 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 354, 17 May 2010 |
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Welcome to this year's 20th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! As the new OpenBSD CD sets start showing up in the mailboxes of users who support the development of the project, we speak to Stefan Sperling, an OpenBSD developer. What's new in version 4.7? And what's it like being part of a mysterious group of hard-core developers who have been so successful in producing one of the most secure operating system on the market? Read on to find out. In the news section, Mandriva CEO Arnaud Laprévote diffuses rumours about the company's existential concerns, BLAG developer community revives a long-dormant Fedora-based distribution with "libre" characteristics, and Dianne Ursini of Technology Alignment explains the reasons for terminating the development of Pioneer Linux. Also in this issue, links to two excellent articles on APT and RPM package management and an interesting opinion on barriers to Linux adoption. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (23MB) and MP3 (32MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Chatting with OpenBSD's Stefan Sperling
 In an ever-changing world where technology moves forward so rapidly, there is something to be said for projects which focus on stability and security. One of the best examples of such a project is OpenBSD, an operating system which has had only two remote holes in its default install “in a heck of a long time”. The OpenBSD team is busy gearing up for the 4.7 release due out in May. The new release carries many enhancements, including better hardware support, improved network stack and new OpenSSH features. One of the developers, Stefan Sperling, took time out of his busy day to share of his personal views about the OS.
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DW: Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, where you're from and how you got involved with BSD?
SS: I'm Stefan Sperling, born and living in Berlin, Germany. I started using BSD in my early 20s, using FreeBSD as a desktop system. Later I was introduced to OpenBSD by OpenBSD developer grunk@. I used FreeBSD on the desktop and OpenBSD on the laptop for some time. When I moved to Ireland for my final year of college I didn't bring the desktop machine. I did not mind leaving FreeBSD behind because of their permissive policy on binary blobs, and also because I had more luck submitting patches to OpenBSD.
DW: When did you start working on OpenBSD?
SS: I became an OpenBSD developer while doing my Master's degree on software development for computer networks. My main project for this degree was to improve the work-in-progress OSPF for IPv6 implementation in OpenBSD. I have been working on ospf6d together with OpenBSD developer claudio@ since. My work on it slowed down after I graduated, but I still like working on it as time permits.
DW: Is there a specific part of the project you focus your development efforts on?
SS: My main focus has been on ospf6d. I have also been looking into improving UTF-8 support. I use mutt for email and many people send me UTF-8 email these days. It is a bit annoying that mutt cannot display UTF-8 out of the box on OpenBSD. This is mainly because our libc only supports single-byte character encodings. I managed to add the missing libc parts to my system, based on code from FreeBSD and NetBSD. I can now read UTF-8 email in mutt. I hope that all OpenBSD users will eventually benefit from this work. Very small parts of this have already gone in, but there is still a lot to do to get it all committed. It has to be added in incremental steps, and each step has to pass peer review. And because OpenBSD is a volunteer project this takes time. But I am not in a rush.
DW: Looking at the upcoming OpenBSD 4.7, there are some great-looking changes to OpenSSH and hardware support. What other new features and improvements are people going to see over 4.6?
SS: For me, the most important change is that ospf6d is now installed by default. It is still work-in-progress, but Claudio especially has made many improvements which make ospf6d work for simple setups. We would love to receive test reports for ospf6d. We hope to eventually provide a complete, solid, interoperable, and free implementation of OSPF for the IPv6 internet.
DW: Back in January a developer released GNOBSD, which sets up OpenBSD in a live environment with a desktop. How do you feel about GNOBSD and do you think it will have any impact on the OpenBSD project?
SS: That project sounds like an entertaining and educating experience for its developer, which is great. I don't think OpenBSD will ever adapt a graphical installation environment, so it won't have an impact on the OpenBSD project.
DW: There is a lot of code in a modern operating system. How does the OpenBSD team keep track of and audit so much code to ensure there aren't any security holes introduced?
SS: Every change has to pass peer review. A lot of the developers are very experienced with reviewing code for bugs. Getting my changes reviewed by others has already caught, before commit, a number of mistakes I had made.
Also, the project focuses on implementing various security features consistently, which increases overall system security by limiting the impact of mistakes that will invariably creep in (we're humans, not machines). One such feature is privilege separation of daemons. Every daemon added to OpenBSD has to be privilege-separated. For instance, ospf6d is a privilege-separated daemon split into three independent processes, each performing a separate subtask of the OSPF protocol, and only one of which runs as root. See here for more information.
To ease review and help fix bugs, great effort is spent on keeping the code of the system consistent. For example, ospf6d shares code for passing messages between privilege-separated processes with other OpenBSD daemons, like ospfd and bgpd. Bugs found in the shared code will be fixed in all daemons.
DW: OpenBSD is able to run binaries from other systems (such as FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris). Each of those is a constantly evolving platform, is it hard to keep up?
SS: Linux binary emulation only works on OpenBSD/i386 at the moment. I don't find much need for it to be honest. The only reason I'd use binary emulation is to run proprietary software, but I don't usually use proprietary software. A vast amount of free and open-source software has been ported to OpenBSD and runs very well on it. On the rare occasion that I have to run proprietary software, I just use Linux. It is much easier to run proprietary software on Linux than it is to run it on OpenBSD. This, combined with the fact that no proprietary drivers are used in OpenBSD, makes OpenBSD a very good platform for free and open source software enthusiasts. And no, I don't miss Flash and NVIDIA drivers. I don't want them.
DW: OpenBSD has a fairly rapid release cycle, putting out a new version about once every six months. Yet the operating system has a reputation for being stable. How do the developers keep pace with technology and maintain a stable and secure system?
DW: Once 4.7 has hit the download mirrors, what comes next? Does the OpenBSD team have any specific goals for 4.8?
SS: I cannot speak for the entire team. I hope to get some degree of UTF-8 support into 4.8, but this depends on whether I manage to keep my work up to the standards set by the other developers. And of course I also hope to further improve ospf6d.
DW: Stefan, thank you for taking the time to talk about OpenBSD and best of luck in your work.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Mandriva CEO on company situation, BLAG gets revived with new alpha, Pioneer Linux closes shop, APT and RPM package management
 Arnaud Laprévote, the newly appointed CEO of Mandriva S.A., has reacted to the recent rumours about a possible sale of the company. Apparently, the media got it all wrong - Mandriva isn't seeking a buyer; instead it's the other companies which are looking to acquire some of the assets belonging to the French distribution maker: "We are beginning to harvest the results of this development work with hundreds of thousands of PCs using the Mandriva operating system sold in South America, Asia and rapid sales of Pulse2 and MES5 in Europe. So it is unsurprising that Mandriva has once again attracted the interest of industry decision-makers." The Mandriva CEO has carefully side-stepped the issue of the situation financière tendue as reported on the Boursorama forum and which gave rise to the media speculation about the company's health. The good news is that the development of Mandriva Linux 2010.1 continues normally and that the release candidate for the new stable version, although delayed by a few days, should arrive later this week. The final release is still scheduled for arrival on June 3rd.
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 BLAG Linux And GNU, a Fedora-based, 100% "libre" distribution, hasn't seen a new release in nearly two years and has been labelled as "dormant" by DistroWatch for some time. Will it ever awake? There is hope. A reader emailed us last week saying that efforts are being made to prepare for a new release, with a first alpha build announced just a few days later: "Our first alpha for BLAG 119k has been released. Based on Fedora 12, it represents what our next release, 120k, will include. This release is a culmination of discussions revolving around reviving BLAG. Conversations within our community by veteran 'BLAGgers', long-time supporters, new contributors and users who have stood beside the values and principles of the distribution for a long time. BLAG is 100% free software and this release includes updated packages familiar to most users to get up and running with a stable desktop all on one CD. BLAG 119k by default is a live CD. It includes Alexandre Olivia's Freed-ora linux-libre kernels. GNOME, LXDE and Openbox are now available for choices of desktop environments." Quick download links for those interested in testing the new release (MD5): BLAG-119999-Live-i686.iso (676MB), BLAG-119999-Live-x86-64.iso (683MB).
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 While some distributions get revived, others disappear into the annals of history. Diane Ursini, the CEO of a company called Technology Alignment which used to produce Pioneer Linux, has now called it a day: "Pioneer Linux is pretty much at the wayside since two years ago now and we've just stopped development." But the blog post is a very interesting read; it touches on some of the highlights of the project and gives some advice to people who still hesitate about switching to Linux: "I just installed Ubuntu 10.04 on most of our systems. We replaced all of the Pioneer Linux systems with it and I'll tell you what, this is the operating system the masses need and should be using. It's good for three years and five years on a server. It's real easy to use, it installs everything really easily. It's what the masses really want, or do they? It's scary to lose what you're accustomed to. I'd be really worried going to Windows 7 since I can't stand using Windows. I remember marketing and selling Linux to computer stores way back when and the comment we always got back was they wouldn't sell or market it because people would stop coming in to get their Windows serviced. My stars, I suppose people need to make money and off the sweat of others, but again my stars."
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 Finally, something rather technical, but also a great resource for those preparing for their Linux Professional Institute certification exams. IBM developerWorks has published a comprehensive article on Debian package management: "Learn how to install, upgrade, and manage packages on your Linux system. This article focuses on the Advanced Packaging Tool, or APT, which is the package management system used by Debian and distributions derived from Debian, such as Ubuntu. You can use the material in this article to study for the LPI 101 exam for Linux system administrator certification, or just to explore the best ways to add new software and keep your system current. Learn to: install, reinstall, upgrade, and remove Debian binary packages; find packages containing specific files or libraries, even if the package is not installed; obtain package information like version, content, dependencies, package integrity, and installation status, even if the package is not installed. This article helps you prepare for Objective 102.4 in Topic 102 of the Linux Professional Institute's Junior Level Administration (LPIC-1) exam 101. The objective has a weight of 3." A separate article covers RPM and YUM package management.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Linux adoption
Climbing-the-wall asks: What's the biggest barrier to Linux adoption?
DistroWatch answers: I suppose the obvious, and not very helpful, answer is that Linux is held back from adoption by its lack of adoption. It's a circular problem. Linux needs more commercial applications, but commercial vendors won't port their software to Linux until it gains more market share. The Linux community needs more drivers from hardware vendors, but those hardware companies won't spend the money to make Linux drivers without a bigger market. The Linux community would benefit from more computers being sold with a Linux OS pre-installed, but that's not going to happen until more consumers request it. All these things which would greatly encourage people to cross over to the Penguin side require that Linux have more users. Preferably users willing to spend money to support their choice. It's getting better. Linux has made a lot of progress in the past ten years. Even in the last five years. But it still has a long road ahead of it.
From my personal experience, there are two things which keep coming up as preventing people from using Linux. The first is that their current operating system is good enough. It runs what they want, it works in a manner they're used to and they've already paid for it. There really isn't any need for them to switch. Sometimes I get these folks to try Linux and they use it and agree that, yes, it works great, but they already have a working operating system. Why switch? They're not interested in free software, they're interested in their computer continuing to work the way it has.
The other big barrier is applications. For average home users, Linux has most of the programs a person will want. It does e-mail and web browsing, rips and burns CDs, word processing and spreadsheets. But for gamers and office work, it's a completely different story. Linux has games, it has great games, but it doesn't have the big-name games. And, more to the point, it doesn't have exclusive big-name games, which might draw gamers over to the penguin. And a lot of software designed for the corporate office just doesn't work on Linux, or Linux with WINE.
Two years ago, I took about seventy-five applications which were used in the office where I worked and tried to install them on various modern Linux distributions with WINE. I also tried to find Linux alternatives which would fit the same role as the Windows apps used in the office. Less than a dozen of the seventy-five applications either worked properly in WINE or had comparable open source alternatives. Obviously, I couldn't go to the IT manager of that company and suggest a switch which would cause 85% of the company's software to stop working. Sometimes I see the same problem with users who work from home. They like how stable and fast Linux is, but it won't run That One Application they need for work.
Perhaps a more important question would be: How do I support Linux and help the community to grow? There are a lot of options there. For example, make it a point to buy hardware that is Linux compatible wherever possible. When buying new computers, make a point of asking the vendor if they sell Linux machines or computers without any OS pre-installed. If they don't, tell them you'll buy from another supplier for that reason. When I see a game I like, I'll write to the developers and ask if they sell a Linux port. On-line retailers or government organizations whose web sites don't support Firefox/Linux should get e-mails asking them to expand their support. When friends or family are looking to fix, upgrade or replace their computers, I'll ask them to try Linux to see if it fits their needs.
Those are all things aimed at people outside of the Linux community, but things can be improved within the "Linuxsphere" too. It's important to take the time to report bugs, to write documentation, to donate funds to projects that produce useful software and to submit feature requests. In short, if you wish to see Linux expand its user base, it's important to be engaged, both inside the community and outside.
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| Released Last Week |
PCLinuxOS 2010 "Openbox"
The lightweight and fast "Openbox" edition of PCLinuxOS 2010 completes the release line-up of the distribution's 2010 series: "PCLinuxOS 2010 Openbox edition provides a fully-featured desktop, showcasing the small, fast, and fully compliant Openbox window manager. Internet applications include Firefox web browser, Sylpheed email client, Pino twitter client and Pidgin for instant messaging. Office applications include AbiWord word processor, Gnumeric spreadsheet and Mozilla Sunbird calendar. Graphic applications include GIMP, GQview, and MTPaint. Features: Linux kernel 2.6.32.11-bfs for maximum desktop performance; Openbox desktop with Tint2 panel; NVIDIA and ATI fglrx driver support; multimedia playback support for many popular formats; wireless support for many network devices...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
eBox Platform 1.4-2
José Antonio Calvo has announced the release of eBox Platform 1.4-2, an Ubuntu-based server distribution for small and medium-size businesses: "We've done a lot of bug-fixing and small improvements since the last 1.4-1 release. All those enhancements have now been included in a new installer. Here is a summary of the most relevant changes: DNS - added support for internal networks allowed to recourse the caching server; Ebackup - improvements on frequency and keep options, added backup and restore of logs, added restore configuration from backup action; Egroupware - now works properly in a master-slave scenario; firewall - new firewall table containing rules added by eBox services; network - failover test are more robust now; Samba - allow guest shares; Squid - new bandwidth throttling support with delay pools...." See the release announcement for a complete list of improvements.
CentOS 5.5
Karanbir Singh has announced the release of CentOS 5.5, a distribution created by compiling the source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5: "We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of CentOS 5.5 for i386 and x86_64 architectures. CentOS 5.5 is based on the upstream release 5.5 and includes packages from all variants including Server and Client. All upstream repositories have been combined into one, to make it easier for end users to work with. Live CDs for CentOS 5.5 on i386 and x86_64 are being released at the same time as the main distro. The live CDs are meant to be used to run a CentOS 5.5 environment or to start a network-based install. The live CDs are set up to allow running from either optical media like CDs and DVDs or from USB keys and other portable media." Read the release announcement and release notes for additional details.
Toorox 05.2010
Joern Lindau has announced the release of Toorox 05.2010, a Gentoo-based live DVD featuring the latest KDE 4 desktop and a graphical system installer: "Toorox 05.2010. A new version has been finished; it contains the Linux kernel 2.6.33. The KDE desktop environment has been updated to the recent version 4.4.3. All KDE 3 applications and dependencies have been removed. KlamAV has been replaced by ClamTk and K3b has been updated to the latest Qt 4 RC version. Guarddog and kdetv have been removed. Also umtsmon has been removed, but now the complete network configuration and Internet connection is handled by NetworkManager and you can establish a mobile connection via nm-applet. Nearly all packages have been updated to the latest version. The binary ATI driver (fglrx) still doesn't support the latest X.Org Server 1.8 so this release contains version 1.7.6." Here is the complete release announcement.
Puppy Linux 5.0
Larry Short has announced the release of Puppy Linux 5.0: "Puppy Linux 5.0, code name 'Lupu' and also referred to as 'Lucid Puppy' as it is built from Ubuntu 10.04 'Lucid Lynx' binary packages, is now available. It is a typical Puppy, lean and fast, friendly and fun, with some new features. Puppy 5.0 features Quickpet, with some of the best Linux productivity and entertainment programs, configured and tested, available with one-click. It also introduces choice in browsers - pick one or all and choose the default. Lupu boots directly to the desktop and has tools easily at hand to personalize Puppy, if they are needed. Language and locale are easy to set. Barry Kauler's Simple Network Setup is another of those easy configuration tools. Updating to keep up with bug fixes is another one-click wonder." For a detailed description of the new release please see the release announcement and release notes.
Puppy Linux 5.0 comes with updated packages and artwork.
(full image size: 448kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Quirky 1.1
Barry Kauler has announced the release of Quirky 1.1, a bug-fix update to the recently released version 1.0: "I am pleased to announce the released of Quirky 1.1. Briefly, the main focus was to fix bugs in 1.0, but I also upgraded many applications. Most importantly, SeaMonkey has migrated from the 1.x series, after we solved some bugs with the 2.x series. JWM is now the default window manager and tray, as it is noticeably faster (and looks nicer) than Openbox/Fbpanel. Two show-stoppers were Ayttm and You2pup which did not work, both fixed. Release notes: The 'xfontsel' utility was missing although had a menu entry; upgrading (and rollbacks) of the X.Org drivers; Partview utility (to view free space in partitions) fixed for more than 11 partitions; Ayttm chat client did not work, upgraded and fixed...." See the release announcement and release notes for a full list of changes and bug fixes.
Element 1.2
Katie McCarley has announced the release of Element 1.2, an Ubuntu-based distribution for home theatre or media-centre personal computers: "The Element team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Element version 1.2. This version includes general package upgrades and upstream bug fixes to the application stack in addition to introducing three new utilities: E-Bar Editor - a minimal and to-the-point configuration editor for the central launcher bar; NVIDIA HDMI Audio Switch - a simple on/off switch that channels audio through the HDMI port on ION and 8X00 series cards; Update Manager - a fork of the standard Update Manager from Ubuntu and GNOME, packaged and configured for use on Element with distribution upgrade options omitted. Other important features and requests include the addition of Thunar file sharing plugins, easier Bluetooth setup, removal of Compiz window effects, and an optimized package list." Here is the full release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Fedora 13 delay
 The release of Fedora 13 has been delayed by a week. Paul W. Frields explains the reasons in this post published on the project's announce mailing list: "The Fedora 13 final readiness meeting, also known as the 'go/no-go' meeting, was held this evening. As the meeting notes indicate, there are bugs remaining on the blocker list. According to the release criteria, the decision was made to slip the release of Fedora 13 by one week, to Tuesday 2010-05-25. During composition of any further release candidates, the Fedora Release Engineering and Quality Assurance teams plan to be conservative in accepting fixes for the release, and will limit these to blocker items and critical fixes. The Fedora 13 release schedule has been updated to reflect the new release date. We regret any inconvenience to the community."
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
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New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- OwnOS CreativeSuite. OwnOS CreativeSuite is a multimedia-oriented distribution and live DVD based on Ubuntu. The project's web sit is in German.
- Xin. Xin is a Linux live CD offering the following features: remote media player / media center supporting multi-file playback, playlists and drag-and-drop URLs; remote desktop display; media player or desktop controllable from multiple clients; multiple Xin media players or displays controllable from a single PC; all controllable and configurable from Windows, be it Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 24 May 2010.
Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • PeppermintOS (by John Lloyd on 2010-05-17 10:32:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
This distribution certainly seems to break new ground in Cloud computing. Well done!
2 • Blag back again!!! (by mika on 2010-05-17 10:44:19 GMT from Italy)
That's a very good news!
Stay tuned!
3 • Hardware (by Tom on 2010-05-17 11:05:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi :)
Does anyone know any good sites that show which hardware manufacturers are best to support? Even sites that list in detail which particular models would be useful but they are a little scary to look at so something that gives a broad-brush-strokes type answer would be most ideal to know
I did ask extremely late last week but i think Mondays is usually a lot of people's preferred day to settle in to the DW week.
Regards from
Tom :)
4 • Hardware (by LAZA on 2010-05-17 12:02:22 GMT from Germany)
@ Tom:
like this one:
http://linux-hardware.org/liste2.php?hersteller=&geraet=&kategorie=
5 • "Openbox" edition of PCLinuxOS 2010 completes the release line-up ..." (by meanpt on 2010-05-17 12:13:48 GMT from Portugal)
... well ... for me is a starting ... installed it with 254 MB of RAM in a VBOX's vm, and when needed (e.g. for exporting documents to other formats other thean the Open Office's) I allow 400 MB of RAM. On the other hand, I believe PCLOS people are getting .. well, unreliable. Despite stating ".If you need a fast lightweight desktop then PCLinuxOS Openbox Edition is for you.", they list exactly the same RAM requirements as for the other desktop releases, which does not comply with the truly "lightweght"er feature..
6 • "I don't think OpenBSD will ever adapt a graphical installation environment" (by meanpt on 2010-05-17 12:28:13 GMT from Portugal)
... well, I don't understand if he's referring to a "graphical installer" cause, beyond that, anytime I tried to install openbsd I ended up with a command line environment without knowing what to do next, just because they list in their DW page "Desktop: AfterStep, Blackbox, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, GNOME, IceWM, KDE, Openbox, WMaker, Xfce". :( ... maybe they should state I could try to adapt one of those if I knew enough to tweak it. Which isn't the case.
7 • Spin, Blag, Peppermints (by Sam on 2010-05-17 12:42:32 GMT from United States)
Why does Mandriva's announcement that the company itself is not for sale not assuage my thoughts they're selling the distro?
Is it *EVER* good for a distro, like Blag Linux, to go dormant for a couple years, then develop a new release, then go dormant again for who knows how long? It seems to me that is a major detriment at least for small businesses adopting a distro.
And why aren't I impressed with CinnamonOS? I can get the same system after 10 minutes in Ubuntu. Heck, I can get the same functionality after less than an hour in Windows Vista.
8 • Slackware 13.1 (by joe ferrare on 2010-05-17 13:05:01 GMT from United States)
Didn't see any talk about the beta/RC1. I've been running it since the beta came out and it is really fine. The Slackware system changes slowly, but with the kernel changes and the upgrade to KDE 4.4, it's a really a nice upgrade. Oh, and using WICD from the extra packages on the DVD. For example, I picked up my wife's bluetooth mouse and it started working without a hitch in under a minute. That's a first for my Sony SZ140p laptop. The scroll area on my alps/synaptic touchpad worked without any configuration, which is also a change. It also picked up my NuForce uDAC, and configuring Amarok to run through the DAC instead of the built-in sound card took a few clicks (a great $99 purchase if you've got good enough speakers to hear the difference). KDE 4.4 has gotten a lot of press for the improvements there, and the intel video driver seems finally capable running it with desktop effects on. Not that I do. I play around with KDE, but day-to-day I'm on Fluxbox. Fluxbox on Slackware is very lightweight and fast.
All in all, looks like a great release coming up.
9 • *buntu and stuff (by davemc on 2010-05-17 13:35:09 GMT from United States)
So I finally decided to stop kicking the can on down the road with the *buntu upgrades on all my various and sundry workstations and servers (servers=Xubuntu, workstations = Ubuntu, Kubuntu) and let me tell you; Impressed is a word that does not quite cover the feeling I experienced when all was said and done. Upgrading the servers from 8.04 to 10.04 (I really had no choice there except to do an upgrade) in one simple upgrade (apt-get upgrade --proposed) worked without a hitch across the board, and were talking some really ancient systems in the mix here with extremely complex functions and setups. A couple of the workstation upgrades failed, but only because I had some crazy extra repo's and apps on them that the upgrade manager didn't like, so for those a fresh install was done, also without a hitch. My 950Q USB Tv Tuner, on which sound would not work without a custom mplayer script, now works ootb on tvtime, mplayer, kaffiene, mythtv, etc.. I suppose a big THANKS to the kernel development team are deserved for that one - Thanks Linus and crew!
The new themes in Ubuntu and social networking integration in Ubuntu and, for a long time now, Kubuntu is really slick. I suppose the yuppies that use that stuff are having a good time with it, but as for me, I am just super impressed with how stable, fast, and resource friendly Lucid is compared to 8.04 and even 9.10 were. Absolutely fantastic job Mark and Co... There is no exaggeration when people say that Lucid is "ready for the masses". As for wether this is the year of the Linux desktop?.. I say absolutely! It was ready about a year ago in a few Distro's, but with Lucid, it is ready to grab double digit market share now.
About Mandriva, well, that is a Distro that has never been short on the drama over the years. Maybe its a French thing?.. I really dont think anyone took the wild claims and boasts last week about them selling or going bankrupt. Case in point? They have been there before - more than once, actually - and they are still here going strong today. Mandy will be here when we are all old and gray, as will Fedora, SUSE, and Ubuntu.
10 • Slackware 13.1 (by 123 on 2010-05-17 13:57:00 GMT from United States)
Want to make Slackware a success? then PLEASE jut add a Graphic installer!!
11 • OpenBSD, GnoBSD ... (by Assam on 2010-05-17 14:11:21 GMT from China)
> OpenBSD's Stefan Sperling about GnoBSD ...
>
> That project sounds like an entertaining and educating experience for
> its developer, which is great. I don't think OpenBSD will ever adapt
> a graphical installation environment, so it won't have an impact on
> the OpenBSD project.
... whether this remains so in the long run is debatable. But a statement such as this makes clear once again how predominant intolerance, narrow-mindedness and dogmatism are in some people's heads. Entertaining?, Educating? ... what sort of evaluation is this? Can it get any more dismissive, any more patronizing than this? GnoBSD was a sincere effort by an individual developer to contribute something new to OpenBSD. Instead of engaging in a debate with the developer the OpenBSD 'community' sneered at him, forcing him to temporarily withdraw GnoBSD altogether. This all happened a few months ago but as can be seen in the statement above the effort to dismiss and ridicule GnoBSD continues to this day. While most people who know OpenBSD have great respect for its outstanding security and stability I guess there are very few who appreciate the project's predominant mindset which borders on that of a religious sect. Didn't anyone tell Stefan to 'never say never' especially with regard to developments in the fast-paced IT world? Even James Bond knew better than this (although he had to live twice to learn it).
12 • @11 (by Not Important on 2010-05-17 14:32:35 GMT from United States)
Bravo!!
I agree 100% with your comment!
13 • RE: 11 OpenBSD (by Jesse on 2010-05-17 14:34:54 GMT from Canada)
I took a very different view in regards to Stefan's comments about GnoBSD. The line
"That project sounds like an entertaining and educating experience for its developer, which is great."
doesn't sound dismissive nor patronising to me. Personally, I refer to all of the open source projects I've worked on as being entertaining and educational experiences for myself. I guess people will read whatever they wish into statements.
I think the comment in post 11 is very obviously biased again the OpenBSD team. For example, the line "the OpenBSD 'community' sneered at him, forcing him to temporarily withdraw GnoBSD altogether" is obviously false. The OpenBSD team can't make anyone remove their project and GnoBSD was brought back to life a few days later after people showed an interest.
14 • @10 (by Donnie on 2010-05-17 14:48:42 GMT from United States)
I disagree. I've always found Slackware's text-mode installer easy to work with, and I've never had any problems with it.
Arch, on the other hand, has a few rather serious bugs with its text-mode installer. It's a good distro once you get it installed, but installing it can be a pain if you don't know the workarounds for the installer bugs.
15 • RE: 10 • Slackware 13.1 (by na on 2010-05-17 15:13:42 GMT from United States)
Patches are welcomed.
16 • OpenBSD (by Mr. Sarcosy on 2010-05-17 15:21:01 GMT from United States)
Thanks for interviewing a contributor to an interesting and worthwhile project. It makes a pleasant change from talking to someone who releases yet another me-too Linux distro by making a few changes to Ubuntu or Fedora, and adds nothing whatsoever of value to the world.
OpenBSD is aimed at people who know what they're doing. They understandably want to avoid using a graphical installer, since that would attract the type of clueless users who would end up giving OpenBSD a bad name.
You have to be able to read the manual and figure things out for yourself, much like e.g. Slackware. People who want a dumb appliance are recommended to stick with the dozens of linux distros that cater to this audience (such as Ubuntu), or PC-BSD, or Mac OS X. We don't need yet another OS like these. But if you want to learn, try an OS like OpenBSD. You'll need enthusiasm for computers and a little patience, plus the willingness to think.
17 • Arch Installer @14 (by Anonymous on 2010-05-17 15:23:43 GMT from United States)
Out of curiosity, what bugs does the Arch installer has that one has to work around? Not doubting you or anything, but curious since my last Arch install a couple months ago went just fine.
18 • Slackware 13.1 (by Reuben on 2010-05-17 15:28:02 GMT from United States)
I currently have a box running mythtv on Slackware 13.0, and it's been running solid for the last 189 days. I just tried the Slackware 13.1 RC images on my PC, and it does feel solid and up-to-date. 13.0 shipped with the buggy KDE 4.2 and Amarok 2.1, KDE 4.4.3 and Amarok 2.3.0 work for the most part.
However, I do wish Slackware would update the installer and package management. During the install, I choose the "full" option which copied a bunch of crap to my hard drive. If I had chosen "menu" option I would be presented by a list of packages, 90% of which I have no idea of what they are or even if another package requires them. One option here would be to split up the package groups.
19 • What's the biggest barrier to Linux adoption? (by GreenWolf70 on 2010-05-17 15:37:10 GMT from United States)
High end gaming. Gamers drive PC development. Does anyone believe graphics would be anywhere near its current height, if say, video editing or CAD were driving this train? When top tier games start being delivered in Linux then we will see mass adoption of the Linux desktop. Currently gamers are updating to MS Win7 to receive the benefits of DirectX 11., nothing like that driving gaming in Linux. If Blizzard delivered Diablo 3 in a Linux version that was as good, or better than Win7, I think you would see a massive adoption of Linux on the desktop....and, yes, I would most definitely pay for Diablo 3 for Linux.
20 • A distro isn't a public service financed by us all (by KimTjik on 2010-05-17 15:39:40 GMT from Sweden)
I hope Assam's comment (#11) will be the only one of its kind for this week.
If OpenBSD was financed by our tax money we might have had a say about its design and future. It's not. Have you, Assam, been giving OpenBSD some substantial donations, giving you incitement to expect some favour from the developers?
OpenBSD won't block any offspring from taking advantage of their work, just like most of us here use software developed and maintained by the OpenBSD folks. That doesn't mean they should sacrifice resources on active support of external projects like GnoBSD.
It would be impossible to maintain a level of high quality if any wish by the community, new or old members, would be satisfied. The end result would a huge disappointment for all. I also doubt that the person behind GnoBSD actually contributed anything new besides using already existing techniques, like an graphical installer, but I willing to be proven wrong.
21 • @16 "OpenBSD is aimed at people who know what they're doing" (by meanpt on 2010-05-17 16:15:18 GMT from Portugal)
:) You're right, this is another BFS, meaning BSD From Scratch ... for skilled people like you and not for a common mortal like me. But then, just add it to the DW page instead of making so much noise on the correctness, usability, security, fastness and other persuasive adjectives which very few will taste (aha, another bible's forbidden fruit), sending us to the hell of wasting our precious time that could be better allocated to other "masses' appliances" (I wonder why they are there, oh ... maybe the devil's tempting and leading us to sin). A bit of fair game is advised as not being skilled in BSD does not mean being completely dumb in other sciences and life and a lot of desktop environments deleted from the OpenBSD page in DW would be more informative ... unless OpenBSD people don't know anymore what they are doing ...
22 • Re: #16 (by Mr. Sarcosy on 2010-05-17 16:33:20 GMT from United States)
In case there's been any misunderstanding, I am not saying that graphical OSs are bad, and of course I don't have a problem with people using them.
What I do have a problem with is people saying that OSs like OpenBSD should be just like graphical OSs. They shouldn't. Analogy: I would never buy a kit car because I'm not interested in building and maintaining my car in that way; I just buy a 'normal' car instead. That doesn't mean I think that kit cars are bad or that they should be made as much like regular cars as possible or that no-one else should buy kit cars. Similarly, if you want an OS that 'just works' then by all means pick a graphical OS and click away! If you want to get a bit more 'low-level', then OpenBSD would be a good choice.
23 • Graphics installer, linux adoption and stuff (by fernbap on 2010-05-17 16:48:07 GMT from Portugal)
I have no problem with text based installers. At all. In fact, i prefer to have a say in the several steps of the process, like being allowed to not install grub, for instance. I don't like Ubuntu installer because i don't know what it is doing and i can't set my own choices.
However, under the marketing point of view, a completely integrated graphics environment is a must - look at Apple ;)
My ideal installer would be graphical (for marketing purposes) with, say, 3 levels of "expertise", from "hands off" to completely customized path (install which desktop, install grub yes/no and on which partition, etc.).
Any Linux distro, including Ubuntu, could include such an installer and would reach a broader audience.
Yes, the main barrier is games, and wine is not enough, because it will always lag behind directx. Gamers are impatient.
Perhaps it's time for Canonical to start working with distributors and oem sellers. Oh, wait, canonical is already doing that!
I don't think text based software is any less user friendly, though. Just look at Puppy. Is it less user friendly?
24 • Graphical iinstallers (by x on 2010-05-17 16:59:13 GMT from United States)
In the early years, many in the Linux community treated graphical installers in the same manner as the OpenBSD community currently does. Then, the statements generally included phrases similar to: 'Linux is not and does not want to be like Windows'.
There is no doubt that some of the OpenBSD developers are prima donnas, but we need to keep in mind that this is their project. Warm fuzzies and cuddly natures are not exactly the images they project. Even though this is a relatively small project, it has made major security contributions that impact most computer users.
Besides, you have to respect a group that returned a substantial amount of money to the NSA, because they would not compromise one of their principles.
25 • Re: 19 - Games on Linux (by ASD on 2010-05-17 18:00:54 GMT from United States)
"If Blizzard delivered Diablo 3 in a Linux version that was as good, or better than Win7, I think you would see a massive adoption of Linux on the desktop...."
Why should Blizzard do that? That's the exact opposite of how the real world works. Hardware and operating systems are developed first, even when there are no killer apps. The developer distributes the APIs and SDK to the developer community. Then applications and games are developed when the hardware/OS is flying off the shelves because it is truly superior or useful. Think iPhone: when Apple launched it, there were no third-party apps. Now there are 200,000 driving further iPhone sales. Bottom line: the Linux community should focus on making Linux the superior choice for game developers, not wait for Blizzard. My sense is, however,that the community, and the Red Hats of the world, are not interested. Maybe Sony or Nintendo would see the value of a Linux-based PC gaming system that also ran open source software.
26 • What's the biggest barrier to Linux adoption? (by Thom on 2010-05-17 18:53:24 GMT from Denmark)
Microsoft's criminal deal with system manufacturers, mandating a pre-installed version of WinX on every system going out the door.
If the Windows license was priced separately from the hardware when buying a computer, people would have a chance to decide if they really think all the bloat is worth the $70.
Windows should be opt-in, not opt-out.
27 • OpenBSD Haters (by PacMan on 2010-05-17 19:50:02 GMT from United States)
It aways amazes me how much hate there is around the OpenBSD project. People always bitch and complain about it, but they seems to have no problem using OpenSSH which is developed by the same team.
OpenBSD is a truely great OS.
Its about what fits your needs and that is what Open Source is about.
28 • What's the biggest barrier to Linux adoption? (by Jerry on 2010-05-17 20:14:50 GMT from United States)
Hey 19, (with apologies to Steely Dan,) While I agree that games are one of the biggest drawbacks people see when thinking of adopting Linux, the crux of the problem lies less with the game developers and more with Nvidia and ATI. Until good, proper drivers for their video cards are made available for Linux there's very little point in game companies trying to write good games for Linux.
29 • @28 (by fernbap on 2010-05-17 20:36:54 GMT from Portugal)
The problem with game developers has a lot to do with business models. The Linux market is uncertain, the windows market is certain (at least for now).
However, it has more to do with manufacturers and software houses working together in order to present a package to the user that will demand him to buy the software AND the hardware. Gamers fall for it every time.
There is absolutely no need for that, as Blizzard itself realizes. There are also some winds of change already blowing. Windows 7 is more linux-like than Vista, and Blizzard just released the sequel of the best RTS game of all times, Starcraft 2.
Unlike what many game houses are doing, it doesn't require state-of-the-art hardware AND WORKS PERFECTLY UNDER WINE!
Oddly enough, Blizzard is planning to release versions for windows and mac only, no game consoles!
I guess the games issue is more complex than it looks like.
30 • Linux adoption (by Anonymous on 2010-05-17 20:41:02 GMT from Italy)
I am afraid many have moved or gone back to Windows 7 or OS X.
Why?
1)They used to be geeks, now they are users. With other words they want to get work done, while previously they where jumping from an OS to another.
I am one of them, and I know many people in the same situation.
2)Applications and drivers, as it has already been said. Those are not minor issues. Even if you are not a gamer or corporate office user, you'll still need at least 2 or 3 apps which don't have a real Linux equivalent. Not to mention the very problematic graphics drivers.
3)Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are quite good now and easy to use.
4)Quite often open source devs don't seem to listen to users. I don't want to start a flame war about this, but it is alas true.
31 • Re #26 Linux Barrier (by Sly on 2010-05-17 20:51:04 GMT from United States)
I agree with Thom. Windows is the default system when it comes to new computers, so it's used most often. Windows pulled the same trick with Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Media Player. Consequently they drove Lotus 123, Word Perfect and other aps. essentially out of the market. Browsers and other media players have made a comeback and I believe other Operating Systems such as Linux can do the same. As much as I hate to say it, there has to be profit in there somewhere for Linux to thrive.
32 • OpenBSD (by JD on 2010-05-17 21:03:25 GMT from United States)
Just a thought here, You should have asked the OpenBSD dude:
Alot of people believe openbsd developers&community have attitudes and are hard to deal with.... do you believe this is so?
His response to this would be something like: Screw you! eh!
33 • Linux Adoption (by Woody Oaks on 2010-05-17 21:18:20 GMT from United States)
No. The biggest barrier to Linux adoption is with its documentation, some of which is poorly written and most of the rest of which is even worse. Consider "vi" as an example: No more than five cogent paragraphs suffice to explain the basic use of this application, but find if you can some "tutorial" or "HOWTO" that isn't the usual labyrinth of incomplete and never entirely correct sketches of various and sundry shortcuts.
34 • #31 (by davemc on 2010-05-17 21:24:27 GMT from United States)
"As much as I hate to say it, there has to be profit in there somewhere for Linux to thrive."
Have you checked Red Hat's profit margins lately?.. Or Novell's?.. K, didn't think so. There is stacks of cash being made off Linux this very second, so I don't think that's the problem.
35 • Barriers to Linux adoption (by Tom on 2010-05-17 22:12:38 GMT from Germany)
Not being a dedicated gamer myself, isn't it that the best choice for avid gamers would be some console anyway? That one will usually offer a much better gaming experience as to graphics etc. because it doesn't have to bother about diverse hardware configurations, as on a PC?
36 • On Linux adoption (by Basilio on 2010-05-17 22:41:19 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I agree with Bladislav on the circular problem, which is the old history about who came first, the egg or the hen. I have found people regrets the many choices they have with Linux, they ask what distro is the best, and so on. Their choices sometimes reduces to a Mac or Windows system. I have found my best strategy to use Linux as a rescue system in another meaning: rescue old computers that otherwise will be trashed. Many are amazed by the fact they have all modern periferals (WiFi, HD video, USB, memory cards, etc.) working side by side with the (otherwise) obsolete computers, printers and scanners.
37 • Linux Barrier (by Wire Strainer on 2010-05-17 22:50:09 GMT from Australia)
I use Linux for my personal computing but unfortunately I have to use some MS Office products because I work collaboratively with others. I need Power Point with macros and also Publisher. I purchased Crossover to get my Office apps to work but the macros won't load and there are some graphics issues. For simple word processing it it okay.
So I run Windows 7 in Virtual Box without a problem. That's just the way it is.
38 • yes and no :) (by Leroy on 2010-05-17 23:03:50 GMT from Serbia)
#35 I personally agree completely, but people should really be able to do what they like with their computers. Nobody should tell them. If they're gamers, they should use Windows and face all the consequences that come with using Windows. Such as merrily gaming away and being part of a botnet :)
Linux adoption? The trouble used to be in preinstalls and what not. Today it's in the minds of people as much as it has to do with missing drivers and apps. It's a habit, a familiar setting, and really, those botnets are getting better and better, now you hardly know they're there :) More Linux in schools, kids adopting it at an early age, I think that's an important part of the process. The so-called average user is anesthetized, unaware of drawbacks and dangers of Windows, of its rotten nature that reduces your computing experience to that of using an ATM, unwilling to see the actual cost of using it, or happily using pirated software (more and beyond just the OS).
Now, I wonder what could be hindering OpenBSD adoption...
Oh, and # 30: I always felt that if MS really had nothing to fear when it comes to the oh so inferior Linux, its trolls would not troll Linux websites quite so earnestly.
39 • RE: Computers being sold with Linux OS pre-installed (by Andrew on 2010-05-17 23:37:19 GMT from Australia)
Believe it or not, this is happening more and more.
There's a Sydney (Australia) based company (www.pcg4m3r.com) that has an option for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS pre-installed and tested on all of their builds (and actually includes games like Nexuiz, Warsow, OpenArena, Glest etc etc).
People ordering PCs (especially with existing Steam accounts) look at shops like these and think "Bugger spending $xxx on Windows 7, I'll tick the Linux box for FREE, and it comes with a stack of free games. I'll try it out, if it's crap I'll blow it away or maybe dual-boot".
40 • Mandriva is finished (by Ray23 on 2010-05-18 00:14:22 GMT from United States)
The comments made by the CEO of Mandriva are hardly comforting. The reader might come away thinking that Mandriva is being sold piece by piece for whatever valuable parts it might have - and whatever isn't sold will be dissolved. I'm not a betting man, but if I were I'd bet Mandriva will be history by 2011. Commercial Linux is a tough business, especially at a time when Europe's economy is in bad shape. Mandriva has a few parts, such as draktools, that other distros like PCLOS are heavily dependent on. If Mandriva does dissolve, then the gang at PCLOS will finally hve an opportunity to show that their distro really is independent of Mandriva.
41 • OpenBSD Graphical iinstaller and other non-sense (by Predrag on 2010-05-18 00:33:27 GMT from United States)
@24 # Graphical installers
Maybe I missed something but Slackware the oldest Linux distribution still
doesn't have graphical installer unless you count ncurses menu driven
installer. So doesn't Debian. I have not seen people complaining about
those distros. On another hand I have seen people complaining that
RedHat needs 3 GB of RAM to use graphical installer.
The truth of the matter is that pure script driven OpenBSD installer is
by far the most user friendly installer on any Unix or Unix like system.
Just ask some of those old system admins who tried to install OS on a
thin-client, embedded hardware, via PXE boot or on old DEC or SGI
hardware. OpenBSD doesn't need any non-sense software to create
Live USB or even Live CD. For instance in the case of creating Live USB
it is as simple as installing OS on the regular SCSI HDD.
Unlike Linux (=RedHat for the purposes of kernel) which as any other
commercial product has to cater its customers OpenBSD doesn't have
to cater to anybody but to its developers. I am sure if the need for
graphical installer ever occurs they will write one.
@21 # @16 "OpenBSD is aimed at people who know what they're doing"
I honestly do not know what is your problem. In my experience people who
do have a great expertise in anything are usually good learners and
capable of the quick transfer of knowledge. I have very little formal CS
training (I am trained as research mathematician) which doesn't prevent
me from using OpenBSD. People who are just casual computer users
(99.999%) really have nothing to gain by using OpenBSD or any other OS
for that matter. However, the OpenBSD community stands to lose a lot by
trying to accommodating ignorance.
42 • OpenBSD, BLAG, Adoption (by Landor on 2010-05-18 00:34:56 GMT from Canada)
OpenBSD:
I enjoyed the interview but I did find it lacking. It could have been a bit more on the technical side of things, going in depth on procedures they follow to make the system more secure. Highlights of the project, etc.
I enjoyed his comment about Free Software as well. That for me was one of the better parts.
People can say a lot of crap about OpenBSD and their views on things but Theo at the helm has done tons for advocating Free Software. I'll go on that rant about firmware that I spoke of last week. While the Linux Kernel is basically advocating license restricted firmware, Theo has actually brought companies into the fold that license their firmware so it's not restricted.
BLAG:
Since I'm talking about free software. :) I'm really happy to see BLAG's back in action. I downloaded the alpha immediately and was quite impressed. Sure it's a lot like Fedora, that's what it's based on, there's considerable differences though.
I ran it virtually and did some quick number crunching for memory usage live compared to Fedora 12 and found it used about 10mb less than Fedora. I also on a whim downloaded PCLOS' OpenBox release (then shortly removed it) and found that BLAG used 22.5mb less for their implementation. That's just my quick check on it though and PCLOS has a panel where BLAG doesn't but that's not enough to add another 22.5mb in my opinion. Even switching to LXDE for BLAG used less ram.
I'll take a look later at both of them installed on my netbook which has become of my main test boxes as of late. :)
Good things coming from BLAG. Let's hope they stay on track.
Linux Adoption:
I read one reader, #30, talked about people leaving Linux and going back to windows, I've seen different, so YMMV. From what I know of a lot of the hardcore Linux users, they've all pretty well switched to Ubuntu if they've left anything. I can't think of one person that left Linux full-time when they used Linux for years. Shrugs...
Games don't mean crap for adoption. I'd wager gamers are a small majority of the overall users of a PC, we're talking hardcore gamers here too. The moms and pops of the world are the majority. To get them on another OS is what people have said, get the big OEMs selling it preinstalled with equal share to other OS'. That's going to mean massive marketing too. Then there's the other valid point of teach the kids, get it in schools, the next generation of moms and pops. This is all only about the desktop though. Linux thrives elsewhere.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
43 • OpenBSD (by LinuX FroG on 2010-05-18 00:47:59 GMT from United States)
First off let me say: OpenBSD is awesome. I have installed it, it is really no different then a linux text installer. So NO freaking biggie there. But why does everyone think they need to talk crap about OpenBSD? There is no reason. It's a great OS. PERIOD! Am I a user of it? No. Why am I defending it? I'm NOT. I am just stating facts here.
Who cares if their devs and community does not WANT a graphical installer. It's their choice. As for the dev of GnoBSD to get all butt-hurt over statements made about his idea on using a graphical installer, that's his issue. They never once told he couldn't USE it. They told them their thoughts on it being used in OpenBSD. So what.
OpenBSD has contributed MORE to the Open Source community then any of you ever will in you whole entire bleak existence.
Get over it.
44 • RE: 43 (by Linus Torvalds on 2010-05-18 00:51:12 GMT from Australia)
Orly?
45 • @44 (by LinuX FroG on 2010-05-18 00:57:58 GMT from United States)
Yes, really. This is how I see this issue. Linus Torvalds is a GOD in the Linux world. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be a LinuX FroG, now would I?
This statement is pointed at all the crappers. Not at a GOD.
46 • honestly (by Marcel Kincaid on 2010-05-18 01:52:22 GMT from United States)
"Why am I defending it? I'm NOT."
Credibility -10. There's nothing wrong with defending it, but it's undeniable by any rational person that that is what you did.
"I am just stating facts here."
Credibility -100. "OpenBSD is awesome" is, by any rational measure, an opinion.
47 • Adoption (by Anonymous on 2010-05-18 01:59:44 GMT from Turkey)
Saying lack of linux adoption is only a small market problem is self deception. Problem is Linux is not an OS (from perspective of commercial vendor). There is no common APIs for most basic operations between distros, There is no single way to add a menu item or shortcut to desktop, no single way to add a deamon to startup, no single way to play a sound ... You get the idea, if you want to sell closed source application Linux you have to adopt,test and publish one version of your software for each distro. Besides, Linux community does not want to pay software, so Linux will never have widespread commercial applications for it.
48 • *buntu 10.04 (by RO on 2010-05-18 02:02:44 GMT from United States)
Not ready for my prime time I am finding.
Several notebooks won't come back from suspend, and one, an old Fujitsu Lifebook P1120 with the Transmeta Crusoe CPU and a Prism2 wifi had a weird issue: the Prism driver does not seem to be able to stay connected long enough to complete the association with either of my access points (And not completing the WEP key negotiation? The "invalid crypt" count per iwconfig kept going up as network manager oscillated between enabling/disabling the NIC till it gave up). Same thing with an Orinoco PC Card.
That was disappointing - Lubuntu and Peppermint OS (interesting that it pops up here now) were fairly snappy on that wimpy old Crusoe, and even supported the touchscreen. I reverted to CrunchBang 9.04 to restore the wifi, and it is about as quick, if not as "pretty" (and it also supports the touchscreen, but needs some calibration).
There seems to be no such problem with the NIC's built into newer notebooks such as my Lifebook P1610 and Vaio "P' netbook (despite Sony's disputing the term). Those, however, do not come back from suspend, so that is a deal-breaker with them. Back to 9.10 for them.
This half-baked "put it out there every 6 months no matter what" *buntu seems to need some more "post-beta/RC" real-word testing as usual.
49 • Debian Has GUI Installer (by Anonymous on 2010-05-18 02:08:54 GMT from United States)
Here's the link to using the GUI installer:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/apds06.html.en
I have used it to install Lenny, back when it became available.
Back then it was very similar to the text installer, only one uses a mouse (GUI).
It may be different now, or not.
It has to be selected from the boot menu of the installation media.
Or else you go to Text mode.
On another note....
To Hab:
from last week , I see you currently have the same problem I had
with a freshly installed Lenny, the X resolution was low (poor).
The new X has no config file, it is supposed to be automatic.
I fixed mine (1280x1024) by apt-get the videogen program and copying the modeline info into a freshly made xorg.conf file in /etc/X11.
So much for auto configuration, and apparently even now it is still not fixed.
Good luck....
50 • @48: *buntu 10.04 problems, me too (by Gnobuddy on 2010-05-18 02:16:29 GMT from United States)
I too tried Kubuntu 10.04 and found too many problems to stick with either. For instance, K3b wouldn't burn any CD's on my PC (would not see the blank media in the drive) though command-line burning (cdrecord) worked just fine. Also Kubuntu 10.04 crawled with agonizing slowness compared to OpenSUSE 11.2 on the same hardware.
Unfortunately I found many problems with OpenSUSE 11.2 as well, so that didn't stay installed for long either.
I have given up on the KDE 4.x series again (I tried 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, and found unacceptable problems each time). Now I've gone back to PCLinuxOS 2009.2 with KDE 3.5.x . Finally my Linux PC works well again, as it did in 2007 and 2008, before the great KDE 4.x disaster arrived to undo years of Linux desktop progress.
-Gnobuddy
51 • Slackware 13.1 - graphical installer (by mjjzf on 2010-05-18 02:28:01 GMT from United States)
If one is unable to understand the installer of Slackware, I doubt it will help much to add an X-based installer - if that is indeed what people are talking about when they say a graphical installer. Did the new Debian installer mean a huge number of new Debianites? Please.
Slackfolk are there because of the structure and the mindset. A graphical installer isn't going to make any difference. Some Slackware derivatives Added some useful dialogs, but nothing that wasn't covered by the average Slackware beginner anyway.
52 • adoption (by Anonymous on 2010-05-18 04:42:16 GMT from United States)
Linux will not be supported by manufacturers, developers, and vendors anytime soon. This is because the community denies the obvious...
One group of similar distros needs to gain significant market share.
"Similar" distros would share the same libraries and supporting code, and use the same default desktop environment.
The situation is well-described by the developers of Google's Chrome sandboxing..."For Linux, Moskovich explains, the situation is a mess because there are several different mechanisms available, and each distribution (of course...) ships with a different mechanism - or none at all. 'Finding a mechanism that is guaranteed to work on end-user's machines is a challenge,' ... for now, Chrome on Linux does not do sandboxing."
53 • @16 (by jake on 2010-05-18 05:33:01 GMT from United States)
"OpenBSD is aimed at people who know what they're doing."
Yes. Do you have a problem with that? If you can answer "yes" to that question, I respectfully submit you have a problem, not the devs at OpenBSD. Seriously, think about it.
"They understandably want to avoid using a graphical installer, since that would attract the type of clueless users who would end up giving OpenBSD a bad name."
Horse crap. They simply don't want to add the unnecessary complexity of a GUI on top of what is always a text-based installation system, regardless of which flavor of Linux/BSD is being discussed. Even Macs are based on CLI, when you get down to basics (proprietary, binary-only stuff excepted, of course). The OpenBSD folks are focusing on reliability, stability & security ... Adding unnecessary glitter only makes for potential trouble. Trust me, Mr. Projection, it has nothing to do with your own fears, biases & insecurities.
54 • Slackware (by jake on 2010-05-18 05:39:20 GMT from United States)
Slackware is built by and for PV (and his wife), and nobody else. It is his (their) personal distribution. They make it available to a very grateful subset of the Linux population, but (and here's the key) THEY DON'T CARE what anyone else's opinion is. It works for them, and that is all that matters. They aren't out to be popular. Rather, they are out to make a distro that works the way a un*x is supposed to work, in their minds. And guess what? It does. And has for over a decade and a half. Don't like it? Don't use it. The fact that it works the way a un*x is supposed to work the way *I* want a un*x to work is just luck on my part ...
That said, try Slack. You might like it. My techno-don't-care Wife does. My technophobe Mom does. My computer illiterate Great Aunt does. What's not to like? :-)
55 • RE #41 (by x on 2010-05-18 06:47:02 GMT from United States)
I did not mean that all Linux distributions have graphical installers or that the BSDs need one. My point was those complaining about the lack of a graphical installer for OpenBSD are making the same statements once directed at all Linux distributions. The fact is a substantial number of Linux distributions do not have a graphical installer and no plans to develop one. I do not believe they are necessary. As to the distributions that you mentioned, I have heard complaints about a lack of a graphical installer. Apparently the developers did not think one was important.
Personally, I believe that the OpenBSD developers are on the right track, one that more projects should adopt. OpenBSD has quietly implemented many innovative ideas that others have adopted at later dates. To my knowledge, they were the first to make the source code available to the public without having to obtain the binaries. Today this is commonly accepted.
I think that much of the criticism directed at the developers is based on misunderstanding of their goals. It is not designed for the 'whatever' for dummies crowd. Security and stability are the primary points of focus. The documentation is better than most, it is all in the man pages. If you want to read the documentation prior to installing, it is all available at the website.
Whatever the installation process is now, it is a vast improvement over what was used in the sixties, seventies and the eighties.
56 • just some random thoughts (by camil on 2010-05-18 08:58:50 GMT from Romania)
I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but Linux has been struggling around 1% market share (on desktops) for over a decade. we can hardly argue that a bigger share would be beneficial for all the OSS community. imho, the main reasons for this situation are:
- the vast majority of end users doesn't care what OS runs their pcs as long as it does the job. and Windows and Mac OS X, most of the time. that's why it's so hard convincing somebody to switch to Linux. there's little incentive to do so, apart from "it's free"
- fragmentation. I know the old mantra 'freedom of choice', 'diversity' and so on. but sometimes too many choices are as bad as none, especially for the tech illiterate people.
what Linux needs? besides technology, (which it already has): good management, predictability, unity, money...all the things that Microsoft and Apple have, with all their pros and cons
57 • Hardware (by Tom on 2010-05-18 10:36:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Wow, no one knows of any links to help people buy hardware that they know will work with linux?
@4 Thanks for the link there, hilarious
Regards from
Tom :)
58 • Re: #57 (by Mandriveiro on 2010-05-18 10:53:26 GMT from Spain)
Examples:
1) Most of NVidia cards work with linux.
2) Many HP and Brother printers work for linux quite well. Check www.linuxprinting.org
3) Webcams http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html
Or better: use San Google!
59 • Hardware? (by Tom on 2010-05-18 12:11:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi :)
I just checked the tail end of last weeks DW and found some excellent responses to my quest for hardware compatibility sites.
So, many thanks to
1. Jesse for 2 distro specific sites
https://hardware.redhat.com/
http://www.ubuntuhcl.org/
2. Jake for the laptops
http://www.linux-laptop.net/
3. Anonymous of The United States for some good advice on how to maximise good results in google
I get the feeling that most hardware that works in one distro is likely to be able to work in any other distro and even if it doesn't their sales-force needs to become aware that people are buying their stuff specifically because they support linux in some way (even if it's the 'wrong' distro/family).
I really like the idea of having a list of hardware manufacturers to recommend to even Windows users on the grounds that the hardware allows them personal freedom of choice that other manufacturers don't offer. If we can get out clients, contacts, colleagues, friends and family buying stuff that supports linux and avoiding manufacturers that don't then i think we could start to make hardware manufacturers take serious notice.
Being forced to reverse engineer hardware & drivers in order to rebuild linux drivers is a slow way of getting drivers out there but even so it is working as long as people have patience.
Perhaps we should grade manufacturers on their level of support
1. Gold star for paying linux developers to produce OpenSource drivers
2. Green light for resourcing production of OpenSource drivers
3. Amber light for supplying the info needed for creating OpenSource drivers
4. Red light for providing proprietary drivers
5. Black cross, cuss words or no mention of them at all if they don't support us at all.
Regards from
Tom :)
60 • Why did Mandriva wait (by Mohamad Rashad on 2010-05-18 12:13:36 GMT from Egypt)
Hi
Why did Mandriva wait all that time before announce that "Mandriva is not for sale and the media got it all wrong"
I guess that they didn't get a good price.
61 • @17 (by Donnie on 2010-05-18 13:34:32 GMT from United States)
Well, for some of the bugs, whether they actually show depends partly on what installation choices you make, and partly on whether the installer can contact the installation mirror that you've chosen.
The first problem I saw was with the disk partitioner. When I chose the "automatic" option, it appeared to work fine at first, but then showed an error when I tried to go to the next step. I then had to start the whole installation program over, and choose the manual option. Turned out, the automatic option did create the partitions, but didn't format them or create the mount points as it was supposed to.
The second problem was with contacting the download mirrors. If you choose one that can't be contacted, you don't have the option of backing up and trying again. You have to start the whole installation program over again, and go through each step. If you try to skip steps that you've previously accomplished, you get an error message, telling you to go back and do those steps.
The final problem I had was when I went to install GRUB. I got an error message, saying that it couldn't be installed to my SCSI drive. Again, each time I retried, I was forced to go through the whole installation procedure, instead of being allowed to go directly to that particular step. After several tries, I gave up and booted up on SuperGRUB disk. That fixed the problem.
I like Arch overall, and I like the concept of installing only what you need. But, I do hope that they can polish up the installer a bit. (Of course, I just saw on the front page where they've released a new version, so maybe they already have.)
62 • peppermint os (by forlin on 2010-05-18 14:38:42 GMT from Portugal)
peppermint os is stepping degrees at the 7 day distrowatch ranking, like crazy. Well deserverded distro to be known, Based at debian, ububto and mint, but extremelly innovative. It's a pitty that they do not send their release notes to DW.
63 • @#38 (by Anonymous on 2010-05-18 15:01:12 GMT from Italy)
"Oh, and # 30: I always felt that if MS really had nothing to fear when it comes to the oh so inferior Linux, its trolls would not troll Linux websites quite so earnestly."
Oh really? Ladislav should be able to confirm that I was writing from a Mac, go figure.
64 • @ Marcel Kincaid (by Demon Tek on 2010-05-18 16:02:26 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic, disrespectful).
65 • Spreading the Ubuntu goodness (by CJBurke on 2010-05-18 16:51:17 GMT from United States)
Aftger using the Jolicloud pre-beta on my Vaio laptop for 6 months, I made the switch to Ubuntu 10.04 the week after it was released. Clean installation, and so far, everything has worked.
Then, I got a request to help a friend with their computer. They have a Vista box, and they wanted to wipe the drive and install XP from an old installation CD they have from a now-dead system. Trick is, the XP installer won't wipe a Vista partition. (strange stuff, that) I bring a couple of Linux disks with me, figuring I'll just get in, re-partition the drive and start the XP install for them. No dice- the CD/DVD drive wasn't working right. So, I offer them an alternative - I can download the Ubuntu installer within Vista, and install it from there. Means selecting which system they want at boot, and if they don't like it, I'll be back with an external CD drive to boot up and wipe the system. They say they'll give it a try.
Twenty minutes later, I'm showing her how to log into Ubuntu. First shock is the speed. 35 seconds from power-on to login screen. (10 seconds spent reading the choices to make sure she knew what each one was) Ten seconds from entering password to being able to start her web browser. She checks the browser. We set up her e-mail program, and notification for her Facebook account. She reaches out over the network to open work files from her other computer in Open Office Writer and Calc. She opens the streaming video of an SCA tournament in progress.
A week later I asked if I need to come over and wipe the drive. Her husband tells me, hell no, she hasn't been this happy with a computer in years.
66 • @ 42 • OpenBSD, BLAG ... (by meanpt on 2010-05-18 17:40:30 GMT from Portugal)
Hi, nice to read your comment.
For some time now I already gave up measuring the ram an OS takes. I prefer start opening applications and charging the system until it starts freezing, e.g. mouse starts lagging, saving files or documents and / or changing from one opened application to another becomes a whole cigar to dye. So far PCLOS Openbox with 256 MB of RAM allowed is still winning. While still in BLAG, I went for synaptic and looked for the lxde-common package but it's not available (by the way, synaptic reports some repositories are not online). How did you get LXDE working in BLAG? I woudl like to install it and give it a go.
67 • Linux/BSD adoption (by davemc on 2010-05-18 18:14:55 GMT from United States)
There have been, and always will be 4 major barriers to a wider market share..
1. The proprietary business model of the major OEM's and software companies. They are in the business of dominating the market and making wads of cash off idiots, or so to speak. It is in their best interests to squeeze out all competition and generally speaking, all of them will do whatever they have to do in order to achieve the most dominant piece of the pie, to include cheap tactics like spreading FUD, bribing.. err "making political contributions" to government officials, paying OEM's to preload their crapware/OS's on new machines, forcing entire school systems to use their crapware on learning machines so that entire generations get hooked, etc. etc. ad nauseum. We all know the routine. OSS will never be able to compete with this for both philosophical and funding reasons.
2. The OSS community is its own worst nightmare and does more to prevent the spread of FOSS than any other entity, imo. In fighting about Distro X vs. Distro Y, about app Z vs. app H. Ego inflated project leads or Devs unwilling or unable to see and embrace a larger view for the common good dogmatically following possibly misguided principles, etc.
3. As others have mentioned, fragmented and disparate libs. No common API. Linux right now is more like a college kids hobby than a real project, or so an outsider would think looking in. Sure, to us its a thing of beauty, but most of us have been with it a while and are used to the mess. Its kind of like living in a Shark tank. Its beautiful and the Shark is really cool, but you know that sooner or later, your gonna get fatally bit because minimal efforts are made to remove the teeth from the Sharks mouth.
4. No real effort to advertise or push OEM preinstalls. Advertising is key here. Millions of $$$ need to be pushed into "spreading the word", for any real inroads to be made. Most of us know this, but continue to kick the can on down the road hoping that some nebulous but anonymous entity will pick the ball up and run with it. Linux has been around some 20 years now, and if it hasn't happened yet, it isn't just gonna happen on its own. There are major corporations and companies out there right now that are making millions off FOSS, contribute hundreds of hours to its development, and yet they make no investment in advertising. Its both pathetic and inexcusable from a business perspective because it is a proven fact that advertising brings in many times its investment value in new business and profits. Canonical would be wise to take advantage of this and push money into broadcast advertising now, while the behemoths like RH, Novell, and IBM are sleeping.
In short, if its our goal to increase market share, then we need to start thinking more like a business, and less like a bunch of college hippies enamored with the warm fuzzy glow of, "free software man!".. OSS can and should dominate all markets as the standard of quality software development models, and in some respects, it does. It has grabbed the unwilling attention of all the great vendors out there today, but instead of the world pushing towards open standards, it is viewed more as a hindrance than a gain, primarily because the great majority of the walking, talking public continue to be ignorant of it, and the blame for that lies squarely with the FOSS community, sorry to say, but it is true.
68 • this again? (by Reuben on 2010-05-18 18:56:51 GMT from United States)
Linux does what I want, how I want it too. For most of my peers OS X seems to do what they want. For everyone else Windows does the trick. I'm glad that I have a platform that suffices for me, and that everyone else has a platform that does what they need it to do.
What really bugs me however is suggestions that all of us free software users have to get along. No. Free software is about choice, and being able to voice or opinions on these choices. I like Arch Linux and KDE. Somebody else might prefer something a bit more stable. Somebody might think that KDE is going in a completely wrong direction, and they should have the liberty to scream this at the top of their lungs. Hell, you might even hate *nix and decided to help out Haiku or ReactOS. Free software has never been about hegemony, it has been about what I want.
69 • re: adoption (by zdzd on 2010-05-18 22:43:00 GMT from Poland)
one thing that definitely keeps me away from adopting Linux 100% is the way hibernation and suspend work turning my laptop (Lenovo Y530) into a frying pan.
70 • RE: 66 (by Landor on 2010-05-18 21:53:54 GMT from Canada)
I was curious as usually one of the first things I do is see how light something is. More so since I have the netbook as a consideration for the system, though with 2gig of ram it's not really an issue for that either. But I do prefer light and responsive on all my computers. So then I did a quick comparison. Installed I found it used less as well, which I wasn't suprised to see it hadn't changed. I haven't looked into why though, checking services running in detail.
I don't know the naming convention for LXDE in Fedora at all. You can get to LXDE from the Login Screen, just choose the session. Openbox is there as well. Gnome with Openbox is too.
One thing you might find is the system isn't set up correctly for installing software. There's something that was missing.
Edit to /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/fedora.conf and change this:
APT
{
// Options for apt-get
DistroVerPkg "fedora-release";
};
To this:
APT
{
// Options for apt-get
DistroVerPkg "generic-release";
};
Then apt-get update and such will work (they use apt). If you plan on updating it or installing any packages of course.
Hope that helps...
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor• @ 60 Mandriva (by Anonymous on 2010-05-18 22:16:48 GMT from United States)
71 • #68 - Choices (by Anonymous on 2010-05-18 22:33:30 GMT from United States)
That's right, Reuben. Give them hell, uh... "Hell, yeah!!!"
I have seen and tried many choices and some of those I like, some I didn't care to deal with. Nobody has to do things the same way I do. They can do whatever that make things easier for themselves.
With some other dumb-down OS's (Windows, OSX), they have little choices and they don't even know there are other choices (via command line, or registry tweaks) they can make without the fancy GUI craps. Oh, yeah, when their OS crapped out and won't boot, they call in their "friends" to save them. Guess what, their "friends" have to boot into command line recovery mode, which they are too dumb to even realize it.
About GUI for dummies, on OSX, I can't for the life of me find the option in the web browser to even do text search within a web page. I must be real dumb for not finding such options in their menus. Mission accomplished!
72 • @ 60 Mandriva (by Anonymous on 2010-05-18 22:16:48 GMT from United States)
The Emperor Wears No Clothes.
73 • live Slackware version (by gnomic on 2010-05-19 00:17:49 GMT from New Zealand)
Far from the beaten track once more, there is a live CD of Slackware made by the very busy AegisX. It goes under the name of nFlux. He also has CDs based on Ubuntu 10.04 and Debian Squeeze. Read all about it at:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/announcing-nflux-linux%3B-a-fluxbox-oriented-trinity-of-distros-804611/page3.html
The RC3 of the Slackware version booted on a ThinkPad Z60m, but 2/3 of the screen was blank - Intel 915. On a desktop with an early 2000s Nvidia card it booted OK and ran for several hours. A somewhat random selection of wifi firmware is included (wot, no ipw2200!!?).
74 • Re #34 Linux Adoption (by Sly on 2010-05-19 00:19:21 GMT from United States)
34 • #31 (by davemc on 2010-05-17 21:24:27 GMT from United States)
"Have you checked Red Hat's profit margins lately?.. Or Novell's?.. K, didn't think so. There is stacks of cash being made off Linux this very second, so I don't think that's the problem."
Thanks for calling me out; however, your retort is a little weak in that you didn't give your opinion on the subject. Do you have one???????
75 • A possible start of a solution to the adoption problem (by Brandon on 2010-05-19 01:16:27 GMT from United States)
I read and hear alot that the adoption is slow due to users generally not requiring a switch and just stay with their current OS. It is also because customers looking for a new PC typically don't want to learn something new or don't feel as secure with it, as opposed to them trusting their data to Windows or Mac.
One idea to try (or at least brainstorm over) is to try to encourage people to try it. What I mean more specifically is to give customers a sort of marketing tactic of asking them to try Ubuntu (or whatever distro have you). Think of Domino's and their tactic of changing their pizzas and challenging customers to try their hand at their newest creation.
Think it may work?
76 • openchrome problems with 2.6.34rc?, 2.6.33.4, and 2.6.34-2-???fc14 (by Antonio on 2010-05-19 03:01:16 GMT from United States)
Dear folks,
I have a machine that uses openchrome driver. I have installed successfully Fedora rawhide on it and run it for a while. On occasions several kernel updates did not work and since a 2.6.34 rc kernel, they (new kernels) won't boot. They die with an oops/panic and it has snd_hda_intel in the message.
Smoltprofile is here:
http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_8b7db8bc-665b-4e96-a662-2750f5d2adac
On that same machine, I installed Slackware 13.1 RC1 and it does not load at all, installation appeared smooth, but machine won't boot. The screen just shows some colors. If I were to boot in graphical mode in Fedora, it would happen the same :(
I opened a bug on it, but no response :(
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=585417
How do I open bugzilla in Slackware? Which kernel parameters should I try so I can see if the machine will boot or not? I have two hard drives and I swap them to boot the different system(s). Most of the time though I use Fedora Rawhide on that machine.
Also,
I would like to ask here, since I don't understand in Fedora 12 or above, mkinitrd is no longer present, one has to yum install it in order to compile a kernel.org kernel, the folks at Fedora list have suggested dracut that it replaces mkinitrd. Is there any way to tell make install to use dracut instead of mkinitrd? how about enabling nouveau driver on a custom kernel.org built from source?
Thanks for any help provided.
77 • No common API? (by jake on 2010-05-19 06:23:27 GMT from United States)
That's odd ... I see no API issues, from the IBM 3151 dumb terminals to the small cluster of vaxen (BSD) to the dual pedestal Sun 3/470 "Pegasus" (pre-Solaris Sun OS; family email, ftp, usenet & WWW server) to the 3 year old rack of Sun gear to the 6 year old laptop with Slackware-current ... My businesses run equally well, regardless of which bit o'kit I use to access my network.
API issues are always caused by mismanagement of resources, usually driven by marketing forces, not the realities of business use.
The biggest hurdle GNU/Linux/BSD (FOSS) has to overcome is FUD.
78 • @70 Landor • RE: 66 - BLAG desktops (by meanpt on 2010-05-19 09:12:11 GMT from Portugal)
Hi, thanks again for your feed-back.
Unfortunately, there may be differences between the BLAG versions we installed. I downloaded and installed the 90001 release.
For instance, the only files listed as user root are:
[root@localhost apt.conf.d]# ls
blag.conf default.conf multilib.conf
Among them, the only showing the section
APT
{
// Options for apt-get
is the default.conf file, listing
APT
{
// Options for apt-get
Get
{
Show-Versions "true";
}
};
which do not match the target text you referred to be changed. As such I didn't dare to change it.
Regarding the choice of the desktop at the login screen, the only menu choices I'm allowed are the accessibility tools, system's language and power status. There isn't any option's list regarding the desktop.
One possible reason for this could be the choices I made during installation but, as far as I remember, they were only related to some kind of server which I wouldn't use as I will not serve anything else but me. Even then I went to the list of the package contents of the iso image and didn't find any sort of lxde related package, while the "gnome everything" is listed.
By the way, the reference to the lxde-common package was taken from here "http://forums.blagblagblag.org/viewtopic.php?t=5022&highlight=lxde", but so far "yum install lxde-common", still returns
[root@localhost meanpt]# yum install lxde-common
http://www.blagblagblag.org/90000/i386/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 14] HTTP Error 403: Forbidden
Trying other mirror.
Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: blag. Please verify its path and try again
So, I wish to thank you for calling my attention to this distro, which is not bad at all and will be kept, and I will revert to the distro's forum, for additional help.
79 • RE 74: maybe it's more a question of where that money is spent? (by KimTjik on 2010-05-19 09:20:57 GMT from Sweden)
It's difficult to estimate Linux' real impact when a broader question is narrowed down to be represented by a fraction. The overall value of Linux is huge, and has penetrated all kinds of technology. Hence the question here isn't about Linux, but mainly Linux Desktop, and still at some level better SMB adoption.
Linux already offers a majority of users a good working environment. The web is full of articles explaining what applications Linux needs for better adoption. Many times it's just a question of personal preferences and not about the applications per se. On the other hand I see few articles explaining how Windows needs to adopt and offer better integration for tools/applications I use. It'll probably go on like this for a long time to come, just like we're still using keyboard layouts designed for old mechanical typewriters. Learnt behaviour is one of the strongest arguments.
80 • openchrome problems with 2.6.34rc?, 2.6.33.4, and 2.6.34-2-???fc14 (by Antonio on 2010-05-19 10:14:55 GMT from United States)
Dear folks,
I have a machine that uses openchrome driver. I have installed successfully Fedora rawhide on it and run it for a while. On occasions several kernel updates did not work and since a 2.6.34 rc kernel, they (new kernels) won't boot. They die with an oops/panic and it has snd_hda_intel in the message.
Smoltprofile is here:
http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_8b7db8bc-665b-4e96-a662-2750f5d2adac
On that same machine, I installed Slackware 13.1 RC1 and it does not load at all, installation appeared smooth, but machine won't boot. The screen just shows some colors. If I were to boot in graphical mode in Fedora, it would happen the same :(
I opened a bug on it, but no response :(
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=585417
How do I open bugzilla in Slackware? Which kernel parameters should I try so I can see if the machine will boot or not? I have two hard drives and I swap them to boot the different system(s). Most of the time though I use Fedora Rawhide on that machine.
Also,
I would like to ask here, since I don't understand in Fedora 12 or above, mkinitrd is no longer present, one has to yum install it in order to compile a kernel.org kernel, the folks at Fedora list have suggested dracut that it replaces mkinitrd. Is there any way to tell make install to use dracut instead of mkinitrd? how about enabling nouveau driver on a custom kernel.org built from source?
Thanks for any help provided.
81 • #67 re: Linux/BSD adoption (by Anonymous on 2010-05-19 10:41:28 GMT from United States)
>>>
1. The proprietary business model of the major OEM's and software companies. They are in the business of dominating the market and making wads of cash off idiots, or so to speak. It is in their best interests to squeeze out all competition and generally speaking, all of them will do whatever they have to do in order to achieve the most dominant piece of the pie, to include cheap tactics like spreading FUD, bribing.. err "making political contributions" to government officials, paying OEM's to preload their crapware/OS's on new machines, forcing entire school systems to use their crapware on learning machines so that entire generations get hooked, etc. etc. ad nauseum. We all know the routine. OSS will never be able to compete with this for both philosophical and funding reasons.
<<<
That much you got it right.
>>>
2. The OSS community is its own worst nightmare and does more to prevent the spread of FOSS than any other entity, imo. In fighting about Distro X vs. Distro Y, about app Z vs. app H. Ego inflated project leads or Devs unwilling or unable to see and embrace a larger view for the common good dogmatically following possibly misguided principles, etc.
<<<
You got the real picture of what's going on, but your perception is completely wrong. Are you saying such things don't happen in the Proprietary Software world? Non-sense. It happens that the OSS world is much more open and all the dirty politics are also fully open. While the Proprietary/Corporation will hide all the dirty laundry and put the best marketing lies out there even if their software is a complete failure.
Look at the many "Anti-virus" softwares out there now, how many choices do you have and which one(s) you have already paid for? Which ones are bait and switch? Which ones are scams about your computer being infected?
Don't get me started with the antivirus softwares being oblivious to all the trojans and spywares out there, because they are by definition not "virus". You want that, too? Pay more for "anti-spyware", pay more for "anti-trojan", pay more for "junks"...
Are you trying to refer to MS monopoly on API's and products?
You think Proprietary softwares all share the same API? Besides MS Word, have you try WordPerfect before? How about Lotus Notes? Borland compilers? Watcom compiler? Oracle DB? DB2? dBase? IMS?
Beside IE, do you even know any other web browsers out there?
It seems you are already brainwashed into the corner thinking that's the only choice you have. It's also called dumbing down. Or, being groomed for the "NO-THINKING For Dummies".
>>>
3. As others have mentioned, fragmented and disparate libs. No common API. Linux right now is more like a college kids hobby than a real project, or so an outsider would think looking in. Sure, to us its a thing of beauty, but most of us have been with it a while and are used to the mess. Its kind of like living in a Shark tank. Its beautiful and the Shark is really cool, but you know that sooner or later, your gonna get fatally bit because minimal efforts are made to remove the teeth from the Sharks mouth.
<<<
Same as part-2 above. And yes, these are projects people have to do themselves because the "professional softwares" either cost an arm and a leg and still don't do what these folks wanted to do, nor do it right. After so many times and so much wasted time and frustration, these people rather pulling their own teeth than dealing with such professionals.
>>>
4. No real effort to advertise or push OEM preinstalls. Advertising is key here. Millions of $$$ need to be pushed into "spreading the word", for any real inroads to be made. Most of us know this, but continue to kick the can on down the road hoping that some nebulous but anonymous entity will pick the ball up and run with it. Linux has been around some 20 years now, and if it hasn't happened yet, it isn't just gonna happen on its own. There are major corporations and companies out there right now that are making millions off FOSS, contribute hundreds of hours to its development, and yet they make no investment in advertising. Its both pathetic and inexcusable from a business perspective because it is a proven fact that advertising brings in many times its investment value in new business and profits. Canonical would be wise to take advantage of this and push money into broadcast advertising now, while the behemoths like RH, Novell, and IBM are sleeping.
<<<
This is another of the "For Dummies" series. Just because it is advertised doesn't really mean it is any good. But who cares, these people want brand names and brand recognition without doing their own homework. That's how you summed it up in part-1: "making wads of cash off idiots, or so to speak."
>>>
In short, if its our goal to increase market share, then we need to start thinking more like a business, and less like a bunch of college hippies enamored with the warm fuzzy glow of, "free software man!".. OSS can and should dominate all markets as the standard of quality software development models, and in some respects, it does. It has grabbed the unwilling attention of all the great vendors out there today, but instead of the world pushing towards open standards, it is viewed more as a hindrance than a gain, primarily because the great majority of the walking, talking public continue to be ignorant of it, and the blame for that lies squarely with the FOSS community, sorry to say, but it is true.
<<<
Well, you know that "marketing" and "advertising" are full of it, right?
I rather see the efforts go into practical, functional works than the fancy claims. I rather see people who think for themselves and understand everything they do have security implications, instead of blindly clicking away, not knowing what the heck they are clicking on. That's how malwares spread.
I'm not sure I would care to claim market share (user counts) when I see people claiming to add their parents, wife, girlfriends, friends, children into the rank of Linux/BSD user. The clueless among those people are the reasons the computers get infected, no matter what softwares they use. Even with Linux/BSD, once your computer is infected, you cannot trust anything, including your personal USB flash drives with PGP keys, private VM's (OpenBox, VMWare...), bootable USB... It's just a matter of time before those get infected along the way if you share computer(s) with such clueless people.
Even without the helps of such clueless people, I already seen countless attemps from emails, and infected websites to infect my computer(s). It is more than a social disease, it is an environmental dissaster already. And I think it may even get worse, yet.
82 • #81 (by davemc on 2010-05-19 12:47:25 GMT from United States)
You just clearly illustrated my thesis #2 fairly well. Its attitudes like what you put forth that is killing Linux adoption. Its narrow minded and one sided and, frankly, elitism at its worst. I think if I sum up your long rant it would be something like, "Linux is not for n0000bz!! We dont want Windo$e idiots in our Linux, and dumb stuff like advertising and keeping discussions civil and focused are for morons like proprietary companies!!!"
IMO, this is completely wrong. Linux is for everyone. Right now it serves a tiny few, comparatively speaking. Many efforts have been made to bring it to the masses via user friendly tweaks, enhancements, driver stack, etc.. yet nothing has been done to SHOW it to the masses.
Advertising does not have to be FUD, and in our case it definitely does not need to be used that way. Rather, it needs to be used to spread awareness en masse. There are many advantages to doing it this way that I wont go into here, except to say that this is how its done in the broader world/scope today when a broader audience is desired for your message, and in the grand scheme, its the cheapest and most effective way as well, not to mention timely and targeted. Lastly, the OSF has already adopted this method and has an initiative on the streets right now to gather data for that purpose. Go figure. I guess the OSF is wrong too?
83 • Linux and users (by Anonymous on 2010-05-19 13:18:41 GMT from Australia)
Interesting reading DW, as always. And if you wanted to know why its hard to get Linux into the wider community (...you know, real people...), all you do need to do is read all of the above. You guys just don't get it! Do I need to be a mechanic to drive a car? What, if I can't balance a tire before putting the wheel back on, does this mean I'm a dope? Really? Contributors here show contempt for non-programmers (...non-mechanics?) and even more contempt for each other. I admire OSS principles but I can't warm to the mindset. I use Windows. I hate Windows but I continue to use it. I've tried many versions of Linux. Can't seem to make a permanent or even a serious move. Why? I don't trust you. I don't trust you to produce something that would enhance my work, life and play and that it'll be something I could continue to rely on for a longer time. Reading the above, its clear you don't want to engage with USERS, only with like-minded techies. So go on. Stay within your sandbox... but remember its only a sandbox. I'll sit by the sandbox, step in every once in a while to admire one or another piece of exemplary but transient work, but mostly I'll enjoy the view of the rest of the park, people, life and other things all around the sandbox...real things... and feel sad for the potential being squandered within. And its all your own doing. Not "newbies". Not "dummies". Not people to stupid to appreciate whats on offer. You. The reason Linux isn't used more widely is because YOU do not want it to be used by people who are not like you. Tell me I'm wrong. Please.
84 • Vector (by Riktorno on 2010-05-19 13:59:53 GMT from United States)
The latest version of Vector is actually pretty good. They are still stripping out stuff and trying to make you pay for it though. What a disgusting practice. Mandriva is another over-rated piece of proprietary fluff. To this weeks D.W. article and interview I say, "who cares"? Let's get back to Linux because anyone who is serious about computing is not going to use BSD.
Ubuntu is the only distro I install on customer's machines anymore because it is the quickest and easiest to get set up. Ubuntu One is a great move and is going to draw in more people. I am becoming a fan. I didn't care for the whole "sudo" thing but it is easy enough to set up a root account and run as root so it's ok. I can't understand all this poppycock about Mandriva, do people really care about it that much? Why?
85 • Linux Adoption.. (by Jon Iverson on 2010-05-19 14:46:02 GMT from United States)
I love Linux and greatly admire the many distros I've worked with these past 5 or 6 years. I understand that FOSS is a tremendous asset and a driving force in all our lives. I also hope that in time the Linux community at large will mature with much of the petty bickering and inane "mine is better than yours" arguments migrating into the distant background behind the main stage so as not to distract or discourage new arrivals to these freedom washed shores.
At this point I no longer point potential Linux and FOSS converts to DistroWatch as an introduction to the open source world. Far too often I've had people come back and say they could not believe how fractured and at odds with one another the world of Linux appeared to be once they'd spent time on this site. And it's impossible to argue otherwise given what's said here week in and week out.
I now advise newly interested people to go to the Ubuntu or Linux Mint web sites and ask their questions or find the information they're looking for there. Many here on DW will say good riddance, we didn't want them hanging out in our sand box anyway. ..So it's a win win situation.
86 • @83 (by Patrick on 2010-05-19 15:10:30 GMT from United States)
I am sad to say I have to agree with some of the sentiments expressed here. This is how things may look "from the outside". But I'd like to add my view to a couple of points here.
First of all, I do not think most of the people populating this and other forums are open source programmers. There are some notable exceptions, and you will rarely or never hear these people make any derogatory remarks. I believe that most open-source developers really want to make things easy for non-technical users. The ones who object to this notion are mostly admins and power-users, because it allows the non-initiated on their turf. They would be the mechanics you refer to. They feel threatened by things that just work and don't need maintenance because if things don't break and just work, their skills become irrelevant. Their ego's get deflated if everyone can do what they can do. They really don't want wide-spread open source adoption, but rather keep the benefits to themselves. So chasing away new users and hating things that make Linux easier is kind of part of the game for them.
Programmers could be more likened to the car manufacturers. Their goal is to get more users using their programs and the best way to do that is to make things easy for everyone, including non-technical users. Their ego's get a boost with more people using their software, and they work hard to please users.
So when you mention "YOU do not want it to be used by people who are not like you", you're kind of targeting the wrong group I think. Programmers are not generally the ones thinking this way. Please do not lump all of us together. There are plenty of users AND developers who do not display the attitude you describe, but genuinely want to help people use Linux and open source. Unfortunately, there is a fairly vocal group of admins and power users who'd rather keep the playground to themselves, and indeed, they like to scare others away from it with their attitudes.
87 • Linux Adoption (by Glenn on 2010-05-19 15:21:20 GMT from Canada)
Hi Jon .Agree with you
I suspect that the DistroWatch population in general are Linux Enthusiasts to varying degrees and are more interested in the esoteric/philosophic elements and venture arguments based on that.
I like the points that poser #81 raised even though I do not like his presentation of them. Cheap shots detracted from an otherwise good statement of position. Whether I agree or not is irrelevant. All too often on here arguments deteriorate into ad hominum arguments and that always diminishs any good points that are raised. #81 is a good example. Well, we are emotional creatures aren't we?
That being said, I think some really spirited discussion is good as well as entertaining. This site is not for the faint of heart. :-)
So this is DistroWatch. Thats what we do, watch them evolve and then proceed to bash the living hell out of them or praise them to the skies.
For a simple user who just wants to power on, click an ICON and proceed to business at hand, this is not for them as you point out.
I doubt Ubuntu forums etc. are as well... It is people like us who influence the converts directly, by demonstration of the simplicity and relative insulation from Windows oriented Virus/Trojan/Malware/spyware etc/ more than any comment area or forum
Linux is not mainstream for the home user nor will it be unless and until PC suppliers have it installed and ready to use ala Windows &. Mac.
Side thought
The Metaphorical references to Automobile knowledge that has been used by a couple of posters is a bit weak because you do have to demonstrate knowledge on driving exams, The degree of licence you obtain will generate tougher exams. For example I have to pass skill tests for Air Brake systems, etc for driving Semis ... That is not required for Linux unless you plan to be an admin and need to establish credentials.
Sorry if I ramble a bit, squeezing this in a small window I have free.
I tried Mint V9. Slipped on my 64bit system smoothly and works fine. Operationally I see no difference between it and V8 and my wifes LTS version of Mint.. (was that 5?) . I have not explored deeper but I will say that is a nice starter system for any potential windows -> Linux convertee.
Above is personal opinion and subject to change without prior notice.
Flames go here (_____________________________) This is my coffee roasting week. :-)
Glenn .
88 • @83 (by Anonymous on 2010-05-19 15:33:50 GMT from Germany)
you are right...and i want to tell you that linux is not ready for desktop but trust it when you want to run a server...
89 • It depends on your point of view. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-05-19 17:02:15 GMT from United States)
@88, Which desktop are you referring to? I know quite a few people who use it and it works fine on their desktop as well as mine. I spend a lot more time installing MS Windows on systems and it's not a fun thing to do. Any os that is pre-installed on a computer system is going to be easy to use and ready for the desktop. A statement that general in scope really has no value. Everybody has an opinion on what "ready for the desktop" means. However you are correct when you say "trust it (linux) when you want to run a server".
@87, "So this is DistroWatch. Thats what we do, watch them evolve and then proceed to bash the living hell out of them or praise them to the skies." Thanks, that is one of the most enjoyable lines I've read in a few days.
As far as OpenBSD goes it really depends on what a person is looking for. It is special software for a special purpose and what it does it does very well. A person could do without it but isn't it good that we don't have to. The text install is not a problem. If a person cannot get by using a text installer then I don't think they would be using OpenBSD anyway.
The beauty of it all is that there are enough BSD distros around with enough different features that it should make everyone happy.
90 • Linux adoption (by Michael M. on 2010-05-19 18:08:52 GMT from United States)
My desktop HD drive died recently and, for various reasons I won't go into, I was in serious, speedy need of a laptop. I was and am of the opinion that I really need to test a laptop "in person," rather than buying one via mail order, because it's important for me to be sure I am comfortable with the keyboard, screen-size, etc. Time & money were short, so I decided my upper limit was $500 and I looked around for what was available locally. There simply were no Linux laptops available anywhere nearby (in Portland, OR, where Linus lives!) for that price. The only places that sold them sold considerably more expensive models. I ended up getting a Toshiba at Best Buy. Windows 7 preinstalled. I haven't used Windows at all for about 7-8 years, and was dual-booting for about 3 years before that. So I was a long-time Linux user. Now I'm using Windows.
My thoughts about this:
1) I do want to return to Linux and will most likely do so when I get the time to mess about with installing it and doing whatever fiddling might be necessary to get everything working right.
2) Once I ruled out the possibility of buying a Linux machine locally, I was surprised at how relieved I felt, knowing that whatever I bought would "just work" out of the box. As a consumer, I try to buy locally when I can, I try to avoid big-box and chain stores whenever possible, but once I decided, "Screw it, I just need to get this done," it was refreshing to walk into a store, test a few machines, and walk out with my purchase knowing hibernation, suspend & resume, wireless, etc., would all work as expected. And I realized, that's how most people want to make these kind of purchases.
3) Until Linux distros can forge the kind of support they need from hardware manufacturers and retail outlets to deliver this kind of buying experience, Linux will always be small potatoes on the desktop/laptop. That's not because of any perceived technical inferiority of Linux, or any particular deficiencies. Most people don't want to do research; this time, I just didn't have time for more than a modest amount of research.
91 • #90 (by Glenn on 2010-05-19 18:35:03 GMT from Canada)
Hi Michael.
I appreciate your point.
Depending on the use of the product I think people will prefer convenience over quality and cost whether it is food, vehicles,cameras, operating systems, or whatever; if it is within reasonable limits. In most cases (I think) an individuals personal time is considered more valuable than cost (or other) savings.
Glenn
92 • Linux adoption, @90 (by fernbap on 2010-05-19 19:19:34 GMT from Portugal)
For any "desktop user", my thoughts are: thank god for the choices Linux offers.
You are afraid of having to tweak Linux? Don't. Just get a bunch of live CDs, try them in the hardware you want to use, and use the distro that gives you no problem.
Doesn't matter if it's debian or red hat or slackware based. All that matters is: try it. If it works, use it. If it doesn't, try another. Windows is just one of the choices you have.
That is, in my opinion, why Mint is so popular. It works. Just tried it in a 10 year old ASUS laptop, everything worked, i didn't have to tweak anything.
That is what a desktop distro is for.
People should also realize that Linux is much more than the desktop, and most of the discussions here don't concern the desktop.
That is not good public relations, though, i have to agree on that. However, most of the damage is made by trolls that should be treated according to a very established internet principle: don't feed the trolls.
93 • #92 Linux adoption (by Anonymous on 2010-05-19 19:51:44 GMT from Finland)
>>>
You are afraid of having to tweak Linux? Don't. Just get a bunch of live CDs, try them in the hardware you want to use, and use the distro that gives you no problem.
<<<
To most computer users, that is tweaking.
94 • Linux adotption? (by meanpt on 2010-05-19 19:53:06 GMT from Portugal)
So far the business model of Linux is a community driven model, like churches of a religion, and an open source business model, and unless someone starts developing unique and specific applications only for linux, showing it as the hype and the most cool thing, the penetration rate will not change much. If specific and really, really cheap hardware starts to be produced in enormous quantities for linux, than things may start changing. It's called critical mass. But still to achieve this, linux must pass the market test, meaning the global corporate competition test, driven by heavy marketing and high level politics. And yet by being a community driven model it's no bad at all. After all many of us went at least once or twice to a church or to some sort of temple, depending on the religion we follow. I never went to an apple church and don't follow that religion.
Which leads me to the question: what the hell on earth is a linux adopter.
My host laptop OS is Windows, came pre-installed and will remain as it is. There is no CD box packed with it and I can't get it virtualized. And yet I have in an external hard drive about 10 virtualized Linux distros, from which I use two or three every day. So, does this turns me in a sort of a half adopter or no adopter at all? Or should I be accounted as an adopter?
Things in life are not black and white, nor red or green. There are more colours to it. Just suppose MeeGo is successful and Nokia starts packing with each phone a colinux installable MeeGo for whatever information management needs users may have. Then developers will follow MeGo and ... who knows what could be achieved. And this is just one colour meaning an OS is just an OS who serves applications as a service. Whether it's a good or bad service, depends on the available alternatives to serve the same application. One thing is sure: the more linux communicates, interacts and emulates Windows, the stronger it may get, just because it contributes to achieve the needed critical mass.
95 • @93 (by fernbap on 2010-05-19 20:24:51 GMT from Portugal)
"To most computer users, that is tweaking."
Do you really think that "most computer users" are that stupid? Think again.
They are used to installing antiviruses and antispyware utilities, they are used to periodically having to defrag their HDs, they are even used - and that one amazed me, from a hard core gamer - to "install windows from scratch every month in order to keep it fast". They are used to having to install a driver for virtually every peripheral they buy. However, they don't call that tweaking. They are just used to it.
However, windows is very NOT user friendly when it comes to teaking it. Just try to alter a windows policy, for instance, or make it autologin to a certain user if you have more than one user created.
"most computer users" are just used to windows, and are just afraid of having to change their habits, even if the move is for the better.
I remember the era of Wordstar/lotus123/dbase III. Except for arguably dbase, the "established" programs were at some point the worst the market had to offer. But people were just used to them, and were afraid to change. It took a decade to make people go away from them.
The same is happening today with windows.
96 • Testing the waters (by Jesse on 2010-05-19 20:48:31 GMT from Canada)
>> "To most computer users, that is tweaking."
>> Do you really think that "most computer users" are that stupid? Think again
Yes, most users are like that and, no, they're not stupid. A good many of us make a living because people are really that uninterested, afraid or unaware of technology. I've had people ask me how to turn off their computers, what a hard drive is, how to turn their speakers on and how to open a printer. I get questions like that almost on a daily basis from a wide range of people and it's happened at every company I've worked for. One person I demoed Ubuntu for was doing really well with it until the question came up, "How do I logout?"
So, yes, the concept of downloading, burning and trying out a live CD is a series of very big and scary steps to most people and it's unfortunate the Linux community isn't more aware of that.
It doesn't mean those people are stupid, it means they haven't learned it yet. People aren't born knowing how to burn an iso, or how to partition a hard drive. It's something which has to be taught to people who want to learn those skills.
97 • Linux Adoption (by Tom on 2010-05-19 21:26:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi :)
Superb to see the front-page news today :) I don't use BSD & have never tried it but it is really fantastic to see it becoming more mainstream and getting mentioned increasingly often in linux circles. Talking of which i bumped into 3 people separately in the street that new a bit about Ubuntu. One said his machine was too old for it, another that he had just installed it that morning (and was a little spooked that i mentioned it) and the third tried to drag me off to meet their guru friend.
A year or few ago i said that one barrier to linux adoption was the lack of people in chance encounters that might mention it. How many times do you overhear people in a pub, or on a bus, or in the newsagents mention something neat they have done in Windows, or given a tip for a 'good' program/game/antivirus. Usually it is assumed that remarks about how to fix this or that are talking about Windows. How often do you overhear strangers passing on tips about linux. I said that was one of the biggest barriers.
People choose something familiar that they feel comfortable with, that they can easily pick-up useful hints & tips about without formally declaring in a public forum that they don't know everything and might be an idiot.
Love it or hate it Ubuntu is getting mentioned in public places without people necessarily showing off about it
Second point is can Angelina Jolie adopt one?
Regards from
Tom :)
98 • RE 83: Houston we have a problem (by KimTjik on 2010-05-19 22:47:25 GMT from Sweden)
A lot is a question of perception. It's difficult to find good parallels, but there's a crucial difference between driving a car and using a computer:
- only the former is limited by expensive education, tests and a license
In a sense this makes all drivers advanced if compared the world of computing. Thoughts about a license to use Internet isn't that far fetched when estimating the total cost of bad or even ignorant user habits. We're talking about billions of dollars.
Put in that perspective the whole Linux vs. Windows or MacOS debate pales in comparison, if the argument is that a user shouldn't be expected to have certain knowledge. The PC design of being a general purpose computer present users with a complexity of choices and possibilities. Hence there's no way all users could be expected to reveal the whole potential of a PC, and the perception about what's good computing will vary. General doesn't refer to the it always being understandable to the public, but it being open for a wide field of implementations.
Whether Linux is one's choice is certainly not decided by degree of intellect. If you appreciate its features or are interested enough might however decide whether you're open for new concepts of computing. Linux is by no means perfect, but that doesn't make it different from the Windows platform, which has its own set of weaknesses. Windows has one way of doing things, for good and bad. No version of Windows is really optimized for any particular use, expect from the very limiting difference between server and desktop version. The rest is only a full version being stripped down to fit different price segments. Despite its weaknesses Linux can be packaged to fit specialized needs, a wonderful feature in itself.
This boils down to what Linux really is: a desktop tool designed from the perspective of users. Ironically Linux made huge inroads fast enough to already dominate some part of server implementation, once more because users, this time including big companies, found advantages in using the Linux kernel and applications developed for it. It's a totally different creature than Windows or MacOS. Windows was built foremost on a screwed business strategy, not as being a tool designed by users.
Linux isn't controlled by a board of directors. Even Linus himself doesn't control the kernel development the way you would expect him to, thus presenting a unprecedented model of development, at least in this scale. So even if I gladly would would see more casual users, and they already exist in a larger degree than ever, I'm not expecting anything to change just because of subjective views about whether it's ready or not for the desktop. It will evolve the way its users direct it to.
It's not elitism, because contrary to elitism it progresses on the basis of hard work done by its own users, not as a elite usually does, take benefit of cheap labour. I'm inclined to think that the culture of demanding others to do what oneself wants is elitism.
99 • Actually, I think most computer users are that stupid (by CrashMaster on 2010-05-19 23:53:05 GMT from United States)
I have lost count of the Windows systems that I have had to spend 3-4 hours on to remove crap, spyware, TSRs, defrag, and otherwise get into running condition.
Average windows users don't have a clue what spybot is, what defrag does, or how to keep their OS from getting bogged down.
When I switch people to Linux, they are absolutely overjoyed that they no longer have to worry about spyware, hijacks, adware, and most of the crap that you can get on computers.
Linux today is a far better option for the average computer user than Windows of any type. Windows alone is crap ... you need to maintain the heck out of it to make a reliable OS. Even then you face zero day exploits and other roadblocks.
The point has been made that widespread adoption requires being able to buy computers preloaded and running Linux. This is the main bottleneck for rapid expansion of Linux use. I personally don't think most computer users care what OS they use .. they want something that just works.
100 • The single biggest problem in getting ANY operating system "out there" is ... (by jake on 2010-05-20 05:29:00 GMT from United States)
... the installer. Consider:
Mac OSX: The OS installer is the hardware manufacturer[1].
MS Windows: The OS installer is (usually) the hardware OEM.
Linux/BSD: The OS installer is (usually) the end-user running a distro-provided installation routine, which for (most) users is a black-box.
My Mom & GreatAunt's versions of Slackware: The OS installer is me.
I get far fewer support calls from Mom & GreatAunt now that they run Slackware ... In essence, to them my variations of Slackware are a cross between Apple's hardware-specific OS, and Windows' ubiquity, with built-in automagical background security updates, and few (if any) malware issues. Their machines & OS have disappeared into the background. They just use 'em, oblivious to the fact that I keep 'em safe & secure, as needed. Can anyone provide this level of support for ALL Linux users? Simple answer: No. At least not today. Anymore than for OSX or Windows.
However, Linux/BSD/GNU, and FOSS in general, are here to stay. And doomed to get better and better, by their/it's "open" nature. This is true, regardless of the babblings of the various fanbois. No corporation can say the same ... ALL corporations eventually go away (see Enron for a particularly egregious example ... Oracle swallowing Sun is another ...). Unless all governments, world-wide ban FOSS efforts[2], Occam's Razor suggests that FOSS will eventually be head & shoulders over any corporate offering.
I, personally, keep my ear to the ground when it comes to commercial offerings ... but I know where the money is in the long haul. And that's FOSS.
And as a direct result of THAT short, two sentence paragraph ... instead of taking the attitude of "it's too hard for Mom & GreatAunt to learn", I take the attitude of "how can I make this work for Mom & GreatAunt". The end result is that when the Wife & I call on said matriarchs (fortnightly, alternate weekends, they live about 100 miles from us, in different directions), it's for tea. It used to be my wife having tea, and me fixing their computers. Them running a customized Slackware is a much nicer state of affairs, all around.
The people saying "ordinary folks can't use Linux" ... To you, all I can do is shake my head sadly at your lack of vision. Hopefully your eyes will open, eventually.
To the people who just settle on Windows "because it's ubiquitous" ... Enjoy your Redmond expressed & implied headaches. If you are reading here, you should know enough to know better.
To the people who choose a Mac ... I can see the appeal, especially to a un*x user (even though Mac OSX variation of BSD is... err ... funky, to say the least), but surely the tight control from Cupertino raises hackles?
Bottom line? Use what works for you. But try to keep your eyes open ... There is no one perfect OS, no perfect hardware, and no perfect applications. But some combinations of hardware, OS and applications can fade into the background, to the point of not being noticed by the enduser. *IF* the installer knows what s/he's doing.
[1] For values of "hardware manufacturer" that include "drop shipper".
[2] Not going to happen ... and if it does, FOSS will still exist. There are too many DVDs full of source-code out there to shut it down now.
101 • That 'year of the Linux desktop' debate yet again (by gnomic on 2010-05-20 07:00:58 GMT from New Zealand)
Firstly #83, as you asked to be told you are wrong, I think you're wrong. For every reclusive nerd who doesn't want any lusers playing in his pool, there must be another nine Linuxoids who would like to see Linux used more widely.
On the wider question of why Linux has an infinitesimal share of the market, surely the answer must be that next to nobody has ever even heard of it. Just try asking a few randomly selected people what is Linux, and I'm pretty sure the answer will be "Wazzat?" in most cases. For most people Windows *is* their computer. They don't even know there is any alternative, apart from maybe Apple, probably largely as a result of the iPod thing. This of course relates back to the unholy alliance between the PC makers and Microsoft which continues essentially unmodified despite court cases.
While I personally enjoy the diversity in the world of Linux, that may well be a weakness too in the sense of "Which Linux?" There is of course only one Windows, and indeed only one Mac OS. Often choice confuses consumers. Alas, I doubt the year of Linux on every computer will ever arrive , but I enjoy it for what it is. If nothing else it has probably served to somewhat moderate Microsoft's rapacity, securing a somewhat better deal for computer users at large.
102 • Linux adoption (by zygmunt on 2010-05-20 08:21:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Of 4 in the family. I am the only Linux user. All 8 machines dual boot Windows/Linux. The machines are networked. My wife uses Windows at work and home and will from time to time uses OpenOffice on Linux (eeepc ASUS/Xandros) but is 99% a Windows user (Vista/XP E_mail, Web Browsing, Banking, Scanning, Printing, TAX) The 2 young men again use Windows (Web, chat, music,college work, Games, Printing, Scanning) since that is what School and College provide also. They see Windows as supreme and convenient for their use. I am the only programmer. They and their peers all are much too busy to afford Linux a look. And that's the way it's likely to stay. There is no interest or time for any geek stuff. The opportunity to use Linux is presented to them at every boot, but it goes ignored. They are set up to use Windows and nothing is going to change that soon. I suspect that most families are similar, but without the possibility of any Linux boot at all. Windows (Vista and XP) has provided a good and reliable basis without malware intrusions. (antivirus in operation). With that scenario I don't see ordinary users showing any interest at all in alternative Operating Systems.
103 • it's dumb to promote linux adoption (by dopher on 2010-05-20 12:04:33 GMT from Belgium)
I hope linux will never be adopted by the general public.
I think the following will happend when the mass uses linux:
The marketing department of an OS has a too big influence on the development, crap will enter the operating system (just take a look at windows) Yes you still have the option to go for a clean OS, but the mass will use a commercial/popular distro. The popular window managers will probably meet the demands of the general public.
Small example: the internet was a nice place when the general mass didn't used it, only some students and computerloving people. Then the mass adopted it, and now it's a place of porn, virusses, and trying to get as much info about users as possible for security or commlercial reasons. plus we are all being watched.
When the general mass, aka next-next clickers, will adopt linux, we will see a gulf of virus like shell scripts targeted at the users home dir. And yes, linux will appear to be not so safe anymore. Also another gulf of mallware/spyware. The user has certain rights, and it can be exploited. Especially when clicking next.
The advantage will be that hardware manufacturers and software companies will put more effort in linux support. thats a +. And i think the only plus! also companies will see that's it's worthwhile to make spyware/phone-home apps because they can get data from a large audience (sorry to make this statement twice)
Try not to promote linux, try to promote open standards. keep linux for the technical people where it belongs.
104 • Tales of my sister's laptop (by Mandriveiro on 2010-05-20 13:17:12 GMT from Spain)
Somehow, I agree with some of the comments. Anyway, I'd like to share my experience with my sister's laptop.
Sharing files with her classmates, her computer with Windows 7 got a serious virus. My other sister spent one day by stalling and hacking a new version of Windows and some antivirus. Two weeks later, the computer got another virus. Then, I told her to switch into linux, bearing in mind that she does not like computers and she even confused RAM and hard disk.
In less than one hour, I installed Mandriva 2010 in her laptop with KDE 4. Before starting, I warned her that it would be a bit difficult, but she trusted me. After the installation, she asked me: "what's so difficult? If you know the basic steps, it's not so hard". In another half an hour, she got installed everything else she needed: printer, wireless internet, etc. I also taught her to update the computer often and some very basic security rules. Three months later, she said a) she is not afraid any more of studying and sharing files with her classmates at college, b) it's easy to use and c) much more customizable and beautiful than windows.
Conclusions: The linux desktop IS ready for the average user. The problem is that big companies make much more money by cheating users, instead of offering good quality.
105 • Novell Seeking a Buyer (by Sly on 2010-05-20 13:56:28 GMT from United States)
Has anyone else read this?.......first Mandriva, then Novell.
106 • RE: 78-85-89-98-100 (by Landor on 2010-05-20 18:51:08 GMT from Canada)
#78
I thought you were trying the recent Alpha. The one you're using is their last release and dated. I can't remember specifically but I don't think LXDE was even released then or if so, widely distributed.
#85
Personally I find this odd that you'd send people to Distrowatch as an introduction to Linux. When I speak to anyone about Linux and what distributions to use I give them the name and site's address. This is no slur against DW either. It's more of pointing the people in the right direction. I usually guide the person further as well if there interest is true. Releasing them into the "wild" so to speak is just bad all the way around and Jake touches on that via his support/installer comments. But by your last comment (where you stated you now tell them to go Forum-X for help), it eludes to the point that you told them to come here for help. That's not what this site is for and to be completely honest it's not very responsible of you if that's what you did indeed tell them.
Also, I can't really find the whole argument that people have left Linux or won't use it because of discussions invalid. Even weak. If someone left Linux for those reasons it's of my opinion they would have left anyway and were looking for an excuse to, any excuse.
Two different cases in point. My sister a die-hard MS user (for work and her ever betterment of her education) has never once visited DW or any forum and happily motors along using Linux on what "I" installed/setup for her. A woman that has posted here a couple times and is a stalwart Christian with very deeply entrenched ideals on how one behaves, never left Linux after reading this site regularly and in fact though only used Linux on one machine (her netbook) has spoken often of making the full switch and probably will. The miracle of that one? Even after reading here as I said! Astonishing. :)
#89
I've been meaning to ask for some time, is that your actual name or from the movie by chance?
#98
"It's not elitism, because contrary to elitism it progresses on the basis of hard work done by its own users, not as a elite usually does, take benefit of cheap labour. I'm inclined to think that the culture of demanding others to do what oneself wants is elitism."
You had to go and ruin it. I like that they think I fit the moniker of an Elitist..lol Hopefully they won't listen which is usually the norm. :)
#100
My reply to that: :)
Sadly, I think it'll also fall under the same category as I hope Kim's will in my last sentence to him.
----
Everyone's talking about Linux adoption and there's been some really exciting releases this week. Who gives a ____ about adoption, if it happens it does, if it doesn't, it doesn't. We've got some nice ones just out of the gate, they're here right now, its issue isn't. :)
Keep your stick on the ice....
Landor
107 • LOL LOL LOL (by Jon Thomsen on 2010-05-20 19:18:58 GMT from United States)
" I like that they think I fit the moniker of an Elitist..lol "
Are the words "elitist" and "blowhard" synonyms?
108 • Re: 107 (by jake on 2010-05-20 20:09:35 GMT from United States)
No, not synonyms. Ad hominems. HTH, HAND.
109 • RE: 108 (by Landor on 2010-05-20 20:28:46 GMT from Canada)
I swear some of them literally sit day in and day out waiting for their big chance to score..lol
Such flattery. :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
110 • More barriers to Linux adoption (by WindowsUser294837921827216 on 2010-05-21 03:31:34 GMT from United States)
Other barriers to Linux adoption:
1. The install process for some Linux distributions assume that the user will want LINUX to take over the entire hard drive. Not only is this scary, but impractical since many new adopters will want to try more than one distro while maintaining a fallback to Windows.
2. Most Linux distros do not automount other internal hard drive partitions which may contain data which the user wants to access. Files downloaded or created while working in Linux may become inaccessible when re-booting back to Windows, since Windows also cannot access LINUX partitions.
3. Many Windows users are used to setting up their desktops with links or shortcuts to frequently used applications, folders, and files. Similar arrangements can be accomplished in LINUX, but the user interface is much different, leaving the newbee lost.
4. Wireless network cards are common and relatively easy to setup in Windows. It is certainly more challenging to get these wireless NIC cards working in LINUX.
111 • Linux adoption (by RollMeAway on 2010-05-21 04:54:41 GMT from United States)
Biggest problem I have in converting new users is stability.
Linux is a constantly changing.
If I choose a distro and a desktop, and setup a converts computer for them,
in six months or less it is obsolete, and no longer supported.
Similarly, if I upgrade their system to the latest release, peripherals that DID work,
fail with the new release. Wifi firmware especially!
Recently I have started using debian stable based distros, but that also is due to
change in a few months.
Going with something like Scientific just seems too old.
I can't find a happy medium.
I believe general computer USERS hate change.
They don't want to learn a new system and new ways every six months.
112 • RE: 111 (by KimTjik on 2010-05-21 08:38:13 GMT from Sweden)
"I believe general computer USERS hate change."
Yes, they do! Otherwise IE6 should have been eradicated from the surface of earth by now.
113 • @ Landor - BLAG (by meanpt on 2010-05-21 09:20:15 GMT from Portugal)
Hi. Didn't find that alfa release. Could you send me the link if still available? Many Thanks.
114 • @110 (by fernbap on 2010-05-21 09:58:00 GMT from Portugal)
1. false
2. false. hard drive partitions appear in the file manager, you just have to click on them. Many distros do automount. Not automounting is just an option you can set or not. (Gnome and KDE desktops, which means 90%+ of all linux users. The other are those that don't need the desktop to be that windows alike). Btw, linux can work with windows partitions. Windows can't work with linux partitions.
3. false. in fact it's easier in Linux (again, gnome and kde desktops).
4. 90% of them will run out of the box. Linux supports windows drivers. Windows doesn't support linux drivers.
115 • @ 106 and 113 - Landor - Blag (by Anonymous on 2010-05-21 10:41:47 GMT from Portugal)
Hi, forget my last 113 comment - I'm ashamed - the download link is listed in this distrowatch issue :)
116 • high season (by forlin on 2010-05-21 11:36:27 GMT from Portugal)
Lots of new Linux releases on these days. One more today:
Paldo 1.22
117 • RE: 106 I'm the real thing. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-05-21 12:35:43 GMT from United States)
Good Morning Landor,
That's my real name. Some people say that I shouldn't use my real name on the internet and maybe I shouldn't. I often get mistaken for a movie star.:)
118 • RE:111 There are several good LTS type distros (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-05-21 12:55:57 GMT from United States)
I've found that most users really don't like to change or reinstall every 6 months. What I try to do is set a person up with customized LTS distro of some sort. Even tho it's not listed as a LTS distro Mepis is a good stable distro that's easy to use and fairly modern. Usually anything based on Debian stable as you stated, also I do like the Ubuntu LTS based distros for new users. After using a Linux distro for a while a person may feel inclined to do a little distro hopping or move to a more advanced distro. If they wants to then they have that option but the beauty of it is they don't have to.
119 • Code reviewin BSD, windows ... and linux??? (by Adjudant Tifrice on 2010-05-21 14:55:03 GMT from Czech Republic)
I was very surprised in this week's DW : a BSD developper told their code are peer-reviewed (never read something like that in GNU/linux developers interviews : that is really an interesting point....)
I know that M$ codes are peer reviewed (by two independent readers, at least one of them having no link with the author : that is near academic standards: if industrials want to buy windows, they can buy the right to re-peer -review, as two readers might bbe thought not enough) ...
*** but ***
what about
.... Free Open Source and GNU/linuxdistributions?
120 • Mandriveries (by Carla B.S. on 2010-05-21 15:02:11 GMT from Serbia)
In this week DWW issue :
"In the news section, Mandriva CEO Arnaud Laprévote diffuses rumours about the company's existential concerns"
is in contradiction with his attept to have rumours undiffused (the copy and paste of Mr Laprévote post -else, his post would be meaningless)
121 • Re #117 (by Glenn on 2010-05-21 15:33:03 GMT from Canada)
Ah ha.
So when I am trying to pursuade people to switch to Linux I can say "it is the operating system of choice by movie stars"
heh heh heh
Glenn
122 • @ 106 and 113 - Landor - Blag (by meanpt on 2010-05-21 15:34:11 GMT from Portugal)
... sorry Landor, but in my virtual testing environment, even with 400 MB of RAM allowed, the Blag Alfa struggles a lot to move on, despite reverting to LXDE or Openbox. This is slower than most of the 9.10 buntus on 384 MB of RAM.
123 • @119 peer reviews (by Patrick on 2010-05-21 15:43:38 GMT from United States)
I can't claim to know the ins and outs of Linux development at the different levels of kernel, upstream projects, distributions, etc., but I would say that based on its development model, there is plenty of peer review going on in the FOSS and Linux world.
In closed source corporations like Microsoft, peer review needs to be formalized because there are only so many people that have access to the code. In smaller open source projects like OpenBSD, some formal peer review system may be useful too, especially if many developers have commit access to the main source tree. I don't know if many other open source projects have a formal peer review like that, but I'd say that for projects like the Linux kernel, peer review is by design built-in to the development model.
Linus' law says that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". This law describes why peer review works. For a change to be made to the Linux kernel, someone will submit a patch. The subsystem maintainer examines the patch and merges it. In the end, Linus decides what patches get merged into the mainline kernel. Then distributions take a kernel release and integrate it with their distribution, patching things if necessary to make it work for them. In this whole process, many eyeballs see the different patches (which often get repeatedly rejected before they get accepted).
Now I'm not saying every open source project gets this much peer review, and I'd venture to guess there are plenty of small projects that don't get any peer review at all. But a base Linux system doesn't generally contain code from these projects. By the time a project gets big and important enough to become part of the base of a Linux system, it usually has some system in place where plenty of eyeballs look at the code before it gets into a release.
Probably the weakest link in the process from upstream to user would be the distribution itself. The pieces that make up a distribution are likely mature, peer reviewed projects, but the distribution may be a one-man-show putting the pieces together without much code review. That's why I tend to stay away from one-man-show types of projects.
124 • RE: a lot of them..lol (by Landor on 2010-05-21 21:19:26 GMT from Canada)
#111
I spoke about the craziness of installing every six months a couple weeks back in regard to what my systems are going to run since the hardware is where functionality is needs to be for me in the kernel. I want long term and have even honestly considered a stripped down Ubuntu (free as in speech). Also though, even without a LTS it's still insane to install again (if only software is the desire) as the big names have "fairly" decent support for their versions. Fedora supports their releases for 13 months so you can skip one. Ubuntu goes for 18 months allowing you to skip two. Mandriva is 12, so again allowing you to skip one. I'm not sure about openSUSE's life cycle but I'm guessing it's fairly decent as well. So there really should be no need (other than the desire for the latest and greatest) to "have" to upgrade every new release as long as your hardware functions fully. There's usually backport repos as well. Just my take on it all.
#117
I knew a guy that always was asked, "Weren't you in such and such a movie", when he was cleanly shaven..lol In case you're wondering I was talking about an old 80's movie called Eddie and The Cruisers. :)
#121
I smiled at your comment, then give it a chuckle too. :) I hope you enjoy your long weekend. :)
#122
That's strange, do you know what date your iso was created on? I went to the mirror for mine. It works great and actually I find it a bit more responsive than Fedora 12 which it's based on. Could be hardware differences as well. No two stones are alike. :)
#123
I'd wager as well that a bigger project can be too big to a point where smaller portions of it aren't scrutinized enough.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
125 • re #124 (by Glenn on 2010-05-21 22:33:26 GMT from Canada)
Hiya Landor.
Thanks, I hope yours is good also.
For me however this weekend thru to next is booked solid as we're rolling out a new release (not Linux) and the usual last minute scrambles ( I like to refer this time to the Omlette period) are in full force. Trying to keep the non-techies(mgmt) calmed down and realizing that the universe as we know it is not coming to an end and; that we really DO know what we are doing; is a whole project in itself. :-)
Thank God for Austins Wild Turkey. Great nerve tonic. :-)
Very relaxing.
Some of my collegues get so relaxed on it we have to carry them out.
I was hoping to get down your way but that wont happen until about the second week of June.
Take care and have a great 24 weekend, figuratively and literally.
Glenn
126 • re: #106 & #85 (by CC on 2010-05-22 00:34:18 GMT from United States)
Yes, I have learned a great deal from reading over here. Especially now that I'm *finally* starting to understand more, lol. And since I do still consider myself a "new arrival", I will say that I actually find the exact reverse to be true. I am drawn *more* to this place because of the intensity, passion and dedication I see expressed here week after week. And from what I've learned and unlearned about Linux and MS respectively, isn't that what the heart and soul of Linux is supposed to be about? *shrug* Anyway, I don't think I am exactly "in this sandbox" quite yet. Just observing, learning, enjoying my time in here and appreciating the time I spend away from my current MS issues. I've never gotten the impression that newbies are unwelcome/unwanted here; quite to opposite actually.
And I am actually in the planning stages of finally making a complete Linux conversion. As Landor said, I still use MS on my main computer and Linux on my netbook. Doing so over the last several months has made the pros and cons VEERRrrry clear. If it wasn't for my Photoshop dependence, I would have made the switch already.
So since I've been too chicken to post much I suppose I can prove that newbies are quite welcome around here ;) by asking for any input regarding that? I've messed around with GIMP but I don't think I'm ready to abandon Photoshop completely. I'm exploring my options and would love all the input, help, direction I can get!
Thanks to you all. You are much appreciated by this lurking newb. :)
127 • Peer review and Photoshop (by Jesse on 2010-05-22 01:24:04 GMT from Canada)
I think whether code review is done or not depends more on the focus of the project than the size. Some really small projects do excellent reviews and some don't do any at all. Some medium projects I've worked on would commit code that wouldn't even compile and others would review and test changes carefully.
@126: If you're hooked on Photoshop and can't get by with open source tools like the GIMP, then you could try a few different approaches. The obvious one would be to continue to use different OSes on different machines, or dual-boot. Runner up to that, if you have enough RAM, you could install Linux and then install Windows in a virtual environment and run Photoshop in the virtual machine. I think Photoshop will run in WINE too, so you might try that on your Linux machine.
If some of the above didn't make sense, feel free to e-mail me for clarification.
128 • RE: 127 (by Landor on 2010-05-22 04:38:57 GMT from Canada)
We went over the various options available to her, and her use is work related. It would take quite a bit of research and seeking out plugins and such (if some comparable existed) to extend GIMP to what she needs. But it's not just Photoshop either, she has the complete package from Adobe to replace or get running in a virtual environment/WINE.
I never understood the logic behind dual booting. For good or bad (meaning the OS and its problems) If I'm in one, why would I really close it off to go through the mundane process of booting into another one. I think someone would have to be truly dedicated to switch back. For me, once I'm in whatever and using it, I'm staying there and I'm far less lazy (computer-wise..lol) than the average person.
I often wonder when I read that people dual-boot how much time do they end up "really" spending in the respective operating systems.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
129 • side note on Paldo recently released (by meanpt on 2010-05-22 10:37:45 GMT from Portugal)
... on a virtual machine with 256 MB of RAM is fast and responsive, boots fast, logs out fast, installation is fast (provided those who install knows how to handle basic GParted, which for me is still a matter of trial/error) and at some times is awkwardly amusing - you may choose as system's language the English of Switzerland, which I understood when had to click "Forward" instead of "Next", and during booting some "done" flags are translated to some sort of Cyrillic characters). Drawback: use of Upkg. But then, there isn't (still) such thing as the perfect lady (or man) neither.
130 • @128 Landor - "I never understood the logic behind dual booting." (by meanpt on 2010-05-22 10:51:59 GMT from Portugal)
... :) ... It may be useful if you want to try M$ Windows in a real hardware environment and get a taste of how things worked in the past ...
131 • @129 Paldo (by forlin on 2010-05-22 14:20:46 GMT from Portugal)
Hi, meanpt
"But then, there isn't (still) such thing as the perfect lady (or man) neither" ...
I liked this one. :) true !!!
I found Paldo when I first arrived at Linux, and after a while started distrohopping like "crazy". With a few partitions, and various distros installed, (one of witch was Paldo), while everything else kept coming and going, for one or other reason, Paldo always "survived on my disk. Up to today.
I know that they could do some work to become more user friendly. Anyway, I found it easy to adapt myself to the distro, although we all are aware that this is a matter that lies a lot on the way each one uses it's pc's, not forgetting their hardware.
Regarding Paldo, What first attracted me, was that the o/s is really out of the way, user wise. Then, 3 main strong points: speed, reliability and truly bleeding edge (not at all packages, but surely on all of those where the essence of the o/s and DE remains.
132 • RE 127 : Peer reviews and photoshop (by Pot de Vin on 2010-05-22 15:39:15 GMT from Germany)
Thanks for your answer about peer review and its disparity in the GNU world : I was surprised (I had to look **very superficially** at them, as there were problems:this is exactly thre opposite of peer reviews) by the contrast between some kernel codes and some free codes (which could not be reviewed, IMO as they seemed to work, with a given compiler, by something like a miracle....).
Reminding it has no correlation with the size of the project is interesting, too (I was almost sure it was linked with an insufficient number of developpers : it is thus **worse** than I feared...).
Dual booting or virtual machining are slow : the best solution to have Photoshop working (unless one learns the GIMP : learning two equivalent softwares is not the double of the time one learned the first one) seems to use wine: in 2005, GNU linux magazine France offered wine and links to photoshop to its readers, if I remember; it seems to have unequal (but better with recent versions of wine) successes according to http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?appId=17 (and the children links), this is like a compatibilty table, with a list of few issues...
133 • @131 paldo (by subg on 2010-05-22 21:02:38 GMT from United States)
Yes, the speed and bleeding edge features have been key reasons to keep using it. Not effortlessly, though - e.g.Samba is now disabled in gvfs at every upgrade if the script isn't modified. The developers basically upgrade with upstream packages unchanged. Makes for a clean, fast distro for modern systems but not tinker-free for a few things.
134 • @ #127 _ Photoshop in Wine.. (by Jon Iverson on 2010-05-23 00:18:17 GMT from United States)
----------------------------------------
For whatever it's worth:
Photoshop v7 runs flawlessly in Wine on my Mint 9 desktop. Photoshop CS2 as well. On the other hand once into the Adobe Illustrator CS series, Wine doesn't manage these at all. However Illustrator v10.03, the immediate predecessor to CS, runs flawlessly in Wine as well.
135 • @ 131 forlin and 133 subg - Paldo (by meanpt on 2010-05-23 00:43:32 GMT from Portugal)
@ 131 forlin - it's nice to share linux experiences and ... well, other stuff with a country (latin) fellow.
@ 133 subg - I now some services are not included but I don't need them either :) ... still to test the folder sharing in virtual box :) ... anyway it's adopted :)
136 • Dual-booting (by Jimmy Hoffa on 2010-05-23 01:52:49 GMT from United States)
I dual boot all the time. In spite of the fact that Linux does a lot of things great, it just doesn't do everything. Hence the need for Windows. Its just that simple. For one, no Linux distro can use my web cam and Skype reasonably well. Windows works flawlessly.
I would image that Photoshop works best using Windows.
That's why I also have different pots & pans, forks & spoons.
137 • Geat Piece Jesse (by Justin on 2010-05-23 03:58:02 GMT from United States)
I have to say thats a well thought out and true piece on Linux adoption. I agree with your suggested responses as well. Recently, my father was infected with one of those rogue antivirus programs, which messed up his system, and was only made worse by the fact his OS install was the original, full of all the bloated registry keys from software years ago uninstalled.
One comment he made to me as I formatted and reinstalled Windows XP was something to the effect of: "Maybe I should have let you put Linux on there when you first asked."
Baby steps... :-)
138 • RE: 130-136 and dual-booting (by Landor on 2010-05-23 04:07:15 GMT from Canada)
I understand why at times people need to dual boot. Also, for someone switching and concerned if it's the right thing or not, then yes, it's a solution.
Let's take a look at your scenario. How often do you Skype and or need to use your webcam? Then once you're done do you slap your forward and go, "Boy I almost forgot! I need to check on the latest comments by Landor (lol) at Distrowatch, then A) immediately reboot into Linux, or B) do you stay on Windows, bring up IE or whatever browser you're using, and pop over and take a look?
This was the main reason for one of my arguments before that a user shouldn't be counted that dual-boots. You cannot objectively account for how much time is supported in the other OS by that user. I know if I was in the above scenario (thankfully I don't use Windows though and I get to read all my comments with their plethora of typos firsthand!) I'd get real sick and tired, real fast, of popping into Linux just to say, show my support here at DW by running Linux when I viewed it. I'd definitely end up just clickin' on the icon of that ugly Big Blue "E" or The Fox and checking what I posted..lol
But to go into that, would that make me, dual-booting, a Linux user, yes. It doesn't make me a full-time Linux user and depending on what I'm doing and for how long I'm doing that, it could only be counted as periodic at best. So not an accurate measure. Which of course lends credence to my stand on dual-booting being disqualified as a usage marker.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
139 • multi-booting (by Reuben Perelman on 2010-05-23 05:11:40 GMT from United States)
I admit to dual-booting archlinux and windows xp. I spend the vast majority of my time in arch. I spend a little bit of time in xp so I can use photoshop cs4. Until gimp offers non-destructive editing and better handling of psd files, I'm going to use photoshop for my school work. And of course this only my desktop. Both my laptop and mythtv box are completely free of any microsoft software.
140 • Linux adoption (by osado on 2010-05-23 10:38:30 GMT from Spain)
I think that the only solution for linux adoption is that the FSF shoud become a hardware manufacturer with a whole line of computers and peripherals, a la Apple. And when I speak about peripherals, I speak about all kind, even music players and mobile phones.
And good marketing image.
The advantage over Apple should be the lower price and the range of software applications. The disadvantage is that the software choice should be more limited per application that the current one, and that choice MUST be stable, simple (last user oriented, not developer oriented) and work flawlessly.
The alternatives to this software should be this, alternatives, so the user, if he want, can test if it fits better his requirements. But the user never should be forced to having a choice, this will confuse him.
If a new computer user can only buy a Mac or a Windows one, he's almost lost for the Linux world. It will keep the first choice, because is what he will be used to work. Only desperate cases will force him to change, and this is why some windows users adopt Mac: no viruses, simplicity and a complete range of attractive peripherals (ipod and iphone), whatever the cost it has, either economical or in freedom. And these last should be the advantage of this theory: low cost and an application for every need.
Are there more games for Mac that for Linux? I don't think so. But an adult will select an Apple before that a Linux because of simplicity and good integration, regardless the cost.
But there arise a problem: being as it is, and should be, a freedom paladin, a number of things will not work by default: wireless, flash... all because of privative firmwares or protocols. So, what should happen: FSF flexibilizing a bit its point of views so the linux adoption will spread, or should born a new organization?
Maybe a strong linux distribution is thinking about this idea and we will see (put_a_distro_name) hardware? But, then, it will be at risk of become a classic corporation, dictating the rules...
Sorry for my limited english. I'd wish to explain better my point of view, but I think that this is the idea. Regards.
141 • RE 138 : multiboots and photoshop (by Tête de Veau on 2010-05-23 13:57:19 GMT from Czech Republic)
Hi Landor :
"You cannot objectively account for how much time is supported in the other OS by that user. "
In my case, 99% of the (box) time spent under W$7 is to ....defrag its disk, as Linux (in form of unetbotin'ed USBs(just CDRom image, with a lazy mount to add softs) or in form of real disks, as Mandriva 2010.0 (and 2009.0, too : 2009.1 is very slow on "net""books") allows installing on an USB stick and puts the grub on it) use NTFS. disks to have the latest applications :W7 's defrag is very long, but reliable enough to be done by night, while I am sleeping.... During days (and in summer, they are longer) and some ights, my "net""books" are under some GNUlinuxen, with extra (newer) softs added to the original distribution.
The remaining 1% under W$7 are used to test free software (except valgrind, most of the free applications are W$ ported: there are even GPLD'd applications which work only under Windows, at least with their last versions (ex: http://sourceforge.net/projects/saga-gis/files/ : there were too many versions of desktops under linux : they had few devs, and the most interesting -interpolations- part of saga-gis is under Windows: I tried to have the equivalent versions working ....)
When 100% of the time spent under W$7 will be to defrag NTFS files, it is obvious I will change the file system.....
If one has to do some interactions between softwares, I agree that multiboots are disastrous, and (in the best case) one OS out of 2 cannot be maintained by an user (it is duplicated, uninteresting work).
I am almost sure that photoshop can run nice under wine, if the difference with the GIMP is worth the trouble:
it is thus ironical to see that people are asking for functionalities UBUlinux decided to get rid of (and the mechanical argument "just go to the repos" is pointless, are skills are different to download and have automagically installed -if one has an IT connection- and to use a drawing software).
Have nice days...
142 • page hits and downloads (by sluggo on 2010-05-23 16:20:40 GMT from United States)
hello . any stats on downloads via the page hit here at distro watch?
i wonder because of curiosity if the page hits are more point of info at the site than access to the linux software
thank you!
143 • Photoshop/GIMP & Dual Boot (by CC on 2010-05-23 18:31:05 GMT from United States)
Thanks all for the help. After more review, I think I've decided that I am going spend more time with GIMP (I know Landor, it's what you said to do all along). I'm going to use it in windows for now, it's too big of a pain to use on the netbook since I don't have an external mouse. I think it will be useful enough for the majority of my needs. If I get comfortable enough, then I will set up a dual boot (just to keep my Adobe suite in case I'd ever need it) and not mess with trying to salvage all my Adobe programs, I really don't use them very often really. And part of my current MS issues revolve around my serious need for an upgrade (which I'm not willing to/can't justify spending the mega bucks on). I really would like to spend my future learning & effort toward Linux, otherwise I'll keep wasting it on MS band-aids :/
144 • kubuntu-netbook (by RollMeAway on 2010-05-23 18:33:29 GMT from United States)
For those looking for something new, give this a look.
It is notably different than other "netbook" desktops.
Don't expect the usual kde desktop.
Here is a quick overview:
http://gadgetmix.com/index/kubuntu-netbook-review/
Unlike the author, I had no problem installing firefox,
nor anything else.
It installed on a traditional desktop without problems,
So, you don't NEED a netbook to try it.
145 • Re 138 Not counting dual booters (by Ed Herbst on 2010-05-23 19:04:01 GMT from United States)
Landor, I must respectfully disagree with your stand on dual booters not counting as Linux users. Would you also say they wouldn't count as users of the other OS either because they don't use it exclusively.
If anyone consistently boots into any OS and uses that OS to perform any task they are a user of the OS. If it is for only 1% or 99% of their total computer usage, for that time period they are a user of that OS and should be counted as such. If a government could tax you for your Linux usage do you think they would only tax users who use it 100%.
I own a motorcycle and am properly licensed to ride it. Since I also own a truck and drive my wife's car sometime does that mean I not a motorcyclist.
I have four computers that I use. Two have been switched to Linux use only, one is still xp until I finish a project I'm using it for, and the last I dual boot because I'm a gamer and haven't succeeded in getting my favorite games to run under wine yet. Everything else I do on computers I have moved to Linux except
my access databases since I haven't figured out yet how to recreate them in Linux, but I'm working on it.
I'm not 100% Linux yet and may never be, but I certainly consider myself a Linux user and feel I should be counted as one.
146 • RE: 145 (by Landor on 2010-05-23 19:19:39 GMT from Canada)
I did say you'd be a Linux user. Since we were discussing adoption I jumped on one of my older stands about how people are counted. You own 4 computers, okay, two are Linux use only (I'll take that as Windows wiped right off them if it came pre-installed). Do you think they should be counted as Windows computers? Most likely not right? Since those computers were sold (if they were) with Windows pre-installed, MS counts them as a Windows computer and will continue to count them as one. That's not correct though is it?
My stand is the same premise. It's not an accurate measure of Linux usage if the usage is periodic. So just like MS shouldn't be able to still count your system (good luck on anyone changing that) as a Windows system, neither should one be measured for usage that is a "part-time" system. It's as inaccurate as MS stating every computer that was ever sold with Windows pre-installed still has it on it and is a measure of their success.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
147 • Ubuntu 10 (by Flavio Paiva B. Harder on 2010-05-23 19:41:13 GMT from Brazil)
I'm using Ubuntu 10 and enjoying. I'm generating many things to mr website under this wonderful Operating System. In my website I have translated the page "Top Ten Distributions". The address is http://flaviopaiva.net/blog/tecnologia/com-qual-linux-eu-vou/.
148 • Re: 141 defragmentation (by jake on 2010-05-23 19:43:43 GMT from United States)
I may be a near-100% Linux/BSD user, but that doesn't mean I don't know Microsoft stuff. Contrary to popular belief, unlike the FAT family, NTFS doesn't really need defragmenting (snake-oil "Utility" company marketing not withstanding). You might as well save the wear & tear on your hard drive. Don't believe me? Time a few disk intensive tasks, then use the system for a few weeks or months & time those same tasks again.
THAT said, probably the best way to keep a Windows box running smoothly is to add a second disk (spindle, not partition). Point $TMP and $TEMP to separate directories on this disk. Also place your swap file on it. Likewise, point your browser cache at it, off-line Usenet files, email, so-called "Documents and Settings", and everything else that cycles thru' a lot of disk space. Make your swapfile permanent in size by setting the max & min to the same value. Clearing "update" info & other cruft out of your Windows directory helps, too. Don't use a solid-state drive for this, you'll wear it out prematurely.
On desktop & server systems, I do the same thing with Linux/BSD ... Don't toss that old "small" hard drive, turn it into a dedicated swap partition! Mount /tmp on it, too. Add a third spindle for /home. Etc. I'll leave partition sizing as an exercise for the reader ... but for the record, this heavily used laptop with 2Gigs of RAM never hits swap, unless I'm recompiling the kernel ... and rarely in that case.
149 • RE:146 (by Ed Herbst on 2010-05-23 20:13:25 GMT from United States)
You are correct in saying that Windows was completely wiped from the two computers. I will also agree that it is difficult to accurately measure Linux usage on a computer that is used to dual boot. But I still feel if you don't consider those computers or their operators as using Linux you get an even less accurate measure of usage.
If I recycled my three computers that only run Linux or Windows and moved the processes I use them for to my remaining dual boot computer would I cease to be a Linux or Windows user? I would estimate my current usage as 80% Linux and 20% windows yet your stand appears to be that I shouldn't be counted as a Linux user if I only had the one dual boot computer.
Sorry, I don't have a stick to keep on the ice. Ed
150 • RE: 148/SSD Drives & Glenn (by Landor on 2010-05-23 20:29:55 GMT from Canada)
I've been holding off on purchasing a SSD drive until SATA 3/6GBs becomes the standard for them which will make the prices drop a bit. The numbers are phenomenal for them. Link one of those with a recent CPU (say one of the new AMD 6 core) with decent DDR3 and I'd love to see just how fast you can install say Gentoo on a system.
I did an install on this box (quad-core) with a 7200 rpm drive, DDR2 and it was mere hours to have a completely functioning desktop. I'd probably soil myself (lol) watching Gentoo install on one of the above systems. It would "seem" as if the onyl thing slowing you down was entering the commands manually. It's not even really worth going through the effort to use distcc and such anymore.
The complaints of people saying it takes forever to install such a system are pretty well gone if they're using recent hardware.
-----
Glenn:
Nothing going on here either and I'd avoid coming this way like the plague if I didn't live here..lol I've actually been considering attending our LUG here which is seriously small, from what I can see.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
151 • I can see Landor's point. What about Windows in V.Box on Linux? (by Paul on 2010-05-24 00:02:05 GMT from United States)
I have one Dell Pentium III that I have loaded with XP, wife's preferred system. My homebrew Celeron Dual Core E3300 has Mint 8, Helena 64 with XP that runs on Virtual Box. When I use XP with VBox, does that count as Windows or Linux, since both have to run?
152 • Moving from Windows to Linux (by nymark1 on 2010-05-24 00:36:56 GMT from Denmark)
Well, I think Jake said something like : "There is no perfect OS and no perfect application".
If that means that no matter which Linux distribution you choose you will run into one kind of trouble or another, then I agree. And of course this is true as well if you choose to use Windows as well.
But it is my experience that Linux offers something you will not get running Windows: A forum of peers, who voluntarily offer help, when you get in trouble.
Living in Denmark, when I get in trouble using Ubuntu I visit www.ubuntudanmark.dk for help. This forum is the main reason I stick with Ubuntu.
I have been asking tons of silly questions there, and not once did they loose their patience with me.
153 • Dual-Booting (by Landor on 2010-05-24 02:00:13 GMT from Canada)
Here's a better example using a hypothetical scenario. :)
We discussed that Ubuntu One uses some of the cpu so it's doing something. Let's say it's dialing home and marking you as a user, for say, a period of 6 months, then Ubuntu sends out a command that shuts it down.
Ubuntu's made a deal with EA games and Adobe. Both are going to make all of their products available to Linux through the Ubuntu store "if" Ubuntu can prove there's enough of a userbase to warrant the effort.
To be able to measure usage accurately they must have some very specific criteria for the gathering of the stats. What's to be included and what's not. No doubt in such a scenario both companies would request that systems ONLY using Ubuntu can be measured, or why would they need to do all this when some people still use Windows and they wouldn't have to put out the cash and resources. So right away Ubuntu figures out a way to accurately tell if you have Windows installed and has that info sent to them. They'd obviously have to disqualify any system setup that way, just as they'd have to disqualify systems where it was only installed for a couple days, weeks, or months, and as Paul pointed out, systems using it via virtualization.
I've never once said anyone dual-booting is a not a Linux user, my whole premise is, in relation to adoption, they cannot be counted as true adopters of Linux. As the above scenario explains.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
154 • boot, boot where did i put my boots? (by hab on 2010-05-24 04:20:49 GMT from Canada)
Guess i must be a bit of a corner case. My p4 2.4ghz test rig currently boots, in no particular order Haiku, Freedos, 5 different linux distros and a winxp install. The linux distros change fairly frequently. It has had Aros (Icaros) and Reactos installed in the past. It is a test box after all.
Multi booting is a must in my case. Things wouldn't be the same without it!
cheers
155 • Re: 153 (by jake on 2010-05-24 05:11:28 GMT from United States)
"We discussed that Ubuntu One uses some of the cpu so it's doing something."
Clearly "something", yes. What & why? I don't know ... Has anyone checked into it?
"Let's say it's dialing home"
Let's not. That was my suggestion, b(i)ased on my knowledge of corporate politics. Jesse called me on it, and I haven't had a chance to look into it further (settling in veggie gardens is more important than trivial un*x tat at this time of year here in NorCal, at least when it comes to my personal !CopiousFreeTime[tm]).
Unless you know something I don't know, of course ...
156 • @ Landor (whatever the post on "adoption" :) (by meanpt on 2010-05-24 08:44:10 GMT from Portugal)
Hi ... you have a point when referring how Mum$oft counts the troops for marketing and statistical evidence but ... that may turn to be their blindness and weakness ... so to speak, as they can't see the end of the story ... one of the most awkward features is the way portability and virtualization may turn M$Windos in as a host serving Linux, inverting the genetic roles of each.
157 • RE:153 (by Ed Herbst on 2010-05-24 12:20:55 GMT from United States)
Landor,
We'll agree to disagree. If I understand your last post, you're saying that anyone who still uses Windows is not a true Linux adopter. They could be counted as a Linux user but not a true adopter.
I feel that I am a true Linux adopter even though I still have XP and Vista on my computer. I use Linux every day, I haven't started Vista in three months. The last time was to make sure it still worked after a hardware upgrade. I start XP maybe once or twice a week when I feel like doing a little gaming. Ed
158 • @153 (by fernbap on 2010-05-24 13:56:22 GMT from Portugal)
So, if you use a XP partition for gaming, you're not a true Linux user. If you use a PS3 for gaming, are you a Linux user? According to your own view, you are not.
Let's develop your argument, shall we? what if you also watch TV? You're not using Linux for that! What is the OS of your dishwasher? What do you use for watching DVDs? Your computer (which makes you a Linux user) or a portable DVD reader (which makes you not a true Linux user, depending on the OS of your portable reader)? What is the OS running on your cable TV box? Is it Linux or portable windows? Sheesh! You may not be a true Linux adopter after all!
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