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1 • 32- vs. 64-bit (by Randall at 2009-12-07 08:25:21 GMT from United States)
As far as I'm aware, the only two free-as-in-beer programs which are still 32-bit only are Adobe Reader and Skype; both Flash and Java now work natively on 64-bit systems, and I don't know of any open-source programs which haven't been ported to work with a 64-bit OS. And of course, if your distro provides a multilib setup, you can still run 32-bit programs even if your OS itself is 64-bit. To be honest, the only problems I've run into using a 64-bit system is when I want to cross-compile something with a 32-bit instruction set; setting up a chroot is more trouble than it's worth.
2 • 64-bit (by jg at 2009-12-07 08:59:23 GMT from United States)
The answer to the "32-bit versus 64-bit" question omits an important point. Intel's 64-bit processors have a lot more hardware registers than the 32-bit processors. But if you're running 32-bit code on that 64-bit CPU, then the software isn't using any of those extra registers. You must run 64-bit software to utilize them. These extra registers can really help optimize and speed up code, which is why a 64-bit OS and 64-bit apps can run faster on the same machine than the 32-bit versions.
3 • 32/64 bit (by zygmunt on 2009-12-07 09:43:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
Memory aside, surely the only real reason for 64 bits lies in the hardware for extra floating point precision: precision that is not normally required and therefore usually surplus to demand. The vast majority of users are unlikely to need such precision in most applications. Even in scientific work the requirement for such precision is best avoided by the choice of a method more suited to the calculation in hand. Nevertheless there are still vital reasons for using extended precisions (64, 128, 256, etc bits) to give required accuracy in the final results. It is a philosophy that rubbish in gives rubbish out. It can also be true that valid input can give rubbish out!!
4 • 64-bit (by Kurt_Aust at 2009-12-07 09:54:10 GMT from Australia)
There is one "Application" in particular that greatly benefits from the extra registers and 4GB+ memory addressing (and let's face it, memory is dirt cheap these days) available on 64-bit systems, namely virtualization.
While it is certainly possible to virtualize operating systems with as little as 2GB RAM (sometimes even less) on the host, performance can be significantly degraded (lots of disk swapping) without the extra overhead that 64-bit systems can provide.
5 • BSD (by nix at 2009-12-07 10:43:51 GMT from United States)
Just a few notes on the BSD's in the Weekly post.
1) No biggie but FreeBSD uses Nvi not the standard vi; which is an enhanced version of vi. Related note; Debian uses Nvi.
2) FreeNAS is a stripped down version of FreeBSD lacking drivers. I am not sure why that comment was made; I wish the author of the post would indicate what hardware support is lacking.
3) Side note: Portupgarde can be also used in binary mode; create an environmental variable called: PACKAGESITE and point it to servers with updated ports collection. It will save you time compiling applications.
For those interested in the PACKAGSITE variable here is a great blog post about it:
Setting multiple package sites
http://bsdpants.blogspot.com/search?q=portupgrade
4) The example files are great; copy them over make a few modifications and bang you got a service working.
Disclaimer: I used Debian, FreeBSD and Solaris. Well, sometime Windows .
Regards
6 • 64 bit Skype for Ubuntu (by Caraibes on 2009-12-07 10:47:38 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Just wanted to state that there IS a native 64 bit Skype, but it seems to be for Ubuntu only... That is why I am now running on 64 bit *Buntu, since about 2 years...
You have it in the Medibuntu repos, or here: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/linux/choose/
As of the PDF reader, well, if not Acroread, there's Evince, who just works...
7 • Re: BSD (by Ben Woods at 2009-12-07 11:09:07 GMT from Australia)
To comment #5 (nix):
Thanks for the handy tip - I didn't know portupgrade could do package updates.... this was one of the main things I disliked about FreeBSD!
8 • Mint 8 (by claudecat on 2009-12-07 11:27:56 GMT from United States)
I just discovered that LInux Mint 8 (Helena) has been made available. From what I have been reading, if you want to avoid grub2 (highly advisable from my perspective) then here's the best way: first reinstall/install Mint 7 64 (allowing it to install "legacy" grub), then do NOT install anything or do any updates, but let it do the dist-upgrade which it will at some point offer as an option.
I'll be trying it soon and will report back with results... For those that wish to take the plunge into the truly frightening grub2, there's a great tutorial on dedoimedo.com... yet and still my blue-collar brain is under-equipped for applying this information to a system that contains over 20 distros (all bootable, current, and easily massageable via the good ol' /boot/grub/menu.lst). Sorry... maybe too much caffeine this morning... :=}
9 • make that Mint 8 64 (by claudecat on 2009-12-07 11:33:31 GMT from United States)
First sentence omitted the crucial 2 digits "64".... perhaps not ENOUGH caffeine! I've already tried and love the 32bit version (aside from the grubs). Kudos to Clem (a name that always evokes a chuckle from this oldster/Firesign Theatre fan).
"He's BROKEN the President!!!!"
10 • @ 5 (by 9 iron at 2009-12-07 11:48:13 GMT from United States)
From the dpkg descriptionof Nvi: Nvi is intended as a "bug-for-bug compatible" clone of the original BSD vi. As such it does not have a lot of the snazzy features as do some of the other vi clones such as elvis and vim. Not that it matters.
@ Jesse: would you please be more careful to qualify your statements in the future? Of course, it's important to keep software updated on a regular basis. It is important that your software works, updates are secondary _unless_ you are talking about security updates on a vulnerable system, blind upgrading is always a bad thing.
11 • RE 6: 64-bit skype (by KimTjik at 2009-12-07 12:34:31 GMT from Sweden)
Unfortunately there's no native 64bit binary of Skype. I extracted the Ubuntu package you refer to and it give the following information:
Depends: lib32stdc++6 (>= 4.1.1-21), lib32asound2 (>> 1.0.14), ia32-libs (>= 1.6), libc6-i386 (>= 2.7-1), lib32gcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1-21+ia32.libs.1.19)
In other words it's just the same 32bit binary with 32bit library dependencies.
12 • Re: FreeBSD (by silent at 2009-12-07 12:52:30 GMT from France)
Based on FreeBSD one can also create a solid desktop system. Now the latest version of the proprietary flash plugin works fine; the linux compatibility layer and wine were already available in earlier releases. Installing dbsd-pkgmgr (from DesktopBSD) provides a graphical interface for package management. On the other hand latest versions of desktop binary packages are not always available yet in the official repository; installation of proprietary packages is only possible through the port system with manual interventions (not always described in details in the handbook) due to legal restrictions; and building some desktop application ports is not easy either. So, why should one use (Free)BSD for the desktop? In my case simply because my hardware is not fully supported by the Linux kernel. Another good reason is that the installation is an entertaining mental excercise. One could mention stability and the security of ZFS snapshots if those matter. Anyway, the FreeBSD 8.0 is going to be a solid foundation for desktop distributions like PCBSD 8.0 (with some speed improvement) and perhaps also for a new release of DesktopBSD. Gentoo and Debian also have their own FreeBSD projects. Opensolaris and Nexenta (Ubuntu on Opensolaris) also make some progress, so soon there can be a real choice for a kernel of an open source desktop system.
13 • 64 bit (by Rob at 2009-12-07 12:57:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Looked around for benchmarks in past on this, and audio encoding was an area where 64bit really shined. The feared increase in executable size is only about 10%, and 64bit has NX bit without the need for 32bit clunky PAE.
Would use 64bit if possible with 2+GiB of RAM, there's just no drawbacks I've found, and my 64bit installs do seem a little snappier.
14 • 64 bit Skype (by merlin at 2009-12-07 13:10:22 GMT from Canada)
I heard that the skype client is being open-sourced, so it may be possible to get a native 64-bit version. The proprietary stuff in the client will remain closed-source.
15 • suggestions for next donation (by Anonymous at 2009-12-07 13:26:34 GMT from Canada)
* Everybody like to have sound on their computer : http://www.alsa-project.org
* openbsd, netbsd or dragonFly
* wine (the only way to play some games without having to pay for windox)
16 • RE @10 updates (by Jesse at 2009-12-07 13:35:02 GMT from Canada)
First, I'd like to point out that the updates provided by the FreeBSD team for a given release are likely to be security updates, which are important to keep astride of. See their Handbook at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/updating-freebsdupdate.html
Second, I'm pretty sure just about everyone blindly installs updates. I've never met anyone, system admin or otherwise, who knows every detail of every package they install. I agree with you in theory, admins shouldn't just install every package that comes down the pipe; there should be testing and recording of what's available. But I think it would be much better for people to regularly update their FreeBSD systems with the provided security updates than leave their boxes unpatched. And, as I pointed out in the review, if a patch does break something, the system can rollback to a previous state.
17 • Parted Magic (by Andy Axnot at 2009-12-07 13:56:03 GMT from United States)
Parted Magic was an excellent choice for a donation. I've been using PM for a few years now, and it just keeps getting better. I actually made a (small) donation myself last year.
Andy
18 • Primary partition needed for BSD (by zygmunt on 2009-12-07 14:24:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
2.3.3.1 Disk Layouts for FreeBSD/i386
A PC disk can be divided into discrete chunks. These chunks are called partitions. Since FreeBSD internally also has partitions, the naming can become confusing very quickly, therefore these disk chunks are referred to as disk slices or simply slices in FreeBSD itself. For example, the FreeBSD utility fdisk which operates on the PC disk partitions, refers to slices instead of partitions. By design, the PC only supports four partitions per disk. These partitions are called primary partitions. To work around this limitation and allow more than four partitions, a new partition type was created, the extended partition. A disk may contain only one extended partition. Special partitions, called logical partitions, can be created inside this extended partition.
Each partition has a partition ID, which is a number used to identify the type of data on the partition. FreeBSD partitions have the partition ID of 165.
In general, each operating system that you use will identify partitions in a particular way. For example, DOS, and its descendants, like Windows, assign each primary and logical partition a drive letter, starting with C:.
FreeBSD must be installed into a primary partition. FreeBSD can keep all its data, including any files that you create, on this one partition. However, if you have multiple disks, then you can create a FreeBSD partition on all, or some, of them. When you install FreeBSD, you must have one partition available. This might be a blank partition that you have prepared, or it might be an existing partition that contains data that you no longer care about.
If you are already using all the partitions on all your disks, then you will have to free one of them for FreeBSD using the tools provided by the other operating systems you use (e.g., fdisk on DOS or Windows).
=======================================================
Until this limitation of Primary Partition is removed, I feel that BSD has a limited expansion capability!!
19 • @2: Yes, 64 bit is FASTER than 32 bit! (by Leo at 2009-12-07 14:24:42 GMT from United States)
Ok, here is a compilation of some info about 64 vs 32 bit performance in recent distributions:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3104455.0
There is a pointer there to some technical info on how low level code can be made as much as twice as fast (when doing bitwise manipulation) in 64 bit. As a result, some applications are much faster, and overall the system is faster and more responsive if you run it in 64 bit. This is also my experience with a Phenom x3 system, and backed by testing I've been doing with the Phoronix Test Suite.
So, please, lets not create more misunderstandings! If you have a 64 bit CPU, simply run a 64 bit (recent) distribution.
Thanks!
Leo
20 • FreeBSD (by stuckinoregon on 2009-12-07 14:34:46 GMT from United States)
Really glad to see a BSD review on here. I seem to be drawn to the BSDs like a moth to a flame. It doesn't take very long to feel their potential when working with the BSDs.
I keep hoping that a good non-KDE based ready-to-go desktop flavor will come around. I've built gnome systems using FreeBSD and OpenBSD before and it can be a challenge to outfit the system just right. It's a beautiful thing once you do though. PC-BSd does have the gnome pbi available, but I think that system is just a little too bloated for me. Perhaps there's a cleaner way to set it up, but I'm not aware of it.
The only other real drawback has been native flash support. People have been begging Adobe for this implementation for ages. Adobe's response to these requests has been something akin to asking a glacier to back up.
21 • Skype 64 bit (by Alexandru on 2009-12-07 14:38:41 GMT from Germany)
I RUN Skype on Debian Lenny 64 bit. Two things I made to make it runnable:
1. Install 32-bit libraries.
2. Download & unzip static linked Skype.
22 • FreeBSD and sound (by David Naylor at 2009-12-07 15:01:00 GMT from South Africa)
Although FreeBSD does implement Open Sound System (OSS) in the base system there is an alternative implementation from 4front (in ports under audio/oss) that may handle the sound hardware better. 4frond OSS is also easier to configure.
To configure the 4front implementation (under CDDL licence)
# make -C /usr/ports/audio/oss install clean
(Install the software, pkg_add would also work)
# echo oss_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
(Load the 4frond driver when the system starts)
# /usr/local/etc/oss onestart
(Load the 4front driver now)
23 • @13 PAE kernel (by Adam Michael Drake on 2009-12-07 15:07:26 GMT from United States)
I've never noticed any problems running the PAE kernel.
I wanted to upgrade the RAM on my PC at home and found it was very inexpensive to max it out. The PAE kernel (default on Mint, if I remember correctly) allows me to address all 4 GB with my 32 bit P4.
I've never tried 64 bit Linux, but running 64 bit Windows 7 on my work laptop was bad, so I installed the 32 bit image instead. There weren't enough 64 bit versions of the software I use around and the 32 bit versions had problems on W7 64 bit. I also didn't like having 2 program files folders.
24 • 64bit and stuff (by davemc on 2009-12-07 15:17:55 GMT from United States)
When I saw the weekly question on DWW was about 64 vs. 32 bit, I knew it was setting the stage for this weeks raging debate, and never a more worthy topic for discussion!
Of course the real question should be, why run a 32 bit OS on a 64 bit system? I mean, if you paid for all that extra RAM and additional CPU's, then why not use them?
I have 3 home systems with one CPU and less than 4G's RAM, and for those I use a 32 bit Linux Distro version, but my super rig has 4 CPUs and 8G's RAM, so I use a 64 bit OS on that one (Arch Linux - runs blazing fast). Heck, it even came with 64 bit Windows 7 (runs really well on that rig - big surprise!), so even Microsoft realizes how dumb it is to run a 32 bit OS on a system like that and preloaded it thusly.
Is there a performance gain? Of course! Without any doubt at all! You have access to more than 4G's RAM and multiple CPU processing power with 64 bit OS that you wont get with a 32 bit OS.
25 • Some random thoughts (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-07 15:28:13 GMT from United States)
Parted Magic is a great tool. Thanks for the support.
Great review of your adventure of BSD. I tried PC-BSD on one of the first KDE4 installs. Was impressed with it back then. May try again with the newer 4.3.4. Sadly openSUSE kde4 is not working out. Open Office has serious bugs.
PLD sounds very interesting. Will wait for the LiveCD that allows HD installation.
Right now Fedora 12, Gnome is the only major distro that supports my printer through Cups. Ubuntu, openSUSE fail badly.
26 • @24: Bits (by Jesse at 2009-12-07 15:36:36 GMT from Canada)
I think davemc makes some good points.
I have a 64-bit machine at home, which has one CPU and 2GB of RAM. I run a 32-bit OS on it. Partly because I found no performance benefit from going 64-bit. Also, I would sometimes run into software that was wasn't designed with 64-bit in mind and there would be minor problems. It was really rare, but some software won't compile/run properly in a 64-bit environment. So, for me, my machine was just as fast and had fewer hiccups running 32-bit. YMMV. As davemc stated, if I were running higher end equipment I'd be running a 64-bit OS.
27 • Re: 64bit Skype (by viktor on 2009-12-07 15:37:58 GMT from France)
From the Skype developer Linux blog (Sept. 7th 2009):
Myth: There is a 64-bits version of skype available for download.
No, there is not yet. However, we assembled a "helper" package which will pull corresponding 32-bits libraries. This is made entirely for your convenience, so you don't have to go and hunt for these packages yourself. This brings some compatibility issues with some (especially video) libraries. Check the forum for more details.
We are working on providing a native 64-bits version of Skype.
http://share.skype.com/sites/linux/2009/09/some_explanations.html
28 • FreeBSD - Vi (by Dwainehead at 2009-12-07 16:09:33 GMT from United States)
Jesse, in the article you talked about editing in Vi, and I know alot of people love it, but I find the default text editor in FreeBSD ee to be something very simple and easy to use, especially when you talk about editors for new users of an os, aee in debian and other linux distro's. Thanks for the review, I have FreeBSD 8 running in my vbox and i's actually the 1st FreeBSD relase that run well for me in vbox.
29 • Mint 8 (by Sly on 2009-12-07 16:56:49 GMT from United States)
I'm still waiting for a review of Mint 8 in DW. It is #3 or #4 on the distribution list, and the other top 3 or 4 distributions have had their day. I think there are a lot of Mint users who would like to see Mint get a little more attention. I know Mint is based on Ubantu, but Ubantu is based on Debian. And by the way, there are several other great distributions in the top 50 that are based on other distributions such as Centos, PCLinux OS, Sabayon, Centos, Mephis. Vector Linux OS, and Zenwalk.
30 • Ubuntu 9.10? (by Derek on 2009-12-07 17:00:34 GMT from India)
"Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 1, openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1"
Thats soooo wrong!
31 • re: 29 - Mint 8 (by Matt at 2009-12-07 17:18:37 GMT from United States)
Please don't do reviews just because... If the requester wants to see a review so badly, maybe they should submit one on their own. I have nothing against Mint, but to request a review just so a distro gets a "little more attention," does not seem to be in the spirit of this website. Again, I have nothing against Mint...
32 • @24 (by Adam Michael Drake on 2009-12-07 17:29:24 GMT from United States)
"I mean, if you paid for all that extra RAM and additional CPU's, then why not use them? "
The PAE Linux kernel can see the extra RAM and additional CPUs. All you'd be missing out on is the increased speed of the 64 bit processor when an application actually takes advantage of it (which is rarely).
The point is that in Linux (unlike Windows) you don't have to choose between 32 bit stability and taking full advantage of your installed RAM...
33 • Answer to Matt (by sly on 2009-12-07 17:41:58 GMT from United States)
The gist of what I'm saying is that if DW consistently reviews the top distributions, then DW should not review around Linux Mint. Mint is right up there with Ubantu, Fedora, Opensuse and Mandriva in terms of popularity. It is #3.
34 • RE #8 (by aperson on 2009-12-07 18:30:27 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the info about the grub2 tutorial.
35 • re: 29 (by Landor at 2009-12-07 18:34:55 GMT from Canada)
Disclaimer: I haven't tried mint for some time.
What are the major differences for Mint that isn't available in an Ubuntu review? Yes, I know they have some different helper apps/scripts. Other than that, is there really a key difference?
What would a review of Mint tell the community on a whole? Media worked out of the box?
I'm not knocking Mint at all. Though yes, I have stated at different times my dislike for (as always I hate this term) "out of the box distros" like Mint. What I am stating is I "personally" don't see a massive difference between the two. Not one to warrant a separate review, anyway.
I'd like to see a source based review for a change. Possibly a review on Rock or T2 for building an OS. Maybe someone can do an LFS build. The last one I read about LFS was Susan Linton's and she wrote that quite some time ago.
As you can see above, there's far more compelling reviews to do than one of a distro that in my personal opinion barely strays from it's base distribution.
Anyone want to compile/build LFS on a Proctor Silex toaster by chance?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
36 • RE: 8, Learning curve for Grub2 (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-12-07 19:09:58 GMT from United States)
I know that Grub2 is so different that it's a pain to learn. Believe me when I say it will be a very much improved boot loader and worth learning. For example, with one little command you can detect and add to the boot menu all of those 20 operating systems. It is worth the effort. Also soon there will be a gui for those who don't want to mess with the terminal.
.
37 • 6 month to breethe? (by Johannes on 2009-12-07 19:15:29 GMT from Germany)
Seems there won't be major releases of "dominant" distros in the next 5 Month! Incredible that they have come to release almost all together!
38 • RE: 35 (by Anonymous on 2009-12-07 19:21:24 GMT from United States)
I would also like to see more about distros such as Rock, T2, Crux and PLD - to name a few.
39 • re#21 64bit Lenny and skype (by illiterate on 2009-12-07 19:23:30 GMT from Greece)
The 32 bit libraries are included in skype's static zip file (25,1MB), so just extract the file and open the executable.
40 • @32 (by Fred Nelson at 2009-12-07 19:40:15 GMT from United States)
"The point is that in Linux (unlike Windows) you don't have to choose between 32 bit stability and taking full advantage of your installed RAM..."
Indeed. There is absolutely, positively no reason to use a 32-bit Linux now on a 64-bit capable machine, unless you have so little RAM (1GB or under, perhaps) such that the extra memory from the 64-bit pointers would be a concern. 64-bit is stable, and has been for years now, every bit as much so as 32-bit. Do you have any reason other than heresy to say that 64-bit Linux is any less stable than 32-bit right now?
For the rare 32-bit-only closed-source application (fewer by the day, and none really necessary, except maybe Skype for some people), you can install 32-bit compatibility libraries, just as Windows 64-bit does by default. Multilib is the way to go, much better than using a 32-bit PAE kernel.
(BTW, using multiple cores/processors is independent of 32 vs 64-bit. The main reason to use x86-64 rather than i686 other than accessing >4GB of memory is to basically double the number of registers available. That's really what makes 64-bit applications faster than 32-bit applications.)
41 • Grub2... (by KevinC at 2009-12-07 19:46:26 GMT from United States)
I am at a loss to understand all the hubbub that has arisen over Grub2. Sure, it's different, but with this guide:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub-2.html
it's dead easy to understand. And with the 'buntus Startup Manager is in the repositories for the easy stuff. I fully customized my grub2 selections (e.g, changed Ubuntu to the correct distros: Kubuntu/ Xubuntu; eliminated previous kernels & a Windows restore partition that os_prober found and tacked on the end) with little effort and a few minutes with Dedoimedo's guide. I've had no issues whatsover with circa 10+ installs of various flavors of the 'buntus (both 32 and 64 bit). Seems rock solid to me & far be from me to understand the intricacies of why the devs decided to implement Grub2 in this fashion (which seems more Lilo like to me than legacy Grub), but it's the future & worth the investment of time and effort to learn the ins & out, IMHO.
42 • @35 Dislike of out of the box distros (by SuperCharger on 2009-12-07 19:59:34 GMT from United States)
Why do you dislike "out of the box" distros? Because they make it easy for Windows users to invade the Linux Elite?
43 • #18 BS, #20 well maybe (by celle at 2009-12-07 20:10:09 GMT from United States)
#18: "Until this limitation of Primary Partition is removed, I feel that BSD has a limited expansion capability!!"
Windows/linux uses a primary partition as well. It's no limitation unless you make it one.
The BSD partitioning scheme is far older than the one on dos/windows and functions on far more different systems (non-x86) many of which don't use dos/windows partitioning. The native BSD partitioning is not compatible with the dos/windows partitioning scheme so it's put into a primary partition so it can share a disk with dos/windows. The reason for slices is so not to confuse the uses of partitioning in the BSD system with the dos/windows scheme.
The DOS partitioning scheme: Primary, Extended/Logical
The BSD partitioning scheme: Slices, Partitions (for dos/windows compatibility only)
It's names and that's about it, the uses are the same.
BSD also has its own dedicated partitioning mode that doesn't use the dos/windows partitioning scheme at all. No slices just partitions which is the default partitioning scheme for BSD from earlier times.
#20: "Adobe's response to these requests has been something akin to asking a glacier to back up."
Global warming has come and if you've haven't noticed the glaciers are backing up.
Now if Adobe would just melt a little.
44 • RE: 42 (by Landor at 2009-12-07 20:29:17 GMT from Canada)
Right off the hop the first thing I noticed is that you considered an out of the box distro non-elite. What I also noticed in that comment is you believe there's some kind of offence from the "elite" as you state for not liking ease of use. Why even bring the "elite" term into it? Seriously?
I find them pretty well useless when it comes down to a few simple commands and an extra (with highspeed broadband) minutes.
Does the other OS provide this sort of thing instantly upon use? Surely not. So your question really has 0 bearing.
To my reason, I "personally" find such distributions "kiddy-builds" for those who want all the glitz and glamour of codecs, java, flash and 3d effects. For anyone who's "serious" (not defined as elite) about Linux in general, all that isn't the main reason for using our alternative, just an added bonus, easily added with the smallest of effort.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
45 • RE: 42, I forgot something (by Landor at 2009-12-07 20:35:12 GMT from Canada)
I left this out(oh and a correction too the word "few" should have been before minutes), All you had was to ask about my reasons for not liking them, nothing in regard to why there should be such a review or some of the massive differences other than what I stated that warrants one?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
46 • Comments, responses (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-07 20:35:52 GMT from United States)
#41: I agree completely. I haven't had any problems at all with grub2 and it is pretty much a must for booting systems with ext4 filesystems. FWIW, I haven't had problems with ext4 either and the performance boost is noticeable.
#33: Some people want us to review the popular distros and some people want to know more about obscure distros. Some people want new distros reviewed and some people want established ones. Some people want full featured distros reviewed and some would like to see more attention paid to lightweight distros and minimal ones. Some people would like more non-review articles. too. In the end we have 52 weeks in the year so we have to pick and choose based on what seems to be the most interesting to the most people.
You may also want to be careful what you wish for. The DWW reviewers tend to be honest, sometimes brutally so, in our reviews. If you just want publicity for your distro and it turns out to be broken on the reviewers hardware you'll get publicity, of course, but perhaps not the kind you want.
#28: To me the big advantage of vi is that I have yet to find a commercial UNIX system that doesn't have it. Most Linux distributions, OpenSolaris and the BSDs all do as well It's the closest thing to a universal editor you will ever find.
Is it intuitive or user friendly? Heck no! It is very powerful and once you know it you tend to stick with. At least I have.
64-bit vs. 32-bit: It's not just about memory although that certainly is an important issue. Any app that can make full use of the CPU and pushes the processor hard is going to see a major performance improvement moving to 64-bit systems. That can cover anything and everything from video rendering to computational chemistry. Oh, and yeah, gamers will want it too.
Finally, something I've written about Linux and netbooks may warm the hearts of the Linux fans out there: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/12/linux-regaining-netbook-market.html Oh, and yes, this last paragraph qualifies as a shameless plug for my latest article :)
47 • Grub2 ##41,36 (by kilgoretrout on 2009-12-07 20:46:42 GMT from United States)
For most people, a bootloader should perform one simple function - it should boot your OS of choice. Grub has been doing that just fine for pretty much everybody for some time. Sure it has it's quirks but over time you learn to work around things. So what does Grub2 offer that is so compelling to the average user? Not much other than the opportunity to learn yet another idiomatic configuration syntax and a pile of workarounds for what is clearly alpha quality software that does nothing more than boot your OS of choice if your lucky. A lot of pain for very little gain from and end user's perspective.
48 • Re: 42 & vi (by jake at 2009-12-07 20:59:30 GMT from United States)
Personally, I find most of the "top 10" distros to be just as big, bloated, and buggy as a commercial OS I could mention. Trying to be all things to all people, on all hardware, does not make for a lean, mean computing experience. I call it "kitchen sink syndrome" ... Why install stuff you'll never learn to use, much less ever need?
As for vi, like it or not, it is the default editor. In the thirty or so years I've been using Un*x and vi, I have never had issues editing text files. On any Un*x-like installation. Think about that for a minute ... In fact, I actually do most of my serious writing (contracts, documentation, etc.) in vi on a dumb terminal attached to a serial port. Fewer distractions mean more words per page per hour.
As an exercise, try making yourself a user account with vi as the shell ... Learn to get around the system from vi ... but be careful, you might actually learn something.
49 • @47 (by Patrick on 2009-12-07 21:10:19 GMT from United States)
> So what does Grub2 offer that is so compelling to the average user?
Uhm, how about being able to boot from ext4?
Of course, that is one of these dang newfangled things too that nobody needs... after all, it is only the new standard file system for Linux, who would be interested in booting from that?
50 • What to review (by Jesse at 2009-12-07 21:49:43 GMT from Canada)
I can't speak for other reviewers, but I tend to write about distributions that catch my eye. It's got to interest me in some way. I'm not too concerned about what's popular or what category it fits into or how many page hits it has this week. This means some of my reviews will be popular big names, like Mandriva, and some will be little-known projects, like Kolibri. And I'm willing to take a look at just about anything, if given a good reason.
So if you think there's a distro out that that hasn't been reviewed in DWW for a while and want me to look at it, drop me an e-mail and tell me why it deserves attention. I can't promise it'll get posted here, Ladislav has the final word on that. But I can agree to give it my best shot, given a good enough reason.
51 • Re: 35 • re: 29 (by Landor at 2009-12-07 18:34:55 GMT from Canada) (by Jon Luke on 2009-12-07 22:12:44 GMT from United States)
"Disclaimer: I haven't tried mint for some time.
What are the major differences for Mint that isn't available in an Ubuntu review? Yes, I know they have some different helper apps/scripts. Other than that, is there really a key difference?
What would a review of Mint tell the community on a whole? Media worked out of the box?
I'm not knocking Mint at all. Though yes, I have stated at different times my dislike for (as always I hate this term) "out of the box distros" like Mint. What I am stating is I "personally" don't see a massive difference between the two. Not one to warrant a separate review, anyway.
I'd like to see a source based review for a change. Possibly a review on Rock or T2 for building an OS. Maybe someone can do an LFS build. The last one I read about LFS was Susan Linton's and she wrote that quite some time ago.
As you can see above, there's far more compelling reviews to do than one of a distro that in my personal opinion barely strays from it's base distribution."
-------------------------------------------------------
Clearly your problem is as you admit, that you haven't tried Linux Mint in some time. That lack is telling in your comment regarding your personal opinion, one you owe to yourself to rectify.
Linux Mint is the distro of choice for a growing legion of users basically because it works without the hassle that a great many distros come prepackaged with. Linux Mint is not simply a warmed over version of its base distribution, but a custom retooling of that distro in such a way that many otherwise dedicated Ubuntu users now willingly gravitate to once it's released.
Your disdain for well crafted "out of the box distros" says more about your own prejudices than it does about the actual state of the distro scene or about those who are daily gravitating to Linux and finding secure footing with quality offerings like Linux Mint.
Once you've rectified your lack of up to date experience with Linux Mint by installing and carefully evaluating the just released latest 'Helena' version 8 with an open mind, then your commentary might carry more weight than it now does.
52 • Ref#35,38 yes indeed (by Redonde Beach at 2009-12-07 22:34:49 GMT from United States)
"38 • RE: 35 (by Anonymous on 2009-12-07 19:21:24 GMT from United States)
I would also like to see more about distros such as Rock, T2, Crux and PLD - to name a few."
I too would like to see a review about PLD, and whatever became of T2. I forgot about that distro.
Also, does mint support KDE4.4. openSUSE falls on its face.
53 • #49 (by megadriver at 2009-12-07 23:06:10 GMT from Spain)
About being able to boot from ext4... The old Grub has been patched to do just that. And even LILO can do it. Actually, LILO doesn't even care about filesystems (very convenient, if you ask me).
If your booting needs are simple, good old LILO can still do the trick.
54 • Re: 64 bit (by jack at 2009-12-07 23:11:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
64 bit home computing has been around for some time now. I was under the impression that to really take advantage of the added power, the software writers needed to rewrite the software specifically for 64 bit. The same argument was given for multiple CPUs and I don't just mean the OS, I mean the applications too.
Any truth in this? Which everyday apps have been written with these things in mind and are truly faster on 64 bit or multi-core processors?
I just wonder if modern 64 bit systems tend to come with faster RAM, faster HDDs etc and this makes as much difference as anything else?
55 • RE:29 , 51. Mint Lovers (by JD at 2009-12-07 23:52:01 GMT from United States)
You commented on you want a review for Linux Mint...
As you seem to be quite new to the scene let me explain this in a way you can understand, Linux Mint is Ubuntu! therefore devoting another review to it is inefficient and wasteful , like alot of these Ubuntu forks out there they simply "rip" off ubuntu and change the wallpaper, install a pretty theme and codecs! there's your review of mint! And to those who claim Ubuntu rips of Debian, this is very untrue. The Ubuntu developers have contributed and helped Debian and invented several technology s Upstart being one. I Do agree Grub 2 is a mess! there needs to be a useful manual ! if your gonna uproot the entire syntax and configuration state! Thank you Opensuse and Fedora for not switching to it yet....!
56 • I like the kitchen sink. (by shady on 2009-12-07 23:57:23 GMT from United States)
The kitchen sink distros are awesome for overbuilt windows gaming machines. I like linux and the bigger the distro the better IMO.
57 • RE #56 / Add on to my comment #55 (by JD at 2009-12-08 00:02:55 GMT from United States)
#56 - Your Dang Right !
RE: 55 (my Comment)
I'd like to just say i don't hate mint , but i don't consider it a separate distro it seems fine for no hassle install i guess. but keep in mind where it really comes from ubuntu! it just hurts to see it on the top subtracting form real non fork distros
58 • More Grub2 & 32 v. 64 (by KevinC on 2009-12-08 00:04:23 GMT from United States)
I just don't see the Grub2 thing being that big of a deal...changing boot order is simple as changing the # preceding the scripts; e.g., if you want X Distro to boot first just craft a custom script for it in /etc/grub.d with the name 08_x_distro & make it executable. You can kill the 10_linux script, memtest or even os_prober by simply making them non-executable. And the scripts can be made by simple cut and paste from grub.cfg in /boot/grub/ folder, per the tutorial.
As to 32 vs. 64 bit, it may just be me or my particular hardware, but I've noticed some of the 64 bit distros seem to run smoother (subjective, I know, & contrary to popular opinion). The 64-bit 'buntus and OpenSuse 11.2 were both better in my experience. A useful tool for 64-bit machines is Cappy's GetLibs:
http://frozenfox.freehostia.com/cappy/
It helps fetch needed 32-bit libraries when no 64-bit app exists (e.g, the Amazon MP3 Downloader).
Also, I've found the 64-bit Flash works much better than the 32-bit version with NSPlugger, which is provided my restricted extras. With the latter You Tube controls, such as, pause, the slider & full screen toggle either didn't work or occasionally did. I un-installed the 32-bit Flash and NSPlugger and dl'ed the 64-bit Flash from Adobe & Firefox and Chrome were much happier. As an aside, love the Linux version of Google Chrome--even tho it's tagged as unstable it seems solid to me & I love how snappy it is...esp. on my netbook (Asus EEE 1002HA).
59 • #58 So easy (by anticapitalista on 2009-12-08 00:24:48 GMT from Greece)
"I just don't see the Grub2 thing being that big of a deal...changing boot order is simple as changing the # preceding the scripts; e.g., if you want X Distro to boot first just craft a custom script for it in /etc/grub.d with the name 08_x_distro & make it executable. You can kill the 10_linux script, memtest or even os_prober by simply making them non-executable. And the scripts can be made by simple cut and paste from grub.cfg in /boot/grub/ folder, per the tutorial."
Well for those that know how to do such tasks in linux, then it is easy, but otherwise it looks a bit formidable to non-tech savvy users.
Having said that I'm sure in 6 months or so, people will be complaining about grub3 ;)
60 • @54 performance (by Jesse at 2009-12-08 00:36:58 GMT from Canada)
The statement that applications need to be written with 64-bit (or multiple cores) in mind is what I call "slightly false". If you take a piece of software that was written with 32-bit systems in mind and recompile it to run with 64-bits, there will be changes without the need to re-write the source code. The compiler _should_ make optimizations for 64-bit, such as using the extra registers. Of course, if the programmer knows their software will be run on a 64-bit machine, they can also do things in the code which will help performance along.
The same applies to multiple cores. Just about any application that uses threads or forking will benefit from the extra processing power. But some apps are designed to handle more cores, where some are written with a single core in mind. If a developer knows their software will run on multi-core systems, there are things they can do to take advantage of that. A lot of programs don't, because they don't want to break compatibility with single core (or 32-bit) machines.
So, you can see a difference without a software re-write. But a software re-write can help _more_.
61 • RE: 55 Mint is Ubuntu (by ladislav on 2009-12-08 01:25:36 GMT from Taiwan)
I don't think it's right to look at Mint as just another Ubuntu. The Mint guys have taken a distro and added a lots of little things that improve considerably the user's experience. Granted, there are many projects that attempted to do something similar, but Mint is one of the few that succeeded spectacularly. Why?
Firstly, according to this site's Apache logs, Mint has a market share of 11.7% of all Linux-using DistroWatch visitors, second only to Ubuntu (35.3%) and ahead of such established distros as Debian (5.6%), Fedora (4.9%), openSUSE (4.2%) and Mandriva (3.2%).
http://distrowatch.com/awstats/awstats.DistroWatch.com.osdetail.html
Secondly, show me another such "Ubuntu" or any other distro that is able to generate US$4,000 per month in donations alone? I think many distros would be happy to get just a fraction of that! Isn't this a very powerful indication of Mint's acceptance? Who says asking for donations is not a business model? And that's donations only, they also have other sources of income (ads on the site, support, sales or merchandise, etc.).
http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=1175
I think Linux Mint is a lot more widely used than many people realise and I'd even say that there is a certain jealousy among some of the Ubuntu users. And yes, I agree, it deserves a review. Perhaps not a review of its base system (which is indeed the same as Ubuntu's), but the review of its extras that make it stand out from the rest of the non-independent distros. It's just a matter of finding a reviewer willing to give it a good spin...
62 • RE: 51 & 61 (by Landor at 2009-12-08 01:46:29 GMT from Canada)
RE: 51
Since we are speaking "clearly" here, maybe I should define what I mean by "for some time". The last time I tried Mint myself was a year ago. About 4-6 months ago my son decided he wanted to make another change. One of the distributions he chose was Mint. Being the person I am, involved in computers so heavily, I evaluated the last version as installed on his machine. I didn't interact with it fully, no. I did look through it more than just a glance, to say the least. He didn't choose Mint and still really hasn't made any definite choice. The odd thing I have found is that he leans towards gaming and codec enriched distributions. Hence another reason why I deem such distributions "kiddy-distros" (he's 17 in 3 days).
The one thing I will say is he always comes back to one base view, none of them are like his Gentoo install. As do I.
Back to Mint and your reply. For the second time today I've seen zero in the way for a reviewer (or myself) to review Mint. Nor have I seen a reason for installing it and seeing how it's a league apart from Ubuntu.
You say my commentary carries little weight unless I did give it a shot. I can say in all truth that your commentary has done little to pursuade me to try it, and more so, to change my view of it. There's been no compelling discussion on what sets it apart, other than what I see as just pre-installed codecs, flash, etc, etc and some Mint specific apps/scripts.
Actually, I'll even expand/alter my original comment about "out of the box distributions". There are a few that I consider extroardinary. Pardus, Vector Linux, MEPIS, AntiX right off the top of my head. They all have done unique things that far set them apart from their base distributions (Pardus being the exception since it's an original build), thus making them worthy of a their place and a separate review from their big brother.
Another distribution (and I honestly hate knocking any one of them) that reminds me of a kiddy-distro is Sabayon. I believe if it wasn't for codecs, graphics and mainly gaming, it wouldn't have the massive following it does. A note too, Sabayon has done some wonderful things with their package manager, installer, etc. That doesn't change my opinion though that the original popularity was mainly based on what I stated previously.
What would these distributions be without such? I've already discussed this with Chris Smart months back.
To wrap this up, as I said, so far there's been zero information on what makes Linux Mint stand apart on its own from Ubuntu. Something very compelling. If I can assume from your post that you use Mint, why not state such? Don't think of it as placating me, think of it as giving a reviewer a compelling reason to think, "WoW, really!? I should review Mint".
RE: 61
I always find stats not that telling Ladislav, and for good reason, especially when there's only one set.
That's neither here nor there though. What I'd like to know are these massive key differences that people speak about that warrant its place and such a critical reason for a review. As stated, I have used it (within the last year), my son ran it for a bit and I didn't see anything "significant". I personally don't care how much money they make and how many people jump on it. Is there really anything that sets it apart? Not in my opinion. I'd gladly change that view if somebody could point out how great it differs. I believe I would still find myself using something else though.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
63 • RE: 62 (by ladislav on 2009-12-08 01:51:22 GMT from Taiwan)
I always find stats not that telling
The US$4,000 point is not a "stat", it's a fact.
64 • RE: 63 (by Landor at 2009-12-08 02:20:58 GMT from Canada)
C'mon Ladislav, you were well aware I was talking about the Apache logs.
I just read a rather brief review on Mint 8 and the only things I found out different about Mint were what I was already aware of. The Mint Menu (which doesn't appeal to me at all, being kind here, I'd hate to have it on a Netbook) Mint Update and the Mint software manager. I did note that the reviewer said Mint used a mere 150 mb of ram. What I didn't see was any kind of information on the responsiveness of Mint, boot times, how cpu hungry it was. Things that are just as important as ram, especially if one is considering it as a light alternative for an older system, which the reviewer stated was possible, aside from the installer being a ram hog.
After confirming what I knew from the review I still see nothing that drastically sets it apart from Ubuntu. Money isn't a leverage point for justifying its difference to Ubuntu, at all.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
65 • Mint review (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-08 02:29:13 GMT from United States)
I'll take on a Linux Mint review in January. I have two distros I want to cover before it and since I have *never* tried Mint I want to give it a very good test drive before writing about it.
Right now I am happy with Ubuntu Karmic but if Mint is better Ubuntu than Ubuntu I'd be happy to say so.
66 • RE: 64 (by ladislav on 2009-12-08 02:42:41 GMT from Taiwan)
C'mon Ladislav, you were well aware I was talking about the Apache logs.
C'mon Landor, the Apache logs wasn't the only point of my argument. But you are right, I should have put the the US$4,000 point as the first - it's far more telling than the Apache logs, for sure.
Anyway, the main point is that, in my opinion, Linux Mint is a very worthwhile project. If you don't think so, it's fine with me - you have every right to disagree.
67 • Mentos (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-08 02:55:35 GMT from United States)
Oh boy, Caitlyn doing a review of Mint. Let the fireworks begin :)
I can't wait for that review. I was disappointed with your review of openSUSE, but have since abandon openSUSE. Not because of what you stated but for somethings unrelated to your review. Sad, really sad, because It installed very easy for me, and the KDE4 was blazing fast on bootup and on usage. Still, a couple of show stoppers left me nauseous.
Now what I want to know can Mint be dressed in KDE4.4 clothing???
68 • #67 (by SHADY on 2009-12-08 03:00:54 GMT from United States)
Mint has tended to create 32bit KDE distros. Been kind of a bummer for me.
69 • Re: 31 my original post to 29 and Mint (by Matt at 2009-12-08 03:14:46 GMT from United States)
Again I have nothing against Mint... I am posting from RC1 64 bit right now... But Sly's post seemed to be "pleading" for a review, which I at first thought was inappropriate. No angst Sly! He/She clarified in post 33. And others have followed with clear opinions. But I appreciate how Caitlyn & Jesse put it in posts #46 & #50. Go Pack Go! (since DW is hosted in Green Bay, and I am watching the game right now!)
Matt
70 • grub2 (by RollMeAway at 2009-12-08 03:53:58 GMT from United States)
Where grub2 fails for me is when installing to the root partition. It appears to work fine in the MBR.
If you have 15 or less partitions you can successfully use grub2 in the MBR.
I have multiple computers with over 30 distros installed, and my approach dictates nothing touches the MBR.
When attempting to install grub2 to the root partition, you receive a very clear warning
that grub2 was not designed to work there. About half the time it does not work there.
Only ubuntu and derivatives, and some debian based distros have adopted grub2.
Others were more wise.
Grub legacy boots ext4 partitions in fedora and sabayon just fine.
I must say I have a new respect for the old standby lilo now as well.
Hopefully distro makers will give us addicts the option to NOT install grub2.
71 • Top Distros "Weightiness" (by RO at 2009-12-08 04:00:19 GMT from United States)
I find it interesting that there might be an impression that the top distros are bloated biggies considering the presence of #6 Debian (starts with basics, right?), #7 Puppy (my favorite USB utility "Swiss Army Linux"), #10 ArchLinux, #14 TinyCore, etc, seems to belie that view.
I have installed most of the Ubuntu versions since 5.04, and most of them were "interesting", but often frustrating with the need to find the right stuff to make them usable for a desktop, especially to convert my wife from Win98 since I did not want to become her live-in XP tech.
Once I got past the disaster of Mint 4 after I "blindly" allowed one "standard update" too many that just plain broke the installation, I found Mint 7 a smooth and quick ready-to-go installation on her machine and several others. I still had to add the stuff she expects to have like the Gnome games pack, the MS TT fonts pack (so she can use MS Comic Sans to be sure the 1st-graders she teaches see printed pages with the lower-case "a" the way she teaches them to write it versus the way it is usually rendered in most other fonts), the Lexmark Z515 printer driver that I found back in the Edubuntu 5.10 days, and the Wine installations of her favorite Win 3.1 games and paid-for educational programs. Also, we have to have VMware Player set up so we can play Scrabble against each other online while sitting side-by-side (it was originally spec'ed for Windows 3.1, but barebones Win95/98 on VMware handle it ok).
So, although Mint does not quite do it all, it does let me focus more quickly on what no distro does (that I have tried so far), and yet still be able to leverage my accumulated knowledge of the Ubuntu ecosystem. Maybe it's not "massively" different from the base Ubuntu, but it takes care of the "standard" extras so I can focus on the non-standard extras. After all, Centos is not massively different from RedHat, but it was a worthwhile review subject in its own right (especially with Caitlyn Martin's acerbic dissection - but let's not open that hornets nest again, ok? ;-)
I am among those who would like to know if Mint 8 will be worth considering for an upgrade, and there should be a lot of us with that interest considering Mint's rank.
I do also enjoy the reviews of the less popular distros, so am not a die-hard *buntu fanboy by any means. Jesse's review of FreeBSD has gotten my interest in dabbling in BSD land again since my forays long ago into OpenBSD 2.x on a Sparc SLC (over-the-net installation via a 56Kbps modem mind you), and NetBSD on NEC Mobilepro 780 and 880 PDA's. That might be a good alternate boot partition to the Ubuntu 8.04 Server installation on my tower 64-bit PC, or even on my Sun Ultra80.
The fun never ends...
72 • Mint (by KevinC at 2009-12-08 04:04:31 GMT from United States)
IIRC, with Mint Helena KDE, a 64-bit version will be released. KDE Mint 7 was extensively different than Kubuntu Jaunty. I played with both & Jaunty seemed almost Spartan compared to Mint. Mint, in my experience, is significantly different to justify a separate review. I recently gave 8 a spin, but personally prefer Ubuntu--actually X/Kubuntu. I'm not a big fan of PulseAudio & X/Kubuntu are sans PA. Also, removing PA from Ubuntu Karmic is not such an easy task (if one is a fan of ALSA).
In other news, Dedoimedo has been rather busy---his take on Google Chrome OS, the virtual machine iteration:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/google-chrome-os.html
73 • Good to see VLOS active again, but.. (by Shawn on 2009-12-08 04:23:59 GMT from United States)
Good review on FreeBSD. I haven't used it before, but I have used PC-BSD and DesktopBSD. The only drawbacks from my perspective is that they suffer from the same thing holding Open Solaris back and that's quantity of programs.
On a side note, it's good to see VLOS active again. I spent $40 on version 1.2 about 3 years ago but ended up ditching it because the wifi kept on freezing up the system (had a Broadcom 4306 wifi chip in my old laptop) but at the same time, why is VLOS coming back now? Sabayon has basically been Gentoo for the past 3 years. Hopefully VLOS offers something new to the table as Sabayon is hard to beat right now if you're looking for an easy to use Gentoo desktop.
74 • RE: 66 (by Landor at 2009-12-08 06:23:40 GMT from Canada)
Yes, I'll agree with you Ladislav, and not being rude here in the slightest, but the $4000 point is the most telling.
You stated in the post prior to that:
"Secondly, show me another such "Ubuntu" or any other distro that is able to generate US$4,000 per month in donations alone? I think many distros would be happy to get just a fraction of that! Isn't this a very powerful indication of Mint's acceptance? Who says asking for donations is not a business model? And that's donations only, they also have other sources of income (ads on the site, support, sales or merchandise, etc.)."
Key words are per month. That's not accurate at all. For "one" month they pulled in 4000, October. Per Month denotes a monthly average. I wondered how that could be accurate unless it was somehow "fixed", so I went and looked. Some months it's a 1000 or less and the average would be less than 3000 I do believe, though I didn't do the math, it's at a random glance.
Again though, as justification for my claims, money really doesn't mean a lot. I'm sure PCLOS could have generated a lot via donations, maybe even did, but where are they now and really, how unique was PCLOS in comparison to Mandriva, other than their fan base (purposely leaving out another term). I used PCLOS as I lump Mint and it together as similar distribution models.
We're getting into apples and oranges here. I never actually said I didn't like Mint, which I will say finally, I really don't. I don't hold anything actually against Mint, other than that whole branding row that Clem and I had when their use of "Linux Mint" became officially accepted and I still believe what I first believed with it. It's just a matter of what I personally believe doesn't bring any substantial difference to Ubuntu. Which I might add has been my whole point today. Again, which I might add not one person thus far has been able to give me any concrete example of what Mint does that Ubuntu doesn't or can't do, easily with some codecs and "specific apps" installed. That even includes you at this point Ladislav. Again, not to be rude either, just an honest view.
What can I do but believe what I do when not one person can step forward with verification of otherwise?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
75 • Re": 73 • Good to see VLOS active again, but (by bill at 2009-12-08 06:31:24 GMT from Canada)
I installed this and it uses Sabayons installer and package manager Sulfur. Even the about Says it is Sabayon.
VLOS right now is basically a cut down Sabayon.
76 • Mandriva a Kiddy-Distro? (by Anonymous at 2009-12-08 08:00:23 GMT from United States)
Mandriva Live CDs include various multimedia playback libraries so I guess based on Landors definition it is now a kiddy-distro. ???
77 • No subject (by jeffcustom at 2009-12-08 13:13:35 GMT from United States)
"Again, which I might add not one person thus far has been able to give me any concrete example of what Mint does that Ubuntu doesn't or can't do, easily with some codecs and "specific apps" installed."
This is a loaded statement. Take out "Mint" and insert "your distro".
I would say it does what every other distro does....it creates an out of the box experience that is more appealing to some users than anything offered by other distros. I just cannot understand why so many people in the Linux community feel they have some type of responsibility to stand up and inform us all how wrong we are to support project "X" over project "Y". Why argue with Ladislav over this? If Mint pulls in $1000, $3000 or $4000 a month...who cares? The point is that there are obviously many people who see Mint as a project worthy of their hard-earned dollars and there are enough of them to amount to thousands a month. We should praise that as a community!
Here people want to talk about cpu cycles, ram usage or whatever. A basic computer user has no idea what these things are, and does not care. They want to turn on their computer and easily understand where to go to do what they want to do. So while a distro who caters to this type of person may not be right for you, it doesn't warrant the abuse spewed in this message board and in hundreds of forums across the Linux community.
Mint is a great first impression for a new user to Linux who is a basic Windows user. I wish I could recommend some of the distros I like to my Windows friends but I can't because I don't want to expose them to that project's community. In my ideal world, I would recommend different distros for different uses and then refer those people to the Mepislovers forum. That is by far the friendliest and most helpful community I've found in my Linux travels.
Sorry for the rant. I love Linux, love Distrowatch but all the bickering really wears on me.
78 • #74: Linux Mint, an example of added value (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-08 15:03:42 GMT from United States)
@Landor: As I've already said I've never personally used Linux Mint and I wasn't terribly interested in another Ubuntu "clone" until maybe a year ago. I have a long-term consulting client, an ASP/hosting/consulting firm, that was looking at virtualization solutions last year. Their hotshot young IT guy wanted to do Xen on Ubuntu. He also wanted to set that up on the CEO's high end laptop for sales demos. Anyway, to make a long story short he had no end of grief getting Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) working on that system. He tried Linux Mint and it just worked. Apparently, at least at that time, Linux Mint did a better job of hardware detection on that one piece of laptop hardware.
If Mint adds bugfixes or improved hardware support to me that is significant and adds value. Anyway, between that and all the calls for a Mint review I've decided to find out for myself.
79 • @77, 74 (by Patrick on 2009-12-08 15:23:07 GMT from United States)
Amen to that, jeffcustom!
Landor, I really can't see why you're all hung up about Mint, and not other derivative distros. Pretty much any distro can be made to look/work like any other distro "with some codecs and "specific apps" installed". That is a totally silly argument. After all, pretty much every distro on the planet is a collection of the same kernel, GNU tools and user programs. It is the selection of which of these pieces are chosen by default, which are available, and how easy it is to customize this that makes one distro different from another one.
On my personal machine, I run Ubuntu, on my netbook Sidux and on my work laptop Mint. They really are all set up pretty much the same. With Mint, I got rid of the Mint menu which I really don't like, and customized the theme. On my Ubuntu machine, I had to install codecs and flash. The end result is pretty much the same on each machine in my every day use. But with Mint I took less time to get there.
If I'd install a new version of Linux on my own machine, I'd probably go with Ubuntu and add the stuff I need. If I'd do an install on someone else's machine, I'd probably do the same. But if someone new to Linux would ask me what Linux to install if THEY were going to do it themselves, I'd most likely recommend Mint, since they'd get their "expected" functionality pretty much immediately after install.
Since most distro reviews focus a lot on the install process and out-of-the box functionality, I'd guess that a Linux Mint review would be significantly different from an Ubuntu review. Sure, Ubuntu's functionality can be turned into Mint's functionality in a short time, but so can Fedora, Suse, Sabayon, Debian, Slackware... just with different amounts of effort.
80 • Grub2 nonsense & other interest (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-08 15:38:13 GMT from United States)
"If Mint adds bugfixes or improved hardware support to me that is significant and adds value. Anyway, between that and all the calls for a Mint review I've decided to find out for myself."
This is a telling statement! I've always contended that any press, good OR bad will trigger interest. That's why Ubuntu is so popular - interest.
Regarding Grub2. I edit grub.cfg 6 ways from Sunday! I don't care what the "Do Not Edit" this file says. That's pure nonsense. Yes, I know on the next grub-update it gets wiped out, but then I just copy my version back :) Very simple. I think all those scripts for Grub2 is silly at best.
Here's a quick look at my clean edit grub.cfg (Note how I do pmagic loop-back)
=====
default=2
gfxmode=640x480
insmod gfxterm
insmod vbe
timeout=11
menu_color_normal=white/blue
menu_color_highlight=light-cyan/cyan
menuentry "Lucid" {
insmod ext2
root=(hd0,7)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 1aaf00ab-be7a-4d50-92ab-af29618ac473
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux /vmlinuz root=UUID=1aaf00ab-be7a-4d50-92ab-af29618ac473 ro splash
initrd /initrd.img
}
menuentry "Jaunty" {
insmod ext2
root=(hd0,9)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 5d67fd00-0856-4ce1-b278-9acf3e926a5c
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux /vmlinuz root=UUID=5d67fd00-0856-4ce1-b278-9acf3e926a5c ro splash
initrd /initrd.img
}
menuentry "Windows" {
insmod ntfs
root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e2444e41444e1925
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}
menuentry "Fedora 11" {
insmod ext2
root=(hd0,8)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 5dbd9c5c-b1de-489a-a3da-6c3d7fe3ddd3
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i686.PAE root=/dev/sda8 rhgb
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.30.8-64.fc11.i686.PAE.img
}
menuentry "pmagic" {
loopback loop (hd0,5)/pmagic-4.6.iso
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux (loop)/pmagic/bzImage findiso=/pmagic-4.6.iso root=/dev/ram0 noeject noprompt sleep=0 load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 loglevel=0 keymap=us
initrd (loop)/pmagic/initramfs
}
menuentry "pmagic USB" {
loopback loop (hd1,1)/pmagic-4.6.iso
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux (loop)/pmagic/bzImage findiso=/pmagic-4.6.iso root=/dev/ram0 noeject noprompt sleep=0 load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 loglevel=0 keymap=us
initrd (loop)/pmagic/initramfs
}
menuentry "Fedora12" {
insmod ext2
root=(hd0,10)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 5d0a7d9e-f6da-476b-8086-d4e3724b2622
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.6-162.fc12.i686 rhgb root=/dev/sda10
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.31.6-162.fc12.i686.img
}
menuentry "openSUSE 11.2 KDE" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,11)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 6efd3a3b-cba4-40b5-a0d7-1cbe1e590e6a
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-default root=/dev/sda11
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.5-0.1-default
}
81 • @80 (by KevinC at 2009-12-08 19:07:43 GMT from United States)
Yeah, that's what I did as well, before studying the tutorial. It's simple enough to toggle the read-only bit and edit grub.cfg. The only pain is the next kernel update it all gets wiped out. I have to mention that os_prober if anything does almost too good of a job...on my multi-distro machine it found every distro and successfully set them up to boot (Mandriva 2010; OpenSuse 11.2; Vector 6, etc). On the netbook however it insisted on adding the Windows recovery / image partition to the boot menu, which could be dangerous if someone tried to boot my netbook and selected that entry, thinking it was going to boot into XP. So, my prima facie solution was to edit grub.cfg. However, it was easy enough to fashion my own scripts and I toggled the 10_linux file and os_prober as non-executable. Earlier anticapitalista stated this would be tough for new users to grasp, but that being said, I don't believe new users would be anymore likely to edit menu.lst manually, either. Perhaps, the grub devs came upon this solution as a safety mechanism---grub.cfg is protected as "read-only" and the changes are made via the scripts. When you run sudo update-grub2, the scripts are parsed and any syntax errors or illegal entries are caught and not processed. I can recall in the past borking menu.lst and that resulting in a non-bootable system; which was easy enough to repair with a live-CD or SuperGrub cd. Also, whereas Jaunty patched legacy Grub to boot ext4 partitions, it was somewhat of a "duct tape" kinda thing and not as reliable as what Grub2 offers. Also, someone stated Grub2 is alpha...it's late Beta, in my understanding (version 1.97). The fact remains is that Grub is now deprecated and Grub2 is what we're going to have to dance with...might as well spend the ~10-15 mins to learn it.
82 • Mint 8 as live CD - yet more suspend ugliness :-( (by gnomic at 2009-12-08 21:46:21 GMT from New Zealand)
As Mint has been under discussion - two cents worth. In general I have tended to think Mint a worthy contribution to the world of live distros as it comes with most of what I need out of the box. The Xfce community edition has also been good value.
The bad news for me with Mint 8 and one of my pet bugbears - by default it tries to suspend when I close the lid of my laptop. Yes, it fails - of course. Why oh why? Will somebody stop the madness? If you actually intend your live CD version to be used as a live CD, do not make suspend a default! It's pretty simple. As I recall, Mint 7 was not set up this way.
83 • Mint 8 (by KevinC at 2009-12-08 22:22:38 GMT from United States)
I've used both & recently gave Mint 8 a spin...so I'm speaking from experience. Mint is a great distro to those new to Linux...easy to setup & the Control Panel and such is 2nd to none. Also Mint does away with the 2 panels of Ubuntu and arranges stuff in a way that would be familiar to Windows users. That being said, to me I find Ubuntu more customizable and extensible. The busy App menu in Mint seems to get in my way---I have somewhat of a similar feeling about KDE4--I like things up front and accessible and don't like to have to dig thru several layers of menus to launch a particular app. Also, instead of 3rd party docks I simply place oft-used progs in the panel & Mint doesn't proffer and easy way to do this...in Ubuntu one simply right clicks and chooses "Add to panel." Further, in Mint I've added a whole bunch of apps to the panel (by dragging to desktop then to panel) only have all my effort vanish at reboot---even if I "lock to panel." Still Mint is polished--perhaps one of the most polished out of the box distros & it's an insult to Clem's work to suggest it's just Ubuntu with the codecs. One can point to many differences, the redesigned apps menu, the more complete Control Panel/ settings menus, more apps installed by default, a way cooler looking theme and wallpapers/ icon set...so on and so forth. Mint is a separate distro with Ubuntu as base, as Ubuntu is separate from Debian, IMHO. While I don't personally use it, I have in the past and appreciate it--another example along these lines is AntiX, another cool distro, which if one followed along the lines of the above arguments should just be grouped along w/ its parent distro Simply Mepis, tho the 2 are way different. I can understand where this come from w/ many distros slapping a new theme on Ubuntu (or whatever base) and trotting it out as the next greatest thing. Mint, however, doesn't fall in this category & to damn it b/c it's easy---well I don't think that philosophy will win many converts from the MS side. I have in the past---long ago---done the Arch/ Gentoo route &, tbh, today I simply can't be bothered. It's fine if that's your cup of tea, but for many the "kiddy distros" are a much better way to go. I work in a non-computer related field (heath care) and average 4-6 12 hr. shifts a week, so my time is ltd. Tho the other day while searching thru my closet of old parts I came upon a CD spindle and found old cds with the 1st incarnation of Arch, early versions of Gentoo, Fedora Core 2 and 3, Vida Linux, etc, etc. It did bring back memories.
84 • wah wah wah (by Nobody Important at 2009-12-09 01:31:13 GMT from United States)
All the mint fans crying about how Landor was picking on Mint. Bah humbug.
I fully understand his perspective. He's simply asking why anyone would want to use it over Ubuntu. I see a few answers, maybe a few wisps of a response, but mostly insults and yelling, which is very telling.
Yes, it is true that you can ask "What does distro X have over distro Y." You should. I'm in Fedora 12 now and i'm very happy, so if a distro review wants to persuade me to swap to something else it better give me a dang good reason why it's better than this masterpiece. I certainly didn't move off of Ubuntu easily, after using it for two years.
But if there is no good answer to the question, then why would you care about swapping? Considering Ubuntu and Mint are so close, then it's completely and utterly pointless to write an article about it - which is why Landor is asking the question!
Instead of giving polite and reasonable answers as to why Mint is worth reviewing, we get info about how people are using it 13% on Distrowatch and how it gets $4000 in donations every month! Or even better, people start attacking Landor in ad hominem attacks that seem very confused about what exactly they're trying to accomplish.
Hello, anyone in there? Knock knock? The question is why Mint is different than Ubuntu. None of that has to do with the question, and it's a fair wonder that Landor has persisted with his honest and reasonable request for a feature list.
If all you can do is attack the person asking the question, then maybe you'd better listen more carefully to what they're asking.
85 • Linux Mint 8 Helena; First Impressions (by Bob Hart on 2009-12-09 04:17:44 GMT from United States)
Linux Mint rivals Ubuntu, it's predecessor, when it comes to adoption rates, and with the release of version 8 it offers even greater improvements. This Irish based distribution, founded by Clement Lefebvre, has taken the Linux world by storm over the past few years, becoming one of the most popular user friendly distros available. Linux Mint is so popular that many wait for it instead of adopting the latest Ubuntu release, knowing that Mint will provide what they want right out of the box without having to tweak and reconfigure things just to get the system to work like they wanted it to in the first place.
A customized green desktop theme distinguishes the look of this new Linux Mint release. The welcome screen invites the user to open a chat room, go to the Mint forums, or contribute to the system in other ways, functioning as an introduction to the Mint community.
One of the most obvious changes, aside from striking theme differences between Ubuntu and Mint, is the new Mint Menu. Many prefer this new menu over the Gnome menu, finding it extremely easy to navigate and well organized. Hovering over an option opens its submenu, and from there the main apps are easily accessible. Of course if new Mint Menu isn't right for you it can instantly be replaced with the default Gnome menu.
While Ubuntu 9.10 brought with it a revised software manager, Mint has taken that idea even further by introducing voting and popularity to software management functions. Thumbnail views of each program appear at the lower left hand corner. Clicking on these brings up a larger screenshot view. The voting mechanism is a nice addition and the integrated reviews are particularly helpful in assisting new users to decide which software packages best suit their needs.
A number of custom applications have been included as well such as MintUpload, a file uploading application specifically designed for Linux Mint. Once configured, the upload manager provides drag and drop uploading of files using a number of protocols.
For those with children, MintNanny blocks unsavory domains from being accessed. It's a simple application that will be enhanced in time to provide increased functionality, but it's definitely better than nothing and a great addition that parents should welcome.
Firefox comes with almost every needed plug-in preinstalled, a nice addition and not at all common. Flash is almost never installed by default so it's nice to see it integrated as well.
Mint 8 may rank as the best overall Linux Mint release to date, particularly so considering the many new users gravitating daily to the community. Clem and the Mint team have worked hard to offer an exceptional product that takes into account the little things that make this OS more convenient than ever. With subtle additions such as mintNanny and mintUpload, along with quality improvements in software installation and management, they've taken what could have been just another in a long line of Ubuntu variants and made it not only their own, but an OS that's rapidly becoming THE system of choice for that growing body of Linux users who simply want their computer to work as it should right from the start.
The overall look and feel of this latest Mint release is top notch. The menu system is excellent, and the software manager well thought out, giving Mint the edge it needs to be a true leader among the many Linux distributions available today. While Linux Mint is widely admired throughout the community, nevertheless it's not surprising that nay sayers will jump up to contend that Mint is nothing special - a reaction that inevitably follows whenever an improved approach or a superior set of ideas takes root and challenges the status quo.
86 • FreeBSD Review (by Mike D at 2009-12-09 06:28:51 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the first look at FreeBSD 8.0. I would very much like to see a follow up from the perspective of using FreeBSD 8.0 as a desktop to give a contrast to what FreeBSD has to offer on that end of the spectrum.
87 • KDE4 (by Ladies and Gents Mr. Tom Jones at 2009-12-09 07:02:26 GMT from United States)
KDE is now turning into an awesome Desktop Environment, particularly when done well: for example as seen in Mandriva, PCLinuxOS and PC-BSD.
One other distro I am testing, which has so far proven very nice, is called Chakra. It's basically Arch Linux with a great graphical installer, tools such as a package manager, and a customized KDE4. It's very slick and very fast!
Well done to all concerned.
88 • @85 and some thoughts on a Mint review (by richjack at 2009-12-09 09:48:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
@85 Well that is one way to respond to the anti-Mint amongst us :) but at least you decribed some of the features that sets it apart. Shame about the last sentence though...
@everyone - this is why we need a Distrowatch review. I (and I am sure many others do), value highly the opinions of the reviewers on this site. So to finally answer the question as to whether Linux Mint is a worthwhile fork/remaster of Ubuntu, I will await Caitlyn's review with baited breath!
89 • Wow! (by Barnabyh at 2009-12-09 12:15:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Looking at this weeks comments, I guess I was wrong thinking fanboyism is NOT alive and well.
The PCLOS people frequently had this accusation thrown at them, but in my opinion they were never this blatant, actually I never read any remarks marking it out as superior. You guys know there are plenty of distros that are shall we say friendly to set up and come with all the plugins pre-installed?
The only difference being most people these days seem used to Ubuntu so going to Mint seems a logical next step.
90 • @86: FreeBSD as a desktop (by Jesse at 2009-12-09 13:32:24 GMT from Canada)
When PC-BSD comes out, I may take a look at it. Having had such a positive experience with FreeBSD as a server makes me want to explore further down the same path.
91 • @84....don't see it!!?? (by KevinC at 2009-12-09 14:07:55 GMT from United States)
Where is the blatant Landor bashing going on? Unless I missed something along the way (read, some comments were deleted). I've scrolled back and I don't see any outrageous attacks or flaming r/t Landor....I mean, seriously, Landor was being more than a little provocative (which I'm sure he'll admit) when referring to Mint as a "kiddy distro." And I don't feel I was picking on him or his comments...I often find myself agreeing with him & can see his point of view. That being said, I can also see that Mint is an extremely popular distro and it would be of interest to me, personally, to see a review of it. OTOH, the LFS article would be a rather nice review to see as well (tho I would guess it would be a fairly arduous/ time consuming task for the reviewer called upon to do so).
I do realize that to some Linux succeeding in the desktop market or being widely accepted by the masses is not an important goal and I've seen remarks to that effect in this very forum. I do proffer tho, that if Linux is to be a success (and if that's important to you, as well) it will be distros such as Mint rather than LFS, Gentoo or Arch that get us from here to there.
92 • @84, Mint review (by Patrick on 2009-12-09 15:22:03 GMT from United States)
Scientific method:
Hypothesis -> Experiment -> Conclusion
I don't use Mint 8. I see hypotheses here that say Mint 8 is great, I see some that say it is nothing more than Ubuntu with a different theme. What are possible experiments I could use to draw a conclusion? I could install both Ubuntu 9.10 and Mint 8 and see for myself. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to do that. So, I would be interested if someone else would do the experiment for me and write a review about it. Then I can draw a conclusion based on the provided data. What's wrong with wanting that?
You on the other hand drop into this polite discussion Landor was having and start to attack people. People who are only asking to have the experiment performed are suddenly accused of being "crying fans". You obviously have come to a conclusion without having done the experiment, or at least you feel like denying others the experiment. Why? Afraid of what the experiment might reveal? If you have done the experiment and drawn your conclusions based on that, can you explain your conclusions? Without attacking anybody? Thank you.
93 • @90: FreeBSD (by Tim on 2009-12-09 15:28:42 GMT from United States)
Jesse, what are your thoughts about FreeBSD? I have never used it myself and have wanted to give it and PC-BSD a try to a better feel of other options. How well does PC-BSD work as a desktop?
94 • @90: FreeBSD (by Tim on 2009-12-09 15:39:33 GMT from United States)
Jesse, I will reread your review on the FreeBSD operating system. I have tried to install it myself. I'm just trying to get an idea of how difficult the system is to install and maintain.
95 • @18 Primary partition needed for BSD (by PCBSDuser at 2009-12-09 16:14:21 GMT from Canada)
Yes, that's true, FreeBSD and derivatives must be booted from a primary partition.
And it is a bit of a limitation, but not much. After all, because Linux does not need to be in a primary partition, you are not restricted when Linux and FreeBSD co-habit. In fact, it's probably good practice to install Linux into a logical partition, and keep your primary partitions for things you really need there.
And another thing that makes it not much of a problem: you don't have to put *all* of FreeBSD into a primary partition. FreeBSD can mount logical partitions to use for other purposes, such as data repositories.
96 • Microsoft (by Cree on 2009-12-09 16:57:39 GMT from United States)
Hello experts. I am on a small college faculty with 11 computers in our offices.
We have recently received money for brand new machines, and we've all been very excited about not having to struggle with older, slower ones.
Linux distros have kept us going on 6 of them and we planned on standardizing on one distro (likely Vectorlinux), however now that we are receiving the grant we are beholden to the entity which provided the money and they insist we purchase "reliable Windows 7 computers."
I am posting in various linux forums asking for help in forwarding arguments in favor of linux. We are doing well when it comes to security issues, but we've heard that Microsoft has had a history of poor business practices so we are looking for details on that.
Any help is appreciated. This is a Christian school and the money came from a Church organization, thus their sensitivity to these things.
Macs are out of the question for various reasons of compatibility.
97 • @94 and 96 (by Jesse at 2009-12-09 17:20:06 GMT from Canada)
Tim,
Most of my observations of FreeBSD are in the review. In short, I think you'll find FreeBSD very easy to set up, if you take the defaults offered by the installer. Once it's installed, you should be fine, as long as you're fairly familiar with the UNIX command line. Take a look at the on-line Handbook, it answers most common questions and has some recommendations in there for maintaining the system. Best of luck.
Cree,
You might want to ask the donating organization why they want the computers to run Windows. Is it because that's what they're familiar with? Did they in turn get money from a pro-MS organization? Find out why they want you to do things that way, that'll make it much easier to present your own reasons. There isn't much point in arguing until you know why they have that point of view. And you'll probably be better off sharing the benefits of Linux than bad mouthing the company they want to do business with.
98 • RE: Landor- A Kiddie Distro? (by Eddie Wilson at 2009-12-09 17:43:11 GMT from United States)
LOL, I got a little chuckle out of that. Pray tell, what is a Kiddie Distro? Is it a distro where you don't have to compile everything or where most tasks are easy to do? Is a distro that is based off of another distro? Or could it be a way to feel superior over someone who uses a so called Kiddie Distro? You should know better then to say that. That is not an opinion of a distro, it is an insult to people who use that so called Kiddie Distro. Enough on this subject. (It's all in fun)
Remember when you have your stick on the ice don't get run over by the Zamboni. That never turns out well. ;)
99 • @96 (by Patrick on 2009-12-09 17:47:50 GMT from United States)
Funny that they should care what you run on your systems. Also funny to see the words "reliable" and "Windows" in the same sentence, especially since Windows 7 hasn't been out long enough yet to prove reliability one way or the other.
I wonder where the "reliable Windows 7 computers" statement came from -- is it "reliable Windows 7 as opposed to lousy Vista or XP", and maybe they are not aware of the "far more reliable Linux" option you are using? Or did they know you were running Linux and they don't want you to use it anymore for some reason?
Are they going to be using the computers, and is it a matter of what they are familiar with, or is it just your faculty and people who already have been using Linux for a while now on the old computers? In that case your arguments could include familiarity with Linux and seeing no reason to switch to a less efficient / less secure / less reliable system.
For documentation on MS's shady business practices, a good place to start might be groklaw.net, which has info on the antitrust cases against them.
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
100 • 64bit vs 32bit ..... Grub (by kirk on 2009-12-09 17:55:38 GMT from United States)
I build my own distro using T2's build chain and Puppy's init scripts. I've built the exact same packages and kernel for 64bit and 32bit. Ripping DVDs is about 20% faster with the 64bit build on the same hardware. The 32bit build was i686, so it certainly could have been optimized better, but I think that's the kind of optimization you can expect from an off the shelf disto. Wine is 32bit, they're working on a 64bit version, that may be a problem for someone who wants to run a 64bit only system.
As far as Grub2 goes, I haven't used it yet, Grub 0.97 works. Patches are available for supporting ext4 and pretty much anything else you want.
101 • @85; @96 (by Sven Marks on 2009-12-09 21:36:46 GMT from United States)
Re: 85 _ Bob Hart's impressions of Mint 8 appear to be on target and if anything a bit understated. He's done a good job setting forth the case for a competent, complete, clear eyed, UNBIASED review of the latest Linux Mint offering. However I suspect that such a review will not be forthcoming, at least not here, given the level of animosity on display against what have been pejoratively termed "Kiddie Distros" by some who can't abide the idea of things going in a direction they're not personally in favor of. I hope I'm proven wrong in this assessment, however time alone will tell.
Re: 96 _ In response to Cree's concerns, I must agree with (#99) Patrick that the directive to spend the money being offered on "reliable Windows 7 computers" is a bit more than just a stretch. If you're enjoying the benefits of trouble free Linux computing then there's no reason to change just because your benefactor has it in mind that Window 7 somehow equals "reliable." After all that's a proposition without a shred of real world evidence to support it. Get the computers first, then install your Linux version of choice either on the entire disk or on a dedicated disk partition, and go forward from there. A dual boot solution would seem the best all round solution if for whatever reason your benefactor insists on seeing Windows 7 on the machines being purchased.
102 • New Computers (by Cree on 2009-12-09 21:57:14 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the responses about this. And that link provided by you Patrick is useful; one of our staff is going over that now for info to present to the committee that voted our funds in.
This is not the first time we've had strings attached to grants we've won for our little school over the past few years. But it will be the first time we've forwarded a case to them to allow us to make the decision as to what operating systems to use here as they purchase our computers, printers and new software.
The first subject that came up with them was compatibility of Power Point with linux; they did not have a clue about wine and other methods of using that, nor did they know about linux based Impress, etc.
I think we'll win on this. Thanks again. :)
103 • Re: 96 Microsoft (by Anonymous at 2009-12-09 22:27:57 GMT from Netherlands)
we are beholden to the entity which provided the money and they insist we purchase "reliable Windows 7 computers."
I am posting in various linux forums asking for help in forwarding arguments in favor of linux. . . .
Any help is appreciated. This is a Christian school and the money came from a Church organization, thus their sensitivity to these things.
I've never used it, am not interested in it, and know it will stir up a hornet's nest here, but just to play devil's advocate as it were, have you considered whether using Ubuntu Christian Edition might help sway your benefactors?
104 • @102 (by RO at 2009-12-09 22:51:27 GMT from United States)
That micro-management of how a benefactor expects you to use their "gift" still seems rather hard to fathom - are they involved in ongoing interaction with you? Do you create PowerPoint presentations for them?
Anyway, since any new PC's will most likely come preloaded with Win7 now (unless you knock yourselves out looking for "raw" systems, or have a local white-box computer builder to work with), I would think it would be simplest to go ahead and get those, then use Wubi/VirtualBox/dual boot to load up your preferred distro to demonstrate what you can accomplish with Linux. Go with the flow, and divert it with small nudges ;-}
On the matter of hardware reliability, SquareTrade, an independent warranty provider, has published a recent study of laptop reliability based on their service experience that might also be indicative for desktop systems. Asus, Toshiba, and Sony are top-rated, and Acer, Gateway and HP are at the other end, but read the whole report and links to discussions of it at http://squaretrade.wordpress.com . Also interesting from that study - netbooks, although the data are skimpy, appear to have a higher failure rate than more standard notebooks.
HTH
105 • Review (by Jake on 2009-12-09 23:17:46 GMT from United States)
I love this part of this weeks review on FreeBsd. Rate up.. "Before we get to the fun part, I think a bit of disclosure on my part is important. It's rare that I use any of the BSDs in my work or personal life. It's even rarer for me to work as an administrator on a BSD system. And, finally, this review marks the first time I've installed from scratch, configured and run a FreeBSD server. I'm hoping that if any mistakes appear in my review that a FreeBSDer will set me straight in the comments section below." Btw nice job on 8.0 everyone
106 • posting number 103 about UCE (by Cree at 2009-12-09 23:39:47 GMT from United States)
We'll never use Ubuntu no matter the edition. During the process of narrowing down to useful linux distributions, Ubuntu was in the running for the shortest time during our one year test period on the three machines we had for that purpose then.
Mint, the Ubuntu inspired distro that we liked, remains in the top three for us along with Vector and Sabayon (Sabayon just may win when we get our new, high tech stuff).
Linux is all good. None of the distros we voted out for our uses were "disliked," merely not suitable for various reasons in our environment.
107 • "Review" of Mint, "UNBIASED"??? (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-09 23:47:02 GMT from United States)
#85,#101: As stated before, I have no opinion about Linux Mint 8 because I haven't used it yet. It probably will get installed on one of my systems next week for evaluation.
However, Sven, Bob Marks "review" read like a commercial to me and was very light on any sort of specifics. To call it "UNBIASED" to me, reveals your bias in favor of Mint. If you want a commercial or a fawning fan piece you are probably right that my review will disappoint you. Why? There is NO perfect distro. Every one I have ever tried has strong points and weak points. Yes, I have written reviews that have been very positive on the overall. Despite claims to the contrary by some such reviews outnumber negative ones I've written. If you are willing to accept a review that will list strong points and weak ones and come to a conclusion based on the overall balance of the two then maybe you will be satisfied. Your comment seems to suggest that any criticism will translate to bias in your mind. It reads like blind fandom.
FWIW, I much prefer writing a positive review. I won't sacrifice my integrity to do it, though. I also won't prejudge Mint or any other distro one way or another.
108 • FreeBSD 8 (by Exiquio on 2009-12-10 04:42:28 GMT from United States)
I am glad you guys shined a light on FreeBSD. It replaced Gentoo as my primary distro in 06, but I am sold on Arch Linux now. While the feature article was fun to read, I expected to hear about new feature in the 8th edition. The article could have just as easily been labeled FreeBSD6 minus a ZFS point here and there. I would like to suggest a bit more than the usual "I inserted the disk"-"It installed"-"Ran into a problem but the rest worked" kind of entry. This isn't a blog. It is Distrowatch! Take that (with a grain of salt)!
109 • RE: Many (by Landor at 2009-12-10 04:46:35 GMT from Canada)
77:
Jeff, like so many others you took what I was stating and twisted it to form your own interpretation. My premise is, and it still stands, that Mint mainly is just a codec and plugin pumped up version of Ubuntu. To say that you could fill in the blanks for X and Y distribution is a loaded statement, well, that's a loaded statement too.
79:
I'm not hung-up at all. My question (which still stands and keeps getting proven in my favour) is what makes Linux Mint so different that "based on that" it warrants a separate review.
82:
Kevin, I can't agree with the control panel being second to none. It's in one wide window and encompasses all aspects yes, but it's not special. Special is MCC and Old Suzie's, they're hands down the two best control panels in Linux. Everything else pales in comparison.
84:
I'll agree that a few really took offence to my "personal" view of things and has let that guide some of their replies. Look at the one person that completely took what I said out of context and "coloured" the bullshit to make it look like I consider, or would, Mandriva a kiddy distro.
They did seem to forget the one simple thing. I continually asked what made it "so" different. Even the heavily biased and dramatic review really didn't do much to support this all encompasing difference that I've heard so much about. The majority can be done through repositories and he kept speaking about "Many People This and That" I loved how accurate, complete and clear-eyed those comments were the most. He did more to prove my point that to argue against it. I do have to thank him for pointing out that Mint has bloated the crap out of Firefox with every plugin needed. I'm glad I don't use it. Again, it also tells me that Mint is just "pumped up".
98: I would easily consider the past PCLOS followers kiddies. I consider the draw of media, flash, java, plugins, and more importantly compiz-effects, kiddy. How long can you draw flames on your desktop or spin a cube before you go, "uhh, yeah" and remove it. Those that do use it continually must be pubescent at best. As I stated before, none of that attracts me to a distribution at all. I like to weigh in many factors that don't include those. Just to clarify too, I'm not knocking compiz. I'm actually very interested in its somewhat ability to emulate Mac's Expose, which I fully intend to explore if I ever get around to it.
RE: 101
Sven, the only thing I'll say about your comment is, "over the top, no?" Let me guess, you're an avid Mint(y) enthusiast. Talk about shaggin' a leg, seriously. Either that or you were stuck in the C part of the dictionary, competent, complete, clear-eyed, then you pumped it up with an upper case "unbiased"..WoW.
-----
Anyone here ever watch Darkwing Duck with their kids, or on their own? You always hear what I consider unprofessional terms when it comes to "some" (see kiddy) distributions in Linux. With Mint it's "Minty" or "Mintiness". I can't help but picture a whole pile of kids spinnin' up the cd and sayin', "Lets.....Get....Minty" On the serious side of things, really, how can you take terms like that as serious, and for that matter the distribution, c'mon....
Also, let's dredge up an old argument. Right around the time Mint was "officially" approved for using Linux in their name there was some problems they were having with others using their branding and such in remastered distributions based on Mint. I found this quite odd since Mint itself did just that with Ubuntu and continued to do so for a bit until they "finally" had their own spash, themes, etc. For me, I found that very flagrant to say the least. Others might not care, but I personally do. It's one of those, we'll do what we want, but you better not do the same to me attitudes. Especially when it received some bad press and all Clem and team had to do was approach the person and maybe assist them in getting their own themes and stuff, might have went a long way towards making Mint "such a great distribution" in the eyes of the community.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
110 • Linux creep? (by hab on 2009-12-10 07:26:40 GMT from Canada)
Need a mainframe for your business (or basement!), ibm has the machine for you. And people ask me why i don't do windows (cause i don't play with toys anymore!).
See here: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142007/IBM_s_newest_mainframe_is_all_Linux_
cheers
111 • Unity Linux (by Sertse at 2009-12-10 10:29:30 GMT from Australia)
IIRC, Unity Linux is the distro formed by many of the ex-devs of PCLOS after apparently a rather dispute...
Interesting they've managed a release. Anyone tried it?
112 • RE: 109 about Mint... (by Caraibes on 2009-12-10 11:25:34 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I totally agree with the last Landor's post...
Mint is basically Ubuntu with a different artwork & codecs...
It should be a package with a ppa repo...
It can't really be considered like a separated distro...
113 • Mint = Ubuntu (by megadriver at 2009-12-10 11:56:48 GMT from Spain)
Yup.
Same main repo = Same distro.
Different main repo = Different distro.
114 • KDE4, 32 vs 64bit, CPU arch, Linux vs Windows (by Jonatan Kaźmierczak at 2009-12-10 12:01:13 GMT from Switzerland)
KDE4: I use KDE since 2.x releases and I always use Konqueror with tree view. Suprisly for me, tree view is dropped in KDE4! Both Konqueror and Dolphin don't support it now, what made them worse than Windows Explorer! Konqueror web sessions (many windows with many tabs) are not restored correctly anymore after restarting KDE. In current distros, only Xfce4 WM (with Thunar file man) are quite acceptable for me. So until now I stay with Debian Lenny based distros because of KDE3 (Mepis 8.0 at home, Debian Lenny at work).
About 32 bit distros: the problem is, that most of them are still compiled for obsolete arch i386 (even Windows 2000 was i586). So on my previous Athlon 2000 XP (no Windows 2000 nor XP :) ) I've tried many distros. Fedora and Debian were too slow, KateOS (i486) was acceptable. Finally I've compiled Gentoo exactly for my architecture and I was fully satisfied with it (with exception of system updates-I generally avoided them).
On my current Intel E8200 I've installed only binary distros, which at least match my arch (amd64).
Current distros which can fully replace Windows (reply for post about school): Mepis 8.0, VectorLinux (mentioned in post), Sabayon 4.0. I have all of them currently installed. As soft engineer I prefer Mepis, but my wife (typical user) prefers Vector (she sometimes use also Sabayon). I've tried also Xubuntu and Fedora, but were not applicable for me. But I install Xubuntu on laptops for my friends because of good support for mobile and wireless networking.
BTW, Vector 5.x beta 64bit is the fastest binary distro, which I ever used!
115 • Mint vs Ubuntu (by Cree on 2009-12-10 12:33:25 GMT from United States)
Mint can't be Ubuntu in very important ways because you can't do with Ubuntu what you can with Mint immediately following install.
That is vital with young students who have not the time or inclination to find, download and install software that makes the operating system complete and work properly (codecs, etc).
The "artwork" is not relevant, but the other things Mint developers have done (as well as developers for Vectorlinus, et al) is more than important, it is needed for those of us who have to just get going with the computer and not tweak, configure and maintain to much of a degree; thus our decision to go with linux in general and complete distros specifically.
Ubuntu is not complete as compared to many others noted.
116 • Look out-where do you get your .deb files from! (by D1Knight at 2009-12-10 13:14:38 GMT from United States)
1-This easily could have been a lot worse. I believe the person was just trying to make a point. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1349678
2-As usual, another excellent DWW.
3-Thanks for giving Parted Magic, the donation. Good for them. They deserved it, nice mini distro and more importantly it is definitely good to have this in your tool kit (very handy). :)
4-I am glad to hear Kubuntu finally gets a LTS version!.
Be safe out there. Everyone have a great week/end. :)
117 • !st saw @ (by D1Knight at 2009-12-10 13:19:35 GMT from United States)
Give credit, where credit is due. I first read about the malware situation at this site http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2009/12/yet-more-malware-found-on-gnome-look.html (Good site, for that extra Big U info.) Peace.
118 • Different distributions (by Jesse at 2009-12-10 14:15:21 GMT from Canada)
I'd say Mint deserves it's own separate distro status. It has different hardware support than its parent. The KDE desktop in Mint is nicely polished, the control centre is really well done. The extra codecs are a huge bonus to inexperienced users. I'd say that hardware support alone, which allows it to run on different machines than Ubuntu makes it an entity unto itself.
Some people have claimed that using Ubuntu's package repositories means it's not a different distro. Does that make DSL not a separate distro? Because it uses Debian's repo, if I recall correctly. What about PC-BSD? It draws on the FreeBSD Ports to make packages. Is it just a simple FreeBSD add-on? Most people seem to regard CentOS as a distro, but it draws on another, upstream, repo. As I recall, the FSF treated BLAG as an independent distribution, though it could use the same repos as Fedora.
Mint may not be a large step away from Ubuntu, but it brings some things to the table vanilla Ubuntu doesn't. The various spins, hardware support and forums show that a lot more work has gone into Mint than simply adding a few packages and changing the wallpaper.
If you don't think Mint is its own distro, then what would it take? Most large Linux distros run the same programs and the same kernels, so where do you draw the line?
119 • @96, 115 (by D1Knight at 2009-12-10 14:22:47 GMT from United States)
Just a thought, PCLinuxOS (Suppose to be new user friendly). Here is some comparisons between Windows and PCLinuxOS. I hope this helpful and or informative.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/wiki/index.php/Migration
http://www.pclinuxos.com/wiki/index.php/Applications_equivalences
120 • ref - "118 • Different distributions (by Jesse )" (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-10 15:07:02 GMT from United States)
Great point. Some people can't see past their noses!
Once they read what a distro is based on, they seem to think it's just another re-spin.
Since they all use the Linux kernel, they are just another Linux....
OR
Its just another street...
Just another car...
Just another woman...
...
ad nauseum
121 • @Landor (by Patrick on 2009-12-10 15:40:00 GMT from United States)
You wrote:
"""
98: I would easily consider the past PCLOS followers kiddies. I consider the draw of media, flash, java, plugins, and more importantly compiz-effects, kiddy. How long can you draw flames on your desktop or spin a cube before you go, "uhh, yeah" and remove it. Those that do use it continually must be pubescent at best. As I stated before, none of that attracts me to a distribution at all. I like to weigh in many factors that don't include those. Just to clarify too, I'm not knocking compiz. I'm actually very interested in its somewhat ability to emulate Mac's Expose, which I fully intend to explore if I ever get around to it.
"""
I find this comment very confusing.
Agreed, some compiz effects are for fun. Some are useful to clarify concepts. I think the spinning cube is a useful concept to make computer-illiterate people grasp the concept of multiple workspaces, because it maps an abstract concept to something physical. The compiz zoom effect really impressed one of my family members who has very bad eyesight (he is legally blind). On Windows, he'd have to pay a lot of money for accessibility software to reach the same level of zoom functionality. I personally like the ability to quickly turn windows transparent to look at something "behind" them and find this often more convenient than switching apps or arranging them side by side if I need info in one for something I'm doing in another. You yourself appear interested in the Expose functionality.
But then in the same paragraph, you write "I consider the draw of media, flash, java, plugins, and more importantly compiz-effects, kiddy". Then you go on to say "Just to clarify too, I'm not knocking compiz". So, do you consider compiz kiddy or not??? I think it has kiddy uses, but it has serious uses too.
The same goes for codecs. You may not need them, but I just had to talk a computer-illiterate friend of mine who now lives three states away through installing codecs to the Ubuntu I had installed for him. Why? Did he want to watch some movie he had downloaded from Bittorrent? No, he needed to watch archived lectures from the college course he is attending. Some idiot had encoded them in some newfangled proprietary Microsoft codec. Now if I would have installed Mint to his PC instead of Ubuntu, chances are it would have just worked for him. Do you think this is kiddy? Mind you, he is in his fifties and he is taking the college course to improve his business skills. I don't think he would like his reasons to have codecs installed labeled "kiddy".
So maybe you don't need the stuff you label "kiddy" and you think there are only immature reasons for using them, but you are wrong. I just have shown several good reasons that mature people needed these things, for serious reasons. Of course, you are entitled to your opinion. But to go around and label anyone who wants something that you have no need for "kiddy", well... I find that attitude quite "kiddy".
Keep your attitude on the ice...
Patrick
122 • Linux Geeks (by claudecat on 2009-12-10 15:58:02 GMT from United States)
I just gotta say... as a non-programmer/average-joe, Landor's comments strike me as the epitome of what might scare off the new user/Mint user/Windows convert. Sure, it's a badge of honor to have installed Gentoo and all, but we all need to welcome and embrace the new user that will surely find Mint to be more user-friendly than Gentoo/Arch et al. If linux wants to ever get seriously popular on the desktop, folks like Landor will not help... a Windows convert should NEVER have to do CLI.... and with Mint, it is entirely possible. Accolades rather than ire for such distros would help in the quest for world domination.
123 • Re: 114 (by Eric Chapman at 2009-12-10 16:03:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
"KDE4: I use KDE since 2.x releases and I always use Konqueror with tree view. Suprisly for me, tree view is dropped in KDE4! Both Konqueror and Dolphin don't support it now, what made them worse than Windows Explorer!"
I don't know what gave you that idea, but it isn't true. I use KDE4.3.2 in Debian Testing, and both Konqueror (which I prefer) and Dolphin can be configured to show a treeview in the left-hand pane. This is how I've set them up in a number of other distros as well.
124 • #107 (by Sven Marks on 2009-12-10 17:01:12 GMT from United States)
Caitlyn Martin wrote:
"As stated before, I have no opinion about Linux Mint 8 because I haven't used it yet. It probably will get installed on one of my systems next week for evaluation.
However, Sven, Bob (Hart's) "review" read like a commercial to me and was very light on any sort of specifics. To call it "UNBIASED" to me, reveals your bias in favor of Mint."
-------------------------------------
If you'll look again Caitlyn you will see 1): Bob Hart did not write a "review" of Linux Mint 8 at all, but simply offered his "first impressions" on installing and running that new offering. First impressions of course would normally be rather light on specifics, so there is much territory for you to cover in your more complete review.
In conjunction with that please note 2): never once did I call Bob's "first impressions" unbiased. I did say that what he wrote was somewhat understated in my view, but never that it was unbiased. Try as we might we each come to whatever subject may be in front of us with a degree of bias, you and I no less than anyone else.
----------------------------------
Caitlyn Martin continued:
"If you want a commercial or a fawning fan piece you are probably right that my review will disappoint you. Why? There is NO perfect distro. Every one I have ever tried has strong points and weak points. Yes, I have written reviews that have been very positive on the overall. Despite claims to the contrary by some such reviews outnumber negative ones I've written. If you are willing to accept a review that will list strong points and weak ones and come to a conclusion based on the overall balance of the two then maybe you will be satisfied. Your comment seems to suggest that any criticism will translate to bias in your mind. It reads like blind fandom."
----------------------------------
I appreciate your desire to be balanced and generally positive in your evaluations Catilyn. However if my commentary suggested that "any criticism" indicates bias you've badly misread me. My own first impression is that Linux Mint 8 is certainly not above legitimate criticism, especially in light of its immediate predecessor, Linux Mint 7 'Gloria,' and the widely acknowledged overall success of that offering.
Certain Mint supporters have leveled broadsides at some of its new features, among which Grub 2 stands out as a popular whipping boy. Others have not been fond of the 'look' of the Mint Menu system. And still others have found additional changes they've not been pleased with. Personally I've found nothing in Mint 8 that's a deal breaker as far as I'm concerned, and sufficient overall progress is in evidence as the Mint development schedule moves forward for me to stay firmly aboard as a supporter of the project. Does that make me a "fan" of Linux Mint? ..Yes, I suppose it does, but for good reason if I might add!
----------------------------------
Caitlyn Martin concluded with:
"FWIW, I much prefer writing a positive review. I won't sacrifice my integrity to do it, though. I also won't prejudge Mint or any other distro one way or another."
---------------------------------
That's all anyone can ask Caitlyn, and well said I might add. As long as those who love to call what they're prejudiced against "Kiddie Distros," and who defame anyone who might look as things differently than they do aren't involved in such a review, we'll gladly take the good along with whatever legitimate critical impressions may emerge.
All I'd ask is that you spend sufficient time with Mint 8 to truly get a feel for what's new and different as measured against its Debian/Ubuntu roots. Once you do that I'm confidant that whatever your review finally reveals it will be well founded and fact based instead of reflective of some of the highly biased "Kiddie Distro" bombs that have been tossed out here.
Looking forward to your work Catiliy.
125 • #122. Problem with NOOBIE concept (by jack at 2009-12-10 17:24:47 GMT from Canada)
A;though I have been using Linux for more than 3 years I am still very much a noobie.
This is because Linux works almost all the time; and the few occasions it doesn't I get help from a forum. But my knowledge does not seem to accumulate because of the length of time between problems.
So I would really like a "good" book or two.
I luckily found, back when starting, the "teach Yourself Red Hat Linux visually"
(pub,1999)
This was a blessing as each page had a full colour screen shot (or 2)
Last year I looked in Chapters (Canadian book store chain) at the Linux section; I was looking through the indices for "photo" ( I had just received a multi pixel camera and wanted to send emails with smaller number of pixels).
Not one book, at that time, had "photo" in the index.
Last week I repeated my search--there were fewer books in the Linux section (7 or 8) and only 2 had "photo" in the index.
One had "see image".
Not being impressed I went to Amazon.com and found "Ubuntu Linux Desktop" Your visual blueprint to using the Linux operating system"
No books on KDE of course.
I looked at a few pages (that is a great benefit of Amazon) and bought it.
WOW
There is so much I don't know . For example p.84 "set the preferred applications"
Apparently in Ubuntu one can go System>preferences>preferred applications and then choose which multimedia app to use. And there are screenshots to show how.
Since I like to listen to tango and every time I go to their page and "click here" Mplayer comes up>caching> and then" stopped".
So (as I have never used Ubuntu) I went looking through the menus of my KDE desktop looking for this application.
No luck.
Last week there were some posts about documentation; but all were focused on the "man" pages; which are virtually useless for noobies. (This has been acknowledged for years)
Noobies need books written for their level.
126 • DW's take on Linux Mint. (by John T. at 2009-12-10 19:03:02 GMT from United States)
Those who loudly claim that Linux Mint is not a distro in its own right, but simply Ubuntu with minor tweaks, are completely contradicted by DW's own list of today's top 10 distributions. Ubuntu is number 1 on that list, and at number 6 Distro Watch has Linux Mint. The accompanying article begins as follows:
"Linux Mint, a distribution based on Ubuntu, was first launched in 2006 by Clement Lefebvre, a French-born IT specialist living and working in Ireland. Originally maintaining a Linux web site dedicated to providing help, tips and documentation to new Linux users, the author saw the potential of developing a Linux distribution that would address the many usability drawbacks associated with the generally more technical, mainstream products. After soliciting feedback from the visitors on his web site, he proceeded with building what many refer to today as an "improved Ubuntu".
"But Linux Mint is not just an Ubuntu with a new set of applications and an updated desktop theme. Since its beginnings, the developers have been adding a variety of graphical "mint" tools for enhanced usability; this includes mintDesktop - a utility for configuring the desktop environment, mintMenu - a new and elegant menu structure for easier navigation, mintInstall - an easy-to-use software installer, and mintUpdate - a software updater, just to mention a few more prominent ones among several other tools and hundreds of additional improvements. The project also designs its own artwork, while its reputation for ease of use has been further enhanced by the inclusion of proprietary and patent-encumbered multimedia codecs that are often absent from larger distributions due to potential legal threats. However, one of the best features of Linux Mint is the fact that the developers listen to the users and are always fast in implementing good suggestions."
It's clear that Distro Watch is fully cognizant of the standing of Linux Mint within the community at large, and appreciates what the project offers in its increasingly refined distribution.
127 • Re #110 No toy (by Anonymous at 2009-12-10 19:43:39 GMT from United States)
If it doesn't run DB2 and can have 32+ active partitions, it is still a toy.
128 • Mint 8 (by Anonymous at 2009-12-10 19:51:45 GMT from United States)
Mint 8 vs. Ubuntu
You are right, not much difference. But, the first time I ran Mint 8 I thought it was KDE 4.
Mint XFCE vs. Xbuntu. Bigger difference as Xbuntu had most of GNOME slowing it down.
Another good bet is plain old Debian, It got a lot easier to install than it used to be and you can add only what you want to support. You could even create your own remix and let the package manager maintain it for you.
129 • RE: 113 Mint = Ubuntu (by ladislav on 2009-12-10 23:58:29 GMT from Taiwan)
That's hardly a foolproof way of determining whether a project is a distro or not. One can easily copy the entire repository of another project to their own servers, then release the whole unmodified thing under a new name. According to your criteria, this would then qualify as a "distro". At the same time, Mint, which adds a bunch of new in-house tools to another distro, but otherwise uses the repository of its parent would not.
I am sorry, but I don't think I can agree with that.
130 • @111 Unity (by Anonymous at 2009-12-11 00:42:15 GMT from United States)
Actually no. I'm pretty happy with Mandriva.
131 • Question about the FreeBSD-Review (by Duffy on 2009-12-11 02:15:08 GMT from Austria)
It says:
However, as the project's motto, "The Power To Serve," indicates, FreeBSD gains most of its strong reputation from running servers. Keeping that in mind, I borrowed an old desktop box with a 1 GHz CPU and 512 MB of RAM and installed the latest version of FreeBSD on it to see how it would function as a home server.
Why do you borrow an old(!) desktop(!), when you want to try a server operating sytem?
I would try real server systems with multiple multicore CPUs with tons of RAM, big raids, etc.
Or if I want to test it as a Desktop OS a normal, reasonable modern PC.
132 • Who cares if someone thinks Mint is a distro or not (by rarsa on 2009-12-11 02:16:56 GMT from Canada)
I use Mint, I use Ubuntu, why are people getting fired up for calling one, the other or both distros?
I remember sometime ago reading that Ubuntu wasn't a distro because it draws so much from Debian.
Who cares? If it works for you use it, if it doesn't don't, If you want to call it a distro, go ahead, if you don't then don't.
I don't know how that changes anything. The developers put a lot of work on it, It is nice to use, that's the only thing that matters.
What do people gain by arguing if it is a distro or not?
133 • RE: 132 Who cares if someone thinks Mint is a distro or not (by ladislav on 2009-12-11 02:51:10 GMT from Taiwan)
When I started this web site, one of my goals was to try to create some sort of a manageable order out the growing chaos in the Linux distribution development world. Of course, the first things I asked myself was: what exactly is a distribution? Only once I had that clearly defined could I start placing everything into their proper boxes and label them accordingly. So I do care and I do think it's important.
According to Wikipedia, "A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like software distributions built on top of the Linux kernel." In that sense, Linux Mint (together with all 600+ distributions listed on DistroWatch) clearly fulfills the criteria and is therefore classified as a distribution. Some people may have a different definition of what a Linux distribution is, but I am happy with Wikipedia's.
But I agree with you - all the bickering about whether Mint is a distribution or not is completely meaningless. The only thing that matters is the fact that it exists - it has a (not insignificant) community of developers and users. Nevertheless, if it makes some people feel better, it's perfectly within their rights to create their own definition of what represents a distribution.
134 • compiz (by Anonymous at 2009-12-11 04:15:35 GMT from United States)
can compiz use window maker as its window manager?
135 • Ubuntu 10.04 alpha (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-12-11 06:40:50 GMT from Denmark)
I have been trying the first alpha of the upcoming ubuntu 10.04.
I was exited to try it since I have had a lot of trouble with 9.10 Karmic. But oh my....at least on my hardware this is even worse than Karmic. (intel Celeron D 2.66 Ghz, Intel Integrated Grapchic card 82865G).
In 9.10 Karmic I have been complaining about a lousy screen resolution: 800x600. (and yes I DID report the bug, long ago, no result came of this).
In 10.04 Lucid the problem is much more simple, but even more showstopping: It doesn´t work at all. My screen generates a message:"Input not supported". And that is it.
And before someone gives me the story that this is a problem with the drivers Intel supplies, lets just drop that shall we?
A lot of other distributions work fine on my hardware.
With ubuntu the performance has been going down for a while, and now it just does not work!
136 • distribution definition (by Cree on 2009-12-11 11:44:56 GMT from United States)
I guess a little bit of discussion about that is good, no? :)
My definition has something to do with what the developers of it say it is; if the Mint folks call it a distro, that is good enough to me.
We once tried "BLAG," a Fedora based distro. We had a hard time finding the differences between BLAG and Fedora, but there were a few. At no time did we think it was not a distribution of linux.
137 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-11 12:44:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
Distro definitions...sounds like splitting hairs.
Does it really matter...apart from fact the Mint xx and Uxx seem to work for most people, which strikes me as being "quite" useful.
138 • @125 (by Barnabyh at 2009-12-11 12:46:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi Jack,
the menu option you're talking about is not Ubuntu specific, it is a part of the Gnome desktop.
(Re: Apparently in Ubuntu one can go System>preferences>preferred applications and then choose which multimedia app to use.)
I found your comment interesting for various reasons. People really don't seem to be adventurous in the slightest and can't even be bothered to explore the menu of this new system they want to use? "Newbies" should remember that sometimes in life you just need to try things out instead of buying a book and reading it first. Nothing can replace the experience of doing it yourself. It's easy to just go through all the menu options and see what they do, then you know. When I was new to Gnome 2 I did just that and in a matter of days had figured out how things work, where they lead to, and how to adjust keys in Gconf (and that I needed to install it first) to change certain settings. Not dissimilar to Windows all that really.
Maybe it's just how different people approach life in general?
Mplayer is of course not part of Gnome nor KDE, in case you wonder.
Take care.
(I'm generalizing, not talking about you specifically, as this type of thing comes up from time to time again, so it really seems a more widespread problem).
139 • 138 (by Barnabyh at 2009-12-11 13:00:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
Now if you try and get postfix/dovecot/procmail set up and working that is different, but for desktop use I think the point-click-try approach is quite valid.
Between this and the forums one should have it all covered.
140 • #138 (by jack at 2009-12-11 14:03:21 GMT from Canada)
Being adventurous is definitely a "good" thing; as long as you have a second string to your bow.
In the context of this site that means a second computer so that you can get online to a forum:
"...Newbies" should remember that sometimes in life you just need to try things out instead of buying a book and reading it first..."
I have found that it is so much easier to press the wrong key than it is to correct that mistake'
Hence the need for a book -- a good book.
141 • @131 Hardware (by Jesse at 2009-12-11 14:20:18 GMT from Canada)
Why did I use an old desktop system to test a server install?
For starters, the main difference between a server and a desktop box is the manner in which it is used. In a pinch, I've often used old desktop boxes as servers. Or used an old server as a desktop machine. When you're on a budget or in a hurry, sometimes you have to think creatively.
Second, it's what I had available. If you'd like to send me a machine like the one described in Duffy's post, I'll use it. Until then, I have to test drive distributions with what I can find lying around.
Third, running a minimal server install on modern hardware doesn't test the flexibility of the OS. FreeBSD runs with surprisingly little resources, which makes it suitable for lower end machines.
142 • @135 (by Patrick on 2009-12-11 15:28:15 GMT from United States)
You do realize you were testing an alpha release, right???
"A lot of other distributions work fine on my hardware.
With ubuntu the performance has been going down for a while, and now it just does not work!"
Hilarious. You just determined Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid is a piece of junk, two months into its development and four months before its release. Can I borrow your time machine? :)
143 • @142 (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-12-11 16:27:20 GMT from Denmark)
"Hilarious. You just determined Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid is a piece of junk, two months into its development and four months before its release. Can I borrow your time machine? :)"
Well, if I had one you sure could :-)
Unfortunately, all I have is my experience with ubuntu.
Being an LTS edition, I had greater hopes for 10.04.
Usually LTS editions of ubuntu have a more conservative approach than he usual editions which aim more for providing the "latest and greatest".
I don´t remember using the word "junk" anywhere - so that statement will be on your own account. I simply tell what my experience with this release is, on my specific hardware.
144 • @143 (by Patrick on 2009-12-11 16:47:49 GMT from United States)
*lol* Now you're doing it again. :)
"Being an LTS edition, I had greater hopes for 10.04."
Lots of water will go under the bridge between now and when it is actually going to be released. Mind you, the _final_ release will be LTS, an early alpha release can not be held to the same standards.
Time to file a bug report I'd say. Being this long before release, there's a good chance the devs can actually do something about it before release date.
145 • @many (by Jehosephat Walenskihausenstein at 2009-12-11 16:49:08 GMT from United States)
I guess this area is going to morph into one of those "ubuntu sucks!" and "ubuntu is the best!" forums for a while.
I don't know if it "sucks," I just know two things; too much trouble to run with confidence on my computer and too hard to maintain over time.
Reminds me of Windows in that it is proof that #1 can be poo-poo. :)
146 • ref 135 • Ubuntu 10.04 alpha (by Henning Melgaard) (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-11 16:54:11 GMT from United States)
"intel Celeron D 2.66 Ghz, Intel Integrated Grapchic card 82865G)."
I have P4, 2.65Ghz, with integrated i865 video and karmic AND Lucid Alpha1 worked perfectly. In fact Lucid Alpha1 I can finally use some visual effects. I want speed so I do turn them off.
Something is not right if you have i865 and still have video issues. That was fixed with kernel and Intel driver updates long ago.
147 • @ 144 (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-12-11 17:13:26 GMT from Denmark)
"Time to file a bug report I'd say. Being this long before release, there's a good chance the devs can actually do something about it before release date."
Well if you read closely you will see that I allready filed a bug report about this, all the way back when 9.10 karmic alpha 3 was released, and like I said, nothing came of this. Hence my frustration...
By the way it is bug nr 408588 at launchpad.net
148 • @146 (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-12-11 17:17:04 GMT from Denmark)
"Something is not right if you have i865 and still have video issues. That was fixed with kernel and Intel driver updates long ago."
Now that is really interesting, and puzzling too...
If you read bug nr 408588 at launchpad.net you will see that a lot of people with the same graphic card as mine are experiencing this problem
149 • Re: 123 - KDE4 (by Jonatan Kaźmierczak at 2009-12-11 17:30:51 GMT from Switzerland)
In Konqueror 4.2.2 from Kubuntu 9.04 (run under QEMU - no time to reboot to my Debian Testing), in View menu, I don't see the following functionalities, absolutely needed for me:
- View Mode->Tree View
- View Mode->File Size View
- View Mode->Photobook
- Icon size (and related zoom in/out icons from Main Toolbar)
Not implemented yet or dropped completely? Anyway, Konqueror without those functionalities is useless for me.
150 • ref#148 (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-11 19:44:19 GMT from United States)
LP bug #408588 , is for "[i865] Low screen resolution using Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 3, Alpha 4, and Alpha 5". That's long gone, and fixed. You were referring to Lucid Alpha1.
151 • Ref#-148 (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-11 19:48:33 GMT from United States)
What does the following show(here's mine, and i865 works 1024X768):
aptitude show xserver-xorg-video-intel|grep Ver
Version: 2:2.9.1-1ubuntu1
uname -r
2.6.32-7-generic
152 • UnitedLinux (by Barnabyh at 2009-12-11 19:56:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
The recent release of Unity Linux looks interesting, and it reminded me of something called United Linux which was a big deal back in 2002/2003 or so and then was never heard from again.
Anyone know what happened after it was established as some sort of base standard for Suse, Turbolinux and I think a few others?
Actually, I just answered my own question, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Linux . It never got that far.
Another casualty of the SCO lawsuit.
Quote:"It emerged that no real work had been done on United Linux since soon after SCO v. IBM had started, and that SUSE had ceased active participation around this time. The last United Linux announcements were of Oracle Corporation support for it on 13 March 2003, and of AMD64 CPU support on 22 April 2003."
Interesting is also that it seems to continue to exist as a body:
"While some have reported that UnitedLinux ended, in fact the group did not gain consensus to dissolve the partnership and the legal entity remains in effect."
153 • RE: Many, Again (by Landor at 2009-12-11 20:56:23 GMT from Canada)
RE: 118
I've thought about this a lot during this whole topic this week. I honestly found myself amused by the fact that it's even been switched to whether it's a distribution or not. Something I never stated. The initial comment was does it warrant a separate review (in my opinion, not DW's or a reviewers) and I still come up with no.
Let's look at the commonalities between Ubuntu and Mint. First versions: Gnome, KDE, XFCE. Those spins are exactly the same so I don't see your emphasis. We'll use MEPIS and AntiX as an example here. A lot of really hard work goes into icewm and fluxbox from Anti, and it's a major effort from a whole pile of different sources (to my understanding). Thus its providing something that MEPIS does not, and not just from MEPIS.
The repositories are another thing that don't need any more attention to express the point. The control panel is a difference I will admit, but "for the most part" it's mainly an aesthetic difference with very little difference.
I think the key question here also would be how is it built? Is it a remaster? Do they build it from the ground up using Ubuntu's repositories? Answers that I'm not aware of, but it might go to explain how much effort is put into "making it" different. That's what I've thought about quite a bit.
RE: 121
First, yes I did take a bit of a poke at Sven, but he was quite over the top (in my opinion only of course). I think we can keep subtle things out like saying an attitude is kiddy, or telling someone to keep their attitude on the ice. This is debate, or discussion of different opinions, no? There's no need to take offence when none is given, and thusly give due to your personal beliefs. Kevin asked where people were becoming negative in reply to me, I think the undertones of your post would be a prime example. I'll not let it sway me from an honest, unemotional reply though.
I can't agree with your concept of a spinning cube as a tool for making computer illiterate people understand the concept of workspaces. I know a person who is Linux illiterate and by her own admission (I'll talk about her later in this post) Windows illiterate as well and she found workspaces an amazing feature and picked it up instantly, without an explanation from me.
So if you think it has kiddy uses, you do agree with me. Thus it is kiddy, but also it's not. Since I earlier agreed that I did find some interest in it. For the most part I think the main uses are kiddy, and that's opinion, but it doesn't devalue the point at all, since it's personal.
Also, I don't disagree with your friend who's visually impaired being assisted by compiz, I will state however that there are far better assistive technologies available that should have been shown in place of compiz. Far better in fact. If you're not aware of them, maybe an e-mail to Klaus Knopper would help you.
See my next reply for more on some points in your post.
Also, I never stated once I didn't use any codecs, or flash. I don't use Compiz, but just may in the future. An assumption on your part.
RE: 122
So in essence Claude you are saying that if a Windows user comes to Linux they become more stupid? That in essence Linux has to be dumbed down even more than it is for Windows?
That's a reality since Windows users have to install each and every thing that Mint pumps it up with, manually. They don't have to use a CLI, nor do Linux users at all. They do have to seek out applications via various websites, where many Linux Distributions have such available in their repositories. Thus making it easier.
I found it disturbing that you considered installing Gentoo a badge of honour and pray tell, what are people like Landor? Also, world domination?
I would consider a badge of honour being when I installed and learned Unix on my own about 24 years ago, along with BSD. Also running a BBS from both at different times, as well. I'd also consider a bad of honour installing Linux in general from about 93-99. Currently though? Not in the slightest. I proved that point years ago when my barely computer literate son installed Gentoo with only two requirements, the ability to read and follow direction.
A young lady I spoke of who although extremely intelligent as I said is not computer literate, for both operating systems. She ran Ubuntu live and learned how to do so from a pendrive by something that I think many common computer users do so with, search engines. They're a very wide spread tool. She got a serious virus on her netbook and decided to make the switch to Linux fully. Again she did this from information found from google. She later stated that she should have just tried it since the defaults were perfect except for her timezone. Since then she's applied fixes for various functionality that commonly doesn't work with Linux right out of the box. She's also installed codecs, flash, java, etc, etc. She reads here and said to me yesterday, do people really think other people are that stupid and can't actually do anything for themselves and would dump Linux for these reasons? Does it really need to be that dumbed down? Isn't that insulting them?
RE: 126
You are speaking for Distrowatch (Ladislav) and he already did speak for himself. His main contention was the fact that Mint made $4000 in donations alone. If he was going to discuss all those points he would have.
-----
I find all the variations of where the topic has strayed to kind of absurd.
People are jumping all over the place and still have done little to actually show any concrete reason to my very first and only point on this topic. "Why does Mint deserve a separate review when it's just a juiced up version of Ubuntu". The point may be moot since there is going to be one, though I find it funny that really not one person can come up with specifics that "truly" set it apart.
But "I'm wrong" lol
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
154 • Re: 135 (by Anonymous on 2009-12-11 20:56:51 GMT from Spain)
Do you really know the meaning of the word 'alpha', referred to software versions...?
155 • @ 150 (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-12-11 20:57:02 GMT from Denmark)
"LP bug #408588 , is for "[i865] Low screen resolution using Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 3, Alpha 4, and Alpha 5". That's long gone, and fixed. You were referring to Lucid Alpha1"
Excuse me. How was that fixed?
I haven´t seen any updates or anything fixing this.
You can do some working around, like I found out myself.
But the bug was, as far as I know never fixed by ubuntu.
And as you can see, people are still writing comments to this bug today, that this bug is affecting them as well.
The reason I am referring to my problems with 9.10 is that with this release, at least ubuntu would boot, but with a very low screen resolution.
I cannot answer the other things you ask, since 10.04 simply will not boot on my hardware
156 • @ 154 (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-12-11 21:01:15 GMT from Denmark)
"Do you really know the meaning of the word 'alpha', referred to software versions...?"
If you bother to read a little closer, you will probably see that I have been testing several alpha versions of ubuntu
157 • RE 153 My Last Post (by Landor at 2009-12-11 21:04:12 GMT from Canada)
I forgot something. The Young Lady I spoke of? She's been asking me about Gentoo, moreso this week due to Claude's comment. She is seriously considering installing it via the handbook. She figures if a 13-14 year old boy with less computer literacy than she has can do it, then how hard can it be.
Badge of honour indeed.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
158 • Intel i865 and Lucid Alpha (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-11 22:08:11 GMT from United States)
Henning Melgaard, make sure you don't futz around and try to make a xorg config file. i865 doesn't need it and in fact only confuses things. Just take the "default" xorg value from Ubuntu Lucid Alpha install.
159 • @158 (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-12-11 22:25:51 GMT from Denmark)
How do I do that when Lucid will not boot on my system at all?
160 • Re: 149 (Konqueror settings) (by Eric Chapman at 2009-12-11 22:44:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
"- View Mode->Tree View" - It's not under the View menu. Just click on the red folder icon at the left.
"- View Mode->File Size View" - Use View --> Details. Specify the details in View --> Additional Information.
"- View Mode->Photobook" - Sorry, I don't know what you mean by this.
"Icon Size" - Settings --> Configure Konqueror --> File Management --> View Modes.
161 • The last word on Mint For Now (I hope) (by sly on 2009-12-11 22:56:22 GMT from United States)
If scores of Linux users prefer Mint over all other distros, there must be something that sets it apart, regardless of low alike or different it is from Ubantu. I've tried the last two or three releases of Ubantu, Fedora, OpenSuse, Mandriva, Sabayon, Debian, Open Solaris, OpenBSD, Vector Linux, Mephis, and a few others. I've settled on OpenSuse and Mint.
I'm looking forward to the review in January.
Landor, sorry there is no ice in SW US.
162 • All distro's were based off of something (by Shawn on 2009-12-11 23:33:34 GMT from United States)
There are valid points regarding concerns between Ubuntu and Mint but at the same time, you have to look at the lineage of Linux itself and understand that all distro's were based off of something at one time or another. From what I can recall, both Red Hat and SuSE (openSUSE/SLEx) were based off of Slackware when they were first born. Gentoo and other source-based distro's like LFS are just source-based and can become anything they want - the only difference in source-based distro's is the package manager. Slackware and Zenwalk are both considered distributions but what's the main difference between Zenwalk and Slackware other then Zenwalk's package manager netpkg?
What it comes down to is splitting hairs. My version of what I consider a distro from what I've seen so far is all it takes is a different window manager or desktop environment and/or package managers to distinguish between distro's. And even then it's still not clear as to why they need different names and different package maintainers. PCLOS/Mandriva, Ubuntu/iMagicOS/UE/Geubuntu, etc., Gentoo/VLOS/Sabayon/SourceMage, Arch Linux/Frugalware - it's all redundant and different at the same time.
I think Mint and Mandriva are popular (especially in the US) because they come preloaded with stuff we can't have here legally in the US and can't download without paying some company to have it legally. Then again, even in countries where laws like ours don't apply, it is useful and beneficial to have things like media taken care off and everything is just plug and play without using a repository to download and install everything "we should have" by default. Just my two bits. :)
163 • @153 Landor (by Patrick on 2009-12-11 23:33:53 GMT from United States)
Honestly, I wasn't even trying to be subtle. :)
You seemed to be offended when someone threw the label "elite" into the conversation, but you have no problem throwing the label "kiddy" around at tools and distro's people choose to use for very good reasons. Yes, I did find that offensive and disrespectful, hence my comment about attitude.
Then again, now you write:
"Also, I never stated once I didn't use any codecs, or flash. I don't use Compiz, but just may in the future. An assumption on your part."
So you do seem to use "kiddy" technologies yourself. I guess I was wrong in assuming you meant the term "kiddy" in a disrespectful way. I also have no idea anymore what you are trying to say when you use that term. I do think I am at least justified in being thoroughly confused and it shouldn't surprise you too much I made the assumption you didn't use any of that "kiddy" stuff.
Am I the only one now wondering: "Then what the heck IS your problem???" :)
I can't see the point of this discussion anymore. You know, why certain distro's would be "kiddy" and others not. "Kiddy" as in, a no-disrespect-intended, generic label without any further meaning. Is it because the things you label as "kiddy" are pre-installed on some distro's, and you have to add them yourself on others? But why make a distinction between these particular packages people want and need to use (as even you yourself do) and other packages, whether they're pre-installed or not?
As to my vision impaired family member, you don't know him so there is of course no way you can know what is "far better"... for him. He sees well enough to use a screen and does not need a screen reader. All he needs is magnification, and the Compiz magnifier is as good as any I have seen. I consider myself pretty well informed about what's available for vision impaired users and know about ADRIANE, Vinux, etc., since my wife is blind and she does need a screen-reader. I don't think I need to write to Klaus Knopper.
As to your computer-illiterate friend: I honestly believe she is the exception, not the rule. Yes, many many people ARE stupid. And I don't mean that they don't know enough about computers, I mean that they lack common sense. Why else do you think spam is still around? Or how come viruses keep spreading? Or phishing is as popular as it is?
Your friend, who you mention is extremely intelligent, identified a problem and took action to correct it. She actively sought out information to find a solution to the problem. She followed the directions to implement the solution. That is smart. That is also very unusual. Most people can't even be bothered to keep their virus scanners up-to-date.
164 • madbox - little something for the distrohoppers/LiveCD lovers (by gnomic at 2009-12-11 23:45:32 GMT from New Zealand)
While looking around in the Crunchbang forums to see when a new version might arrive, I came upon this. Ubuntu 9.10 based with Openbox or Xfce.
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/3384/madbox-liveusb-toram/
Had a quick first look last night at the xfce 10.02 version on ThinkPad T23, 1.13GHz PIII. Booted to RAM in 768MB, and could play a commercial DVD, although MPlayer controls were blacked out, just an outline showing on screen. Some might find it interesting.
165 • Xorg (by Anonymous at 2009-12-11 23:48:42 GMT from United States)
When I upgraded to Debian stable - Lenny, the new version of Xorg no longer
needed a custom Xorg.conf file. Debian removed all of the old familiar tools,etc.
I used Ati, Nvidia and Sis video cards with my KDS-17 inch monitor and good old
Xorg would only come up with 800x600 or 1024x768...uhggg.......
So I downloaded videogen from the repository and made custom modelines.
Now my Xorg and video card provide me with much sought after higher resolutions.
Automatic configuration? Only good if it does what one wants.
In this case it did not. Even with many different video cards.
Sometimes one has to drive with the manual transmission to get things done right.
Someday hopefully Xorg will get smarter and ask me what video resolutions I want or need. Not just blindly or merrily giving me any old thing.
If you simply want a GUI to come up then by all means trust the default Xorg
automatic detection stuff. I just won't suffer with 1024x768 when I know my monitor is spec'd at 1280x1024 and I have gone very usably higher with interlacing mode lines.
Thanks for your time and Thanks to DW for a great site.
166 • OT But, Has Anyone Noticed The Price Increase... (by Distrowatcher at 2009-12-12 01:02:53 GMT from United States)
...in laptops since Windows 7 was let out of its cage ?
167 • RE: 153 (by CC at 2009-12-12 02:22:48 GMT from United States)
I'm surprised to see myself mentioned! (lol) I just did what I needed to do. What I think anyone would if they wanted to use Linux, right?
You did forget one thing I spoke to you about today, that I've read in here and elsewhere people writing about how a person who comes over from Windows finally has the ability to take control of their computers. Linux gives me control in ways I was lead to belive I shouldn't have. Isn't that a bit close to what everyone is discussing as Mint's attributes? Sort of contradicts that premise a bit I think.
And I don't agree that the average windows user would need things dumbed down for them. I consider myself to be an average computer user. Finding help and information is just a click away. Most people use google/etc. for help or to find information daily. I think it is a logical and easy step to use those same commonly used skills to search out help with using Linux properly.
I'm learning and having a great time, in large part to this site. Thanks.
168 • 126 • DW's take on Linux Mint. by John T (by Anonymous at 2009-12-12 04:20:27 GMT from United States)
Landor, read 126 for your answer if you choose to accept it how Mint is different.
169 • linux distros (by Cree on 2009-12-12 12:15:36 GMT from United States)
One thing seems certain in all this about "forked" and "derived" linux distributions: if there were an operating system out there that had as close a resemblance to Windows (in kernel especially) as Mint does to Ubuntu, Sabayon does to Gentoo, Vector does to Slackware, et al, the Microsoft company would have them in court quicker than you can say, "lawsuit."
One of the joys of open source. :)
170 • Ok who's next (by Weeman at 2009-12-12 13:42:58 GMT from United States)
Ok, I am bored now with the Mint/Ubuntu thing. Let's fight about something else now. :D
171 • Re 167 (by jeffcustom at 2009-12-12 14:48:39 GMT from United States)
I work on computers in my area for hundreds of people. Believe me, if you found Distrowatch, let alone found a message board to post in, you are above average in computer knowledge compared to what I see on a daily basis. :-) I find people know way more about their phones than they do their home PC. It may be a sad commentary but it's true.
172 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-12 19:35:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #171
And by extension jeffcustom it would be reasonable to say your situation is not unique, witness the market share of MS, lol.
Just as well then we have the likes of Ubuntu or Mint, (if you like green stuff) and the rest of the "kiddy distros"...
173 • RE 171 (by Landor at 2009-12-13 04:19:19 GMT from Canada)
Now in my experience I found the opposite. Anyone I've ever done any work for they were highly interested in learning. I also had a gig that I stopped on my own accord where I would charge people to teach them. It was $30 per hour and they decided what I was to teach them in their lot of time. It was rather lucrative (I could have easily charged more too) and busy, actually too busy for my tastes. A lot of the time it was internet, malware/spyware/viruses, search engines. Then applications and maintaining the operating system aside from the first three.
The world has taught people to believe they are stupid and continues to do so. I think by assuming people are we're only doing harm to both parties.. In my personal opinion only, Mint propagates this lesson by being dumbed down, sadly.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
174 • Help MySQL (by glyj at 2009-12-13 11:29:18 GMT from France)
Have a look there :
http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=121998
or directly:
http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.html
regards,
glyj
175 • SalixOS (by KevinC at 2009-12-13 12:46:24 GMT from United States)
Played w/ SalixOS in Virtualbox...must say I'm fairly impressed. For older/ ltd. hardware applications I would guess it would be just the ticket. Ran rather fast in Vbox w/ 512 mb setting and 128 vid mem. Just wish I had some old boxes still around to play with...
176 • Re: #174 (MySQL is in danger!) (by NippoNoob at 2009-12-13 12:50:22 GMT from Brazil)
.
Dear glyj,
Although I don't use MySQL, I shall certainly send an e-mail to the European Commission ( comp-merger-registry@ec.europa.eu ) trying to convince their members to not allow such a damage to the Linux world.
Unlike the money-oriented American authorities, they are reasonable persons who never created something like DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). So I think the deal between Oracle and Sun is not a consumated fact.
BTW, the whole world knows that Oracle is an evil company which shamelessly plagiates RHEL, hence "stealing" Red Hat. I'm also affraid of what Larry Ellison could do to OpenSolaris...
All of you, Distrowatch readers, should take a look at the following site to perfectly understand how dramatic is now the situation of MySQL:
http://www.anti-dmca.org
For the glory of Linux, let's forget our irreconcillable ideologic differences. It's our duty to help Michael "Monty" Widenius, the creator of MySQL.
We all play in the same league!
177 • RE: 173 and others (by Daniele at 2009-12-13 13:48:39 GMT from Italy)
Although I agree with many of the things Landor wrote I wanted to add something to this mint review debate:
does it make sense to review every new version of ubuntu that comes out? It is done just to see what changes were made and where they have improved (if they have).
Mint is not that different: it tries to improve somehow what was done with the latest ubuntu release.
178 • @171 to 173 (by KevinC at 2009-12-13 14:56:29 GMT from United States)
I wanted to resist this, but, alas, I cannot. In fine, anecdotes do not an argument make & all are based on the simple logical fallacy of small sample. Ergo, we cannot extrapolate our limited personal experiences into broad generalizations. However, Landor has revealed a rather interesting argument---Linux has failed, to this point, to gain significant market share due to the fact that the great masses are waiting to pay us $30+/hr. to teach them to slog thru Gentoo's gestations with compiling or Arch's "connect the dots" guide to configuration. I never knew...tho, my allied health job pays better this will be an awesome part time job.
/sarcasm off.
For my 2 cents/ anecdote: if I was a betting man I'd lay my U.S. dollar on the easy to install/ "kiddy" distros to be those that serve to gain mass appeal (e.g., Ubuntu, Mint, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, etc). I don't forecast an end to Gentoo/ Arch---the niche/ hobbyist element will keep them afloat...but I would guess most ppl. could care less about the internal workings of their computer...they just wanna surf the net, post some pics, listen to some mp3s, and so on (that's just a hypothesis tho, not claiming fact). I do thank you for convincing me to install Mint on my bedroom computer---it was just an XP box, set up to stream Netflix instant movies to my 37" LED, but had to show I was down w/ Clem and the "kiddies," and it can still function to stream other content....since Netflix requires Silverlight 2. All undertones aside, heh??? ;>)
179 • RE: Linux market share (by ladislav on 2009-12-13 15:19:47 GMT from Taiwan)
Linux has failed to gain significant market share? Then how come more than half of the world's web servers use it???
We get enough FUD from a certain big software company, please don't help them by spreading more. Linux is a highly successful and reliable operating system with very significant market share. That's a fact!
180 • referring to the desktop only, there, lad (by KevinC at 2009-12-13 15:28:47 GMT from United States)
That Linux is the gawd of serverland, to me is a given & that's not what we're discussing here....as far as I can see. It's related to Linux v. MS v. Apple in the battle for the desktops, e.g, those in ppl's homes. Sorry if I didn't preface that or express it clearly. No FUD intended.
181 • btw... (by KevinC at 2009-12-13 15:31:14 GMT from United States)
Posting this from OpenSolaris in the VBox for anyone interested....guess I'll havta got down this path next. ;>)
182 • re 179 (by putter at 2009-12-13 16:12:38 GMT from United States)
Linux is a highly successful and reliable operating system with very significant market share.
Only in software is 1% considered significant, for most that is a statistical anomaly ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
183 • re#182 (by hab on 2009-12-13 16:46:17 GMT from Canada)
Ummm...... that would be for desktop/laptop usage.
Check the numbers for enterprise usage, or mainframes, or clusters! A little more than 1%.
Way to spin doctor there putter!
cheers
184 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-13 17:00:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #177
Well Danielle, seeing as how Ubuntu is the most popular/often used distro to access DW, closely followed by Mint (see an earlier comment from LB on the subject), then it might make perfect sense to review said distros, or non-distros.
As for "constant" reviews (paraphrase) of Ubuntu xx; it is perceived as one of the first distros to incorporate the notion of the "Cloud"; there are regular "new" versions every six months, and of course as far as "ordinary" distros go, to repeat, Ubuntu xx is, again, perceived as the most popular amongst the general public at large.
LB is as knowing as the rest when it come to which distro is flavour of the millenium so he is hardly likely to ignore Ubuntu xx is he?
Note I mention general public. You will have read the Gimp has been omitted from the list of included applications in Ubuntu. Possibly because of the dreaded "bloat", but more likely in my view because Gimp is not Photoshop by any stretch of the cursor.
I am assured by my nevu (with tolerant amusement) that for any "creative" worth his ragged jeans and holey trainers there is NO substitute for Photoshop in the graphics industry here in UK.
Perhaps I'm just being cynical? Perhaps Canonical sussed Gimp was not being utilised to any great extent? Perhaps we will see a Cloud version of Photoshop? Who can say?
How U xx stacks up against nationally sponsored distros is another matter altogether, owing to not knowing how many school kids use "a" machine in Brazill or Tenerife, say; or how many machines are on private networks and don't have direct internet access.
You don't need me to tell you a lot of governments are actively investigating freeware in order to reduce costs and reduce dependence on commercial software.
Landor amuses himself by playing the agent provocateur on occasion. Nobody really believes the planet at large is computer literate...if Landor has had the good fortune (and he has) to encounter folk who are interested enough to pay for tuition in computering then he should probably try to get out more.
Landor's view about Mint being dumbed down and thus earning the soubriquet "kiddy" is only his personal opinion...largely ignored as being irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, mind you that goes for the rest of us too.
This is when the dreaded term "elitism" starts being bandied about, perhaps with good reason?
Jeffcustom paints a far more realistic picture...because it accords with my own world view, lol.
The large numbers of folk who do like Mint couldn't care less if Mint is dumbed down or not...if you are new to GNULinux how would you know anyway?
Mint works for them without issue and that's all they ask. They can get on with pursuing their own interests via the internet (with drivers) or media players (with codecs) without wasting time on messing around trying to get a distro to "work".
If "configuring" a distro is your hobby then you would more likely to be trying your hand at Arch say, which, by all accounts, offers more of a challenge anyway.
185 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-13 17:21:53 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #178
Hmm, Kevin C, you will I am sure, be cognisant of term "deduction"...then allow me to draw your attention to the term "induction", used in the philisophic sense. See Webster 1913. found, possibly, via a panel if you are using Gnome.
This contradicts, in the nicest possible way you understand, your erroneous views of extrapolation.
Broadly, this means that the folk Jeffcustom met with on a professional basis...are unlikely to be the only folk on the planet who knew more about their 'phones than PCs.
In fact that is probably a given, LOL.
186 • Linux market share on the desktop/laptop (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-13 20:14:14 GMT from United States)
#179, #180, #182: WikiPedia has been known to have incorrect or outdated information at times. This is one of those times. According to ABI Research Linux recaptured 32% of the netbook market in 2009. Dell puts their netbook sales at 33%. See my article at: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/12/linux-regaining-netbook-market.html and follow the links for the source material. Netbooks are the fastest growing segment of the desktop market, accounting for 11 million units in 2009.
I haven't seen overall desktop numbers I would consider reliable yet for this year but the best guess I've seen is that both Linux and MacOS are at about 10% of the market with Microsoft holding the other 80%. (Sorry, BSD and openSolaris fans. Those are quality operating systems with miniscule user bases.) We've seen Dell increase the Linux presence on their website in the last two weeks and continue to expand their Linux offerings. HP/Compaq continue to offer Linux on their business lines of desktops, notebooks and netbooks. Even Asus, which most of us have written off, continues to offer Linux on a couple of older models which are still in production. Those Asus systems are the only ones I've seen in retail stores this season.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago there was a strange confirmation of Linux' rapidly increasing market presence from none other than Steve Ballmer. His pie chart of market share had no numbers on it but visually it sure looked like the 80/10/10 numbers are correct.
187 • Tasty Mint (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-13 22:30:54 GMT from United States)
Well with all the hullabaloo over Mint, I had to tried it out. I'm impressed, to say the least.
I haven't tried Mint for a few years. I am a Ubuntu user for white a while now. Also have Fedora 12 Gnome installed.
Tried openSUSE KDE, was very excited at first until some show stoppers popped up, Open Office labels crashed the program, my HP printer wouldn't work. Very little response from the SUSE folks. I was impressed, and still am, at the speed of openSUSE kde. Will try that distro at a latter date.
What' very interesting about Mint, given that fact its Gnome, it doesn't feel like Gnome. They have done a great job on the interface.
I'm using the LiveCD right now. Will install later and give it a go, kick the tires and all that stuff.
There's a reason why its so popular ! I had a hunch going in that it would work out ok on my system, since Ubuntu works so well. Even though they do appear quite different distros.
188 • RE: 182 1% percent market share (by ladislav on 2009-12-13 23:43:14 GMT from Taiwan)
1%? Sure, if you limit your view to what you see in your and your best buddy's spare bedrooms. Fortunately, there are a lot more computer systems out there in the big world...
189 • Re: #96 by Cree (by DShelbyD at 2009-12-14 00:01:09 GMT from United States)
Cree wrote: now that we are receiving the grant we are beholden to the entity which provided the money and they insist we purchase "reliable Windows 7 computers."
Cree, why are you beholden? Did the school submit a proposal to the grantmaking entity under stated guidelines that say "Windows shall be the OS"? Or maybe once you received the award (letter and/or contract) there was language in the award documents that stipulated "Windows." Is there a binding grant agreement that stipulates the OS?
Since I've had considerable experience in higher education grants in the U.S., these are the kinds of accountability questions that come to mind. "Beholden" may also mean that you feel obligated to honor the wishes of the grantmaker because of a relationship between your school and the grantmaker. That could trump the lack of such language in an agreement.
I think of HP, for example, that has a grant program, but it's clear that the grant is to puchase HP equipment.
Afterthought: Is the grantmaker an individual?
These questions come at the "11th hour" in this week's Distrowatch. Sorry to be so late in responding. I haven't been reading here in a few days.
190 • Tasty Mint part2 (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-14 01:26:25 GMT from United States)
ok, I got mint installed. Very familiar Ubiquity installation. It didn't crash as Ubuntu installation did. I learn one thing from Ubuntu. Stop internet to avoid all those language installs. Ubuntu Ubiquity crashed using manual install and checking format partition. Mint didn't.
I was amazed at how well it works. Music and codecs.
One thing surprises me, no games. Simple board games. Easy to install, but a type of warning Not Authorized ?!
Hopefully we will have a Mint review coming soon to a Distrwatch near you :)
Number of Comments: 190
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