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1 • Kongoni, you said? (by mioriticus on 2009-09-14 07:41:29 GMT from Romania)
http://pastebin.ca/1565126
2 • Arch way and mainstream impatience, look and feel (by viktor on 2009-09-14 07:51:23 GMT from France)
Nice review of Arch, I never tried more than twice to install and try it and I'm sticking with Ubuntu 32-bit LTS on my production machines, with a partition to test and enjoy the latest 64-bit delivery.
Speaking of Ubuntu the new themes look fine, but the real change would have been to make "New Wave" the new default theme. I think that would still give Ubuntu a fresh look after 4 years of the old brown and orange (and grey gnome) appearance.
BTW why is Easy Peasy included in the Distrowatch database and not Eeebuntu? Jon's work is great but I have had better success with the latter, especially since it is possible to install a lighter base system on pre-Atom netbooks.
3 • RE: 2 Easy Peasy and Eeebuntu (by ladislav on 2009-09-14 07:57:54 GMT from Taiwan)
why is Easy Peasy included in the Distrowatch database and not Eeebuntu
At the risk of repeating myself, any project that includes the word "buntu" (or any other trademarked word) in their product name will have to show me a permission from the trademark holder. Failing that, they won't even get on the waiting list.
4 • Arch and what next? (by Xtyn on 2009-09-14 08:22:04 GMT from Romania)
Michael, was Arch for 32 or 64 bits?
I think Sidux is a good potential candidate for your next review. :)
5 • Arch has a great gui frontend (by Arch user on 2009-09-14 08:29:48 GMT from Israel)
called "shaman"
6 • Debian developer Meike Reichle (by michael on 2009-09-14 08:33:41 GMT from Germany)
Just like to point out, that Meike is a female name - which might explain, why SHE is involved in the Debian-woman project :-)
7 • openSUSE users can easily get latest KDE4 via repos (by SuseUser on 2009-09-14 08:42:41 GMT from Australia)
The upcoming version of openSUSE is due out in two months, with the project moving to KDE as the default desktop. This will naturally include the latest version of KDE 4, but in the meantime users of version 11.1 are stuck with the much older and far more buggy 4.1.3 version. To address this
The "default" desktop is merely having the kde radio button preselected on the DVD install disk - nothing more.
Secondly openSUSE 11.0/11.1 users are NOT stuck with the KDE 4 version their OS shipped with (though it will be the only version officially supported, as is the case with other major distros such a Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, etc.!) and can choose to enable KDE4 repos for their version of openSUSE and EASILY have the "latest and greatest" installed.
openSUSE users can find all the KDE repos at following link: http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/Repositories
8 • Arch way to go! (by Alec on 2009-09-14 08:47:18 GMT from Estonia)
Nice review, summarizes well common problems that new arch users have.
Too bad you didn't get to Yaourt - pacman extension that handles AUR source packages seamlessly. It puts every linux program at your fingertips, no repo can beat that.
9 • GUI installer for Arch Linux KDE4 (by Mark on 2009-09-14 08:49:43 GMT from Australia)
The Chakra-project is a GUI installer for Arch Linux and KDEmod (KDE4).
Even though it is still "beta", I found it to work very well, and it removed most (if not all) of the awkwardness of the standard Arch Linux installation method.
http://chakra-project.org/
The current official version is Alpha 2, but Alpha 3 is almost ready and can be found here:
http://www.linux23.com/torrent/chakra-alpha-3-32bit-spin:2b9c1eea303ec9d0cb2929cf5fd4b826014bcc37
This makes Arch Linux KDE4 a lot easier to install, almost on a par with the likes of an Ubuntu LiveCD.
10 • Pacman GUI (by Arch user 2 on 2009-09-14 09:06:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
There are a few community written GUIs for pacman. Check out the wiki (shaman is one).
11 • arch (by mandog on 2009-09-14 09:17:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Nice piece on arch Linux. yes the beginners guide is much better than the official guide. The latest Firefox version is in the repros perhaps your mirror is not updated yet.
12 • Disk partitionning (by Wikimig (archer) on 2009-09-14 09:28:25 GMT from France)
Wow! 100Go for the distribution and 8Go for swap?!?!
I am not going to run into a troll but 15Go for the distribution and 1Go for the swap (or as much as RAM) would have been sufficient.
13 • Arch Linux not that hard (by Felix Pleşoianu on 2009-09-14 10:12:58 GMT from Romania)
Funny, I found the Arch installation very easy and trouble-free, and I'm an average Linux user at best. Granted, installing in a virtual machine did boost my confidence more than a little. As for resources, said VM has 128MB of RAM and a 4GB (emulated) HDD, and Arch sits comfortably in it. Didn't install everything I normally use, though.
14 • Arch (by Travis B on 2009-09-14 10:35:44 GMT from United States)
I would first off like to say 'thank you' for posting an article that _didn't_ involve Ubuntu. I would like you for being one of those weird people that _don't_ stick with Ubuntu as their Godsend distribution, and are open to _attempt_ something else, and can see that just because a distribution doesn't provide everything out there in the bloated-open, it can be good.
I would also like to say 'good job' at getting your Arch GNU/Linux system set up. My first attempt at Arch went the same way yours did a few years ago. I was quite happy when I had it set up. I actually was using it as an intermediary, since I originally wanted to set up an LFS or Gentoo and had not had the required knowledge [funny too, I had a few Gentoo's setup before, but could never configure GRUB until after I setup my Arch system]. I used Arch for quite a while, and learned most of my CLI habits from it. Believe it or not, it's actually _easier_ to have a one-answer to everything (terminal). I don't need to open an entire new application just to update my repositories, search, and install packages!
I would also like to mention that GTK isn't necessarily a GNOMe-thing (on the contrast, Qt is pretty much a KDE thing). GTK is used in many non-GNOMe programs, such as the NVIDIA graphic tool, Inkscape, and Pidgin. Fear not about installing GTK in that case then :P
Up until now, my laptop actually used to run Arch (well, 'my laptop' is just a variable for "what portable computer I'm using at the time," it's not necessarily one machine), until I got this nifty netbook with a 16GB SSD. I do love the SSD, but I figured I should squeeze as much space as I could out of it, and setup a Gentoo with -Os -- figured it was my best option :D
15 • Arch (by alb3rto on 2009-09-14 11:05:57 GMT from Spain)
Well, a good review of Arch, i´m a Zenwalk and Arch user, but lately, i boot Arch most of the time. It´s a little bit difficult at the beginnig, but hey, it lets you do things the way you want.
I´m learning a lot about Linux from using it.
Plus, it´s fast as hell!
16 • Tell us in a few months (by Omari on 2009-09-14 11:15:04 GMT from United States)
I'm more curious to see how you feel about Arch after using it a few months. I often see people complain that something broke while they were doing an update.
17 • Arch (by Ariel A on 2009-09-14 11:15:15 GMT from Argentina)
It's a quite good distro to know how do packages look like on their lastest version, although I don't advise it for production use, with the spend of the time you'll get a lot of *.pacnew files on your /etc dir which will tend to mess up your system regarding with settings issues and might end up with big headaches (own experience) and also living on the edge may expose you to stability problems.
Regards
18 • Re: #14 (by DG on 2009-09-14 11:20:31 GMT from Netherlands)
I actually was using [Arch] as an intermediary, since I originally wanted to set up an LFS or Gentoo and had not had the required knowledge
You might also want to take a look at Lunar or SourceMage. Both are source-based, rolling distros aimed at the knowledgable Linux user, or someone willing to learm. Both sit between the minimal LFS and the use flags of Gentoo, and allow you to install only what you need.
19 • No subject (by Grobsch on 2009-09-14 11:35:52 GMT from Brazil)
G:Noblin already uses the new Netbook Remix, is strange to see Easy Peasy using the old one.
20 • RE:16 • Tell us in a few months (by asshur on 2009-09-14 11:42:43 GMT from Spain)
I have Arch running for two years on my main desktop system (and my 6yr old daugther's) and have barely suffered any hiccup (well, once with an xorg update, and a second in a KDE update, but both were solved pretty easy ...) But well, after 5 years of (open)SuSE, it was -and is still- a breath of fresh air and freedom (and damn bleeding edge "fun" ...)
It's true though that for a server (read long term stability needed) machine the "rolling release" system might not be what you need
21 • arch desktop livecd (by godane on 2009-09-14 11:48:40 GMT from United States)
If anyone wants a easier to install livecd of archlinux then you should try my archiso-live project.
http://godane.wordpress.com/
This will give you a xfce desktop though. Not a kde one. But its a maybe a better way for some people to get there way into archlinux.
22 • Arch package for skulpture theme (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 12:02:08 GMT from Canada)
This package is available in AUR : http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=20546
Welcome to Arch by the way. Hope we will keep you with is !
23 • Arch (by Michael Raugh on 2009-09-14 12:02:08 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the early comments, gang.
@4: Xtyn, I used the 64-bit Arch to get the full use of my system RAM (4GB). That may have something to do with the slightly outdated Firefox, since Mozilla doesn't provide a 64-bit executable. Still researching on that.
@8: I just started digging into ABS and the AUR this weekend, Alec. First impression: holy cow, and I thought Debian had huge repos! ;^)
@14: You're welcome, Travis ... and thank you back. ;^) I'll confess that one of the reasons for this project is to break out of a 'buntu rut. When I started with Linux I promised myself I'd be as distro-neutral as possible so that I'd be able to work effectively with anything instead of becoming a "Red Hat guy" or "Debian guy". Mastering Arch and living with it a while will be a pleasure.
@16,17: I noticed in reading about pacman that the wiki advises being very conscious about using it. It's safe and easy to just put a daily "yum -y update" or "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade" in the crontab for Fedora/Debian style systems but from what the wiki says I think I'll be running pacman manually and reviewing what it wants to install before I tell it to go ahead.
And for clarification purposes: the two screen shots are, respectively, the left and right sides of my KDE desktop. The wallpaper is (c) 2009 by Ryan Bliss of http://www.digitalblasphemy.com .
-mr
24 • pacman -Syu (by KimTjik on 2009-09-14 12:26:26 GMT from Sweden)
Michael Raugh wrote: "running pacman manually and reviewing what it wants to install"
Yes, that's for sure the best way to do it. Don't forget to glance through the pacman output as well after upgrade. I suspect that most complaints about "pacman broke that or that" is caused by impatience. Read the output and adjust accordingly will in most scenarios result in zero extra work in troubleshooting. Ignoring why you suddenly have some new *.pacnew, or not bother to check whether some syntax have changed could of course lead to disaster.
25 • @23 - Re: firefox (by Allan at 2009-09-14 12:44:31 GMT from Australia)
The Arch Firefox package was updated on Sunday (four days after release), so it is probably on its way to your mirror if not there now. It has nothing to do with Mozilla not providing a 64-bit binary as the Arch package is built from source (hence the Shiretoko name).
26 • Arch review (by Jesse on 2009-09-14 12:54:51 GMT from Canada)
I really enjoyed the review of Arch this week. I have to admit, I've become spoiled by modern installers and package managers. The idea of going through all that just to get a basic install sounds like a huge pain. A rolling release really appeals, but I don't want to spend more than half an hour setting up a fresh install. At this point in Linux development, is it really too much to ask to have more distros include a simple point-n-click-n-done installer?
27 • Arch and *BSD (by Gustavo on 2009-09-14 13:05:51 GMT from United States)
Great review of Arch!
I tried it out, but in the end stuck with FreeBSD... absolutely NOTHING is pre-configured. It gives you ultimate freedom of choice.
Why don't you give it a spin on a next review?
28 • BeOS (Haiku) reaches alpha (by co on 2009-09-14 13:09:35 GMT from United States)
Haiku (http://www.haiku-os.org/) has just been released to alpha -- maybe DistroWatch could give them some coverage.
29 • Switched to Arch (by BJ on 2009-09-14 13:23:20 GMT from United States)
Just last week, after using Debian as my only desktop OS for 3 years, I've switched to Arch. It's quick, stable and the wiki is wonderful You read just a few articles there and you'll know more about the guts of Linux and the packages you are using.
30 • A distro odyssey (by Schultzter on 2009-09-14 13:41:51 GMT from Canada)
I love these distro reviews where someone actually uses the distro. Any schedule for your odyssey? There's far more distros out there than I actually care to read about, but there are a few I'm looking forward to (Slackware, FreeBSD, and TCL in particular). I hope you'll start the odyssey with the "base" or "independent" distros - not the distros that just re-package another distro.
Thanks again - I look forward to the next installment of the odyssey.
31 • Qt (by AU on 2009-09-14 14:12:33 GMT from Germany)
@14 (Travis B):
"on the contrast, Qt is pretty much a KDE thing"
That is not really true. Take a look:
http://qt.nokia.com/qt-in-use/qt-in-use/target/desktop
http://qt.nokia.com/qt-in-use/qt-in-use/target/embedded
http://qt.nokia.com/qt-in-use/qt-in-use/story/device
32 • @28 (by Jesse on 2009-09-14 14:53:15 GMT from Canada)
I will certainly be looking at Haiku once they hit a stable release, or even a beta. Test driving an early alpha doesn't appeal.
33 • Suggestion for a distro odyssey (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 14:55:35 GMT from Canada)
It would be interesting to compare Arch with Frugalware since it also use pacman and share some ideas with Arch (although Arch is a fundamentally different system).
Before creating Arch, Judd Vinet admired and used CRUX, a minimalist distro. As version 2.6 was released on 2009-09-09 it could be another very interesting review.
34 • Arch and X (by Arch Fan on 2009-09-14 14:56:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Good review of Arch.
Once you get Arch installed it is great, you can pick and choose, which bits to add and so have a system that has just what you want and no baggage.
That's once it is installed.
Getting there should be easier.
Having installed it many, many times, I do wish for a smarter, X based installer.
Something that would allow an install in about 5-10 minutes without much extra thought.
larchin is a poor substitute.
It would be far better if an X based installer were modeled along the lines of MEPIS's or PCLinuxos's, something to get the basics installed and then allow the fine tuning.
That's what is really needed.
35 • Arch community (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 15:13:01 GMT from Canada)
One of the strongest positive point of Arch was not mentionned in your review : the Arch community
As you can see, other comments to this DW show the nature of the Arch community though, they're so helpful and friendly (at least in my experience). This comminity is very active and it is always a pleasure to write or read to their forum.
36 • Arch commitment to Free Software (by Ricardo on 2009-09-14 15:18:54 GMT from Brazil)
The biggest issue I noticed last time I tried out Arch and also the reason why I never turned back to it was it's lack of a serious commitment to the free software movement. The way the arch system mixed non-free and free stuff was IMHO unacceptable. Don't know if that has changed though.
37 • Arch (by Snig on 2009-09-14 15:20:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
Terrific review, thanks. Helped me to confirm that this is one I should avoid at all costs. It does absolutely nothing I would wish for. But good luck to all who sail in her.
38 • Re # 36 (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 15:27:19 GMT from Canada)
The vast majority of distro (even Debian) are unacceptable from this point of view. Only a few, listed on this web page are strongly commited to only include and only propose free software
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html
If you are really interested to follow such philosophical view, you have no choice, but use one of them and forget about the rest.
39 • the freedom to be a hypocrite... (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 16:01:40 GMT from United States)
and any other non-free software and documentation.
So Kongoni remove all of GNU's documentation? Or does GNU still make the exception that it is perfectly alright to distribute non-free documentation as long as it is their non-free documentation*?
*The GNU documentation is licensed under the GFDL with invariant sections, making it impossible for anyone to edit, as you can't edit the documentation it does not meet GNU's definition of freedom and as such is non-free and does not belong in any "Free" software distribution.
40 • @14 RE: Arch (by zak89 on 2009-09-14 16:18:04 GMT from United States)
Keep in mind that sourced based distros like Gentoo require a lot of compiling, which translates into a lot of disk writes, and that can shorten the life of your SSD significantly. A binary-based (like rpm, deb or even pacman) would be a lot easier on the disk.
Loved the Arch review. I'd love to use it again; I used Arch for a few months, but I switched back to openSUSE, particularly for it's KDE options. The openSUSE build service KDE repos allow me to install either the current KDE version shipping with openSUSE, or the latest stable version (like Arch) or the weekly snapshots from the KDE devs. I tend to like running the unstable version, at least as it comes within a few months of release.
With KDE 4.4 a good ways off, I may try Arch again; the long setup period is a issue for me, however. I just got openSUSE installed and completely configured on my netbook in about an hour's worth of work. Arch takes a bit more of a time commitment.
41 • life on arch planet (by tmc on 2009-09-14 16:36:12 GMT from Hungary)
Life on arch is so boring...
When I installed it first time was amazing. I hat to build it step-by-step like big puzzle. I was novice (and I'm still) but going along the way shown in the Beginners Guide gave me a lot of knowledge and joy. It took some days (and nights), but I enjoyed each step of the trip. What a difference between the Yes-Yes-No-Gimme your name/password-Ready and the Arch Way. Can't compare fast food with a restaurant meal.
Then I installed it again on my girlfriend's desktop and was a still a huge pleasure. Fast and clean, logical and beautiful. It worth reading guides and learning CLI, spending many afternoons on polishing the install because was the end of my distro-hoping era
Then came a period of rest.
42 • FSF (ref#36,38) (by Freed on 2009-09-14 16:36:41 GMT from United States)
Why not install your distro of choice and then only include FSF approved software. Instead of complaining that this distro or that one violates FSF rules.
You have the freedom to choose what software gets installed anyway.
If someone wants to install mp3 codecs, for example, what does that have to do with you and FSF?!
43 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 16:51:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
Arch has done wonders for me over the last 6 months. It seems like I've finally found a distro I'm happy with.
In terms of broken updates, well that can happen if you don't to a global update of any out of date packages. This can happen. I did fall into the trap of doing that early on and for a few minutes had a non-bootable Arch. However, a quick Google found the answer in the Arch forums and I fixed it from the Arch CD. Any rolling release distro is really supposed to work this way too.
44 • life on arch planet II. (by tmc on 2009-09-14 16:52:51 GMT from Hungary)
(sorry, I pressed submit button unintentionally, before ending the story)
Now I am here with a laptop and one desktop in the house and I don't have to install any distro because we have the evergreen-Arch. I just update them daily and use. When comes to updating I agree with KimTjik:
"Read the output and adjust accordingly will in most scenarios result in zero extra work in troubleshooting."
I do not have any reason to switch for another distro, I don't have to reinstall and configure each six month. I'm just updating and using it. Any piece of software about I've read here and there was found in the repos. Any piece of info needed in the past years was found in ArchWiki or in the Forum. What do I need more?
So, the life on planet Arch is boring, but beautiful ;)
(the next install will be when I will change my laptop)
45 • State-of-the-art review (by Davey on 2009-09-14 16:54:49 GMT from United States)
Nice going on the Arch review. It really does have the feel of an odyssey -- a journey for which one has prepared oneself, but which brings new experience to those approaching with an open mind. Just the right balance of new eyes and enough experience to know what's different about a particular distro. Plus enough time working with the distro to provide more than just a quick impression of the desktop and a few apps.
More like this, please.
46 • Mandriva:IRC training 13:00 CET the 15th of september (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 16:54:55 GMT from France)
Hello,
If you a interested to join IRC lessons about packaging rpms for mandriva,
Join the channel : #mandriva (freenode network)
http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=116579&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
This is for new volunteers without any particular knowledge.
regards,
glyj
47 • @46 erratum (by glyj on 2009-09-14 16:57:18 GMT from France)
the dedicated channel is #mandriva-rpm on freenode.
regards,
glyj
48 • a gift for heavy arch users (by archlx on 2009-09-14 16:58:16 GMT from Hungary)
http://www.gnome-look.org/usermanager/search.php?username=archlx&action=contents
49 • Disto review (by JD on 2009-09-14 17:06:50 GMT from United States)
That was a great in depth review! I really do think next you should check out freebsd in depth as it would be very interesting to many people how the preformance fairs compared to arch and other Linux distros. I prefer Linux myself but bsd has always been a "wonder" you could say. Charka Linux is a great GUI based arch distro. Despite it's "alpha " release name that scares people away. Btw I like the hymmara open Linux ad. "free and funny!" yes hymmara you are rather funny in your use of English but that's ok it's your secound langauage. (it's my first but I still manage to screw it up) Great distro though!
50 • #21 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-09-14 17:30:25 GMT from United States)
Thanks for that link Godane. I discovered your distro a while ago when you were on a different website, I think it was Blogger. I just downloaded and tried out your latest version and I must say it is very nice. If I recall you used to have Enlightenment as the wm. Anyone who is interested in Arch should check this out(see the link at #21).
The last couple of weeks DWW has been riding a sustained high as far as the commentary and reviews. This week is no exception. I really enjoyed the foray into the Arch Linux world. It has made me want to experiment more with this distro. Thanks Ladislav, Michael, and Chris.
51 • Re: Kongoni you said ? (by A.J. Venter on 2009-09-14 18:08:03 GMT from South Africa)
I believe you did not fully study the Kongoni distribution's nature.
First point: Nearly all the binaries on the ISO images are installed from slackware packages, users who desire the sources from them can obtain these by downloading the slackware source ISO's. In other words, they are available, in a clearly stated location - it seems a complete waste to spend precious bandwith mirroring them for no good reason ?
Second point: Where our packages DIFFER from slackware, this is always done via the ports tree, the ports tree includes all the code for it's own operation inside it's own git tree, and includes the source for the ports themselves (the install scripts in other words) obfuscated and easily located. The sources they download to build from are all free software.
Finally: regarding all code we develop ourselves - ALL such software is also distributed via the ports tree, as source code. All such source packages and any patches we develop and any other code not readily obtainable else where IS distributed across our download site and relevant mirrors:
http://download.kongoni.co.za/kongoni/dist
We do in fact therefore, comply clearly and fully with the GPL and should the FSF respond to your claims - we will happily tell them the same facts pointed out here. Should they request any changes to this operation, we will make those as requested.
52 • Small correction to the above: (by A.J. Venter on 2009-09-14 18:09:51 GMT from South Africa)
I meant of course: UNobfuscated.
53 • HAIKUOS (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 18:22:04 GMT from Spain)
Anybody tried?
54 • Kongoni Nietzsche ???? (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 18:24:45 GMT from Canada)
Interesting to see that the lastest release of Kongoni was named after a nihilism philosopher that made a "Campaign against Morality" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral schemes of his day. From his perspective the free sofware movement is witout doubt part of what he called the "slave morality" since its values emerges from the contrast between good (FSF, GPL, RMS) and evil (Microsoft, BSD, Torvald).
Nietzsche called to break our self-imposed chains (GPL v3 contain a lot of self-imposed chain). So it is funny to read from #51 that "Should they (the FSF) request any changes to this operation, we will make those as requested."
55 • RE:#2 Easy Peasy (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 18:29:02 GMT from United States)
I've been testing Easy Peasy 1.5 and everything looks good on my old 8gb eee 900. It does take a bit longer to load from the USB than the "full version" and wifi appears to be a bit weaker like eeebuntu. It doesn 't appear to thrash the usb drive so I think the SSD will be happy. It does have the latest web plugins for Firefox available which may drive me to put it on the SSD. The xandros eee repos do not appear to be updated lately. So, I may backup the 3 SSD partitions (with pupeee) and take the plunge.
56 • A special Arch Way: CHAKRA (by cga on 2009-09-14 18:30:58 GMT from Italy)
Hey,
really nice and objective review of Arch Linux.
I would however suggest you give Chakra a try. It is Arch Linux w/ KDE 4 (and kdemod too) with GUIs for pacman and some configuration aspects of the system.
it is done by Arch, KDE and KDE-Mod developers. really worth it.
http://chakra-project.org/
cheers
--
cga
57 • Arch (by Xtyn on 2009-09-14 18:59:21 GMT from Romania)
There's absolutely no advantage to using Arch compared to Debian unstable, which is rolling too and as bleeding edge as Arch. The Debian netinstall is similar to the Arch install.
Yes, there are differences, Debian is much smarter, I can configure it in no time, whereas Arch is a nightmare to configure and there's no performance or speed gain.
Yes, I did install Arch, configured it, installed everything I need for a working system, I don't like it, I don't like "the Arch way".
58 • Zenwalk Core update (by Claus Futtrup on 2009-09-14 19:10:23 GMT from Denmark)
Hi all. Last week someone mentioned that they miss the Core edition of Zenwalk. Well, here's the latest about that - from Zenwalk Main mailing list:
I'm glad to announce the rebirth of Zenwalk Core ;)
Thanks to lzma compression, the iso weighs no more than 168 MB .... so I hope you'll all test it and report (especially the ones who claimed ZWC was dead) :)
So here you go :
http://download.zenwalk.org/people/emmanuel/Core62/
Cheers.
Best regards,
Claus
59 • No subject (by Ricardo on 2009-09-14 19:29:41 GMT from Brazil)
#42
=) Ok, first, I purposely didn't mention FSF cause I know the discussion could go in another direction. Actually I agree with you, if one want's to install non-free stuff, that's not my problem and it's on his rights to install it. Maybe I'm making a big mistake here and overlooked it, but as far as I remember Arch doesn't make a clear distinction between non-free and free stuff, like debian for example does. So, one might be led to install non-free apps without knowing about that, and that's IMHO a moral problem. Sure, one can grab the licenses, read one by one, but that get's really complicated if we are dealing with apps with complex and exotic dependencies. Anyway, please disconsider those observations if I misunderstood Arch here.
#38 About debian being non-free, IMHO the biggest problem nowadays is lenny's current kernel that came with some blobs, but even that had to undergo a votation since it goes against debian's social contract. Fortunetly sid's kernel is already being cleaned, so we can hope squeeze will deliver a free kernel. About the another complain that debian mentions and offer non-free stuff through it's repositories, well, I think it's clear to the user what is going on, non-free stuff get's a "non-free" label, and not something vague like multiverse =)
60 • #58 (by Notorik on 2009-09-14 19:35:51 GMT from United States)
I was trying to use Zenwalk a few weeks ago and I had some trouble. I try to go into the forum but no way to go in. I sent a email and the response was about why did I want to join? I don't like that way of doing it.
61 • Hymera english install (by RollMeAway on 2009-09-14 20:08:58 GMT from United States)
Installed grub to MBR without notice or question.
That wiped my partition table on hda as well.
Had a backup and recovered ok.
Could not post here over the weekend, as comments were disabled.
Hope this saves someone. Installation otherwise was clean and easy.
Hymera has a EWLA , similar to ms, you have to agree to.
No reverse engineering their stuff, yada yada. Guess it isn't GPL.
Take and no give?
Seems to be based on debian stable going by application versions.
Only hymera repo is enabled.
I got a nice Gnome desktop with nvidia and compiz automatically enabled.
Not fully translated for English, and Keyboard default is Italian.
62 • openSUSE and KDE 4 (by eco2geek on 2009-09-14 20:20:16 GMT from United States)
As #7 said above, users of openSUSE with reasonably fast Internet connections have a lot of choices with respect to KDE 4. Users can add repositories to update to the latest bleeding edge version (4.3.x), update to v4.2.x, or simply update v4.1.x packages. Note that, in all cases, packages are available for openSUSE 10.3, 11.0, and 11.1. In my experience, these repos are all being constantly updated.
The one downside to this is that if you use openSUSE 11.1 and you've done a lot of updating through the repositories, it's likely that using openSUSE 11.2's upgrade option won't work very well and you'll have to do a clean install instead. But that's what separate /home partitions are for.
63 • @57 Debian is SMARTer?! (by ARCH3TYP3 on 2009-09-14 21:13:44 GMT from United States)
How smart is it to automatically configure all services to run on boot, whether I want them to or not? Each time a daemon is installed in Debian, the system makes assumptions that are not optimal for me, resulting in undo-ing what has been done. Is this 'smarter than Arch' ?
As for advantages, it depends on what you are looking for. Some advantages for its target userbase:
* A ports system (Debian's checkinstall is a hackish afterthought.)
* An available, simple, easily customizable bash build script for each official as well as community maintained package; more than 26,000 total, with AUR included.
* Arch offers a faster package manager, with _meaningful and readable_ output.
* Wiki is better than the convoluted and unkept Debian docs, in fact better by orders of magnitude. All documentation is thoroughly complete and up-to-date.
It may not be for everyone, but then neither is Debian unstable which breaks more than a 1974 Fiat in my experience.
To say that there are no Arch advantages is just plain fanboyism. Arch has plenty to offer competent users who want a simple BSD-ish system with powerful package management, rolling releases and offers a ports system.
64 • #63 Debian unstable versus Arch (by anticapitalista on 2009-09-14 21:50:53 GMT from Greece)
Your experience may be that Debian unstable has broken a lot, but my experience is that it has had minor problems. I have been using Debian unstable repos on antiX (and before that Mepis 3.4.3) for at least 3 years. But I use fluxbox and icewm and no DE so that may explain why.
The other 'problem' with Arch IMO (and in my experience) is that is starts out small, but if you then start adding stuff, the super fast boot disappears to what you get with Debian and/or other distros.
C.Smart wrote an article somewhere where he installed kde4 on Arch and was really pleased with the boot time and low RAM use (relativel to other kde4 distros).
antiX (base) was able to match the low RAM usage and boot up time. (Yes I did test the Arch way and the antiX-base way on my box). antiX advantage is that a base install takes around 3 minutes on a modern box, Arch took a lot longer and needed more effort to configure.
65 • No subject (by Ricardo on 2009-09-14 22:38:57 GMT from Brazil)
#63
Most of the time I install a daemon in debian it's because I want it running at boot time. If it's not the case, it's just as simple as renaming the S* file in init.d. Really, I don't see any pratical disadvantage here. But I'd also not say that Arch hasn't any advantages, the Arch way has it's merits, like any other KISS distros.
66 • Gui for pacman (by jabol at 2009-09-14 22:42:39 GMT from Poland)
There is great gui for pacman called shaman. Its written in qt4 and its capable of getting most tasks done. I usually use it to upgrade selective group of packages (when not want to upgrade them all) and finding more info about packages (dependencies for example). Stiil pacman is my primary way to manage packages. On the downside, as You mentioned, there is a danger of using the rolling-release. I found that the hard way, when I updated system and ended up reconfiguring xorg, video driver and kernel, cause ati moved my driver to legacy mode not supprting xorg 1.6 and kernel >2.6.28. So in rolling-release distro always check out what you're about to upgrade, not always hit "y" "enter".Nice work on article. Keep up Your good work. I always thought of Arch as Slackware with good package management. I used to work on slackware but package management and compiling everything from sources was sometimes pain in the arse.
67 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2009-09-14 22:58:51 GMT from Brazil)
#65
Naturally I meant renaming the /etc/rc*.d/S* file, sorry.
68 • Simple Arch - Chakra-Project (by Phil Miller at 2009-09-14 23:25:19 GMT from Germany)
Michael Raugh, Ubuntu is well known. Arch is for the competent Linux user, yes. To close the gap there is the chakra-project. We are still in alpha state, but we have a GUI for pacman, an nice live-cd with or own KDEmod and tribe as graphical installer. You might call it the Kubuntu for Archlinux. Do you know, that we start the split-packaging for arch? Check it out when you like.
regards
Phil
69 • Chakra-PreReleases (by Phil Miller at 2009-09-14 23:28:47 GMT from Germany)
Oh, I forgot to mention my new prereleases of our chakra-live-isos:
You can grap them here: http://chakra-project.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?id=1089
70 • No subject (by Sertse on 2009-09-14 23:39:38 GMT from Anonymous Proxy)
We've been through this in an derailed DW a few weeks back, but since this is actually that topic this week, I'll thought to repeat it.
Arch isn't for everyone. It is also OK for someone to not like Arch. You are not an inferior being for not using Arch ;) Autoconfiguration is not the devil, and it was created for laudable reasons. It is simply a providing choice, some users find one is better then the other for them. :)
My experiences are similar to Anti's with using Debian Unstable. It's quite usable if you know what you're doing. Sid isn't as unstable as Rawhide, or even Ubuntu+1.
71 • RE: 49 Free and funny (by ladislav on 2009-09-14 23:41:03 GMT from Taiwan)
I actually emailed Hymera and suggested they might want to change it to "free and fun", but their reply was no - they prefer "free and funny". I think the original Italian word probably means something along the lines of "amusing", but as is so often the case, a direct translation of a word into another language can sometimes produce unexpected (and funny) results.
72 • debian unstable VS Arch (by Anonymous on 2009-09-15 00:04:00 GMT from Canada)
== Difference ==
Arch : always stable[1], smaller repository[2], only 45.0% obselete*
Debian : unstable (dahh...), larger repository, more than 75.0% obselete*
So Debian unstable is less bleeding edge than Arch
[1] This is not an experimental/testing repository
[2] Probably similar in size if we include AUR.
* According to OsWatershed.org
73 • Breaking Distros (by Anonymous on 2009-09-15 00:20:28 GMT from United States)
Everything occasionally breaks like my Mandriva 2009.0 Xfce install waiting for a XFCE upgrade right now. All the menu bars are gone and sometimes it hangs on a right click and has got quite sluggish. I just rolled back to a previous kernal and it came back and I just ignore the upgrades for a while.
The hard part is finding which package in a upgrade that is blowing up the windows manager and making sure you don't select it again until the dependant package is available. Sometimes you have to wait for a new Live CD to come out.
74 • RE : 70 (by Anonymous on 2009-09-15 00:37:01 GMT from Canada)
You are totally right ! In the past I was a huge Debian (slink to woody) fan (now converted to Arch).
I do not know if you are an old Debian user ? if yes, you probably remember 10 years before when we had this kind of derailed discussion. I remember that Mandrake folks said :
"Debian slink isn't for everyone. It is also OK for someone to not like Debian. You are not an inferior being for not using Debian ;) Autoconfiguration is not the devil, and it was created for laudable reasons. It is simply a providing choice, some users find one is better then the other for them. :)"
Arch is today what was Debian in the past (with a different philosophy). This is probably an important reason why I am in love with Arch !
75 • Always loved Arch (by Shawn on 2009-09-15 00:54:08 GMT from United States)
The install of Arch isn't slow or hard to do, it's setting it up to what you want your system to be that's the challenge or, a better description, more time consuming. The Chakra project was meant to simplify installing Arch to make it easier for new users, but even when you install Chakra, you still need some sort of rudimentary knowledge about Linux and how to fix problems and update the system without breakage. The problem with Linux nowadays is that it's like comparing apples to oranges to pears as all distributions are geared towards different users, so there's always going to be some kind of hurdle(s) in one form or another.
76 • RE: Hymera Open (by IMQ on 2009-09-15 01:11:11 GMT from United States)
Which version did you try?
I tested Hymera Open 20090618? and I observed the followings:
- English support was weak. Two programs I could recall Adobe Reader and OpenOffice.org both had Italian menu.
- Keyboard, as you said, is default to Italian. I had to reset the password via another distro before I could log in.
- You must have miss the option to install GRUB elsewhere, if you use the same version I did. Carefully looking at the screen for each step or you will miss it. I would have stopped the installation if I didn't see the option to install GRUB where I wanted.
This was the second time I testdrove the Hymera distro. Although I'd only spent a short time with it, IMHO, it's not ready for the English speaking population yet.
Debian is still very high on my list.
77 • Time to chime in... (by Landor on 2009-09-15 01:24:08 GMT from Canada)
First, Michael, thank you for the mention in this week's article. It wasn't needed though. I was just trying to help out with some knowledge is all and very glad it helped you.
Regarding Arch vs Debian. I don't really see much gain in the way of using Arch as opposed to Debian Sid... There's many reasons. Firstly, one of the key issues the person who commented at # 63 said was about services. If you are that "attuned" to Linux I'm quite sure no matter what the distribution you are quite able to deal with services or not. What is the difference between turning them on or off. In Arch you "HAVE TO" turn on wanted services, in Debian you "HAVE TO" turn off unwanted services. Kind of a no-brainer in my opinion, same effort either way.
Also, for the most part, Arch is a binary install. Other than doing some specific things with configuration (again if you're able to do this in Linux, guess what, you can do this in Linux), there's not much difference from any other distribution.
I believe the real performance distributions are basically purely source based distributions. I've installed Arch and I can say without a fact that it didn't compare to a number of source based distributions in the way of speed and configuration. BSD is another one that hands down makes the difference.
I'm not too keen on the community either. We can see here that there have been a multitude of posts over and over about Chakra, etc...I see this as fanatical in a sense, posting the same info over and over. I always place Arch users in the same category as I do/did Puppy/PCLOS/Sidux users.
I liked the point Anti made about speed when you add things and it's totally accurate. Not rocket science here, you have kid's wagon with a 454 LS7 strapped to it, it's gonna be "literally" hell on wheels. Start turning into something functional and you'll end up with a sedan, a fast one, but not much more special than anyone else's really.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
78 • Ref#64 Arch speed vs others (by VernDog on 2009-09-15 02:12:26 GMT from United States)
Your experience with Arch and speed is the same as mine. When I first installed it, it was amazingly fast. Then I added needed programs like Gnome, or LXDE and then support software.
Not surprisingly , it slowed down. At the time Xubuntu was faster!! I asked about this on Arch forum, and did all the tweaks and configs from the user guide, and any other guide available. Still slower than Xubuntu.
I did enjoy reading Michael Raugh's intriguing review of Arch.
79 • @76 Hymera engllish install (by RollMeAway on 2009-09-15 02:28:15 GMT from United States)
I used the version announced over the weekend: Hymera-Open 20090910-En
A list of the step sequences was on the left of the screen. Grub was last on the list.
I was prompted at each step, and expected to be prompted when it got to grub.
Instead it finished the install, including grub, too late then. Already messed the MBR.
80 • #64 Anticapitalista (by stuckinoregon on 2009-09-15 03:11:40 GMT from United States)
Bravo on the latest antiX release. Have been having a ton of problems with this little Latitude C400 and it's Intel video and other quirky hardware. The M8-2 release is, hands down, the best thing I've been able to get running on here. Wireless works flawlessly, resolution and color depth was detected perfectly. Not to sound sycophantic, but this really is amazing. Here's to hoping that some of the issues some of the reviewers here have had in the past, can now be set aside and this excellent piece of work can get some good press.
Thanks again for all of your effort and keep up the good work!
81 • #72 Arch vs Debian unstable (by Xtyn on 2009-09-15 06:49:56 GMT from Romania)
"Arch : always stable[1], smaller repository[2], only 45.0% obselete*
Debian : unstable (dahh...), larger repository, more than 75.0% obselete*"
Arch "always stable"? LOL
If you think Arch is stable, what about RHEL or Debian stable?
About the "obsolete" part: it's wrong because the comparison is between Arch and Debian TESTING, not UNSTABLE.
Debian unstable is as stable as Arch and as bleeding edge as Arch.
In Debian you have the choice: stable, testing or unstable.
Yes, you're right about the smaller Arch repo, I couldn't even find mingetty in there.
82 • Zenwalk Core (by alb3rto on 2009-09-15 07:55:39 GMT from Spain)
@58
Well, that is a magnificent news!
I´m liking XFCE less each day, i think its bloated, so Core Zenwalk is a good news form me :p
83 • Haiku-OS (by Alexandru on 2009-09-15 08:21:05 GMT from Germany)
I tried Haiku before it reached Alpha1. Its quality is really better then Alpha status suggests. I downloaded also Alpha1 and installed it, however it has (in my opinion) some regressions. I am sure, it has also many improvements but I didn't have much time to play around.
Knowing the Haiku team and their approach to release quality, I suggest anybody interesting in Haiku to give it a try.
84 • RE: Arch isn't Chakra and Chakra isn't Arch (by KimTjik on 2009-09-15 10:25:55 GMT from Sweden)
"I'm not too keen on the community either. We can see here that there have been a multitude of posts over and over about Chakra, etc...I see this as fanatical in a sense, posting the same info over and over. I always place Arch users in the same category as I do/did Puppy/PCLOS/Sidux users."
To have an opinion about a community you have to interact with it for a reasonable time. I've no opinion about any community, except BLAG's back in the days and that was/is a friendly community, because I've only sporadically interacted with them. Reading a couple of threads here and there doesn't give any insight either, because it could well be you stumbled upon some saints or devils, who doesn't tell squat about the total atmosphere.
I don't judge the intention of Chakra users, maybe they're too enthusiastic to notice the already done comments, just like we you're very fond of you stick on the ice. However you have to understand that Chakra isn't Arch. It's a fork and its audience isn't necessary the same one as the Arch one. Hence if you have any input on the matter address the ones it concerns.
...
Someone had objections to Arch not being a true FOSS distribution. I can't talk for Arch but my impression is the following:
- Arch is designed for users and not as a ready product telling you how to compute
- therefore the user might mould Arch to become strictly FOSS or "tainted" as he/she wishes
...
The Arch vs. Debian debate is totally unnecessary. Two different distributions with some common ground and some fundamental differences. Use whatever you like. Even if you would post in the Arch forum about "I like Debian better", the reaction wouldn't be anything else but "then use Debian". I've in my years of using Arch not noticed any real interest among Archers to compete with any other distribution. Who cares about a toolbox appearance if it gets the job done?
RE 81: Mingetty is in the AUR repository of Arch. Takes a few seconds to build and install. I'm using it only for multimedia solutions.
85 • Arch NOT quicker than Debian? (by Travis B on 2009-09-15 10:42:02 GMT from United States)
Debian is able to run on 486 processors, thus it cannot use instruction sets not available on _all_ 486s. I don't have a copy of the actual CFLAGs they compile Debian with, but we know it must not use anything higher than -march=i486 and i486-pc-linux-gnu for CHOST.
Arch's compile flags (which are actually easy to find, unlike Debians!)
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=i686 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
Support i686 for the arch, which turns on things such as sse(,2), mmx, and other fun toys which _will_ increase throughput somewhere!
Not saying that makes Arch better, I love Debian and will continue to use it in any server environments (when I don't want to set up a Gentoo, and even sometimes I'll still use Debian for simplicity :P), but because Debian _supports_ more, it will not be able to optimize as much as Arch could. Yet, then again, you won't be able to _run_ everything on your Arch!
86 • Hymera Open (by Pollick Tically Korreck on 2009-09-15 11:10:02 GMT from United States)
What you say here could potentially harm a good distro. Hymera Open got my interests because it seems very promising like one that could rise out of the ashes of the hundreds of other fine distros out there and distinguish itself as a alternative linux market leader or something.
I no longer have a testing box due to budget cuts. Okay, so you say the installation process went okay but the Grub part had some issues. Also because it's an Italian made distro you feel the English support is lacking. Some of the OS menus and including Open Office seemed to be localized for Italy you said.
Well I wish I could verify your claims but for now I'll hold off until I can get a testing box again. Your comments could potentially hurt a good distro.
PTK
87 • No subject (by Sertse on 2009-09-15 11:48:06 GMT from Australia)
Perhaps it's because I already use a decent machine, running an extremely light setup, that Arch's improvements is not worth the effort for me.
Re 84: Have you read the Ubuntuforums? The segue to Arch in every 2nd convo there, no matter what topic is crazy :P It's such to a level that mentioning Arch is joked as some sort of Godwin (since it inevitably leads to flamewars where no one wins). lol
88 • RE 87 (by KimTjik on 2009-09-15 11:58:09 GMT from Sweden)
No I don't read Ubuntu forums. I did once some years ago in behalf of a friend, but didn't come across any Arch related stuff. Thus I can't comment on that. Maybe you're observation is objective, if so I hope those users become more mature.
89 • Archiso (#21) (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-09-15 13:32:36 GMT from United States)
I just installed Archiso. This was one of the easiest installs I have ever done, and it only took about 15 minutes. Everything works. Nice Xfce desktop.
There is this thing called "Shaman" which appears to be a front end packaging tool for the Arch repositories. There is a button that says "Update", I was wondering if anyone knows whether or not I should click on it...I'm frightened :)
90 • Catching up 2 (by Michael Raugh on 2009-09-15 13:37:52 GMT from United States)
Lots to respond to, apologies if I miss anyone.
@the many Chakra mentions: Sounds like an interesting project; thanks for bringing it to attention.
The idea of making an easier GUI installer for Arch seems to be a popular one, and having been through the installation ordeal recently it's tempting to agree that Arch "should" provide one ... but I can see why they don't. A GUI installer that gives the same direct control/responsibility over the process would just be a prettied-up version of the text installer and would introduce issues of detecting and pre-configuring graphics hardware just to do the install. One that simplifies the process would have to make assumptions and perform configuration steps for you automatically. Neither of those options fits in with the Arch Way.
While I was struggling with the installer I got into a couple of email threads with Arch users who offered suggestions and insight. One joked that the installation is deliberately difficult so that anyone who isn't willing to actively maintain their system (for example, by reading the pacman output vs. just running it blindly) will give up and go use something else. He was kidding, but the point is valid nonetheless.
@30: No particular schedule, Schultzter, no. I'm basically working these in as my work/life schedule allows, making sure that when I do pick up a new distro I can give it the proper time and attention and get to know it before doing the write-up. It'll be a couple of weeks before I even select the next one to try, during which time I'll be working in Arch.
@35: Yes, the Arch community is outstanding. The piece was already getting a bit long or I would've gone into a bit more detail on how existing community posts got me through the VMWare installation issue, for instance. As long as you do your homework and ask specific questions they are a most friendly and helpful bunch. I saw a couple of cases where people just posted, "Hey, this doesn't work!" and basically got told, "Then troubleshoot it. If you need help, try providing some detail as to what doesn't work, what error you're getting, and what you've already done to try and fix it." Which, when you come down to it, is a very sensible response.
@66 (and others mentioning GUIs for pacman): Thanks. I'll admit that I tend to use package managers like file managers -- that is, if I want to do something specific like install a package/copy a file I prefer to do it from the command line, but if I just want to browse around and see what's there I like a GUI option.
@75: You're right, Shawn. The Arch install process isn't really difficult (as long as you bring a certain amount of knowledge to the table) so much as just tedious. Like baking a cake from scratch vs. using a mix: for those who have the skill/knowledge to work from scratch it can be enjoyable and satisfying even if it is "the hard way" to bake. Whether the result is "better" than a mix or not depends on the baker.
@77: Any time, Landor. I believe in giving credit where it's due.
Thanks again to everyone who commented on the review and to Ladislav for accepting it. The odyssey will continue. ;^)
-mr
91 • Arch (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-09-15 14:11:45 GMT from United States)
Chris Smart has been keeping busy:
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7469/1.html
I clicked on the "Update" button and it told me my system was up to date. Now I have to figure out how to create a new user since there does not appear to be a control panel.
92 • Ref#87 - Ubuntuforums flaming Arch (by Anonymous on 2009-09-15 14:55:34 GMT from United States)
"Re 84: Have you read the Ubuntuforums? The segue to Arch in every 2nd convo there, no matter what topic is crazy :P It's such to a level that mentioning Arch is joked as some sort of Godwin (since it inevitably leads to flamewars where no one wins)"
I have no idea what ubuntu forum your talking about, but I have yet to come across any Arch comments! Maybe in the cafe section there might be comments.
You have to be more specific.
93 • Arch Linux Visual Installer instead of Pacman (by Spiros Bortzis on 2009-09-15 18:55:06 GMT from Greece)
If u use KDE 3 or 4 there is an alternative visual package manager, a front-end if u like which uses Pacman. Open a shell (konsole) and download from the repositories the package ''shaman''.
# pacman –Sy shaman.
94 • RE: 90 (by Landor on 2009-09-15 19:20:52 GMT from Canada)
Well, as I said thanks. I don't see myself as anything but a normal Unix/BSD/Linux enthusiast.
I forgot to say that I enjoyed your article, and should have. One thing I (personally) like seeing is the hardware defined. Although not accurate of course, it gives me a baseline for comparison against my own hardware, which is "somewhat" high-end as well.
Enjoy your time spent with Arch. I'm anxiously rubbing my hands together waiting for the FreeBSD 8.0 release. I may even go full-time with it, depending on hardware.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
95 • #60 (by Claus Futtrup on 2009-09-15 19:36:59 GMT from Denmark)
Notorik wrote:
I was trying to use Zenwalk a few weeks ago and I had some trouble. I try to go into the forum but no way to go in. I sent a email and the response was about why did I want to join? I don't like that way of doing it.
... Please email this response to me ... it sound unbelievable, but if it is true I can take action when you forward these emails to me.
BR,
Claus
96 • #95 (by Notorik on 2009-09-15 22:57:01 GMT from United States)
Thank you. I think it was a spam problem. Everything seems good now. I went to the forum and it is fixed. I do not have the email because I put on many distros since that time.
97 • BeOS - Linux killer ? (by reynoord on 2009-09-16 05:51:40 GMT from Netherlands)
Tried BeOS alpha. It would not boot on a dual core laptop, but it did boot on a P4 desktop. The apps and demos all operated OK, although there was a temporary screen freeze at one time. I did not find it particularly fast to boot or to use, except for the shutdown which was almost instant. It is similar to the old BeOS 5 personal edition. Since it took 8 years to recreate that, you have to ask what is the point?
Still, Linux has been going for 15 years(?) and produced over 300 distros and still has not made a significant impact on the desktop. So if BeOS can attract a lot of keen developers could it do any better than Linux? Will they also create 300 distros (or should that be bistros?), or will they all contribute to the one main edition and be more successful than Linux on the desktop. Either way don't hold your breath - it may take another 10 years to find out.
98 • freebsd-live image - download problem (by gnomic on 2009-09-16 06:36:07 GMT from New Zealand)
Last week there was mention of a live CD version of FreeBSD at freebsd-live.org. I downloaded this but a usable iso did not result. The checksum of the d/l did not match that shown on the site. Can anybody confirm that the iso on the site is in fact good? (Of late I have encountered several corrupt iso images where the source file was bad).
99 • Re #84 (by michael on 2009-09-16 07:18:50 GMT from Germany)
>Chakra isn't Arch. It's a fork<
That´s not true. You can´t run Chakra without the core Arch packages. It´s more like an addon for users that want an nice KDE desktop.
Some time ago the Chakra (or kdemod) packages of KDE were even closer to the original Arch philosophy than the Arch-KDE-packages, because they were very modular (hence the name kdemod), leaving you the freedom to install only the programs you wanted to (and not for example the whole kdegames bundle). Now that Arch has split the KDE packages too, there may no longer be an need for this.
But the Chakra installer is still very beautiful (e. g. using Marble for selecting your timezone).
100 • #85 386 vs 686 (by Xtyn on 2009-09-16 07:53:38 GMT from Romania)
I've heard that before, that compiling for 686 makes it faster but I haven't seen any difference.
When I installed Debian testing, for the kernel it gave me a choice between 486 and 686. I chose 686, look:
xtyn@debian:~$ uname -r
2.6.30-1-686
Most of the software for Debian seems to be compiled for 386.
I tried once Swiftfox (686) and I didn't see any difference compared to Iceweasel (386).
I've searched for benchmarks and found nothing conclusive.
Anyone is welcome to explain what the difference in performance and speed really is, with benchmarks, if it's not too much to ask for.
101 • RE: 99 Where to draw the line? (by KimTjik on 2009-09-16 08:27:42 GMT from Sweden)
It's not a bad thing to be a fork. A fork could might be equally good or even better than the original one. My comment wasn't intended to downplay Chakra, but in my understanding it's still two different communities (even though some for obvious reasons are active in both) and two different distributions. That Chakra depends on Arch core isn't unique in the world of Linux.
102 • Oracle (by Tom on 2009-09-16 10:29:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
Wow, how does the Oracle distro's new release look? Has anyone tried it?
103 • No subject (by Sinbad on 2009-09-16 11:33:14 GMT from United States)
>100
Debian with 686 kernel gives you 2 Gig of memory instead of limiting to about 870M.
104 • Forking difficult distros (by Sinbad on 2009-09-16 11:37:37 GMT from United States)
I'm puzzled why partent projects don't just use Debian installer (they share, right?). I'm in the too much choice might not be so good crowd.
105 • #98 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-09-16 12:27:54 GMT from United States)
I went to the site and looked around for 5 or 10 minutes and didn't find the "live" image you are referring to. Can you provide the direct link? You can email me if you like.
106 • RE: Arch (by krtekz on 2009-09-16 14:45:22 GMT from United States)
Great review! Just my 2 cents: skulpture is in AUR. You can use yaourt to seamlessly install it.
107 • Re: 33 • Suggestion for a distro odyssey (by greenLegs on 2009-09-16 16:46:34 GMT from France)
AFAIK, Frugalware's pacman is (and has been for some time now) a fork of Arch's pacman.
108 • RE Arch (by KFH on 2009-09-16 21:55:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
After reading the review on Arch I decided to have a pop at installing it myself in a virtual machine. I have been using linux for 2 years and have always stuck to PClinuxOS and Kubuntu before so thought it would be a challenge. I have to say it actually wasn't that difficult to set up if you just follow the beginners guide. I am seriously considering giving it a proper run on my machine when the mood next takes me for change. I also had a look at chakra, the installer looks amazing, it will be interesting to see what this is like when its officially released as the alpha seems quite polished to me.
109 • September! (by Sean on 2009-09-16 22:46:45 GMT from United States)
Wow, what an exciting month this is turning out to be for open source distributions. Ubuntu based projects, BSD, Slackware based stuff, and on.
I just finished the Dragonfly download; it's headed to an HP desktop for evaluation.
I'm just expressing the excitement of all this. Nothing else to contribute yet. :)
110 • Arch (by Nnyan on 2009-09-17 00:05:13 GMT from United States)
I keep coming back again and again to try Arch but I always walk away and end up with a different distro.
For my last few attempts I was actually able to get it installed on my T43 and test desktop but there are just too many "steps" required to get everything working. Even if I do find howto's for 80%+ fairly easily it just takes way too much time and effort. I realize Arch is not for noobs and you're "learning" but at a certain point I just want a working system. I'll spend time on it doing things and I'll "learn" that way.
Anyway one of the reasons i keep trying Arch is b/c I like the clean and mean philosophy, I don't want crap that I don't use running.
111 • Ojuba 3 أعجوبة لينوكس (by Mahmoud Slamah on 2009-09-17 00:34:59 GMT from Egypt)
نظام التشغيل أعجوبة لينوكس
Ojuba 3, a Fedora-based distribution with Islamic utilities and support for Arabic:
Hash: sha256sum not SHA1
ftp://196.202.27.174/pub/foss/GNU-Linux/ojuba/ojuba-3/Hash-sha256sum-not-SHA1
الحصول على "أعجوبة الرّباط"
Download from :
http://linux.ojuba.org/getit
or mirror ( unofficial )
ftp://196.202.27.174/pub/foss/GNU-Linux/ojuba/ojuba-3/
Enjoy :-)
112 • #109 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-09-17 02:10:59 GMT from United States)
Don't bother with Absolute (if you were ever considering it). Caitlyn's review was spot on. 13.0 still has the same problems she discussed in her review. I am sad that I wasted a cd on it. It looks beautiful but it's still broken. I couldn't create a secondary user account either with the menu option or with the instructions provided from the command line.
113 • Dragon Fly BSD (by Albert Hall on 2009-09-17 02:43:07 GMT from United States)
From the Dragon Fly website:
"Unfortunately, a Flash plugin is not natively available for DragonFlyBSD. When you want to watch Flash sites, you must install Linux versions of Firefox and the Flash player to run under emulation."
114 • FreeBSD live cd - the web address - ref #105 (by gnomic on 2009-09-17 04:50:21 GMT from New Zealand)
Hullo there, that address in full. This should be straight to the iso, 170MB.
http://freebsd-live/FreeBSD-Live.iso
I heard from the maker, he said nasty people had been trying to do bad things to his website of late. Recommended a download using wget -r. Haven't had a second try as yet. Would be interested to hear what your result is.
115 • RE: 98/105 & 113 (by Landor on 2009-09-17 05:01:14 GMT from Canada)
#98/105
I downloaded the live cd and it installed fine under VirtualBox. I'm gonna tinker with it there for a bit then see how it boots up live on my system via an RW
The link is on the page, though not "completely" visible.. Here's the link: http://freebsd-live.org/FreeBSD-Live.iso
#113
"True" Slackware based systems it's very easy, or very hard to set up a non-root account. The easy way, drop to the command line and run the adduser script. This worked flawlessly in Absolute (which I just tried) or you can do it the hard way and use the standard "useradd" command, but be warned, there's tons to configure, home directory, permissions, etc, manually. As I said, the script is flawless. I don't know if CM tried adduser or not in the last release, but if you had ran it in this one from the cli it would've been a piece of cake.
Though I can't verify for the version used, the review has 0 bearing on this release and there is actually no problem at all creating a user account, the easy, or hard way. (I did both).
I don't want to be rude, but you must have done something wrong and to say it's a waste of time is completely uncalled for, given that it's easily done.
BTW, don't waste a cd, buy RW's, they're far more green, and keeps green in your wallet.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
116 • RE: 105 (by Landor on 2009-09-17 05:29:09 GMT from Canada)
Update to my comment # 105
I just went to Menu-System Tools - Configuration - Add A New User and that worked flawlessly as well.
I'm also currently downloading 12.2.5 the version the review was based on. I'm rather curious now to see if I'll run in to any problems with that one or not.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
117 • DragonFly BSD (by Anonymous on 2009-09-17 11:25:41 GMT from Canada)
I loved the way DragonFly works. It is not as bloated as FreeBSD, it does not incorporate half-baked stuff (except of hammerfs, but it's understandble) and I had fewer problems with DragonFly, than with FreeBSD. I had to admit the failure of FreeBSD - IMO it went a wrong way. Most of the things in FreeBSD are overcomplicated to me at some point. DragonFly does not lack simplicity, so I find it perfect alternative for FreeBSD.
Do you plan to review DragonFly on DW ?
118 • re 117 3D acceleration in DragonFly (by Anonymous on 2009-09-17 11:34:31 GMT from Canada)
The only issue that keep me running linux instead of DragonFly is using my Nvidia 8800GT with 3D acceleration
119 • 115 & 116 (by Elder V. Lacoste on 2009-09-17 11:50:14 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the link to the BSD. Now, about this Absolute business. I suppose it is possible that I did something wrong but when all you have to do is go to the menu and click on "Add User" it is hard for me to see how I could have made a mistake(I tried it 4 or 5 times). I slow burned the cd at 4x and it installed easily. I was excited by the new updated "look" and had high expectations. I followed the instructions provided on manually adding a user and that did not work either. I don't know a lot about command line use or Slackware in general so my only logical option was to use the documentation. Caitlyn's review referred to an earlier release but I felt that it was relevant to note that I experienced exactly the same problems she mentioned in her review regardless.
"I don't want to be rude, but you must have done something wrong and to say it's a waste of time is completely uncalled for, given that it's easily done.
BTW, don't waste a cd, buy RW's, they're far more green, and keeps green in your wallet."
Ok, lol points taken!
120 • Dragonfly BSD (by Sean on 2009-09-17 13:21:53 GMT from United States)
Well this is on a Compaq (HP) here which everbody hates. lol But we're not so sure it'll be on that machine long because Mint and Sabayon are no battling it out at our facility for dominance, with Vectorlinux running a close 3rd.
I selected Dragonfly as an experiment for the machine (DC-7600 with Pentium 4). Absulute would not be a consideration for a box with that modern a processor, we plan to try that on our old Gateway 2000 with it's 1.2 MhzIntel.
The Dragonfly install went well, but we had to start over twice because of unexplained freezing during the partitioning. We did finish the install and now it's time to configure the browser, etc. Flash and Java work but we needed Greasemonkey.
121 • @119 (by Jose Mirles on 2009-09-17 14:15:58 GMT from United States)
I found this on Absolute Linux's Website
Absolute 13.0.1 released
Saturday, 09/12/2009:
Bug fix release corrects two issues:
Add user utility corrected (had failed to start due to importing module that is no longer used.)
New auto-start daemon (for audio CDs, movie DVDs and PTP cameras) installed to replace non-working ivman. New app is halevt. New user/group needs changed to accommodate this daemon as well as icewm startup changed, and gdm updated to kill daemon between graphical logins (.bash_logout if not.)
If you downloaded version 13 and did not update it first, you would have gotten the add user error. It is funny since it worked perfectly in his Release Candidates.
Absolute Linux is pretty good even on more modern PCs. I ran it on my Dual Core PC with 4 GB of ram. It ran beautifully. I have since removed it from my main box and installed it on my old laptop and a 2.6 Ghz P4 PC with 1 GB of ram.
BTW PCLinuxOS resumed it spot as my OS on my primary PC.
Try out Absolute Linux 13.0.1
P.S. Next time you have a problem with a distro, ask for a fix in the distro's forum. Then PLEASE let us know how the forum responded. I think a distro should also be judge by how willing their Community is to new users.
122 • Absolute on "modern box" (by Sean on 2009-09-17 15:56:20 GMT from United States)
Just to clarify my, "Absulute would not be a consideration for a box with that modern a processor.."
I meant that it would seem a waste of a P4 to use a distro with a reputation for being "old machine friendly." Not that it wouldn't work great on a fast computer.
123 • #122: Fast distros, new machines (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-09-17 16:54:43 GMT from United States)
I meant that it would seem a waste of a P4 to use a distro with a reputation for being "old machine friendly." Not that it wouldn't work great on a fast computer.
Old machine friendly usually just means optimized for performance. It means not loading tons of cruft by default. Even the most powerful boxes can be pushed to their limits by power users. Some apps can still max the CPUs or the memory. The more you use for the OS or desktop eye candy the less there is available for real work. IMHO it still makes sense to run an efficient distro, one that may be labeled as "old machine friendly" on new hardware so long as functionality you need isn't left out.
124 • @123 (by Sean on 2009-09-17 17:54:22 GMT from United States)
It would be a waste of a Pentium 4 here to load a light OS on it. We use that machine to its capabilities with "heavier" loads, graphics and multi-tasking.
Absolute, as I say, will be better suited on our 1.2 Gateway.
125 • Arch (by Barnabas Collins on 2009-09-17 18:48:21 GMT from United States)
Thanks for your review of Arch, I really enjoyed it.
I am a recent convert from Debian testing, and have been in love with Arch for 6 months. Its clean design, multitude of packages, pacman and versatility keep me coming back for more. The wiki is excellent, as I found out while still using Debian. After checking with the Arch wiki so often, I finally just decided to try it, and I'm glad I did.
Arch feels right, and doesn't make any assumptions. It waits for my input, which is exactly what I want my OS to do.
Hope you continue to enjoy Arch as much as I have.
126 • VMWare... Partition Schemes (by Matt on 2009-09-18 02:35:07 GMT from United States)
Any chance for an article (guidelines, suggestions) about setting up this up?
I have an ASUS M4A78T-E motherboard... AMD 810 quadcore... 8 gig ram... 640 gig hard drive. ATI 3300 integrated graphics. Just built it! Running Ubuntu 9.04 currently.
I have plenty of room on the hard drive, and I would like to "test" other distros, but noobiness sometimes gets in my way. I usually just wipe and install.
In addition, maybe an article for partitioning... (I mean... /, /boot, /home, /usr... blah, blah... I sometimes get get confused about how you folks do it without losing everything. Sizes... where to keep photos and such, where programs go...)
Hope that's not too much and thank you!
Matt
127 • #98 freebsd-live image (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-09-18 09:51:56 GMT from United States)
The iso is good. I am posting this from the live cd.
128 • Salix OS (by Caraibes on 2009-09-18 10:53:54 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Here's another Slackware derivative, actually a fork of Zenwalk, but its particularity is to be 100% backward compatible with Slackware...
-interesting, no ?
See more here: http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
I guess this is material for Caitlyn Martin, and would enjoy a comparison between the "heavyweights" such as Vector, Zenwalk, and this new one...
-Would Salix OS be the "Mint" of Slackware ?
129 • Arch & KDE (by Paulo Fino on 2009-09-18 12:22:49 GMT from Russian Federation)
Hello!
Thank you for this review of Arch. I'm slightly drifting off Ubuntu myself and inclined towards Arch. It's just a question of time now.
Just wanted to point to you the Chakra Project (http://chakra-project.org/) which specialises in modding KDE packages exclusively for Arch. And they also have come up with a graphic installer for Arch and a GUI for Pacman, called Shaman.
You might find their work useful.
All the best!
130 • Puppy (by Notorik on 2009-09-18 13:25:18 GMT from United States)
The new Puppy 4.3.0 now has a version that is able to boot and run from SCSI devices.
131 • Re 129 Paulo Fino and else (by greenLegs on 2009-09-18 14:28:34 GMT from France)
The regulars here read the feature articles AND the comments section before posting. When non regulars come here because a favorite distro of theirs is featured, many skip reading the comments and post their tip straight away. And that's how we finished the week with 50 recommandations of Chakra. Ultimately it is a disservice to the (Arch, this week) community.
Sorry if I'm preachy...
(And I do like Arch).
132 • Puppy! (by Sean on 2009-09-18 14:33:12 GMT from United States)
Wow, the excitement here continues: Puppy is being experimented with on an ancient machine, while the full-blown, Pentium 4 worthy, KDE version of Sabayon has been successfully installed on our Compaq pc.
I'm not kidding, what a grand array of possibilities linux and bsd have to offer. Especially for those of us with many (mostly donated) varied machines to get the most out of.
Hoping that many here donate donate and donate to their distro-makers of choice.
133 • gecko laptop--$200 (by jack on 2009-09-18 15:28:07 GMT from Canada)
http://www.norhtec.com/products/gecko/index.html
Saw a reference t this on the OLPC forum
Uses AA batteries for 4 hour run time
Has anyone tested this?
Thanks
134 • this week's article (by DW Fan on 2009-09-18 17:09:36 GMT from United States)
I’ve been an avid reader for some time; this is my first post. I really enjoyed this week’s article, nice job. I have enjoyed reading the comments section from time to time. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Landor was mentioned in this week’s article. I have appreciated reading what he has had to say (for the most part). I would like to suggest that Landor write an article about Gentoo (as Ladislav previously requested, if I’m remembering correctly). Thanks for all the hard work!
DW Fan
135 • Shana Tovah! (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-09-18 18:34:00 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
136 • RE: 119 & 134 (by Landor on 2009-09-18 18:44:38 GMT from Canada)
RE: 119
Let's see if I can actually get the number right that I'm replying to, that's what happens when you're ultra-multi-tasking!
It's seems we were both right and both wrong. I was a little hard and kinda, sorta, but not really had a reason to be. Linux under the bridge though, as they say.
I found the FreeBSD live cd pretty snappy (in VirtualBox thus far). The other release of Absolute was taking forever via torrent, and, well, I'm just not that curious..lol
RE: 134
Thank you for the compliment (I think..lol). You're right, Ladislav and I didn't fully agree on a few issues regarding Gentoo ( I think that since it's still continuing and all the "digital hyperbole" has disappeared that my point was proven) and he wanted me to write an article about Gentoo.
I wouldn't write one for a couple reasons. The main reason was the simple fact that I believed given my "almost" fanboyish position at that time I wouldn't be able to write an unbiased review or article about Gentoo.
I also said I wouldn't write articles for here, or think I did. I've mulled that over, over the last couple years and have considered it. I'm currently firing up my own site where I can do just that, ramble on, voice my opinion. It's either going to be in a CMS format or Blog style. I want something simple and easily maintained, it would be a hobby for me. Plus the simple fact I really only know the bare minimum of html, css, etc. I already have the domains. So, it's just a matter of time and choice now. The site will run without ads for as long as financially viable too.
Back to writing here, I still don't know if I would. If I did write one here one thing I'm certain of, any monies I would be given per article I would have Ladislav donate to the project the article was about. I don't know if I would write any though and I'm almost certain they wouldn't be about Gentoo since I still consider myself biased.
Sorry.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
137 • #136 (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-09-18 19:24:11 GMT from United States)
I actually went back and re-installed it(Absolute 13.0). I then ran the update with gslapt. The add user worked from the menu after updating. It was a rather strange interface without many options. I rebooted and logged in with high hopes. To make a long story short, I am back to running Wolvix. Everything worked but it just seemed unfinished and ran very sluggish on my machine. I am sure there are many people who will find that it runs well on their equipment and it will be perfect for them. It just didn't work well for me. I will keep trying the future releases though.
138 • Reply to 136 (by Anonymous on 2009-09-18 20:58:39 GMT from United States)
When you put up your site I hope you let all of us here know the link to it.
I don't agree with post 134 about not liking what you type most of the time. I always have. I agree that I'd like to see you write an article about Gentoo or some other distro. I remember when you and Ladislav were fighting and bet that's another reason why you won't write articles here.
Whatever the reason I hope you write one and Ladislav allows it to be in DWW and would like both of you to consider it.
139 • Addition to 138 (by Anonymous on 2009-09-18 21:03:46 GMT from United States)
I forgot to say, I also think it's very cool that your site won't have any adds and that if you wrote an article for DWW you would have the money donated to the project you wrote about. That's a really good thing for somebody to do!
140 • RE: 137 & 138/139 (by Landor on 2009-09-19 02:20:30 GMT from Canada)
RE: 137
That's a shame. I ran it under VirtualBox and had no problems. Obviously though the hardware that I'm running still accounts for a lot. I just picked up an Acer Aspire One tonight and I'm gonna give it a shot on it.
I'm not a huge fan of Slackware and its offshoots but I can say I always liked what Paul Sherman brought to the table with Absolute. A distribution I recently enjoyed a lot and am going to go even deeper into it was Frugalware. Very nice distro indeed.
RE: 138/139
I don't think my writing quality is up to DWW snuff. I don't have a problem with DWW or Ladislav personally. I just didn't agree with his views on Gentoo is all.
The whole ad thing is no big deal either, just a person choice is all. My way to give back, nothing special in my opinion.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
141 • Does anybody know of a general aritcle... (by Alex on 2009-09-19 10:46:37 GMT from United States)
comparing Linux, BSD, Solaris, or other unix based operating systems?
142 • Re: Article (by James on 2009-09-19 10:51:22 GMT from United States)
There's a _lot_ to compare and contrast between three or more operating systems, but if you're looking for a broad article I found this by simply googling it: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/200733/alternatives_to_microsoft_windows.html?cat=15
143 • The article is incorrect about Ubuntu (by Please stop deleting my posts on 2009-09-19 14:33:46 GMT from United States)
Firefox 3.5 IS available in the repos.
144 • @141 (by stuckinoregon on 2009-09-19 15:07:52 GMT from United States)
Just know this is a very dangerous question to ask. You will get a million (ok, slightly hyperbolic) answers and some may even be correct. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. I have never seen anything that really delineates the similarities or differences. You just have to kind of immerse yourself in them to really start to see for yourself. Only you will use them exactly the way you will use them. (Very deep an profound. Need coffee.)
145 • Salix: Mint? (by capricornus on 2009-09-19 17:54:49 GMT from Belgium)
Don't confuse yourself: Salix is a tree, it produces Salicylic acid, and that's it. LILO b+++sh++. NVIDIA unknown. Rep's extremely slow and inefficient. This distro is worthless. You want Slack, go Wolvix. But you want real Mint? Go Mint. GNOME or XFCE, it will be better than Salix, no question about that. Oh man, I'm frustrated, expecting a Slackware Mint.
146 • Remastersys and remastersys-LXDE-Lite CD (by RollMeAway on 2009-09-20 02:48:26 GMT from United States)
Great tool for creating a live CD of your current debian or ubuntu hard disk installation. It can even exclude your personal data, but include all packages you have added to your installation.
So you could easily make a live CD for your friends and co-workers customized for your environment and locale, with all the apps your friends would appreciate.
http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/remastersystool.html
I see Tony "fragadelic" Brijeski has been working on this since before Oct. 2007.
I nominate it for future Distrowatch consideration.
To really appreciate what this entails, here is a link for a "how to" do it manually:
http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/capink.html
I discovered this after someone last week suggested an LXDE distro to try:
http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/rll.html
I just installed it on an old Toshiba laptop, limited to 512 MB ram. Very impressive.
I have been looking at every LXDE disto I could find recently, just for this use.
It uses far less system resources than any of the others I've tried.
Also included is custom GUI "control panel" to configure most everything.
147 • Retro DWW (by Albert Hall on 2009-09-20 03:17:37 GMT from United States)
From October 8 2007:
It is always a sad occasion when the founder of a distribution decides to leave the project he created. But such is life - the developers' interests and availability of free time are factors that can change easily throughout a person's life. Arch Linux's Judd Vinet has not been involved with the distribution for several months so his resignation came as no surprise to most of his co-developers: "I plan to step down as leader of Arch Linux and pass the torch. The reason for this is that I do not have the time to devote towards a leadership role in a project the size of Arch Linux, and Arch deserves someone who does. It needs some work, it needs some unification, and it needs someone at the helm who can devote a lot of time to it. I've given it a lot of thought, and based on the state of things, all-round competencies, initiatives, and willingness, I would like to pass this leadership role on to Aaron Griffin, also known as 'Phrakture' on IRC and the forums." Besides the formal announcement, the founder of Arch Linux gave a few hints about his future plans on his personal blog. So thanks for a great distribution and let's hope that the project will continue to go from strength to strength despite Judd's absence!
* * * * *
It was, by general consensus, one of the most entertaining posts for some time. Answering the usual "what is the best distro" question, a poster in last week's DistroWatch Weekly came up with the following parody (reprinted here for those who don't read the comments, but who enjoy a good laugh every now and then): "This is an interesting meta discussion, but I just have to post here to mention the Greatest Linux Distro out there: (fill in the blank). I just can't believe everybody is not using (fill in the blank) and so many crappy distros like (fill in the blank), (fill in the blank) and (fill in the blank), are still ranked high in the page hit rankings here. Before I discovered (fill in the blank) I was always trying to get my (fill in the blank) to work properly and my (fill in the blank) to at least (fill in the blank) let alone (fill in the blank). Now, everything just works! I've even decided to contribute several dollars to the developer(s) of (fill in the blank) even though I can't afford it with my part-time job as a (fill in the blank) at (fill in the blank), but at least it is a token of my (fill in the blank). For those of you who have not yet tried (fill in the blank), I urge you to go to www.(fill in the blank).com and download the ISO and let the magic begin. (fill in the blank) for President!"
148 • What doesn't kill you makes you... stranger ;-) (by Crow on 2009-09-20 03:34:25 GMT from Mexico)
Maybe I'm a fool by opening my mouth but it is strange how distrowatch notifies the different versions of several distros but no PCLinuxOS versions, right now it has 7 but the "news" just shows KDE, Gnome and MiniMe http://distrowatch.com/index.php?distribution=pclinuxos&month=all&year=all
I don't want to suggest some ill intention, I just want o point out the fact.
149 • Linux vs. FreeBSD vs. Solaris (by VernDog on 2009-09-20 03:57:23 GMT from United States)
There's an older compare found here:
http://uadmin.blogspot.com/2005/10/linux-vs-freebsd-vs-solaris.html
but its incomplete...
Try this one:
http://blog.suranaamit.com/2008/06/linux-vs-freebsd-vs-opensolaris_01.html
150 • #141 Ubuntu vs freeBSD vs openSolaris (by Xtyn on 2009-09-20 05:45:36 GMT from Romania)
Here's a benchmark comparison for them from Phoronix:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=os_threeway_2008&num=1
As I know, the BSD's and openSolaris support less hardware than Linux.
Number of Comments: 150
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Asmi Linux
Asmi Linux is a desktop-oriented Linux distribution with editions based on either Ubuntu or Debian. It uses a highly-customised Xfce desktop with some user-friendly touches. Some of its other features include the Calamares system installer, out-of-the-box support for several popular virtual machine managers, a load-to-RAM boot option, the latest Firefox browser, Cloudflare DNS for faster DNS lookup, and SSH multiplexing for faster SSH connections. The project also offers a commercial "Ultimate" edition with additional software and tools.
Status: Active
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Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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