 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 343, 1 March 2010 |
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Welcome to this year's 9th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! For many users, the combination of Slackware Linux and the Xfce desktop is the perfect blend of stability and speed, whatever the age of their hardware. But if Slackware itself is too much hard work, why not try one of its derivatives with a friendlier approach to the desktop and with out-of-the-box support for popular hardware and multimedia codecs? Bernard Hoffmann, an experienced Slackware user, has taken three Slackware-based Xfce distributions (Zenwalk Linux, Salix OS and GoblinX) for a test drive to see which one would be a best fit for a blazing fast and powerful home desktop. In the news section, Oracle confirms the continued development of OpenSolaris, Fedora delays the upcoming alpha release of version 13, Mandriva switches to nouveau with the latest kernel update in "Cooker", and Linux Mint prepares for an imminent release of its LXDE edition. Also in this issue, a link to a good summary of bleeding-edge repositories for Kubuntu and a brief talk about zombie processes. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the February 2010 DistroWatch.com donation is the Squid project. Happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (34MB) and MP3 (38MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Bernard Hoffmann) |
Desktop comparison - Zenwalk Linux, Salix OS and GoblinX
Everybody's definition of bloat will probably be somewhat different, depending on the hardware they have and how far they are willing to go and make sacrifices on the performance scale to get their desired useful, functional, friendly desktop. There cannot be any doubt that, by default, some distributions -- and for that matter desktop environments -- are heavier than others, and often we are asked here on DistroWatch or elsewhere to recommend a distro that will run well on older hardware, but is still nice to look at and has the tools available for any job thrown at it.
I'm a big fan of Slackware because I have always found it immensely clean, stable, and faster than others. I also like Xfce-based distributions - they are fast, simple and elegant. For anybody who would like a slightly friendlier start there are several derivatives that would fit the bill quite nicely, but they all appear similar on the surface and any user coming from the background of a DEB or RPM package distro might find themselves facing the question which one to bother with. Indeed, do they all just differ in their wallpapers and kernel versions? This week I'll be taking a look at the latest versions of Zenwalk Linux, Salix OS and GoblinX (g:Mini edition). All three come with Xfce 4.6.1 as their default desktop environment, although others can be installed later. This makes for the perfect choice for our objective - a lightweight but still very functional GUI with a reasonably populated settings panel for people who do not want to have to edit text files to get their AfterStep, WindowMaker or IceWM to behave and look the way they like. There is also Wolvix that would fit into this category, but it has not had a stable release since August 2007.
All three distros immediately benefit from the vast universe of packages and repositories available for Slackware, as well as their own. Zenwalk has branched off a bit more but is staying fully compatible with Slackware packages, as do the others. It is recommended to stay with the distro's own repositories and supplement them with Slackware package builds as needed, but not to mix and match, for example Salix and Zenwalk packages in any of the two, although it may work, or not. In my experience a Zenwalk package proved to work fine in Slackware, but you'll be on your own if things go wrong, and why would you want to do this except for curiosity with the wealth of packages and build scripts out there.
The test machines:
- an IBM T42 Thinkpad 1800 Pentium M with 1,024 MB of RAM, Atheros wireless (ath5k)
- a self-made desktop PC with AMD Duron 900 MHz and 512 MB of RAM.
- a self-built Dual-Core AMD Athlon X2 4200 at 2,200 MHz, socket 939 with 3 GB of RAM. This one is 4.5 years old now and my most modern piece.
Both desktops use wireless GetNet GN-331U USB sticks (Ralink, confusingly sometimes identified as 2870, sometimes as 3070) in the home to cut down on the clutter, and to have this working is a requirement. Keep in mind that I built these for Linux, and also chose the Thinkpad for the very reason of compatibility. The USB sticks were a gamble but proved to work fine once the drivers were installed under Slackware 13.0, my usual day-to-day operating system now. All of them use older ATI cards for video that are fully supported in X.Org, playing 3D games just fine. The newest one is a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB, the oldest a AIW Rage Fury Pro 32 MB.
Zenwalk Linux 6.2
 My first candidate is Zenwalk Linux, now at 6.2, not the least because I used to run it in 2006-7 when it was the first to offer preview versions of Xfce 4.4. It always performed well and worked without a hitch on my computers. The current version comes with kernel 2.6.30.5 (same as in the Slackware 13.0 /testing repository) and at only 492.3 MB, it easily fits on any CD and is also more accessible to those with limited bandwidth or speed.
Off to the install, and this is the usual streamlined process we have come to know from Zenwalk, a few questions as to keyboard layout, partitioning and setting up your swap and mounts and off you go. There is no choice here over what to install. This is a text-based, obviously Slackware derived installer with typical Zenwalk pastel blue colours and logo in the background, and the whole affair has a nice no-nonsense feel to it.
Zenwalk is more modern than the current stable Slackware in that it ships GTK+ 2.16 (instead of 2.14) which is important for some applications like Liferea to compile against if you don't want an ancient version. It also comes with GStreamer and libdvdnav. On first boot where you proceed to the rest of the configuration I get an "Out of range" black screen problem with my new ASUS widescreen. That's right, X.Org hasn't been configured yet. Hmm, OK, reboot, go into text mode at the LILO screen which allows me to scan for supported modes, type one in, off it goes. So far so good, I'll spare you the post-configuration because that's not what it's about.
Login screen and default wallpaper looking lovely and tie in with the nice background from the installer. More importantly, I'm chuffed it detected my monitor resolution and everything looks crisp. Wicd is loaded by default and even detects my wireless access point. However, no connection yet! Looking around the networking and wireless scripts in /etc/rc.d reveals these are standard Slackware. The driver still needs to be compiled as a module and after the kernel sources are downloaded and the config.mk adjusted for native_wpa_supplicant_support compilation goes without a hitch and we are online wirelessly.
The package manager, Netpkg, seems cumbersome and awkward to use and has changed quite a bit, but it supports dependency resolution with Zenwalk's repositories. There doesn't seem to be an overview for all installed or available packages; instead, everything is lumped into groups with only the option to search for specific packages. But perhaps it's just a matter of getting used to the way Netpkg works. Overall I much prefer GSlapt and slapt-get or, of course, Synaptic and apt-get.
Zenwalk comes with Brasero disc burner, OpenOffice.org (in its Go-oo incarnation), Exaile for playing music (I personally prefer Audacious or XMMS), with Totem instead of MPlayer or Xine for movies and it uses File Roller for archives. Why use a slower GNOME tool when there is Xarchiver? Apart from that, it's a pretty standard Xfce with custom icon theme, slightly changed menu structure and lots of plugins at the ready that I usually have to compile. It comes pretty close to what I add in Slackware, including Evince, Iso Master, Htop and Catfish search tool. Even Lightning is installed in Icedove to make for a full-featured PIM. This is nice attention to detail.
Multimedia works well with GStreamer playing a couple of movies from my hard drive, but I believe Flash is not installed, and libdvdcss is not there by default either. Playing it safe, or free. Zenwalk also comes with a control center with which you can manage start-up services, firewall, and kernel modules to name but a few, but it's not on par with Mandriva's. Oddly enough, the loaded wireless module is identified as rt3070sta although it installed as rt2870sta.dat. I also had to rename the folder from 3070 to 2870 for it to work, something I had to do on all installations of Slackware with this module so far. This is more an observation and by no means Zenwalk's fault.
Zenwalk's forums are some of the friendliest I've ever used, and the fact that it has been going for a long time means there is a treasure trove of information, albeit sometimes outdated. You can usually get help within a day although occasionally you may feel ignored.
Zenwalk Linux 6.2 with the Netpkg package manager
(full image size: 438kB, screen resolution 1920x1080 pixels)
Salix OS 13.0.2a
 There have been some disagreements in Zenwalk land last year and, as a result, the Salix OS project was formed, with the philosophy of staying closer to the original. The first release was Salix 13, and it's using the same kernel version as the current Slackware stable release, 2.6.29.6. I'm taking a look at its latest revision, 13.0.2a.
The 32-bit image at 540.1 MB still sits very comfortable on one CD. Salix, unlike Zenwalk, is also available for x86_64, and also provides its own repositories. The installer is basically the same as Slackware, ncurses without even a change of colour. Interestingly, I am asked whether I want a full install, basic or core. At this small size I go for full. The feeling I get immediately while watching the installation go by is that this is a repackaged Slackware 13 with a subset of packages and the latest patches, sticking as close to stable as possible.
After setting up users, Salix reboots automatically (without pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del) and the boot screen comes up with Salix's Bonsai tree logo in the background. Nice, no need to mess about this time. There's a boot entry for Windows although I don't even have it installed, but no big deal. Splash and login screen look truly awesome. Call me vain, and I usually do not go by looks but by functionality and stability, but this is nice, and it may be an important aspect when you have three distros that are so close.
Right, I'm in the 'testuser' account I created and the loveliness continues, the resolution has been set up correctly, clear and crisp. The layout is standard Xfce 4.6.1 with all standard panel plugins available, OpenOffice.org proper and overall pretty much the same selection as in Zenwalk. File Roller is also here again. However, Salix has opted for the somewhat lighter and faster Claws-Mail for email. Good choice in my book because it has better filtering capabilities for Usenet newsgroups than Thunderbird. Wicd is up again and -- I cannot believe it -- after inputting my passphrase, wireless works on the desktops, no compile necessary!
Installing from the repositories is handled by GSlapt or by slapt-get if you like command-line flexibility. One can find LimeWire here, games like chromium-bsu, statistical software like R and also VirtualBox. It seems to pull Slackware packages directly from Slackware mirrors, with Salix providing additional packages. Efficient. Even wbar and terminator that I have been struggling to find in other repositories are here. This greatly expands the prepackaged software available for Slackware, 32 and 64, as it's fully compatible. At the same time, one can still use the SlackBuild scripts and they should work on Salix too.
Multimedia support seemed non-existent as none of my video files in MPEG, AVI, WMV or MOV format played, and my MP3 collection was rather useless. That's when I discovered a shortcut in the menu to install multimedia codecs, and proceeded after reading the warning about patents. Codecs installed fine and my files started playing with GStreamer. I thought I might have to manually extract and dump the MPlayer w32codecs on the hard drive but no such thing. A visit to YouTube confirms that Flash is there too. An entry called Startup services is letting you adjust these but there seems to be no control panel like in Zenwalk. Not necessarily a bad thing.
There are shortcuts on the desktop to the Salix IRC channel and the Salix Wiki, this page also leads to the forum if interested. I connected to IRC for a while and there were about five people hanging out there so you will not be talking to yourself if experiencing a problem. Nice touch. All this was amazingly smooth and there is really no more to say at this point. If the old-style Slackware installer isn't putting you off you won't have any problems with Salix.
Salix OS 13.0.2a - desktop includes innovative artwork
(full image size: 1,087kB, screen resolution 1920x1080 pixels)
GoblinX 3.0 "g:Mini"
 GoblinX g:Mini is the oldest of the three distributions tested, with the current version 3.0 released early October 2009. It is using kernel 2.6.27.6, more reminiscent of Slackware 12.2, although Slackware 13.0 was out at that time. It's a nimble download at 289.3 MB which should make it suitable for the more bandwidth constrained.
Looks-wise this seems to be the most customized of all three. It also offers Xfce 4.6.1 but in a more GNOME-like layout with the menu in the upper left and has plenty of plugins already set up in the panels, for example smart bookmarks to the GoblinX forum and home page. It's obvious it has been designed more as a live CD but can also be put on the hard drive, and comes with a plethora of small applications not seen in the other two, like an fstab editor, that you would not expect given its small size. It uses GTK+ 2.14 and generally package versions feel more outdated. This release seems stuck somewhere between Slackware 12.2 and 13.0 and is definitely more of a mix than the previous two in the roundup. The developers have followed their own tastes here and created something that stands out from the crowd.
The live installer provides a graphical environment in which you can choose the root partition, file system, desktop environment, language and init level. No other partitions can be specified at this time but will have to be added later in fstab. Then the LZM modules are uncompressed and dumped on your partition. On reboot the monitor resolution was detected and it looked good if slightly "old" somehow. Wireless was not working, neither on the desktop nor the Atheros chip on the laptop. Correction, iwconfig told it was actually detected, but apart from NDISwrapper if you have Windows drivers there is no graphical utility to set up the network information. You can, of course, enter the appropriate information into the text files or install wicd later but this can be difficult if you're out and about with only WiFi access in the first place.
The choice of software included is pretty standard, but this time with Audacious and XMMS for music, gxine for video, and AbiWord and Gnumeric are present for your office needs. Oh no, File Roller is here again too! What has Xarchiver done to them? GSlapt is here to handle your updates and new installations, and several tools to create your own modules and live remasters.
GoblinX strives to give us a completely free distribution and thus no codecs are included and no link to get them easily. There's one to install Adobe Flash in the menu but it didn't work for me, although now on wired connection. Despite GoblinX seemingly offering all the Xfce panel plugins you could possibly want, including one to control mpd and wmdock for WindowMaker applets, I'm now getting the idea that this is more trouble than it's worth and that Slackware proper is easier to set up. There is no control panel, but several tools like one for daemon control and a graphical LILO editor. The GoblinX web site feels awkward and it took me a while to locate the tiny shortcut to the forum further down the page. This being a Brazilian distro half the postings were in Portuguese.
GoblinX 3.0 "g:Mini: edition with the GSlapt package management tool
(full image size: 1,088kB, screen resolution 1920x1080 pixels)
Conclusions
I love them all, each in their own way, but the purpose was to compare and find a winner if you want an easy life at home and just something that works without much hassle, and I'm not going to cop out now. Xfce is a fast and potent environment that I believe can meet most people's needs, but it does not achieve its full potential in most distributions due to the underlying base. However in a well-done distro you won't need any other environment for your daily computing and benefit from a considerable speed gain.
Well, GoblinX seems quite a specialised niche distro that is severely lacking in some parts, probably enough not to bother with it when there are better alternatives. It seems to have been designed primarily as a live CD that can also be installed, but with shortcomings. It may be good as a base for your own Xfce-based live CD remaster after you've configured the networking, for those who don't want to go with Slax and KDE 3. If you ever should need support it will be a good thing to speak Portuguese. The developers were not afraid to create something with unique character, but this clearly does not make it appropriate for most users out there for easy day-to-day use at home or on the road.
No surprise, all three flew on the Dual-Core machine but things got more interesting on the Thinkpad and particularly on the old Duron Spitfire. Zenwalk was subjectively the most responsive and snappiest in use, while both Salix and Zenwalk only need seconds to boot even at this low end. As expected, neither had any problems with wireless on the Thinkpad as ath5k has been in the kernel for a while now. Zenwalk appeared the most elegant with its slick interface. Due to admittedly rather minor problems, it is only my second choice here, and once you get into Netpkg and have made it past the X.Org configuration, it makes for a very nice system with most multimedia pre-installed and newer versions of some libraries. It appeared the most 'cutting edge' among these three.
Zenwalk also includes Novell's enhanced version of OpenOffice.org with better integration for Microsoft formats and binary support, multimedia integration and native file chooser. This could be what you want, or why you'll shun it. Zenwalk also uses Iceweasel and Icedove, and I can recall some IMAP connection problems with GMail on Debian with Icedove. Personally I'd rather have the original, and this is why I'm not using Debian much anymore. On Zenwalk you could at least use the build script from Slackware and re-package your own Firefox instead.
However, one could also just run Salix and be done with it. Salix 13 wins my top notes for staying so close to the original, providing endless repositories and full use of all Slackware packages and scripts out there, unaltered software, an unchanged Xfce 4.6.1 menu and panel layout, out-of-the-box wireless, one-click install of multimedia plugins and codecs and beautiful artwork. If you would rather have a newer version of GTK+ you can still upgrade this from gnome.slackbuild.org. Whether you're an aspiring ex-Ubuntu or ex-Mandriva user or just want something light but with lots of possibilities, give Salix a chance. It's easy, very easy.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
OpenSolaris survives Oracle takeover, Fedora delays first alpha, Mandriva switches to nouveau, Linux Mint prepares LXDE edition, Kubuntu repositories
 After several weeks of uncertainty about the future of OpenSolaris, Oracle has finally spoken and the news is good - OpenSolaris is here to stay: "At the OpenSolaris annual meeting, held on IRC, Oracle executive Dan Roberts has assured the community about the future of the open source edition of Solaris. The statements, available as a log of the meeting, have led Peter Tribble, who had expressed concerns on the lack of communication, to conclude 'rumours of its [OpenSolaris] death have been greatly exaggerated'. Roberts, making his comments in an official capacity, stated that 'Oracle will continue to make OpenSolaris available as open source, and Oracle will continue to actively support and participate in the community'. In practical terms this would mean that Oracle will continue to deliver OpenSolaris releases, including the OpenSolaris 2010.03 release."
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 The first alpha release of Fedora 13, originally scheduled for release later this week, has been delayed by one week. Jesse Keating explains the reasons in this mailing list post: "Today at the go / no-go meeting we decided to slip the alpha by one week. This slip is needed to verify blocker bug fixes and validate new builds of software necessary to fix those bugs. We are confident that the fixes we have are valid, however we do not have enough time to prove them valid. We will spend the next few days doing that validation. In the meantime builds will continue to be pushed to updates-testing for 13, and even to 13 stable, however critical path packages might not be pushed unless they are fixing a release blocking issue. Once we've validated all the fixes we will do more frequent pushes to 13 stable." This delay does not have any effect on the final release of Fedora which is still expected on 11 May 2010.
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 Mandriva's Frederik Himpe has published a new summary of the latest changes in "Cooker", the distribution's development branch. As elsewhere in the Linux distro land, nouveau has now replaced nv as the default driver for NVIDIA video cards: "The kernel is now updated to 2.6.33 final. The new nouveau driver for NVIDIA graphics cards is now included in the kernel and is now used by default on Mandriva instead of the nv driver. DRBD, the Distributed Replicated Block Device driver, which is useful on High Availability clusters is now included in the kernel. There is a new experimental Compcache driver, which compresses part of the memory, effectively increasing the amount of memory you can use. Note that Mandriva does not yet include the user-space tools to effectively use this. The Anticipatory I/O scheduler was removed and there were the usual improvements to the default CFQ I/O scheduler. Of course there are also many improvements to hardware support, such as a new driver for WiFi devices with the Ralink RT2800 and Realtek RTL8192U chipsets." Other notable updates include GNOME 2.29.91, Bluefish 2.0.0 and Postfix 2.7.0.
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 Judging by past comments made in this publication, many readers assume that Kubuntu is really just an Ubuntu remix with a specific set of packages. But the truth is not so simple. Apart from the standard Ubuntu repositories available for Kubuntu, the project's developers have been making consistent efforts at providing interesting updates of most new KDE applications. Clay Weber summarises the availability of extra Kubuntu repositories and discusses the implications of using some of the more bleeding-edge ones among them: "If you want the most stable releases, and don't worry so much about new features, then simply don't use any of the PPAs [Personal Package Archives] at all. For karmic, this equals KDE SC 4.3.2. If you are interested in finding perhaps a few bug fixes and a newer version that has been better tested, then enable the official Ubuntu Backports (the 'Unsupported Updates' option in KPAckagekit). This currently provides KDE SC 4.3.5. This is probably the best combination of new software and tested packages. Those daring enough to want to try out KDE SC 4.4 right away would want to then add Kubuntu Backports. This also provides Amarok 2.2.2, Digikam 1.0, and a few other new cool bits. Now, for those who live on The Edge will definitely want to use Kubuntu Beta Backports."
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 Finally, a quick update on Linux Mint and its current activities as published by Clement Lefebvre. The blog post includes information on the imminent release of Linux Mint 8 "LXDE" edition, the status of the community-built variants, and notes about the development of Linux Mint 9 which is now officially under way: "Kendall Weaver worked on an LXDE edition of Linux Mint and his latest ISO was approved for a release by Exploder. It's currently waiting my approval and the team and I are discussing what our strategy should be in regards to 'Community Editions'. These editions are tested and released in the exact same way as the main edition and they meet the same quality requirements. According to reviews and the general feedback we're getting about them they're quite popular. The label 'community' undermines them though, not that 'community' is pejorative or anything, but it makes them look 'non-official'. The only significant difference between the main edition and the community editions is simply the fact that their maintainers are volunteers who work on them in their spare time. As a consequence they're often released late in the release cycle and sometimes they may not be released at all."
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Removing zombie processes
Dawn-of-the-data asks: What is a zombie process and how do I get rid of it?
DistroWatch answers: UNIX administrators have colourful names and descriptions for things, especially when it comes to processes. For example, when one program or process starts another process, the original is referred to as the "parent process" and the new process is called the "child process". When a child process is finished its task it "dies". The parent process is notified of its child's death and the child's information is removed from the system.
But sometimes a child process dies and the parent process doesn't stop to collect the information. When that happens, the child process itself is removed from the system, but a marker or "death certificate" is left behind, waiting to be collected. These uncollected death certificates are referred to as "zombie processes". These are rarely problems in themselves as they take up very little memory, but finding zombie processes usually means there's a bug in the parent program.
Let's say you've been monitoring your system and you've found a zombie process, what can you do about it? The first thing to do is find out which process is the parent of the zombie. You can do this by running the command
ps axo stat,ppid,pid,cmd | grep ^Z
The output will show you all zombie processes on the system with the ID number of their parent in the second column. We can then remind the parent that they have zombie children running wild by sending them a signal. Let's say that the parent process ID is 12889, for example. We could remind this process to collect its child's death certificate by running
kill -SIGCHLD 12889
However, if the parent refuses to handle the signal and collect the child's data, then we have to choose between leaving a zombie in the system and killing the parent process. When a parent process dies, any children it has are turned over to the init service. The init service regularly checks the status of its children and collects any death certificates, removing zombies from the system. We can try killing the parent nicely by asking it to terminate using
kill 12889
where 12889 is the parent's process ID. But, if the parent is stubborn and refuses to go quietly, we can force the issue by running
kill -9 12889
At that point, the parent process will be removed from the system, its children (including any zombies) are given to init and the zombies will be removed.
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| Released Last Week |
Igelle 1.0.0
Markku Kero has announced the release of Igelle 1.0.0, an independent desktop Linux distribution featuring a custom desktop, package management and other unique characteristics: "We are happy to announce the release and immediate availability of a distinct flavor of Igelle, Igelle DSV 1.0.0 for personal computer desktops. Igelle DSV provides a general-purpose desktop operating system for desktop computers, laptops, netbooks and the like, and is in this release made available to personal computers using Intel-compatible processors (x86). In summary, this release is characterized by the following: pleasurable and simple end-user experience; small, fast, light and powerful; introducing the Esther desktop; innovative system and package management; easy application installation and packaging; integrated developer tools; cutting-edge open-source technology." Read the rest of the release announcement to learn more about Igelle.
Igelle 1.0.0 - an independently-developed desktop Linux distribution with many unique features
(full image size: 1,008kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
PC-BSD 8.0
Kris Moore has announced the release of PC-BSD 8.0, a major new version of the user-friendly FreeBSD variant designed for the desktop: "The PC-BSD team is pleased to announce the availability of PC-BSD 8.0 (Hubble Edition), running FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE-P2, and KDE 4.3.5. PC-BSD 8.0 contains a number of enhancements and improvements over the 7.x series. Some of the notable changes are: brand new system installer, allows the install of PC-BSD or FreeBSD; run in Live mode directly from DVD; updated Software Manager, allows browsing and installing applications directly; support for 3D acceleration with NVIDIA drivers on amd64." For more information please see the release announcement, release notes and changelog.
PC-BSD 8.0 - FreeBSD is ready for the desktop
(full image size: 373kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
PapugLinux 10.1
Sylvain Balbous has announced the release of PapugLinux 10.1, a minimalist, Gentoo-based live CD with the Fluxbox window manager and a number of mostly lightweight desktop applications: "PapugLinux release 10.1 is now available for download. Version 10.1 is a major release of PapugLinux in terms of package update and hardware support. The latest version of X server will allow you to enjoy PapugLinux at the best capacity of your hardware. Updated packages - X.Org 7.4 X Window server, Firefox 3.5.6 browser, Sylpheed 2.6.0 mail client, Pidgin 2.6.3 instant messenger client, AbiWord 2.6.4 word processor, Gnumeric 1.8.4 spreadsheet processor. Added packages - XTux multi-player Gauntlet-style arcade game." Read the brief release notes on the project's Content page.
PapugLinux 10.1 - a Gentoo-based distribution with Fluxbox
(full image size: 480kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Vine Linux 5.1
Daisuke Suzuki has announced the release of Vine Linux 5.1 (code name "Cheval Blanc"), a Japanese general-purpose community distribution available for the i386, x86_64 and PowerPC architectures. This is a minor update in the Vine 5.x series that integrates all the bug-fix and security updates announced since the 5.0 release, but otherwise provides no new major features and only a few package version updates. The product's base system remains unchanged. This update was compiled as part of the project's preparation for the two-day Open Source Conference 2010 which starts today in Tokyo, Japan. Read the brief release announcement (in Japanese) and consult the release notes for additional information.
NetSecL 2.6
Iuri Stanchev has announced the release of NetSecL 2.6, a Slackware-based distribution enhanced with with GCC stack smashing protection and other security features: "NetSecL 2.6 released. In the new release you will find QEMU, servers and new penetration tools. We took our time to separate the usual network utilities and penetration tools and add them in a new section. Also, you will find that now we have a section called 'srv' with some server packages in it. There are many updates to the libraries and additional bindings to Perl and Python that we hope will be useful for future programs included with the distribution. You will also find in the distribution ISO a VMX file created with VMmanager which you can use for creating a virtual machine - mount the ISO copy the VMX folder, unmount the ISO (that you just copied), move it to the VMX folder and start it with VMware Player." Here is the brief release announcement.
SystemRescueCd 1.4.0
François Dupoux has announced the release of SystemRescueCd 1.4.0, a major new update of the popular Gentoo-based live CD designed for data rescue and disk management tasks: "SystemRescueCd 1.4.0 introduces two new options that allow you to boot from NFS v3 or NBD. Basically, if the computer on which you work had no CD-ROM drive, or if you just want to boot SystemRescueCd from the network for any other reason, you can install network services somewhere else on your network (DHCP server, TFTP server, HTTP/NFS/NDB server) and you will be able to boot SystemRescueCd from the network." Other updates include: "Updated the standard kernels to version 2.6.32.9, the alternative kernels to version 2.6.27.45, updated Mozilla Firefox to version 3.6, added zfs-fuse 0.6.0 file system, updated FSArchiver to 0.6.8...." See the release announcement and changelog for more details.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
- Frugalware Linux 1.2-rc2, the release announcement
- TEENpup 2010-beta, the release announcement
- SimplyMEPIS 8.5-rc1, the release announcement
- Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu, Ubuntu Studio 10.04-alpha3, the release announcement
- MOPSLinux 7.0-beta4, the release announcement
- PLD Linux 4.4.0 (Live)
- Clonezilla Live 1.2.4-7
- Tiny Core Linux 2.9-rc5
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
February 2010 DistroWatch.com donation: Squid receives US$250.00
 We are happy to announce that the recipient of the February 2010 DistroWatch.com donation is Squid, a proxy server and cache. It receives US$250.00 in cash.
Squid has been around for a good couple of decades and most seasoned system administrators probably won't need an introduction to this enormously useful tool. For the rest of us, here is a quick description taken from the project's Intro page: "Squid is a fully-featured HTTP/1.0 proxy which is almost (but not quite) HTTP/1.1 compliant. Squid offers a rich access control, authorization and logging environment to develop web proxy and content serving applications." Wikipedia has some additional information on Squid and its uses: "It has a wide variety of uses, from speeding up a web server by caching repeated requests; to caching web, DNS and other computer network lookups for a group of people sharing network resources; to aiding security by filtering traffic. Although primarily used for HTTP and FTP, Squid includes limited support for several other protocols including TLS, SSL, Internet Gopher and HTTPS."
Launched in 2004, this monthly donations programme is a DistroWatch initiative to support free and open-source software projects and operating systems with cash contributions. Readers are welcome to nominate their favourite project for future donations. Here is the list of the projects that have received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NDISwrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and Sabayon Linux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
- 2008: VLC ($350), Frugalware Linux ($340), cURL ($300), GSPCA ($400), FileZilla ($400), MythDora ($500), Linux Mint ($400), Parsix GNU/Linux ($300), Miro ($300), GoblinX ($250), Dillo ($150), LXDE ($250)
- 2009: Openbox ($250), Wolvix GNU/Linux ($200), smxi ($200), Python ($300), SliTaz GNU/Linux ($200), LiVES ($300), Osmo ($300), LMMS ($250), KompoZer ($360), OpenSSH ($350), Parted Magic ($350) and Krita ($285)
- 2010: Qimo 4 Kids ($250), Squid ($250)
Since the launch of the Donations Program in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$23,628 to various open-source software projects.
* * * * *
New distributions added to database
- IPFire. IPFire is a Linux distribution that focuses on easy setup, good handling and high level of security. It is operated via an intuitive web-based interface which offers many configuration options for beginning and experienced system administrators. IPFire is maintained by developers who are concerned about security and who update the product regularly to keep it secure. IPFire ships with a custom package manager called Pakfire and the system can be expanded with various add-ons.
* * * * *
New distributions added to waiting list
- UKnow4Kids. UKnow4Kids is an Arch-based live DVD with a collection of educational and gaming software for children 2 to 10-years old. The distribution is intended for broad usage by a non-technical audience (regular parents) and is essentially indestructible by children. It runs well on old Intel hardware, including Pentium II-based systems with as little as 256 MB RAM. UKnow4Kids provides a familiar user experience, requiring only minimal computer experience to run.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
* * * * *
This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 8 March 2010.
Bernard Hoffmann, Ladislav Bodnar and Jesse Smith
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • No subject (by Anonymous at 2010-03-01 11:32:27 GMT from Canada)
pclinuxos 2010 beta has been shipped to developers . I havent been this excited since .......................pclinuxos 2007 beta !
2 • Gnome version (by viktor on 2010-03-01 11:37:24 GMT from France)
As Mandriva annouces they updated cooker to the latest Gnome 2.30 beta (2.29.91) I would like to mention the libgnome version doesn't seem to have been updated on distrowatch.
Current stable in the packages table has been 2.28.0 since release in September. To my knowledge Gnome stable is currently 2.28.2 and Ubuntu Karmic for instance was released with 2.28.1
Did I miss something?
3 • Reviews: Desktop comparison - Zenwalk Linux, Salix OS and GoblinX (by kc1di on 2010-03-01 11:43:16 GMT from United States)
I'm Surprised you did not include vector 6.0 in your comparison. It's a very nice full featured (also available in Light version) XFCE desktop.
give it a try.
4 • openSUSE 11.2 has released official updates for kde 4.3.5 (by Suseuser at 2010-03-01 12:28:27 GMT from Australia)
And openSUSE team should be congratulated for this nice gesture in making 11.2 release worthy of keeping until end of life support, 18 mths after release,
The following is the official news announcement:
Attention All KDE Users
February 16th, 2010 by wstephenson
KDE SC 4.3.5 is about to become available for openSUSE 11.2 as an online update (from 4.3.1). This release fixes many bugs, so we decided to push it as an online update instead of making it an optional update in the Build Service, and by fixing bugs we give our KDE contributors more time to work for openSUSE 11.3.
[...]
http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Weekly_News/112
5 • Kubuntu upgrades (by Leo at 2010-03-01 12:46:23 GMT from United States)
Excellent summary on Kubuntu's upgrades. One of the most common ways people break Kubuntu is by updating to the latest KDE available. As stated in the summary below, only point (bugfix) releases are likely to be trouble free (and more likely to help than to hurt). Major releases (such as KDE 4.3.x -> 4.4.y should be avoided.
BTW: the availability of KDE upgrades made me switch from Mandriva to Kubuntu a few years back (at that time, Mandriva had stopped providing those, maybe they restarted later). Incidentally, Mandrake/iva was ways ahead of the rest as a Desktop, and I have nothing but gratitude to them. I actually contributed as much as I could in cooker :)
6 • Vector (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-01 12:49:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've used Vector in the past but had to limit myself somewhat to three distros in order for the whole thing not to get too long. Also I wanted to stick to distros that come by default with Xfce or use it as their main desktop. Vector does this in standard but it also has a very strong KDE slant in the SOHO version and in KDE classic, and also uses IceWM on the light iso.
This can to a degree also be said of GoblinX with their KDE4 release but I found it a bit more interesting to look into as it doesn't usually get much coverage. That's the reasoning behind it.
Vector has a very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable community though from which I learned a lot back in the day.
7 • Slackware + XFCE review (by silent at 2010-03-01 12:56:11 GMT from France)
Yes, I agree with #3. In a Slackware + XFCE review Vectorlinux should be at least mentioned. On the other hand, if (as the title says) it is a desktop comparison, it would have been useful to include tests of out-of-the-box webcam support as compared to vanilla Slackware, after all if one has to build a custom kernel or just rebuild it from source , well, I would either stick to Slackware or use one of the "bloated and heavy" top distros. I had this problem with earlier versions, so may be it is solved by now.
8 • Zombie process (by Mahmoud Slamah at 2010-03-01 13:04:45 GMT from Egypt)
Another method to know a zombie process ID number
ps -el | grep Z
You will get pid & ppid then
kill ppid
The idea is kill parent process to kill child zombie
Very simple :-)
9 • Salix, Zenwalk, GoblinX (by Ranger at 2010-03-01 13:11:04 GMT from United States)
Excellent review. I came to the same conclusion. Last weeks review was very nice too. Keep up the good work and thank you.
10 • What about absolute linux? (by bigslack on 2010-03-01 13:44:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just thought it should be mentioned that there is at least one more light weight slackware based distro called absolute.
Cheers
11 • Vector (by Zhymm at 2010-03-01 14:01:21 GMT from United States)
I am also disheartened by the Bernard's failure to mention Vector Linux in his comparison of XFCE + Slackware derivatives. I've tested Zenwalk, Salix, and GoblinX along with Vector on my various laptops and desktops and Vector won out (for me). I even use Vector on several 'resurrected' desktops networked in my classroom.
Zhymm
12 • Slackware (by Glenn Condrey on 2010-03-01 14:15:27 GMT from United States)
Zenwalk, Salix, and GoblinX are all fine distros in their own right...all seem rather bland to me though.
Guess I have been spoiled by the bleeding edge distros based on Debian Unstable.
13 • Compiling (by Hrungn on 2010-03-01 14:18:46 GMT from Norway)
"...use the build script from Slackware and compile your own Firefox instead."
This statement is incorrect! You don't compile Firefox, you repackage it. Take a look at the buildscript yourself. There's no compiling at all ftp://ftp.slackware.no/linux/slackware/slackware-13.0/source/xap/mozilla-firefox/mozilla-firefox.SlackBuild
14 • No subject (by Gustavo at 2010-03-01 14:33:38 GMT from Brazil)
Once you start to use a Slackware based distro you don´t want to go back to the buggy and slow distros (Ubuntu, OpenSuse, even Debian).
Obs.: Zenwalk has Flash support out of the box.
15 • Review / Mepis (by Growler at 2010-03-01 14:46:49 GMT from United States)
I didn't miss Vector in the review. Vector is moving away from Slackware anyway. It would have been nice to see Absolute included but you have to draw the line somewhere. I agree with not including Wolvix given it's current state of development (although I suspect that much work is being done quietly behind the scenes. Expect an announcment "out of the blue" one of these days). One thing that always bugs me a little is the use of Lilo instead of Grub (no, not Grub 2). Slitaz is another nice little Slackware distro to consider but it would probably be better represented under the title of "Mini".
On another subject, I read some discussion last week about Mepis. I really like Mepis but the endless "nested" menus are really annoying. Any review of Mepis should mention this along with all of the many good things that make it unique.
16 • IPFire (by Joaquim Gil at 2010-03-01 14:59:42 GMT from Portugal)
Glad to see IPFire, FINALLY, mentioned here at Distrowatch.
Way to go! :)
17 • About Mepis (by Edward on 2010-03-01 16:14:08 GMT from Spain)
@ 15:
"I really like Mepis but the endless "nested" menus are really annoying. Any review of Mepis should mention this along with all of the many good things that make it unique."
Maybe you are referring to MEPIS and not to AntiX, the lightweight distribution based on MEPIS that can use the XFCE desktop also.
Just now I am trying Simply Mepis RC1 on my desktop. I must say how amazed I am about the mix of stability (Debian Lenny), easy of install and the plus of newer applications not present in Debian stable. As I can see, you are allowed the choice of three menu systems: the usual in KDE-4 (which I do not like, too much nested) the Lancelot launcher (much more logical) and, as default, the "classical", quite alike the former menu in KDE3, but only two clicks away of any application. Perhaps the nested menus in your post are those of the legacy Debian "general" menu. Now I realize this menu (usually redundant) has disappeared from Mepis 8.5: instead you have a way to integrate any stray Gnome or whatsoever application.
I agree in the unique qualities of MEPIS (or Simply MEPIS, as they say). In fact, MEPIS 8.5 is being installed in the computers I care of... to stay as the main distro.
18 • Hrungn (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-01 16:39:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yes you're right, wrong wording! I've actually done it. Thanks for pointing that out.
19 • MEPIS (by Jesse at 2010-03-01 17:24:09 GMT from Canada)
@15 posted:
"I really like Mepis but the endless "nested" menus are really annoying. Any review of Mepis should mention this along with all of the many good things that make it unique."
I'm using SimplyMEPIS and the only part of my KDE menu that has any nested menus at all is the Games section. And then it's just one level, breaking them down into categories like Arcade and Board games.
20 • uknow4kids (by Anonymous at 2010-03-01 17:47:01 GMT from Canada)
just downloaded and burnt a dvd
At the most elementary level a couple of the keyboard games did not work.
did not check any more advanced levels
Firefox worked
Could not shut down the live dvd
Had to pull plug.
My comp is old and this may be the cause of my problems
21 • @ 1, PcLinuxOs 2010. (by Henning Melgaard on 2010-03-01 17:59:08 GMT from Denmark)
How did you find out about that?
I have been checking the PcLinux homepage almost daily. All I have seen for a while are the newsletters.
I was getting worried they had all gone home :-)
22 • @21 (by Jose Mirles on 2010-03-01 18:04:13 GMT from United States)
Get a twitter client and follow iluvpclinuxos.
Also follow the PCLinuxOS forums. There is a separate area for the 2010 Beta.
As of right now the developers will test the Hell out of it, Tex and crew will make the corrections (they will do this until they feel it is ready for a wider circle of testers), then we will get our chance.
23 • Kudos! (by Anonymous at 2010-03-01 18:23:34 GMT from Netherlands)
Regardless of hether you run one of the reviewed distros or not, or whether you agree with him or not, all credit to barnabyh for getting off his backside in the Comments gallery and taking the time and effort to research and produce a complete review for the rest of us to read.
Great effort. Much appreciated.
24 • @19 (by Growler at 2010-03-01 19:03:49 GMT from United States)
I am still on the KDE 3 version. So I guess that point is moot. Sorry for any confusion (on my part).
25 • No subject (by Grobsch on 2010-03-01 19:10:58 GMT from Brazil)
GoblinX will have massive upgrades when we move it to another more professional project. Even the website will be rewritten. The Mini is too old comparing with Zenwalk, but nice to see it still being tested.
BTW, Adobe's Flash cannot be distributed by ourselves, only few system can distribute it.
26 • What's so great about KDE 3.5 anyhow? (by shady on 2010-03-01 19:15:29 GMT from United States)
I check boards like this out a lot, and I notice the same complaint over and over "KDE 3.5 is the best, KDE 4.x.x is horrible". I'll admit, I never used KDE 3.5, but 4.x seems fine. Maybe a future Distrowatch Weekly could detail the differences? Call it "Kicking and Screaming into the Future..."
27 • Zenwalk (by Gremnon on 2010-03-01 19:31:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
Zenwalk in my experience has been decidedly negative with me after a few simple packages I needed took far too long to not only find, but resolve the dependencies of, download and install, as opposed to the few moments it took to manage the same on a similarly fresh Fedora install.
Add sluggishness and low responsiveness, an inability to correctly detect all but the hard drives on the system, and a network manager that could not detect nor connect to the correct interface even when manually prompted, and I'm afraid I don't see what the fuss is about for it.
28 • no problem with debians (by mean ... as meanier ... at 2010-03-01 20:17:08 GMT from Portugal)
Hi .. I also thought debians were slow, until I found YlmlF OS in the DW waiting list (guess what, thats where I begin every day), a Chinese debian with a XP look wich is runs in a quite agile way ... much more than any other debian based, even the XFCE equiped, and even some slackware distros.
On the other hand, it should be mentioned Knoppix as also an always contender for the speed running. Now, everything is relative, meaning when or where I state "agile" I do it within the range of 256 - 364 MB of RAM. Quite few can make it and that's where Linux shows itself as belonging to a diferent breed from a Windows XP. It seems nowadays everyone is trying to compete with too heavy desktops equipped slow motioned os's.
29 • #27 - Gremmon on Zenwalk (by Claus Futtrup on 2010-03-01 21:05:49 GMT from Denmark)
Hi Gremmon. Your comment clearly shows a bad experience, but I truly wonder how you did it. What packages did you need? If you had tried Netpkg (and found the packages), then dependencies should not be a problem ... strange experience, and if I may be so direct, also highly unusual.
That Zenwalk should be sluggish is also so unusual (e.g. see the review) that I simply do not understand what you did. Did you ask anybody at the Zenwalk community for their suggestions to resolve your problem?
BTW, thank you to Bernard Hoffmann for his objective style and positive review of Zenwalk.
P.S. I am running Zenwalk on an IBM T42 with 1 Gb RAM as well... it's quite fast and nice.
Best regards,
Claus
Zenwalker - 5+ years.
30 • Slow Ubuntu or other Debian Distros (by Glenn Condrey on 2010-03-01 21:33:25 GMT from United States)
All of the Debian distros I use fly. Ever tried prelinking??
31 • A few bits so far (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-01 22:11:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank you for your nice words, Anonymous and Claus.
Re. Absolute Linux, it's built around IceWM so fell outside the scope of this little project of mine.
Thanks also to Ladislav for giving me the opportunity, and for his foreword.
32 • DWW343+Mint+ArchBang!+Midori? (by D1Knight at 2010-03-02 00:24:37 GMT from United States)
I thank you for another great DWW, last week was excellent too.
This is great to hear Mint will release soon a LXDE version, also reading some of the postings at Mint's Blog, there shall also be a Mint 8 release of Xfce-nice.
On a side note, the Alpha 3 release of Lubuntu (LXDE) is coming along nicley-looking good,nice and lite. Apparently there was some testing for the best browser for Lubuntu's release and Chromium fit the spot-glad to here it (Chromium is pretty quick loading and modern).
This is for anyone interested in Arch & #!CrunchBang here is a link for the new release http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=89627
I saw link at http://raiden.net/ and at http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/5988/to-those-who-managed-to-get-a-archbangcruncharch/
The Midori browser is coming along nicely, maybe soon another alternative to FF. I vote them for a DW donation.
Peace. Have a great week everyone. :)
33 • @5 (by Adam Williamson on 2010-03-02 05:09:27 GMT from Canada)
These days the MDV KDE team sometimes provide newer KDE versions for stable MDV releases via kde.org.
34 • Re 26 - KDE 3.5 / 4.x (by uz64 at 2010-03-02 06:17:47 GMT from United States)
KDE 3.5 is pretty mature, being the point-5 version in the series, after all. It's older, has more features, and has most of its major bugs pounded out.
KDE 4.0 was... I'll just say a POS. 4.1... not much better. 4.2 was supposed to be the "KDE3 killer," but I still didn't find it worth using due to all the bugs still remaining. IMO it didn't really get mature and usable enough to be used as an everyday desktop until version 4.3 (which, still, has me running into quite a few bugs, although mostly minor ones). I think by 4.4 or 4.5, KDE will finally reach generally bug-free status, but I'm not a developer... just going by the perceived rate of development vs. remaining bugs as a user. It seems like it's getting there, squashing a large number of bugs with every release.
Also, KDE4 is a memory hog compared to its predecessor, requiring around 512MB to run well with the absolute basics vs. 256MB or so for KDE3 (depending largely on the distro, of course). I have a 1.7GHz P4 machine with 256 megs and KDE4 is outright unusable. Give KDE4 a gig and it runs pretty well even for more advanced things... but give KDE3 a gig and it flies. In other words, if you have a gig of RAM (or better yet, 2GB), none of this should apply to you. Many KDE applications also didn't have native Qt4 (KDE4) versions until relatively recently (K3b comes to mind). KDE4 is finally catching up to KDE3 in terms of features as well, but once again... its previous versions were severely lacking; KDE3 was far more functional.
As of now... It may be good enough for many people already; I'm playing around with 4.3 in openSUSE 11.2 myself, though annoyances spring up still on a regular basis. It's usable, and fun to play around with, but sometimes a PITA. I don't think it'll be too long before enough bugs are killed that it's finally suitable for less technical people.
35 • Salix installer (by Akuna on 2010-03-02 06:19:03 GMT from France)
Very well written & fair article indeed. :)
For those who are not so found of the 'old-style Slackware installer', SalixLive which should be finalized sometimes within the next couple weeks includes a new gtk/python graphical installer which will perform a standard Salix system installation.
36 • @35 (by Akuna on 2010-03-02 07:00:36 GMT from France)
Oopsy... :)
*not so fond*
37 • Tota Linux-Fluxbox+ (by D1Knight at 2010-03-02 08:39:37 GMT from United States)
For anyone interested:
"Tota Linux has been created by a group of WM and Conky hackers who use various different distros and Linux forums
Tota is built on top of a Debian Squeeze base with Awesome, OpenBox, Window Maker and Fluxbox window managers which make for a very fast, stable distro"
http://totalinux.org/
38 • RE #26 • What's so great about KDE 3.5 anyhow? by shady (by Mark on 2010-03-02 10:22:59 GMT from Australia)
>I check boards like this out a lot, and I notice the same complaint over and over "KDE 3.5 is the best, KDE 4.x.x is horrible".
It is Microsoft trolls. KDE 4.4 is a serious threat to Windows 7, as KDE is more functional, better performing, better looking, more usable and zero cost than Windows 7. Microsoft doesn't want anyone to know about this or to try KDE 4. Hence the incessant anti-KDE 4.4 astroturfing (probably coming from Windows users who have never run Linux of any kind).
The very amount of it is testament to how good KDE 4.4 actually is.
>I'll admit, I never used KDE 3.5, but 4.x seems fine. Maybe a future Distrowatch Weekly could detail the differences?
Don't ask Distrowatch, as they are quite anti-KDE as well.
39 • Good review (by Anonymous at 2010-03-02 10:58:24 GMT from India)
Methinks this was an excellent writeup on Slackware based distros. How about a vol-2 with Vector and Absolute?
40 • RE: 26 -- KDE (by Jesse at 2010-03-02 13:31:03 GMT from Canada)
The KDE 3.5.x series is a very polished, stable desktop environment. It performes well, is very flexible and, in my experience, rock solid. When the KDE4 branch first came out, many distributions shipped it as their default desktop environment, even though it was obviously in early development. Both 4.0 and 4.1 were lacking a lot of features the previous 3.5 releases had, and they were buggy and they were in fast development. This put a bad taste in a lot of KDE users' mouths. The last couple of releases from the 4.x branch (4.3 and 4.4) have been very good. They're stable now, have the same features as 3.5 and are very flexible. Unfortunately, people are still upset about the earlier releases, which the distributions shouldn't have shipped in the first place.
41 • LFS (by Tim on 2010-03-02 13:33:58 GMT from United States)
Has anyone here used LFS and if so, how hard is it to use?
42 • Slackware based distros (by claudecat on 2010-03-02 13:45:30 GMT from United States)
I have always had problems with anything but real Slackware, Probably due to my reliance on Sprint Mobile broadband (cell-phone stapled to a USB port... easily usable via kppp, but NOT if /dev/ttyUSB0 is not seen as in all those reviewed above). I love Slack a whole lot, and don't understand its reputation for difficulty of install... if you can read and understand partitioning it's as easy as can be.... and real real pretty once you gussy it up with compiz or kde native desktop effects. One caveat to mention... a recent upgrade to the most recent Sprint USB modem thingie rendered my linuxes (all 20 of 'em) un-internetable... the old one worked insanely well. I shall be visiting Best Buy with the strange demand to downgrade to the old one within hours. The past few days using Vista have been pure hell. LOVE Distrowatch Weekly! Keep up the great work :=}
43 • @38 - from a long time KDE Fan (by Tony Brijeski on 2010-03-02 14:10:25 GMT from United States)
From a long time KDE Fan who has been using KDE since before version 1 when you had to compile all of QT and KDE in order to use as nobody packaged it back then, I thoroughly dislike KDE4. I am far from a Windows Fan. I don't even have windows on my home laptop or main desktop. Only Linux.
The Window Manager or Desktop Environment should enable you to use the real applications you need a lot easier instead of getting in the way. I also found the way they did a lot of things in KDE4 to be quite counterintuitive compared to KDE3.5.x.
Right now I don't like KDE 4 at all and use either kde3.5.x or Gnome. I'm not a dinosaur so I won't say I'll never use kde4 but for right now it "gets in the way" of me having a productive desktop. This may change down the road.
I just wanted to make this point from the standpoint of someone who has been using KDE almost exclusively longer than some of you have even known about linux.
44 • Tota (by jeffcustom at 2010-03-02 15:01:23 GMT from United States)
Tota looks interesting. I brought it up in vbox but don't see on their site what you have to enter to login. Can anyone tell me?
45 • KDE 4 (by megadriver at 2010-03-02 15:45:06 GMT from Spain)
Indeed, KDE 4 is a serious threat to Windows 7. It has both the "bling" and the bloat Windows users love!
For the record, KDE 3.5.x is the only DE I will ever admit to like. It was so nice in every respect that, for a time, it seriously tempted me to abandon my minimalistic computing philosophy. "Fortunately" (heh) KDE 4 came along, and the "temptation" was gone for good.
I know I can still install KDE 3.5.x if I want but, being abandoned and "obsolete", I can't bear myself to use it. Now, should someone "update" it and port it to Qt 4...
46 • Slack-derived distro reviews (by Pearson at 2010-03-02 17:26:58 GMT from United States)
Excellent article! I like Vector (although I don't use it - it's version of the intel video drivers freezes my computers), but didn't think it's omission was a problem. Perhaps a mention would've been nice ("Other popular options, not reviewed here due to lack of space, include ..."), but that would've just been extra.
Sort of on topic: I've become fond of Arch lately, which shares Slackware's "Keep It Simple" philosophy and minimizes patches to upstream packages. It's a rolling release distro and "bleeding edge", but seems to be pretty stable. My computer only has 256MB of RAM, and I can boot into an XFCE desktop without using swap, unlike in XUbuntu 8.04. If I use Dillo, I can even surf the web without using swap!
47 • RE: 37 & 44 (by Landor at 2010-03-02 17:56:46 GMT from Canada)
I agree it looks interesting, yet going to their forums you see "Tota Development Is On Hold".
If the development is on hold to the point that the forums are shut down as well, that doesn't bode well for the distribution.
------------
Great Review Barnaby!
I just laughed and almost added a comment about not reviewing Vector. :)
All the years I used Linux (before my departure in 99) I never once used Slackware and tried it about 4 years ago I believe. A lot of people really forget the sheer power and simplicity that comes from Slackware. It's obviously why it has so many really good performers basing off it. Some misunderstanding about package management will make some shy away, but it's really straight forward for those that want a very lean and clean vanilla install of Linux.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
48 • re: What's so great about KDE 3.5 anyhow? (by Peter Besenbruch at 2010-03-02 20:07:24 GMT from United States)
I'll detail my experiences with KDE4 from a Debian Testing (Squeeze) perspective. I am currently running 4.3.4, and have been grabbing KDE updates from Debian's unstable branch (Sid), with the occasional foray into Experimental). The newer upgrades from Sid and Experimental have helped improve things somewhat. I upgraded two computers, one a desktop with a difficult graphics chipset (Intel's 965), and the other a EEEPC 901. My other computers remain on KDE 3.5, and will stay there for the foreseeable future.
Debian Stable (Lenny) runs KDE 3.5. There's not too much to say about it, except it combines a full featured desktop, a small footprint (in Debian at least) and speed. Other attributes I like are the ability to lose all window borders when screen real estate is at a premium (think EEEPC), and multiple, fully customizable desktops. Add to that a selection of KDE applications that combine light weight with speed and adequate features, and KDE3.5 is a hard act to follow.
In KDE4 you can do fun stuff with the desktop. Think fades, spinning cubes, and the like. You can do it with KDE 3.5, but it's harder to set up, and you lose the ability to remove window borders. With KDE4 you don't have that issue, and you even have some limited support for the Intel 965 chip, something that Compiz lacked.
Not all is hunky-dory. These effects eat electricity, so you don't want to use them on laptops running in battery mode. I found KDE4 also less than impressive when coming out of suspend mode, as more often than not the screen remained dark. I have run identical kernels, but KDE3.5 will come out of suspend always, and KDE4 about 60% of the time. KDE4 radically changed its power management tools, and it shows. Needless to say, the EEEPC is back to running KDE3.5 under Lenny.
There are a number of new features in KDE4, the one with the greatest potential are the Plasma widgets. You had something like it with Superkaramba on the KDE3 desktop, but they are better integrated in KDE4. There are also other features like Akonadi and Nepomuk. These, along with Mysql, give extended collaboration capabilities to people running KDE. In version 4.3, they also contribute to bloat and instability. You work around these issues by turning them off. Sadly, you can't uninstall these programs in Debian.
A favorite application I use illustrates some of the issues. Kaffeine is a Xine based multimedia player. In KDE3.5 it features playlists, album cover downloads, the the best EQ adjustment of any player I have seen. The KDE4 version adds TV watching capabilities, but looses most of the audio playback features. For audio playback the new Kaffeine offers no more than the light weight Dragonplayer. So, it's off to other, non-KDE options, like VLC or Audacious.
The KDEPIM group includes e-mail (Kmail), calendaring (Korganizer), and contacts (Kaddressbook). Feature wise, they are pretty similar in both 3.5 and 4.3. Unfortunately, when you run them under their container program (Kontact), the stability goes to pieces, especially when running Korganizer.
Other difficulties: KDM would refuse to launch KDE. On the desktop, it never worked. On the EEEPC it would work on the second try. The work-around is to use GDM. Running a program as root is not longer integrated into Debian's version of KDE4. Actually, it is, but is doesn't work. The work-around is Kdesu, Gksu, or "Dbus launch".
I hear good things about KDE4.4. I keep KDE4 on my desktop, because it plays better with my Intel 965 chipset, it's stable enough (once you figure out what makes it crash), and I would like to watch its evolution. KDE4.3 isn't "there" yet. Maybe Opensuse does a better job with KDE4. Otherwise, if you want a KDE like desktop environment, try Linux Mint. I realize it runs Gnome, but it is the most KDE like Gnome I have seen. Better yet, it largely works.
49 • @ 48 (by Untitled at 2010-03-02 22:20:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
It saddens me to say that from my KDE 4 experiments Debian's KDE has always seemed the poorest to me. I think that some of the problems you're experiencing are not related to KDE.
For instance, your KDM issues. The problem (which showed its face in Kubuntu 10.04 Alpha 1) was a ConsoleKit issue which was already fixed, both upstream and in Kubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2. I guess also in Debian, somewhere?
I don't usually run Kontact but the few times I did I had no issues wiht it. Kdesudo also works for me in Kubuntu, but OpenSuse uses Kdesu instead.
Generally speaking I have had no stability problems with KDE in the last year or longer, as long as I stayed away from beta and RC releases.
I find it a shame that the state of KDE in Debian is not as good as in some of its off-springs (Mepis, Kubuntu, Sidux).
50 • @48 re KDE4 (by Mark on 2010-03-03 00:27:43 GMT from Australia)
I am running Arch Linux KDE SC 4.4, which has kernel 2.6.32 and the open source 3D ATI graphics driver xf86-video-ati. It installs out-of-the-box, runs blazingly fast, full composited-desktop bling works if I want it, and it exhibits precisely NONE of the issues you mention.
Debian/Kubuntu have had very poor support for KDE for a long while now.
51 • @44 & 47-Tota Forum? (by D1Knight at 2010-03-03 00:44:47 GMT from United States)
Hey jeffcustom & Landor. :) I was just about to try out TotaLinux as well, when I read your posts. :( I went back to http://totalinux.org/ to look at the forum, again. Jeffcustom and Landor, you are right the forum now list development on hold, ugh (Twilight Zone theme playing.) I had just visited their forum, prior to this time, less 20 hours ago and it was open and active!?
More direct, Jeffcustom, sorry I should have looked closer when I was there, then copied and paste to .txt file the login info, the 1st time I was there. :(
Here is to Hoping, that they will come back to life soon. :) Peace.
52 • KDE 4.X (by shady on 2010-03-03 01:08:05 GMT from United States)
Reading the replies, I was almost sold on possibly trying out the KDE 3.5 DE just to see what functionality I was missing out on. Then it hit me, I'd bet that most of the KDE 3.5 holdouts are on older hardware. And I'm not bashing "older" hardware because hell, before I even powered-up my last build for the first time, everything inside of it was already 6 months obsolete. Im mostly pointing at the guys with <1GB of ram running single-cores and the like. I could really see them having beef with KDE 4.x because of the steeper hardware reqs, but maybe the criticism is misplaced?
And yes, I'm a douche with a big Win build gaming box. But that's what lures me to Linux-- the promise of an ever-changing environment. With windows I have to wait for years at times for "distro" updates, and with Linux it's generally hours at most (yay Fedora). So perhaps my view on this subject is skewed as well. I dunno.
53 • Re:50 (by Leo at 2010-03-03 01:12:08 GMT from United States)
I heard great things about Arch (except for the user-friendliness, LOL). But that doesn't mean that KDE support is bad in Kubuntu. It is quite nice.
By the way, I am using KDE 4.4 in the latest development branch (Lucid) with the new open source ATI stack, and yes, it is a pleasure to use!
54 • @44 & 47 TotaLinux Login info (by D1Knight at 2010-03-03 01:30:15 GMT from United States)
OK, here you go:
Logging into the system: User: Tota Pass: tota
Using root powers: User: tota Pass: toor
This is per forum Dev Team member Mahngiel, on a cache page of the forum. Thanks to Google. :) Peace.
55 • @52 gaming box? (by RollMeAway at 2010-03-03 01:48:24 GMT from United States)
You sound like a good candidate for Sabayon . Try the 'Gaming' DVD.
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=05836
Needs > 15 GB partition, more ram the better (always).
Lots of eye candy. Includes the 'kitchen sink'.
56 • @52 re:KDE and older hardware (by Tony Brijeski on 2010-03-03 03:00:09 GMT from Canada)
FYI....I don't like kde4 but I have a Core 2 Duo 2.4G with 4GB ram, 8800gt 512MB video card with 500GB sata drive. Hardly what I would call older hardware and still a good gaming rig.
The best kde4 setup I tried was Vector Linux SOHO Beta 3. As soon as this goes gold it will be real nice but still not enough for me to use KDE4 - not yet anyway.
57 • Gigs of Ram (by Anonymous at 2010-03-03 04:15:11 GMT from United States)
So I guess us Linux crowd have finally caught up with the Vista crowd eh?
Now we need 1 or 2 gigs of ram to use our desktops too.
Remember when they said Vista needs 2 gigs to run ok?
Now someone says KDE 4 just starts to run ok with 1 gig.
I myself still do not comprehend all of what KDE & Gnome provide.
I still use Windowmaker for my desktop.
It has served me well on a P90 16Meg laptop.
On my 250Mhz tower with 128Meg ram "it flies"(as some might say).
Now I'm using 1.6Ghz and 512meg, Total CPU usage is usually only about 1.0%.
This leaves all of that extra cpu for video & gaming etc.
Top shows it using 7308VIRT 4684RES 3320SHR memory. (WindowMaker)
Oh I have looked at the KDE & Gnome web sites, and other searhed places.
But I still don't quite see the big difference from Destop Enviroment
to Window Manager only.
What is the advantage to using all of that ram? and cpu?
I'll keep reading DW and all and maybe someday I'll find out the real
reasons of why one is better or more useable, or extra must have features,etc.
58 • @david (re: 191, question on slackware-current from last week's comments) (by jake at 2010-03-03 04:31:57 GMT from United States)
david, PV is updating -current again ... looks like the roller-coaster has started :-)
Those of you interested in eyeballing the work in progress, see:
ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/slackware-current/ChangeLog.txt
Those of you who think Slackware is "hard to use", try it again ... I check out most of the top 20 or so (and a few specialty distros) as they get updated, just to keep myself informed. Slackware is the only distro I spend next to no time maintaining, and is the only OS I've ever used that fades into the background to the point where I just use it without thinking about it.
59 • @56 - Vector w/ KDE4 (by DrCR at 2010-03-03 04:34:46 GMT from United States)
I'm a Vectorite. Started with Slackware back in the day, but soon moved to Vector which gave me all my likes without my dislikes. When Vector releases its KDE4 release, that will be foray into KDE4. Looking forward to it. :)
Going to have to try out Salix. I haven't really messed with Zenwalk much since back when they were "MiniSlack."
For some reason I just can't bring myself to like XFCE. I'm a KDE3.5 user, but somehow I even prefer IceWM or fluxbox over XFCE. Going to have to give it yet another shot though.
60 • @57 (by Reuben at 2010-03-03 05:38:46 GMT from United States)
No, KDE certainly does not require 2GB of RAM. 1GB should be more than enough. 512MB is a bit sketchy, and you should probably stick to a 32-bit system to cut down on RAM usage. No, KDE 4 was not designed for older systems, but pretty much any computer made in the last 5 years should run it just fine.
61 • KDE4 && Kubuntu && RAM (by Untitled at 2010-03-03 07:15:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
Like 53, I think that the Kubuntu team are doing a great job with KDE, but it's the KDE distribution many love to hate, whether it's justified or not.
As for RAM and KDE, on a three years old Dell laptop Kubuntu + KDE4.4 uses less than 512MB ram with full compositing enabled and Firefox running. The laptop has 2GB ram but it never uses them.
Same with my office computer. I have 3GB ram and I need it for the applications I use, but for firefox only I would get along fine.
I noticed it has more to do with your graphic card drivers. For open source ATI driver 512 (and swap) is enough. For fglrx you need more than 1GB.
I have also installed Kubuntu 9.08 on a machine with 512mb ram and it ran well, including compositing and was faster than the 8 years old OS that was installed on the computer before (and that wasn't working anymore).
62 • @57 RE: KDE4 memory requirement (by Mark on 2010-03-03 09:32:17 GMT from Australia)
As I said before, I am running KDE SC 4.4.1 on Arch Linux. It is blazingly fast (possibly because I am using the open source xf86-video-ati 3D compositing graphics driver), considerably fsater and more responsive than any other desktop software I have run on this same machine (including Windows XP). Arch Linux with KDE SC 4.4.1 boots from power off to a fully-loaded desktop in about 15 seconds, whereas the Windows XP desktop at my work takes over four minutes. OpenOffice 3.2 loads and is ready to use in less than 4 seconds the first time, and in two seconds each time thereafter.
>Now we need 1 or 2 gigs of ram to use our desktops too.
>Remember when they said Vista needs 2 gigs to run ok?
>Now someone says KDE 4 just starts to run ok with 1 gig.
As I was reading that message (so firefox 3.6 was still running), I started the System Monitor to have a look at the total amount of memory used. It was just 0.37 GiB.
KDE SC 4.4.1 under Arch Linux will run VERY well with 1GB of RAM installed, and quite happily with only 512 MB. It won't however run well on machines with only 256 MB of RAM.
63 • Slackware (by david on 2010-03-03 13:08:24 GMT from United States)
@58
Jake,
I see that. I too find slackware the easiest distro to maintain, after the initial time it takes to get it the way I like it. I personally like it when a distro limits the amount of scripts it runs and keeps packages as vanilla as possible.
Thanks
64 • RE:KDE4.4 Performance (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-03-03 13:33:04 GMT from United States)
On the subject of KDE I have one partition that I use for KDE in order to learn the new system. The best KDE3.5 release I ever used was LinuxMint 5. When KDE4.0 came out I tried it and was not impressed. Every time a new release would come out I would try it and I could see it was not ready. I tried several distros with KDE and there was not a lot of difference. Finally I installed Kubuntu 9.10 to try to learn more on the use of KDE4.3 and it worked really well. Then I installed LinuxMint 8 KDE and didn't really notice any difference mainly because there's not a lot of difference. I reinstalled Kubuntu 9.10 again and also installed the new KDE4.4. Kubuntu with KDE4.4 is a gem. It works very well and I've had no problems at all. At this time there would be no real improvement so no reason at all to move to another KDE distro. This is a learning environment. I'm a Gnome user. and I believe that it's superior to KDE. Maybe the reason for that is I'm still learning KDE4.x. I'm not sure where Gnome will end up so if I have to change hopefully I'll be ready. Because of the good review I'm going to try out one of the Slackware based distros. They sound interesting.
65 • KDE4 and memory usage (by Jesse at 2010-03-03 14:51:22 GMT from Canada)
I sometimes run KDE4 in a virtual machine with 512MB of memory without any problems, though it depends a bit on the distro. In my experience, even the heavier distributions can run KDE4 in less than 1GB of RAM without a performance hit. YMMV.
66 • Linux and support (by Bill Sterling on 2010-03-03 15:39:35 GMT from United States)
I have been cheating on MS off and on since RH 5.2. I've read about RS, LT, et al and have a deep respect for them and for each Linux developer that has set his hand on this code since. But code is still ONLY a tool to me for other things in my life, and I sincerely wish to avoid all the wearying racket that revolves around this business. Others do too, and the future holds a multitude to come.
First and foremost, people should be rewarded for their good efforts, especially in a world fraught with greed and arrogance. So my question is... whatever happened to the model of paid support, the developer/businessman who knows the answer to my "question X" and has both the politeness and personal satisfaction to inform me in a timely manner without reminding me of my deep ignorance. Him I would like to support with the money I make in MY line of work. Perhaps newcomers (not "newbies," dammit!) would like to know also!
67 • which distro for a small business, need word,spreadsheet,backup,easy use install (by Hi there on 2010-03-03 17:15:06 GMT from Australia)
which distro for a small business, need word,spreadsheet,something for timesheets, and paysheets. backup data ,easy to use install??
got ant roads test sites I can read please.
going to try teenpup mini beta and maybee easypeesy for an eeepc.
it will be a desktop pc but will be older spec p4 , 512 ram I hope.
maybe runnung from a usb for operating system, then a usb for data or a external hdd that I can take home.
oh under 700 mb is good so I no need a dvd player to install.
thanks any help would be nice
68 • rethinking the deskop? (by mean ... as meanier it could b on 2010-03-03 17:34:30 GMT from Portugal)
Desktops are getting heavier every day and I find myself running away from KDE as the devil from the cross. This is stupid. It doesn't make any sense to use meager resources on 3D effects with a dome desktop. People using Windows do claim against resources taken by the desktop beauty of some sort, as thoes resources are needed to run other more fun and important things, meanin applications. A 3D desktop is useless, it isn't a 3D animation application, nor a video editing one. It's nothing. Moreover, the drag and drop features are almost nonexistent (in case of doubt, I use the word "almost"). Linus developers are jerking themselves with desktops.
69 • re: kubuntu (by reuben at 2010-03-03 18:21:35 GMT from United States)
I think Kubuntu 9.10 is quite nice. No, it's not going to jump out with a custom theme, but then again default theme for KDE is okay. Compared to Fedora or Arch, they've put in quite a bit of effort to integrate all of the components into the KDE desktop. Jaunty Jackalope had it's stability issues, but I see no issues with Karmic on my laptop.
70 • No subject (by forest at 2010-03-03 20:33:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the desktop theme...this just in so for those interested:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/03/ubuntu-dumps-the-brown-introduces-new-theme.ars
71 • No.64 (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-03 22:05:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
Good to hear Eddie, if I could bring a few people to try and at least consider these it was worth it. Hope you will find it less resource-hungry and more straight-forward and just as capable as #buntu or Mint.
In case you haven't guessed I'm not a huge fan of control panels and slab menus. It sometimes, to me, seems like the latest fad in distros to distinguish themselves a little bit from the next one. Like there's nothing else left.
You can also still try Gnome or KDE from their repos, although I think their KDE4 is a bit outdated now. Have fun checking them out!
72 • Hi Landor (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-03 22:18:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
Exactly!
73 • Barnaby or Jake (by Landor at 2010-03-03 23:14:25 GMT from Canada)
What's the odds of getting just the kernel from current to run on 12.2 with as little fuss as possible?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
74 • Q.73 (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-04 00:32:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think not good. You'ld also have to upgrade glibc, aaa_elflibs and I believe udev thereby breaking a whole lot in 12.2. I haven't really looked into this, just a quick reaction. You would be better off taking the sources and compiling a newer kernel yourself, or perhaps better the latest in the 2.6.27 line 12.2 came with.
If you're really interested I would recommend to post in the a.o.l.s newsgroup, there are some very knowledgeable people there who it seems have run Slackware forever, and Unix before that.
They can definitely tell you what it will take.
75 • RE: 74 (by Landor at 2010-03-04 01:17:23 GMT from Canada)
Thank You Barnaby.
I was asking as someone that I know e-mailed me and reads the section. They're a fan of 3.5.XX as I am and wanted the latest kernel with 12.2 and asked me if I knew..lol I figured there'd be a few upgrades that would be daunting, yet I asked regardless.
I e-mailed them about unsupported for KDE 3.5 and they could use 13 instead. They're looking at running it on newer hardware, specifically looking for a solid ath9k driver for their wireless N.
That's going to be the biggest drawback of running anything new and making an attempt at using the KDE 3 series. I've ran into it myself. You end up either building your own kernel or building KDE 3 from sources against your current build environment.
It's actually one issue I found a shame about Vector. I personally don't care what I have to build and usually prefer it. Vector and of course a lot of distributions that still support the KDE 3 series are using an older kernel. The easiest solution is to just build your own kernel as you said, as long as said distribution even has KDE 3.
Anyway, thanks again.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
76 • ref #69 kubuntu 9.10 reuben (by RB at 2010-03-04 02:46:06 GMT from United States)
Reuben,
I feel the same way. Very stable. I have no problems. Works great and I'm usually using Gnome but I do like KK.
77 • Slackware 13.0 & KDE 3.5.10 (by jake at 2010-03-04 02:53:39 GMT from United States)
Landor, and anyone else interested ... Here's one option:
http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/unsupported/kde-3.5.10-for-slack13.0/
Here's another:
http://linuxcritic.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/upgrading-from-kde-4-2-4-to-kde-3-5-10-in-slackware-13/
Not sure if that's a help to you ... and a caveat, I haven't tried either. I have decided to start learning the ins & outs of KDE 4.x with this release of Slackware. Frankly, it sucks in some areas, but after a little customization, it's usable. Quite stable, too, at least on this 6 year old HP laptop (zv5000, upgraded to 2 gigs or RAM, box-stock otherwise. The only issue I had was the Broadcom wireless, but that's par for the course. With 2gigs, even fairly heavily used, it almost never hits the swap file. I did build a custom kernel, but the stock one worked fine for a couple weeks until I got around to it).
For the record, my Mom & Great Aunt both run a heavily customized version of Slack 12.2 ... and probably will until the end of time. So do a couple of the other computers around here.
A hint for anyone wanting to attempt this kind of surgery ... Do yourself a favor, get a dumb terminal, hang it off a serial port, and send it a login prompt. Makes life a LOT easier when you turn the console into a brick ;-)
78 • a.o.l.s & a further note. (by jake at 2010-03-04 05:32:35 GMT from United States)
a.o.l.s is a useful resource, however be aware that there are several folks who are really a waste of time posting to that group. I suggest filtering out cross-posts (especially to transformers and wrestling newsgroups), and anything with a Message-ID or referencing PRIMUS.CA ... This makes the signal to noise ratio a lot more favorable. (I personally don't actually use a kill-file, my wetware filters out the crap all by itself ... nearly thirty years of Usenet will do that to a guy ;-)
There is a thread beginning with Message-Id 4b837bcb$0$2484$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk that might be useful to the problem at hand.
I should add that after pondering the question a little longer, I think that adding a more modern kernel to Slack 12.2 is really opening a can of worms. While it could be done, you would wind up with something close enough to Slack 13.0 to make no never mind ... and PV & co. have already done that for you. I personally wouldn't bother, not unless I had a compelling business case for it ... and off the top of my head, I can't imagine such a case.
79 • Live streaming from CeBIT (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-04 10:19:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Watching the CeBIT live today, part English part German.
http://www.techcast.com/events/cebit10/
The full program until Sat 6th is here
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Events/CeBIT-Open-Source-Forum-2010
80 • Signal-to-noise (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-04 10:25:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Oh yeah, the wrestling and transformers cross-posts. Until then it was actually quite civil last year, but these guys made a kill-file necessary again.
81 • Beginner's questions (by YankeeDDL on 2010-03-04 13:23:21 GMT from Belgium)
I'm sure that these questions have been asked a million times already ...
If somebody could give me some guidance, I'd appreciate it.
1) Why are there sooo many distros? I've gone through the latest Distrowatch issue and read through Zenwalk, Salix and GoblinX. They all use Xfce and are all based on Slackware.
Clearly there's a difference in default customization, but, I suppose, users are expected to do their own customization anyway (after all, customization is one of Linux's stronghold).
I see a small difference in Kernel version, but that too, can be upgraded later on anyway: am I not right?
I have 'played' with Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu. There's an obvious interface difference between Gnome, Xfce and KDE, but even so, there's an obvious commonality (at least that's how I see it).
2) The 2nd obvious question is: how do I find the "right" one for me?
Trying is probably the right answer, but I thought I'd ask.
I found KDE a bit sluggish but did not notice any practical difference between Gnome and Xfce (setting proxies is a bit trickier in Xfce).
82 • No subject (by forest at 2010-03-04 14:48:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #82
You might try reading this and see if this is useful to yourself:
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7721/1.html
or:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3867441/Linux-Distro-Switching-Pro-vs-Con.htm
or:
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7694/1.html
or;
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7712/1.html
I apologise if I am teaching granny to suck eggs.
83 • Elive and 3g (by forlin at 2010-03-04 23:20:10 GMT from Portugal)
Elive announced the release of a new stable version.
Like the distros reviewed this week, it's another operating system customised for minimal hardware requirements, witch means a good choice for old hardware and also nettops.
One feature I appreciated in the new Elive is the support for 3g mobile broadband. I think this should be a standard in all light distros, as it allow the users of nettops to access the net in the outdoors, but unfortunately, as far as I know, it's very rare to happen.
84 • fond d'écarn spécifique (by jean de saint genois on 2010-03-05 07:12:39 GMT from France)
hello,
congratulations on Distrowatch.
I test every major distibution and it seems that for each one, the screen background specific, should specify the name of the distribution, especially its exit numbers, his brief references.
thank you
85 • No subject (by forest at 2010-03-05 16:03:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well, it's one way of looking at distros (over two pages):
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6999/1/
86 • elive (by david on 2010-03-05 18:50:17 GMT from United States)
Yeh!!, a new stable version of elive. I for one did pay the 15 dollars to install elive to my hard drive. Not because I am unable to get e17 running on debian myself. But because I believe developers should be able to make a living creating alternatives to the "big boys". I have been running it for only a few hours but hardware detection was spot on, wireless worked flawlessly, Nvidia drivers automatically installed, and the included software is sufficient. This is a great way to get a lot of "Bling" out of your desktop using minimal resources. And best of all it's based on Debian.
David
87 • Fee (by Melo on 2010-03-05 21:33:48 GMT from Belgium)
People who ask money to download or let someone install free software should be banned from the Internet.
Go and sell hot air on the market in a paper bag.
88 • Novell / openSUSE up for sale? (by RollMeAway at 2010-03-05 23:07:04 GMT from United States)
http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/37373-are-these-the-last-days-of-novell-as-we-know-it
Quite a surprise.
89 • @87 (by Woodstock69 on 2010-03-05 23:21:59 GMT from Papua New Guinea)
Nothing wrong with asking money for anything you have to offer. That's the great thing about choice. You don't have to buy anything that is offered for free elsewhere.
However, in the case of distro's, what's wrong with selling a CD / DVD? The physical media costs money and so does the postage. If you find a cheaper distributor of the same media, choice comes into play once again.
BTW - Do you pay an ISP for internet access? Nothing is really for free on the internet (unless you use someone elses connection ;^) ). Like energy, money cannot be created or destroyed, it just gets passed around in different forms.......
90 • @87 (by david on 2010-03-05 23:39:19 GMT from United States)
Melo,
I'll give you $15.00 if you need it!!
I also think your definition of free is obtuse. It's nice that you have a choice, and don't have to pay, huh?
What's next ....ban the whole damn world??
91 • Re: 87 (by jake at 2010-03-06 04:03:11 GMT from United States)
Personally, even though I have Slackware-current running on a couple boxes, and as a result I always have the new release available on my network as soon as it is released, I always purchase the "official" CD set or DVD. With the 13.0 release, I dropped ~$70 on the book+DVD set[1], and bought two new Slackware T-shirts and the bottle opener. Along with reporting bugs in -current, it's my way of giving back to the OS that I've used for a decade and a half.
If you have a problem with that, Melo, I respectfully suggest that you have a problem, and not me, nor the folks who build Slackware.
[1] I didn't need the book or DVD, but I know a kid struggling to pay his own way thru' a local Junior College. I taught his UN*X 101 course, and he's been asking me questions ever since. He's been using Slack for a couple years, knows he's still learning, has good attitude, asks properly thought out question ... and I knew he couldn't afford to buy it himself. He got 'em as a birthday present. Probably a mistake on my part ... He'll most likely steal my job in 8 or 10 years ;-)
92 • Re: 81 (by jake at 2010-03-06 04:27:09 GMT from United States)
"1) Why are there sooo many distros?"
Various answers, probably the most accurate would be human vanity; in essence the folks releasing most general purpose desktop distros are saying "look at me, look at me!" Another reason is that a Linux user customizes the system for a specific purpose, and then releases it (Dyne:bolic is a good example, as is SystemRescue, and the various firewall distros). Another is a group of people decide that a distribution can be built on to make it suit their own opinion, for examples see all the *buntus. Another would be the people who build a distro for themselves, to suit their own needs, and choose to release it to the world. Slackware is a good example of this last one. There are many more reasons (size being a good one), and nearly all of them overlap to a degree in all of the above.
Clear as mud?
"2) The 2nd obvious question is: how do I find the "right" one for me?"
Easy. Ask yourself what software you need to run, then figure out what distro best fulfills that need. As a hint, a Mac or a Windows machine, or perhaps one running EcomStation may be what you really need. Might sound sacrilegious (at least in this forum), but I'm not religious about my OS ... It's a tool to get a job done, not an end unto it's own. Hint 2 ... ignore the fanbois. All of 'em. Not a single one of them is using your computer ... YOU use your computer. Run the software you need to run.
93 • No subject (by forest at 2010-03-06 08:50:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref the "correct" distro for your needs, from our very own Chris.S, if you have not read the article already:
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7721/1.h
94 • Re: 93 (by jake at 2010-03-06 09:22:45 GMT from United States)
"http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7721/1.h"
Typo(e)s and/or copy/paste errors aren't helpful for folks new to GNU/Linux ...
"Sorry but the page you are looking for does not exist"
On top of that, you already already commented on that article, twice, in #82.
Keep it minimal, forest ... Small tools that do the job right and can be combined to do larger tasks is the UN*X way ...
95 • No subject (by forest at 2010-03-06 13:33:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ref #94
Blush, the -tml- was missing.
Double blush...must proof read, must proof read.
96 • elive online commerce (by back to basics on 2010-03-06 15:16:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
I tried out the new elive distro and after a number of attempts and tweeking it I managed to get the desktop gui to work.
I've got a spare partition for test installs so I'd though I'd give it a test.
I was taken back by a minimum $15 fee to install it. If it worked fine on my hardware and met all my requirements for a keeper distro I'd have no problem coughing up $15 or more.
Given the fact that probably only 1 out of 20 distros I test are 'keepers', and there appeared to be a lack of a refund policy if it doesn't work for you, I gave it a pass. Too risky.
Most digital products sold on-line come with a refund policy if you don't like it. You sell far more products this way and the refund rate, unless it's a crappy, scammy product, is minimal. That's a fact of on-line sales.
The elive crew obviously haven't grasped this basic fact about on-line sales. You have to remove the risk.
97 • Elive (by Andre Prado at 2010-03-06 15:26:40 GMT from United States)
Downloaded it, tried it, liked it, destroyed it. Demanding money during installation is extremely off-putting. Don't need it, won't have it.
98 • PCLinuxOS 2010 Beta (by Crow on 2010-03-06 17:02:36 GMT from Mexico)
Good news. PCLinuxOS 2010 beta has been shipped today, first major change since 2007.
99 • PCLinuxOS (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-06 17:33:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
Whoever's interested can get it here
http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/texstar/pclinuxos/live-cd/english/preview/
Gonna give it a try in Vbox.
100 • Slackware just ROCKS!!! (by Antonio on 2010-03-06 19:45:28 GMT from United States)
I am normally a Fedora user because I love bleeding edge software and run Rawhide on several machines and still do, I like Slax as a liveCD/LiveUSB to carry with me where I go it is "My Pocket OS" but have on three machines respectively two at home installed Slackware and it does live up to its reputation as many users here have mentioned.
One professor's son recommended me Slackware, and I did not pay attention at that time, but later on tried it installed it and boy I regret not trying it sooner. I like building my own packages(using Slackbuilds.org), I like that the system does not get in my way and the simplicity of it all. I see that TeTeX is the tex system on Slackware, no prob, get texlive sources and use the slackbuild to build texlive and remove tetex have a new texlive system.
I also will dispute the misconception that Slackware *does not update as often as Fedora/Arch/others*, when in fact like Jake mentions one can be current and thanks to Distrowatch post, I try to keep up with Slackware current using slackpkg update and other commands. Since I keep Fedora updated, I wanted to do the same with a Slackware install and Distrowatch provided a nice tutorial for it:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090518
olivares@darkstar:~$ cat /etc/slackware-version
Slackware 13.0.0.0.0
olivares@darkstar:~$ uname -r
2.6.33-smp
Happy Distrowatching :)
101 • @100 (by stuckinoregon on 2010-03-06 19:58:50 GMT from United States)
Hey Antonio, have you tried sbopkg? It syncs with slackbuild. Automates the build process even a bit more. Slack does rock, however I just can't quit my beloved Debian.
102 • PCLinuxOS 2010 beta 1 (by Henning Melgaard on 2010-03-07 00:14:27 GMT from Denmark)
I downloaded and installed the iso from ibiblio.org.
This was a pleasant surprise. It works without any problems on my old test machine : Intel Celeron D 2,66 Ghz- Nvidia Fx5200 128 mb.
P.S. I also tried the link mentioned in post 99. That didn´t work for me . Burned the image to a cd but it would not boot.
The image is quite small, 248 mb. The image from ibiblio.org is 694 mb. That works fine.
103 • @101 sbopkg? (by Antonio on 2010-03-07 01:39:49 GMT from United States)
Dear stuckinoregon,
Thank you for sharing that! I will take a look at it :)
http://www.sbopkg.org/
It reminds me a bit of FreeBSD and its ports system. I see many similarities between FreeBSD and Slackware, it seems that mainly the differences are the ports system vs slacbuilds and linux vs BSD. But they keep close to upstream and they don't get in your way with fancy stuff :)
104 • @102 (by Crow on 2010-03-07 03:14:23 GMT from Mexico)
Probably that place was still syncing, all are mirrors from ibiblio.
I'm glad it worked for you, I find it very stable and fast.
105 • Ref#99 • PCLinuxOS by Barnabyh (by RB at 2010-03-07 05:56:29 GMT from United States)
How come PCLinuxOS 2010 Beta is only 250mb and
PCLinuxOS 2009 is over 600mb. What what left off the new beta?
106 • PCLinux 2010-Beta1 link: (by RollMeAway at 2010-03-07 06:29:23 GMT from United States)
ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/pclinuxos/live-cd/english/preview/
It installed smoothly for me.
107 • PCLinuxOS 2010 will require a fresh install, it seems. (by Rolling Release Limitations at 2010-03-07 08:12:17 GMT from Australia)
Texstar
Re: New PClinuxos 2010?
January 28, 2010
Question: Will 2010 require a clean install?
Texstar: "....The original plan was to simply update 2009 through 2010. Due to the
complex issues and user intervention required to go to new kernel 2.6.32.4, udev,
hal,initscripts, plymouth bootsplash, speedboot, xorg, compiz 3D, nvidia/fglrx
drivers, ext 4 default file system, KDE 4.4 it is easier for me to provide a new
ISO with a 2010 repository in a couple of weeks than to spend 3-4 months trying
to work up some kind of valid upgrade path that probably be more trouble to the
end user than it is worth. Once we get everyone on 2010 we can keep rolling
along with updates again...."
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,67780.msg553277.html#msg553277
108 • pclos beta (by Barnabyh at 2010-03-07 13:02:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
The 248mb iso from the nluug link didn't boot for me either. I just checked and it is still at that size, probably a problem with syncing as suggested by Crow.
Seems the best bet is to use ibiblio for now, the link provided in #106.
109 • pclos beta (by Henning Melgaard on 2010-03-07 15:50:50 GMT from Denmark)
It would be even easier and better if there was a link and a reference to it here on Distrowatch....
110 • Barnaby & Jake / Other stuff (by Landor at 2010-03-07 17:29:27 GMT from Canada)
I was asked to convey the person's thanks to both of you. For various reasons they won't post here.
I actually installed along side (virtually that is :) )them and messed around with KDE 3.5.10 as well. I was shocked with the e-mail for the question. I guess due to the topic and I'm always talking about various ways to install KDE 3.5.10 still.
What I told them in the end, to get KDE 3.5.10 on pretty well most any distribution is compile the source. Big job, but once you do it enough it becomes old hat, as with anything. You learn to expect various pitfalls too, depending on the base.
Anyway, thanks again.
===========
Here's something I found amazing, there isn't an application end of it built for Linux though, sadly. It is opensource though.
A guy is using a Wiimote (Wii Remote) to simplify and reduce the costs to creating a whiteboard. It's amazing. Did I say amazing yet? I smiled because I've even agreed with the Nintendo Generation moniker and here's a guy doing what I think is great with a Nintendo product. This is real genius in my opinion, real invention. He's had a need and figured out his own low-cost method of filling that need. There's more he does with this concept too.
Here's the link to the stuff on the Wiimote : http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/
If you go back to the main page you'll find a lot more, links to videos and such.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
111 • OpenSolaris is here to stay (by Anonymous at 2010-03-08 00:35:42 GMT from Brazil)
Oracle forever!!! OpenSolaris one day more...
112 • Re: 95 (by jake at 2010-03-08 06:11:29 GMT from United States)
"must proof read."
Me too ... None of us are perfect. Life goes on ...
But I'll repeat, keep it minimal ... Basic info only ... it's the UN*X way.
Number of Comments: 112
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P!tux Linux
P!tux Linux was an operating system of the Linux family, based on Slackware Linux distribution and on kernel 2.2.x. It can be installed both on an ext2 filesystem (on a dedicated partition) or on a DOS filesystem (as a loopback device). It can be installed from DOS, Linux, in umsdos mode or via FTP. Basic installation requires a 486 PC with 8 MB RAM and 105 MB minimum hard disk space. During the installation another 150 MB will be used.
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