLOL.
I believe it is the waste product which is the major source of concern, as in what do you do with it?
We in UK have an energy meter doodad too, might even be the same thing?
Trouble is they are around £50/£60, so you would have to factor in how long it would take to pay for itself...from conception, R & D, manufacture, packaging, writing instructions in several languages, proof reading the instructions, printing of instructions, transport, (across a planet), marketing, advertising, retail, servicing, warranty claims, not to mention staff training, warehousing, etc, etc, ad nauseam. Transport alone must add to the greenhouse gas emissions in some way.
Hmm. not so green after all...then.
Better to not have so many machines running at the same time, and, if you really need to, simply watch the dials/digits spin round on your electricity meter...now, if they calibrated the utility meters to display how much CASH you were going to have to pay for your next bill...
Oh, hang on a mo, this might past censure...the computers running all the above industrial processes, and, the new domestic utility meter I have just invented (all right, conceived then)...are bound to be running some sort of GNULinux, somewhere...even if if we were to just count your machine and mine...
162 • @161 (by Joe on 2009-08-14 18:04:21 GMT from United States)
LOL. To provide a tie in to Linux, you can always discuss power management.
- Mandriva Gnome has an app called Power Statistics under System, Adminstration, that I use to get information about my battery as well as seeing what apps are constantly hitting the CPU.
- There's also powertop, a Linux app for Intel systems, that can help you determine why your PC is working so hard or determine what apps are running that could be closed to extend battery life. Run it as root in a terminal.
- And, there are also the pwrkap utilities, developed by IBM, that monitor power utilization and CPU loads.
163 • No subject (by Sean on 2009-08-14 20:10:13 GMT from United States)
Plus, if we're a family, then that makes Ladislav our *gasp* father?
Who's the mother, then?
:o) *grin* LOL, etc..
164 • No subject (by forest on 2009-08-14 22:16:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
oops, to continue...did anyone try ScentLinux perchance?
Live CD loaded/ran no probs, screen res spot on from word go, but the wifi not detected (uses Wicd...meh!) on my kit, standard Dell Opti 280 (used bizniz m/c), 3GHz, 2GB about 4yrs old. Played wmv file but v low level sound, so could not be arsed to carry on; cf to Sam 2009 this is hopeless on my m/c, rpt...on MY m/c.
But cf both to Mint 7...Mint 7 is in a different league altogether...orders of magnitude better.
Which brings me to this, what is the man on about? LOL:
http://www.pcplus.co.uk/node/3099/
165 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-08-14 22:18:34 GMT from United States)
If this were a REAL forum, the last 100 or so comments would be moved to the "cafe" section.
Very little comments this week regarding distros.
166 • Re:165 This week... (by sertse on 2009-08-17 01:14:49 GMT from Australia)
This week wasn't that bad imho, standard fare that gets sidetracked late into the week. We talked about Pardus, just there nothing much to add that not already been said - a solid alternative desktop distro with minor, but liveable nicks. It inspired a worthy discussion on the value/importance of having every minor point version update of programs, various views are given, some mind more than others..
Number of Comments: 166
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BSDanywhere was a bootable live CD image based on OpenBSD. It consists of the entire OpenBSD base system (without a compiler), plus a graphical desktop, an unrepresentative collection of software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices as well as other peripherals. BSDanywhere can be used as an educational UNIX system, rescue environment or hardware testing platform.
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