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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • typo (by vincent at 2010-01-18 09:37:54 GMT from France)
For the mandriva article, in French it's not "au currant" but "au courant" !
I would like a test of backtrack, comparing it to a regular distro (like mandriva) with additionnal softs installed (especially on the wifi cracking front)
2 • Jibbed (by dragonmouth on 2010-01-18 09:56:24 GMT from United States)
"........it's an inconvenience to those of us who have become accustomed to the Linux way of doing things and need to look up a quick reference to the device-naming convention....." This is the same complaint Windows users had and have with Linux. Now the shoe is on the other foot, eh Jesse? :-)
3 • In search of "better" applications (by chris at 2010-01-18 10:07:38 GMT from United States)
This is the same issue I hear with users of Windows and OSX. Many would love to get away from the micro$oft tax but have a need or desire for the applications they're using and no comparable applications within Linux. I talk more and more everyday with those that aren't geeks and wouldn't know how to develop an application but would switch to Linux completely if the comparable apps were available.
4 • #3 (by zygmunt on 2010-01-18 11:00:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
Comparable (commercial) applications on Linux would more than likely be more expen$ive as development and economy of scale co$t$ would apply. This $Linuxtax of course would only apply to (non-free) purchased applications. Linux would only ever be playing catchup under these circumstances until a critical mass of dollar spending users prevails. I feel that Linux expansion is stagnated, and has been for many years, without further commercial involvement. I watch the Google chrome OS and "compute model" with interest!
5 • Open source software (by Barnabyh at 2010-01-18 11:41:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
I completely disagree with that. Most users only ever use about 10% of the functionality most apps provide (ok, maybe 40% with Evolution). And while it may be nice to have the option with proprietary apps to do more with it one day, as it also offers this and that functionality apparently, that day will probably never come, or you've already upgraded to the next version until then. In schools, in terms of making pupils fit for the job market, that excuse also increasingly rings hollow, as so many municipalities and organisations have already switched to other software than you know who (talking about office software and often also underlying OS). Also, ways of working can be changed and reorganised, possibly even with an overall efficiency gain. I acknowledge it also depends on where you live. It seems continental Europe is very active in this direction, the UK OTOH is a total believer in the other way, which was recently underlined when I looked at the figures on linuxcounter. Countries like France, Germany and the Netherlands seem about twice as active as the UK by the numbers. It may be the Anglo-saxon connection to Big Brother, or simply the fact that people here love the service industry and paying for so-called service and are used to being ripped off and paying over the odds for essentially crap. And the same people are making decisions in organisations. Given that the UK government is now also one of the most vocal supporters of clamping down on what they call piracy to protect the funds of the wealthy and advocates cutting of internet access for the alleged pirates this all makes sense.
6 • In search of "better" applications (by BobM on 2010-01-18 11:50:49 GMT from Philippines)
Bravo sir on your reply to In-search-of-better-applications, often I see someone ask this type of question and they are to frequently told they should just go use Windows. I often struggle with Linux and am hesitant to ask questions on forums or someone may reply with “RTFM” and so if I can't solve it by searching forums or with Google will give up.
7 • better apps or better knowledge ? (by goom on 2010-01-18 12:01:07 GMT from France)
I am an user, just a user in the way that i cannot develop anything. I am using Mandriva at home, Win XP at work. My feeling is that if there is a need for better apps, there is also a need for better knowledge of existing apps. I remember when using Konqueror that it handles lots of protocols using kio-slave, some were very useful for me : audiocd:/ allows me to simply encode CD to mp3, ogg, flac, wav just by copying / pasting (or just moving the selected files using tabs or multiwindowed konqueror). How many users knew it ? fonts:/ allows me to view fonts installed on my desktop man:/ allows me to read manpage in a gui, extract text, export to pdf, etc.
Lots of apps have good functionnalities, the point is just to know that they exist and then use it.
8 • In search of "better" applications. "I love OOo", but ... (by thelobby at 2010-01-18 12:23:15 GMT from Portugal)
About Linux in the the desktop, half way is done, because Linux desktop environments are up to the task. From the other half, Linux has also half way done because it has a GUI for most tasks a user needs nowadays. The last 25% is in the field of office. Even that Open Office had all the features of M$ Office it would still be a problem, in case both Linux and M$ users could not exchange their office files and keep all formulas, formats, etc. Anyway, even with the actual stage of development of Open Office, if those formats and formulas could interoperate at both side offices, then, maybe Linux could quickly gain the desktop market. If not, due to the universal use of M$ Office, and due to the importance of office in the general computing environment, this lack of compatibility is the really barrier for the Linux broadly adoption in the desktop. To bypass this, only if all governments would decide to promote and adopt Open Source, witch would make sense in view of the economic advantages.
9 • Linux Apps (by LinuxNurse at 2010-01-18 13:16:58 GMT from United States)
I have been using Linux for about 10 years at home. Recently I moved into a new position at the hospital at which I am employed. I don't have an office yet so I brought from home an old Linux machine and put it in the corner of a storage area in so I could do my work. I proposed doing some screen capture computer training videos for some new software just purchase by the hospital. I was told I couldn't because the software was not in the budget. I loaded up gtk-recordmydesktop, audacity and openshot video editor and produced the training material for no cost. (I even downloaded some royalty free music to spice things up). After seeing what could be done a new hospital training production group was proposed using Linux and open source.
I guess what I am saying is if you want MS Office and Photoshop, get them. If you a want high quality end product, the software is available in Linux.
10 • @2: Shoe on the other foot. (by Jesse on 2010-01-18 13:17:22 GMT from Canada)
Yes, trying to figure out the command to manually mount my USB stick in Jibbed was a reminder of how it was when I first came from Windows to Linux. Things are similar enough (between Linux and BSD) that I knew I could use dmesg and mount to get the job done, but I wasn't sure about the partition numbers/letters. Generally when I've used BSD in the past, I'd been working on servers over SSH, which doesn't lend itself to mounting thumb drives. Jibbed was a good learning environment.
11 • BSD user control versus Linux/Windows automounting (by lucky13 on 2010-01-18 13:18:42 GMT from United States)
OMG! How tragic. "Any mounting of local drives or USB devices had to be done manually. While BSD veterans probably won't mind this, it's an inconvenience to those of us who have become accustomed to the Linux way of doing things and need to look up a quick reference to the device-naming convention used by BSD." - No, the "Linux way" to which you're accustomed isn't monolithically the Windows way of auto-mounting and/or auto-running. It's also not a good idea to do that for a lot of reasons (ask and I'll give you plenty). BSD defaults are much more sane than what most Linux distros do out-of-box, so you typically don't have promiscuous mounting of extraneous systems or running services you don't tell it to run; and to be fair, the "Linux way" used to be like the BSD way requiring a user to willfully add optional or additional filesystems. How inconvenient is that, really?! Is it more inconvenient than when a live CD automounts and utterly mucks (not my first choice of word but it rhymes with it) up the computer's normal filesystem(s) as in the following example? It's *not* a live CD's job to mount, fsck, etc., *anything* by default. And I *freaking* *detest* the "Linux way" (Windows way) of automounting anything that gets attached to my computers. That should be an optional, not the default, behavior. Dittos for starting every bleeping process by default. Here's one example of what can go very, very, very wrong when developers take liberties with what gets mounted or run by default (warning to kids and fundamentalists: I use bad words a lot): http://lucky13linux.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/dynebolic-252-sucks/
12 • What features? (by Zarko at 2010-01-18 13:31:59 GMT from Serbia)
"I love OOo, and use it all the time myself, but it just doesn't come anywhere close to MS Office in usability or features.". I love OOo too, and I use it exclusively for almost 3-4 years and I still didn't find (at least for me) any feature that I miss (there are features that I don't miss, like MS Office's incompatibility with it's own formats from earlier versions - documents simply don't look the same). I'm just curious what these features are.
My colleagues and me are using Linux in a classroom for 5 years now (at Faculty of Technical Scineces, Novi Sad), and we have mostly positive experiences. We are teaching C, C++, Java and x86 assembler, we have our in-house developed software for knowledge testing, we use OOo Calc for (semi)automatic student data handling, etc. And we don't miss MS. I just want to say, it can be done relatively easy... :)
13 • quality softaware (by Thom at 2010-01-18 13:32:12 GMT from Denmark)
"I've been told that I need to go with the software that's high quality and that everyone uses." I take the above to be a veiled reference to Windows. Yes, everyone uses it, but that's got more to do with the inability to buy a PC without Windows pre-installed*, the massive marketing campaigns from Microsoft, and that company's skill in persuading management to opt for less-with-more than any absolute measure of the quality of the software. On the other hand, there is a German saying: Against stupidity even the Gods struggle in vain... Best of luck teaching students more than just ctrl+alt+del :-)
*When will consumer advocate groups push for PC prices separated into HW and SW cost, so people can see what the Microsoft Tax is really costing them...?
14 • @5 (by blah at 2010-01-18 13:56:19 GMT from United States)
Stop using specious arguments, please. Unless you have some proof that the majority of this planet's computer users only use 10% of the functionality provided by the applications they use you should find another way to support your viewpoint of not needing more functionality.
You see, the idea that "most" users only use "10%" of the functionality of any given application has no basis in reality but is constantly used to justify a developers removing useful features because some non-existent user won't use the functionality.
15 • Re: Open source software (by Anon on 2010-01-18 13:59:59 GMT from Norway)
Barnabyh wrote: "Given that the UK government is now also one of the most vocal supporters of clamping down on what they call piracy to protect the funds of the wealthy and advocates cutting of internet access for the alleged pirates this all makes sense."
Somebody has to defend the UK a little here: I believe France is so far the worse, given that it has already made it possible to strip alleged pirates of Internet access. Not sure if it is statutory or if the courts have some leeway, though. In this day and age that amounts to depriving people of their human rights.
Here in Norway the government has decided that all official, i.e. state/municipal, documents meant for the public shall be available *also* in some open source format or other. There is also talk of shifting to open source throughout.
16 • BSD and ArchLinux (by Scott on 2010-01-18 15:15:30 GMT from United States)
+1 for lucky13
Same thing as what the ArchLinux developers said as well. Without arguing which is better the vast majority of Linux distributions today sacrifice performance and control for aesthetics and convenience.
There's room for both kinds in the world, but many who have been working with Linux, Unix, or BSD for a long time prefer to tell the machine when to mount something, rather than have the system assume they want it mounted.
17 • Jibbed , Android Over Chrome OS! (by Tre Cool at 2010-01-18 15:24:47 GMT from United States)
Jibbed is an very interesting project , I really enjoyed using it but i really wish it was more automatic and supported NTFS . (does it now ?) Overall great work from it's Developer(s) it seems theirs only one but good job dude! .
All This Talk Of ChromeOS I really Don't See Users Going Full Cloud Computing! and the way ChromeOS is designed seems well... Stupid everyone I Know When they find out what ChromeOS is goes "well that's interesting but i don't know if I like that" Android Seems a lot More feasible wouldn't you rather run that, then a web only OS ? On Your Netbook?
18 • Better applications . . . . . (by richard on 2010-01-18 15:34:13 GMT from United States)
This has always been my biggest complaint with 'Linux'. More resources and time are spent on the 'Linux' shell than the apps that are running in it. My point being if you want better software sometimes you've got to pay for the development. Even though I don't like this philosophy that's what I've done. (i.e. I love the Gimp. . . but I also use Bibblepro 5, LightZone. I like what has been done with 'Hugin' but I now use 'Autopanopro' for my photography interests.)These I've paid money for and would do it again if I had to. I too wish there were more polished apps out there to run in Linux. I am by no means bashing Linux. I'm an advid user and will never use Windows again period.
rich :)
19 • Android netbook. (by Alex on 2010-01-18 15:57:31 GMT from Romania)
Well Android does run the coolest netbook I saw so far. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0BZ2yKt5AI&feature=player_embedded That my idea of what a netbook should be. Android's speed isn't comparable to any other os out there.
20 • Arch the new Gentoo? (by Dinketh at 2010-01-18 16:42:02 GMT from United States)
The "kit" mentality of Gentoo seems well-served in Arch.
It was spoken here that Gentoo is in decline, while Arch grows.
Did the Arch developer(s) succeed where Gentoo failed?
It is a question, not an assertion.
21 • documentation (by jack at 2010-01-18 16:49:22 GMT from Canada)
the achilles heel of linux. Both Jessie and #7 indirectly referred to this. Barnabyh (#5) says :" Most users only ever use about 10% of the functionality most apps provide..." But how would a newbie know the full extent of any app. The documentation (if any) is written (almost always) by developers and they are, unfortunately. notorious for writing "for" developers, not in language that Joe Smith can easily understand. The end user has a life and cannot spend hours reading forum posts; many of which are simply inappropriate. The most popular OS, Ubuntu, has a very active forum and a question on any topic always gets "some" answer, but not always an appropriate one. Every app, to a newbie, is an unknown quantity for which he needs extensive information.
22 • Mounting and OOo features (by Jesse on 2010-01-18 17:18:02 GMT from Canada)
The Linux systems which detect and offer to mount removable media generally also have a very easy way to disable the feature. I don't think it's really that big a deal. If you don't want your media mounted without giving specific instructions, that's fine, configure your machine to work that way. But most computer users (read the 99% who don't use a command line) will want their USB drive or camera mounted when it's plugged in. In fact, there are very few cases when a person will NOT want their device mounted when it's plugged in. Sure, some distro hoppers or techie types like doing it manually, but that's an option.
As for features which OOo lacks that MS-Office has.., I've seen a lot of cases in the business world where worksheets have been created that are held together with VB script and strange linkings. Or they require plugins. In those cases, the user is not only limited to MS-Office, but sometimes a specific version of Office. OOo is great for home users and most business users, but there are some pretty large, unusual documents out there which are tied to a specific program.
23 • @20 Arch the new Debian (by Anonymous at 2010-01-18 18:51:57 GMT from Canada)
I think Funtoo is a better candidate as the new Gentoo.
For me ArchLinux a kind of new Debian. Debian failled because of complex policies stuff, old unstable software, lake of feature, flamewars, etc. Ubuntu was a good Debian successor that attracted a lot of users interested by having an easy distro, but not all users feels confortable with the Ubuntu philosophy.
For those that liked the old version of Debian (potato and before), where it was possible to choose all component to get a bloat free desktop will finally found home in ArchLinux.
@Jesse & Ladislav :
I think both ArchLinux and Gentoo should be on the 10 ten recommended distro list. Maybe Funtoo should be added as a distro that share similar philosophy than Gentoo.
24 • Major distros list on DWW (by Tervel at 2010-01-18 19:17:47 GMT from Austria)
In my opinion Arch Linux has earned its place on this list.
25 • @23 (by Patrick on 2010-01-18 19:35:32 GMT from United States)
*LOL* ArchLinux a replacement for Debian? Debian "failed"?
Ok, seriously. Debian is doing as good as it ever did and ArchLinux isn't even a shadow of a replacement. Let me know when Arch provides the vast number of packages, the rock solid stability, support for 10+ processor architectures and security infrastructure of Debian and we'll talk again.
Being customizable is about the only thing Arch and Debian seem to have in common. The difference is that Arch focuses more on what functionality you can subtract while Debian offers you more choice for functionality you can add.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking Arch here. It is a nice niche project that has its place to serve desktop Linux users that like to tweak their machines. But to propose Arch as another Debian is beyond a stretch of the imagination.
26 • Better Linux Applications & Open Source (by art on 2010-01-18 20:01:52 GMT from United States)
Why would anyone complain about open source applications not measuring up to commercial software? The point I love about Linux is the choices it provides. While the software may not have all of the features found in commercial software, it is easy to try out and assess. If it suits your needs you can use it, update it etc.
If you want a commercial program, set your computer to dual boot the operating system the commercial software works on. Linux distros are the only OS that will let you do this. My point is you can have your cake and eat it too.
If you can't understand why commercial software cost money - try working at your job without pay.
I am grateful to everyone for providing the open source software. That gives me a choice. Thank heaven for open source and commercial software.
27 • android-x86 (by Henning Melgaard at 2010-01-18 20:33:57 GMT from Denmark)
I am pretty impressed with what the people at android-x86.org have done with Google Android. It actually works on both my laptop and my tower pc. Not that it works exactely great, but it was fun to try, and to think that this thing was originally made for smart phones.... Looking forward to try Google Chrome
28 • Linux apps... (by Becky at 2010-01-18 20:34:39 GMT from New Zealand)
It's nice to see some of the comments here about linux apps. I've used linux and windows for many years now... and where I can, I use linux/open source - especialy for my business.
However, Open Source doesn't do itself any favours by clinging to old/rare/incomprehensible systems that just aren't anywhere else. My particular bugbear is OpenOffice. I love it - as a user - but totaly loathe it as a development tool.
I work as an MS Office developer - and I'd love to be able to offer some of my clients a system put together in OpenOffice.... but find that I simply can't....... because of the thrice damned StarOffice Basic!
I've searched for tutorials and documentation to help me with this system to no avail. Agreed, there's lots of material out there but it's got no relevance to the real world. Tutorials that explain how something works... in theory.... without showing a practical example or two.
That's the problem - it's a case of 'Look how clever this is, isn't it wonderful?'..... and then vanishing off into the distance - leaving the real-world developers scratchiing their heads and then thinking 'The hell with this - back to VBA - that, at least, works!'
I'm in that position right now - trying to do an application for a a charity. There's no money available right now to buy the commercial systems to do the job and I'd love to put in an OpenOffice based app..... but it's out of the question because the documentationis so poor that I can't even get started with it. (It's actualy a database that would need programming behind the scenes as the GUI facilities aren't up to the task - and clear cut explanations and examples are as rare as hen's teeth.)
It's another example of 'Catch-22' - there's not enought clear information out there to enable me to do the job - and I don't have the time to puzzle it out and help write the material that should be there... and I don't see any changes happening any time soon!
PS - here's a suggestion for a fork....rebuild OpenOffice around a better known and understood development system... such as Mono... so that more people can work on it.... and those of us who aren't able to work at that level can at least have a system that we can use to bring OpenOffice to our clients?
29 • @27 (by Henning Melgaard on 2010-01-18 20:36:35 GMT from Denmark)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
30 • @22 mounting (by lucky13 on 2010-01-18 20:36:42 GMT from United States)
It's not about distro-hopping, Jesse. It's about end-user control over a system; developers shouldn't enable things by default that end users have to disable to get the system to function properly and/or securely.
As to the broader issue, I understand developers tend to make their presumptions on a lowest common denominator (LCD): most Linux distros have dumbed everything down so that Windows refugees will have a similar user experience under Linux. What's even worse, they insist on calling the worst mistakes that ship as defaults in Windows "features" in Linux. The irony is Microsoft gets dissed for making things easy for your "99% who don't use a command line" but out of the same duplicitous mouths come all kinds of demands for the same things to be done the same way in Linux. That applies to automounting, autorunning, permissions, and so on.
Convenience comes with compromises. Security is one of those compromises. I don't want some idiot casually sticking a USB stick in any of my computers -- Windows, Linux, BSD -- and having it automounted or autorun. It's as unsafe in practice on Linux or BSD (or Mac) as it is in Windows, especially if you're not sure where said USB stick has been, whose computers it's been in, and what threats they've been subjected to. Convenience becomes inconvenience as soon as a problem -- no matter how rare or isolated it may be -- occurs.
I'm glad the BSDs have avoided the Linux/Windows LCD approach and left it up to the end user to determine what processes start by default. The BSD documentation is heads and shoulders above most GNU and Linux documentation so users can follow a guide to effectively deploying a server or desktop without (in most cases) having to shut off unneeded, undesired processes started without any user interaction. That's the way it should be (IMO) among all open source operating systems: start with a clean slate and leave it to the user to start whatever services he or she wants. Don't make those kinds of choices for the user and leave it to him or her to undo what you force by default.
31 • @30 (by Patrick on 2010-01-18 20:54:55 GMT from United States)
Convenience should not be confused with dumbed down.
If I stick a USB drive in my computer, chances are I might want to access it. How often do you stick a USB drive in your computer without any intention of using it? What's the difference with it being automounted if you're just going to mount it yourself anyway?
If I install a package like SSH server, it means I want to run an SSH server. How often do you install an SSH server just for the heck of it without actually intending to use it? What's the difference with it being autostarted if you're just going to enable and start it anyway?
If automounting is such a security hazard, please explain what horrible things a USB stick being automounted might do to your computer. Are the files just going to jump off of it by themselves or something?
32 • Automounting (by megadriver at 2010-01-18 21:04:43 GMT from Spain)
Totally agree about automounting. One of the first things I always did when I still used Windows was to disable automounting. I really, really hate "auto-stuff".
I personally use pmount for all my mounting needs, and it works beautifully. I had to make my own package, as the official Arch one "thinks" it needs HAL. But it doesn't. I actually use the exact same official PKGBUILD, just with 'hal' removed from the list of dependencies. No other changes are needed.
I will loudly celebrate the day that "abomination" known as HAL finally dissapears from the face of the Earth. It seems like all those silly *kits are here to stay, though.
33 • @30 Autorun (by Anonymous at 2010-01-18 21:21:44 GMT from Ukraine)
There is no autorun in Linux, stop repeating this nonsense. There is automount and then a question from your file manager what do you want to do with files on the device, so you can start your activity with one click. This is convenient and totally secure. What you propose is just security via obscurity. So stop spreading FUD and plain lies, this is not a good way to promote BSDs and only shows your incompetence.
34 • @31, 33 (by lucky13 on 2010-01-18 21:45:44 GMT from United States)
@Patrick: First, I stand by my belief that most Linux distros are dumbed down to appeal to Windows converts and that this is manifested by calling things which are "bad" in Windows "features" in Linux. Second, it's not just what you want to stick in your own computer, it's what happens when anyone else does. If your child (if you have any) uses a USB stick between school and home computers, whatever ends up on that USB stick can adversely affect whatever OS you're running at home. That can be Windows-specific crap or a Linux rootkit. Third, I can think of plenty of instances in which one might want to temporarily run OpenSSH or any HTTP server rather than every time a computer is booted. For example: http://lucky13linux.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/running-monkey-httpd-on-aa1-under-crunchbang/
The risks aren't so much various and sundry files "popping off" by themselves, it's whatever various scripts, rootkits, etc., might be on any particular USB stick can do. Go ahead and let your system automatically add such to your filesystem. I prefer to keep it off mine unless I know where the USB stick has been and what threats it could present.
@33: FUD? Plain lies? Security through obscurity? Snap! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/autorun
Okay, so that's WINE-specific. Alas, that was only the first of over a million hits at Google. Maybe you have more time to kill than I do:
Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 1,090,000 for gnome autorun
Thanks for pointing out my utter incompetence and ignorance. Next?
35 • @25 (by Anonymous at 2010-01-18 22:04:22 GMT from Canada)
Your point of view is very interesting, but maybe you missunderstand my opinion about Arch vs Debian.
In the past (until the release of potato, which was one of the best thing out of the Debian project), I was a big Debian fan. After that I saw Debian beginning to be more about complex policies stuff, it included old software and sometime beta quality version of software, it laked a lot of feature that where available everywhere else, there was a lot of flamewars on forum/mailinglist, etc. Also a big complain about Debian is that it is now bloated.
For **users like me** Debian is a faillure (for other Debian might be a success) and for **these users** ArchLinux is a good replacement.
Your point of view on this question is very interesting :
"Let me know when Arch provides the vast number of packages, the rock solid stability, support for 10+ processor architectures and security infrastructure of Debian and we'll talk again."
So let's talk again ;-)
1) Almost all packages one can want are availlable into the Arch repository and AUR. It's easier to create an ArchLinux package than a Debian package. Do you have an example of an important package that is not availlable for Arch ?
2) In Debian "the rock solid stability" concern the base system. For a lot of application, you get an old version of the software that was available at the freeze moment. In some case, these are even alpha or beta version of a software for which there is now a stable version. Arch is a rolling system and there can be problem short a short moment, but my experience is quite positive . For a desktop, this might be good, but I don't see the point of using arch on a server. Anyway, almost all Debian users update frequently their desktop using a testing, sid or a backport repository and they don't have something rock stable anyway. Can one really have a desktop with all the multimedia stuff working well using only debian stable ? I doubt it.
3) You are right that Debian support more architecture, but most of them are irrelevant on a Desktop. For me, the most interesting architecture supported by debian are the embeded ones (ARM ...) , but I think the bloat of debian could be an issue in this area.
4) security is probably the weakest area of Arch. Security updates are mixed with new feature in the rolling system. On this point, it would be interesting to study if it is really a big problem as security fixed are quickly included anyway. Is ArchLinux less secure than an other distro ? I don't know.
36 • @29 write to ladislav : distro ...@ .... (by glyj at 2010-01-18 22:12:11 GMT from France)
.... distrowatch.com
37 • Auto-mounting (by Jesse on 2010-01-18 22:15:15 GMT from Canada)
Lucky13, I don't think you understood what I was saying in my post. What I was trying to get across didn't have anything to do with distro hopping. What I was saying is that most people, almost all people, when they plug in a device (like a camera or USB stick) will prefer to have it mounted for them. There is a small minority of people (generally tech savvy folks) who do not want that behaviour. For those people, such as yourself, who want to do everything manually, you can simply disable the feature or use a distro which better suites your preferences.
And there certainly are draw backs of having services or devices handled automatically, I'm not arguing that. For example, it drives me up the wall that every time I install/upgrade Wine on Fedora, it starts the service and I have to disable it again. But that's the way most people want it, so I deal. I don't claim the system is broken because it's a feature. A feature which can be changed easily.
The claim that the BSDs haven't followed in similar foot steps is a bit out dated now. If you take a look at some more recent desktop BSD releases, they also have automatic device detection/handling via KDE.
38 • @34 (by Patrick on 2010-01-18 22:27:30 GMT from United States)
I didn't see anything objectionable in the Google results I got for "gnome autorun". The results mostly talk about automounting etc. I don't have more time to kill than you to find evidence for your baseless claims, sorry. I always thought the burden of proof rested on the person making the claim.
I still haven't seen any evidence that there would be any issue whatsoever if I stuck a USB drive with a million viruses and rootkits in my automounting PC. The files would just sit there on the drive, and absolutely nothing would happen.
So no "Snap", sorry. You'll have to do better than making a claim and then expecting others to find evidence for you. I look forward to seeing some real data or tests I could try. Until then, I have to agree with 33 that your claim is nonsense.
39 • @35 (by Patrick on 2010-01-18 22:44:17 GMT from United States)
I guess we do agree on Debian/Arch, but only as it relates to the desktop. :-) I was just objecting to the idea that Arch was a replacement for Debian in general, which includes desktop, server and embedded.
As always, your bloat is another person's convenience. For me, Debian doesn't seem bloated. For others, anything larger than TinyCore is bloated. ;-)
40 • @29 (by Andrew at 2010-01-18 23:50:03 GMT from Australia)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
41 • @37, 39 (by lucky13 on 2010-01-18 23:51:27 GMT from United States)
@37: Jesse, you're the one who included "distro hoppers" among those who might like manual mounting.
@39: Patrick: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/autorun?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=autorun_first_dialog.png
The anonymous poster @33 wrote, "There is no autorun in Linux." "No" typically means zero, none, nada, etc., but your standards for quantifying "no" or "none" might be more flexible than mine. I've already demonstrated there is by linking to the Ubuntu wiki page about autorun for WINE. Under Linux.
QED.
I'm not surprised by your attitude regarding virii and rootkits on USB or other media. Note (@30) I qualified the (un)likelihood of bad things happening: "no matter how rare or isolated it may be." All it takes is a little vulnerability, improper use of permissions, maybe some social engineering -- kind of like when someone hides some bad things in a screensaver/theme package that naive and gullible "Linux doesn't have any threats like Windows does"-prattling trigger-happy users point and click to unknowingly join a DDOS botnet? http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/12/09/2215253/Malware-Found-Hidden-In-Screensaver-On-Gnome-Look
Riiiiiiiiight, this could NEVER EVER happen in {Linux,BSD,Mac,BeOS,etc.}. /sarcasm
42 • frenzy (by anon on 2010-01-19 00:02:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
good to see frenzy reborn
43 • Zen-mini (by clarkimus at 2010-01-19 00:23:34 GMT from United States)
Zen-mini looks kind of sexy. I'm downloading the ISO now.
44 • archlinux security (by Anonymous at 2010-01-19 00:28:50 GMT from Canada)
about security, what is the best : arclinux rolling release or the more traditional approach of security bug fix release ?
45 • Backtrack and Arch (by Caramel Corals at 2010-01-19 00:50:46 GMT from United States)
I used the new Backtrack DVD and no matter which option I used, I had to manually start x. When I did get to the desktop WICD wouldn't activate so there were a lot of nice new tools I couldn't use.
I got through most of the Arch install until after rebooting after installing GRUB. At this point I always get messages that there's no operating system installed.
46 • Arch Installation (by Scott on 2010-01-19 01:20:27 GMT from United States)
What I've found to happen with Arch is that sometimes, during installation, there will be a corrupt package or two. The way to tell is when you start editing the configuration files (the usual next step after installation) and the files are blank.
The solution is to watch carefully during download and install, using the space bar or down arrow to get to the bottom--if it says that a package or packages had corruption and weren't installed, go back and choose to install again--it should only download the ones that weren't successfully installed the first time. I always put this down to a bad network connection on my part.
47 • Autorun? (by Glenn on 2010-01-19 01:54:30 GMT from Canada)
Is this what you guys are talking about? http://linux.die.net/man/1/autorun
Glenn
48 • Automount (by auto-or-not-auto at 2010-01-19 01:58:57 GMT from Portugal)
This is a discussion that would never end. If this is really soooo important, I think ist's also sooooo easy to resolve. From now on from every live Cd, installed in disk, or not, place a nice icon in the desktop, that says:
Automount Settings.
Done!!! Give free choice to the Linux users, but also... educate.
49 • puredyne (by Anonymous at 2010-01-19 03:20:23 GMT from United States)
Is puredyne (on the waiting list) a replacement for dyne:bolic? dyne:bolic was cool, but it has been like 3 years since the last update.
50 • Frugalware torrent (by Frugalwarewolf at 2010-01-19 06:06:23 GMT from United States)
I've been trying to download the Frugalware torrent everysince it was announced here recently but no one appears to have seeded or uploaded it or something. Was anyone else able to?
51 • RE: 50 • Frugalware torrent (by johncoom at 2010-01-19 06:58:02 GMT from Australia)
FIRST: which version of Frugalware are you talking about ? 1.1 or 1.2pre1 or 1.2pre2 etc. SECOND: perhaps you could have found this in their English Forum (Based in Hungary) it may shed some light on the subject for you ? See http://forums.frugalware.org/index.php?t=msg&th=1934&start=0&rid=0&S=4d74968d9b51ec12d309360d3002ba15 Best of luck in your search for a torrent.
52 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-19 09:58:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
For those of a more technical bent, an article on how interesting ext4 is:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/30565/1090/
53 • Manual mounting is as easy as clicking an icon (by Anonymous at 2010-01-19 10:03:50 GMT from Finland)
I have a live CD (Kubuntu Intrepid) which autodetects USB memory sticks but does not automount them. Mounting the detected device requires clicking the icon of the detected device. I.e. manual mounting of the device is as easy as clicking an icon!
54 • Arch and Debian (by Anon on 2010-01-19 14:03:08 GMT from Norway)
Patrick wrote: "Debian is doing as good as it ever did and ArchLinux isn't even a shadow of a replacement. Let me know when Arch provides the vast number of packages, the rock solid stability, support for 10+ processor architectures and security infrastructure of Debian and we'll talk again.
Being customizable is about the only thing Arch and Debian seem to have in common. The difference is that Arch focuses more on what functionality you can subtract while Debian offers you more choice for functionality you can add."
If one adds Arch's Community and AUR repositories to its Core and Extra repos, Arch offers a vast number of packages as well. I suppose Debian will still win the number contest, but I believe you'd have (to make yourself...!) a very peculiar user to need any of the Debian packages making up the balance. Anyone care to provide an example of such a setup? :)
55 • In search of "better" applications and OOo (by Johannes on 2010-01-19 14:40:09 GMT from Germany)
The questions says: "Unfortunately OpenOffice.org is a good example. I love OOo, and use it all the time myself, but it just doesn't come anywhere close to MS Office in usability or features. Yet I see new distros and new versions all the time, and very little, in comparison, happening with apps like OOo."
Well, that's not really true! In fact, the list of improvements in the next version is quite long. Things happen in OOo! http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.2/rc1.html
56 • Re #15 - Anon (by Barnabyh at 2010-01-19 15:11:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
That should be interesting to see if somebody takes them to the European Court for infringing human rights and equal opportunities.
I guess the point I was trying to make is that it's a cultural issue, and some countries with so-called free societies are not always the best at adopting new technology and adjusting to related changes in society, for various reasons. Not when free mostly means free to make money, or more likely to support other people in doing so.
In case of the UK it's mainly a mix of inertia/extreme conservatism and capitalist dogma. In the West in general too many people still believe that you get what you pay for, like the comment "I've been told that I need to go with the software that's high quality and that everyone uses." shows.
57 • @41 (by Patrick on 2010-01-19 15:15:18 GMT from United States)
This discussion is pointless. Obviously you're only interested in being right. So, yes, you're right, there is autorun for Windows crap using Wine. (Not knocking anyone, I use Windows crap myself. ;))
Of course, I never said anything about autorun. I was talking about automount, and native Linux stuff, not Windows stuff. Wine has nothing to do with Linux, it runs on BSD, Mac OS, etc too. So back to the discussion at hand: what happens when you put a USB stick full of viruses in a Linux machine that automounts it. The answer is still: nothing at all.
Then you start to bring in permissions, social engineering... Excuse me, but at that point you are USING the stick. It makes squat difference if it was automounted or if you mounted it yourself.
I am a security-conscious person. I don't believe a Linux virus or rootkit can't happen, so you can drop the sarcasm. All of this has nothing to do with automounting or mounting manually. If you go off the deep end on security like you're doing and start calling everything you do with a computer a security risk (and at some ridiculous level, pretty much everything you do with a computer CAN be called a security risk), you muddy up the real issues and no one takes you seriously anymore. It is dangerous to drag minor things like this into security discussions, because people will start to ignore everything you say about security if you start calling something as benign as automounting a security risk.
58 • @14 by Blah (by Barnabyh at 2010-01-19 15:20:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
I would love to see your proof. People here on DW are probably using their machines to a higher degree. My statement comes from observation over the years, and 10% is actually still generous. About 90% of people I have contact with at work or privately only open and close a browser. That's not to say how it is for everyone everywhere, but it's a pretty good indication for an overall average.
59 • Re: OOo Improvements (by Anon on 2010-01-19 15:39:43 GMT from Norway)
#55, Johannes, wrote: "Well, that's not really true! In fact, the list of improvements in the next version is quite long. Things happen in OOo!"
Yes, but as I understood it, becky was primarily missing / asking for useful documentation. The 'Help' information in e.g. OOo Calc is cursory at best.
60 • @57 (by anon 33 at 2010-01-19 16:12:49 GMT from Ukraine)
Patric, even wine crap does not autorun. First the user see confirmation screen (thanks lucky13 for proving my point by supplying link to this screen) and only when he wants to run application then it will be launched. It makes HUGE difference from windows way where programs started without user interaction. So no security compromise here too. If user wants to run application then so be it. You can not prevent user from running stuff he wants to run. So lucky13 is not right at all. Also, thank you for support my post.
61 • Linux freeware (by Mark Bandos on 2010-01-19 16:43:36 GMT from United States)
What other OS platform has such high quality freeware available? Many linux apps end up being ported over to the windows platform. These programs are ported over to other platforms because they are solid apps not because they are inferior.
62 • Re: #59 useful OOo documentation (by DShelbyD at 2010-01-19 17:04:35 GMT from United States)
OOo forums: http://www.oooforum.org/index.phtml?
User Guides: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOo3_User_Guides
These and other: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation
63 • @54, Arch vs Debian Repositories (by Fred Nelson at 2010-01-19 17:13:12 GMT from United States)
Don't get me wrong, Arch is a wonderful Linux distribution in many other respects. However, the criticism that the Arch repositories are small is well-founded, unfortunately. Core, Extra, and even Community count, and give a respectable number of packages, but not large by any stretch of the imagination.
Saying that AUR counts, though, is like saying you can compile a package from source on any random distro. While true enough, it does not count as a real repository and does not benefit from the automated handling therein. Not because it's from source; the Gentoo repositories are mostly source, but they still count as real bona-fide repositories as emerge handles them automatically. Just try to maintain and keep up-to-date lots of packages from the AUR, and you'll see why it doesn't count as a repository by any stretch of the imagination, any more than self-compiled deb's or rpm's on other distros. (And no, yaourt is dead, so doesn't count, and even when it wasn't, it was never as well supported as pacman.)
64 • Automount / Linux Software (by Adam Michael Drake on 2010-01-19 17:44:26 GMT from United States)
@Automount - I agree with Patrick. Automounting a USB drive isn't going to hurt anything if you don't open or run any bad files. Lucky13, let's say you turn off automounting, because you are worried that an infected thumb drive might get plugged into your station. How would you ever know what a particular thumb drive has on it. You would have to mount it on some machine to see the files, thus possibly infecting that machine. Do you also worry about corrosion on the leads of the thumb drive? You could possibly spread that to your USB port and rust out the entire motherboard! :)
@61 - I recommend GNU Cash on Windows, because it's the best free finance software I can find for Windows, even though it's ported over from Linux. Just to add to your argument...
65 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-19 22:34:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the auto mount and auto run issue.
Just suppose for a moment; your machine is off, a "bad" person/dodgy character is able to gain access to your machine, and to a usb socket on said machine.
A usb stick is inserted, machine is powered up and BIOS switched to boot from usb device. You don't need me to tell you how to accomplish this.
The usb stick, which happens to be running Puppy 4.3 say, is auto mounted and auto boots. Puppy finds your drives, it reads your drives, dodgy character reads your correspondence...
Sometimes this is known as "rescue mode". Hmm.
66 • Auto Mount (by Notorik on 2010-01-19 23:28:07 GMT from United States)
The "auto mount" debate is a non-debate because it's here to stay. Most users want it end of story.
#65 I'm biting my tongue... Ladislav?!
#43 Zen-mini does indeed look interesting (sexy???) I just downloaded it, haven't had time to try it yet, anyone else?
67 • @65: Mounting (by Jesse on 2010-01-20 01:24:41 GMT from Canada)
The post in 65 doesn't really have to do with auto-mounting. If a person has access to your hardware, can change the boot device and your hard drive isn't encrypted, they can do just about anything they want with your data. you could use almost any live CD/USB to do this. Lots of live CDs / rescue tools mount hard drives and enable the user to read/alter the data on the drive. That's really a separate issue from someone putting a CD into the computer and having the operating system mount/run files on the disc.
68 • Re @65 @67 (by Glenn on 2010-01-20 01:45:47 GMT from Canada)
One way to prevent unauthorized use of your system is to use Power On Password Protect. Just set in the Bios. We are obliged to at work and I do have my home production systems set up similarly. Not my play ones. Glenn
Flames go here (____________________________________)
69 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-20 02:43:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref automount and autorun...I was making a wild stab at being ironic...sorry.
Tried the POPP from #68. Does that config survive removal/replacement of the motherboard button cell?
70 • @61 by Mark Bandos (by Sean at 2010-01-20 14:37:17 GMT from United States)
"These programs are ported over to other platforms because they are solid apps not because they are inferior."
Absolutely. We've seen wholesale replacements of Windows software with Linux based software here at our school; everything from email apps to power point apps.
That is one of the main selling points for replacing the Windows OS to a Linux distro for many here; we went from 100% XP and Vista to 85% Linux over a period of three years (the holdouts love their Windows 7).
71 • Linux supports USB 3.0 - Windows doesn't! (by Redondo Beach at 2010-01-20 15:58:23 GMT from United States)
This is hilarious! the Linux kernel supports the newest USB 3.0, but Windows doesn't.
Read it and weep you Windows users:
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6956/1/
72 • Using a couple of basic assumptions... (by Anonymous at 2010-01-20 17:19:30 GMT from United States)
Using some assumptions, stats, and some spreadsheet work, those percentages can tell the sales of CD's even though OSDisc.com doesn't want to specifically say. I estimate thier sales to be approx 7,500 Discs for the year. This is assuming based on calculations that NetBSD is 18 sales, Sidux: 19 and the others based off of percentage respectively.
73 • @71 - Linux, usb3... and more (by Linux at 2010-01-20 17:35:32 GMT from Portugal)
I'm not surprised. Windows is a mamute. The reason why I think that also in the desktop the future (its a matter of time) will be Linux, its because it's light, flexible, adaptable and segmented. It can be used in all kind of CPUs. The kernel can be stripped to fit multiple purposes and is embedded in numerous devices. We are now assisting to the Linux gaining momentum in the mobile devices. We have seen that Linux is the most adequate system for the nettops (and not the dated XP). We can expect that the potential of Linux will be greatly exposed during the development and existence of the Google Chromium OS. Linux is the best OS for servers ans is present in almost all supercomputers in the world. I'm not surprised that Linux were so fast on getting support for the USB3, and it's easy to understand why M$ feels so uncomfortable about Linux
74 • Mint is different then Ubuntu how? (by Bill at 2010-01-21 00:59:27 GMT from United States)
this article might help explain http://linuxbsdos.com/2010/01/16/linux-mint-8-vs-ubuntu-9-10/
75 • Re @69 (by glenn on 2010-01-21 01:16:49 GMT from Canada)
Hiya Forrest. Most of the recommendations to people who have forgotten their POP are to send the unit to the Manufacturer to reset the password. There are other suggestions for way such as removing the battery,shorting pins etc,; not too healthy an option I think. .
Conclusion: It appears that for a large number of (Non Mac) systems removal of the Battery does not affect the password you have stored. so if you have now applied a poweron password it is best not to forget it. :-) Mac systems may be different, I am not conversant with them. Glenn
76 • zen-mini -FAIL (by gnomic at 2010-01-21 05:13:07 GMT from New Zealand)
Oh dear. Had just devoted 15 minutes of my life to writing a reasonably positive account of first impressions of latest version when the live CD desktop froze and all that went into the bit bucket. THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN! This, coupled with the fact that I could only get it to boot on one of three machines, means file under forget I'm afraid. Oh, and the forum appears to be exclusively in Polish. No md5sum provided for download as far as I could see.
77 • zen-mini (by siamer on 2010-01-21 05:47:01 GMT from Ireland)
Hi.
Website is still under construction... You have choice ENG forum or PL forum (i think English will be better for You ;) )... md5 is on webiste (but maybe in wrong pleace) md5: c9dc597d53973f3b2d5cd92de143ad82 zen2009.2mini.iso Do You have some more ideas about about website (will help me) than email me... Your problem is very intresting - never didn't have it or even hear about frozen desktop on live cd (really)... "could only get it to boot on one of three machines" propobly You have new computers and kernel in ZEN-mini is the same like in PCLinuxOS (2.6.26.8) so that can be problem - soon will be version 2010 with kernel 2.6.32.3 than all hardware should word perfect... Forum: www.linuxgator.org here You will find any help
Thank You for testing and for Your opinion!
Regards, siamer
78 • Pardus mirrors? + quick response to #77 (by gnomic at 2010-01-21 07:05:58 GMT from New Zealand)
Anyone know of a source for Pardus other than the home website? It's world wide wait for the live CD from their ftp here I fear. Haven't been able to track down any mirrors which are current.
Re ZEN-mini . . . got a bit grumpy there, as one does when the words go missing. Wish I could say the same about live CD freezes. My trial machines were a PIII ThinkPad, P3/667 desktop, and ThinkPad Z60m. Only the last would run using probe sata option. Others seemed to be having trouble finding the kernel to load after booting from the CD. Often used to find PCLinuxOS finicky about booting back in 2007 or so - this seemed to diminish with the 2009 versions. One thing about 2009.2, the About ZEN box said it was 2009.0. Thanks for your response. Gotta run but will reply further in next day or two.
79 • RE: 78 Pardus mirrors (by ladislav on 2010-01-21 07:32:06 GMT from Taiwan)
Try ftp://ftp.linux.org.tr/pub/pardus/installcd/2009.1/
80 • No subject (by siamer at 2010-01-21 07:37:17 GMT from Ireland)
here You have Pardus http://pardus.linuxfreedom.com/download.html or http://linux.softpedia.com/progDownload/Pardus-Linux-Download-21278.html or torrent http://www.linux23.com/torrent/pardus-linux-2009:e87afe98121b3559d3321f8310283f37fca30aad
but not sure if in right version - never didn't use it...
PS. can You check md5 now ? maybe something is wrong with Your cd ? almost imposible that ZEN-mini have trouble on ThinkPad...
81 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-21 10:08:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #75
Glenn, thanks for your response. Fortunately for me I have no probs with oiking out the button cell and getting it back again. I confess to just being bone idle for not having the lid off a test machine and doing it myself.
Returning, briefly, to the auto mount/auto run topic, the POP gambit does prevent a rescue mission/robbery of your files, (if not encrypted anyway), by using another distro on disc or usb stick...which is something I had not considered/twigged before your earlier post, so thanks for that little nugget.
82 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-21 10:35:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #81
And having thought about the "security" issue...if one wanted peace of mind about the security of your documents, then perhaps this Cloud business might be an effective solution after all.
If you have absolutely nothing of "real" value stored locally and your important stuff in "a" Cloud, use a distro on a CD and only ever store passwords in your own wetware...(t-i-c warning) which might be thought of as going back to the days of a mainframe computer and dumb terminals...that's progress for you
The one major drawback being that online access is a must.
83 • ref #81 (by Glenn on 2010-01-21 16:33:18 GMT from Canada)
Hi Again Forrest. Well, encryption is a nice option. Better yet, removable HDD (a la USB) or some facsimile thereof is also decent insurance to store really sensitive data. PW protect the HDD though.
Hey, whats wrong with Mainframe. It has been keeping me happily employed for many years (40+). Am still in it deeply. Please do not rob me of my delusions of self-grandeur. :-) Glenn
84 • Ubuntu Alpha (by Dubuntu at 2010-01-21 17:03:03 GMT from United States)
I make it my policy to never use an "Alpha" distro but for the first time I made an exception, still exercising some precaution I deployed a linux alpha iso as a virtual machine. The latest Ubuntu Alpha with its "Ubuntu One" cloud computing is pretty cool. 2 GB of free storage is pretty nice and if you need more storage you must pay. I don't recommend that you should leap now until they work out all of the major show stopping bugs, it will be out in late April for end users and production systems. I also found that the software installer may need some fixing. It bombs out when I try to install anything with it. Update Manger and Synaptic works fine by the way.
85 • teaching concepts (by taila at 2010-01-21 17:25:21 GMT from South Africa)
I would like to say to you Jesse "Thank you for that lesson of concepts", it goes to the root of why people object to GNU/Linux and other FOSS projects. We need to teach each other things that will enable them to survive the environment we are training them for than to make them perfects fits now and then they fail terribly later.
People for example have a tendency to ask if linux can run MS Office or something in that line because of not wanting to learn a new thing. The same happens even with MS when they release a new windows some people (especially in the corporate environment) tend to see red when the OS has been changed because they did not understand how they did what they did with the previous OS only that they could do it.
So we do not want our children to be those corporates of the feature. By the way my wife and I use the desktop running openSUSE as main desktop and the kids whose are 5+ and 3+ use the Compaq nx7400 with Qimo For Kids to enjoy computing. It is a great teaching tool as all games steer the kids towards understanding the alphabet and numbers and animals.
86 • Concepts (by Jesse on 2010-01-21 18:37:32 GMT from Canada)
"we are training them for than to make them perfects fits now and then they fail terribly later."
I like that line, it pretty much sums up my view on most computer training courses. The sad truth is, whenever people are moved from one system to another, any changes cause upset. Moving from Win98 to XP or from XP to Vista bothered a lot of people, largely because things looked different. The same with moving from Office 03 to 07. So it strikes me as odd when a person's main gripe against a transition to Linux is that they'll have to learn a new approach. They'll be forced into a new approach every few years anyway, regardless of what OS they use. Of course, that view point isn't limited to the MS world. Look at all the people who still complain about KDE4 or the folks who are already complaining about Gnome 3, which hasn't been released yet.
We are (myself included) creatures of habit and it can be difficult to break out of learned patterns.
87 • Windows Live Messenger Alternative (by atOnz on 2010-01-21 20:55:16 GMT from Canada)
I've been in the community for a little over a year now and have been trying to push the opensource ideal that is linux, but its not ready yet for the social needs of all my 21 year old friends.
Sure it has firefox, and OpenOffice is 'good enough' albeit far from compatible with every MSOffice document I receive from my university profs (formatting etc, things that I know will fix).
However, the only reason that my friends will not accept linux after numerous distros from LinuxMint to OpenSuse's KDEness is because there is NO suitable WLM alternative. I know there is techincally pidgin, kmess and emesene, along with the popular amsn, but none of these applications comes close to visual appear and user-friendliness of WLM. To simply get display pictures to pop up in pidgin/kmess is a research project, and amsn as it stands is butt-ugly. Emesene has got the right idea but it cant even accept files and most of these apps dont work 90% of the time with webcams. I have been waiting and waiting for the future that is AMSN2 but the community there will cut your throat if you so much as ask about a release date. The screens that virtually clone WLM are amazing and I am being so ever patient but until something comes along I know a fair amount of people who will not switch. I'm not ranting here, its just a fact, some constructive critcism with hopes of one day seeing a permanent switch to linux for the untechsavy friends who download too many virus' for this intermediate it guy to bare with on their windows.
88 • IM client (by Jesse on 2010-01-21 21:14:41 GMT from Canada)
I found that Pidgin and Kopete worked pretty well for me as replacements for Messenger. Sadly, the current version of Messenger (and Trillian for that matter) doesn't work in Wine. Your friends will probably either have to stick with their current system (which is sounds like they're doing) or get used to a different client.
89 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-21 21:43:32 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #83
Mainframes? Absolutely nothing at all, lol, in fact "we" could not have the internet without some sort of "mainframe" somewhere....not to mention a million and one other reasons.
And, please correct my impression if nec but surely the "Cloud concept" might be considered as a mainframe nattering to dumb terminals (or is it thin client these days?), where the only real difference might be the distance between the two.
Ref the notion of detachable, encryptable(?) hard drives, if you store stuff in the Cloud you have the advantage that you could access your data from anywhere on the planet without lugging your data storage device with you. Folk have been doing this for years, the storage stuff anyway, on gmail...not forgetting google docs.
And you don't need me to mention if you run out of storage in a gmail account...simply open another one.
I daresay the expected google ChromeOS will drive the point home even more.
90 • RE: 87/ IM Client (by Landor at 2010-01-21 21:49:33 GMT from Canada)
I can't believe that 90% of webcams don't work with various clients. I think that's hugely off the mark. I know a ton of people that use AMSN with a webcam and they're all varied brands and models that work flawlessly.
I find an IM client in my personal opinion a sad reason to stay with an operating system. I can understand for various other software that people have become dependant on, an IM client? No.
A key point is also look what protocol they're bound to. It defeats the whole reasoning for switching to Linux. It's the same thing for those that use Adobe's flash instead of gnash, or the mp3 format instead of flac or ogg vorbis.
It's almost absurd to not switch to an open source operating system because you can't support a format that's created by a company that is bent on battling open source at every turn. I change my mind, it is absurd.
Maybe they should stick with MS products.
There's a good argument for the whole Mint topic too. Look at what makes Mint shine or what they include, a focus on proprietary/license/patent encumbered while they're supposedly supporting open source? Kind of hypocritical, no?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
91 • @90 (by Jesse on 2010-01-21 22:47:06 GMT from Canada)
I think using proprietary software/codecs/formats along side open source is only hypocritical if you insist on seeing the software you use in A) ethical terms B) as a boolean condition
As has been brought up here before (and this week a few times) there are lots of cases where people need (or strongly want) proprietary software to do their jobs, interact with friends or otherwise get things done. Proprietary might not be their preference, but until there are suitable free / open source solutions for everything, people will use proprietary technology.
The fact is, products like Mint, Hymera, PC-BSD and Mandriva One attract a lot of new users to open source. Users the open source community might not have otherwise. That's increasing buying power and awareness. That's doing a lot of good for open source and is in no way subtracting from the FOSS community. If I sat any of the people I know down in front of a computer and told them it was free but they couldn't use Flash, play mp3s or decode DVDs none of them would take it. Heck, I wouldn't take it and I've been advocating Linux/BSD/OpenSolaris for ten years.
Next, would you put down OpenOffice because they support MS-Office document formats? Maybe declare the VLC team hypocritical for making an open source media player that plays wmv files? Projects like Mint are offering a mostly open source product with a small "carrot" of proprietary software to attract users. And it's working. They should be congratulated, not accused.
92 • RE: 91 (by Landor at 2010-01-22 00:17:20 GMT from Canada)
A small dose of crack or lsd is still a small dose of something harmful, no matter how you cut it.
It's quite hypocritical of this community to a) bash Microsoft, or b) bash Novell, or c) raise the open source banner while they foster the inclusion of proprietary within the community.
Your arguments are against the very grain of creating an open source/free environment. By including such things, by using such things, you are in essence advocating their very existence. That does 0 for this community. That does 0 for bringing us closer to the day when we "may" not have to worry about anything proprietary.
All you and disributions like Mint are doing is proving that no matter the operating system, no matter the user, their models are justified and will continue.
I might also add I think it's quite sad (if I read the whole DVD thing right, it wasn't clear) that you wouldn't use Linux or still run proprietary because it doesn't support DVDs.
You seriously feel justified for writing for the community while having such views?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
93 • @92: What my software does (by Jesse on 2010-01-22 01:16:56 GMT from Canada)
Yes, you read that right, if Linux didn't play my DVDs, play my music, display what I wanted on the web and enable me to open MS-Office documents from business partners, of course I wouldn't use it. My computer is a tool with which I make money and, for that matter, a tool by which I'm entertained. Why would I use a product which didn't do the things I want/need it to do? For that matter, who else is going to use a system that doesn't allow them to work the way they need to?
Landor, can you honestly say that none of the computers you use have any proprietary software/codecs/formats on them? Even the BIOS, the kernel, drivers?
"You seriously feel justified for writing for the community while having such views?"
I'm not certain if you mean "for" as in "behalf" or "for" as in "to be consumption by". Certainly the latter and definitely not the former. (My words are my own opinion offered up to the public and not to be taken as a Voice for FOSS.) I have advocated, created, debugged and supported open source projects for over ten years now. I've given my blood, sweat and sleepless nights for open source. I've introduced FOSS products into a number of homes and businesses. I like to think that balances out listening to the occasional mp3.
94 • RE: 93 (by Landor at 2010-01-22 01:45:42 GMT from Canada)
I can honestly say I have 0 to do with proprietary codecs, etc. Sadly, I can't say that for the bios, of course. There's very few manufacturers that have an open source bios.
I've been advocating open source for a long time. I took a good long hard look at what that means for me, and what that should mean in my daily usage. If I'm going to advocate something, if I'm going to stand by its merits, then there's no middle ground. There's no saying that being drunk and driving around the corner is ok, as long as that's only how far you go.
Because of this I've even had to change my opinion on projects I enjoyed at one point. Projects that I personally find going against the principles of open source, and going against fostering open source. Projects like MEPIS/AntiX, Pardus, etc. (If you read this Anti, my apologies and you'll receive an e-mail to this effect as to why I didn't get back to you)
I think anyone who supports closed source in any way while using Linux, which means physically using Linux, is doing the greatest disservice they can to the very community they profess to support.
You can also justify your usage by any means you want, just like a drunk driver would say, "I only had one, or I was only going around the corner", it doesn't change that it's wrong and undermines the whole reason.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
95 • @94 (by Al Essdee on 2010-01-22 02:04:26 GMT from Australia)
Quote: "A small dose of crack or lsd is still a small dose of something harmful, no matter how you cut it"
LSD harmful?? Not as bad as the other fumes floating in the air..
Your comments re open source and proprietary apps/code usage aren't realistic. Better to enable it's use in Linux so we can slowly get the others to use more open source than completely remove these from Linux and have no-one come across.. Pragmatic rather than dogmatic...
No ice here.. oh apart from a $20 million haul recently imported into Australia and nabbed by the police. Guess we'll have to wait a few more weeks for it to hit the streets.. ;-)
96 • Open vs closed (by Jesse on 2010-01-22 02:07:54 GMT from Canada)
Landor, you seem to have a firm pro-FOSS stance and I respect that. I don't hold the same all-or-nothing view when dealing with my computer systems, but I respect that you do.
You've mentioned a number of times in the past that you use Gentoo, but if you're so firm on your stance, why not use one of the distributions on GNU's supported list? http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html In fact, Gentoo is specifically listed as a distro which ships binary blobs in its kernel. So it would appear your claim to being completely free of proprietary code (excusing the BIOS) is incorrect. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/common-distros.html
You said yourself there is no middle ground, so why not use a fully GNU approved FOSS system?
That you're able to get by day-to-day without using most common proprietary code/codecs/formats in your operating system is great. I'm thrilled by that. My position doesn't allow the same at the moment. However, Linux is the best tool for the job, in my case, and that's why I use it.
97 • FOSS? (by Anonymous at 2010-01-22 02:46:52 GMT from United States)
I use Debian Lenny using the main and non-free repositories. When I check Aptitude for non-free, I see just the Nvidia-Legacy drivers. Aside from those DVD's, my system appears to handle all of my playback needs. The most current new problem is the 0xA error when trying to play the normal quality YouTube flv's. Searching the net I found somethings about them using the new Win audio codecs which are DRM compatible. So far I haven't looked far, but I have not found an open version to use with these encoded flv's. The Low Quality flv's still play fine, just very low quality. Back to the point, what does Mint or others provide that my Lenny does not in using my PC for multi-media entertainment? Or is a distro like Mint simply already set-up rather than my own "expert" use of Debian's Aptitude to fufill my media needs. Note that I do not, to my knowledge use any other playback codec's except from the Debian repositories. I watch web-tv, regular tv, play mp3's,etc. , all from my PC desktop.
98 • In search of better apps (by Roach Boy at 2010-01-22 03:03:33 GMT from Kenya)
"Show the nay-sayers it's more important the students understand how the computer works and how to make the most of the tools given them, rather than memorizing an interface that will be thrown out in three years." Well put, Jesse! Free software can be a very important pedagogical tool. We need people who can think, not just "trained monkeys" who only know how to point and click.
99 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-22 03:40:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
FOSS debate...I would suggest most people who migrate, by choice, towards GNULinux are pragmatists, and realise an OS which is not as susceptible to nasties as MS products is a "good thing".
I would suggest further they are, in the main, rpt in the main, not concerned in the slightest IF there are non free chunks of code, so to speak, in the distro of their choice...in short said migration is not motivated by ethics.
Those folk who are obliged to use GNULinux stuff, as in the nationally sponsored distros, for use by the authorities, French police, or local government in Spain to name but two, don't have a choice anyway, even if they could be arsed to worry about the purity of the software in the first place.
That's the thing about zealotry of any kind, once it's recognised for what it is most sensible folk take good care to be somewhere else.
100 • Thinking (by forlinux at 2010-01-22 03:52:59 GMT from Portugal)
This is an interesting talk. If I was a programmer, I know that I would want to have the freedom to tweak, adapt, change and transform every piece of software that I could put my hands on. As I'm not a programmer and I cannot modify my files, I can't expect nothing else than that they work the way they're supposed to. In this sense, it's irrelevant for me if they aren't open source. Another thing completely different is the philosophy behind the concepts of free software and proprietary software. In this case my sympathy is at the side of the open source. I use Linux and I do what I can, beneath my possibilities, to help and contribute to achieve what we all desire, witch is to have a free workable version for the last few pieces of software that are still missing.
101 • #79 Pardus mirrors? || #80 checksum ZEN-mini (by gnomic at 2010-01-22 06:32:45 GMT from New Zealand)
#79 Thanks for site mentioned; just giving Puppy-based browserlinux using chrome a run this evening via a network requiring a proxy setting for ftp - seems I have to set an environment variable to get Chrome to use said proxy. Hmmm, not in the mood for reading the manual. Dem everyday users aren't going to like this I doubt. Maybe all Linux users are by definition experts ;-) First real look at Chrome, seems some work is still required. Maybe I've missed something about the proxy setup. Anyway, Pardus will have to wait for now.
#80 Have just verified the checksum you supplied for the iso I downloaded is correct, for the image on a USB stick at least. I think there was a check media option, if so will run that against the CD I burned. Will have another look at how T23 was failing to boot ZEN-mini, but failing it definitely was. As mentioned, I have found PCLinuxOS live reluctant to come to life in the past, markedly more so than most Linux versions. Will try to get back with more tomorrow.
102 • server functions onto a desktop? (by Tom on 2010-01-22 11:23:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Some months ago Caitlyn Martin wrote an excellent article here about server functions that was written in a way hobbyists could understand, can anyone remember roughly when that was? I can't seem to find the article now :(
Regards all from Tom :)
103 • Statements on Open Source and Free Software. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-01-22 18:33:12 GMT from United States)
Some people don't seem to know or understand that there is a difference between open source software and religion. People say there is no middle ground. That is bull****. Even RMS, a man whom I do respect, seems to know. Look at the middle ground on MONO. He said that it was open source and not wrong to use but should be avoided. That sure sends a clear message. There are very few open source or should I say FREE and open source zealots who are 100% pure. That is usually no fault of their own, lots of times because of their work, but they are still put to the stake and roasted because of using something that is closed. That is not proper or right in any way shape or form. Anyone who feels inclined to preach and look down on someone that uses anything but totally free and open software should only be using an RMS approved distro at all times and if you don't work for the FSF I don't think it can be done. I have tried it and in general everyday home computing use I don't believe it can be done unless you cut yourself off from 99% of the computing world. How dare someone say that a person who has to use closed source software in their work contributes 0% to the open source community. People need to remember that a computer is a tool and not a religious alter. Use open source whenever you can and when it will work for you but if you can't and you have to use a closed source application don't worry. You will not go to Hell. Now let's get back to reality.
104 • What my software does (by Anonymous at 2010-01-22 18:42:31 GMT from United States)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a distribution providing multimedia playback through opensource drivers. If you want to run a crippled ass computer that is your decision. I prefer to enjoy my Linux to the fullest.
105 • Free/Non-Free Middle Ground (by Fred Nelson at 2010-01-22 20:02:58 GMT from United States)
It *is* possible to have a 100% Free OS using a non-FSF-sanctioned distro, but you have to have some discipline. The firmware that the FSF complains about (and Jesse references) is really a non-issue and a red herring; if you don't have hardware that uses it, it sits on your hard drive and doesn't do a thing. So pretty much any distro that doesn't come with actual non-Free software in the default install is fine, which, of the major distros, only really discounts Mint and Pardus (and maybe OpenSUSE, which I think might install the non-Free graphics card drivers by default).
It is certainly very easy to stay 100% Free in Gentoo and Arch, and even Ubuntu (which has a boot parameter to not enable the non-free repos by default) if you can live with it nagging you to get the non-Free packages, and as I said earlier, don't have special hardware that requires non-Free firmware.
And despite what some people say, it is *very* usable to go that route. As Anonymous in 104 pointed out, there are high-quality Free multimedia codecs (which may be covered by patents, but the code itself is completely Free; similar situation to Mono) available and easy to use on pretty much any major distro these days. Nouveau is coming along wonderfully if you use a recent-enough version (like in Fedora), and if you're not playing non-Free games on Linux anyway, getting almost as full-featured as the binary drivers. (It can already do the KDE4 desktop effects, and Compiz is almost there.) On the ATi/AMD side, it's the Free drivers that are getting the most development in the first place.
So the only popular software you're really missing is Flash and Skype. Besides YouTube (soon to be available in HTML5, albeit with H.264 and not Theora, but I'm sure smart people will make Firefox be able to use gstreamer or the like to play it), surfing the web is more pleasant without Flash anyway, and as for Skype, not much you can do there unless you can convert whoever you're Skyping with to Ekiga/Empathy or the like, but then by far not everybody is using it in the first place (telephones and meeting people in person still work just fine). So the sacrifices, while they exist, are actually rather minimal.
In summary, going the 100% Free route (albeit not pure enough for the FSF) is very doable and not as much a bother as some people think. That said, while I believe it is a better route, and better for stability and privacy, I agree that it is not a religion and that people that run Mint or install the binary NVIDIA driver aren't bad people or anything. Still, I think that the people who believe that they *must* run closed-source software in order to have a fully-functioning computer need to open their minds a bit more.
106 • FOSSlessness (by Sam Spade at 2010-01-22 21:27:07 GMT from United States)
I could care less about FOSS or any of its brethren. I agree with forest about those zealots.
107 • "zealotry" (by Sean at 2010-01-23 12:41:54 GMT from United States)
Forest said:
"That's the thing about zealotry of any kind, once it's recognized for what it is most sensible folk take good care to be somewhere else."
That seems true across the board (meaning, in many areas other than software, even political). Unfortunately, it is the zealots that seem to have the most recognizable influence in a given community; and it is them, I dare say, who seem to revel in causing changes to said communities.
Meanwhile, the masses move on, but some therein will always make decisions based on the loud, rather than on the pragmatic and practical needs of the community.
108 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-23 13:24:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
Continuing with the topic of free and non free software...there are caveats associated with using commercial software, see here:
http://service.real.com/realplayer/security/01192010_player/en/
Fortunately MPlayer, for example, copes with .rm stuff.
And, ref the zealotry issue, being "elsewhere" does not actually solve the problem.
109 • the problem (by Sean at 2010-01-24 11:59:14 GMT from United States)
I believe that most of the people with the attitude we're calling "zealotry" grow up, move on and most often, over time, smooth out their views (and their spiel); they begin to sound similar to most Linux users working their way through this or that issue.
Some continue, of course. And there are always "newbie zealots" aplenty to replace those who've matured and moved away from extremism.
110 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-24 13:18:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just got this, which might prove useful or of interest to those who would prefer to roll their own distro. They can elect to have whatever apps they feel would be best suited to their personal take on GNULinux...and, rarely for this forum, a non contentious topic which, hopefully, will please everyone, lol:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/10-scripts-to-create-your-own-linux-distribution-665247
111 • the solution (by OpenBSD Ueber-Zealot on 2010-01-24 13:33:36 GMT from Brazil)
> And there are always "newbie zealots" aplenty to replace those who've matured and moved away from extremism.
Extremism is the way to go. Fortunately, there will always be newcomers in the UNIX land who will defend with their own lives the immaculate purity of OpenBSD. Otherwise, it would become as contaminated as Linux.
BTW, I think mono is a threat to all BSDs...
112 • RE: It All :) (by Landor at 2010-01-24 20:32:54 GMT from Canada)
Jesse, you're a professional writer (as you're paid frequently for it) and in being one I would believe that you would understand the need to be factual in what you write.
It was quite some time ago that I stated here I was going to stop using Gentoo, more out of personal laziness than anything to do with Gentoo itself, it's a fine distribution indeed.
To your point though, I also find it quite odd that you would post information that Gentoo has the worst blobs in its kernel yet you provide zero information to back this claim. In fact, I've been to the site many times and did follow your link(s) posted to go there again and still I read nothing about Gentoo being the worst.
Just to go to the point that I run Gentoo and we'll talk about FOSS as well, you've done what many here do and put your own spin on what was posted, then make another incorrect assumption(that Fred partly touched on) in that you assumed I used a Gentoo kernel. You could also further assume that I used vanilla sources with proprietary blobs in it. Believe those would be assumption. Unlike most here I'd wager, I happily compile and strip down my own kernel no matter the distribution if I'm going to run it as my main system.
In what Fred posted it's quite simple to adhere to all aspects of Free Software. Where you make a mistake is you again assume that people adhere to the exact wording of the FSF's ideals. I don't consume alcohol at all. Does that stop me from going to a restaraunt and having a meal where they serve wine or cocktails, surely not. Nor would I not attend a bachelor party/stag, or wedding reception for that matter due to the fact I don't drink. So in essence why would I let repositories that I personally won't use stop me from using a distribution. I would place a fairly good bet on the fact that if others did the same, eventually said repositories wouldn't exist as it would be discovered there was no use of them, thus bringing said distribution closer to being fully compliant with FSF ideals. The last two there was your folly though. You again assumed I adhere to FSF ideals totally. Again, an assumption, something that you and others here do frequently. What I clearly stated is the principle that by using non-free components you are fostering the existence of non-free components by justifying their existence through your use of them.
I like the usage of monikers here for things that people feel threatened by in some way. You explain that when you're justifying non-free components you're hurting open source software and that there's no middle ground in that regard you instantly become named in various ways. Yet the most intriguing part is the same individuals most likely still use windows personally on a day to day basis, still use proprietary software, yet cry why when due to the power of MS or anything else opposing Linux comes to bear they scream injustice, an injustice their usage helped create.
Something tells me that being considered a zealot who stands firm with their ideals, hopes, wants, is a far better thing to be than a hypocrite that doesn't. Truer words never spoken, eh Forest?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
113 • More strangeness from the stick guy (by Sean at 2010-01-24 21:46:26 GMT from United States)
The opposite of a zealot is a hypocrite? *rolls eyes*
Whatever the "something" is that you state is telling you things, you're best to ignore it, or perhaps seek out a method of eradication of that particular condition; it's distracting from what small amount of credibility you may have in your self-pleasuring postings here.
People who stand their ground on issues or opinions are only showing that they are convinced or that they are stubborn, or both.
Being convinced is subject to change, in a learning person.
Take your stick off the ice, it seems to be distracting you..
Sean
114 • RE: 113 (by Landor at 2010-01-24 22:01:04 GMT from Canada)
The opposite of a zealot is a hypocrite? *rolls eyes*
You suffer from the same affliction as others here do it seems, Sean.
My post seems to really have bothered you, feel like discussing why?
I'll bite on one premise though, to prove your own fallacy, is being convinced the sun will rise tomorrow subject to change in a learning, or learned person?
Please everyone, we're discussing reality here, facts, the literal. Keep the personal assumptions/interpretations/views out of it. Though as I've seen, very few can.
I think we need a new section is DWW, Ladislav. We need a "Best Comment" from the previous week section.
I think the first one should be:
DWW is doing really well when it employs a person writing in regard to OSS/FOSS and clearly states they wouldn't use Linux if there wasn't closed source components in it.
(it's doing very well indeed)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
115 • Reference to: 110 • No subject (by forest) (by Redondo Beach at 2010-01-25 01:25:48 GMT from United States)
Forest, that's one of the best comments that came out of this weeks section.
Great find. thank you.
116 • Proprietary Software and Linux (by RollMeAway at 2010-01-25 01:42:13 GMT from United States)
zealots and hypocrites: Proprietary Software and Linux: Good, Bad or Somewhere in Between?(Christopher Smart) http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7677/1.html
A good discussion follows the article. Be sure to read a note by "boottux".
117 • RE: Chris' Article (by Landor at 2010-01-25 02:46:16 GMT from Canada)
I enjoy Chris' writing and although he only wrote for DWW a short time, he's definitely missed by me.
This article was no different. I read the comments and enjoyed the whole read. I read what boottux had to say and he actually pretty well avoided discussing open source. He mainly stuck with the article's topic on Canonical/Ubuntu providing what people want. Which really doesn't say much in the way of the current discussion here, not that it needs to of course.
Thank you for providing the link, it was a great read. I should subscribe to their feed one of these days.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
118 • Kernel blobs (by Jesse on 2010-01-25 03:02:16 GMT from Canada)
@Landor "I also find it quite odd that you would post information that Gentoo has the worst blobs in its kernel yet you provide zero information to back this claim."
I find it very odd that you would claim I wrote that, since I have never done so and in no way implied Gentoo has the worst binary blobs in its kernel. All I did was point out that Gentoo is on the list of distros GNU doesn't back as 100% Free. Nor did I make the assumption you ran their kernel nor a vanilla one. What I *did* assume is that if you ran Gentoo (which you confirmed you did). Unless I miss my mark you haven't posted what new distro you *are* using.
Gentoo ships binary blobs for the convenience of its users. Much the same way other distros ship proprietary software for the convenience of their users. How is one distro which ships proprietary software in the kernel any better or worse than one who ships it in userland?
Landor,, you seem to have very high ideals (about a lot of things). Perhaps you could demonstrate to people who you accomplish your ideals with your own computer(s) by writing a review of whatever current distro you use? Show everyone how you make it a 100% FOSS system along with the pros and cons of doing so. I'm sure it would be interesting for all of us.
119 • No subject (by forest at 2010-01-25 03:23:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #116
Thanks for the link RMA; as you say very interesting reading (credit to CS) and certainly boottux articulates/expresses a large part of what I believe and probably the thoughts of a great many more folk too.
"Things" tend to evolve simply because someone has an idea, followed by someone else improving on that idea and so on and so forth. Just because GNULinux is based on a belief that software should be free and available to all does not and has not excluded "extra" non free code being included in some distros.
You might argue Canonical is working towards providing the best of both worlds, stability and relative immunity from nasties with GNULinux OS, combined with a "desirable" GNULinux version of Photoshop CS4.
Adobe must be aware of how the use of distros is spreading across the planet, and the potential market implications. It would amusing to see how fast a GNULinux version of CS4 emerged if Adobe was given assurances by Canonical they would get paid per licence.
Mark S is not slow to spot a business opportunity...crikey, you could be forgiven for thinking this was part of his Ubuntu business plan from the word go...deary me, whatever next?
That an idea is developed for commercial gain does not make it a bad idea and if folk want to mix and match and have free apps and pay for other apps what exactly is the problem?
Other than the views of those loosely labeled "zealots" there is no problem. In a way they may be likened to dinosaurs...perhaps they too thought they were too big to fail...whilst admiring the sight of that big shiny flamey thing entering our atmosphere...
120 • RE: 118 (by Landor at 2010-01-25 03:36:52 GMT from Canada)
Ladislav has tried to get me to write an article a few times. I decline each time and I decline again now.
Personally, I'm in the process of creating my own site, I have been for some time. I do so as time and/or desire permits. I'll be using Drupal for it. A side note, the reason it's taken so much time is I really don't know a whole lot about html, php, css, etc and prefer to (as I do with anything I'm working with) have a core understanding than just muddle along. Anyway, when I do write, it will be there, solely, with no financial gain or the like, for the foreseeable future. This is something I've also spoke of here. In fact, I've actually received e-mail (people have dug-up my e-mail address from when I used to post it here) from individual readers here wanting to know when it will be up and look forward to it. So I guess in essence the vocal view of some here doesn't represent the whole, which truly is always the case.
I don't see the reasoning for your inclusion of high ideals, especially the placement of "about a lot of things" in parenthesis. I could easily state my opinion is (which I'm not saying it is) that you have very low ideals, then in parenthesis place "about pretty much everything", and what would that do to foster any kind of decent response from you, but more to the point, what would it have to do with you and I discussing writing an article? Do you lack ability to respond even once to me without making any personal comments? Seriously?
I will admit I misread your comment regarding Gentoo. Though you didn't ask, or say this, I still however believe that Distrowatch has continually struck lows with it writers and that your statement here that you wouldn't use open source software without closed source applications/code, etc, exemplifies that.
I hope you take a good hard look at this Ladislav, think about the ideals that this site "should" promote. I personally believe if you continue to allow someone to write for your site with such a low opinion of open source that they wouldn't use it without closed source, then that says a lot about how you feel this site should be represented and the message it's conveying.
Maybe that will be the topic of my first article when I open up my own little corner of the digital world.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
121 • ZEN-mini - testing testing (by gnomic at 2010-01-25 06:18:58 GMT from New Zealand)
Just a few more results from trying to boot ZEN-mini on a couple of machines - the bad, the good . . . . Bad was the ThinkPad R51. First boot option failed at 'Probing SCSI devices'. Using Video-SafeMode-FBDevice 'Cannot open root device "rd/3" '. Kernel Panic. Console option Probing SCSI segmentation fault. Safe mode halted at starting udev for several minutes, then no init found and kernel panic. Pentium M 1.6 GHz with IG RAM. I am afraid ZEN-mini appears to hate this machine. Unclear exactly why. It boots just about every other distro in the universe with the odd exception caused by the great Intel grfx/Xorg snafu of mid-late 2009.
Moving right along to a generic desktop, 2.8 GHz Celeron D w/1.5G RAM, Aopen mobo and SiS components, old Nvidia video card, ZEN-mini booted straight off without any tweaking required. Hope this helps if ZEN-mini guy is still out there.
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• Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
• Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
• Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
• Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
• Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
• Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
• Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
• Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
• Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
• Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
• Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
• Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20 |
• Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
• Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
• Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
• Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
• Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
• Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
• Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
• Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
• Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
• Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
• Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
• Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
• Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
• Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
• Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
• Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
• Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
• Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
• Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
• Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
• Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
• Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Full list of all issues |
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Random Distribution | 
Helix
Helix was a customised distribution based on Ubuntu with excellent hardware detection and many applications dedicated to incident response and forensics.
Status: Discontinued
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Star Labs |

Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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