DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 326, 26 October 2009 |
Welcome to this year's 43rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Ah, the excitement of an Ubuntu release! Yes, "Karmic Koala", the distribution's 11th official version will hit the undoubtedly crowded download servers later this week amid the excitement of those who enjoy the popular operating system -- and also to the annoyance of some of the more vocal anti-Ubuntu crowds on Linux blogs and forums. But Ubuntu is not the only Linux distribution that gets attention in this week's DistroWatch Weekly. Our lead article is a review of GNOME SlackBuild for Slackware Linux, a third-party effort to provide quality GNOME packages for the oldest surviving Linux distro. In the news section, Mandriva finally updates the artwork in preparation for the upcoming stable release, openSUSE brings a number of interesting features to challenge the competition, and Funtoo hints at a possible new life as a "fork" of Gentoo Linux. Also not to be missed, an amusing and frightening analysis of a web site that charges US$125 to download Mozilla Firefox. Finally, check out the new section of DistroWatch Weekly where Jesse Smith attempts to answer some of the questions that our readers regularly post in the comments section. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (13MB) and MP3 (18MB) formats
Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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Feature Story (by Caitlyn Martin) |
GNOME SlackBuild 2.26.3 for Slackware 13.0
Three weeks ago I reviewed Slackware 13.0 for DistroWatch Weekly. As I mentioned in that review, Slackware, at present, does not include GNOME or any applications which require the GNOME libraries. Back in March 2005, Patrick Volkerding, the creator of Slackware, wrote that GNOME was: "Removed from -current, and turned over to community support and distribution. I'm not going to rehash all the reasons behind this, but it has been under consideration for more than four years. There are already good projects in place to provide Slackware GNOME for those who want it, and these are more complete than what Slackware shipped in the past." There are three well-known GNOME distributions for Slackware: Dropline GNOME, GWARE and GSB (GNOME SlackBuild).
Despite the similarity in name to SlackBuilds.org, GSB does not simply provide build scripts - it includes a complete set of Slackware binary packages for GNOME. It also optionally provides packages related to, but which are not part of, the GNOME project, including OpenOffice.org, the AbiWord word processor and Bluefish, an editor for web developers. The current stable version of GSB is 2.26.3. GSB 2.28.0 is presently under development. Packages are available for both the 32-bit and 64-bit builds of Slackware. This review covers GSB 2.26.3 on the 32-bit architecture.
I chose GSB as the one I wanted to look at for some very practical reasons. GWARE hasn't released a version for Slackware 13.0 as of yet. Dropline replaces more Slackware packages than GSB. GSB also has a stated goal: it "aims to replace as few packages as possible." Slackware's great strengths include stability and reliability so I prefer to do as little as possible which may change that. Finally, I've had very good experience with GSB In the past.
For this review I used two systems, a new HP Mini 110 (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB SATA SSD storage) and my nearly 7-year old Toshiba Satellite 1805-S204 (1 GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD). In my experience Slackware and most Slackware derivative distributions perform extremely well on older hardware even with the GNOME desktop environment added.
Installation and configuration
There are several steps required to install GSB and two distinct installation methods. These are well documented on the Download & Install Page of their web site and in the README.TXT file. There is a reference to a replaced packages file as well but the link on the web site is broken and the information is now contained in both of the other documents. Anyone who can install and configure Slackware should find the installation instructions pretty straightforward regardless of the method chosen.
Slackware Apt, a package management system used by many Slackware derivative distributions, is a pre-requisite for installing GSB irrespective of the installation method used. Technically the only required part of the system is slapt-get, a command-line tool very similar to apt-get in Debian and Debian-based distributions. Once slapt-get is installed you will want to check and customize your /etc/slapt-get/slapt-get.rc file. If you used the version provided with GSB then the GSB repository will already be included but you may wish to change the base Slackware mirror to something other than the very busy ftp.slackware.org. You may also wish to use a GSB mirror which is closer to home.
The second part of the installation process is to replace five Slackware packages with versions from the GSB repository. These include key libraries: glib2, gtk+2 and alsa-lib, all of which are updated to newer versions. This is done as root with the command sequence "slapt-get --update && slapt-get --upgrade". The first command updates Slackware Apt's package list. The second will not only install the upgrades from GSB but also any as yet uninstalled security patches from the official Slackware repositories. This process also pulls a fairly large number of new dependencies from the GSB repository so you are, in effect, doing part of the GNOME installation at this point
For the third and final step you have the choice of using slapt-get to install a gsb-desktop metapackage or using the netinstall process described on the web page. Since I tested GSB on two systems I chose to do one of each. What I found was the difference between the two was negligible. The Quick and Easy Install uses lynx, the text-based web browser, to run slapt-get remotely on the GSB server while the metapackage runs the same process locally. With my fast Internet connection I found either method to be quick and easy and required no intervention on my part.
If you haven't done so already you may wish to edit your /etc/inittab file at this point to change the default runlevel to 4 to have the system boot directly into the GUI. The newly installed GDM display manager offers some significant features not included in KDM or XDM, the two display managers included with Slackware.
Running GSB 2.26.3
If you've chose to change the default runlevel to 4 the next time you log into the system GDM will present you with a graphical login screen. In addition to the user name and password you will have the option to choose the desktop environment or window manager to run. If you already had KDE, Xfce or any of the lightweight window managers included with Slackware by default you can change between them and GNOME on a session-by-session basis. You also can choose your language and theme for the session.

Slackware 13.0, GNOME 2.26.3 (GSB) desktop (full image size: 573kB, screen resolution 1024x576 pixels)
By default GSB installs a minimal GNOME desktop. Additional applications can be added using slapt-get or, optionally, the graphical gslapt package manager, which is similar to Synaptic on Debian-based systems. In additional to the afore-mentioned applications you'll find all the typical GNOME programs, including the Gnumeric 1.8.4 spreadsheet, the Dia 0.9.7 diagram editor and GnuCash 2.2.9 financial software in the GSB repository. In all cases the latest stable version of the application as of the time GNOME 2.26.3 was released are included, including AbiWord 2.6.8 and OpenOffice 3.1.1. Applications installed by default include the Totem movie player, Brasero CD/DVD burner and the Epiphany web browser. One thing that was not installed by default was the Fusion icon for Compiz Fusion, which I found a little strange since all of the rest of Compiz was installed.
The controversial Mono C# development environment is not installed by default and, as you'd expect, neither are any applications or desktop extensions which require it. Mono and related applications, like Tomboy notes, are included in the GSB repository.
I generally found the performance of both systems with GSB installed to be excellent. The old Toshiba system, which is sluggish with some more popular distributions with GNOME, remained snappy and responsive. I attribute this both to the performance of Slackware and the minimal nature of the initial GSB installation. I had installed wicd on my systems from the official Slackware extra repository and, as expected, I had wicd's network status icon on my GNOME top panel and wicd remained problem free. GSB does not include network manager, though interestingly, the network-manager-applet for GNOME is in the repository.
I ran into only one intermittent but significant bug with GSB 2.26.3. On two occasions gslapt's window went blank when I clicked on the "Execute" icon. I had to force quit the application. Re-running precisely the same process again correctly performed the expected actions without problem. I use gslapt in VectorLinux Light on the Toshiba laptop regularly and have also used it in Zenwalk 6.2 without difficulty so this bug does appear to be specific to GSB.
Package Management and Security
Unlike vanilla Slackware, GSB does support automated dependency checking when you use Slackware Apt. The provided /etc/slapt-get/slapt-get.rc file uses tags to correctly prioritize between the various parts of the official Slackware repository and GSB. Generally, the GSB repository has first priority. I haven't run into any package conflicts between the two repositories so far. It should be noted that installing packages from the official Slackware repositories will work properly with slapt-get or gslapt but dependencies will not be resolved and you have to manually select and install them, much as on a vanilla Slackware system. However, if a GSB package requires an official Slackware package that dependency will be installed automatically.
If you use multiple third-party repositories in distributions using RPM packaging, such as Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and clones (including Oracle Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Scientific Linux), SUSE Linux Enterprise, or openSUSE, it's important to note that the ability to prioritize and sort repositories to avoid package conflicts is far more limited than what is offered by the Yum Priorities plugin. In my experience trying to manage assorted third-party repositories and correctly resolving dependencies across different repositories is exceptionally tricky with Slackware Apt and generally doesn't work well.
Slackware has an excellent reputation for making security patches available promptly. One very nice optional package in GSB is slapt-notifier. This adds an icon to the GNOME, KDE or Xfce panel when updated packages are available and makes the process of applying updates and patches as simple as in any of the more popular distributions, i.e.: Ubuntu or Mandriva. It works very well with just the GSB and official Slackware repositories enabled. When you click on the notification icon a window opens letting you know which updates are available. If you choose to update your system gslapt is opened and automatically installs the required packages.

gslapt 0.5.1b graphical package manager (full image size: 62kB, window resolution 724x511 pixels)
Internationalization and localization
Adding GSB to a Slackware system greatly simplifies the task of localization. If graphical logins are enabled the GDM display manager allows the user to choose their language on a session-by-session basis and to set their default language. So long as the required language packs, fonts, and dictionaries are installed the system should then function correctly in the chosen language. This works regardless of whether GNOME, KDE, or Xfce is chosen as the desktop environment.
In addition to the language packs, i18n/i10n packages and dictionaries in the official Slackware repositories, GSB includes a full set of OpenOffice.org i10n packages. Enchant, the spell-checking interface for AbiWord, is included in GSB. As long as the correct Aspell dictionaries from the Slackware extra repository are installed AbiWord should be able to check spelling in the selected language as well.
Conclusions
GSB provides an integrated, easy-to-install, and rather complete GNOME desktop environment. In keeping with Slackware philosophy it installs just a minimal set of GNOME packages and then allows the user to add the applications he or she may need. GSB also includes packages which add improved package management and simplified localization to Slackware as well as offering some popular applications not included in the official Slackware repositories.
I found only one significant bug which could be attributed to GSB. Performance is generally excellent as I have come to expect from Slackware. In general, GSB provides an excellent add-on to Slackware for those whose desktop preference is GNOME.
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Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Canonical limits free Ubuntu 9.10 CDs, Mandriva nears 2010 release, best features of openSUSE 11.2, Funtoo as a Gentoo "fork", Firefox download scams
Only a few days remain before the final release of Ubuntu 9.10, the 11th stable release of the distribution that is clearly marching from strength to strength. As is always the case on release days, don't expect the main Ubuntu server and its mirrors to function at lightning speeds, at least until the initial demand is satisfied. Fortunately, there will likely be alternatives to watching the snail-like progress of the download indicator as early Ubuntu reviews, analyses, commentaries and interviews will surely fill many technical web sites, big and small. If you are eager to start reading on "Karmic Koala", the page carrying the official release notes is an excellent starting point. But for those who are eagerly awaiting the freshly pressed Ubuntu CDs to arrive in their mail boxes, there is some bad news - for the first time in its history, Canonical has decided to limit the free media to certain categories of users, such as official user groups, Ubuntu contributors or people who are unlikely to have access to other forms of obtaining the distribution: "We will continue to supply CDs to LoCo teams and Ubuntu members. And we hope to make CDs available to everyone who is just discovering Ubuntu. But we are limiting shipments to people that we think have alternative paths of getting Ubuntu."
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While Ubuntu will undoubtedly steal much of the media spotlight in the next few days, the dark horse among the established distributions, Mandriva Linux, is also nearing the final release of its new version. Expected on 3 November, Mandriva 2010, is set to retain its customised KDE3-like look of the KDE 4 desktop despite dropping all KDE 3 components from the distribution. Some of the new features will include redesigned partitioning screen in the system installer, ext4 as the default file system, a new temporary "guest" account enabled by default, Fedora's Plymouth as the default bootsplash manager, Linux kernel 2.6.31 with kernel-mode setting and Tomoyo security framework, X.Org Server 1.6.5, KDE 4.3.2 and GNOME 2.28.1, Moblin integration, and, as usual, various improvements to Mandriva's configuration tools. Last but not least, there will be new artwork, some of which has finally started filtering down into "Cooker" (Mandriva's development branch) over the weekend - always an exciting part of each distribution's development process. This is just a fraction of what the new Mandriva will offer so head for the official release notes if you'd like to learn more.

Mandriva Linux 2010 is scheduled for release next week. (full image size: 465kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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While talking about the interesting features of upcoming distribution releases we can't leave out openSUSE 11.2, expected next month. Here is a brief extract from openSUSE 11.2 - the Perfect KDE Distribution, talking about "live upgrade", a way of upgrading from one release to another without having to download an installation CD: "For the first time officially, openSUSE will support live upgrade in the manner of Debian's dist-upgrade. This feature has a powerful psychological impact at the enterprise level and a much more tangible impact at the small user level. According to the feature page, 'the rationale for pursuing this is to revoke the special status of coolness this functionality gives Ubuntu, and to terminate the negative influence that may have on our SUSE Linux Enterprise sales'." Another interesting innovation making its first appearance in openSUSE 11.2 is the YaST web interface: "openSUSE 11.2 will ship a technology preview of the web interface of YaST. The objective of YaST web interface is to enable remote 1:1 management of a machine. It is built using Ruby on Rail framework."
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Daniel Robbins, the founder and former chief technology officer of Gentoo Linux has not been part of the project he created ten years ago for some time. However, after launching Funtoo in 2006 and providing unofficial "stages" for Gentoo Linux, he was effectively a highly active Gentoo contributor, albeit in an unofficial capacity. This is all set to change. In a recent post to the Funtoo developers' mailing list, Robbins -- for the first time -- talked about Funtoo as "more of a fork", while seeking feedback on some of the major changes he had been considering for his project: "As the title states, I've been thinking about the future of Funtoo and wanted to post some of my ideas here, so you can offer feedback. What does the future of Funtoo hold? Basically, more of a fork, supporting Mac OS X and other platforms if we want, while maintaining Gentoo compatibility in all areas possible." As for the ideas, here are some of them: "I want to have a simpler Linux core system. Everything in a stage3 these days is quite complex. So I would like to rewrite around 250 ebuilds of the core system. ... Move away from Portage for the core system, to a very minimal lightweight build system. The idea here is to allow more of an LFS-inspired core system -- very simple, and get rid of all the Gentoo-specific cruft."
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Finally, a link to a story that many DistroWatch readers will probably consider amusing, but spare a thought for some of our fellow Internet users with less experience and knowledge who might fall into all sort of traps on the world wide web. The article, entitled "A Tour Of A 'Pay to Download Firefox' Site", looks at a web page that charges US$125.90 for downloading Firefox! Yes, the free and open-source web browser that can be had for nothing from the project's web site. The crooked people behind the shameless site use every trick in the book to add extra charges for technical support, security updates and other "features", with automatically selected checkboxes and additional monthly recurring charges hidden in small print added for good measure. The no-refund policy assures that once you hit the "pay" button, there is no way to get the money back or, indeed, cancel the recurring credit card charge. If you think it unlikely that there are Internet users who would fall for such a scam, then think again: "At Mozilla, we regularly get anguished emails from people who have paid to download Firefox, and have then discovered a) that it's actually free, and b) that it's very hard to get the company they paid to stop charging their credit card. For those who have never had the misfortune to visit one of these trap sites, I thought people might be interested in a walkthrough of the user experience." Incredible, but true....
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Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions for older hardware
Keeping-it-small asks: What distribution would you recommend for older, low-specification hardware?
DistroWatch answers: This is a common question asked by newcomers to the Linux scene -- I know, I wondered that myself when I first got introduced to Linux. I spent about a month looking around and trying advice from various people. Truth be told, if you ask ten Linux users which distro they recommend, nine of them will problem give you the same answer: the one I use. (In case you're wondering, the tenth will probably avoid a direct answer and give you a list of about seven flavours of Linux. One of the great benefits of Linux is its diversity.)
I'm not sure what the specifications of your hardware are, which makes the question a bit tricky. What I'll do here is list some distros that I think will perform well with 512 MB of RAM or lower on computers with processors running below 1 GHz. From largest to smallest, I suggest:
- Slax. The Slax distro is based on Slackware and, I've found, most small distributions which are based on Slackware make for fast, solid operating systems for low-end machines. Slax is a bit heavy and is probably best suited for medium-level hardware, but in my opinion, it is really well-polished and has sane defaults. Certainly worth a test drive. My only complaint about Slax was a lack of steady security updates. But new releases come out fairly often and it's novice friendly.
- Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux is a really easy-to-use mini-Linux which does a fine job of balancing performance with ease of use. Chances are if you're new to Linux in general, the user interface of Puppy will put you at ease. I used to shy away from recommending this distro because it didn't really handle multiple user accounts, but I understand this has been improved upon recently.
- Damn Small Linux. Damn Small Linux (DSL) used to be king of small Linux distributions, aimed at low-spec hardware. It's still worth a look, but it has been a while since a new release came out. This makes DSL, while impressive for its small size, a bit behind the times. I'd recommend DSL if you have really old hardware and have used Linux a little before.
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Released Last Week |
CentOS 5.4
Karanbir Singh has announced the release of CentOS 5.4, a free, enterprise-class distribution built from source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux: "We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of CentOS 5.4 for i386 and x86_64 architectures. CentOS 5.4 is based on the upstream release EL 5.4.0, and includes packages from all variants including server and client. All upstream repositories have been combined into one, to make it easier for end users to work with. And the option to further enable external repositories at install time is now available in the installer. For the first time, we are also releasing the i386 CentOS 5.4 live CD at the same time as the main distro." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
- MOPSLinux 5.0-alpha2.7, 5.0-alpha3, the release announcement (in Russian)
- Fedora 12-beta, the release announcement
- Chakra Fuzzy, the release announcement
- Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Mythbuntu 9.10-rc, the release announcement
- Elive 1.9.51, the release announcement
- sidux 2009.3-preview1, the release notes
- Greenie Linux 5.1J
- PelicanHPC GNU/Linux 1.9.2
- Untangle Gateway 7.0.1
- DEFT Linux 4.2.1
- Elastix 2.0.0-alpha
- Clonezilla Live 1.2.3-5
- trixbox 2.8.0.2
- NuTyX GNU/Linux 2009.1-rc1
- grml 2009.10-rc1
- ALT Linux 5.0.0-rc
- Berry Linux 0.99
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- UPR. Ubuntu Privacy Remix (UPR) is a modified live CD based on Ubuntu. Its goal is to provide a completely isolated working environment where private data can be dealt with safely and to protect data against unsolicited access. Networking is intentionally disabled and saving data to mounted volumes is not allowed. The live CD is not installable to hard disk.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Leeenux. Leeenux is a new Ubuntu-based distribution designed for the ASUS Eee PC. It uses the Ubuntu Netbook Interface, but claims to be lighter, faster and optimised for the 7-inch screen of the Eee PC 700 series. It does not include any non-free applications or drivers and does not offer out-of-the-box support for patent-encumbered media codecs.
- Simplix Linux Simplix Linux is an easy-to-use operating system for home desktop computers. It is a live CD based on Debian GNU/Linux and is made for German-speaking users.
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DistroWatch database summary
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And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 2 November 2009.
Caitlyn Martin, Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Tiny Core (by Anonymous on 2009-10-26 08:38:18 GMT from Australia)
In the section Distributions for older hardware, you missed Tiny Core.
It works well on both old and new computers.
2 • Slax (by anonymous on 2009-10-26 08:49:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yes, slax is excellent. But getting to a real installation on hard drive, as opposed to running in live mode off an image, is problematic. That rather puts me off it.
3 • Paying to d/l Firefox - amazing! (by Anonymous on 2009-10-26 09:00:33 GMT from New Zealand)
It really is amazing that there really are people out there who are so naive that they'll pay to download Firefox! No doubt, they'll be the same ones who reply to spam emails too. Sadly, the saying seems to be true that "there's one born every minute" (suckers, that is....).
4 • significant bug (by bourlas on 2009-10-26 09:13:13 GMT from Greece)
Please mention what is the significant bug of the slack gnome combination
quote from the article "I found only one significant bug which could be attributed to GSB"
5 • Tiny Core (by Anonymous on 2009-10-26 09:13:44 GMT from Australia)
Tiny Core allows you to install only the programs you use. The computer is not loaded with other programs you never use.
6 • funtoo (by tux2 on 2009-10-26 09:15:07 GMT from Sweden)
At last! A long awaited order of things to come. With Daniel on funtoo as a fork we can again expect great things to develope on a steady go.
7 • No subject (by forest on 2009-10-26 09:37:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just a chuckle ref those who pay for FF...they are without doubt (?) the folk who buy battery powered toys for Xmas presents...but don't buy the batteries (not having read the box instructions) then march back to TRU on Dec 27th to argue about it.
Such people should come with a health warning to others...as in when there is a danger of serious internal organ damage caused by laughing...
8 • Crunchbang (by Sergio17771 on 2009-10-26 09:38:49 GMT from Greece)
Distributions for older hardware........well for sure you can add the best one......crunchbang
9 • Distros for older PCs: Slitaz (by viktor on 2009-10-26 09:39:11 GMT from France)
Sure Tiny Core is perfectly designed for older computers but requires some knowledge.
I checked Slitaz when 1.0 came out and currently 2.0 works perfectly well on my parents' old Compaq Armada with only 128Mb of RAM. Even Firefox 3 works Ok provided you're not visiting other websites when you have a Gmail tab open.
More generally speaking Midori should really be updated in the repos of all such slim distributions.
10 • No subject (by dieter on 2009-10-26 10:03:03 GMT from Belgium)
ZenWalk also runs fine on a Pentium III 1GHz laptop
11 • Distros for older PC's (by asshur on 2009-10-26 10:04:22 GMT from Spain)
I'm installing in my scrap PCs, Arch Linux with a moderate software load (f.i. LXDE or at most XFCE as desktop environments). I can keep the startup RAM load under 50 Mb. It's one of the greatness of an almost DIY distribution
12 • Light-weight Linux for older PCs (by Stephen on 2009-10-26 10:19:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
The AntiX variant of MEPIS probably deserves a mention here: a light-weight, elegant desktop built on probably the easiest and most reliable Debian-based distro.
13 • No subject (by gsb on 2009-10-26 10:27:32 GMT from Portugal)
Well..., it's a pretty unknown distro reviewed this week. I searched for it at the distrowatch pages, looking for it's kernel version, but could not find any references. But maybe not a bad distro at all. I wonder (some hints?) know if are there many more usable and updated distros apart from those listed at Distrowatch.
14 • No more Linux HP Mini 110's??? (by Anonymous on 2009-10-26 10:31:14 GMT from United States)
From CM: http://ever-increasing-entropy.blogspot.com/2009/10/amazing-coincidence-or-something-more.html
15 • Light-weight Linux für Older PCs (by wingevil on 2009-10-26 10:43:12 GMT from Germany)
I would recommend, Puppy (independend), AntiX (for deb-based) and Salix 13 or fluxflux-sl (for slackware-based). They all offer a complete environment but light implementation.
16 • $ (by Woody Oaks on 2009-10-26 11:06:05 GMT from United States)
Paying for Firefox is naive, but buying Windows is just plain dumb.
17 • Firefox - dishonnesty is dishonnesty regardling of paying or free (by Stephen on 2009-10-26 11:06:29 GMT from United States)
Anything that misleads someone should be banned. Too much going on. Paying for it is one thing, but something like games (i.e. klondike solitare) which misleads by fixing the deck, should be banned as well.
18 • @distros for older hardware (by Klemens Häckel on 2009-10-26 11:12:30 GMT from Paraguay)
I would add here some additional choices: + Zenwalk + MepisAntix + Vector Linux and probably (still untested by me): + Absolute Linux
p.s. i think Your limit of 512MB RAM is still preety high. Many good "normal" distros run smoothly on that !!
19 • RE:11 (by Steve on 2009-10-26 11:12:33 GMT from United States)
I would have to agree asshur. I put Arch Linux with openbox and fbpanel on pentium 3s and they are quite useable. I'm not going to be editing and compressing video but they surf and email well. It is much better than trying to use them with that operating system they came with originally.
20 • Firefox (by slog on 2009-10-26 11:18:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
re. No.17 & co., I think it's a lot easier than that, esp. if the scammer is in the EU or US. There are Laws. This joker can spend a long time in the slammer, have his property confiscated or fined into bankruptcy. However, it would need a formal complaint and possible support or interaction from Mozilla Foundation? These goons get away with their crimes because many folks are unwilling to admit that they've been unwise (aka 'stupid'). Time to activate the power of the Interweb mes amis.....
21 • Gnome on Slackware (by Barnabyh on 2009-10-26 11:28:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Nice feature CM, thanks for that, this usually falls through the cracks for the less informed people thinking there is no Gnome or related software for Slack. I've tried Dropline a long time ago, the Freerock as it was called then and recently Gslacky, another Gnome desktop project form the Italian Slackware community, but this one replaces even more packages than Dropline. I have now resolved to dropping Gnome completely and to rather go with Xfce4, but it's good to have the option and many of the apps these projects provide in their repos to pick and mix, foremost OpenOffice which many users find they can't do without. Apparently Gnome is very useful to manage Netbooks due to the applets it provides, although I'm sure they can be run under Xfce as well.
22 • tiny distro (by Ivan Helguera on 2009-10-26 11:43:37 GMT from Poland)
A sidux with xfce is a very sensible option - boots to about 65 MB of ram, so many tools should be usable with just 128 MB, and 256 is a lot. More generally, a Debian + XFCE makes up for a decent choice: lo memory, good packages, little RAM. You get a fully featured DE.
23 • old hardware light distro's (by glitch on 2009-10-26 11:47:06 GMT from United States)
All three listed ones are good choices. I'd add as already mentioned anti-X. Also for Ubuntu derived choices. There is Crunch bang(using openbox) which may put off folks who aren't too desktop experienced and masonux(using LXDE) which is basically a stripped down Ubuntu 9.04 respin.
24 • Light-weight Linux for older PCs (by Stephen on 2009-10-26 12:04:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
One I should have mentioned is SaxenOS, which I was impressed with a couple of years ago and seems to have kept up: another very light Slax/Slackware derivative. Along with Puppy and AntiX/MEPIS, very friendly and helpful people behind these distros and great community support.
25 • Linux for "older" PCs (by dragonmouth on 2009-10-26 12:06:05 GMT from United States)
Your definition of an "older PC" is rather elitist. Sure, to somebody who always uses the latest and greatest, a PIII 1 ghz with 512 mb RAM is a dinosaur but there are millions of people still using PII's with 64 meg RAM. Being a distro hopper, I have run most of the distros listed by Distrowatch on a PIII 500 mhz, 128 or 384 meg RAM with no problems. I did not find that Puppy, DSL or Slax performed any faster or better.
26 • Re:18 (by asshur on 2009-10-26 12:06:20 GMT from Spain)
I tried Absolute on a 128 Mb machine (I think it was v9) and worked flawlessly, with a very useful software stack. Current versions are a bit more demanding in resources, but not that much. When that machine died, I moved to Arch, because is what I use in my main station, and I love having a "state of the art" tailored software stack.
27 • A few remarks (by Niki Kovacs on 2009-10-26 12:16:25 GMT from France)
Thanks for the review of GSB, Caitlyn. But what's with the bug you mentioned? I don't know what you mean.
What you describe as "old hardware" is in fact what I use for daily work: PIV, 1.7 GHz, 512 MB RAM. CentOS 5.4 with a streamlined GNOME install, and I do pretty much everything with it. My home server is a PIII-500 with 128 MB RAM. That's low end.
As for the Firefox scam, I guess folks who pay for downloading Firefox are the same who accept to receive the wealth of some late Nigerian dictator on their private bank account, in exchange of a relatively insignificant initial fee. In my native Austria we call this "Deppensteuer". Idiot tax.
28 • Re firefox (by Tyler Durden on 2009-10-26 12:28:58 GMT from Canada)
Just to play devils advocate here, I thought that one of the freedoms of GPL software was that anyone is allowed to take it and sell it?
Just because someone is dumb enough to pay for what can be obtained (legally) for free doesn't make the seller a criminal.
Now if they are engaging in identity or credit card theft, that's different.
29 • Welcome to the New Journalism (by Gene Venable on 2009-10-26 12:40:43 GMT from United States)
I've been meaning to say this for some time, insignificant as it is.
In the old days of journalism, for many, many years, journalism teachers taught and journalists believed, that you didn't respond to letters to the editor. This was a dumb idea to begin with -- the idea was that if you had anything to say you should have said it in the original editorial.
Here we readers of DWW know better. Writers and editors should always consider responding to comments and criticisms. There is no such thing as "the thought process has come to an end! I have spoken!" Readers are in an unending dialog with writers. Readers always come up with new questions, and writers with new answers. Heck, someone might even change their opinion from time to time.
So, it is commonplace now -- comments in almost every publication may be responded to. But it bears remembering from time to time that it wasn't always so. Thank you, DWW; I admire the role you play in the perpetually ongoing discussion.
30 • Firefox (by Anonymous on 2009-10-26 12:57:16 GMT from France)
People associate free (as in beer) or cheap with low quality. GNU suffers from being not expensive enough. Many people think it can't be as good as MacOS X or Windows because it's cheaper. For those people there is a fix: increase the price. If that is what it takes for them to feel the quality of Firefox, good for them! And if some middle man get rich, good for him too! Every distro should be sold at a very expensive price in addition to being freely downloadable. That way people can see they are getting a very high quality product. People buy crap at very high price all the time, so why couldn't they have high quality product at high price for once?
31 • OS use statistics (by Simon on 2009-10-26 13:03:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
I run a blog on high blood pressure - causes and cures - which I suspect attracts an average 45 year old plus surfer. So I was surprised to note on Google analytics that approx 17% of all visitors to the site were using Linux operating systems. This is far more than I expected - particularly for an older crowd of surfers.
Is it possible that Linux is being taken up the older generation faster than the newer one? One explanation is that all computer operating systems are something that the older generation has had to learn as an adult (as opposed to absorbing from an early age). Linux is now easier to learn and master than Windows so the shift to Linux for the older crowd makes sense.
As for the young pups raised on Windows, are they now like the 'old dogs' who can't (or won't) learn new tricks?
Personally, that supposition seems plausible. My 47 year old girlfriend picked up Linux in a few days - but her her children (23 and 19) stick to what they know, Windows, and are not really even interested in taking a look at Linux let alone give it a try.
P.S. The 'old hardware' citation regarding 1Ghz processor and 512 RAM is surely a 'young pup' perceptive. There are young computer users today who would have a hard time imagining a computer with less RAM or slower processor. (Of course this only applies to the rich 20% of the world.)
32 • reviews (by jack on 2009-10-26 13:38:45 GMT from Canada)
From previous comments here it would seem that "KlllB" is considered the best burning KDE software. Now reviewers (and distros) are saying that some distros have eliminated kde3. So what is now the burning software? Fom the Mepis forum it seems that Sesame street causes problems for some distros- either the mouse movement is erratic or the comp. freezes. I was thinking of getting a netbook for my 6 year old grandson.I would not be happy if he was unable to access this site and bugged me to use my computer instead. Perhaps the reviewers could make a point of commenting if there are specific limitations to these "lite" netbooks; or "lite" OSs Thanks
33 • low-spec hardware (by octathlon on 2009-10-26 13:49:30 GMT from United States)
"Older, low-specification hardware" is 512MB, 1 GHz? I gave my mom my old 700 MHz computer with 256MB and it's running Mepis.
34 • @4 & @27 (by stuckinoregon on 2009-10-26 13:56:26 GMT from United States)
The bug CM refers to is in the body of the article or at least that's where I see the mention.
"I ran into only one intermittent but significant bug with GSB 2.26.3. On two occasions gslapt's window went blank when I clicked on the "Execute" icon. I had to force quit the application. Re-running precisely the same process again correctly performed the expected actions without problem. I use gslapt in VectorLinux Light on the Toshiba laptop regularly and have also used it in Zenwalk 6.2 without difficulty so this bug does appear to be specific to GSB."
35 • RE: Older computers-Vector 6 on PII 400 with 312 RAM (by PFYearwood on 2009-10-26 14:00:28 GMT from United States)
I had Ubuntu on my PII 400 w/ 312 RAM Comaq, but it would not use the onboard sound chips without fancy CLI work. This flustered me as other Distros, like PuppyOS, used ALSAconf to make the sound chips work. But, as nice as Puppy was, it had other problems I did not want to work out. I don't know why I tried Vector. I tried the SOHO live demo and it had alsaconf that found and used the sound ES18XX system.
The old Compaq now has Vector 6 as its distro, with Ubuntu 9.04 on my newer Shuttle w/ Celeron 430 & 2GIG Ram triple booting with XP Pro and Win 7 RC.
Now, any suggestions for a pair of IBM Thinkpad 380 with 32 Meg RAM?
Paul
36 • Lots of light distros (by Jesse on 2009-10-26 14:08:20 GMT from Canada)
I'm really happy to see all the suggestions for light weight distros being mentioned. As some people pointed out, just about any Linux distro can be slimmed down, but some are tiny by default. I picked the ones here for the following reasons: 1. They had to be user friendly. I figure anyone who asks which distro to use probably isn't very experienced with Linux. 2. I had to have used the distro. I don't recommend products I haven't tried. 3. It had to work well by default on older machines. "Older" in my case being defined as a computer with specs lower than what I could find in a store four or five years ago.
I'm glad several people have added their knowledge to the question.
One thing I wondered while reading the Firefox story is, "Can Mozilla sue?" Not because it's a scam, but because they own the Firefox name. I would think they could at least force the scammers to change the name of the product much the same way they got Debian to call their fork Iceweasle.
37 • @ 17 (by P.T. Barnum on 2009-10-26 14:21:15 GMT from United States)
There is a sucker born every minute. If people are willing to pay $10,000 for a "spiritual retreat" with a con man posing as a guru, why shouldn't they pay $125 for a web browser? Capitalism, it works!
38 • Distributions for older hardware (by Gustavo on 2009-10-26 14:40:02 GMT from Brazil)
Let´s not forget about Zenwalk!
39 • older hardware (by Dolphin_oracle on 2009-10-26 14:41:44 GMT from United States)
Got give another shout out for Antix for older hardware (AMD Duron 900 mhz with 512mb ram). Works great on asus netbooks too, thanks to Debian work.
40 • Funtooture (by megadriver on 2009-10-26 14:48:57 GMT from Spain)
Fun, interesting times ahead for us Funtoo users!
A minimalist like me can't help to love the concept of a more independent distro, with a simplified, minimal set of core packages and the removal of silly wrappers (Gentoo has LOTS of them, nearly beats Debian in that respect) and other years-old cruft.
The more BSD-like ports system sounds a lot like Arch's ABS, so this old Archer approves!
And the licensing stuff is pretty daring, to say the least! I can't wait for the reaction of the "Church of the Free Software". I can clearly picture "St. IGNUcius" publicly invoking a "holy crusade" against this one. Fun times, indeed.
Cheers!
41 • Oops #40 (by megadriver on 2009-10-26 14:57:24 GMT from Spain)
I mean "can't help but love". Silly me. My english-fu sometimes is not strong enough.
Cheers!
42 • distros for old hardware (by Mike on 2009-10-26 15:02:39 GMT from United States)
Don't forget Absolute Linux or Vector Linux Light, very easy to install and runs great on old hardware. I think both are easier to use than DSL. As far as I can tell DSL is fairly dormant.
43 • Funtoo (by Icefox Fireweasel at 2009-10-26 15:35:04 GMT from United States)
Danial Robbins seems to be the type that, while brilliant with software and project complexities, seems to be the Vince McMahon (WWE or is it WWF?) of Linux. Watch the storm cloud of meaty drama to develop around the Funtoo world. I'll still use it if it's easier and less time consuming than Gentoo.
44 • For older hardware (by Barnabyh on 2009-10-26 15:42:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
How about the Debian Xfce/lxde install disk.
45 • Some responses (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-26 15:46:17 GMT from United States)
#4, #27: Sturgeon beat me to it. He quoted the part of the main text of the review that describes the bug in detail. gslapt is part of GSB so that definitely applies.
#13: GSB isn't a Linux distro but rather an add-on to Slackware, which is why it isn't listed as a separate distribution on DistroWatch.
#14: Is correct and linked my blog article. HP dropped Linux on their Mini consumer series netbooks the day Windows 7 was released. I referred to that timing as "an amazing coincidence or..." Read the linked post if you want more speculation and history :) HP still does offer Linux for businesses on their older Mini 5101 model if you want to pay upwards of US $500. They also axed their Mi interface.
re: Older PCs: I've tried just about everything suggested and then some to keep my Toshiba Libretto SS1010 alive. It's smaller than a netbook and has a Pentium 233MHz MMX processor, 64MB of RAM, and a 2.1GB hard drive. Nothing comes close to Vector Linux Light 6.0. Xfce is just too heavy for 64MB of RAM and is slow so Vector Linux Standard wouldn't do. A minimal install of Light is 1.1GB (without X). I had to do some work to squeeze it into 1.7GB or so with X and some lightweight apps. Performance is really decent with JWM or PekWM as the window manager. Damn Small Linux works well too and is easier to install but it is no longer being developed and uses older, no longer supported apps.
Once you get to 128MB of RAM you have lots of choices. Less than 128MB of RAM and your choices become much more limited. At 32MB of RAM I'd go with VL Light (and skip using the GUI admin tools completely) or DeLi Linux.
46 • Debris Linux poll (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-26 15:49:16 GMT from United States)
As another lightweight distro, Debris Linux, nears it's 2.0 release they are polling their community to see if people are interested in buying the distro preloaded on a USB stick. See: http://debrislinux.org/index.php?topic=433.0
47 • lightweight distros? (by Jason on 2009-10-26 15:58:47 GMT from United States)
no love for Wolvix Cub or Puppy Linux?
Puppy ran really well on my 350Mhz P2 with 256MB Ram and a 6GB HDD
48 • sorry about that (by Jason on 2009-10-26 16:02:09 GMT from United States)
ya forgot you did list puppy :( so disregard the puppy comments
49 • DistroWatch Weekly article on LTSP (by Rivet on 2009-10-26 16:04:26 GMT from India)
Since this week's topic is centered a bit around Distributions for older hardware, why not we have an article on DistroWatch Weekly about using older hardware for Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) - one good technology developed by open source community which extends the useful life of older hardware? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ltsp
50 • Another good choice for older hardware (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-26 16:18:08 GMT from United States)
Another good choice for older hardware down to about 96-128MB RAM is CDLinux. It's based on Slackware 12.2 at this point so it's pretty easy to add the pkgtools and slapt-get to extend it and keep it patched.
51 • older machines with newer hardware (by Sean on 2009-10-26 16:24:16 GMT from United States)
Many have an old box with a new monitor or printer, scanner or other hardware.
We have a vintage 1999 IBM box with a .9 processor and old graphics card by nVidia, but with a pretty new Samsung wide screen monitor. The monitor has no disc with drivers. It set up ok on Vista Basic, but is slow, so we searched for a linux.
Mint found it and tried to set it up, but the proper screen resolution has to be input every time it's rebooted, which is every day since we can't leave them on at night here.
We're still looking for a linux that will set up the monitor but be light enough for the slow cpu and graphics card.
52 • #51: Recommendation (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-26 16:28:31 GMT from United States)
@Sean: It's going to sound like I'm beating a dead horse but seriously, try Vector Linux. They have 3 or 4 sets of nVidia drivers to cover the old, the new, and everything in between. Support for older hardware is something the VL developers take very seriously.
You didn't say how much RAM you had. >=256MB go with VL Standard.
53 • upcoming distribution releases (by foone on 2009-10-26 16:34:35 GMT from Portugal)
It's a surprise to note that almost everybody have been commenting about the distros witch they believe that better feet in old hardware (maybe DWW could include some more reviews in this class), but so far, the expected excitement about the soon to be released Ubunto, Fedora, Suse, haven't attracted that much attention.
54 • Vector (by Sean on 2009-10-26 16:38:31 GMT from United States)
Hi Sean. Nice of you to read my post there.
We have Vector happily running on one of our old 2000 machines that had ME on it. We didn't think of trying the Vector 6 on the one with the brand new monitor.
It has 512Mb of RAM (the 1999 IBM). It started with 128 but has two slots so we upgraded when we were trying Vista Basic. The graphics card is a 5900 nVidia.
I'll come back in and post about the Vector 6 installation on that box. Hope the monitor sets up ok, that's been the buggaboo.
Thank you for the suggestion.
55 • LOL (by Sean on 2009-10-26 16:39:29 GMT from United States)
"Hi Sean" = Hi Caitlyn! (up all night with kid with the flu).
56 • Slackware review (by Donnie on 2009-10-26 16:53:23 GMT from United States)
@Caitlyn
I enjoyed your Gnome-on-Slackware review, but would also like to announce some Slackware news for the KDE fans.
KDE 4.3 was placed in the "current" repository over the weekend. So, if you have your machine set to use "current", a simple. . .
slackpkg update slackpkg install new slackpkg upgrade-all
. . .will install the new stuff.
A new "kdmrc" file will get installed as well, so make sure you switch over to it if you want to see the new desktop effects.
57 • One more vote for Tiny Core Linux (by Gnobuddy on 2009-10-26 17:02:19 GMT from United States)
Working in a cash-strapped educational situation, I continue to make do year after year with a handful of elderly Pentium III 450 MHz PC's with 128 MB of RAM each. In recent years, continuing code bloat has made it very difficult to find a Linux distribution that would boot and run at usable speed on this hardware, even though the only application I really need to run is a decent Web browser.
Then Tiny Core arrived. What a joy to find a truly tiny distro that is auto-configuring, rock-solid, and capable of running on this antiquated hardware! Tiny Core with Firefox 3.x installed is still light enough to load and run reasonably snappily on 128 M of RAM, and for the moment, at least, my old clunker PC's have been saved once again from a trip to the nearest landfill.
Thank you, Robert Shingledecker, for creating Tiny Core Linux! Thank you, all other Tiny Core developers!
-Gnobuddy
58 • Pay fer FF and stuff (by davemc on 2009-10-26 17:53:13 GMT from United States)
Someone who is likely to pay alot of money for an Open Source app is not likely to have any knowledge of the Open Source/Free Software movement in the first place, and after getting suckered is wont be likely to look favorably upon it afterwards. You can justify scams any way you like, but in the end every con artist only does what is in his/her dark nature, and so they would justify their nefarious operations by blaming the victim, yet everyone but them suffers the repercussions. In this case, they are apparently trying to take advantage of the blatant and willful neglect by our own community to get the word out about what we do and what Open Source is all about. One can hardly blame the sharks for stirring the oh so cloudy waters.
59 • low end distros (by chris on 2009-10-26 18:02:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Debian Squeeze + LXDE uses 32MB of RAM on my old toshiba satellite (p3 750mhz, 256MB RAM, 20GB HDD) I installed from netboot (kernel + initrd) for a minimal setup. As for out of the box default installations, I don't have much experience but zenwalk certainly whistled along quite nicely on similar hardware.
60 • RE 49 LTSP (by Jesse on 2009-10-26 18:07:04 GMT from Canada)
I'm a big fan of the Linux Terminal Server Project. It's a great way to go for organizations who want a bunch of basic PCs, but don't have the budget for new hardware. Schools, libraries and small non-profit groups come to mind. Userful is a company that does something similar, as I recall.
As much as I'd like to do a full feature on the project, I'm not really in a position to test their software. Most reviewers (so far as I know) don't have a bunch of low-end computers and a small server lying around to properly test drive this kind of set up. But you're right, LTSP is well worth a look.
61 • RE: 53 and some other stuff. (by Landor on 2009-10-26 18:20:34 GMT from Canada)
RE:53
I've been looking at Karmic a bit. They really have tightened things down when it comes to booting. That can be said for Fedora as well. All in all both of them are what we've come to expect from the two camps.
My son has been running Mandriva for a bit and has found 0 issues with it. He's really happy with it. I'm not a huge fan of RPM based distros when it comes down to it. I do admire a couple of them though, SUSE and RHEL (the latter for obvious reasons). That said, it goes to show that package management is really becoming a non-issue across distributions. He had run Mint for a bit but he started having hardware issues regarding his graphic card. Being young, instead of investigating, when we moved he just switched to Mandriva after it checked out fine. We're going to be swapping out his motherboard which will correct the issues he has. I seriously can't stand ATI.
As things get more polished how exciting can things really get? The majority of things we do find to get excited about (albeit negative) are flaws more than anything, bugs, etc. That says a lot about just how usable Linux is, as well all knew anyway.
For me, what I find exciting are apps. Finding new things that work exactly for what I want. A lot of times that's not really Linux related and more open source since some of them are cross platform. I also like stripping things down to the barest minimum. Like limbo, how low can you go. Tweaking's fun. :)
The new section:
I know Jesse said he based his new section on the distributions he knew. I personally believe that you can't try/cover everything and fit all things. I do feel that an attempt should have been made to when knowing that is an article/section you will be writing for. For me, that would show real interest to the reader that the article was in fact written to answer a common question.
Just my opinion though and I'm sure the article did help someone.
Funtoo:
It sounds like DR is taking Gentoo down an even more niche based road. I found it kind of crazy too that he was calling some stuff that he himself created, "cruft". I may be taking it the wrong way, almost as if that Gentoo has it all wrong and he's got the fix. That's the way it read to me, but I'm biased in this regard. Anyone view it differently?
Here's an honest comment regarding Gentoo. Biggest problem I find in Gentoo today is their documentation. A lot of their documentation, though rightly held in the regard it should be, is outdated. Installation handbook, desktop installation. They're both lacking at present. That's just two areas off the top of my head. Sure, for someone seasoned it's not an issue and knowing how to search the forums brings tons of info. For the new Gentoo user it's a stumbling block. Other than that though, the IRC, Forums, Packages, etc are all moving along.
I guess it can be said for any distribution. How many times has someone searched something, went to look for info and it was dated at best. Documentation will always be an issue in our community. Up to date documentation that is. So few people really want to do it. Like localizations I'd imagine. I'll admit, that area isn't an area I'd want to work in, mainly due to it not being one of my strengths though, more than it being the job of an unsung hero.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
62 • What? No mention of Windows 7? (by Ubu Walker on 2009-10-26 18:35:41 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
63 • @45 STURGEON!!! (by stuckinoregon on 2009-10-26 18:50:00 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
64 • Linux on old(er) computer (by Ed Kappesser on 2009-10-26 19:02:32 GMT from United States)
I was amazed by the Vector Linux 6.0 light edition. It runs reasonably fast on an old Gateway; 200MH Celeron processor, 64MB RAM. All installed hardware recognized and auto-configured. Web browsing is a bit slow but acceptable with Opera (one of three available browsers). In addition to easy install, configure, and use, package management lets you add your choice of lots of available applications with choices to make almost anyone happy. Vector 6.0 light edition definitely gets my endorsement as a good choice for older hardware. In fact, I like it so well that I would even say it's a GREAT choice over most of the other small distros.
65 • Response to #31 (by Niki Kovacs on 2009-10-26 19:06:00 GMT from France)
"I run a blog on high blood pressure - causes and cures - which I suspect attracts an average 45 year old plus surfer. So I was surprised to note on Google analytics that approx 17% of all visitors to the site were using Linux operating systems. This is far more than I expected - particularly for an older crowd of surfers.
Is it possible that Linux is being taken up the older generation faster than the newer one?"
No, that's just the crowd of Fedora users suffering from high blood pressure caused by an increasing amount of weekly updates.
:o)
66 • RE: 62: This is a LInux Bsd site. (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-10-26 19:12:41 GMT from United States)
Sorry but Windows 7 does not deserve a place on this site. Ubuntu and several other distros have surpassed Windows 7 already. Yes I have used it and see no reason to be impressed. And no DistroWatch has not taught you to try out Microsoft Windows in any way shape or form. If you want to use MS Windows then that's your problem but it doesn't have a place here.
67 • Small distro's (by Jim C on 2009-10-26 19:15:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
I can also vouch for Antix , it is the only distro that would boot graphically into a 64Mb pc and performed well, Impressive !
68 • #63: Apology to stuckinoregon (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-26 19:21:34 GMT from United States)
#63: stuckinoregon, my sincere apologies! I don't know how I saw "sturgeon". I do really like fish, I guess, or I was trying to do too many things at once this morning. Either way I'm glad you found it funny rather than getting angry with me. I'll admit I am laughing at myself while writing this.
Again, stuckinoregon gets the credit for #34, not some fish.
69 • Light (by Anonymous on 2009-10-26 19:56:46 GMT from United States)
SLAX! over Wolvix! I am throughly disappointed, Mr Smith.
70 • Re: Paying for Firefox (by Duhnonymous on 2009-10-26 20:32:31 GMT from United States)
If you bother to read the article, it mentions that these scammers who make you pay for Firefox also make misleading claims about what you are paying for and how you are paying. It isn't *technically* credit card fraud, but it is theft in the sense that they are stealing money from people who are ignorant (who are generally people who cannot afford to lose money).
I'm all for caveat emptor and I think that using this as an argument for a "strong" trademark policy is a rather illogical way to argue, but the main problem is the vulnerability of certain search engines to those kind of scams. Plus, people should be careful to not trust any search engine for a product that they may want to purchase unless they are absolutely positive that that search engine is completely trustworthy.
71 • Flash (by Thomas on 2009-10-26 21:05:50 GMT from Germany)
What can i do to get flash working faster in linux? i have 3 pcs and tried about 15 linux distros on them. on my best pc with 6Ghz fullscreen youtube was almost running fluently. with my laptop (1.133 ghz) i can't even watch a dvd fluently. Sincerely
72 • Flash (by Thomas on 2009-10-26 21:14:29 GMT from Germany)
yes, i got nvidia drivers installed, checked out different versions of the driver, different linuxes, disabled compiz, installed only minimal systems, tried out different pcs....i tried out everything....you're like my last hope ;)
73 • use the RC (by reuben on 2009-10-26 21:21:23 GMT from United States)
If you have to have ubuntu and want the new version, then your best bet is to grab the RC right now. Then you can update it to the full release.
74 • #69: Slax over Wolvix (by Anonymous on 2009-10-26 21:50:38 GMT from United States)
Maybe if Wolvix actually gets a release out for the first time in two years instead of leaving us stuck in beta land for extended periods of time people will feel comfortable recommending it again. I really, really liked Wolvix 1.1.0. I wrote a very favorable review at: http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/08/wolvix_110_a_very_flexible_ani.html That was more than two years ago!
The 2.0 beta looked promising and nothing more happened. Now I understand they are rebasing on Slackware 13.0. They would have been better served getting 2.0 out and then rebasing.
Right now Wolvix just isn't something I can recommend because I don't know when it will actually come out, if ever. I really hate to say that because I really did like Wolvix.
75 • #76 was mine (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-26 21:51:20 GMT from United States)
Sorry. That's what I get for rushing through things.
76 • new sidux and light distros (by anticapitalista on 2009-10-26 23:55:20 GMT from Greece)
The latest preview release of sidux is well worth trying out as it follows the sidux tradition of being released when ready which menas that it is not only fast, but fully functional (unlike some distros' final releases). sidux is fast, bleeding edge but stable(ish), and like Arch a rolling release. (though my criticism of it is that it not flexible enough) Give it a shot, you may just love it.
As far a light distros go, there are several excellent ones out there that are still actively developed. Apart from the 3 mentioned in the article (just to point out that DSL is no longer under active development it seems) I'll just mention a few I really like: slitaz, TinyCore, Debris and of course the one CM loves to hate - "antiX" (I wonder who develops that one :) )
77 • RE: 76 (by Landor on 2009-10-27 01:18:04 GMT from Canada)
How are you doing Anti?
I've got a quick question. How has the switch for Mepis to Debian stable changed your development process, if at all? I asked this because I read somewhere (maybe here) that Mepis is working, or gearing up towards KDE 4.XX. I viewed that as a long term goal since Debian 5.0 isn't even a year old. Wondered if Mepis is going to jump the gun at all move to testing, or not, and as I asked, how does that all fit with your development.
Ok, maybe it wasn't so quick :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
78 • @35 - Super Low Memory (by Andrew on 2009-10-27 01:47:10 GMT from Australia)
>> Now, any suggestions for a pair of IBM Thinkpad 380 with 32 Meg RAM?
Yes, but only one: Delilinux 0.8.0. It's recently increased the minimum memory to 32MB, though version 0.7.2 only needs 16MB.
I have a suggestion - do a proper article about Linux on low-spec/old PCs. Something like:
Pentium and below, less than 64MB: 1. Delilinux (0.8.0 requires 32MB, 0.7.2 requires 16MB) 2. Tiny Core (requires 32MB) 3. DSL (requires 64MB)
Pentium I to II, less than 128MB: 1. CrunchBang? 2. Debian (non Gnome/KDE Window Manager) 3. Slackware (non Gnome/KDE Window Manager) 4. ?
Pentium II to III, less than 256MB: 1. ? 2. ? 3. ?
IMHO if you've got 512MB of RAM, all distros will run - though obviously the more memory the better!
79 • #76: AntiX (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-27 02:03:14 GMT from United States)
I don't hate your distro. I've never tried your distro. How could I like it, hate it, or have any opinion about it?
What I objected to was a political statement you chose to make with your distro.
80 • Small System Distro's (by Anonymous on 2009-10-27 02:14:55 GMT from United States)
Does anything "current" run on i80386 & 4MB RAM? How about i80486 or i80586. So far everything mentioned seems to be i80686 or higher.
81 • a whole kennel (by Lobster on 2009-10-27 03:00:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Many thanks for suggesting Puppy for the latest netbook and multicore hardware. Where it runs very well too.
Small Puppy like distro . . . http://puppylinux.org/wikka/NOP
. . . a whole kennel http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puplets
in fact . . . create your own distro . . . http://puppylinux.org/wikka/CreateLiveCDorDVD
Puppy + Debian = http://dpup.org/
82 • #80: Minimal distros (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-27 03:04:56 GMT from United States)
There are some floppy-based distros and some things like Basic Linux that will run on really minimal hardware. However, for a modern "current" distro that can do meaningful work the absolute minimum seems to be a Pentium class system (i586) with 32MB of RAM. As already noted a few distros can run with a lightweight window manager and lighweight apps with that hardware. Vector Linux Light can, DeLi Linux can, and probably a few others. Heck, I've done a minimal Ubuntu build, added X and minimal apps and made it work on a 133MHz Pentium system with 32MB. That system died last year but it worked reasonably well.
83 • #71/72 -- Flash on Linux -- how long is a piece of string? (by gnomic on 2009-10-27 03:19:26 GMT from New Zealand)
Erm, have you considered the possibility that you are hopeless? Your question, if intended seriously, is so inspecific as to be unanswerable. About all I can tell you is that on a 1.13 GHz PIII ThinkPad T23 with 768MB RAM running Puppy Linux in RAM commercial DVDS play perfectly well here. As to full screen YouTube, not really my thing, but likewise a flv file played OK here in a window. If you really want assistance, try the forums for particular distros.
84 • @80 (by Andrew on 2009-10-27 03:50:11 GMT from Australia)
Delilinux claims that it is still the lightest distro that provides a GUI, so if you're wanting a GUI (which you haven't said either way) then 16MB is your absolute minimum to run Delilinux 0.7.2, or 32MB to run 0.8.0.
As for console only - I had Suse 9.1 running with only 8MB and doing sweet F.A., though I'm sure you can has a custom install working with 4MB and a stack of swap.
Lynx FTW!
85 • #79 - antiX and his "...political statement..." (by George Bush on 2009-10-27 04:07:43 GMT from United States)
Absolutely agree. I have few things I agree with CM, but this one is spot on !
86 • Fewer Ubuntu Shipments? (by Anonymous on 2009-10-27 04:09:40 GMT from Seychelles)
Nobody seems to find this important, but I believe it is vital. I am pretty sure that fewer Ubuntu shipments will mean, in time, fewer users. Now that people have to download Ubuntu and not find it ready to use in their nearest "geeks club" or given to them by a friend, maybe they will start considering Ubuntu for what it is really worth, bad or good is not up to me. And then maybe they'll start considering other distributions. They might even like them...
87 • #79 Statement? (by Inca Roads on 2009-10-27 04:32:29 GMT from France)
> What I objected to was a political statement > you chose to make with your distro.
... do you reject any political statement or is it this one in particular? And what do you mean with "statement" anyway? After all, it's only one word. I wouldn't call that a statement.
88 • Distro for older PCs (by Joe on 2009-10-27 05:35:58 GMT from United States)
I run Slitaz 2.0 on a Pentium 233 MMX desktop with 320MB RAM. Firefox was too slow so I replaced the browser.
I'm currently running Vector Linux on two of my M700 PIII laptops. The Light version for a 700MHz CPU and Standard for a 1GB CPU. I can even run youtube flash video full screen on the one with a 1GB CPU and 512MB of RAM.
Of course, I can run most distros on a PIII with a 1GB CPU and 512MB of RAM (like Vector Linux SOHO or Standard, Mepis, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, etc.)
When I move up to the Pentium M/Centrino CPUs with 1GB of RAM or greater, I can run just about anything.
89 • @87 (by Joe on 2009-10-27 05:40:29 GMT from United States)
That would be a brief statement. ;-)
90 • distro for older pcs (by gnomic on 2009-10-27 06:06:40 GMT from New Zealand)
Just wandering down memory lane, I recall running SuSE 6.4 on a 486DX/33 with 20MB of RAM around about 1998 . . . I even used the interwebs. Of course Satan hadn't invented Flash at that stage :-> Real Linux users don't need a gui of course - you do know how to use vi, don't you? And lynx should be good enough for anyone.
There is PupFlux out there somewhere, or PupFluxLite for those who can go as root out into that dark night. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=38412
91 • #87: Clarification (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-27 06:07:07 GMT from United States)
@Inca Roads: I object to just the one name for the release and to AntiX's expanded comments here on DWW some months back. I really, really do not want to elaborate on the political issues here. This isn't the place for it I'll gladly discuss this further by private e-mail if you wish.
FWIW, the choice of the name was political in nature so, yes, one word can make a statement.
92 • Flash (by Thomas on 2009-10-27 08:13:46 GMT from Germany)
In Windows, flash is playing beautifully. In Linux, and as i've read, also in OSX, the performance is equally bad. (cpu load Windows for youtube about 6% and on the same machine in OSX about 40%...and linux even worse...i've found an ars technica report) there has to be done a lot of work. i understand that this is mostly because of adobes dirty flash conversion to unix, nevertheless it is really annoying for new users. i know about puppy linux, but my printer doesn't work with it. actually, everything except for ubuntu is too much work for me since i had to fiddle around in the guts of the OSes and just want a stable system that works and is intuitive and just has a little touch of looking like a professional system.
93 • No subject (by Hannah on 2009-10-27 09:40:08 GMT from Finland)
Dear DistroWatch, could you please add Hannah Montana Linux to your page.
94 • #91 (by anticapitalista on 2009-10-27 09:43:57 GMT from Greece)
All the release names for antiX are political. For your political reasons, you objected to the release name of antiX-M8 and the political statement associated with it and decided to boycott it. That is up to you.
#77 Landor - hi, I'm fine, and you?
MEPIS development doesn't affect antiX much as antiX uses Debian Stable and Testing repos so users can install KDE4.2 now if they wish. The MEPIS parts minus kde that are included in antiX are obviously affected, ie MEPIS tools and kernel. antiX-M8.5 (release name Marek Edelman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek_Edelman) has some new features that we are working on and internal tests indicate that these new features work. Still early days, but things are looking good.
95 • Flash (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-27 10:50:02 GMT from United States)
#92: @Thomas: Sorry, but Flash is a resource hog under Linux and since Flash is proprietary that cannot be fixed. For most of us putting up with that is better than putting up with viruses, worms, torjans, botnets, spyware, etc... all associated with Windows but not with Linux. You have to choose what is important to you and use the operating system that suits your needs.
96 • Ubuntu RC is awful (by Drake on 2009-10-27 11:41:39 GMT from United States)
I recommend trying Ubuntu RC only after unplugging any valuable HD. It nuked my boot sector on alternate, non-OS drive. And it has a clusterf**k of cryptsetup/Luks issues. RC should mean suitable for user testing. It clearly isn't.
97 • @61 RE: Funtoo (by megadriver on 2009-10-27 11:44:27 GMT from Spain)
Well, I don't find that strange to find defects in stuff one made ten years ago. People improve and learn with the years (or they should, at least).
I, for one, find a medium-sized VB6 app I made ten years ago for a friend's small business kinda ugly and full of cruft (I'm still sort of proud of it, 'cause it does its work, and it's still being used by them daily). If I had to do it again now, it ceirtainly would be QUITE different (it would be cross-platform, for starters! and it would use VERY different technologies).
I'm not trying to compare an awesome achievent like Gentoo with a crappy VB6 app I made, of course! But I don't think it's weird that Daniel Robbins wants to make a "new and improved Gentoo" using new ideas and stuff that didn't exist ten years ago. I'm sure he's still proud of his ten-year old "child" (he should be!)
98 • RE:96: That's not ture for everyone. (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-10-27 14:54:08 GMT from United States)
@Drake. How did you do that? I've installed the RC on several systems and I've not had the problems that you speak of. It may not be suitable for your testing but you shouldn't speak for anyone else. I'm not saying it couldn't happen but the RC is not "awful" as you state. What is going to be hard for a lot of people is to learn is how Grub 2 operates. Now I have seen a distro do what you described but it was OpenSuse 11.2 Milestone 8. I do not consider it to be an "awful" distro either. Besides its very easy to reclaim the data off of a hard drive that has had a boot sector borked, partition erased, or even formated.
99 • #91 Re: Clarification (by Inca Roads on 2009-10-27 15:38:39 GMT from France)
> I object to just the one name for the release and to AntiX's > expanded comments here on DWW some months back
... ahhh, I wasn't aware of that. It must have been exciting :-)
Last night I had a look at anticapitalista's antiX web site. The distro looks quite interesting to me. I will certainly try it out sometime. I also saw that anticapitalista likes to give individual antiX releases names that have some sort of tinge or political connotation. Still, in my opinion one word out of context doesn't make a political statement. A name like this works more on an intuitive level. It only means something to those of us who are sensitive to it. Whether we agree with it or not is another matter. In a wider sense the name Ubuntu also invokes a political message. But I have yet to come across anyone who is opposed to it. It is just too nice and too uncontroversial.
I also had a look at your own web site last night and I can see why you were miffed about the name of the previous antiX release. Being a political activist yourself you surely know that there is plenty of opposition to your cause all over the world. But you should also know that it's no good trying to silence the other side by asking for a depoliticization of the debate when it is convenient. This is what I meant with my question (#87) whether you reject any political statement or just the one anticapitalista made with the name of his antiX release. I suspect you were a tad selective here.
> This isn't the place for it I'll gladly discuss this further > by private e-mail if you wish.
... nah, I don't think that would get us anywhere. I disagree with you politically but I very much appreciate the direct and open way you engage in this forum, your helpful hints and ideas and your interesting and knowledgeable articles. DistroWatch wouldn't be the same without you. I also agree with you that we should try to keep Near East politics out of this forum as good as we can. But I also think that we should be a bit more relaxed if controversial issues like this pop up once in a while. A bit less hyper-sensitivity on all sides would be a good start.
... and then there's of course our favorite OS to talk about. Plenty of politics in that, if you ask me ...
Is Ballmer evil? (most certainly). Does he pull the strings behind Novell? (probably). Is mono harmful to Linux (possibly). Is Stallman a nutter? (most certainly not). etc. etc. ...
100 • Flash on Linux (by Alberto on 2009-10-27 15:45:54 GMT from Spain)
To the guy with flash problems: I've read that Firefox(windows version)+wine does improve flash performance on Linux. It's not ideal, but you could give it a try.
101 • Flash (by Anonymous on 2009-10-27 22:28:53 GMT from United States)
For YouTube Flash I use Firefox and UnPlug Download the video Play the file.flv using gmplayer (Mplayer) Low CPU and do not worry about Flash or browser problems, since it is now local
Yes it is more steps but when watching with the Adobe Flash plugin the video sometimes stops or jitters as the network delivers it. Once downloaded it plays great since my hard drive is way faster. And I can even unplug the network. No phoning home, etc....
102 • Re 86: Ubuntu's decision to stop giving away CD-ROMs is... (by G on 2009-10-27 22:42:47 GMT from United States)
...the beginning of the end. Canonical has given up on its original goal of winning the home (read "human") desktop battle, and is making a last-gasp effort at cracking the enterprise market. Here's some interesting reading that shows just how confused Ubuntu's business model is now - it's based on succeeding in dubious "new" markets and working with IBM to be a niche player at best:
http://m.news.com/2166-12_3-10382984-264.html
Good luck! Corporations will continue to use Windows XP as long as they can. My company now is replacing 4,000 old XP computers ... with 4,000 new XP computers! The OS is becoming less and less important, and needs to be upgraded only when that killer app, or the browser needed to access a web-based system, requires it. Standards-compliant office suites and financial software running smoothly on a no-frills, bug-free OS are what businesses want, not "cloud computing" like Canonical hopes!
103 • Re: #101 Flash (by Inca Roads on 2009-10-27 22:51:00 GMT from France)
That's one way to avoid Adobe blobs in one's system. But I wonder if there's not a more convenient way to watch browser embedded flash videos without using proprietary closed source programs. How about Swfdec or Gnash? Don't they work with YouTube & Co.?
104 • #96: Ubuntu RC has been prefect here (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-10-27 23:11:29 GMT from United States)
I have had no problems at all with Ubuntu RC on two machines both with dual or multiboot environments. I'm not saying the reported problem isn't real on your hardware. I'm also, since we're talking about touching another OS, if there is user error involved here. Anyway, if anyone is expecting me to write an "Ubuntu sucks" review they are going to be sorely disappointed unless the final release goes backwards in a big way.
105 • grub2, anyone appreciate it? (by RollMeAway on 2009-10-28 04:12:34 GMT from United States)
Second time a distro installation has wiped a partition table by installing grub2 to MBR. I recently upgraded an existing installation to parsix-3.0r0. The original installation had grub2 chainloading from grub-legacy.
After recovering my partitions, and reinstalling my own boot loader to MBR, I did a chroot into parsix and tried installing grub2 to the root partition. Repeated attempts all failed. Web searches led me to believe the version 1.97-BETA3 used by parsix (debian testing) has a bug preventing root partition installation. My attempts appeared to work, but nothing was installed. Trying to boot gave just a black screen with "GRUB" displayed.
Grub-legacy would not install without removing dozens of packages, including gnome-panel and gnome-control-center. Here is a classic dependency problem! I finally installed lilo. Never thought I would go back to lilo, but had no other choice.
I find the documentation for grub2 lacking. Multiple configuration files, 5 in /etc/grub.d and one in /etc/default is ridiculous. I believe linux has a serious problem with the available choices for boot loaders.
Now, does someone have a positive comment for grub2?
106 • Ubuntu:Link in 102, M Shuttleworth and cloud computing (by Barnabyh on 2009-10-28 10:52:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks for the link. Why exactly is new about so called cloud computing? I mean we have had web based email services for at least 14 years, does that not qualify as cloud? I can remember using something called X-drive on Windows back in the nineties (around '98), which was free then as they were trying to build up a market. This gave 50Mb storage for backup on their 'cloud'-drive, and eventually was commercialised. It also illustrated the dangers of proprietary and commercial solutions early on when they decided to turn it into a paid service with only about two weeks notice before users who did not wish to pay lost access to their files. As far as I'm concerned this is far from new. Now buying virtualised computing power on a pay as you go as needed basis, that's different.
Btw, what happened to this weeks feature story, no comments relating to that?
barnabyh
107 • 106, continuation (by Barnabyh on 2009-10-28 11:08:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
Even found a link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xdrive_(website) , it appears they have still been around until recently. As said, I used it much earlier when the limit was 50 MB, but that goes to show the concept is hardly a new one. Also online calendaring, pim and document and photo sharing between several computers or a group of users has been around for at least as long for example via Yahoo. Shuttleworth obviously believes tapping into his userbase may make it different for Canonical and they may actually make some money from it. Remains to be seen. But to come back to the original comment, yes, it seems like grasping for straws.
108 • RE: 102 What are you trying to say? (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-10-28 13:20:42 GMT from United States)
I'm still trying to figure out what you are trying to say. Are you saying that Linux on the desktop is dead? Are you saying that Windows XP is the wave of the future? You need to redefine your statement just a little in order for it to be factual. What is the purpose of your post? Wait, I remember now from your post in weeks past. You just hate Ubuntu. Have fun with your NEW 4000 (rolls eyes) XP computer systems.
109 • Ubuntu 9.10 released on 40th anniversary of Internet (by merlin on 2009-10-28 14:32:52 GMT from Canada)
Intentional or coincidence? Discuss.
110 • Re: #105, grub2 (by Inca Roads on 2009-10-28 15:19:43 GMT from France)
> Now, does someone have a positive comment for grub2?
No, I don't as I haven't seen it, yet. But I find your experience with grub2 shocking. Should there still be serious problems with this new boot-manager and/or its implementation the world will be in for a bad surprise tomorrow with the global roll-out of Ubuntu 9.10. I wonder what will happen if your experience with grub2 wasn't just an unfortunate glitch on your particular machine but revealed some serious underlying problems. Have you been in touch with the developers or the Ubuntu maintainers? It's a shame because I've been looking forward to the Karmic Koala ...
111 • No subject (by capricornus on 2009-10-28 15:57:45 GMT from Belgium)
@105 & 110 does someone have a positive comment for grub2? NO! -not yet- I was put down on the Mint forum for bad mouthing GRUB2. Just because it does things I don't want and that I can't control. That makes me a dummie and a noob all of a sudden :-( Since distro's come with GRUB2 I don't test anymore, waiting for some solution for the problem; it misses a GUI, for instance, with which all these dummies that are going to test and try the Ubuntu Koala will be faced. Imagine, just imagine, all the guys and galls that just bought a new toppie with Win7, and hupla, the Karmic Grubby Beast hides it. That will cause an uproar and outcry. But nobody listens, or so it seems.
112 • Another Vote for SliTaz (by deek on 2009-10-28 16:52:26 GMT from United States)
I used to be a regular user of DSL and occaisionally SLAX (both great distros) but after finding SliTaz, I haven't gone back to using anything else.
I haven't had a full distro installed on a computer in a while, but I do use LiveCDs loaded to RAM on a couple laptops. I don't need any persistency, just a solid linux environment that works.
SliTaz is small, has everything I need to do basic, everyday computing and is as solid as anything I've used before.
113 • RE: 78 Super low computer specs RE: 111 grub2 (by Paul on 2009-10-28 18:32:48 GMT from United States)
Andrew, thanks for the suggestion. I heard of Deli Linux but never looked into it.
I agree that with all the old machines out there hiding in boxes and closets, that can be of some use with the proper Linux distro.
Capricornus, I have not tried Koala RC as a dual boot yet. Not sure I want to now. Too bad Ubuntu is not like Vector for setting up your multi boot. The LILO in Vector lists all other Operating Systems on the computer and allows you to select your default. I am slowly drifting away from Ubuntu. Vector is looking good to me. Except now that I have my wife weaned away from Windows, switching distros will be tricky. I had XP booted this morning for my Windows only app and she demanded Ubuntu to check her e-mail. Making progress on the home front.
Paul
114 • PhoenixOS (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-10-28 19:05:44 GMT from Denmark)
Hello Why is there no reference to PhoenixOS on Distrowatch?
115 • No subject (by capricornus on 2009-10-28 20:19:36 GMT from Belgium)
SLITAZ. Just downloaded cooker and installed it. It's GRUB is malign. The only OS that remains is ... SLITAZ, right you were. Well, I just installed my old Wolvix Hunter again, it is old and stable and complete, and it's GRUB is well educated. So I can access my pc again as it should. These GRUBitities make me very tired and frustrated. They should be solved by the community.
116 • Fork Gentoo! (by Anonymous on 2009-10-28 23:59:13 GMT from United States)
Probably the best thing to try and save the other distros that are derived from it. The dysfunctional illegitimate sons of hoes that are running that "boy's club" are about worthless. They make architectural changes based on which one of their 'buds' has the newest gimmick.
Clearing the cruft away from what they've done to the packaging system will be a full time job. They still have an inventory of unresolved problems over three years old. Their pat responses are 'upstream is making the change not us', 'to do this would be only a temporary solution'. ANYTHING! Anything at all to keep from making a decision or taking a stand. Get over it guys! Physical Life is temporary! Make it work for somebody, don't just leave a package half workable for everybody.
Fork Gentoo! Fork Gentoo! Fork Gentoo! I like the sound of that...
117 • Grub2 roulette (by RollMeAway on 2009-10-29 04:45:13 GMT from United States)
Grub2 successfully installed to the root partition in ubuntu 9.10. The grub2 version here is 1.97-BETA4. The note I posted in #105 was BETA3.
Isn't it odd for ANY distro to use a BETA version for something so important as the boot loader?
This uncertainty may not apply if you install grub2 to the MBR. However, there are 7 config file scripts in /etc/grub.d plus one in /etc/default for this distro, not counting the 144 files in /boot/grub. Is this degree of complexity really necessary? Look at lilo and grub-legacy for a hint!
118 • @114 (by Anonymous on 2009-10-29 07:21:57 GMT from United States)
Sorry but your distro isn't in the dw clique.
119 • ubuntu grub killer (by mika480 on 2009-10-29 11:02:44 GMT from Italy)
Ubuntu 9.10 rc spoiled my grub... did it the same to you?
120 • Ubuntu 9.10 is out at 12:30pm GMT (by hob4bit on 2009-10-29 12:39:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hiya, Ubuntu 9.10 is out at 12:30pm GMT:
http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso
121 • Great Day in LA (by Ubunlu Lover on 2009-10-29 13:09:13 GMT from United States)
No, Grub2 works flawless in Ubuntu Karmic.Let the tsunami of joy sweep over you !!!
It's the day the lord has set aside for all to wonder...
122 • No subject (by megadriver on 2009-10-29 13:13:23 GMT from Spain)
Posting from Seamonkey 2.0, freshly emerged from the Mozilla overlay.
The wait was worth it. It's clean, FAST and feature-packed. Everybody, please give it a try! You might love it (I do!)
Cheers!
123 • Re: #121 "Great Day in LA " (by Inca Roads on 2009-10-29 16:32:32 GMT from France)
> No, Grub2 works flawless in Ubuntu Karmic. > Let the tsunami of joy sweep over you !!!
... hehe!
That's good news, indeed. I was a bit worried about the grub2 issues some have been complaining about here. I've just finished downloading the Karmic ISO. It took only a little more than 22 minutes ... not bad for such a busy day. What I find annoying is that the MD5 sums are nowhere to be found on Ubuntu's download page. I always have to google for them. Or am I overlooking something?
I will install Ubuntu tonight when my girlfriend lets me use the computer ... hmm ...
124 • PhoenixOS on Distrowatch? (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-10-29 19:11:08 GMT from Denmark)
It would be nice to get some kind of reaction from Caitlyn Martin, Jesse Smith or Ladislav. Why isn´t PhoenixOS here? I can´t find it on the waiting list either.
125 • PhoenixOS on Distrowatch? (by Henning Melgaard at 2009-10-29 19:17:10 GMT from Denmark)
@125 Okay I see that it has been added yesterday :-)
126 • another distro bites the dust (by Anonymous on 2009-10-29 19:32:40 GMT from Netherlands)
firefly linux. the web site is dead, no betas. this was looking like a great netbook distro based on arch linux. too bad
127 • 'buntu shipit (by meami on 2009-10-30 01:11:48 GMT from United States)
Guess I can't order cds anymore. Would be nice if I had a fast and unlimited internet connection available in my area (an affordable one). I've been ordering one about every other release.
"Demand for Ubuntu CDs is very high, and we're trying to ensure that we have enough CDs for those who really need one. We've noticed that you've already received CDs of several previous Kubuntu releases. You can help us ensure the continued availability of Kubuntu CDs by
* upgrading to the new release without a CD * downloading your own CD for free * becoming an Ubuntu member by contributing to Kubuntu, and thereby becoming eligible for more CDs
Thanks for your support of Kubuntu!"
128 • LiveCD (by Plume on 2009-10-30 04:13:33 GMT from France)
I know and I like Puppy and Slax which I use on a daily basis. Slax is on a Athlon XP 1800+/1 Gb RAM. Puppy is on the same box as well as on a PII 366 MHz/192 Mb RAM. What I want to point out is that these distro are designed as LiveCDs. Maybe all DWW readers know that... Of course they can be full installed (quite easily if you already have an other Linux installed with a boot loader) but remember that they can miss some utilities that "true" distro have.
An other thing: I agree with #88. A PIII with 512 Mb RAM is able to run every Linux distro, provided there is no compiz effects, no too heavy desktop manager, no flash on every web page and if you choose lightweight applications.
129 • @ 127 Ubuntu Shipit (by Untitled on 2009-10-30 07:07:41 GMT from Germany)
1. I've had a quick look on froogle and ebay and there are several options available for people who want or need the CD. They are not free but if I couldn't download Kubuntu for free I'd gladly pay $3.75 (shipping included) and I think that for what I'd be getting it would be a steal. 2. But since Linux would be nothing with the community (or communities) around it, I do believe that part of the deal is to contribute something back to the community so if you email me your postal address I will gladly download, burn and send you a Kubuntu CD.
130 • Grub on Koala 9.10 (by Paul on 2009-10-30 08:57:12 GMT from United States)
I used Transmission to download Koala yesterday morning, (release day) surprised me it took less than half an hour. I loaded it onto my Shuttle with Celeron 430/ 2 Gig RAM. That also has Win7 RC and XP Pro. I did not have any problems. All three boot as expected.
I did have Koala RC on a single hard drive for testing and ran the upgrade on that. I keep that as my backup OS drive. Nice to have spare hard drives for testing.
I have the Deli Linux suggested for the old laptops. I'll give it a shot on my other spare. Noticed the logo for Deli is a stylised rendition of a popular sci-fi space craft. Was it planned that way?
Pet your favorite breed of penguins.
Paul
131 • Ubuntu 9.10 impression (by Anonymous on 2009-10-30 13:55:34 GMT from Canada)
Improvement in start up time. With a live USB, on a PC with Core2 Due E7200 2.53MHz, 2Gb RAM, it took 45-46 sec. to complete the start up, this is an improvement from 49-50 sec. for 9.04. Since I use Linux mainly for live sessions on office PC for short period of time, so every second counts.
But, on my personal laptop, AMD 2800+, 1.2Gb RAM, it does not have automatic support for the built-in Wi-Fi. Really disappointed. Hoped to find an alternative to the extremely slow Sabayon, the only distro that can automatically support for my built-in Wi-Fi and automatically search for available wireless networks.
132 • Alt Linux (by Sean on 2009-10-30 14:30:47 GMT from United States)
Just to mention that I thought it was nice of the Alt Linux people to include two versions of their distribution in one release announcement for Distrowatch.
133 • ubuntu reviews? (by ag on 2009-10-30 16:13:09 GMT from India)
why are some ubuntu rc reviews not marked as rc? we users go to the page excited to check the review, just to know that its an rc. some of us would not be interested in rc reviews, even if the os is the most stable one or pen-ultimate built. grr!
134 • Ubuntu 9.10 Review (by Duhnonymous on 2009-10-30 18:23:26 GMT from United States)
In a word: fast.
If you need a better review, you should probably just wait a week or two. You're not going to see any good reviews till then.
135 • No subject (by bug on 2009-10-30 19:28:17 GMT from United States)
thanks for the comments about antiX, i had not heard of it
i have a soft spot in my heart [or head] for political distros
blag, dynebolic, now antiX
[although i use puppy]
136 • WWW (by Anonymous on 2009-10-30 22:52:30 GMT from United States)
Just how low spec. of a computer can be used to surf the web with similar results like Firefox or Opera? Is there any other browsers with less cpu-memory requirments? I just don't see Firefox being usable with less than 64meg of ram. I have tried all the text mode browsers from Debian's repository. And some of the graphical ones as well. The text ones simply do not do Javascript at all - seemingly. The Graphical ones also lack scripting or proper rendering.
137 • meami @127 (by D1Knight on 2009-10-31 00:57:26 GMT from United States)
I concur with Untitled @129. I too would be happy to burn you a copy of Kubuntu and mail it to you. Just Email me where you want it sent to, ok? If you are in the US too, it should only take a couple of days to arrive.
Like Untitled @129 was saying, we are a community, so it is good to try and help each other.Peace
138 • Smaller web browsers (by RollMeAway on 2009-10-31 02:27:31 GMT from United States)
@136: "Is there any other browsers with less cpu-memory requirments?" (debian)
Midori and kazehakase are worth a look. Seamonkey is smaller as well, but not readily available on debian. Don't overlook epiphany (gnome) or konqueror (kde).
139 • Saved by Ubuntu (by Robert Coulson on 2009-10-31 03:00:11 GMT from Canada)
My daughter Bobbi and her husband Lukas had their PC crash, they could not get all their pictures of their 2 children...I brought over Ubuntu 8.10, fired it up and with the CD/DVD burning program within Ubuntu, they were able to save and burn ALL their pictures to DVD's....Thanks Ubuntu.
They now think Linux may be better than they thought.
Thanks again Robert Coulson Mount Hope, Ontario Canada
140 • @136-Browser with less CPU/Mem (by D1Knight on 2009-10-31 07:17:31 GMT from United States)
This one is worth a good look http://www.dillo.org/ Enjoy.
141 • @136 (by megadriver on 2009-10-31 10:33:58 GMT from Spain)
Well, elinks does javascript, via Mozilla's spidermonkey library, but I've never tried it with complex stuff (AJAX and the like, 'cause I tend to dislike and avoid that kind of webpages).
Elinks is awesome. Has most of the stuff you'd expect of a modern browser (except graphics, of course, but you can easily configure an external viewer for that), even tabbed browsing. By virtue of being a text browser, it's LIGHTNING fast, as it cuts a lot of "crap" from the web, and gives you the most important thing (for me, anyway), the TEXT. It doesn't even need an ad blocker, 'cause it blocks them by being text-only.
I really, really like elinks. It's one of my favourite apps, and I find myself using it a lot, even if my machine is more than powerful enough to run the "heavy" graphical browsers (and I do use them too, of course).
This post made with elinks, by the way!
Cheers!
142 • Hv3 (by megadriver on 2009-10-31 10:56:49 GMT from Spain)
Oh, and another browser (this one graphical) that has also impressed me: Hv3.
Hv3 ("Html Viewer 3") is written in Tcl, is quite fast and light, supports javascript and renders the pages MUCH better than dillo, despite being described "alpha software" by the authors. If only it had better keyboard-only browsing support...
I'm keeping an eye on this one.
Cheers!
143 • RE: 139 (by IMQ on 2009-10-31 18:41:55 GMT from United States)
You just added another story how Linux saved the day.
I had done similar things for my friend's daughter's PC. For whatever reason, she couldn't access her files when booting up her PC the next day.
I suspect most people would take their PC to the shops where the technicians would use, ta da, Linux LiveCD to rescue the data before endure the hours to restore Windows to the so called working condition. And they charge the customer a truck load of money.
144 • AntiX (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-10-31 23:41:25 GMT)
Did you pick the name for the next AntiX to placate CM? I have nothing against the name you picked if it is for another reason. I haven't posted for a while because I actually kind of agree with what Notorik was saying and now he has apparently been banned. I hesitate to say this for fear of falling victim to the same fate but I also use Puppy and am not at all concerned about security.
145 • RE:143 (by Robert on 2009-11-01 04:32:12 GMT from Canada)
Yes, you are absolutely right....I can't tell you how many times I have taken in my PC (with Windows) to have it reformatted again and again...My daughter is in the middle of buying another computer, but after all that Linux did for her to retrieve her valuable pictures, she is still thinking Windows or Mac...Go figure.
Robert
146 • Grub2 (by Glenn on 2009-11-01 12:38:26 GMT from Canada)
Hi Gang. I installed Karmic and being a multi-booter, had a bit of a dance with GRUB2 trying to reconfigure my partitions to my requirements. I do not comprehend the need for the increased complexity of GRUB2 over basic GRUB but I presume there is an underlying reason. I really do not want to become a GRUB expert because I have a living to make and GRUB is not it, I onlt need it to boot my systems. Anyway, here is a pointer I found that really helped shortcut my learning curve and I was setup fairly quickly. Hope it helps you guys.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1285897
Thanks. Glenn
147 • 144 • AntiX- release name for 8.5 (by anticapitalista on 2009-11-01 15:16:34 GMT from Greece)
I did post a longer repy, but it has been deleted.
To answer the question without getting deleted is "no I didn't".
148 • Thoughts on Distros for Old PC's and New Distros' GUI Quest (by RO on 2009-11-01 18:01:45 GMT from United States)
Thoughts spurred by trying Kubuntu 9.10 and tips on http://digitizor.com/2009/10/06/7-things-to-look-out-for-in-kubuntu-9-10-karmic-koala such as running the Firefox installer since they could not fit the whole install package onto the CD image:
Thanks for the Firefox installer tip! I had tried it at first right after installing last night, but it kept telling me the files were already present, then quit. This seems to have been an artifact of using a separate boot partition originally set up by Ubuntu 8.04, then updated (and mangled) by several other distro installations to separate root partitions since. I had to re-learn with each one how to repair GRUB on the MBR, and clean up the /boot partition. The one thing it needs is to have the vmlinuz and initrd.img symlinks repointed to the latest distro's real vmlinuz and initrd files to get it to work right. Remembering that, and seeing your tip about the installer convinced me to give it one more try after correcting those symlinks - it worked!
This is after 'upgrading" the Win 2000 installation with XP (for those few things I just have to do with Windows like updating my Garmin GPS maps - argghh), and of course got the MBR clobbered, and could not get the repair techniques to work for restoring my GRUB multi-boot to get back to Mint 7 for that 99% of what I do on the PC in question. Now it seems I can boot and use Kubuntu 9.10, but not not Mint 7 - It seems a lot of these distro installations do not play nice with multi-booting other distros from a shared boot partition, but do Windows just fine since it is so simple to set up - something wrong with that picture.
So what is K3B?
[I just tried posting the above on that site, for the 3rd time, and no sign it was accepted, so I figured I better stop before all 3 versions and any more suddenly appear from some "hold-for-review" section - most embarassing]
I have not messed with KDE (3.something?) since PC Linux OS 2007, and that is a faded memory that bears just about no resemblance to what I see with kubuntu 9.10, which has a much more amorphous look than I recall.
This seems to be following a GUI fad towards vague and mushy interfaces - not something I find very appealing. For one thing, it seems to waste screen real estate (maybe the Netbook remix type interfaces are more my style, although EasyPeasy on an Asus EEE made me think of Windows CE with its single-window interface for PDA's), and it needs more processing power, so is not looking like a good choice for older PC's.
This is sort of like trying to figure out the Windows 7 interface (just installed a copy in a VirtualBox vm under Ubuntu 8.04 Server to "get acquainted") after years of XP which I learned to make look like Windows "Classic" (i.e. Win 95 in essence) - set it, forget it, and get on with real work. These GUI fads do seem to waste a lot of developer, user, and machine cycles in an elusive effort to "get it right".
Anyone for reviving OS/2 Warp's WorkPlace Shell? I always liked its elegance and true object-oriented design which let me do things like drag my choice of font or color to a typical widget, and then it became the desktop default right then. Ah, the good old days...
149 • Re: 146/148 GRUB2 Blindsiding (by RO on 2009-11-01 20:15:05 GMT from United States)
Glenn: Thanks for that link! I wish I had the clues your link, and a lot of the other comments on here, revealed about GRUB2 a few days ago before I started messing with my notebook's mulitple OS's (and before I posted my issues with GRUB and kubuntu 9.10). I had no idea *buntu 9.10 was messing with a new GRUB (beta at that??).
Of course this was all a bit spontaneous when I found the "usual" repair techniques I expected to use after installing XP failed. I suspect my problems started with some sort of corruption of the legacy GRUB setup, and probably before XP clobbered the MBR - more like with Mint 7 or even the Ubuntu 8.10 upgrade from 8.04 I gave up on last year (Network Manager with my Fujitsu P5020 Ateros wifi was a non-starter, a seeming retrogression from 8.04, but Mint 7/9.04 has been a dream in comparison). I was going to let all the release frenzy settle down, watch the fora for a few weeks, see if any significant fixes came out, try in a virtual machine, etc.
I am convinced that trying to use a separate /boot partition to manage it all per "classic" practice is pretty much unsupported by Ubuntu at least. Although, it appears it is not just Ubuntu per RollMeAway in #117 above. How can it be reasonable to manage such a newly complex arrangement as GRUB2 seems to have become from any particular distro's installation, and still maintain an "independent" boot partition?
Guess I will need to look at LILO and/or other boot loaders again (maybe even OS/2's which I recall being fairly ease to set up and manage from the first installation floppy and/or a bootable install CD - I still have some kicking around ;-)
150 • Zenix (by Elder V. LaCoste on 2009-11-02 00:49:23 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the reply Anti. I would have like to see the whole thing though...I like the new name.
On a different subject, Zen Linux anyone?
Here is an interesting Ubuntu remix:
http://zenix-os.net/index.php?nav=home
151 • Berry Linux (by Syncopated Synopsis on 2009-11-02 08:09:32 GMT from United States)
Berry recently came out with .99 but distrowatch never posted the announcement except on the list on the left side. Any particular reason? I wish that and other distro's would have torrents available as I have an unstable connection that is almost impossible to download large files with, esp. from slow servers.
152 • 151 Berry Linux (by ladislav on 2009-11-02 08:18:38 GMT from Taiwan)
Please email the Berry guys and offer to write nice and useful release announcements for them. I try my best to cover all releases, but I am only human and often I find it difficult to do a release write-up on something that even the distro maintainer himself doesn't bother with. With Berry, the only available information at each release is a very very brief changelog which lists a kernel version and a few application upgrades - certainly not enough information to turn it into a full release announcement for DistroWatch.
153 • @152 (by Syncopated Synopsis on 2009-11-02 08:41:44 GMT from United States)
OK Ladislav. I didn't know. Didn't mean to be a pain
Number of Comments: 153
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Subgraph OS
Subgraph OS was a Debian-based Linux distribution which provides several security, anonymous web browsing and hardening features. Subgraph OS uses a hardened Linux kernel, application firewall to block specific executables from accessing the network and forces all Internet traffic through the Tor network. The distribution's file manager features tools to remove meta-data from files and integrates with the OnionShare file sharing application. The Icedove e-mail client was set up to automatically work with Enigmail for encrypting e-mails.
Status: Discontinued
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