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1 • Education distro comparison (by technosaurus on 2010-06-28 11:24:18 GMT from United States)
I keep hoping to find a good comparison of educational distros before the end of summer (when most IT systems are updated). Edubuntu, Skole/Debian-edu, Karoshi, & SLED to name a few... but yet again disappointed with another PR interview.
2 • It's sad to see ... (by Karl Kochs on 2010-06-28 11:31:30 GMT from Germany)
... how fast you integreted anonther ubuntu remix like peppermint one into your distro list and a long waiting since aurora os, formerly known as eeebuntu and eb 4.0, is still unrecognized.
Well, the auroaos is really doing a lot for netbook users with there os.
Hopefully you'll integrate them at last!
3 • archlinux livecd (by godane on 2010-06-28 11:45:28 GMT from United States)
I have released a new archiso-live release this past weekend. I don't have a installer in this update cause its a rewrite of the offical archiso i call archiso2.
latest release:
http://godane.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/archiso-live-20100626-release/
archiso2:
http://github.com/godane/archiso2/tree/archiso-live
4 • Package database update (by Pumpino on 2010-06-28 11:49:43 GMT from Australia)
Thanks for the additions to the package database.
How often does your script check for new versions of packages? Does it check the package website directly or somewhere else?
5 • Great interview! And Hope oracle keeps opensolaris alive (by JD on 2010-06-28 12:02:59 GMT from United States)
Wow that was a great interview this week! Centos is run by great guy and community of course! Glad to be useing it. I thought it was awesome how he actully took time to give full and meaningful responses. He's a Cool dude.
Oracle sure does suck. I wish they never bought sun if there going to act like such jerks (we all called it though huh?)
6 • @2 Notice that Peppermint is no. 73 on the list and rising quickly? (by sirkit77 on 2010-06-28 12:13:32 GMT from United States)
For a distro that isn`t even two months old and wasn`t in the top 100 list less than a week ago? That the forum has grown to 260 members and grows more each day? There`s a reason for that. It`s the fastest, most elegant distro out there, and it works perfectly on netbooks. Just that simple.
7 • How does CentOS feel about.... (by Bob on 2010-06-28 12:25:13 GMT from United States)
Red Hat closing off their kbase to a paywall? I would think this will bring a lot of CentOS users to the CentOS forums looking for answers.
8 • #! 10 alpha 2 (by LAZA on 2010-06-28 12:27:04 GMT from Germany)
@7
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
* PC-BSD 8.1-rc1, the release announcement
* ClearOS 5.2-beta2, the release notes
* CrunchBang Linux 10-alpha2, the release announcement
Has anyboy tested this version?
I'm very interested in this distro cause Ubuntu gets worse and worse... :-(
Thanks!
9 • Free online book based on CentOS (by Niki Kovacs on 2010-06-28 12:41:16 GMT from France)
Thanks for the interesting interview with Karanbir Singh. I'm a happy CentOS user on both servers and desktops since 2006. Last year I published a book about Linux, based entirely on CentOS. It's in French, and it's online here:
http://www.microlinux.fr/documentation.php
Introduction:
http://www.microlinux.fr/linux_aux_petits_oignons/avant-propos/avant-propos.php
Book index:
http://www.microlinux.fr/linux_aux_petits_oignons/sommaire/sommaire.php
Enjoy!
NK
10 • Educational distros (by Shane on 2010-06-28 13:06:25 GMT from United States)
@1
I wouldn't mind seeing a comparison of educational distros myself. I've used Edubuntu only, but have looked at the other.
11 • @8: Tries this one? (by Mike on 2010-06-28 13:40:38 GMT from Netherlands)
@8 Have you ever tried Archlinux?
12 • Trim support (by Miron on 2010-06-28 13:48:43 GMT from Poland)
Is hdparm/wiper.sh unnecessary now (with new kernels) for executing TRIM commands? Could someone clarify it, plase.
13 • Archlinux (by LAZA on 2010-06-28 14:23:39 GMT from Germany)
@11 No!
But as a linux newbie (3 years with Ubuntu) I prefer likewise distributions.
But thanks for the tip, if I got a bit more time I'll try it out...
14 • @8 • Crunch Bang #! 10 alpha 2 (by meanpt on 2010-06-28 14:40:48 GMT from Portugal)
I did try the i686 version, as after tasting also the alfa 1 i486 version I found the later to be slower on my system.
By default, Crunch Bang comes with a multichoice bar icon for pre-configured keybords covering the English (GB and USA), German, French and two more country layouts I can't remember, but I don't know which variations are being made available.
Unfortunately, to set up my keyboard I was forced to opt for the Portuguese default system language which I usually skip as it makes systems slower. And yet the worst was still to come. Despite having to use other than english system's default language, I ended with a layout showing similarities with the USA layout but Portuguese latin 1 or 9 it ain't. Finally, I did my debian download testing, using the "down them all" firefox extension. In the lighter, mostly live CD's versions of Debian or debian based, I usually experienced a complete freeze in the system as soon as the download speeds reached the 3 MB/s and up. This time I couldn't do much too with any other application while the download was running, the active mouse pointer wasn't available for some minutes but after the download was completed, everything came to normal and didn't have to force the shutdown. The test was done with 416 MB of RAM on virtual box machine, hosted by a XP Pro, 1 GB of RAM and an intel pentium M 1.384 Ghz (i686) and must be considered inconclusive as I don't know if this behaviour remains with the default installation. One thing is sure: since crunch bang announced the fork from the buntu, to be directly based on debian, only one thought came to my mind: let the light be with you, guys. :)
15 • #! 10 Alpha-2 (by Seacat on 2010-06-28 14:51:58 GMT from Argentina)
@13: being newbie, you should test the Xcfe version of #!, because in openbox many tasks aren't automatized. It's fast on my 7-years machine and worked without any aditional config from the liveCD or when was installed on HD.
16 • TRIM (by Leo on 2010-06-28 15:12:49 GMT from United States)
Great article about TRIM! But let me note:
"When in doubt, check with the manufacturer to see if your device supports TRIM and, if it does not, ask if the device can be upgraded."
Sure, but more importantly, can it be upgraded WITHOUT WINDOWS? In many cases, the firmware upgrade assumes you have a windows system, which I find incredibly irritating.
Incidentally, I am looking into adding an SSD to my desktop for speed up (everything else is ridiculously fast). I enjoy an SSD in my Dell Mini (Vostro A90 running Kubuntu). Boot times are faaaaast. And the mini has a low end ssd. :)
17 • @12 TRIM support (by Jesse on 2010-06-28 15:51:08 GMT from Canada)
In response to the question in post 12, the TRIM support in modern kernels should mean you no longer need hdparm or wiper tools any more. If you're running the latest Linux kernel and have a modern SSD drive, then everything is suppose to work quietly in the background.
18 • Mandriva (by Steve on 2010-06-28 16:25:19 GMT from United States)
I'm glad Mandriva has found someone to support their efforts. It's a great distro that somehow seems to left out of many discussions / comparrisons where it qould shine. IMHO. Of course, someone will point out some flaky release, like (place any/all distro name here) hasn't done the same.
19 • @8/LAZA (by Anonymous on 2010-06-28 16:34:57 GMT from United States)
Your a little all over the place in the distros your interested in, ClearOS being for server firewalls and the other two being for desktops. If you want something Ubuntu like I did enjoy Mint for quite a while, though am now very happy with PCLinux and it combination of rolling release and ease of use. I did try PC-BSD 8 as a live DVD but it hated my screen and made it flicker for some reason. I've been meaning to try the 8.1 RC for PC-BSD but haven't found/made the time. Has anyone noticed version 8.1 amd64 working better on AMD/Nvidia hardware than version 8.0?
20 • TRIM (by Martin on 2010-06-28 16:36:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Jesse, many thanks for that informative article on TRIM - very helpful!
21 • re: 2 Aurora OS (by Rafe on 2010-06-28 16:36:43 GMT from United States)
Where can I download aurora os (formerly eeebuntu). I couldn't find a download link at the home page.
22 • @16 (by Patrick on 2010-06-28 17:19:24 GMT from United States)
"""Sure, but more importantly, can it be upgraded WITHOUT WINDOWS? In many cases, the firmware upgrade assumes you have a windows system, which I find incredibly irritating."""
A good example of a case that shows the FSF should start to pay attention to devices with built-in firmware and the problems it causes for users of free OS's (see http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20100614). Users of a free OS would be much better off if the firmware would be loaded from the kernel in a case like this (even if the firmware is binary-only), instead of built-in to the device and not upgradeable from a free OS.
Couldn't let such a nice example slip by, sorry. :)
23 • 21 • re: 2 Aurora OS (by Rafe (by meanpt on 2010-06-28 17:29:43 GMT from Portugal)
Got from http://auroraos.org/
... and ... ehh ... hum ... it seems the verb is still in the future sense:
"Aurora GNOME edition will be the Primary Release from the new Aurora development team."
Even more:
"Exogenesis : A Feature Filled Installer
Exogenesis is our own installer which is currently in development."
To give it an end:
" 4 beta
We released a very early snapshot of the Aurora build under the name EB 4.0 beta. We will soon be replacing this with an updatedAurora 0.5 beta release once the installer has been completed. In the meantime your welcome to download the original beta iso from here (http://eeebuntu.org/eb4-b1.iso - be prepared for low downloading speeds) or here (http://linuxtracker.org - only found a torrent)."
24 • re:23 (by Rafe on 2010-06-28 17:37:32 GMT from United States)
Thank you, I'll try the beta.
25 • OpenSolaris (by Buzz Lightyear on 2010-06-28 17:57:02 GMT from Netherlands)
Maybe here was given more info today about OpenSolaris:
http://blogs.sun.com/openomics/entry/solaris_techday_28jun2010_herzliya
26 • CentOS and stuff (by davemc on 2010-06-28 18:13:28 GMT from United States)
Awesome article. You cant help but have a soft spot for the guys that run that excellent and worthy project. Nobody could do a better job. Kudo's!
Mandriva Shmandriva! Who cares if the company behind it dies or not? Its not like the project would die with it. A fork would be spun off and the core project would live on through its community. Sure, it sucks to not have financial backing, but so many other great distro's out there today suffer from the same issue and still do great things, so I shall shed no tears for them. Also, did it occur to anyone that perhaps the company behind Mandriva may be the very thing holding back its success and innovative spirit?..
27 • SSD TRIM (by Anonymous on 2010-06-28 21:28:46 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for the great article. But I still have some questions.
What file system should be used on SSDs. Some say the old ext2, because journaling file system like ext4 will shorten SSD's life span.
Could somebody enlighten me or It could be another subject for "Questions and Answers".
28 • Great DW Edition (by Sly on 2010-06-28 22:20:14 GMT from United States)
This week's edition was very informative, both the Centos and TRIM articles. I'm persuaded to download and boot Centos, even though I haven't been a big fan of Fedora. Fedora was my 1st distro when I migrated to Linux, and I've tried out each release thereafter. IMHO it is a good distro, but it doesn't have the 'wow' factor of other top distros.
Anyway, keep up the great work DW!!
On another note, the RC for Mint 9 KDE is out. The release announcement promises some great improvements. I can't wait to give it a spin.
29 • RE: 16 - 22 - 27 (by Landor on 2010-06-28 22:24:38 GMT from Canada)
#16
I don't know about SSD firmware files but if there's a DOS executable from your SSD's vendor then possibly using Freedos to boot your system help you out? There's tons of options to use Linux to find a way to flash different firmware. Most of it depends on how the firmware is delivered, binary, some form of image file, etc. A quick google search after finding out how your vendor ships the firmware would help you out. Along the lines of "linux ssd firmware update" or even try "linux bios firmware update" (the solution(s) should be no different for your firmware file)
#22
Such a shame that you're so bent on taking a poke at the FSF that while responding to the person you couldn't offer him any type of advice/help. In my opinion that just really diminishes the validity of/your position in regard to the article you wrote here. Truly a shame.
#27
It's my understanding that modern file systems coupled with a newer SSD should be no problem at all and. It's only for older or super cheap SSDs that you need to turn journaling off and worry about the file system itself. Some of the original EEE's had drives like those that would need journaling turned off. Anyway, as long as it's a new good quality drive and you're running a recent kernel you can just use your file system of choice without worry or special configuration.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
30 • RE: SSDs Again (by Landor on 2010-06-28 22:38:05 GMT from Canada)
I should have explained how to turn journaling off for an ext4 file system if you're still worried about it.
You create the file system with this command that effectively shuts off journaling:
mke2fs -t ext4 -O ^has_journal /dev/sdXX
That will give you pretty well the speed of an ext2 file system but with the other benefits of the ext4 without journaling of course.
Hope that helps someone.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
31 • My last post (by Landor on 2010-06-28 22:41:55 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
32 • post # 29 (by Will on 2010-06-28 23:16:07 GMT from United States)
"Such a shame that you're so bent on taking a poke at the FSF that while responding to the person you couldn't offer him any type of advice/help. In my opinion that just really diminishes the validity of/your position in regard to the article you wrote here. Truly a shame."
Well, I didn't see you offering any type of advice or help.
Therefore, by your "logic" that diminishes the validity of your
postion criticising anither. Truly a shame but par for your course.
33 • #11 trying Arch Linux - substitutes for the real thing (by gnomic on 2010-06-28 23:18:09 GMT from New Zealand)
Haven't tried Arch directly - it's a real man's distro with some assembly required, and by most accounts takes some time to get setup (cue hordes of Archies saying they had their Arch going inside half an hour) - at any rate safe to say from scratch you'd have to read the manual. It also requires a broadband network connection for anything beyond a very basic install. However I have used the archiso live CD and generally found it reliable. Some people seem to have problems around video drivers, localisation, installation to disk, and so forth. Not what you'd call a full-blown distro as it is one man's project, however it has been going for a couple of years now. As a live CD it runs well, and as it is refreshed at least once a month the application set is always fresh.
There is also ArchBang (archbang.org) of late, which was initially a spinoff from Crunchbang. The latest version runs OK, though there are little quirks such as not including any wifi firmware. Overall direction of the project seems to change frequently.
Also see nFluxOS-ARCH at multidistro.com though I haven't tried this one.
34 • LINPUS (by jean afcidec on 2010-06-29 00:55:45 GMT from Philippines)
I bought one computer with pre installed Linpus Os
I used it one time without internet connexion.
When i would like to use it again with internet connexion
it was impossible to registered.
I wrote more than one time on their customer service.
But they seems to don't care of their customers...
Then i replace it for Mint running well !
35 • writing to ntfs - anyone confident with doing this? (by gnomic on 2010-06-29 07:09:47 GMT from New Zealand)
Some say that it is possible to write to NTFS from Linux - for myself I have tended to regard this as a myth. Anybody out there who can convince me I'm in error on this point? It would be interesting to to know what tools were used with what distro, did it work once or many times, why was it being done, and so on. I'm aware various tools exist, and I have only made very occasional attempts in this direction, without success. It almost seems one needs an NTFS volume available for possible trashing, and somehow I rarely seem to have one around.
*****#*****#*****
Just by the by, it's my personal belief that women hold up at least half the sky - just in case anybody was wondering ;->
36 • @2 @23 and "verb is still in the future sense" (by forlin on 2010-06-29 07:25:48 GMT from Portugal)
Going for a ride by the DW "waiting list" will quikcly show that many new projects soon become dormant or are descontinued even before releasing any final version. This gives an answer for the reason why ther's different timings to include different distros at any of the DW database.
37 • NTFS & Linux (by jake on 2010-06-29 07:31:35 GMT from United States)
Personally, in the last couple years, I have had no issues with NTFS-3G, both read/write ... But then I'm in the business of moving Redmond users to FOSS, not vice-versa.
Samba works nicely, if you need to share filesystems across a network (even if the network is a standalone box with multiple partitions & filesystems).
"it's my personal belief that women hold up at least half the sky"
The fair sex always hold up their half, and hopefully the guys hold up their share ... Me, I'm absolutely convinced that my Wife carries me on her shoulders ...
38 • On CentOS and RH (by meanpt on 2010-06-29 07:59:26 GMT from Portugal)
Despite being a real newbie, I can understand (...well, I think ...) some conservatism from corporate oriented products, with backported updates to an older kernel for new hardware when and as needed. In those environments reliability of the whole system's picture is at a premium and should be. If it was my company, my clients and "my" regulator's reporting that would be at a stake, and for sure only tested ok and retested applications would be allowed in production. What I can't understand is the lag in the update of the desktop applications, unless they are not supposed to belong to the company's wide desktop environment. But then, why are they included? When OO 3.2.1 have been already offered to the linux community, why stay with the 3.1.1? As another example, can anyone justify the old ffox version being offered? I'm still trying to make a sense from all this, if there is any.
39 • @36 • @2 @23 and "verb is still in the future sense" (by forlin on 2010-06-29 07 (by meanpt on 2010-06-29 08:17:25 GMT from Portugal)
Hi, forlin. I'm still trying to make a sense of the waiting list. It seems some of the distros have been jailed for life in there ... or are still in the death block waiting for the execution ... there is stuff from 2004 ... 2005 ... 2006 ... reminds me Bob Dylan ... "how many roads must a man to walk down, before they call him a man" ...
40 • @ 38 (by Anonymous on 2010-06-29 08:20:46 GMT from United States)
The issue is the number of people in charge of packaging.
I was shocked to learn a MAJOR distro has one person in charge of firefox packaging. Assuming there are no bugs or conflicts, the latest version will land in your friendly neighborhood repository. If push comes to shove, we are always free to roll our own from source.
(Hope this post is acceptable to the DWW overlords...)
41 • ZorinOS 3.0 (by Carl Smuck on 2010-06-29 08:42:12 GMT from United States)
I have tried ZorinOS 3.0 64 bit on my Compaq Presario CQ60 laptop and it is off the hook. On this laptop regular Ubuntu 10.04 has no sound but ZorinOS 3.0 and Linux Mint 9 rock. Both of them have three things in common. Both of them are based on Ubuntu 10.04. Both of them are from Ireland. Both of them have great multimedia capability built into them. I like the look changer in ZorinOS 3.0. I prefer the classic gnome look over the Windows 7 style default gui. With the fact that I had been so used to the older versions of Microsoft Windows the Windows 7 and hasta la vista baby gui's seem more complicated. Windows 7 is much harder to use than Linux Mint 8 LXDE. Windows 7 requires the latest hardware with a whole lot of memory. Any Linux distro with an LXDE gui is much easier to use than Windows 7 and will run real fast on old Pentium 3 and early AMD Athlon machines with 256 MB of RAM which is nothing these days. Anytime you get an old computer you do not need for your own use put something like Linux Mint LXDE on it and then give it away to a charity so it does not end up in a landfill.
42 • Writing to NTFS @35 (by fernbap on 2010-06-29 09:15:00 GMT from Portugal)
Wow, you must have a very old or perhaps a very "professional" distro!
Every major modern desktop distro has writing to ntfs built-in. I use a ntfs partition on my disk to use as a backup that can be seen by windows, if needed.
If your system doesn't support it, well, i think it's time to use a decent distro...
43 • @38 (by Anonymous on 2010-06-29 10:12:57 GMT from United States)
When OO 3.2.1 have been already offered to the linux community, why stay with the 3.1.1? As another example, can anyone justify the old ffox version being offered? I'm still trying to make a sense from all this, if there is any.
Since when do you want the latest and greatest bugs on your workstation?
44 • #38/#43: Older apps (desktop and others) in Enterprise distros (by Caitlyn Martin on 2010-06-29 13:21:42 GMT from United States)
meanpt wrote: But then, why are they included? When OO 3.2.1 have been already offered to the linux community, why stay with the 3.1.1? As another example, can anyone justify the old ffox version being offered? I'm still trying to make a sense from all this, if there is any.
It's really simple. Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Ubuntu LTS and Debian Stable all have the same policy: once a major version of their product is released they will not change the version of any of the software components of that version unless it is required to maintain security of fix a serious bug. Even in those cases they will, where possible, backport the fix into the existing version.
The purpose of doing it this way is to maintain a known, stable code base that hardware manufacturers and ISVs (independent software vendors) can certify against. If Dell certifies that server X or workstation Y or laptop Z will work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, for example, the continuity and stability of the included software guarantees that will almost certainly be true of 5.x releases.
Another advantage of this system is one that has already been suggested in #43: the software in question is tried and tested. You don't get all the latest bugs but rather a version that is known to work and work well within the rest of the given release code. Most corporate/government/organizational customers are uninterested in a slightly upgraded office suite. New features or changes can mean increased productivity in the long run but almost always also means a relearning curve and lost productivity in the short run, particularly if new bugs are also introduced. By making such changes infrequently or only when really necessary reduces costs.
The desktop applications are included because all of the enterprise distros are available for the corporate desktop as well as the server. In most companies the latest versions of desktop applications are not rolled out right away. Rather they use whatever is the corporate standard. Large companies and government agencies often take a very long time, as in years, to approve a new standard. This is every bit as true for Windows applications as it is for Linux ones. The older applications are also maintained because they are the ones which are supported and guaranteed to work by the distributor. Vendor support is seen as vital in enterprise environments.
The short summary of all of this: the older desktop software is there because that is precisely what the large enterprise customers want. Large enterprise customers are the folks who actually pay for Linux development. Linux and indeed all major FOSS projects are written by developers whose salaries are either directly or indirectly paid by enterprise customers. Yes, that includes Linus Torvalds. Look at who is behind the Linux Foundation if you doubt this. The folks who pay the bills always come first.
45 • #35/#42: NTFS support (by Caitlyn Martin on 2010-06-29 13:27:32 GMT from United States)
NTFS writes have been supported in Linux for a long time. @fernbap: the current releases and even most of the legacy releases of what you termed "professional" (I assume you really mean enterprise) distros support NTFS writes. They have for many, many years. The tools are the same (or should be) in every distro. They certainly are the same in all the major distros.
In my experience NTFS and CIFS support under Linux works well.
46 • SSD (by merlin on 2010-06-29 13:37:27 GMT from Canada)
I have an 32GB OCZ core series SSD which I believe is their 1st generation SSD. I've had it for about 2 years. It doesn't have TRIM support either. Well, let me tell you...these drives are the future once the prices come down. This SSD is ridiculously fast. I've noticed no degradation so far and I haven't been kind to it either. When I built my fanless rig, energy efficiency and low sound level were my main requirements, so the SSD met my needs, speed was an extra bonus. It takes longer for my desktop to go from power-on-to-grub than it does from grub-to-desktop.
You can find lots of tweaks for SSD's and I've tried many of them, but for the most part I didn't find anything that made the drive go faster than using system defaults.
The only SSD-specific tweak I've stuck with is using the NOOP kernel scheduler (the default scheduler on most desktop distros is CFQ). The other schedulers were designed specifically for various I/O scenarios on rotating disks. Using NOOP basically means don't schedule disk I/O, just read/write as requested by the kernel. SSD's don't need to wait for the data to come around to the disk heads, so scheduling I/O in this way is really an unnecessary waste of CPU cycles. To implement, just add elevator=NOOP to the end of the KERNEL parameter in your GRUB file. Some recommend using the DEADLINE scheduler, but that uses CPU cycles and I didn't notice any improvement in performance.
These new SSD's are robust with life expectancies well beyond traditional rotating drives. Don't get fooled into thinking you should run without a journalized filesystem, unless you're running a multi-disk RAID or something with data redundancy. I'e tried ext2, ext3 and now ext4, with and without journals, plus all the SSD tweaks I could find. For desktop usage I didn't find any real killer combination so stuck with ext4 and a journal and the default options. I use the NOATIME mount option but I don't consider that specific to SSD's. I'm looking forward to trying Btrfs as I've heard it's the future of Linux filesystems and has SSD's on it's development radar.
Also not really specific to SSD's but if you're really concerned about the lifecycle of the device and you have a sufficient amount of RAM, you may want to consider not using SWAP space. I have 2GB ram and never had an issue running without swap. However if you have a laptop you may want the swap space so you can hibernate the system. In that case you may also to tune the kernel to avoid swapping (i.e. set vm.swappiness=0 in your sysctl file....Google it).
Tried hdparm tweaks, waste of time. The only major tweak I haven't tried is aligning the partitions to SSD blocks...I'll try that one when I try btrfs.
47 • @1 & @10 Education distro comparison (by Osoloco on 2010-06-29 14:23:57 GMT from Ecuador)
I would also like to see an analysis of Education oriented distros. I would add Trisquel Edu to the list (+ Edubuntu, Skole/Debian-edu, Karoshi, & SLED...)
48 • @44 • #38/#43: Older apps (by Caitlyn Martin (by meanpt on 2010-06-29 16:15:22 GMT from Portugal)
"New features or changes can mean increased productivity in the long run but almost always also means a relearning curve and lost productivity in the short run, particularly if new bugs are also introduced. By making such changes infrequently or only when really necessary reduces costs"
True, true, but that's not always the case. Firefox is just ... firefox. You don't need to re-learn anything, it keeps staying plain vanilla. The same applies to OOffice. Same interface, same features as the release before, plus improvements. These things have been incrementally evolutionary, not revolutionary. When renegotiating a contract, an sla or whatever may be at stake, the impact for these applications is null, there is no re-training costs for the legacy features, this isn't like changing from M$ Office XP to the dreaded (hey there! where is my menu?) Office 2007 stupid blue ribbon. Moreover, it could provide the vendor with potential sales as soon as some corporate users get interested in the new features and start showing them off and others want to achieve the same and reach the same competencies. Not even legacy file formats are the problem. If they were, CentOS and RH would still be offering some OOffice 2.x. Moreover, hardware able to run OO 3.1.1 is still capable to run OO 3.2.1 and the same applies to firefox 3.6.x.
Now, lets take a look at this:
"Another advantage of this system is one that has already been suggested in #43: the software in question is tried and tested. You don't get all the latest bugs but rather a version that is known to work and work well within the rest of the given release code".
Remember, we are discussing some desktop applications and not core server driven applications. But, in the end, we may not find so glamorous things when analyzing this duality. On what you wrote, I can't identify the trigger of change. What you are saying may imply that while their customers don' t change the server hardware and/or applications, everything else will be frozen in time. But, if they keep the OS as it is, they must refuse new clients wishing to use modern hardware as the old crap will not be available anymore,or ... they find a way to keep selling old 70's motors for brand new and shinny cars or ... they stop selling services to clients that don't want to upgrade hardware or ... they are competent in managing different technology generations. Right now, unless anyone could explain it better, the later seems more adequate as a description. Lets suppose I'm wrong (I must be, I must), but then, where is the new stuff? Isn't it still stable enough for the free community ... ? ... ehhh ... hummm ... something isn't right ...
By the way, can anyone identify the kernel being used by CentOS 5.5, throughout their release notes. The only thing I found, searching the keyword "kernel", was "A patch introduced in kernel -194". I wonder if they forgot the kernel they are using. Oh, my fault, of course, it is the famous "UpstreamKernel-5.5-194". Gee ... I'm so dumb.
49 • @46 • SSD (by Kaptain Krunch on 2010-06-29 16:21:46 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the wonderful insight into the world of SSD. I've been wondering about getting one of those drives.
50 • @48 "UpstreamKernel-5.5-194" (by meanpt on 2010-06-29 17:09:27 GMT from Portugal)
Oh ... I think I discovered the ""UpstreamKernel-5.5-194"" formula. Of course, I had to go "upstream" ... It must be the kernel-2.6.18-194.el5. There we go ... taht's where the "-194" came from. At least, it's a 2.6.undernineteen's.X ... pfffff ... what a relief ... for their desktop clients ... that's already a grown up teenager ...
51 • 46 • SSD (by merlin) (by Leo on 2010-06-29 18:05:33 GMT from United States)
Fantastic post, I agree with all observations, and that's with very entry level SSD's in my two netbooks. I also run with ext4, noatime, and no swap. My only difference is that I also use tmpfs for /tmp ... (but this one could be questionable, one program decides to write some huge files there and you are toast)
52 • @48 newer versions (by Jesse on 2010-06-29 18:07:19 GMT from Canada)
In the examples given in post 48, there are a few details skipped over. For instance, the idea that Firefox doesn't change. Does anyone else remember the huge backlash against the Firefox devs when the "'awesome bar" was released? Or the recent complaints with the new processes/plug-ins system? The Firefox we have today is different in a lot of ways to 3.0 or 2.0 or 1.0. Even 3.5 has a lot of little changes when compared to 3.6. To the end user at home, it may not seem like a big deal, but if you're running a intraweb on a large corporate network, things work a bit differently. You have to make sure everything still works the way it did before. The same for OpenOffice. You may not see a lot of changes in the interface of OOo between 3.1 and 3.2, but there are changes, ones which may affect compatibility. When you're rolling out a package to thousands of workstations, you have to make sure there aren't going to be any surprises. You don't want to find out you just threw off the diagrams used in the Engineering department by upgrading from 3.1.1 to 3.2. That's why enterprise distros are so conservative and just back-port things people really need, like security patches. You might think Firefox is Firefox, but that kind of thinking doesn't fly when in enterprise environments.
Big companies tend to upgrade when they have to, whether for speed or compatibility with other businesses or for a special new feature. Not just because there is something newer available.
53 • @52 • @48 newer versions (by Jesse (by meanpt on 2010-06-29 22:00:38 GMT from Portugal)
Jesse, engineers do not sketch with openoffice. Anything I created with OO 3.1.1 is still available witoutt a glitch in 3.2.1. Legacy have been kept. Regarding firefox, I would like to know what they (either centos or rh) did when deployed the firefox 3.0.19, to make sure ALL the damned extensions were ported. But as far as I know from my experience at work, deployments are phased and go through groups, departments and divisions, They don't run at once, Then, you have the corporate backups on a server, that's what the policies are made for. Nothing is irreversible.
54 • @53 (by Jesse on 2010-06-29 22:17:13 GMT from Canada)
I was giving an example, I know most engineers aren't going to sketch with OpenOffice... most people wouldn't. I was just trying to demonstrate that some documents you don't want messed up because of a version change. Anything _you_ have created may have stayed the same, but that doesn't mean anything anyone creates will be maintained across versions. Keep in mind we're talking about roll-out of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workstations and servers. Even if it is possible to roll-back after an update, that's not something you're going to want to do. It takes time and money and could bring work to a halt on a large scale.
And again, where is the need for an upgrade? There probably isn't anything corporate-related you'll need Firefox 3.6 for if you already have 3.0. There probably isn't anything a corporate office needs that's in OOo 3.2 that isn't in 3.1. Upgrading means testing and planning and, again, time. It's not something to do just because you can. A good IT person in an enterprise environment upgrades because they have a reason.
55 • 46 • SSD (by Anonymous on 2010-06-30 00:22:09 GMT from Canada)
Thanks merlin
That's what I was looking for. I got intel 160GB and OCZ Vertex 60GB and both were lots of fun to play with, but now I'm ready to put linux in them.
56 • RE: #14 (by Anonymous on 2010-06-30 00:54:08 GMT from United States)
I haven't had the download problem you stated.
I use FF (Iceweasle 3.0.6), DTA extension
Debian Stable running Window Maker for my desktop.
1.6Ghz 32bit old Athalon (won't work easily with current KVM,etc) w 512M RAM
Actually I have been quite impressed with kernel 2.6.26.
When doing some CPU intensive things or the mentioned large downloads (3Mbs), the system seems very responsive.
No freezups, no crashes, just keeps going as usual.
Due note this is my main system, it is not running in any virtual machine.
Unless you consider the actual PC to be the virtual container...lol.....
And also while FF is the big memory user, I rarely see over 50 percent RAM usage. Swap is virtually there just to take up drive space.
Hope this helps.....
57 • @52 newer versions (by Pumpino on 2010-06-30 02:07:29 GMT from Australia)
If enterprise distros providing the latest Firefox is such a big deal, then why was Firefox 3.6.4 available on my CentOS 5 install a few days ago? It seems they no longer feel it's necessary to stick with 3.0. :)
58 • waiting for 2.6.33 (by Anonymous on 2010-06-30 04:14:35 GMT from United States)
Some individuals (#46) may find that, without TRIM, SSD write performance does not degrade over time. More generally, however, the weight of evidence that is that write performance will degrade at some point.
Forums have descriptions of how to get TRIM support with 2.6.32, as well as occasional reports of issues and cautionary language. The information is there; making sense of it might be a challenge.
If SSD write performance is important to the user, those distros that offer ootb TRIM support - 2.6.33 or higher - should be considered. Especially if the user won't have a vanilla system.
59 • crunchbang-alpha2 grub2 warning! (by RollMeAway on 2010-06-30 05:28:54 GMT from United States)
This was the worst disaster I've experienced in my 10 yrs of distro addiction.
I run multi operating systems on 8 older computers. Grub2 will not install to the
root partition on 5 of the 8. Three of them work fine with grub2.
The usual failure is silent. That is, it appears to install the the root partition OK,
but upon reboot, no grub. I have learned that pattern and expected it this time.
Instead, I got a lengthy failure notice that grub had failed to install.
Now the bottom line:
My EMBR (extended master boot record) on both HDs were wiped !
I was targeting a single existing partition on sdb!
This happened Sunday morning, and I have been struggling since to recover.
I have permanently lost a Solaris10, and two BSD installations. Most others
have been recovered enough to image to an external USB-HD before I wipe both
drives and start over.
Yes, I know alpha IS in the name.
60 • arch linux (by pergilah sayang on 2010-06-30 12:41:34 GMT from Malaysia)
kahel and chakra is user friendly arch linux. Give it a try.
61 • Upgrades (by Jesse on 2010-06-30 16:13:19 GMT from Canada)
"If enterprise distros providing the latest Firefox is such a big deal, then why was Firefox 3.6.4 available on my CentOS 5 install a few days ago? It seems they no longer feel it's necessary to stick with 3.0. :)"
I don't think you're thinking about this over the course of a time line. It's not that having a particular version of an application is a big deal, it's the upgrade process from a known good version to an unknown newer version. People who feel they need to stay on Firefox 3.0 (or application X version Y) will stay on that version. People who want to upgrade to newer versions can do that. If an organisation is firm on staying with an older version, chances are, they're not upgrading to CentOS 5.5 anyway. They're probably still on CentOS 5.4 or previous.
People installing a new OS _today_ probably aren't using RHEL 4. They'll probably install 5.5. People who already have RHEL 4 will probably stick with it, rather than upgrading to 5.... if they are being conservative.
62 • Grub on multipartition disks (by fernbap on 2010-06-30 17:37:13 GMT from Portugal)
I always have a couple of partitions on my disk for checking distros. That means that disk also has the partitions for my main working environment.
When installing a distro on my "trial partitions", i never install grub (or lilo, in slackware's case).
Then, all you have to do is reboot into your main working OS, and run update-grub as root (or using sudo).
It will detect your just installed distro and add it to your grub menu. This way, your main working distro will also remain the first choice in the menu.
63 • Enterprise (by Landor on 2010-06-30 20:33:29 GMT from Canada)
Jesse Wrote:
"People who already have RHEL 4 will probably stick with it, rather than upgrading to 5.... if they are being conservative."
It seems some don't really understand Enterprise when it comes to their operating systems. It's not just about change either that they'd decide to be conservative, it's also about cost. There might be only 20 machines total but when those 20 machines go down that means nobody is working, that's 0 income while it's pure cost.
Also when do they get done and the cost... Sure, upgrades can be done by the tech department after hours and from my experience this does happen a lot, but also, most companies don't want to pay the overtime involved, nor does every employee want to work it, so upgrades happen during normal office hours in many cases.
So when you consider any Enterprise install you never think about using Linux for the latest and greatest which is your pass-time, instead you think of a business that has one desire, to use that computer as a tool to make money and forget about what it needs to run to do that. Just to make it clear, "to make money".
The Firefox comment for CentOS. I'm not running RH 5.5 but I'm guessing it's a pretty good chance that it doesn't have the latest and greatest Firefox and that's a CentOS specific update option, which doesn't really lend anything to your argument since CentOS is not a business, where RH is. I could be wrong on the RH update though, but I really doubt it. I'll probably check later.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
64 • Diehard KDE3 fan? (by RollMeAway on 2010-06-30 20:50:05 GMT from United States)
If you are still a KDE3 fan, you might want to lend some support to this project:
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Kde3/Lucid
Related article:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3890311_1/Trinity-KDE-KDE-3-Zombified-or-Resurrected.htm
65 • Enterprise updates (by Jesse on 2010-06-30 21:08:41 GMT from Canada)
As an update to the topic of Firefox in CentOS (and RHEL), both 3.0 and 3.6 seem to be currently supported in the repositories. So people can get the newer version if they want or stick with the older version depending on their needs.
66 • @61 Upgrades (by Pumpino on 2010-07-01 02:42:24 GMT from Australia)
"If an organisation is firm on staying with an older version, chances are, they're not upgrading to CentOS 5.5 anyway. They're probably still on CentOS 5.4 or previous."
That's just crazy. Minor point upgrades occur automatically by running "yum update". It's impossible to stick with CentOS 5.4 and have a secure system, since downloading security updates will naturally update an existing system from 5.4 to 5.5. Why would an organisation not update its systems with security patches?
67 • @ 2, @ 16 (by Landor on 2010-07-01 04:45:46 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (false identity).
68 • chakra linux dropping Arch as base (by gnomic on 2010-07-01 05:40:08 GMT from New Zealand)
#60 above mentions Chakra in connection with Arch - there seems to be a move afoot to stand alone, though the web site presentation does not reflect this. On May 22nd it was written thus on the news page:
'There has been a lot of stuff going on here recently which is a good sign that the project is still alive. We're about to take the next big step. We will split from Arch. Arch has been served as our base since this project started and we were glad to be a part of this community. Sometimes though we think that we can do even better, especially we think we can serve a better KDE SC than the usual distribution. That's where the idea about splitting from Arch started.' A quick look at the forums suggests this change in direction is underway though not yet fully implemented.
69 • #66: Upgrades (by Caitlyn Martin on 2010-07-01 07:04:57 GMT from United States)
@Pumpino: Most enterprise clients run the real Red Hat Enterprise Linux, not CentOS. RHEL does not use yum; CentOS does. If you are running Red Hat then security patches to 5.4 are most certainly still available through RHN and there is no need to upgrade to 5.5 to remain secure.
As Jesse correctly pointed out, Red Hat is the company with the big enterprise clients. CentOS is a community project based on Red Hat for people who can't or won't pay for the real thing. It most definitely contains some compromises. That isn't a criticism. It's a necessity since Red Hat (the company) won't provide RHN to anyone other than paying customers.
70 • 65 • Enterprise updates (by Jesse (by meanpt on 2010-07-01 09:52:30 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... there you go ... if I was the paying customer, I could and would not expect anything else, as the right way to do it is to offer both options, despite thingking that a refinement in the operation system should allow me to run more than one release of the same software. That's the kind of refinements that makes a distro corporate or entreprise oriented, instead of a mainstream distro. And this is true either for mission critical either for not mission critical applications. The former may imply doble inputing for the time needed and will only end when a user acceptance agreement is signed off. For the mainstream desktop applications things do not need to be so formal, the user as the decision on wether or not got rid of the old release.
71 • distros information updates (by forlin on 2010-07-01 13:06:07 GMT from Portugal)
@ 39 DW waiting list
@ 67 DW ignored distros
I understand that it's hard for the DW team to pick up all new distro projects, specially in the case that they do not sent any information about their progress and new releases.
The same happen about the current situation of distros that are still part of the "waiting list". Many links drive to sites that no longer exist, others to distros that are dormant since a long time. Writing them off, would lead to a shorter list, but worth to be browsed, if they only include projects that are still alive.
I think that for both cases, it would be a good help if the readers do email the DW team about any update they think its worth to be made.
72 • @ 2 & 67 There`s a reason why Peppermint is no.68 and climbing the DWW list. (by sirkit77 on 2010-07-01 13:13:36 GMT from United States)
And the other ones aren`t mentioned. It`s called being a great distro. If anyone cares to find out why, download the iso and see what all the fuss is about. If you`re not impressed then remove it. That simple. I installed Peppermint on my dad`s Acer Aspire One 150Z5 netbook after XP went belly-up. It detected all of his hardware "out of the box." Same thing for my Compaq CQ60. I`m sending him the disk so he can install it to his desktop. Being a total Linux newcomer, he should have no trouble at all. IT`S GREATER THAN THE SUM OF IT`S PARTS. It isn`t just Lubuntu meets Mint plus Prism. I am "just" the DNA of two people combined. Am I not a completely separate, unique being? You just have to try it before you can really comment on it either way.
73 • 72 • @ 2 & 67 (by meanpt on 2010-07-01 14:50:39 GMT from Portugal)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
74 • @71 • distros information updates (by forlin (by Anonymous on 2010-07-01 15:01:05 GMT from Portugal)
forlin, since early in the morning the only thing you get from the waiting list page is:
"The page you requested is no longer available or it is currently being redesigned. Our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Return to home page"
... so ... no news is good news :)
75 • @67 (by Patrick on 2010-07-01 15:02:46 GMT from United States)
I just cannot believe your reply to 16, especially after you felt it necessary to chew me out for my "unhelpful" reply to him! *lol*
Seriously, putting it all together it seem to me you care more about defending the FSF than you care about actual software freedom and what the FSF stands for.
"""For the tiny Linux user base out there, it would take them far too long to program the updates so that it works on all different versions of Linux. Most of the world runs Windows, and so you can't blame the devs for writing things assuming their users are running Windows..."""
Ok. Do you realize that you just said: "Hardware devs, don't bother with Linux drivers in the future." Nice one.
"""99% of the time their users are running Windows, it's just too much wasted effort for them to write for Linux."'"
SSD's go quite often into servers. Your 99% number is way off the mark.
"""The Linux users that complain about this ought to write themselves a program that fixes this problem rather than bothering the devs of the firmware updates themselves."""
Haha, good one. Anyone know if there are specs available from manufacturers on how to do this? It IS closed source firmware after all, so you can't really look at it and find out how it's done. But who cares, the firmware is locked up into the device, so we shouldn't worry about it, right? That is, until you need to update it and it doesn't work in your free OS. The FSF has figured out THAT much when it comes to the BIOS at least. I hope other devices like these SSD's are next on their to-do list. Unless they follow your advice of course, in which case they'll just tell manufacturers to just keep doing what they're doing and ignore Linux users.
76 • @74 @71 (by meanpt on 2010-07-01 15:18:42 GMT from Portugal)
... sorry ... that was my coment ... and my fault ... has nothing to do with RH kernel 2.6.18-194 (... I suppose it is a "-195" by now, as there is already a 6 beta 2 announced to the gents) which fits fine either server side either on the desktop that only connects to it ... oh ... I promise not to return to the subject so soon ... ... by the way ... does anyone knows where can I still borrow one of those 2.6.18-xxx? ... it happens the waiting list is down for maintenance and I suspect I'll miss the opportunity to grab one of those 2004 and 2005 fine "informatics" models still lacking in my collection ... cause I I do have a 128K ram Spectrum ...
77 • GoblinX (by winlinosx on 2010-07-01 15:28:50 GMT from United States)
It looks like GoblinX has ressurected itself as Imagineos. I have always enjoyed GoblinX especially since its based on the "most excellent Slackware".
78 • #69: Clarifications and corrections (by Caitlyn Martin on 2010-07-01 18:48:56 GMT from United States)
A couple of corrections/updates to my #69. (Thanks for the e-mail, BTW). RHEL 4, which is still in heavy use, uses up2date for updates natively. RHEL5 uses pirut in the GUI and yum at the CLI so my statement that yum is not used is not quite accurate. In many enterprise environments we use none of the above as Red Hat Satellite Server pulls from Red Hat Network (RHN) and distributes updates at specified times to specific classes of machines. RHSS can be used to maintain local repositories and often individual servers have no access through the firewall to RHN. In those cases yum/pirut/up2date don't work.
In RHEL 5 if you pull all the updates to 5.4 from RHN you will end up with a 5.5 machine. Most enterprises just don't ever do that. Even security patches are examined and deployed on a case-by-case basis after it is determined what they likely impact (if any) is on the systems the way they are deployed. In most enterprise clients only critical security updates which can impact their machines are actually distributed so you don't ever truly go from 5.4 to 5.5, for example, but rather end up with a hybrid system (i.e.: 5.4 plus selected updates). The base installation point (i.e.: 5.3 or 5.4 or 5.5 or whatever) is often determined by what the ISVs and/or hardware vendors support. Very often what is officially supported by proprietary software vendors like Oracle and IBM is the deciding factor.
Jesse has hit the nail on the head with the critical points here. Upgrades are done on an as needed basis. If there is no need then the upgrade does not get done.
Business Linux use, whether in the server room or on the desktop, is often miles away from what typical home users do. As a result an enterprise distro, tailored to enterprise needs, may seem to "not make sense" in a home environment.
79 • @ 75 (by Landor on 2010-07-01 20:28:48 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (false identity).
80 • distros (by forlin on 2010-07-01 21:57:42 GMT from Portugal)
@ 74 -"no news is good news"
I know and it's why I'm suggesting that readers can cooperate to improve that.
@ 72 - "Peppermint is no.68 and climbing..."
It's too early to take definite conclusions.
There's always a big popularity jump after every distro release announcement in DW. The real popularity can only be seen after around 6 or 12 months. I think Peppermint is a good distro, but they need to be more focused on the developing effort than in the marketing area.
81 • BIOS updates under Linux (by Job on 2010-07-01 22:24:19 GMT from Canada)
I recently did some troubleshooting on a friends old Dell PC running ubuntu and ended up flashing the Bios to the latest and greatest version to solve a problem. In doing so I discovered that Dell has pretty good Linux support for updating the Bios. Here are the two projects I discovered. I ended up using the first method BIOSdisk which uses freedos because the second method (using native Linux app) didn't support the older PC.
Anyways, it worked perfectly.
BIOSdisk: a utility developed by Dell to flash your BIOS under Linux on Dell desktops and laptops using freedos.
http://linux.dell.com/projects.shtml#biosdisk
There is also a package called firmware-tools to update your BIOS on a Dell via the internet from within Linux.
http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Oss/Firmware_Tools
I have an Intel mobo and Lenovo Thinkpad and noticed both vendors are supplying BIOS updates now via .ISO images. Personally I don't have a CD drive so in the past I've kept an image of an HP DOS rescue disk that I 'dd' to a USB flash drive whenever I've needed to flash a BIOS. I'll look into "grubbing" the ISO image or the Freedos alternative too.
The Thinkwiki (http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_Upgrade) describes some ways to flash the bios of thinkpads under Linux.
Cheers
82 • @ 72 (by Landor on 2010-07-01 23:46:46 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (false identity).
83 • @ 78 • #69: Clarifications and corrections (by Caitlyn Martin (by meanpt on 2010-07-02 10:11:37 GMT from Portugal)
About this:
"Business Linux use, whether in the server room or on the desktop, is often miles away from what typical home users do. As a result an enterprise distro, tailored to enterprise needs, may seem to "not make sense" in a home environment."
:):):) ... well ... not quite ... there are basic requirements dictated by some core corporate applications and IT infrastructure, imposesing some common features to all of the desktop but that's all. After that, you name it. I had the best of my working time experiences (and also the worst) in a global bank. At some point I had to kick off the BCM at some departments , and found applications geared to creativity work pretty specific to some departments that could belong as well to advanced home creative users or students. Those applications were only installed in those laptops which, in turn, ran much advanced (read "expensive") windows editions an were technologically much more advanced and out of the grayish Dell standard color. Front office has totally different needs from the financial control areas. Marketing department has to deal with absolutely gorgeous graphics and was buying last releases of whatever they were using. But of course you don't find these needs in small accountant offices. For sure the guys at Marketing charged to maintain some web pages at the official site usually had also the latest betas of all the browsers you think off in order to identify possible issues in page rendering and request code adaptation to comply with. You know, clients or the "to be" clients want to use whatever they want. in their computers. :)
84 • @77 • GoblinX (by winlinosx (by meanpt on 2010-07-02 10:30:30 GMT from Portugal)
I did a go on it and ... well, it took too much time to start the live mode, it felt heavy and when the installer asked me to mount the hd drive cause it couldn't see it ( ... and ... :) who knows ... is it that "fine slackware" thing? ) i gave up and decided to wait for a future state of the art..
85 • Adthwart (by Anonymous on 2010-07-02 12:43:09 GMT from Canada)
Wierd, the adthwart plugin for chromium browser blocks all the distribution logos and screenshots on this site.
86 • @76 - 2.6.18-xxx kernels (by forlin on 2010-07-02 17:10:34 GMT from Portugal)
Meanpt: if you google - distrowatch "waiting list" - you may find what you're looking for. At the first returned result, click the "cached" link. Scroll down and you'll find an old "waitng list". It includes distros from 2004 (only one) and 2005 (only 4) up to Jun 2010.
Ah... I completely misunderstood your @74 comment. That's why what I wrote about it at @80 doesn't make any sense at all.
87 • 86 • @76 - 2.6.18-xxx kernels (by forlin (by meanpt on 2010-07-02 17:45:17 GMT from Portugal)
Yay Forlin. Thanks. In the end, I checked the cahced the page and found the WL is still i"normally" available with the "Related Links" link in the upper right corner. Already got all the links there and ... yessss ... a 2.6.9 kernel is still available ... :) ...
... oh ... about my comment in #74 ... I tried to access the waiting list through the link provided in the end to this week's DW but that was the message displayed and ... :) ... so, I thought there was an ongoing refurbishment ... :) ... but seems not ... better hurry to find more precious k's ... :)
88 • The Ubuntu Light the Unity desktop ... (by meanpt on 2010-07-02 18:18:50 GMT from Portugal)
I know I can download and install the Unity desktop in the 10.04 or even in the 10.10 alfa 2. And yet, in this world of leaks nothing has leaked to the net (at least, that I know), with the appropriate ISO of something that seems reserved only to OEMs ... (check the end of this page under the "Ubuntu Light: The web in seven seconds" head: http://www.canonical.com/engineering-services/oem-services/why-ubuntu/products) : . Does anyone knows something more about this, or is it a rumor "à la" Canonical?
89 • Adblock Plus (by Tom on 2010-07-02 22:41:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi
I just installed Fedora13 and added Adblock Plus with it's "EasyList" subscription and found that DistroWatch images are blocked by default! Is it just me? Is this an attempt by MicroSquish to squish?
Regards from
Tom :)
Number of Comments: 89
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| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
risiOS
risiOS is a Fedora-based Linux distribution which runs the GNOME desktop environment and includes a number of graphical setup and tweak tools to help initialize and customize the desktop experience. risiOS includes wizards for adding media codecs, Flathub repositories, and popular open-source desktop applications.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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