 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 333, 14 December 2009 |
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Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! As we near the end of another eventful year, the development of distributions tends to slow down a gear or two. This is perhaps a good time to take a look at some of the lesser-known projects. Today's feature article covers LinuxConsole, a small distro that started as a modified Mandriva for gaming consoles, but has since matured into a full-featured operating system in its own right. Read on for a complete review. In the news section, TuxRadar evaluates the most popular KDE-centric distributions, the Archiso-live project delivers a slick Arch Linux live CD with a friendly hard disk installer, Ubuntu sets out goals for its next stable release, and Katana announces a useful multi-boot suite containing today's most popular security distributions. Also in this release, the Q&A section hints at some reasons why Kubuntu is sometimes considered a neglected brother of the Ubuntu family, while a brief statistics section looks at online sales of low-cost CDs with free operating systems. All this and more in this issue of DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!
Content:
- Reviews: A look at LinuxConsole 1.0.2009
- News: openSUSE wins KDE distro comparison, Archiso-live delivers working installer, Ubuntu presents 10.04 feature list, Katana reveals multi-boot security suite
- Questions and answers: Kubuntu a second-class citizen?
- Statistics: CDs sold by online vendors
- Released last week: Sabayon Linux 5.1, Ultimate Edition 2.5
- New additions: KahelOS, Unity Linux
- New distributions: BioPuppy Linux, Comunix GNU/Linux, dwmarch, Matriux, Quirky, SCLive, ShepherdPup, Simplicity Linux, TOP Linux
- Reader comments
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (44MB) and MP3 (41MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
A look at LinuxConsole 1.0.2009
 The LinuxConsole distribution is one of those small projects which quietly put out releases, gradually improve and - rarely get attention. The project, headed by Yann Le Doare, recently released version 1.0.2009 of this distribution and I decided to take a look at what it had to offer. The current release comes in three flavours: Multimedia, which is a small live CD designed to enable you to get on the web, listen to music and play videos; the full CD edition, which comes with a complete GNOME desktop; and the DVD edition, which includes all the packages from the CD with some extras thrown in. There is also a tool, called Jukebox, which allows the user to build their own custom install image. This is similar to Slax's ISO builder and allows for a great deal of flexibility. For my test drive, I downloaded the Multimedia image.
First impressions
While downloading, I took a quick look at the project's web site. It has a clean, simple layout which appeals to me. The site is easy to navigate and comes with some basic documentation, help forums, a news section and, of course, a download page. One thing which makes LinuxConsole stand out right away on the site is a mixture of English and French. The login form asks, "Forgot your password?" right next to the news announcement stating, that the Multimedia edition is "Pour les ordinateurs anciens, ou les système avec peu d'espace disque". While I speak passable conversational French, that skill doesn't extend far into technical terms and it made me shy away from trying my luck with the Jukebox build-your-own feature. I'd like to add that during the course of the week I was using LinuxConsole, more and more of the text on the site changed to English and translation is an on-going process.
To test this distribution, I put the Multimedia CD in my desktop machine, which has a 2.5 GHz CPU, 2 GB of RAM and a NVIDIA graphics card. My test drive also included my LG laptop, which has a 1.5 GHz CPU, 2 GB of RAM and an ATI graphics card. To see how the distro works on lower-end hardware, I also ran it in a virtual machine. Once the LinuxConsole image was downloaded and burned to CD things progressed very smoothly. The CD provides the option to select your preferred language and has a live desktop up and running in seconds. The desktop is easy to look at and comes with a few icons for navigating folders and launching Firefox (version 3.5). The windows are themed to look like Mac OS X, but this can be changed to any of the fifteen different styles.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2009 - the default desktop with the IceWM window manager
(full image size: 119kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
System and hardware configuration
The application menu has a small, but well-ranged selection of software, including XMMS for audio playing, MPlayer for watching videos, a PDF viewer, a virtual terminal window, tools to burn CDs, a calculator and some games. There's also a file browser and a configuration center. A quick run through the application menu demonstrates that everything works and the system is responsive, even when running in a virtual environment with 256 MB of RAM. The configuration centre is a good combination of simple and powerful. From here, the user can add user accounts, set passwords, change desktop settings and screen resolution, add and remove software modules, manage Samba settings and change the network configuration. While the controls are basic-looking, everything works which allows for a flexible system.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2009 - the configuration center
(full image size: 87kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
The LinuxConsole CD comes with the ability to install the operating system on the local hard drive. When booting the live CD, the option to install is on the boot menu, along with the various language choices. The installer is one of the simplest I've seen and it's all done with ncurses menus. The installer allows the user to select a preferred language and the size of the swap partition (0 - 512 MB) and then goes to work. Total install time was about five minutes on both of my machines. I found it interesting that the installer will not remove or edit existing partitions, it uses up only the free space on the disk. If no free space is found, the installer asks the user to run fdisk and switches over to the live CD's desktop.
During my time with the distribution, LinuxConsole handled my hardware well. My keyboard, USB mouse and sound card were all detected and configured properly. My only complaint was that the sound was muted on my first boot, though there's a sound mixer control on the application menu to adjust volume. Multimedia, including audio CDs and videos, were played without any problems. The video cards on both my desktop and laptop were picked up, but my resolution was restricted to low and medium settings. This turned out to be a limitation of the default graphics driver. More advanced drivers from NVIDIA and ATI are available in the distribution's package repository and come on the DVD edition. My network connection was detected and enabled automatically on my desktop, though on my laptop, my wireless card didn't seem to function. I later found the wicd network manager in the repositories, so not all is lost for users who need a wireless connection.
Security
By default, LinuxConsole logs the user in as root, without a password. This is true both for the live CD and for the local install. The root account is automatically logged in, regardless of other user accounts created on the system until a root password is set. Once a root password is created, booting LinuxConsole will provide a standard login screen. There are a few other quirks about this distribution, mostly user account-related, which make me think it's designed to be used as a live CD more than a system installed to a hard disk. For example, passwords aren't stored in a protected shadow file, as on most distros; instead, the hashed passwords are kept directly in the /etc/passwd file. Regular users can browse just about anywhere on the system, including the root user's folder. Users can't delete or edit most files, but they can see just about everything. Another thing I noticed is that when the system is run without a root password, logging out of the desktop causes the system to shut down. Once a root password has been created, logging out of the desktop takes the user back to a login screen and from there there doesn't appear to be any way to power off the machine, short of logging in as root and issuing the shutdown command.
To be fair, when I asked on the LinuxConsole forum about the way passwords are stored, Yann Le Doare promptly provided a script which transfers all account password hashes into a standard shadow file. This file isn't readable from regular user accounts. Also, for the paranoid, LinuxConsole has a feature in the configuration centre which allows the file system to be mounted in read-only mode. My point is that, while on the surface, this distro may not appear to be security conscious, it's fairly trivial to lock it down. Following that thinking, I was happy to see that no Internet-facing services ran by default. The LinuxConsole distribution comes with an OpenSSH server (disabled) which can be started for remote access.
Software installation
When it comes to installing software, LinuxConsole has an approach similar to Slax's modules. The package manager launches Firefox and the user is taken to a web page which contains a list of various software packages. Each module has a name, a description (including package size), a download link and a list of dependencies, if any - most modules appear to be self-reliant. Installing new software is as easy as clicking the download link and then running the Install a LinuxConsole Module program from the application menu or clicking on the downloaded package file. There's a wide range of software to be had in the repository, including OpenOffice.org, CD burning software, instant messaging clients, several games and multimedia applications. Most modules are aimed at desktop users, but there are also some developer tools and a copy of WINE thrown into the mix. I downloaded and ran a handful of packages. Each one added itself to the application menu and ran without any problems. It is possible to disable or delete unwanted modules with a few mouse clicks in the configuration centre, making package management blissfully easy.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2009 - the Firefox web browser showing available software installation modules
(full image size: 94kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
I didn't really expect LinuxConsole to provide software updates since it's small distribution which seems to be aimed at being a good live CD. I was mistaken. There is an option on the application menu called LiveUpdate and running this program causes the system to download a package file containing patches. According to the package's description, this file is updated regularly, almost on a daily basis.
After using the system for a while, I really started to appreciate its performance. LinuxConsole is generally quick to respond and after several days of poking at the configuration centre there were no stability issues. (I ran into a small problem when I logged out during a patch update, but that was obviously self-inflicted.) The icons are pleasant to look at, most of the themes are nice and the application menu makes finding things easy. There are a few quirks which set this operating system apart, such as running into a menu in French, or finding English phrases which don't sound quite natural. Those occasions are rare, but happen from time to time. Whether you find this endearing (as I do) or annoying will likely vary for each person. I think this distro has a home-brew personality in the best sense of the term.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2009 - MPlayer with its configuration dialog in French
(full image size: 75kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
Conclusions
At the end of the week, I found myself liking LinuxConsole. It's not perfect, but it has a clean way of doing things. The modular design is well done and the system is very light. The range of functionality is good for a mere 200 MB download and I'm sure my experience would have gone even smoother had I downloaded the DVD image, which contains all the bells and whistles. There are a few things I'd like to see worked on for the next release, the most important area probably being documentation. Some basic things are covered on the web site, but for the most part, the user is left to click on things to find out what will happen.
The other area being user accounts, or more specifically, the security and privileges placed on regular users. Regular users shouldn't be able to access the entire file system under the default settings. On the other hand, they should probably be able to reboot the system when they're logged in locally. That being said, I think LinuxConsole is an excellent distribution for someone who has some previous Linux experience and wants to set up a single-user PC. It would also turn an old laptop into a nice portable media device or gaming console. I think Yann Le Doare has done a great job putting together this distro. It has the charming appeal of a labour of love, and I look forward to what this project delivers in the future.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
openSUSE wins KDE distro comparison, Archiso-live delivers working installer, Ubuntu presents 10.04 feature list, Katana reveals multi-boot security suite
 Let's start this week's news section with a link to an interesting article published recently at TuxRadar. Entitled "Get the best KDE Linux distro", it evaluates some of the more interesting KDE-centric distributions, including the recent releases from Slackware Linux, Chakra (an Arch-based live CD), sidux (based on Debian's unstable branch), Kubuntu, Mandriva One, openSUSE, Sabayon Linux and PCLinuxOS, for usability, looks and integration with system utilities. The verdict? The best KDE distribution today is openSUSE 11.2: "Our winner is openSUSE. It's a distribution that's got the professional sheen and gloss that only Novell can bring, and it's a distribution that always manages to bundle a cutting-edge KDE installation that will last you the full nine months of the distribution cycle. The custom artwork looks great, and shows that the packaging team has a great understanding of what KDE is capable of and what users need from their desktop. YaST is always going to be unwieldy, but its fantastic integration into the KDE desktop (it's written in Qt) makes Linux feel much closer to its Windows and OS X competitors than other KDE distributions."
 In the meantime, the first retail boxes of openSUSE 11.2 went on sale last week: "Retail versions of openSUSE 11.2 are once again available. For the first time, the retail box is being handled by a partner, Open-SLX. Open-SLX is founded and lead by Stefan Werden, a former SUSE employee who approached Novell this summer and proposed to take on the retail box distribution in the future. After some negotiation Stefan signed a contract with Novell and is now allowed to pursue the retail box on his own. With openSUSE 11.2 Open-SLX's main goal is to keep the retail box alive and improve sales of openSUSE in the retail market. With openSUSE 11.3 Open-SLX has declared an interest in adding value to the box product so that there is a real difference between free download version and box in retail to purchase." At the time of writing, the openSUSE 11.2 boxes seem to be available in Europe only - you can get them directly from the above web site, but if you don't speak German, you can try Amazon UK (£49.99). For German users, there are a couple of other options, including SUSE Shop (€59.95) and Amazon Germany (€51.45). Buying the retail box is always a nice way of supporting your favourite distribution, especially if you are new to Linux and if you need comprehensive printed documentation.
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 With Arch Linux having become such a popular distro, often praised for its rolling-release model of installing once and keeping it updated forever, we thought it would be a good time to take another look at Archiso-live. Archiso-live is an Arch Linux live CD that boots into an Xfce desktop and has a graphical system installer. In the earlier releases the installer did not work correctly, but the more recent ones come with a much improved version. We installed in on a test machine and can confirm that it was able to transfer the entire live CD onto a hard disk partition with no problems. Of course, if you install Arch Linux this way, you'll be "cheating", since easy, click-and-point installation isn't part of the "Arch way" of doing things. Nevertheless, as a method of testing this exciting distro, the "Archiso-live way" is a great time-saver. The latest version at the time of writing is 20091208 and it can be downloaded from here: archiso-live-2009-12-08.iso (685MB, MD5).
Archiso-live - an Arch Linux live CD with Xfce and a graphical system installer
(full image size: 144kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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 With the arrival of the first alpha of Ubuntu 10.04, code name "Lucid Lynx", it was only a matter of time before the first articles summarising the main new features and improvements in the distribution's next release started to appear on the Internet. One of them, entitled ""What will Ubuntu 10.04 bring to the table?"" has a nice, concise list of things to look forward to in April next year. That includes a major change in the look and feel department: "Even though GNOME 3 will not be released in time for 10.04, Lucid Lynx will be getting a major face lift. The Ayatana Team of Ubuntu developers are working on an enhanced version of GTK+ that will include RGBA support. What does this mean? You know that sleek Aero interface that Windows Vista and 7 used by default? A Linux take on that theme will be enabled, out of the box, for 10.04. If you are more visual, then take a look at Figure 1 for a reference. Upon first glance I would immediately say that theme could be taken care of with the help of a few Compiz and Emerald tweaks. It can. But this is out-of-the-box goodness. This is not preferences hacking, this is global transparency for all applications. And this is transparency on the widget level - not border and window level." The article also talks about the coveted 10 second boot for netbooks, general improvements in speed and responsiveness, and Ubuntu Software Centre as the default package installation tool.
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Finally, news about a very useful tool for security professionals and enthusiasts. John Dunning has emailed DistroWatch to let everyone know that he has released Katana 1, a portable, multi-boot security suite. Here is the project's description in his own words: "Katana v1 (Kyuzo) has just been released. Katana is a portable multi-boot security suite designed to fulfil many computer security needs. The idea behind this tool is to bring together many of the best security distributions and applications to run from a USB Flash drive. Instead of keeping track of dozens of CDs and DVDs loaded with your favorite security tools, you can keep them all conveniently in your pocket. Katana includes distributions which focus on penetration testing, auditing, password cracking, forensics and honey pots. It includes the following distributions: BackTrack 4-pre, the Ultimate Boot CD 4.1.0, Ophcrack LiveCD 2.3.1, Damn Small Linux 4.4.10, Slax 6.0.0, Organizational Systems Wireless Auditor (OSWA) Assistant 0.9.0.6g and Damn Vulnerable Linux 1.5. An option to add addition distros is also available." The product comes in the form of a 5.4 GB compressed file available for free download from a number of mirrors. Once downloaded, it can be installed to an 8 GB USB Flash drive in just a few steps. Happy hacking!
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Kubuntu a second-class citizen?
 Disappointed-with-Kubuntu asks: I've been an avid Linux user since 1999, being both a KDE and Xfce fan. But what is wrong with Kubuntu? Every release it seems to be a promising let-down and it never runs as smooth as Mandriva or openSUSE (I'm using a P4 3.00 GHz HT with 2 GB of RAM and Pentium Dual Core 3.00 GHz with 2 GB of RAM). Ubuntu is structured so well it almost seems to me as if they didn't care about their own Kubuntu. Maybe you could shed some light on this for me or at least enlighten me to your opinion as to why Kubuntu seems to lag so far behind Ubuntu and why it doesn't have LTS (long-term support) releases.
DistroWatch answers: The Kubuntu distribution does get a lot of flak for not being as polished as Ubuntu or even Xubuntu. It's not a distro I use, so I can't really comment on the quality.
My guess would be that there are three factors involved. The first being that Ubuntu is the first-born, the distribution which gets the most attention. It's the flagship distro and probably gets more focus from the developers. People are likely to judge the Ubuntu family based on their experience with, well, Ubuntu, right? The second thing that comes to mind is that KDE (the desktop used by Kubuntu) has gone through a lot of changes recently. Even people who usually love KDE have been complaining about it. I think once the KDE 4 desktop settles down and people grow accustomed to it, Kubuntu will become more polished and more popular. And the third factor? You need to remember that Kubuntu started as a community project that was only taken under Canonical's umbrella at a later time. While I don't have any hard figures, it's likely that Ubuntu has a lot more well-paid, in-house developers than Kubuntu, which still depends largely on the work done by volunteer community. As such, the quality is likely to wary from release to release.
Kubuntu does have LTS releases, which match up with Ubuntu's (see this page). The 8.04 release was an exception, a difficult decision made over concerns of long-term unsupportability of the older, KDE 3 code base. However, it has been confirmed that Kubuntu 10.04, expected in April 2010, will indeed be an LTS release. Finally, if you are using Kubuntu and you find an issue, I recommend reporting it to the project's bug tracker. It might not get fixed, but it provides feedback for the developers.
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| Statistics (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
CDs sold by online vendors
As part of the never-ending discussion about the popularity of distributions, I always thought it would interesting to see what people buy when they order CDs and DVDs from online stores - i.e. when they have to part with some cash in the process. Unfortunately, neither of the two DistroWatch associates that advertise low-cost CDs with Linux, BSD, OpenSolaris and other free software (OSDisc.com and LinuxCDs.org) on this web site provides any sale statistics. However, OSDisc.com does make some information available to each individual associate. So while I don't know the total number of their sales, I do know the number of sales made through clicks on DistroWatch. For what they are worth, I've summarised them in the table below. The third column represents the total number of CDs, DVDs and USB Flash drives sold between 1 October 2009 and 13 December 2009.
It is interesting to note how well some of the utility distros, such as SystemRescueCd and Parted Magic, do in online sales. Another surprising observation is that there were no records of sales for some well-known distributions, such as CentOS or Gentoo Linux, while FreeBSD and Arch Linux recorded only two sales each. This would suggest that readers buying media with free operating systems online are more likely to be less technical users, preferring the user-friendlier distributions over the more "geeky" ones. Finally, Mandriva Linux has, somewhat unexpectedly, finished on the second spot, beating both openSUSE and Fedora. This could suggest the growing popularity of the French distribution, although another factor worth noting is the fact Mandriva Linux 2010 came out before both openSUSE 11.2 and Fedora 12, so its latest version has a "longer sales period" in the statistics table than the new releases from either openSUSE or Fedora. It would be interesting to revisit these numbers at a later stage, once more data are available.
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| Released Last Week |
Ultimate Edition 2.5
Glenn Cady has announced the release of Ultimate Edition 2.5, an Ubuntu-based live DVD in over 3 gigabytes - with GNOME, KDE, Xfce and thousands of applications: "Ultimate Edition 2.5 was built off Ultimate Edition 2.4 (Ubuntu 9.10 based), all upgrades pre-installed as of current. It has KDE, Xfce and GNOME, user-selectable at login, three new themes and tons of applications. This release is huge, obviously bigger then Ultimate Edition 2.4. I am not going to spend my time writing a web page, just a post, even though it is a very worthy release and deserves a web page. I have a lot on my plate in programming and other activities. It has been out about a week, forum users have been grabbing it left and right." For more information please see this brief release announcement.
Ultimate Edition 2.5 - an Ubuntu-based distribution with GNOME, KDE and Xfce
(full image size: 1,216kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
pfSense 1.2.3
Chris Buechler has released pfSense 1.2.3, a specialist firewall distribution based on FreeBSD: "pfSense 1.2.3 is now available! This is a maintenance release in the 1.2.x series, bringing an updated FreeBSD base, some minor enhancements, some bug fixes, and a couple of security updates. We have been waiting a few weeks in anticipation of a FreeBSD security advisory for the SSL/TLS renegotiation vulnerability, which came last week and allowed us to finalize the release. Change list: upgrade to FreeBSD 7.2; embedded edition switched to NanoBSD; dynamic interface bridging bug fix; IPsec connection reloading improvements; dynamic site-to-site IPsec; sticky connections enable and disable; ability to delete DHCP leases; polling fixed; ipfw state table size; UDP state timeout increases...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a complete list of changes and enhancements.
Sabayon Linux 5.1
Fabio Erculiani has announced the release of Sabayon Linux 5.1, a Gentoo-based desktop distribution with GNOME or KDE desktops: "The best, refined blend of GNU/Linux, coming with bleeding edge edges, is eventually here. Features: based on the new GCC 4.4.1 and glibc 2.10; ships with a desktop-optimized Linux kernel 2.6.31; provides extra server-optimized and OpenVZ-enabled kernels in repositories; installer now available in multiple languages; complete ext4 file system support; features X.Org 7.5 and up-to-date FLOSS, NVIDIA, AMD video drivers; containing GNOME 2.28 (with GNOME Shell) and KDE 4.3.4; outstanding 3D desktop applications (Compiz, Compiz Fusion and KWin)...." See the release announcement for a complete list of new features and changes.
Sabayon Linux 5.1 - a Gentoo-based distributions with many of the latest packages and custom package management
(full image size: 430kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Webconverger 5.8
Kai Hendry has released Webconverger 5.8, a specialist, Debian-based distribution for web kiosks, with Firefox as the only available desktop application. What's new in this release? "The big difference with this release is using i686 builds instead of i486. This means that Webconverger will not boot on very old PCs and some cheap CPUs like Geode. If this is problem for you, let me know! For the rest of us with i686-compatible hardware, Webconverger should be a litter faster. In other news, the spelling from the previous release 5.7 with Firefox 3.5 should now be working for you. The CJK support might not quite work on these free images; however, if you purchase Webconverger with Chinese (or Korean or Japanese) support I will ensure all the relevant fonts and input tools are pre-installed." Check out the release notes for further information.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- KahelOS. KahelOS is a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. Its desktop edition comes with pre-configured GNOME as the default desktop environment, GNOME Office productivity suite, Epiphany web browser, GIMP image manipulation program, and other popular GTK+ and GNOME applications. Like Arch Linux, KahelOS maintains a rolling-release model of updating software packages using its parent's repositories. A server edition is also available. Both the desktop and server editions come in the form of installation CDs with text-based installers, but no live media.
KahelOS 090909 - an Arch-based desktop distribution with GNOME
(full image size: 145kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
- Unity Linux. Unity Linux is a minimalist distribution and live CD based on Mandriva Linux and PCLinuxOS. The project's main goal is to create a base operating system on which more complete, user-oriented distribution can be built - either by other distribution projects or by the users themselves. Unity Linux uses Openbox as the default window manager. Its package management is handled via Smart and RPM 5 which can download and install additional software packages from the project's online repository.
Unity Linux 2010 Beta 1 - a minimalist Mandriva-based distribution with Openbox
(full image size: 294kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
- BioPuppy Linux. BioPuppy Linux is a minimal Linux operating system and electronic workbench for bio-informatics and computational biology. It has been designed to meet the needs of beginners, learners, students, staffs and research scholars. BioPuppy Linux is available as a live and installation CD, containing all the required software to boot the computer with ready to use bio-informatics tools. BioPuppy is based on Puppy Linux.
- Comunix GNU/Linux. Comunix GNU/Linux is a Debian and KNOPPIX-based distribution with a modified KDE desktop that resembles that of Windows XP. The web site of the project, created in Uruguay, is in Spanish.
- dwmarch. dwmarch is a small Arch Linux-based live CD using the minimalist dwm window manager.
- Matriux. Matriux is an Kubuntu-based security distribution consisting of powerful open-source tools that can be used for various purposes including, but not limited to, penetration testing, ethical hacking, system and network administration, cyber forensics investigations, security testing and vulnerability analysis. It is a distribution designed for security enthusiasts and professionals, but it can also be used as a desktop system.
Matriux 0.9.4 - a Kubuntu-based security distribution
(full image size: 102kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
- Quirky. Created by Barry Kauler, the founder of Puppy Linux, Quirky is a small, experimental distribution with some "quirky" ideas. These include extremely small size, a desktop optimised for wide-screen netbooks, and a concept where the initial ramfs and complete file system is built into the kernel so that Quirky is only one file.
- SCLive. SCLive is a Slackware-based distribution and live CD featuring the latest SystemC OSCI simulation kernel, the required g++ compilers and libraries, an integrated development environment, debugger, and waveform viewer. Additionally, SCLive has both a Verilog and VHDL simulator to cover all of the hardware description languages commonly in use. The distribution also features essential applications to make it a useful working environment, including an Internet browser and a file manager.
- ShepherdPup. ShepherdPup is a compact, freely-distributable distribution designed as a tool for Christian evangelism. Focusing on bible study and personal evangelism, it can be easily remastered by individual evangelists or groups to suit the needs of a community. ShepherdPup is based on Puppy Linux.
- Simplicity Linux. Simplicity Linux is a Puppy Linux-based distribution for desktops and netbooks.
Simplicity Linux 9.10 - a Puppy-based distribution with Xfce
(full image size: 1,229kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
- TOP Linux. TOP Linux is a Puppy-based distribution with internationalisation features, troubleshooting tools, and Windows-like desktop interface (using the Xfce desktop). It is specifically designed for use in developing countries.
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DistroWatch database summary
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And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 21 December 2009.
Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Matriux - Open Source Security Distribution (by Abhi M on 2009-12-14 08:23:12 GMT from India)
Nice to see Matriux in the list :)
2 • Matriux (by Prajwal on 2009-12-14 08:26:13 GMT from India)
Matriux is surely make to the top in the security distros
3 • LinuxConsole (by Lobster on 2009-12-14 08:33:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
Great to hear about LinuxConsole. On newer hardware, minimalist distros fly - which is a long lost penguin talent. Jesse Smith always seems to find the benefits of a distro, which always inspires us to try and offer then feedback. Many thanks :)
4 • Arch-based (by megadriver at 2009-12-14 09:06:59 GMT from Spain)
It's nice to see the number or Arch-based projects growing. Three of them mentioned only in this issue, wow!
After learning about the xorg-server-udev PKGBUILD in the AUR and a brief Slackware excursion (I liked it, but it didn't "click" enough with me), I'm now a full time Archer again (still looking forward to Funtoo's future developments, though).
Speaking of lesser known projects, here's two I'm keeping an eye on:
http://heresy.asgaartech.com/
First of all, I don't like their agressive (and disrespectful) attitude towards Arch, and I don't share their udev hate (I think it's kinda nifty), but I do find a lot of their ideas intriguing. I'm basing some of my personal PKGBUILDs on theirs.
http://sta.li/
An ambitious project from the Suckless team (the people behind dwm, dmenu, wmii and other great, KISS stuff). Still in a very "embryonic" stage, but also pretty intriguing. We'll see.
5 • OpenSuse wins KDE distro comparison (by Anonymous at 2009-12-14 09:11:15 GMT from France)
"makes Linux feel much closer to its Windows and OS X competitors than other KDE distributions."
Obviously this comes from someone who prefer Windows and OS X to KDE (closer to them being better).
6 • Not everyone wants a burnt disc (by Not Bob at 2009-12-14 10:31:14 GMT from United States)
Not everyone wants to give a few bucks to some company for a burnt copy of a disc. There is no statement as to how much of their revenue goes to the distros they are - if any. I'd feel better about these services if they made a statement and offered in writing that they give a few kick backs to the distros. If the information is there, I didn't see it.
There are of course affiliate kick backs though. I suppose this is a good thing if the potential customer arrives at the site through the affiliate link from the distro's site. I _assume_ Distrowatch uses this affiliate revenue for their donations to other Open Source projects. Kudos to you!!
I personally find these services questionable at best. The software is freely available for download anywhere. Those without the means to download or burn their own disc can easily ask their LUG or in the distro's forum. I've done this for people, as have other people.
If you want to support your distro by buying something, buy it directly from their store. If the store doesn't have a low enough priced item to fit your budget, make a donation.
7 • Kubuntu... (by mika479 at 2009-12-14 10:51:35 GMT from Italy)
As DW says...it's not a distro!
If you like Kde...look somewhere else...Sidux,Sabaion and others!
OpenSuse getting commercial?
Suse was....i am confused...
Novell politics...thumbs down!
8 • Go use Windows or OS X (by Omari on 2009-12-14 12:12:43 GMT from United States)
"makes Linux feel much closer to its Windows and OS X competitors than other KDE distributions."
If I want Windows or OS X, I will go use Windows or OS X. An American president once said "Give the people a choice between a Republican and a Republican and they'll pick the Republican every time."
I stopped reading that article after it said of Slackware: "what can you expect from a distribution that still requires you to type startx to launch the graphical desktop?" Yeah, typing startx is so hard, but assuming that it is too much labor for you, you can set up kdm to run on boot just like the other distros are set up. What drivel.
9 • "The best KDE Linux distro" ? (by Niki Kovacs on 2009-12-14 12:18:28 GMT from France)
I just read the Tuxradar review of "the best KDE Linux distro". I recently performed a similar test myself, since I wanted to take the plunge from GNOME to KDE. (Been using KDE a few years back, until 3.2 IIRC.) My final candidate, the one I ended up installing on all my desktop PCs, is curiously missing from the Tuxradar list: Fedora 12. Installed it from the KDE LiveCD spin, and IMHO offers as good an integration as openSUSE without the irritating openSUSE things (*** DO NOT EDIT THIS BY HAND ***, etcetera). Curious choice ? Remember it's what Linus himself uses.
10 • "The best KDE Linux distro" (by okiu at 2009-12-14 12:39:17 GMT from Denmark)
I decided to move away from ubuntu and gnome into the KDE area. And since Kubuntu ain't an alternative (i did test but was not impressed at all), i had narrowed it down to 3 alternatives which brings the absolute best KDE experience imho. That was openSUSE, Mandriva and Pardus. They were fairly equal but in the end i chose openSUSE because mandriva had several thing that annoyed me, but i will absolutely take a look at the new pardus once it gets released!
11 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-14 12:59:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #6
Interesting articles this week.
In all the discussion regarding the dissemination of GNULinux distros of last week, and briefly mentioned in this week's DW, "we" did not touch on the "freebie" discs included in the "no-so-free" mags.
In the very small town near me we have a newsagents, which amazingly, stocks just about every mag in the universe, not least of which is the sub section on the computering shelves, which holds about half a dozen different Linux mags. Some of these mags are quarterly and all have at least one DVD stuffed with at least two if not more distros, and, various packages.
This newsagents can order any of a multitude of those semi hardback books (by K Thomas say) with the DVD stuck inside the end leaf.
Hopefully these sales vectors, so to speak, will add significantly to the "unknown" but wildly speculated number of distros in use.
12 • KDE ubuntu (by Odysseas on 2009-12-14 13:12:15 GMT from Greece)
I'm running ubuntu server edition with kde-full installed and it works fine. Better than kubuntu I think.
13 • Great (by Travis B on 2009-12-14 13:41:54 GMT from United States)
This was a _great_ article this week! I really liked it.
I know there was a little arguement last week, and I had a post set, but closed my X sessoin before I hit 'submit' :/
I like how DistroWatch will review distros that are seldom known. At one point or another, I've tested most of the popular ones myself- sure they change, but still- and don't need to know more about them. I like learning about distrosI've never heard of before!
Of course, I consider DW my best source for any distro. Now, I'm not distro-hopping anymore (Proud Gentoo user here... Hey! Kids! Get off my lawn!), but I'm sure for many who are planning it, they would take DW word as lore. So, many of the specialist distros being reviewed won't help these users. What I propose is a system: Currently DistroWatch seems to review any major distribution (i.e. ubuntu, mandriva, etc.) as they release a major update. But, these don't happen every single week, do they!?
Maybe once-a-month write a review for a popular distro (and since there's so much about them, and you've probably written four others on them, it'd be possible to make them a little sparse in comparison to other distros-- like I'm sure the installer process doesn't change too drastically. If you can cut it down far enough, to about 1/3 the size of a normal review, if you really wanted to I bet you could do a second distro even-- of course, I'll offer my services here so y'all don't get overloaded. :D Email me if you want any help if you're overloaded with reviews-- I have a phenom-box lying around, an x2 box, an HP mini, and a few sparcs/alphastations for those pesky "Hi! I'm not x86!" distros that you'd love to have tested), and then the other three weeks have reviews on minimalistic / specialist / general unknown distros.
I really like how y'all have been doing this, I really love waking up to reading DW-- it makes Monday mornings just a little bit easier.
14 • Kubongo? (by PhantomTramp on 2009-12-14 13:55:41 GMT from United States)
>>>If you like Kde...look somewhere else...Sidux,Sabaion and others!<<<
And THAT'S why I use Mepis. (But seriously, I did just download the newest stable Kubuntu to give it another spin).
The Tramp
15 • "The best KDE Linux distro" (by Bill Carrico on 2009-12-14 13:59:22 GMT from United States)
I have tried a lot, and even though they "look" nice out of the box, I can't get past their over-use of the letter K. KDE users are laughing at me, I can feel it.
I switched to Linux a few years ago because I hate monopolies. We live in a Microsoft world for the most part, and I saw Linux as a great alternative.
I have a pretty nice library of Linux distros that I have downloaded and tried, and quite a few have KDE. Yet I am using Gnome, Linux Mint to be exact.
Linux boasts a non-proprietary world, unlike Microsoft, and yet KDE burdens virtually every native package with a capital K in its name. Far worse than a few programs that Microsoft tags with MS. Stamping all your packages with a big K is sort of making it proprietary don't you think? Sure I use a couple KDE apps on my Gnome desktop but only because their isn't a Gnome alternative yet.
KDE OSs generally have more out of the box "eye candy" but a quick trip to
gnome-look.org and you can dress your Gnome up pretty quick. And without the childish K on all your programs.
I think if KDE dropped the K from about 98% of their programs, they could dominate the field. That's just my opinion though, and I just wanted to vent my frustrations.
16 • The best KDE Linux distro (by claudecat on 2009-12-14 14:16:16 GMT from United States)
I prefer Slackware 13 for KDE implementation. It looks great (especially with desktop effects enabled), runs fast and is rock-solid, if a tad out of date. I like how Slack leaves KDE unmodified and as intended by the developers. Pardus and openSUSE are also very nice. Haven't tried Fedora 12 KDE, and Kubuntu 9.10 is ok, but rather mundane and not all that speedy.
"Everything you know is wrong" - The Firesign Theatre
17 • Unity Linux 2010 Beta 1 (by Saleem Khan on 2009-12-14 14:21:59 GMT from Pakistan)
Posting this comment from the Gnome remaster of Unity Linux 2010 Beta 1 and it is doing very well. I will not go for the comparison between it and PCLinuxOS but since Gnome version of PCLinuxOS gave me issues on hardware this is a big relief to have working latest gnome desktop on top of Unity Linux .
Unity Linux is really doing good. People aboard this project are really helpful as I saw at their IRC channel.
Though lots of things need to be fixed with Unity Linux but even at this early stage it is quite stable and I am using it on my home PC with no issues.
Regards,
18 • Review OK - best kde4 OpenSUSE uh uh (by RayRay on 2009-12-14 14:37:08 GMT from United States)
Nice review Jesse, Linux Console has a lot of polish and works well. Ladislav, what a blatant plug for a Distro KDE4 on OpenSUSE works ok, but they really have to fix their package management. Package management is critical to the operation of any distro, and OpenSUSE makes it feel like pulling teeth.
PCLinuxOS has as good a KDE4 desktop as OpenSUSE and hands down better package management.
The most important aspect of PCLinuxOS is that you don't have to wait for their next version update, because of the rolling release format.
19 • developers (by Smile at 2009-12-14 14:51:14 GMT from United States)
It might not get fixed, but it provides feedback for the developers.
Thanks for highlighting yet another problem with the "free" desktop. Developers that don't fix their screw ups.
20 • The TuxRadar article (by Nobody Important at 2009-12-14 14:51:15 GMT from United States)
The reason why it seems outdated is because the features they post on Tux Radar are bits and pieces of the Linux Format magazine that is published in the UK every month.
So they compared the KDE distros before Fedora 12 was out, hence, it is not included. Additionally, Linux Format has a very well defined audience, so that's why you'll see them making blanket statements about Slackware or other distros (they're also very opinion driven - listen to TuxRadar podcast for a critical and certainly different eye on Linux).
The only reason I'm posting this is because I like the site and post on it a lot.
21 • Best KDE distro article. (by Antony at 2009-12-14 15:33:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi all.
The TuxRadar article says: "OpenSUSE is the best-looking distribution we've tried." Well, I certainly don't agree. Certain elements have polish but it seems inconsistent overall. It is a shame
I think the effort made by Pardus takes some beating.
Mandriva fonts are best for me - OpenSUSE, worst.
Mandriva rating was a bit iffy. I think Mandriva/KDE is a much nicer overall environment/experience.
Anyway, the TuxRadar 'best KDE' article is of very limited worth I think. I just hope that not too many people are influenced as a result.
Thanks.
22 • Kubuntu and things (by davemc on 2009-12-14 15:48:05 GMT from United States)
I agree that in past releases, Kubuntu was indeed the worst thing out of Canonicals shop. A true dissapointment on all fronts. Kubuntu Karmic is an exception to this however, and that is most likely because of KDE4 itself getting to a stage of usability that is truly great - nothing to do with Kubuntu Devs other than what contributions they have made upstream to the KDE4 project itself. No attempt at customization was/has been made to Kubuntu. Nothing is ever done to make one using Kubuntu feel that they are using a *buntu product. Its vanilla KDE4 with ubuntu-common under the hood. Kubuntu uses PackageKit with Ubuntu's repo systems and that is HUGE value add alone. One could also get nearly the same experience with Fedora, with nearly the same repo's ala .rpm style vice .deb.
Mandriva 2010 was good, but their 64 bit support is severely lacking beyond the FREE edition. Also, their control center seems to be a single point of failure for them. If you experience severe issues outside of that set of control scripts ability to handle, your in real trouble as most folks with bad audio and video issues can/do testify regularly.
SUSE will never be anyones distro of choice for long because YAST/Package management is horrific. Their KDE4 is exactly the same as Kubuntu's Fedora's, Arch's, (insert any distro here that has KDE4.3 in their repo's), and Mandriva's - no difference whatever there. The difference is with YAST/zypper/one-click, and SUSE seriously lags behind the competition there (PackageKit, URPMI, Synaptic). SUSE also has that whole Microsoft deal tainting everything they do, and they make no bones about it. That review is unobjective and incorrect on many fronts, IMO.
23 • RE: 6 -- Selling Linux CDs (by Jesse at 2009-12-14 15:52:44 GMT from Canada)
I don't see anything unethical about offering to see Linux CDs. It's a service and, typically, a very inexpensive one. Please keep in mind that a lot of regions do not have LUGs and do not have high speed connections. And, for that matter, a lot of distributions do not sell physical media versions of their releases. For the projects which do sell CDs or DVDs, then that's great, I recommend buying from them. But for the projects that don't, why not buy from a third party willing to put in the effort?
24 • A Few Thoughts. (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-12-14 15:54:24 GMT from United States)
@19: What are you talking about? That's the same old silly statement that if it is free then it can't be any good. A ridiculous post.
As far as the KDE desktop and Kubuntu goes, I've read several reviews, (I must remember that reviews mean nothing except to the person giving the review. Too many variables), and the reviews stated that Kubuntu 9.10 was just as good and more polished than most KDE distros available. Kubuntu is not second class anymore. I don't use a KDE distro because the environment is not quite up to par with Gnome. BUT THAT'S ANOTHER STORY NOT TO BE DEBATED NOW. If I was going to use a KDE distro it would be Mepis 8.5, which I will try out when it becomes final. They have a great community and usually a very polished distro. Even tho I use Gnome I really like some of the KDE apps. and I am looking forward to the Mepis 8.5 final release.
25 • @19 - developers (by Anonymous at 2009-12-14 16:04:04 GMT from France)
Since when do developers of proprietary software do fix their screw ups? At least with free software you can fix it yourself or ask someone to do it for you. With proprietary software, if the developer does not want to do it (that is to say 99% of the time), you are pretty much screwed. This is how it works down here on earth...
26 • openSuse 11.2 dissapointment (by aaro at 2009-12-14 16:38:23 GMT from Venezuela)
I installed opensuse 11.2 (gnome version) looking for a good looking stable distro. And yes, it looks good but don't know if it didn't like my hardware (compaq cq60-420us laptop) but it just crashed every 3 of 5 boot-up's. System monitor always crashed every time i selected system tab, so i just had to give up and go with linux mint 8, good looking and much more stable for me.
27 • Best KDE Distro (by 1linuxfreak on 2009-12-14 16:48:50 GMT from United States)
I noticed Kubuntu was not in the listed distros . Don't have to ask why either .
Have always been a fan of SuSE and now openSUSE and KDE , forget Gnome to clunky and can you say Windows like .
I use to use PCLinuxOS but after a snotty nosed little girl got into a fight with me over on their forum , about KDE4 none the less , I dropped PCLinuxOS like a rock .
So good show openSUSE , keep up the good work !
28 • Bug fixes (by Jesse at 2009-12-14 16:53:26 GMT from Canada)
The question of whether a software bug will be fixed has more to do with the developers or organization than whether the product is open or closed source. In my line of work, I constantly send bug reports to commercial, closed source companies and to open source projects. Some groups are happy and willing to fix problems, others ignore them. It doesn't really have anything to do with whether the software is open source or not.
As someone else pointed out, with open source projects, bugs can be fixed by third parties, which is nice. The problem is often finding (and paying) someone to perform the fix and then maintain the patch against new versions of the upstream project.
29 • Accessibility (by Alex on 2009-12-14 16:55:12 GMT from Germany)
I'm not related to the author, but here is an excellent article about accessibility in Linux. A theme that could be seem more often in Distrowatch (among others!)
Is Desktop Linux Handicap Accessible?
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3853031_2/Is-Desktop-Linux-Handicap-Accessible.htm
Else, thak you fro the good job, as always !
30 • DWW (by forlin on 2009-12-14 17:27:29 GMT from Portugal)
It was nice to find a review of a less known distro. There are hundreds of distros out there. Many of them may be quite good, but the users will never get the chance to know about that, and they'll never become popular because most publications only give their attention to the "big names". So... there'll no be flame wars this week :)
Another nice thing was the link to the KDE article. It's nice if DWW keep providing links for external reviews, news, interviews, tutorials, or other good linux/foss related content.
31 • About openSUSE package manager (by someone on 2009-12-14 17:40:00 GMT from Guatemala)
I bet the people who have pointed that zypper is crap haven't tried it in recent releases of openSUSE (11.0 and beyond). From a design point of view, I think it's quite good. It has a satisfiability solver to compute dependencies. It's algorithms are clever and as a result the thing works fast. I can't compare it to yum or to urpmi but I can compare it to apt-get and you can't tell which one is faster.
32 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-14 17:44:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
Easing away to a slightly different topic, files systems, viz ext4, just seen this, may be old news to some but not others:
http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/two-new-flaws-haunt-linux-kernel-121009=
33 • Fedora KDE4 (by xaer0knight at 2009-12-14 17:56:08 GMT from United States)
Why didn't they test KDE4 in Fedora 12? Kinda glad they didn't. I've been using Fedora for the last 3 releases and I think KDE4 is the weakest in Fedora. On a KDE4 Fedora 12 LiveCD, it does include Konqueror and Koffice. Really? No Firefox or OpenOffice, what were they thinking? I still think KDE4 eats more memory than GNOME and XFCE. I still find myself flip flopping from GNOME and KDE. The best thing for KDE is it's built-in in Composition Manager (KWin) instead of using GNOME+Compiz.
34 • Re: 9, Kiki Novaks on Fedora/KDE ????? (by Caraibes on 2009-12-14 17:59:08 GMT from Dominican Republic)
-Kiki Novaks is installing Fedora 12 on all of his desktops, and KDE (par dessus le marché !!!) ???
-Kiki, what's goin'on ?
-What happened to CentOS & other RHEL5 clones ???
Your book is great, and greatly appreciated here in the Dominican Republic (well, in my house...)
I enjoyed RHEL clones as welll, but must admit using Xubuntu now...
Xfce is sweet...
35 • @22: Kubuntu customizations (by Reuben at 2009-12-14 18:19:17 GMT from United States)
While Kubuntu does use a lot of the default KDE theming, there are little bits of customization scattered throughout the desktop. For example, the start menu has the kubuntu logo.
36 • KDE Distro (by rec9140 on 2009-12-14 18:31:05 GMT from United States)
Well.. The BEST KDE Distro is KMint aka Linux Mint CE Elyssa (NO points for later releases as they are KVista KDE 4.x based).
suse, opensuse, sles, NOPE! Not a chance
novelll & ms AND
miguel "monoboi" de izuga NO WAY!
I'd rather install a KDE 4.x distro than use any thing related to monoboi.
And as for: "And without the childish K on all your programs"
Hmmm.. what about all the childish "g's" on gnome stuff.. gtk, gterm... cuts both ways, and I'll take the K all day any day, KDE 3.5.10 that is...
I am firmly entrenched in the VEHEMENTLY ANTI KDE 4.x camp, and will remain so. The defaults are out of touch with a large base of the KDE user camp, and are nothing more than glitz that lasts about 1 us, not one of them make doing my spreadsheets or the like any better.
I've recently tried a release of Kubuntu Karmic with KDE 3.5.10, and its the first Kubuntu in years thats actually booted 100%, and thats on a current hardware.
Canoncial needs to drop gnome and monoboi's works and stick with the best WM available, KDE 3.5.10, and take over the 3.5.x branch as some of us are not interested in the instability and loss of features in place of stupid cubes and wavy windows in KDE 4.x
37 • @27 KDE 4 and beyond (by SuperCharger on 2009-12-14 18:49:08 GMT from United States)
Opensuse was the least stable KDE 4 on my hardware. Mandriva, Pardus and PCLinuxOS desktops were my favorites. Speaking of PCLinuxOS, I remember you. The community dropped you like a rock after your insults. BTW 50% of the PCLinuxOS members are still using 3.5.10 and feel KDE 4 is not as user friendly, stable or fast as KDE 3.5.10. The other 50% love their KDE 4 desktop and enjoying a new learning experience.
38 • RE:27 I Believe You Have It Reversed. (by Eddie Wilson on 2009-12-14 19:02:55 GMT from United States)
Gnome is chunky? Gnome is Windows like? Sure....and pigs can fly to the moon and back without turning into bacon. Why is it then when someone coming from Windows chooses a distro they feel a lot more comfortable with a KDE distro. THAT'S BECAUSE IT LOOKS AND FEELS LIKE MS WINDOWS! I have no ideal where you get the chunky statement from. Just so you know, you are not the first person who said that Gnome was MS Windows like. That is a real mystery. As far as people like #26 who are still hanging on to KDE 3.5, it's no longer going to be supported. You are in the minority if you think that KDE 4.x is not stable and that someone is going to continue development on KDE 3.5. Just so you don't go spouting out how Gnome is bad because it uses some Mono apps., Mono apps are being developed for KDE as well.
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3696
39 • Desktops - and quick and dirty comparison (by Linux Rules at 2009-12-14 19:08:24 GMT from United States)
Xfce: The best desktop for its combination of stability and features.
KDE: Mostly stable, but has a lot of half-finished features that can be confusing.
Gnome: Mostly stable and straightforward, but has a lot of long-standing bugs that the developers refuse to fix.
Enlightenment: A very promising work in progress. Don't expect a lot of stability.
LXDE: Very stable, but very much lacking in features. This is pretty typical of a lot of the lesser known desktops.
40 • Get the best KDE Linux distro:Pardus (by ercan at 2009-12-14 19:13:06 GMT from Turkey)
When I try Pardus, I chage my Fedora desktop from XFCE/Gnome to KDE...
41 • KDE (by Sly on 2009-12-14 21:51:27 GMT from United States)
I also love KDE 3.5. The version in OpenSuse 11.0 and Mint 5 (Elyssa CE) are great!!! My experience with KDE4 in OpenSuse 11.2 is not so great. I'm very interested in how it is going to work in the Mint 8 CE WHEN it is finally released.
42 • Statistics (by Raphael at 2009-12-14 21:56:52 GMT from Switzerland)
Why the hell is Debian behind Open Solaris? These absurd statistics make me laughing … Are there also any statistics pointing out the complaints of customers who bought the CD/DVD images and flash drives? =)
43 • Best KDE and KDE apps with a K (@Bill Carrico) (by lefty.crupps on 2009-12-14 22:07:42 GMT from United States)
@Bill Carrico: Because an app starts with a K you think it shouldn't be used? How many GNOME apps start with a G? Plenty. The K was initially there to describe the executable (i.e. the program itself). KMail is the Mail program; KOffice is the Office suite. But the names just stuck with the K in front, and it also helps to identify KDE apps if you like them (which I certainly do).
In my opinion, one of the best KDE is Debian Testing or Debian Sid, although I really did like MEPIS back before it got a bit lost (imho). I am very excited for the KDE4 release of SimplyMEPIS. Kubuntu, meh. Even before the KDE4 release, i was very unimpressed. Too many unique KDE features were removed for my liking, and there are a lot of other issues that I have with it. http://tinyurl.com/no_ubuntu
44 • GParted, partition resizer, problem in latest version (by Jan at 2009-12-14 22:08:20 GMT from Netherlands)
Distrohoppers who use the fantastic GParted for resizing or creating partitions, should go back to version 4.6.1.
Probably some rescue-CD also contain the bug-risk-version.
See http://gparted.sourceforge.net/news.php
Jan O
45 • Best KDE distro? (by rich on 2009-12-14 23:14:38 GMT from United States)
This is a tough one for me. I've used Kubuntu 9.10 and didn't find it too disagreeable. Mandriva is pretty good. Now I'm running Fedora 12. Me thinks KDE needs more integration and polish by all distro's. It's still in it's infantcy. Gnome is by far much more compact, faster, and cleaner in design and function. But I will keep playing with them both because I love distro hopping and seeing who's go what and what''s new and improved.
Rich
46 • Q & no-A (by uncle mark at 2009-12-14 23:19:34 GMT from United States)
"The Kubuntu distribution does get a lot of flak for not being as polished as Ubuntu or even Xubuntu. It's not a distro I use, so I can't really comment on the quality.
My guess would be that there are three factors involved."
Lemme get this straight -- you do a Q&A about a distro you don't use, and your answers are guesses?
C'mon, guys. You can do better than that, fer cryin' out loud.
And regarding KDE... yes, I know a transition from KDE3 to KDE4 is inevitable, but I still haven't seen where anyone has yet improved on MEPIS's implementation of 3.5.10. With MEPIS 8.5/KDE4 in development I may eventually won over, but I'm not holding my breath.
47 • To all the OpenSuse Bashing people , And Fedora 12 Seriously? (by JD at 2009-12-15 00:46:45 GMT from United States)
Please Everyone Don't be So quick to bash OpenSuse it's very fast and gives you minimal BS , It has the Best Kde Desktop Rendition Around It's actually the only Usable KDE4 Disto I've used , No Crashes Drama Or Stupidity Everything Works And I can install Codecs 3D Drivers with One Click!
NOTE!: OPENSUSE Lets You manually edit configuration Files Inside of Yast and doesn't overwrite your custom Configs 99 % of the time! So before you run your uneducated mouth on about this I'd sub-jest you know what your talking about first!
I'd Like to Comment on the "Arch way"
The Arch Way simply means: Your Computer Is useless without your help and you have way to much free time on your hands buddy.
48 • RE: 47 (by Landor at 2009-12-15 01:22:25 GMT from Canada)
I actually know a ton of people who follow your philosophy. Some real hardcore dudes that know more than even I ever dreamed of. What do they run now? Ubuntu. Their philosophy as I said is yours, to a degree, they just want their system to work with as little crap or effort as possible. They still install anything needed for media and such, for them that's a given and a RESPECT for the "laws" that protect the people that created them. They may not believe in copyrights but they respect the laws.
Maybe something I should have stated about mint and pumped up codec distributions.
Anyway, I love to tinker regardless, I'll always fool around with remastering stuff, building my own base, tinkering with Gentoo from time to time (like my Gentoo on my netbook project still to come) but what do I run now on various systems? Debian based, including Ubuntu on this box.
BTW, ole Suzie rocks, it always has.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
49 • @46 - guess work (by Jesse at 2009-12-15 01:30:08 GMT from Canada)
Mark, you have a valid criticism, my answer was a guess. Though, I do think my guess was well founded.
The current situation with Kubuntu and the way people claim the KDE flavour of Ubuntu isn't getting the treatment it deserves is very familiar. You might remember that in the early days of Fedora, KDE was largely considered a second class citizen of that distro. In fact, there was a volunteer group which built their own KDE packages for Fedora and set up a third-party repository to share these much-improved KDE packages with the public. For a while, it was the only way to get a decent KDE desktop running on Fedora. At one point, I recall there being talk of removing KDE from Fedora Core and handing it over to community members so that the desktop could get the attention it deserved.
Really, with Kubuntu, we seem to have the same situation. I think the Ubuntu developers are focusing on the main distro, which runs Gnome, and don't have the time/energy/motivation to refine the KDE packages. Eventually, I think we'll see Kubuntu improve and its community grow. But it took Fedora nearly six years to get KDE to the point where it finally feels like it's on level ground with their Gnome offering.
50 • @ 17 • Unity Linux 2010 Beta 1? (by Anonymous at 2009-12-15 01:31:48 GMT from United States)
Saleem, UL 2010 Beta 1 looks exactly like their TinyMe release with a different background! What is really confusing is their website says:
Size: Unity itself will have no end-user releases.
GUI: Unity itself will have no end-user releases.
But now they have a public beta release? Maybe they should decide if they are going to be a distro or just provide tools for others to make their own distro.
51 • RE: 47 (by Alexis at 2009-12-15 01:31:50 GMT from United States)
Hey #47 Thats True! OpenSuse seems to just get KDE4 Right.
Even Kde 4.1 was usable in last years release Of Openuse and thats rare! This Years Release Of Opensuse With Kde 4.3.1 has been the best KDE I've used and i can actually Use it and thats amazing to say for Kde4!,
So if you haven't Get OpenSuse I Loves It ! xoxoxo
52 • RE: 50 (by Landor at 2009-12-15 01:36:38 GMT from Canada)
They should actually have some documentation as well. Their wiki is useless and the forums have very little too.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
53 • @42 (by Sam on 2009-12-15 01:51:09 GMT from United States)
One good reason? Compare the price of Debian CDs to the other distros. Debian's a bit pricier.
54 • Can Katana be made to boot off a DVD? (by Al Lemand on 2009-12-15 01:58:42 GMT from United States)
I'd prefer having a multiboot DVD to an usb stick. Is it possible?
55 • online linux sellers (by David Wenger on 2009-12-15 03:23:33 GMT from United States)
I saw your column on online sales of linux cd/dvd's. One thing you may not have noticed is that now OSdisik.com and linuxcd.com use Paypal for payment. Paypal used to take debit gift cards that I bought for my online spending. They now will only take a setting up of your bank account or you have to apply for their credit card. I found this out to my frustration while trying to order from the above companies. I am certainly not going to apply for another credit card and setting up a completely new bank account at a different bank ( I am not going to use my present one!!!) is a lot of trouble. In short, it is a real PAIN trying to do business with such companies. I'm not sure I will EVER order from them again. You might pass that along to them.
56 • Linux Console (by George on 2009-12-15 06:46:33 GMT from Australia)
You neglected to mention Linux Console only runs on Windows!
57 • RE: 56 (by Landor at 2009-12-15 07:33:47 GMT from Canada)
I'm kind of confused here, maybe you can help me. I am pretty sure "Live CD" means it boots on its own without the need for any OS to be a backend, at all.
When did this concept change?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
58 • unity-linux (by gettinther on 2009-12-15 08:08:59 GMT from United States)
@50.
We had to make a release as people need to be able to have a fully working base to build upon. We discussed having a console only base but this was voted down as being too elitist. When we said it had no end-user, we meant that even after downloading unity, you still need to build up your system with all the particulars this involves. That's why we prefer users to use the Branches distro since those will have the fine details worked out and be focused on the particular DE of choice.
As for Tinyme, Tinyme offers a full set of applications, it is a complete system while Unity-linux only provides a GUI (openbox) and bar (lxde). This is as far as it goes. They don't even share the same login manager (gdm for unity / Slim for Tinyme). Also Tinyme is english only with the option to install further languages while Unity is pre-loaded with 50 languages.
Unity is designed to be easily stripped of the few packages pre-loaded so that full systems can be built from it.
I hope this makes sense.
Cheers,
Gett.
59 • Re: 48 (by jake at 2009-12-15 09:40:31 GMT from United States)
Landor, the "philosophy" mentioned in your first paragraph is why I have been using Slackware as my personal desktop these last 15ish years. I know that Slackware will work on my hardware, because I won't purchase hardware that Slackware -current won't run on, right now, today.
I almost never run -current as my main desktop, mind ... but after about a decade and a half, I have had zero problems with old hardware and a new Slackware release.
Ubuntu & other clone distros[1]? Not so much.
IMO, Distrowatch needs to get out of the hardware review business, and back into the distribution review business. Quite frankly, I don't (personally) give a rat's ass what the reviewer's hardware is ... I want to know how the distro works. This shouldn't be a fashion show, we're not accessorizing ... I *know* that my fat ass looks fat in those jeans, because I have a fat ass ... On the other hand, when those jeans are on an appropriate ass, are they comfy & long wearing? Inquiring minds want to know.
[1] They are DISTRIBUTIONS, FFS ... The OS is Linux, or BSD, or whathaveyou. The collection of tools that some tool chooses to package with the kernel is NOT an operating system, any more than my garage and my collection of miscellaneous maintenance equipment is my automobile ...
60 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-15 10:24:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #59
Alas Jake, the type of hardware sometimes determines what distro may or may not work on ones machine.
Your argument fails owing to what kit would you use to test the distro on?
In fact you sort of answered yourself with the mention of and I quote, "appropriate ass". What would be appropriate kit/machine in any given test?
Anyway, you forgot the first Law of Linux..."not all distros run on all machines."
What you achieved 15 odd years ago may not necessarily have any great bearing on what happens today. Some might consider you were shooting yourself in the foot, or, cutting off your nose to spite your face if you refuse to treat yourself to more modern kit.
Still, you pays your money and you makes your choice. What you will find is though that software is bound quite closely to hardware...you know this anyway.
61 • @60 (by jake at 2009-12-15 10:53:43 GMT from United States)
"Alas Jake, the type of hardware sometimes determines what distro may or may not work on ones machine."
This is "Distrowatch", not "Machinewatch".
"Your argument fails"
No. It doesn't.
"what kit would you use to test the distro on?"
Uh, gee, lemmethinkaboutit ... How about equipment that the distribution actually works on? How can you possibly review any given distribution if your hardware doesn't support it? If the distribution doesn't work on your kit, how the hell can you possibly review it?
THINK!
62 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-15 11:03:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #61
Try reading my comment again Jake. I believe it's yourself that should try the thinking bit.
63 • Hardware working on only some distros? (by Travis B on 2009-12-15 11:41:55 GMT from United States)
What's all of this about certain hardware working on only _certain_ distros?
Y'take a kernel. Y'add patches to it. Y'add proprietary firmware where needed (wanted).
Oh, sorry. That was the Gentoo talking, carry on.
64 • RE 47: Don't bash X but let a bash Y instead! (by KimTjik at 2009-12-15 12:48:14 GMT from Sweden)
"Please Everyone Don't be So quick to bash... I'd Like to Comment on the 'Arch way'..."
I didn't get it. Which part of your comment reflects your opinion?
To have an opinion is your free right, but why misuse it by spreading prejudice?
65 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-15 12:52:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #63
How droll, perhaps you have not been following the forum for a while?
Mind you, if you do have a fix for any probs I have no doubt "any" other distro help forum would be more than happy to learn your thoughts.
66 • LinuxConsole (by uz64 at 2009-12-15 13:04:47 GMT from United States)
LinuxConsole sounds interesting; I like light and fast systems. Tried it, and quickly gave up on it. I was impressed with the speed from BIOS to X, but that's where the impressiveness ended. 1024x768 detected on a 1680x1050 widescreen monitor? Error messages (of all things!) in French? Shortcuts to both English AND French versions of Firefox/OpenOffice when selecting to boot into English? And why does it display the GPL upon boot with a "disagree or agree" style of window, EULA-style?
After editing the XFree86 (really? XFree86? wasn't that replaced by XOrg a long time ago?) config file to add my monitor's native resolution and hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete button to restart X at optimal resolution, the damn thing decided to spit the CD out and shut down; I figured this was a good time to just take out the disc and turn the machine back on. I barely did anything before I got to this point except look through the menus, but I wasn't that impressed with what I saw in those either to leave the CD in and play around some more.
I like the idea, but IMO Absolute, Spri, and a few other distros have that use IceWM as their default window manager do so much more effectively, and with far fewer annoyances/flaws/quirks. I would like to see some more distros use IceWM as default for a change and focus on speed, but LinuxConsole needs a lot more improvement before I even consider it again. Not impressed.
67 • Re 22...openSUSE bashing (by SuseUser at 2009-12-15 13:15:23 GMT from Australia)
22 • Kubuntu and things (by davemc on 2009-12-14 15:48:05 GMT from United
>>SUSE will never be anyones distro of choice for long because YAST/Package management is horrific. Their KDE4 is exactly the same as Kubuntu's Fedora's, Arch's, (insert any distro here that has KDE4.3 in their repo's), and Mandriva's - no difference whatever there. The difference is with YAST/zypper/one-click, and SUSE seriously lags behind the competition there (PackageKit, URPMI, Synaptic). SUSE also has that whole Microsoft deal tainting everything they do, and they make no bones about it.<<
YAST is a great tool set and YAST/Zypper package management is excellent, though not perfect. Suse's delta rpm updates make it the leader of the pack (now only joined by Fedora) for anyone that has limited internet speed connection and/or download quota limitations, especially useful for people on dial-up or mobile broadband services and those that like to see efficient use of bandwidth.
Your "Microsoft deal" whinge is just old recycled FUD, IMO.
OpenSUSE has been my choice distro since 2006 and I like it, though I think KDE4 needs another year before it is as polished and stable as KDE3.5.
Cheers
68 • @43 K debate (by Bill Carrico on 2009-12-15 14:19:43 GMT from United States)
From my start menu, all applications, I count five apps that start with G. two are games and one is Gimp which doesn't really count.
Do I think people shouldn't use a program just because it starts with the letter K. No, if that is what you prefer. You can change your name to Lefty Krupps if you want, that's your choice and right. In my opinion putting a K in front of virtually all KDE programs makes it appear proprietary to me, regardless of the distro it is used on.
If Gnome did (as you say) use a lot of Gs, I would have the same issue with it.
KDE has a more polished appearance "out of the box" but I wonder how much nicer it would look without all the Knames.
Apparently Bill Gates likes the way it looks, just look at Windows 7.
69 • Hardware and LinuxConsole (by Jesse at 2009-12-15 14:28:57 GMT from Canada)
@56: I'm not sure what you mean by LinuxConsole will only run on Windows? LinuxConsole is a stand-alone, live CD which runs like most other Linux distributions. I don't run Windows on my test machines.
@61: The idea of only using hardware that will run Linux isn't really a workable idea. I often run into situations where distro X will run on my hardware, but distro Y won't. In some cases distro X, version A will work, but distro X, version B will not. Whether you like it or not, different distros support different hardware. Now, to be fair, you have a point. Why review a distribution if it doesn't run on your hardware? Generally, I don't. I've found a handful of distros which do not run on my test machines and in those cases, I usually don't write the review. But, honestly, I think most people would like to know if distro A doesn't recognize my sound card, where B and C do.
@66: I can't comment on your resolution issues, but I'd like to point out that CTRL+ALT+DEL generally does reboot the machine. I think you wanted to use CTRL+ALT+Backspace to restart X.
70 • @ # 50 (by Anonymous at 2009-12-15 15:00:27 GMT from United States)
Perhaps you didn't download Unity Linux. For there is no contradiction; the beta is a "base" not a distribution. It does not even come with a browser. That and most everything you might want has to be downloaded separately like Tiny Core.
So Size and GUI = their base + whatever the end user, not them, decide.
By the way, I got it to boot and install in Virtual box on 2 different machines, but it would not finish booting on the actual laptops themselves. Try another burn later probably.
71 • The best KDE distribution today... (by Anonymous at 2009-12-15 16:35:13 GMT from Italy)
Is Mandriva, IMHO. It has the most usable KDE4 desktop.
OpenSUSE, however, still allows you to install KDE3.
72 • Kubuntu (by Brian at 2009-12-15 18:45:28 GMT from United States)
I also think the fact that Ubuntu has many more users than Kubuntu means that more bug reports/feature requests are sent in for Ubuntu than Kubuntu. Likewise, there are probably more developers on Ubuntu, like you said.
73 • Best KDE Distro (by Anonymous at 2009-12-15 19:03:29 GMT from Canada)
I agree that the best KDE is either Pardus or Fedora 12, not the bugfest that is OpenSuse 11.2. If you can handle your favorite app not being in the repos, then definitely Pardus.
The fact that a Gnome centric distro like Fedora does a better KDE than all the KDE centric distros is pretty sad.
74 • openSuse Box (by John Tweed on 2009-12-15 20:22:21 GMT from Europe)
I would hope that one 'value added' benefit of buying the Box version of open source OSes would be that it should include 'legitimate' DVD and MP3 codecs. That would add 'real' value.
Then there would be no reason that openSuse should not be seen as a real alternative to MS.
Only once the toxic DCMA laws of the US (and others) have been addressed can linux users effectively complain against the illegal collusion between Microsoft and PC suppliers.
I did previously 'donate' to openSuse, but I think that this would make 'buying' more attractive to many potential users.
75 • openSUSE - thanks to #71 (by Bob W on 2009-12-15 20:26:47 GMT from Austria)
#71, I hope you are right in assuming that oSuzy still allows installation of KDE3. That might be a solution to my problem: I was pampered for one year by a KDE3 installation of Suse then I tried to get 11.2 with KDE4 going. Not much else to say, just that imho comments like "KDE4 needs another year" sound a bit like science fiction to me.
76 • Sidux (by Sidux user at 2009-12-15 22:42:41 GMT from Germany)
Maybe it's just me, but on my old Pc with 1.6 ghz and 512 mb ram, Opensuse is rather slow. sidux on the other hand runs a lot quicker and has been perfectly stable until now. So my vote for best KDE-distribution definitly goes to sidux!
77 • #61: No, this isn't MachineWatch, but... (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-15 22:44:30 GMT from United States)
@jake: You are correct that this isn't MachineWatch. We have, AFAIK, had only one hardware review lately, and that was Ladislav's review of the HP Mini 110. That review helped me decide to buy the same machine. I found it to be particularly good but I understand different people look for different things from DistroWatch.
The fact is that the reviewers have a limited selection of hardware. When I review a distro I try and review the claims made by the distributor regarding what they support and choose what makes sense from what I have. The fact is that even a distro that worked well last release on a given piece of hardware might not work well due to changes in the current release. There is no way to know what really works in advance.
Whether or not a distro works on given hardware is a very relevant part of a review. For example, Novell specifically mentioned that openSUSE 11.2 now supports a wide variety of netbook hardware. I took a very popular netbook model that is available worldwide (the same one Ladislav owns) and it failed miserably where no other major distro did. I took a lot of heat for saying so and for daring to actually test Novell's own claims for their distro. I also believe that testing the claims made by a distributor is a valid part of any review. Chris Smart has written precisely the same thing in his review of Arch Linux.
It really isn't possible to divorce a distro review from the hardware it runs on. Indeed, specifying the hardware allows the reader to determine if he or she is going to have similar results. When I say I've only tested a 32-bit release, for example, readers know that they may get different results with the 64-bit version and vice versa.
You also have to remember that we all work day jobs and all have limited time for doing reviews. I know I do. I'll have more and different hardware available to me soon (yes, in time for the Mint review) but that doesn't mean I'll have the time to test thoroughly on three or four machines.
Finally, if you don't like the reviews Jesse or Ladislav or Chris or I write please remember that Ladislav does accept guest submissions from time to time. If you can do a better job then by all means, please, show us how it's done. I enjoy reading different perspectives on Linux and Linux distros and I'd love to read yours.
78 • Hardware in Reviews (by Old Timer on 2009-12-15 23:29:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
It is good to have some commentary on hardware, not masses but in the context of a review it is handy.
It helps the rest of us gauge the speed and functionality of a distribution.
Because clearly what functions well on a 2.8 Ghz quad processor with 4gb, might not necessarily function too well on a 1.8 Ghz laptop, so it is useful to have some context to the reviews.
79 • Hardware (by Anonymous at 2009-12-16 00:30:42 GMT from United States)
Hey I still have a Cyrix-686 250Mhz w 128M ram.
I still consider that a usefull machine.
Linux keeps old hardware going, so they say...
If possible reviews should cover as much as feasibly possible.
Linux stil works from 386sx to what ever is latest or greatest out there.
Sometimes from reading this forum I get the impression that if you don't have at least a Pentium 4 or dual/quad core cpu then you don't count.
I wonder how many Linux users who simply read here are using as low grade a machine or even less today?
Or does the majority all have nice new (under 5 years old) computers?
my 2cents.
80 • RE: #75 (by Anonymous at 2009-12-16 00:33:30 GMT from Italy)
Yes it does. Here is an easy how to:
1)Add an openSUSE 11.1 DVD as installation source (pattern KDE3 will reappear)
2)Add http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE3/openSUSE_11.2/ (mantained by the openSUSE KDE Team)
3)You can also add http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Community/openSUSE_11.2 (packaged by the commnity)
And now install pattern KDE3 through the package manager.
81 • Just expressing an opinion. (by jake at 2009-12-16 00:55:56 GMT from United States)
I'm a self-confessed crusty old fart, and truly believe in purchasing the hardware required to run whatever software you are planning on running. I agree that it's bloody amazing that Linux and BSD run on the wide variety of hardware that they do, but I disagree that any particular distro not running on particular hardware "out of the box" is somehow a negative. If that same hardware is supported by other distributions, it's also supportable by your distribution. If not, learn how device drivers work and contribute to the pool![1] Running code trumps all :-) [2] But I'll happily drop it from here, no worries.
If I have time, I'll submit a review of the next Slackware release.
Question: Has anyone taken my "trick" from last week and made a user account with vi as the shell? Back when I was teaching UNIX[tm] 101, I had my students do that, along with a short tutorial that I wrote on the "hows" & "whys", and a one-page cheat sheet of the most used vi commands ... It was the first 6 hours of class, roughly, and the first two homework assignments. The last time I taught a formal class was about ten years ago, but I still get "thank you for forcing me to learn vi" email 8 or ten times a year. Maybe I'll dig the Tutorial out & submit that.
[1] Yes, I know, not all of us are programmers ...
[2] Not original to me ... I think I read the original on Usenet about 25 years ago, during the C/C++ wars ...
82 • Re. 69 (by uz64 at 2009-12-16 01:13:53 GMT from United States)
"@66: I can't comment on your resolution issues, but I'd like to point out that CTRL+ALT+DEL generally does reboot the machine. I think you wanted to use CTRL+ALT+Backspace to restart X."
Oops, that was a typo. Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is what I meant. Either way, it killed X (as I meant to do) and then decided to just shut down. Normally Ctrl-Alt-Delete doesn't reboot if X is running (and is the currently displayed terminal) anyway, so even if it was pressed nothing should have happened.
83 • RE: 58/67/79 (by Landor at 2009-12-16 01:42:52 GMT from Canada)
The guys I spoke of made me think really hard about some of my views of Linux. While I did mention about their beliefs in installing anything patent encumbered or restricted on their own, they just wanted something that actually just worked without having to compile, patch, or locate.
I guess that philosophy can be placed on a broad spectrum of distributions. Also, really for a lot (especially here) when does distribution hopping end/slow down and actually just doing your stuff start. I know I personally slowed down a lot. I tinker still, but the times when I had 50+ cdrws and then some dvdrws all burned with images have gone. I just like the ability to do my thing now.
To the reviews, I like that they state their hardware, yes. I spoke of this before that I see the reviews lacking. A lot of times when I want to read a good review I look for them off-site (from here). I have do admit I'm kind of partial to Chris Smart and Susan Linton, there's a lot of other great reviewers out there though that I've enjoyed a lot.
Here's an example. Rarely do you even see any mention of fonts here. Something that stood out in my mind was Ladislav's last review of a Mandriva release (forget which one) (not a direct quote) he said they had the best font implementation he had ever seen. Things along those lines, details, however small, are what we are missing here that is "partly" making the reviews poorer than what we were accustomed to.
RE: 67
If we look back at the KDE3 series as a measure, in my personal opinion we didn't see a lot of niggling bugs/flaws/lacking functionality get ironed out until 3.5.7 or later. With the 4 series, 4.3 or the up and coming 4.4, 4.7 seems a long way off. As I said, if the previous series is any kind of a measure.
RE: 71
This may not be an issue for a lot of people, but I thought it was kind of absurd for Mandriva to remove the Cashew from the panel. I happen to have a few rather large wide screen monitors and to see the panel only take up 50% of the width and no "absurdly simple" way to change that (cashew missing) totally messed up when other distributions left the cashew in place. I love KDE but their naming style drives me insane and I was shocked they didn't name it Kashew. Seriously.
RE: 79
WoW. I used to own one of those long ago. It wasn't like a Timex, it couldn't take a licking and keep on ticking, sadly. I have to admit I'm one of the group you spoke of. The oldest machine I have here is my server box which is a print server, file server, torrent server and WAP. It's an 800 mhz PIII with two gig of ram. The rest of my systems are either quad or dual core systems (mainly AMD) and I have two old P4's 2.8 ghz 2gig of ram (478 socket) that I'll either donate soon, I do that a lot, or give to a friend or two. With Linux on them of course. I also might donate and older dual core I have, or just replace my server with it and bone the server finally. There's also the netbook of course, but I classify that as new hardware too.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
84 • Ultimate 2.5 session (by Solo at 2009-12-16 01:47:11 GMT from United States)
I hope it's okay to ask this question in here, as I found nothing in their forums:
When using Ultimate Edition 2.5, I logged out to switch to KDE desktop, and it asks for username and password. What is the live session username and password so I can check out the KDE desktop on Ultimate Edition 2.5?
Thanks! Cheers!
85 • Splitting hairs (by Ed at 2009-12-16 02:45:45 GMT from Austria)
Why split hairs about little changes from original desktop environments; it's a poor basis for choice of distribution. It is far better to choose by stability, speed, security, ease-of-use, software repository size and overall polish/finishing touches. If you're an ordinary desktop user, you're probably best getting Ubuntu and sticking with it.
You can delude yourself all you like that Novell has released a revolutionary new magic wallpaper, but if you're like me, that will be a waste of time and effort and cause you disorganization and procrastination.
You can pretend that you need the latest software all you want, but you know deep down that 6 months of progress isn't usually going to make it feel like a whole new OS.
Healthy people who possess a computer use it to achieve their goals; does your computer serve you, or do you serve it?
86 • I just got a phone call ... (by jake at 2009-12-16 03:02:14 GMT from United States)
... from one of my old students, now a professor currently teaching in the UC system. He reminded me that I should point out that if you live anywhere near a University town, and you have any interest at all in learning about the underpinnings of UN*X, head out to the local used book stores and try to find a copy of Mark Williams Company's "Coherent Lexicon" ... Probably the best textbook I ever had the pleasure to teach behind.
I haven't been Vickied in years ... THANKS, Ben, you jerk! :-)
87 • Best KDE4 distro is Pardus (by RollMeAway at 2009-12-16 04:36:48 GMT from United States)
Pardus 2009 release is still using 4.2.4, but it performs better than other distros usiing 4.3.4.
Everything works!. "System Settings" prompts for root password when needed. Nothing is disabled, or grayed out.
They offer a large selection of themes that are complete. No missing icons. Most others offer the default oxygen. The distro developers really paid attention to details, and it shows.
Unfortunately, they never released a 'live CD' version.
I just checked their KDE4.3.4 schedule:
"release plan for the 2009.1
25 Dec - Beta
8 Jan - RC
15 Jan - Release"
and they claim there will be a live CD this time.
Do check it out.
88 • RE: (by Anonymous at 2009-12-16 04:36:49 GMT from United States)
#82 Using Debian Stable with Window Maker Crtl-ALt-Del will ReBoot from console keyboard. I am guessing that a so called Desktop Enviroment probably changes that string in /etc/inittab or some where so it won't reboot.
#85 I look at stability and speed. Using Debian/Window Maker as stated I have not had any crashes so far and the desktop operation is fast. It's like 99.999%up.
But Debian's Iceweasle using Mozilla's Abduction extension (for screen shots) has crashed Iceweasle when trying to snap somewhat large web pages.
I am also somewhat impressed that when the cpu usage is near 100% that the current 2.6.26-2-686 Debian built kernel keeps my desktop activity jitter or stutter free. It magically does not noticeably slow down. That's decent scheduling at least for my desktop use.
Oh and as for multi-media the only thing I had to get was liblame so that I can make mp3's for my player. I can watch most flv,mov,avi,mp4 with just the normal Debian flac and ff libs and mplayer.
89 • @ 79 Hardware (by Matt on 2009-12-16 05:27:27 GMT from United States)
"Sometimes from reading this forum I get the impression that if you don't have at least a Pentium 4 or dual/quad core cpu then you don't count.
I wonder how many Linux users who simply read here are using as low grade a machine or even less today?
Or does the majority all have nice new (under 5 years old) computers?
my 2cents."
No offense intended, but I get the opposite view about the forum... that if you don't run the oldest hardware, somehow you (or I) don't count. Posting this from a somewhat modern machine that is homebuilt with Linux in mind, I still try distros on older desktops, laptops, etc. My goal is to see which works best for each particular setup... and give those systems to people who need them.
Hence, the information here is invaluable...
Again, no offense intended.
Matt
90 • Second beta of Mepis 8.5 (by Henning Melgaard on 2009-12-16 06:18:00 GMT from Denmark)
" To also improve the look, mepis-init has been changed to default to 24-bit depth display for most modern graphics drivers. We're being cautious about this change, since we don't want to make things worse for users with older graphics chips."
The above is a quote from the release announcement for Mepis 8.5.
Now, THAT, calls for a standing ovation. Making an effort to take both the latest and older graphics chips into consideration.
How I wish all Linux distros would learn from that.
91 • @90 SimplyMEPIS 8.5 Beta 2 (by mobo on 2009-12-16 06:28:13 GMT from United States)
I think Mandriva corporate could learn a thing or two from Mepis on how to interact with their community.
92 • Re 83: Mandriva's Cashew (by Untitled at 2009-12-16 09:36:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Checking my Mandriva VB install the Cashew is there on the panel. Perhaps you only have your widgets locked and it's not showing therefore?
93 • Knames (by Untitled at 2009-12-16 09:43:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Perhaps it's a bit silly having so many names start with K but,
1. So what? It's only a name. If the software is good, it'd be stupid not to use it just because it has K in its name.
2. Proprietary it is not, and not even close, since you can take the code, make the necessary changes and re-release it using a name not starting with a K. Now try doing that with proprietary software.
3. KDE people have sort of realised they were over-doing it, hence Dolphin, Okular and Gwenview. Yes, there are still many Ks around, see pt. 1.
94 • Re: 87 - Best KDE4 distro. (by Antony at 2009-12-16 12:50:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
When I came across (early) Mandrake It was like, PING.........HELLO!
Since then, the big 'events', for me were Mepis and PCLinuxOS. Now, even though I am currently trying Mandriva (2010, following an extended break from the distro mainly with sidux/fedora), I have to say that the third 'PING!' to occur in my Linux timeline is Pardus.
I have no doubt whatsover that Pardus will become sooooo popular. I agree with RollMeAway, in that I found Pardus to be extremely stable.
I was expecting trouble with my DPC-145C. Brother provides rpm, deb and source drivers for print and scan. Fedora 11/12 worked, though instructions for 12 were wrong; Mandriva no probs. openSUSE? well.....
Anyway, turns out Pardus was easiest by far: http://en.pardus-wiki.org/Brother_DCP-145C
Really did not expect that at all! Same experience with Picasa.
Excluding those unexpected pleasures, the Pardus approach feels dynamic and fresh - the obvious thought and attention to detail is outstanding.
Of the 'big' distros, Mandriva 2010 is the clear favourite for me. I will pop Pardus back on when 2009.1 comes out. And I look forward to the 64bit release.
Thanks.
95 • Free Desktops (by david r long on 2009-12-16 21:27:00 GMT from United States)
My firm has recently upgraded their workstations (hp d530's, P4 2.8 GHz) to dual core machines.
So I am the lucky recipient of 8 desktops. The hard drives and ram have been removed by our IT people. The machines are in great condition and are fully compatible with every Linux OS I have thrown at them.
I need to get rid of 3 of them. The first 3 people to contact me can have them as long as S&H is paid for.
96 • Latest Google Chrome Browser Beta (Firefox derivative) is very good! (by Jeffersonian on 2009-12-16 23:58:48 GMT from United States)
<http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=linux>
Latest Google Chrome Browser Beta (Firefox derivative) is very good! Fast, solid, with many Firefox extensions working just as well.
I do like the very clean, minimalist menus, where right click brings up"more".
The speed is excellent on Fedora Core 12 "Constantine" x64.
The Browser is available in 64 bits...
It is still a Beta, but looks more solid that many pay software of this quite large software company... Actually so far (one day of extensive use) it seems rock solid! (Zero crash so far...)
But this may have to do with FC12, which in my view, is now the "distro to beat" (for the nerd, alas: it is still complex to fully install).
So far, I really do not like much any of the available themes, but a) it is minor b) I am sure that sooner rather than later nicer themes will be available.
Jeffersonian.
97 • A slice thru' history of Linux. (by forest at 2009-12-17 00:58:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just got this; it is interesting to note the comment in the penultimate para' about the perception that Ubuntu is Linux is Ubuntu. Which needs no more debate, btw.
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7651/2/
98 • That's page 2 ... (by jake at 2009-12-17 01:57:17 GMT from United States)
Try it from the top.
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7651/1/
FWIW, a pretty good article ... but I still use Slackware. Call me a neo-luddite if you must, but I still prefer the Slack way over any of the others :-)
99 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-17 02:02:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #97
Oops...thank you neo-luddite...must proof read, must proof read.
100 • Big push (by Mark on 2009-12-17 05:30:22 GMT from Australia)
Given the rash of user comments here, it would seem that there is a push on to try to disparage KDE4, and Kubuntu 9.10 in particular. There is a lot of hot air, and absolutely no substance to most of the comments.
Kubuntu 9.10 must be really good then.
101 • Ubuntu 9.10 (by William White on 2009-12-17 05:35:43 GMT from United States)
Why is distrowatch ignoring the huge network/internet/router flaw in Ubuntu 9.10? There is a HUGE lag time while browsing with this version of the distro, so much so that no new Ubuntu user would ever want to use it as a replacment for Windows. Yet, for the most part, everyone, including distrowatch, is giving this distribution nothing but the highest praises. All of you should feel like frauds!!!!
102 • Knames (by Mark on 2009-12-17 05:48:04 GMT from Australia)
What is with all the criticism of KNames? They are not really any different to iNames, are they? Or gNames, when you think about it, or even much different to WinNames or Widows Live Name, when it comes right down to it.
Why KNames anyway?
A name for a software program is really quite difficult in a market where just about every word in the English language is already a trademarked product. KNames are an easy way around that.
Finally, has anyone actually looked at a KDE menu? I think you might find that the menu is sensibly organised into categories (such as "Office", "Multimedia", "Internet", "Graphics" and "Games"), and that within those categories each program has its function listed as well as the name (i.e. the KName).
http://lancelot.fomentgroup.org/images/screenshots/lancelot1.7-air.png
The actual names don't matter. It is very easy to find a program for a given function, even without knowing its name.
103 • Ubuntu 9.10 (by Mark on 2009-12-17 05:54:57 GMT from Australia)
>Why is distrowatch ignoring the huge network/internet/router flaw in Ubuntu 9.10?
Because it doesn't exist?
>There is a HUGE lag time while browsing with this version of the distro
No, there isn't.
>so much so that no new Ubuntu user would ever want to use it as a replacment for Windows
Why on earth not? Ubuntu (and in particular Kubuntu) 9.10 is far faster than Windows running on the same hardware.
104 • Ubuntu 9.10 issues (by William White on 2009-12-17 09:45:14 GMT from United States)
Mark, you might want to look at threads like the one below, or do a general google search on Ubuntu 9.10 and slow internet and you will find that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people having this issue.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1311363
105 • No subject (by fraud, er forest at 2009-12-17 10:12:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the flaws in U9.10, viz alleged time lag.
William, if you have a huge time lag in cause and effect, it is beyond any possible doubt you have been flagged by your authorities and they are re routing your connection to some super secret base deep inside a mountain where teams of geeky guys, with huge brainy bloke type spectacles, together with bevys of femme fatales, all blond as these things go, btw, (earing not very much and have a funny accen), are poring over every bit and byte in and out of your machine....hang on a mo, you haven't googled up "Area 51, have you?"
They always tag blokes who do that search...bit of a giveaway I'm afraid.
Your best bet is to stop using computers this very instant, wrap your head in tin foil and and stay under the duvet...I am serious about this.
Never, ever, forget your NSA folk are really working for the Nerd Search Academy...with a penchant for going OTT with regard to UFO hunters...you have been warned...course, it could be there is a fault at your local telephone exchange.
Now,in all real seriousness, perhaps you should be more specific and give a few more details. Have you contacted the Uxx help forums for instance?
You are the very first person to allege there is this sort of problem...which sort of suggests this fault is person specific...so you really must be under investigation after all.
106 • #101/#104 "huge flaw" in Ubuntu (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-17 10:57:42 GMT from United States)
#104: @William White: I looked at the thread in question. Nothing suggests that this is a universal issue affecting large numbers of users. Someone has a problem, one that cannot be identified and there isn't nearly enough information there troubleshoot the problem. For the overwhelming majority of users Karmic has no such problem. It has been just about flawless on my hardware, both 32-bit and 64-bit.
As has often been discussed here, different distros will exhibit different behavior on different hardware. To claim that the thread you cite points to a "huge network/internet/router flaw" is simply false. To call everyone who is having no such problem with Ubuntu "frauds" is nonsense. Your logic says that since you have a problem (which I accept) everyone else must do too, which again, simply is not the case.
Finally, good luck searching for the bug-free OS. None has ever existed. Code is written by human beings, all of whom have flaws.
107 • Should that be Willard White and the mystery of U9.10? (by forest at 2009-12-17 11:07:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Crikey WW, ref your further post #104, you would never have guessed so may ppl googled up "Area 51"...
Your link comments ended on 9/11...is this significant? Was it moved? I think we should be told.
I have experienced no probs here in UK; I use wifi exclusively, the wifi router is in turn slaved off the main line side router via cat5e cable.
AFAIK you have been the first to mention the issue...but I'm not sure we can be described as frauds.
108 • hpd530's (by david long on 2009-12-17 13:40:26 GMT from United States)
All three workstations have now been spoken for so no more requests please.
Thank You.
David
109 • Chrome (by Michael Raugh on 2009-12-17 13:53:26 GMT from United States)
@96: Not sure where you get the idea that Chrome is a Firefox derivative. Chrome is a WebKit browser developed by Google; Firefox uses the Gecko engine and is developed by Mozilla.
I've been playing with Chrome since the Linux beta came out and it is nice in a Spartan way. I'm using it primarily to access Google services (GMail/Calendar, Google Docs) because there's no NoScript for it yet. It's definitely fast and has been quite stable for me in that limited role. Had some issues with a plug-in that I've been too busy to look into seriously yet but otherwise working quite well.
-MR
110 • Ubuntu 9.10 (by William White on 2009-12-17 14:15:03 GMT from United States)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glibc/+bug/417757
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/433972
Yeah, it's just me isn't it? I was the first person to have this problem? Yeah, okay.
For the record, I'm using Ubuntu 9.10, but I know how to fix the problem. But, I wouldn't give Karmic to a newbie because he'll have issues. However, I would give him Jaunty because this issue doesn't exist with Jaunty, or Suse, or Knoppix, or PCLinux, or Fedora, or any other distro I use. This is unique to Karmic.
111 • RE #106 (by Anonymous at 2009-12-17 16:41:48 GMT from United States)
"Finally, good luck searching for the bug-free OS. None has ever existed. Code is written by human beings, all of whom have flaws."
How DARE you post sensible logic into the DWW comment area!! :-)
112 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-17 16:52:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Talking about Chrome OS and divers browsers...in regard to MS getting fined in Europe.
In today's Daily Telegraph, Business section, "we" in Europe have managed to trouser £1.49 billion in fines awarded against MS's anti competitive stance on the browser front.
This means in March next year all purchasers of MS OS wiil have the opportunity to use eleven other "free" browsers. (The article did not touch on how tho'...does this imply W7 SPn will have all these eleven browsers included? Who knows?)
Now, whilst this is good news, in a sense, it has highlighted exactly what we all know and dread(?) thinking about, to wit - if "ordinary MS using folk" are "incapable" of reading about FF, say; finding, d/l, installing, running and configuring the package...don't even suggest "about:config"...then the chances of any GNULinux distro becoming the desktop OS of choice are pretty slim...unless it is pre-installed on a machine...and it's called Ubuntu....and Ubuntu provides a LOT of customer support.
(But don't forget the nationally sponsored distros which may well end up being the "breakthrough" we all anticipate.)
Ref #110;
IF the IPv6 issue is a possible cause of the delays for some folk in online operations, then, for those not so au fait with Network Manager (v 0.7.996), you may be pleased to know IPv6 can be set to "ignore" in the Edit Connections settings.
I presume you would not have to do the same, as well, in FF's "about;config" department.
113 • #110: Overblown claims of Karmic problems, again. (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-17 17:08:22 GMT from United States)
#110: Well... my response didn't claim it was just you or you were first. I do not have ipv6 enabled and that appears to be the cause of the problem based on your second link. Since I don't use ipv6 (and honestly don't know of anyone, even in the corporate world who does) I haven't encountered the issue.
For me Jaunty was a bug ridden, unusable disaster. It was for a lot of people with Intel graphics cards. I certainly wouldn't give a newbie openSUSE because, once again, for me 11.2 is a bug filled mess, at least on my hardware. Karmic is excellent for me. Please note the words "for me".
Let me repeat this again because it seems to be the big point you are missing: different hardware equals different results. For most people Karmic just works. Fedora isn't nearly as user friendly for a newbie.
The reason you get the responses you do, some of which border on hostile, is because you are taking an issue that affects you, projecting it on millions of users, and telling is all that Karmic is essentially crap and needs to be discarded. Sorry, but no.
114 • Mandriva 2010 XFCE One community (by glyj at 2009-12-17 21:53:22 GMT from France)
If you are interested in news about Mandriva 2010, I've got something for you that is not mentioned here:
There is a new Mandriva CD iso, XFCE based.
It has been done by the Mandriva community with the help of company.
Have a look there :
http://steletch.free.fr/spip.php?article60
Then, enjoy !
By the way there are other community mandriva isos and i'll mention some of them:
An LXDE One iso:
http://www.mandrivauser.de/wordpress/?p=454 (sorry, auf deutsch but google can translate)
I already mentioned those earlier:
The 64 bits One CD isos ( one KDE and one GNOME )
http://www.community64.net/ (In french, but in english soon)
regards,
glyj
115 • RE: 114 Mandriva 2010 XFCE One community (by ladislav on 2009-12-17 23:33:03 GMT from Taiwan)
You are late with the news. All this was reported in DistroWatch Weekly nearly three weeks ago:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20091130#news
116 • oops (by glyj at 2009-12-17 23:54:40 GMT from France)
I getting old....
117 • Jolicloud (by RollMeAway at 2009-12-18 02:51:37 GMT from United States)
Download available.
For those with a netbook, and your "head in the clouds",
here is a new toy to play with:
http://www.jolicloud.com/
118 • Jolicloud (by RollMeAway at 2009-12-18 06:33:48 GMT from United States)
If you are curious and don't have a netbook, jolicloud includes a i386 kernel.
I just booted it with a dell gx270 desktop. Played for about 15 minutes.
Everything I tried seemed to work.
Wired network, 1680x1050 LCD, nvidia, sound. etc. It appears to be ubuntu with a different face. Similar to netbook remix.
Unlike Moblin, we hold outs (no netbook) can play too.
119 • Older hardware (by mikkh at 2009-12-18 09:49:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
It amuses me to see these masochists who declare their old hardware still useful. The latest deluded die hard claims a Cyrix 250 with 128 MB of RAM still has some life left in it! (it wasn't even borderline useful five years ago)
I can understand people getting attached to hardware that cost silly money a decade or more ago, but you have to let go eventually and stop torturing yourself for no reason. It's a stubborn streak that is bordering on mania IMO and I don't imagine these same people are also bashing their clothes against rocks, using a wind up gramophone or watching a black and white TV by candlelight, which makes this strange fixation with old PC's even more laughable.
I'm all for breathing life into old hardware because that's how I make a living but it doesn't take much searching to find second hand PC's for literally pennies or even free, so why bang your head against a brick wall with obsolete garbage?
I dare say if I offered Mr Cyrix 250 a much better PC for free, he would decline the offer - then I would really laugh
120 • #119 (by megadriver at 2009-12-18 10:21:40 GMT from Spain)
Can you imagine? There's people in this world that have more than one computer! Madness!
And there's people in this world that don't throw stuff in the garbage just because it's "old"! Crazy, huh?
And there's even people who think it's cool and even fun (shocker!) to try to make an old machine do "impossible" things. Just because they can. Weird, huh?
It's not about the money, you know.
I'm sure "Mr Cyrix 250" would gladly take your "better PC" and add it to his "collection".
121 • This time, this is new....I think :-( (by glyj at 2009-12-18 11:56:12 GMT from France)
Mandriva for notebooks, netbooks, etc... is here !
9.90 € (or 14.90$)
Have a look:
http://blog.mandriva.com/2009/12/18/go-faster-with-mandriva-instanton/
regards,
glyj
122 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-18 15:00:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #122
Well, we know the EU have been embroiled with MS for the past 10 years or so on the bundled browser issue...MS were never going to win so you wonder why they did not simply reach an accommodation earlier? Probably listening to their lawyers...
The article mentioned MS have to comply with the ruling for another 5 years or face another fine of 10% of global annual turnover.
It remains to be seen what computering will be like in 5 years time of course and if the 12 browsers are still around or if others appear...or if we all ascend into the cloud on the back of Chrome which might render all this argument moot anyway.
As you commented there may not appear to be much point at first glance...I would suggest there is more to it than that...it is the "local powers that be" giving broad hints, by simply flexing their collective muscles on home turf 'cos they can, that Europe is run by Europeans...and if you want to play then it's by European rules.
Speaking of rules, the DT, same edition, made mention of Intel falling out with your own regulatory authorities over alleged market abuse. Silly really to keep trying that sort of nonsense these days...AMD had just pocketed $1.25 billion about a month ago to drop their suits.
I suppose that's one of the dangers of actually believing your own hype and losing all sense of proportion and reality.
With regard to the above, you can see now why China are cobbling up their own home grown chip manufactories, homegrown distro(s) and homegrown pc/lappies.
Why (would China) get involved in that sort of dispute, which might, conceivably, affect the supply of hardware, (and possible licensing issues) and undoubtably profits, when you have a enormous home market, (at the very least twice the size of the US) wanting to be satisfied, not to mention its Asian neighbours.
What was all that guff about being too big to fail...?
123 • mandriva instant on os now available :) to buy (by polmac on 2009-12-18 15:29:43 GMT from Ireland)
the instant on is boots in 10 seconds sweet, mandriva developed it a while back but only allowed manufacturers to buy it, so you were able to buy it , i guess the sales did not take off as expected oh well , its only 9.99 euro not bad for what you get check it out on there website , i have 2010 pwp only ever bought it and previous versions to support on of the last useful kde distros , wonder if this will work on my dell mini 10 , as 2010 pwp on gnome does not work has its faults , impossible install the wireless driver , and a few other issues at least this distro might actually work well
124 • 119 • Older hardware (by mikkh) (by Redondo Beach at 2009-12-18 17:18:49 GMT from United States)
Agree. I don't understand it either. Nicely put.
In fact read the give away posted earlier. It was a P4, 2.8 Ghz ...for free! Just like you said.
125 • Low spec machines (by Caitlyn Martin on 2009-12-18 18:18:14 GMT from United States)
Regarding the comments on old machines and masochism, I will point out that there are brand new netbooks selling for anywhere from US $75-$150 that have 300MHz-400MHz processors, 128MB RAM and 1GB-2GB of SSD storage. They either run Linux or Windows CE. They also seem to be selling really well just because of the price. Those specs match the better machines of 10 years ago.
126 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-18 20:28:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the use of old kit...just installed Jolicloud on a Toshi Sat, about 8 yrs old. 1500MHz with 256MB ram.
Yes it installed, (dual boot with 8.04 LTS) yes it booted up from the GRUB menu which worked OK (as in giving the option of which distro), yes it found the wifi, yes it went online and found the Jolicloud site.
But it was slow, so slow it was unusable. Icons appeared on the screen, on top of the previous icon (but did disappear after a minute or so). The lappy's built in mouse was as slow and I thought it had died.
I tried a Logitech wireless trackball...that worked fine to begin with but then that too succumbed to inertia and had somewhat of a lag when the machine was doing something like finding another app.
So yes, you can do stuff the devs never really designed a distro to do, such as install to a different platform, but is it worth it?
127 • Re: 119 (by jake at 2009-12-18 21:29:22 GMT from United States)
Mikkh, your head is going to explode when you enter the working world ... I still have contracts supporting DEC gear running TOPS-20, several pre z/OS IBM Minis, a couple of Tandoms, and one Amdahl Mainframe. I won't even go into the billions of lines of COBOL and Fortran that are out there, doing useful work ... Newer isn't always better; my 10 year old Win2K machine is seat-of-the-pants faster than any Win7 machine I've ever had the misfortune to use.
128 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-18 22:06:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
Still on Jolicloud...
Having tried to get Jolicloud to behave itself on a platform not really intended to be its home I noted you could load up a usb stick and boot off that. Well, why not? Might give a different result.
The Jolicloud website gives all sorts of instructions to get an image onto a stick. Now, because JC is Ubuntu based, was it worth a punt to see if I could use the usb "burner" plumbed into U9.10?
Yes, it was, and a few minutes later I have one 4GB usb stick tricked up with Jolicloud.
Firstly, I tried to boot onto a Compaq P3 2GHZ, 1GB RAM ex business machine. It booted OK but clicking on an icon produced anything other than what was expected. Also, the icons randomly lit up as if they had been "mouse overed".
Wifi was OK, Joliclound Home website came up, but overall nothing to write home about, at all...on that machine, rpt, on that machine. And of course said machine could be poorly.
Finally, tried the usb stick on my trusty Dell Opti 280, P4, 3GHz into 2GB ram.
Well, surprise, surprise, it boots, it works, it works well. Performance is "snappy" to say the least. In fact it, JC, reacts faster than the U9.10 that usually lives there. I'm going to assume it's 'cos of being lightweight...and is intended for Cloud use so to speak.
Then tried the media player, Totem. Found the ext hard drive OK, found video files OK. Result! Sound and picture just worked, on half a dozen different types of file. None of this looking for codecs or plugins.
"Office" is a bit thin...but there is a dictionary, lol. It is supposed to be a gateway to The Cloud tho'...
That's about all I played with...I can't watch TV and do computering at the same time.
So, conclusions thus far; from what I saw it's worth a look in greater detail. I can't give an opinion of its performance on a netbook 'cos I don't have one.
I did not get into the Cloud, that's for another day.
129 • RE: #120 (by Anonymous at 2009-12-19 01:59:09 GMT from Italy)
"And there's people in this world that don't throw stuff in the garbage just because it's "old"! Crazy, huh?"
Yes, they must be people like my father who lives in a huge flat but he hardly has any space to put anything.
But with the (very) high cost of housing that doesn't seem like a wise thing to do.
130 • So you think you have a fast computer? (by RollMeAway at 2009-12-19 03:36:09 GMT from United States)
http://fastra2.ua.ac.be/
Specifications:
http://fastra2.ua.ac.be/?page_id=49
Runs a custom linux kernel, and CentOS 5.3.
Wonder if they like wobbly windows?
131 • RE: #130 (by Anonymous at 2009-12-19 04:13:43 GMT from Italy)
What impressed me most is how much power it needs, almost 3000 W! :)
It isn't even expensive, considering that if you add a few upgrades to a Mac Pro you can easily reach that price, but be nowhere near the computational power of the Fastra.
132 • No subject (by forest at 2009-12-19 10:15:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the gaming graphic cards solution for the fastra2 project.
Excellent work I reckon, despite it not being quite finished ( well, nowhere near finished). Perhaps you might recall about a year or so back some articles in the PC press about using the multicore procs in gaming cards to build really fast machines?
Looks as though folk were not slow to experiment. This means also that when the project does work OK (bound to be adopted by the bigger boys when all the initial R&D has been done, lol) hopefully this will mean "cheaper medicine" for emerging nations.
Sounds like a winner to me thus far...and nary a whiff of MS...
133 • @50 TinyMe/Unity Linux (by KDulcimer on 2009-12-19 17:29:37 GMT from United States)
"Saleem, UL 2010 Beta 1 looks exactly like their TinyMe release with a different background!"
First, what is this "their"? TinyMe is not produced by Unity. TinyMe is based on Unity. TinyMe is produced (at the moment) by myself alone. I also work on Unity, but I'm only one of several developers there.
Second, if one were to browse through the menus for both releases, one would see that the application selection for one does not begin to resemble the application selection for the other. Why? Because there are different target audiences. TinyMe is intended for end-users, the Unity ISOs are not.
The Unity ISOs are intended:
-For current Unity core developers to have a system upon which they can build packages,
-For current branch developers to have a system upon which they can develop their branches,
-And for prospective developers to check out Unity and see what we have to offer.
134 • TinyMe (by Redondo at 2009-12-19 21:03:00 GMT from United States)
I'm far behind. I thought or remember TinyMe based on pclos, or at least I thought so.
What happened? TinyMe worked well on one of my slow laptops.
135 • RE: Unity (by Landor at 2009-12-20 00:04:32 GMT from Canada)
I think it's actually ridiculous, the Unity project. First thing was the name. Sure, you can say the reasoning for it was to show all of the group working together but I'd bet anything that it was to be a snip at PCLOS and the reasons for leaving, etc, etc.
Also though, what can anyone really gain from basing off a project like this? You get stuck by a collective mindset when you are building an individual project. Also, what happens if someone decides they want changes in the base that nobody else wants. That's a key right there. It would be far more intelligent for individuals to either build "one" distribution as a collective, or to build their own separate distribution. Especially since all the drama came out of the PCLOS base, that was something that should have thrown up warning flags to anyone who built off of PCLOS.
I agree with the other poster, all it's gonna really do is give people the same ole regurgitated crap, chewed, swallowed, then just spit up to look a little different, but hardly.
Do something "individual", really "individual". Hell, I've remastered Ubuntu and a few others and they look and feel different a whole lot more than Tiny Me and the Unity base.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
136 • The K Pest... (by Anon on 2009-12-20 11:53:26 GMT from Norway)
@ #15, Bill Carrico
I agree with you wholeheartedly! KDE is my preferred environment, but I could do without the capital K in everything KDE-related. It's ugly, it's invading, it's 'bossy', it's intimidating, it's embarrassing and, well, I don't know. It is simply not nice.
137 • KDE's "K" @136 (by Sean at 2009-12-20 12:43:42 GMT from United States)
Perhaps a cute little duckie? A fuzzy-wuzzy bear cub?
Wait, those are all taken. Maybe a lizard. No, that's taken, too.
This issue is going to kill linux and open source. I'm sure glad it's been brought to light here.
oy vey
138 • Re: #59, #60, #61 and #62 (by NippoNoob at 2009-12-20 13:52:06 GMT from Brazil)
*
The First Law of Linux is clear: "Not all distros run on all machines." But the NippoNoob's Law of Coherence is even more clear: "Every distro must be run/tested/reviewed in a compatible hardware and ONLY in a compatible hardware."
Explaining by an example: If jake's butt get fatter to the point that his pant doesn't fit anymore, he obviously would not submit to a dangerous surgery to reduce the size of his butt. He would simply buy a new and larger pant. (No kidding! I'm serious!)
In other words: If a distro doesn't work either in Caitlyn's laptops/netbooks or in Jesse's desktops, then it should NOT be reviewed UNTIL they get a compatible hardware. BTW, my beloved PCLinuxOS GNOME 2009.2 is a fantastic hardware recognizer, but it FAILED to boot in two laptops and two desktops I tried to install it. With the many PCs where it WORKED, I had no problem till today.
Conclusion: Our friend jake is absolutely right. Hardware matters! That's the reason why a CAR is used to transport a family, and a BUS is used to transport a soccer team...
*
139 • re#137 (by hab on 2009-12-20 16:00:05 GMT from Canada)
Just a quick question.
If the great unwashed masses are blissfully unaware of Linux (and if you believe the widely published numbers?, they are!), then how could their unknowledge of Linux (and by extension its mascots and letter irrationality) lead to a diminishing uptake or death of Linux?
cheers
140 • @139 (by Sean at 2009-12-20 16:29:35 GMT from United States)
That is the strangest comment and question I could ever have imagined resulting from my silly little post making fun of concern for the KDE "K" on their apps, etc.
Do people drink on Sundays around here? (joke)
lmao
141 • @138 Hardware (by Jesse at 2009-12-20 16:47:42 GMT from Canada)
Here's a fun exercise: define "works". For example, if a distro runs really well on my system, the video is great, the audio is perfect, but my mobile card isn't detected, should I skip the review? Or what if the network card is handled, video is good, but sound doesn't work? Should that review be skipped? What if the distro works perfectly on one machine, but refuses to even boot on the other? Should I write the review or not?
As I stated further up, if a distro refuses to work at all, I'll skip the review. But if it mostly works, or works on one machine, I'll do the review and mention areas that are good and which areas didn't work for me.
In your analogy, you talk about using a car to transport a family and a bus to transport a sports team. Which is fine, but completely not related to distro reviewing. A desktop machine runs desktop operating systems. Desktop Linux systems (such as openSUSE, Fedora, Mandriva and Ubuntu) are all desktop systems. We're using the proper tool for the job. If we were restricted to writing reviews to times when everything worked, that would be called a press release... And I would have written exactly two reviews to date.
142 • Reviws and hardware (by Caitlyn Maritn on 2009-12-20 17:55:36 GMT from United States)
Jesse gets it absolutely right in #141. I'll go further: what if a distributor claims that their distro has been optimized for a type of hardware and then it doesn't work on that hardware? That is precisely the case with openSUSE 11.2 and my HP netbook. So.. if I followed nipponoob's logic I couldn't write a review and couldn't point out that the claims made for the distro don't hold up.
Some people don't want reviews. They want commercials or advertisements.
143 • Re: #141 (Hardware matters!) (by NippoNoob at 2009-12-20 18:28:49 GMT from Brazil)
*
> Here's a fun exercise: define "works".
"Works" means EVERYTHING working right out of the box: videocard, soundcard, modem, etc... EVERY freaking piece of hardware recognized automagically.
> For example, if a distro runs really well on my system, the video is great, the audio is perfect, but my mobile card isn't detected, should I skip the review?
Yes, you should skip the review until you find a mobile card more universally well supported. BTW, if any piece of hardware doesn't work, THEN you can't say that a distro "runs really well on your system". It just contradicts the NippoNoob's Law of Coherence.
> Or what if the network card is handled, video is good, but sound doesn't work? Should that review be skipped?
Yes, of course it should be skipped. You would not be able to find out how wonderfully well that distro could play audio files if you had a supported soundcard. Many readers would be much frustrated, and possibly would complain. You know: People love to complain, especially DistroWatch readers...
> What if the distro works perfectly on one machine, but refuses to even boot on the other? Should I write the review or not?
If it works perfectly on ONE machine, you should review it in THAT ONE machine. If it refuses to boot on the other, it's obvious that a review couldn't be written, but the readers who have the problematic hardware would be much grateful to you for being warned.
> As I stated further up, if a distro refuses to work at all, I'll skip the review.
Naturally. That was the specific situation I mentioned in my previous post (#138). Note that I made no comment about the hardware being partially supported. I referred to the system NOT BOOTING AT ALL.
> But if it mostly works, or works on one machine, I'll do the review and mention areas that are good and which areas didn't work for me.
No problem, Jesse! YOU decide what and how to review, not me. But, in my ultra-radical (even irrational) point of view, "mostly works" is the same thing as "not working". I'm a Japanese descending, so I'm a perfectionist.
> In your analogy, you talk about using a car to transport a family and a bus to transport a sports team. Which is fine, but completely not related to distro reviewing. A desktop machine runs desktop operating systems.
You didn't understand the analogy. It has everything to do with computers. A car and a family would be something like a Pentium II and Damn Small Linux. A bus and a soccer team would be something like a Core2Duo and Sabayon... Please note that my well humored analogy of jake's butt size and pant's size is similar: buying a new and larger pant for a fatter butt is the same as buying a new and more adequate hardware for a bloated modern distro.
> Desktop Linux systems (such as openSUSE, Fedora, Mandriva and Ubuntu) are all desktop systems.
Really? I thought they were car models... (Just kidding! Don't take me so seriously! :^D
> We're using the proper tool for the job. If we were restricted to writing reviews to times when everything worked, that would be called a press release... And I would have written exactly two reviews to date.
I know. I know. I yet appeciate too much those Caitlyn's reviews on VectorLinux in which she has never hidden any defficiency of that system I consider one of the best in existence. Her upcoming review on SalixOS will certainly be as honest as ever. And I appreciate even more your reviews on little known systems almost forgotten by the gods of computing.
Paleface Jesse, little warrior NippoNoob wants to smoke the pipe of peace with you!
*
144 • RE: 143 (by Landor at 2009-12-20 18:50:10 GMT from Canada)
Catch-Phrases are sad. The whole "just works" one is in my personal opinion for fanbois.
But more to the point, not everyone wants everything to work flawlessly. Don't kid yourself that everyone does. What if your hygiene was just perfect with no need to clean. What if all your food was just magically there. What if you and everyone else never had to work or learn.
Having everything flawless and simple goes against the very grain of life, to grow. It's also very boring. Even more so in our little sphere of it. I can tell you that I've grown very bored with how well everything is. I wish I didn't buy hardware that is supported by Linux 100%, the smart consumer in me won't let that happen though. Everything's become hum-drum. It's simply "ahh, it boots faster", "Oh, nice theme".
In a sense it's akin to our community not really moving at all. It feels like it's become old shoe. That's a good thing yes, for the majority. For me it's not at all.
When's the last time anyone in the community could really go, "OMG, That is SO amazing!!!".
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
145 • Works (by Anonymous at 2009-12-20 19:06:01 GMT from United States)
Linux users (including me) are basically spoiled.
The Linux kernel basically comes with all of its' own drivers included.
If the other O.S.'s need a driver, then the sysadmin (user) usually has to:
A. Load a driver disk which hopefully came with their strange hardware.
B. Find a driver to install somewhere else, like the internet or a friend who has it.
If Linux somehow does not have the driver in the kernel, then one has to look at step B above or maybe even use a Win type driver if they know how to do that.
So far the kernel has always had enough drivers to use my hardware. (I'm lucky)
The worst problem I have had recently is the new Xorg giving me low resolution.
I found myself manually editing my Xorg.conf just as I had to many years ago.
I do use Nvidia drivers, but they are directly available in my distributions repository, thus no real effort there.
Printing, Scanning, Games, Multimedia (including T.V. watching) just work.
The box never crashes, at least as much as I use it and how I use it.
Sometime some adjustment is necessary to make something work.
If you do not want to be bothered by adjusting then you need to find someone who will do it for you.
146 • Re: 144 (by jake at 2009-12-21 01:52:30 GMT from United States)
Landor, surely that's the Holy Grail of sysadmins? Install a system, and walk away, never to have to deal with the user-base?
My 72 year old Mom, and 96 year old Great Aunt, almost never call me for tech support anymore. With Windows, it was weekly. The distro they use? A modified, stripped down to just the basics variation of Slackware 12.2, containing just the tools that they need ... With kernels compiled by me for the hardware in the machines they are using. Both call it "the version of Windows that jake put on my machine" ... and both have sold their friends on having me put similar systems on their machines.
Obviously, for the above paragraph to work, you have to understand the exact needs of the users ... Scripting for updating them from a remote location helps.
YES, I love to hack around in the kernel, and play with device drivers, generally fsck things up, and then make it all work again, and etc. ... but on this particular laptop, I installed Slackware once, when 12.0 came out. I chose to install the whole thing, including all the source packages, just out of curiosity. I've used "slackpkg" (and cron) to keep it synced to -stable ever since July, 2007. Result: I'm now running 13.0, all the hardware works, it's been rock-solid, and I spend absolutely zero time maintaining it. It's my go-to machine, at home and on the road.
Yes, I've had to upgrade things like AdblockPlus, Flashblock and NoScript, but that particular mechanism is the same for all users, cross-platform. I also keep ClamAV up to date and modern; comes in handy troubleshooting Windows boxen. The rest is pure Slackware. Works for me, YMMV.)
147 • Idea (was: Works) (by jake at 2009-12-21 02:20:00 GMT from United States)
How about a parallel discussion forum labeled "workarounds"?
If the Broadcom card doesn't work with the box-stock "DistroO'T'Day", but said card is known to work with other distributions, DWW readers could submit step-by-step work-arounds ... Maybe outside the scope of Distrowatch, maybe not. Just running an idea up the ol' flagpole.
148 • Hit and Miss Drivers (by Anonymous at 2009-12-21 02:42:29 GMT from United States)
If some distributions have working drivers and some do not.
The question is: are the working drivers proprietary?
If not then just as copying X.conf data, it might be possible to copy drivers from one distribution to another, while paying attention to kernel versions,etc. ?
If they are proprietary then I guess you should use that distribution to stay sort of legal and have working hardware.
Over the years most open drivers take a while to fully get integrated into most distributions. Some have them early, some late.
Some need to be downloaded. Some distributions make downloading and installing easy (ready made scripts), some leave it up to you (manual install).
A while back Sarge would not shutdown cleanly on an APM box.
It would stay on untill you turned it off.
So I compared it with Knoppix, which would do a proper shutdown.
Sarge was missing something like nolapic.
Made the changes and now it worked.
Number of Comments: 148
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