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1 • Mandriva Linux "Cooker"switch to RPM 5.x (by Saleem Khan on 2010-11-22 09:22:51 GMT from Pakistan)
It sounds exciting to see this shift on cooker which is already doing great . This means my cooker based Mandriva installation will bring lot more upgrades than usual soonish . Unity Linux has already switched over to RPM5 even though it is based on Mandriva so it will be great to have this change on its source.
2 • OpenBSD (by Smoothie on 2010-11-22 09:31:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Should've selected 'Jibbed'. They seem to have smoothed a lot of the rough edges. However a lot of scope to speed up booting - everyone else has done it. At times, BSD seems to be lagging more than is reasonable and a general reluctance to learn from parallel developments?
3 • touchbook is also linux tablet (by Juha on 2010-11-22 10:34:29 GMT from Finland)
check also http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/home/index.htm when you talk about linux tablets. It is ARM, but works pretty well
4 • touchmini too (by tonny on 2010-11-22 11:03:53 GMT from Indonesia)
yeah, like Juha #3 said, goto always innovating website. You can get a nice 'n cheap tablet there. Too bad, It's inaccessible/hard to, from here (indonesia). Oh, their minibook (mm.. nexus one minus 5mb camera and radio (gsm), 30fps vga video instead) is just $199. Well, it's a real tablet killer IMHO. You can channel you video to external monitor if you want.
5 • BSD, & more (by Tom on 2010-11-22 11:32:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Great review Jesse, thanks. I think it shows the difference between linux & Bsd communities. I really have got to try FreeBSD or Jibbed or something soon.
Good to hear about Debian, it would be great if we could help since they asked. It has to be a good idea for regular readers to do a quick test of new releases but even more so for the head of such a popular family and again more so because they asked nicely.
Librete Linux looks amusing. Are we going to see Jack Bauer and Cloe O'Brian using this anytime soon?
KevinC's post about Grub at the end of last week mentioned that Fedora14 didn't pick-up on other distros installed on his system. I wonder if re-installing grub2 does pick-up everything properly? I have had a few (not many and increasingly rare) problems with grub2 as installed by distros that have been fixed by just re-installing it. Perhaps just try this on a command-line first tho
sudo update-grub
Just to force it to look at your system again.
KevinC's post also mentions a distro that automatically assumed there would be a Windows and included it in the boot-menu even tho there was no Windows on the system anywhere. Has anyone found similar? Does anyone know the name of the distro that did this (for amusement's sake)? Please feel free to email me by clicking on my name (copy email address from right-click menu).
I really like seeing that there are a number of distros that don't have English on their homepage. Mostly i have only really seen this in the various official Spanish distros which mostly seem to be based on Ubuntu or Debian. Oh, and Pardus presumably, the Turkish official one.
@meanpt i don't think he was referring to you somehow. Was a great name tho :)
Regards all from Tom :)
6 • sepling mistook (by Tom on 2010-11-22 11:37:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
ooops, that should have been Liberte Linux, and i didn't know how to do coding brackets in here, for the sudo grub thing (or even if i would be happy using them).
7 • PCLinuxOS (by Erik on 2010-11-22 13:29:43 GMT from United States)
Did anything ever happen with the PCLOS fork? I thought half of the devs abandoned the project a while back.
8 • RE: sudo update-grub... (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-22 13:58:41 GMT from United States)
Has always worked for me. Even when another distro is shown while installing it doesn`t always show up on the final boot list. This command takes care of that nicely. Speaking of distros in other languages, LinuxLex is one of the sweetest `Buntus around. I swear its version of Gnome makes it look a lot better than many E17 desktops I`ve seen, and I`m a big fan of E17.
9 • Where did they go? (by More coffee on 2010-11-22 14:02:37 GMT from United States)
Hello Erik Some of the folks who departed from PCLOS formed up as Unity Linux which can be found at http://unity-linux.org/ Give them a look.
10 • update-grub (by Flip23 on 2010-11-22 14:03:16 GMT from United States)
I had some trouble awhile back with various Distros saying the update-grub cmnd could not be found , I did send in bug reports on this also seems as if I had more problems with Grub not picking up other OS and also seems as if was with various Distros. Now these problems have been corrected as I have not had this problem in awhile.
11 • Hi - say hello all (by Okistroted on 2010-11-22 14:20:39 GMT from Ukraine)
Comment deleted (spam).
12 • BSDs (by Jesse on 2010-11-22 15:33:15 GMT from Canada)
Re 2: "Should've selected 'Jibbed'. "
I probably will do a review of NetBSD or Jibbed in the near future. The latest releases hadn't come out yet when I wrote the piece on OpenBSD. I tried Jibbed in the past and found it to be a fun project.
Re 5: "I really have got to try FreeBSD or Jibbed or something soon."
Just FYI I don't think Jibbed has an installer yet, so you'll be limited to trying it from a live disc. If you want an easy introduction into the BSD world, you might try PC-BSD or GhostBSD, both are based off FreeBSD and have live discs and installers.
13 • REF# 7 • PCLinuxOS forked (by Verndog on 2010-11-22 15:45:09 GMT from United States)
Yes, its called Unity Linux:
http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?/topic/82264-developers-quit-pclinuxos-to-start-unity-linux/
14 • re. 12 (by Smoothie on 2010-11-22 16:21:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
PC-BSD has been a massive disappointment this last few releases and I just have time to phaff around with their irrelevant changes. As for Jibbed, what better security than a BSD liveCD when you're transacting your pile into and out of fast-moving investments!
15 • re.14 (by Smoothie on 2010-11-22 16:29:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
...don't... !
16 • PCLOS (by Anonymous on 2010-11-22 17:15:43 GMT from United States)
I love the 64 bit PCLOS news, the previous lack of a ready to go x64 version was what made me try other options before settling on PCLOS as my Linux of choice. Their installer could use a little polish and modernization, but the rest of their OS is great, and it's really easy to install both PAE and x64 kernels from synaptic. The only thing I wonder about is how well flash works on 64-bit versions of Linux, it seems like its only been a few weeks since I upgraded my system and got those flash upgrades that actually make video look half decent in full screen. Does anyone have any opinions on the latest Flash versions in 64 bit Linux? I thought they finally were going to release it for 64 bit Linux, but I haven't noticed anyone mention how well it actually worked.
17 • Re: #16 - Flash (by kilgoretrout on 2010-11-22 18:06:08 GMT from United States)
Flash has been working OK for me on both Arch and Ubuntu 64 bit. I am also happy to hear about a 64 bit PCLOS and will definitely give it a try when it comes out. The only thing I don't like about PCLOS is the apt-rpm package tool with its dated synaptic interface. apt-rpm hasn't been updated since 2008, is slower than molasses and is very resource intensive. You really can notice this on older hardware. Both urpmi(mandriva) and yum(fedora) are superior packaging tools for rpm based distros IMHO.
18 • @17 apt-rpm/Synaptic PCLinuxOS (by johnny on 2010-11-22 18:36:06 GMT from United States)
I can tell you apt-rpm is being replaced in PCLinuxOS 2011. yum/yumex gui interface is currently at the top of the list at the moment according to what I've read on the PCLinuxOS forums.
Adobe Flash-64 beta works well on a 64-bit OS. I hope Adobe continues to develop it for Linux.
19 • Android Tablets (by Luke on 2010-11-22 19:00:40 GMT from United States)
Keep an eye on the Archos 101 and the ViewSonic GTablet as well. Both 10.1" capacitive (multi-)touch screens and similar specs except the latter uses Nvidia Tegra2. In the US the Archos 101 is $300 and the GTablet is $380. By most accounts they still have some issues (I've seen several complaints about the poor viewing angles), but things are finally looking up as far as Linux tablets go.
Before now it's only been cheap Chinese knockoffs with resistive touchscreens, slow processors, locked down machines, and poor tech support.
20 • News? (by Tom on 2010-11-22 19:07:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi :)
I just noticed the news
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/novell-agrees-to-be-acquired-by-attachmate-corporation-for-610-per-share-in-cash-109868319.html
which looks worrying. Is the Novell intellectual property portfolio being bought up by MicroSquish or have i mis-read it?
For trying a whole different style of OS i think a few LiveCds seems the easiest way to start. I still find the first Gnu&Linux i tried useful, mostly just to show-off with as it's main focus was on being an excellent LiveCd. I think it can be installed now but it's main charm is as a LiveCd to show off gnu&linux. Thanks Jesse for the list of Bsds good to try as a first install. An article comparing the relative merits of a few different BSDs would clearly be a massive undertaking but a few nudges is great :)
I thought Unity was not meant to be a distro in it's own right. I thought it was meant to be a core around which numerous other distros would be built, much like the proliferation of Puplets around Puppy (except that pure Puppy is excellent as a distro in it's own right and leads the pack there) or Arch & Gentoo and even TinyCore to some extent although TC seems to be for individuals to build a highly personalised system rather than create a pack of distros. Err, before anyone starts, i am not a fan of Puppy but do appreciate it (not there is anything inherently wrong in being a Puppy fan), i just prefer sliTaz, Wolvix 1.1.0, knoppix where i can.
Grub2 does seem to be developing very fast. I have not been on developer's mailing lists before but there seems to be a lot of activity consolidating and increasing it's functionality to include some very esoteric and unlikely systems/combinations. I don't think the "sudo update-grub" command actually updates the grub you have on your system. I guess that happens through normal updates. The update-grub command 'just' gets it to re-scan your system i think.
Many thanks and regards from Tom :)
21 • Flash? (by Tom on 2010-11-22 19:12:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
I thought Flash was being replaced by html5, gnash and swfdec-player? Those last 2 seem to have developed a LONG way since i first tried using them. I think i am getting totally dissimilar things muddled up there but i'm sure you know what i mean.
22 • OpenSUSE (by Anonymous on 2010-11-22 19:13:46 GMT from United States)
Novell Sold - What Will Become openSUSE?
23 • #10 grub (by grubby on 2010-11-22 19:14:14 GMT from United States)
Flip23
"I have not had this problem in awhile"
Kubutu 10.10 has the problem. Also Mint Julia. Grub2 found PCLOS, but won't boot it. Yep, it's the same old issue...
VFS: Cannot open root device... Please append a correct "root="...
Amazing that, after so much time and so much feedback, this issue is still alive!
24 • Linux+Tablets (by Sam on 2010-11-22 20:10:19 GMT from United States)
There's always the good ol' HP TC1100. :) OpenSUSE runs quite well when you enable the tablet repo.
25 • @20, another link on Novell sale (by Anony Moss on 2010-11-22 20:18:26 GMT from India)
"Novell and Microsoft did not disclose which patents will change hands. Microsoft declined to identify the other companies in the coalition."
Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/reuters/2010/11/22/novell-sells-itself-in-two-part-22-billion-deal
Here's Groklaw's commentary-
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101122130625952
IANAL, but this sounds like worrying news. Could we be seeing another patents lawsuit on Linux? The Empire strikes back.
26 • @25 "The Empire strikes back" (by meanpt on 2010-11-22 21:24:00 GMT from Portugal)
... and the empire is worried for not putting its teeth in the in the red meat:
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/88
27 • Jibbed, secure bootable CD @14 @15 (by Jan on 2010-11-22 21:24:03 GMT from Netherlands)
What does your message in @15 mean? Do you consider Jibbed a secure or not secure bootable liveCD (and why).
Since a few suspect experiences some month ago (yep: Windows) I was looking for a secure bootable CD (with a browser).
The ISO for this must of course be have the latest security-updates (so the latest Firefox) and 'locked-down' (no access to the HDD, no inclusion of malicious code possible).
Considering the huge amount of possible ISO's for a liveCD, there a surprising few ISO's available which have all latest updates (daily ISO). Only Paldo and Sabayon (Ubuntu and Fedora have this for their in-development-distro).
Make a bootable USB with persistence (so updatable) proves unworkable. The number of updates is mostly so huge, that the persistence area is mostly too small.
Further there is Webconverger, Privatix and Amnesia (which website has a security warning !!)
I am very interested in other people's experience and knowledge.
Jan
28 • Secure browsing (by Jesse on 2010-11-22 21:45:51 GMT from Canada)
>> "The ISO for this must of course be have the latest security-updates (so the latest Firefox) and 'locked-down' (no access to the HDD, no inclusion of malicious code possible).
Considering the huge amount of possible ISO's for a liveCD, there a surprising few ISO's available which have all latest updates (daily ISO). Only Paldo and Sabayon (Ubuntu and Fedora have this for their in-development-distro)."
I think you're making this harder for yourself than you need to. If you're looking for an environment where you can browse the web without the worry of getting malware on your hard drive, you don't need the latest up-to-the-day liveCD. Actually, that's going to result in a lot of wasted bandwidth and trouble.
What you should probably be looking at is a virtual machine (like VirtualBox) with an OS installed in it. Set it up, take a snap-shot of the virtual machine. Run it for a while, then revert back to the original image. It's a lot faster and easier. Plus you don't have to worry about the liveCD getting cracked and accessing your local disk.
That way you'll save yourself a lot of CD burning and downloading.
29 • about this tablet thing (by meanpt on 2010-11-22 22:37:31 GMT from Portugal)
I don't get this.
Everyone is trying to mimic and pay an irrational high amount for the worst computer tablet available (iPad) which can hardly be seen as a computer at all, but more of a portable device which is nothing more than a fancy electronic notepad with some wireless capabilities. On the other hand, imitators are trying to reach the same nonsense group of consumers with what may be the worst linux in town, made for phone based portable devices, and sold by telecom companies who understand nothing about computing, and don't need to do so cause they only want to sell those things as the coolest gadgets to be wear in the next vanity fair issue alongside luxury cars and clothes. Came on, what's the problem in upgrading those nice and tiny netbooks into real, good and cheaper tablets, with a real linux on it?
By the way, someone posted a a reference to a review on a tablet complaining on the lacking of wide angle screen visibility. In short, in my experience using real tablets, that's a good thing as we don't want other eyes taking a look on our notes or on ongoing work. If there is something to be shohwn, another bigger screen does the job. The only thing I lack in the tablets I owned was a good visibility under day light, lack of persistence in the screen calibration for the stylus and the lack of personalized handwriting recognition engine for my language. Finger writing or the use of pseudo-keyboards are out of question.
30 • What? No more news on latency patches? (by meanpt on 2010-11-22 23:04:16 GMT from Portugal)
Tried the Mepis 11 alfa 2 but my testing using either the new kernel or the smp kernel is inconclusive. In both cases Mepis is heavy and slow, Salix OS beats it in my youtube videos test with 450 MB of Ram allowed for the virtual machines.
Also checked my debian installations for the non patching alternative proposed by the RH kernel developer but found it (debian) lacks the ability to apply the mount point as described. Bad dog. The same applies to slacks, while Fedora is, for obvious reasons, a candidate for the surgery.
31 • @27 (by win2linconvert on 2010-11-23 00:27:34 GMT from United States)
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=incognito
Never used it, but it sounds good.
win2linconvert
32 • @27 (by win2linconvert on 2010-11-23 00:37:54 GMT from United States)
You could also try what I do. I have a dedicated box just for financial transactions. When it is not being used for that sole purpose it is physically disconnected from the Internet. I'm no security expert, and I'm sure there is one on here that's probably screaming at me right now, but it's what I do and I (Thank the Heavenly Father in Jesus name!) and so far so good.
win2linconvert
33 • Grub2 (by Tom on 2010-11-23 02:07:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
Have you tried reinstalling grub2? Are you using an old build of those distros or a newer one such as the Kubuntu 10.04.1 or something?
34 • Oracle Office? (by Tom on 2010-11-23 02:18:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
It seems the translations work that people put into OpenOffice is now only available in their "Enterprise Edition" (Spock or Janeway?) while their "Standard Edition" can only be installed on 1 machine. I'm sure that is almost exactly what people in here posted they would do ...
35 • grrr link (by Tom on 2010-11-23 02:18:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/open-office/open-office-170241.html
36 • @23 using Grub2 to boot PCLOS (by dive.ed on 2010-11-23 02:20:25 GMT from United States)
I have a machine with 12 boot-able partitions that I use for testing distros. I use a grub2 custom menu that I create and have had no problem launching PCLinuxOS 2009 or 2010. I use the following menu item:
menuentry "PClinuxOS 2010 on sda10" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,10)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set a3a5dfb1-03d4-4178-88c2-a654c708a8fb
linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=a3a5dfb1-03d4-4178-88c2-a654c708a8fb acpi=on resume=UUID=a3a5dfb1-03d4-4178-88c2-a654c708a8fb splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,10)/boot/initrd.img
}
Your partition number and uuid would of course be different.
dive.ed
37 • @23- follow up (by dive.ed on 2010-11-23 02:40:57 GMT from United States)
I decided to test the Grub2 OS prober and found out why it doesn't work, it must get the initrd line from boot menu on the partition. Since PCLinuxOS uses Grub it reads "initrd (hd0,09)/boot/initrd.img" pointing to the partition in front of the one it's installed on. From a grub menu it would be correct.
dive.ed
38 • grub issues.... (by KevinC on 2010-11-23 02:59:32 GMT from United States)
I must add I've had grub / grub2 issues over several installs. Multiple hard drives w/ mult. partitions seem to cause confusion, tho nothing a little manual editing and/or Supergrub/ Supergrub2 cd couldn't deal with. Or changing boot order in bios. On a few occasions I've had to edit grub at boot and change (hd0, 4) to (hd1, 4) for example. Then edit the grub config manually or update-grub2. As of yet, I've had no unbootable disasters...knock on wood.
To clarify, the Fedora 14 install was on another box. It's an AMD Quad core w/ 8gb, Nvidia 9800gtx and 2 1 tb hdds. At the time this box had an old XP install, PCLinux 2010 KDE, and Ubuntu 10.04. After the Fedora install, grub would show Fedora 14 and Other (which was XP). I later installed Maverick and it picked up all the op. systems on install. PCLinux 2010 (tested KDE, Gnome, LXDE and E17) all showed PCLinux only (on the linux-exclusive box), but a simple menu click of Redo MBR picked up F14, Mint 10, and PCLinux 2010, as well as PCLinux E17, which I was running at the time.
For the life of me I can't recall which added a useless Windows entry in grub...it was legacy grub, b/c I recall editing menu.lst and dx'ing the Windows entry. Know it wasn't Salix, b/c the live CDs (KDE and XFCE) were no go. The MS usb mouse and keyboard were dead on boot on 3 different systems. I've used earlier versions, but not w/ this pariticular mouse or keyboard combo. I'll try to solve that problem at a later date when I have more time, b/c I've enjoyed playing w/ Salix in the past and it is a nice distro.
39 • @36 (by KevinC on 2010-11-23 03:58:44 GMT from United States)
I've had no problem w/ grub2 lauching PCLInux except after the Plymouth fix w/ nvidia drivers. Works fine the other way too; I've ran redo MBR in PClinux and legacy grub will load the 'buntus/ Mints fine as well.
40 • PCLinuxOS (by Carl Smuck on 2010-11-23 05:12:37 GMT from United States)
I am really looking forward to when they come out with that new 64 bit version. It means that I will be able to use all 4 GB of the memory that is in my laptop. There is one thing I really don't like and it is that it seems no Linux release newer than Ubuntu 10.04 works with my laptops internal wireless card. One wireless N USB adapter that I have had for sometime made by intellinet had always seemed like a useless piece of crap up until now. When I tried using it in OpenSuse Linux 11.3 and Linux Lex OS 10.5 it worked really nicely. I found on ebay that there is a mini wireless N USB adapter available for $11.00 that is so small that it barely even would stick out of the side of your laptop. I ordered one of those things because it is said to be Linux compatible. Linux is better for wireless networking than M$ Winblows when it comes to picking up wireless signals over long distances. M$ New World Order Death Cult Windows is better in terms of wireless networking speed but you have to be right near the router to get a fast connection.
41 • grub2 #33, #36, #38, #39 (by grubby on 2010-11-23 07:32:55 GMT from United States)
If you install Kubuntu or Mint Julia, don't expect grub2 to be able to boot PCLOS.
It will not. Not without modification. (as stated in #37)
The problem does not exist for all distros. Mint's grub2 will boot SUSE, but not PCLOS, for example. Your experience will vary depending upon the distro.
This particular grub2 error can be corrected by modifying /etc/grub.d/40_custom as suggested here...
http://melpctec.blogspot.com/2009/11/dual-booting-mandriva-2010-with-grub2.html
/begin rant
This bug is documented in several forums. It really does impact more than an isolated few users of desktop Linux.
The error renders some installed Linux distros unusable (until the user fixes grub2). It is not trivial.
Modifying /etc/grub.d/40_custom is part of a process that will be simple enough for many here, but many here should recognize that desktop Linux is no longer aimed at only the technically astute. It doesn't matter that it is a simple fix for you. If desktop Linux was aimed at you, then it would be used by only 10% of the potential users out there (hmm).
The simple fix actually leaves selections on the grub menu that are unusable... the original unusable menu selections do not disappear. It's ugly.
IMO, it is now reasonable to expect desktop distros to just work. Some of the finest software in existence is open source - the community can afford to be confident enough to note problems routinely. I can't help but believe that if reviewers and community leaders held their standards high, then this grub2 problem would have already been fixed.
/end rant
42 • @41 RE: Grub (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-23 07:53:56 GMT from United States)
Well said! So why hasn`t this issue been addressed and corrected?
43 • OpenBSD Gnome Desktop (by Mostafa Faridi on 2010-11-23 08:14:18 GMT from Iran)
thanks guys , nice review about OpenBSD , I use FreeBSD 8.1 and install Virtualbox and install OpenBSD 4.7 with virtualbox , everything was good and great and I do not have error or problem , after install main OS , I install Gnome and many packages , I use Gnome and many packages with OpenBSD without problem , and everything is good . I tested OpenBSD 4.4 for first time and I installed KDE3 with many packages , and everything was fine , and I enjoy , I tested OpenBSD with XFCE too and it work good and great . I think OpenBSD is much faster and stable than other Unix like OS , but I see one problem , OpenBSD still does not support Farsi or Persian Fonts and Persian fonts are terrible now .
44 • RE: 5/38 - 41 (by Landor on 2010-11-23 08:21:02 GMT from Canada)
#5/38
I recall a default entry for Windows in Legacy Grub many times and I didn't have Windows installed either. I don't believe it's actually a bug, more of a way of explaining how to load Windows possibly. I wish I could remember the distributions, as there were a number of them doing it.
#41
Grub2 is experimental beta software. It's bound not to work with something, or in some areas. This is exactly the reason why I personally choose a Grub, or legacy Grub if you will, distribution to reside in my MBR.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
45 • @29 (by Anonymous on 2010-11-23 09:34:37 GMT from France)
The Nokia N900 is what you are looking for. It's not an iPad knock-off. Nokia has been making tablets since years before the iPad and Maemo is a pretty good linux OS that is not designed to limit yourself like Android.
Android is not a linux OS. It is a java OS that happens to run linux as a kernel but it lacks the GNU/linux stack you can find on Maemo.
The N900 is the best tablet around. It is based on Debian but with a great interface adapted for tablets/smartphones that does not limit its usage. It runs Angry birds and there are some killer apps on it like Xournal or Grimace (http://store.ovi.com/content/58961)
Verdict: Buy!
46 • OpenBSD and VirtualBox (by as_te_ri_x on 2010-11-23 09:51:22 GMT from Portugal)
Hello!
I've recently installed OpenBSD 4.8 on Virtualbox 3.2.10 OSE without any stress.
The OpenBSD it's up and running without any fault and was pretty simple setting up the OpenBSD custom BIND9 (thanks to Daniele Mazzocchio at http://www.kernel-panic.it/openbsd.html).
For sure shortly will be placed on a real machine and on a real scenario!
47 • @ 45 (by ned on 2010-11-23 13:27:27 GMT from Austria)
Just to clarify:
the Nokia N900 is NOT a tablet - it is a smartphone.
Yes, for several reasons it's called "internet tablet" - but just put it next to an Ipad or a Galaxy, and you'll have no difficulty noticing the difference between what it's _called_ and what it _is_.
As a VERY satisfied N900-user I know what I'm talking about;
as a phone-cum-computer it is simply fantastic, but if you're looking for a tablet you'll be disappointed ... unless of course your definition of "tablet" is quite different than mine ... ;)
48 • @44 (by kilgoretrout on 2010-11-23 15:05:17 GMT from United States)
I have a similar policy and will only have grub legacy on my mbr. The only problem is that grub legacy is no longer a single thing. Every distro that uses grub legacy puts there own custom patches in grub legacy; they have to since grub legacy is no longer being maintained by the grub developers. For example, all grub legacy distros patch for ext4 support which is absent in the official grub legacy. In general, I haven't been able to chainload grub2 from grub legacy. I have had success in Arch loading a grub2 distro where grub2 has been installed to the distro's root partition by using a menu.lst entry for the distro like:
title Fedora
root (hd2,8)
configfile /boot/grub/grub.conf
However, the identical entry will not load Fedora 14 when used with other grub legacy distros. I can only assume that Arch has patched its grub legacy in some custom manner.
Attempts to chainload grub2 from grub legacy with the traditional menu.lst entries like:
title Ubuntu
rootnoverify (hd0,7)
chainloader +1
have never worked for me on any grub legacy. I usually wind up having to copy over the grub2 distro's vmlinuz and intrd.img to a folder on my grub legacy distro and configuring the grub legacy menu.lst entry to load the grub2 vmlinuz and initrd.img from the local location. That always works but you have to remember to copy over the new vmlinuz and initrd.img with every kernel update on the grub2 distro.
49 • @41 grub simple fix (by dive.ed on 2010-11-23 16:19:34 GMT from United States)
There is another part to the simple fix that hasn't been mentioned. Besides editing
the /etc/grub.d/40_custom file to add any other os's you want to load. You should also disable the execute property on the /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober file. Then run sudo update-grub and your menu will look much cleaner.
One of the best reasons for using grub2 is it's ability to boot most live iso files using the loopback command. VBox is nice but keeps you from testing them on your actual hardware. With grub2, download iso, create menu item for it, update-grub, and test on your hardware. I always keep the latest version of Parted Magic on all my test machines as a boot-able iso image. No need to burn a new CD each release and can load it any time with a simple menu selection.
50 • 47 • @ 45 (by ned (by meanpt on 2010-11-23 17:24:57 GMT from Portugal)
Thanks :) ... this isn't a computer tablet under my computing standards ... but could fit as an extension of it, if it wasn't as expensive as the to be the parent ... :)
51 • RE: 48 (by Landor on 2010-11-23 17:39:52 GMT from Canada)
It's a simple thing to call a grub 2 partition and have it work. Use this and change it accordingly, of course :) :
title Ubuntu
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/grub/core.img
savedefault
boot
I've had no problems booting any file system with that scenario. Actually, I'm currently doing a massive new install on the netbook for a long term interest/project and all of the installs are ext4 so far and will pretty well be grub2 except for Fedora (which is in the MBR due to its use of Grub) and one other.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
52 • Secure bootable CD @28 @31 @32 (by Jan on 2010-11-23 18:42:52 GMT from Netherlands)
Thank for your info. Something to try out.
The Incognito distro is now named Amnesia.
If you click on the link for the website you will get a security warning from your browser not to really continue to enter this website !!
PS
I am using already a long time RW-CD's (and recently USB-sticks) to test/play with ISO. Goes pretty well. And if a writing goes wrong, wipe and retry.
Strangely the cheapest RW-CD have the best results.
Jan
53 • @44, Landor (by Barnabyh on 2010-11-23 20:50:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
You're right, grub-legacy as far as I know always came with an entry for chainloading Windows, not commented out (still does).
54 • RE: 27/28/52 (by Landor on 2010-11-23 23:14:47 GMT from Canada)
#27/28/52
Jesse, although this is personal use, your post "suggests" that a virtual machine is safe, especially given the fact that you suggested the installation of the distribution. If a virtual machine was safe, RH wouldn't have implemented all kinds of new security features in regard to virtualisation.
Again, for home use, this is a bit off the wall, but if I was concerned in regard to how secure my information was, there's no way I'd run anything installed, and/or on writable media.
Jan, in your case, I would personally remaster a livecd from a distribution and make sure it's up to date, and that it doesn't mount anything. Then if you're concerned about the age of some of the applications/vulnerabilities, you can update it and remaster it again. That's just my tin-foil hat view of it all though. It's also exactly how I do my banking now on-line, from a read-only LiveCD that I remasterd. :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
55 • RE: 54 an addition (by Landor on 2010-11-24 00:03:17 GMT from Canada)
I forgot to mention that in the above scenario a rolling distribution would be best as you'd just simply be able to update it instead of a new install in 6 months or so.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
56 • Secure (by Jesse on 2010-11-24 00:36:13 GMT from Canada)
>> "Jesse, although this is personal use, your post "suggests" that a virtual machine is safe, especially given the fact that you suggested the installation of the distribution. If a virtual machine was safe, RH wouldn't have implemented all kinds of new security features in regard to virtualisation."
I would suggest that if your computer has a hard drive in it, a virtual machine will probably hold you in better security than a live CD that can access your local disk. Though it's possible to "break out" of a virtual environment, that sort of attack is very rare.
Adding security to something (such as virtualization) doesn't make that technology unsafe, it just means there can be more security added. Security, as you know, is about layers. Red Hat has added security features to virtualization much the same way they added SELinux to their systems. It doesn't mean Linux is an insecure OS, just that we can always use an extra layer of protection.
I suppose if a person was really worried about being cracked they could run a live CD without a hard drive in the PC, but at that stage the computer becomes a lot less useful.
57 • RE: 56 (by Landor on 2010-11-24 01:20:56 GMT from Canada)
This one we'll have to disagree on. I feel that a properly locked down remaster of a LiveCD with separate root and user accounts (as well as their respective passwords) is far more secure than a virtual machine residing on a physical hard drive that has read and write privileges.
Oh, and speaking of RH, they add the SELinux as a layer in their virtualisation security scheme. I found that quite interesting, and one of the reasons they left Xen as I read they were not able to do that with it.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
58 • Ubuntu switching to rolling release (by Anonymous on 2010-11-24 01:50:01 GMT from United States)
Can you believe it?
59 • Secure OS (by Ricardo on 2010-11-24 02:40:26 GMT from Argentina)
Landor, Jesse and everyone else concerned with secure desktop usage:
You probably already know it, but you might want to keep an eye on QubesOS: http://qubes-os.org/
Regarding LiveCD vs. Virtual machine, I gues using a separate phisical machine and a LiveCD (better yet, in a separate network or VLAN from your main PC) would be a more secure approach.
But I'd never use a LiveCD on my PC (*), as access to the disk is more easily done than from a VM.
Regards.
(*) Well, I actually might, since my disk is encripted :)
60 • @58 - Ubuntu rolling (by Ricardo on 2010-11-24 02:45:45 GMT from Argentina)
Oh, my...
I'd prefer a half-rolling model a la Chakra: stable base system + rolling user apps.
Regards.
61 • grub again. (by KevinC on 2010-11-24 04:00:23 GMT from United States)
I didn't really think it was a bug. And it was easy enough to get rid of the Windows entry. IIRC, I've had Ubuntu/ Mint's grub2 boot PCLinux, but it screwed up...I was assuming it was the mods to get nvidia driver and plymouth to cooperate. No biggy, tho, I use PCLinux' legacy grub and it seems to boot everything. Enjoying the LXDE version now. Seems LXDE has come a long way. The E17 version was nice (& nice-looking), but I think E17 needs a little polishing. After some heavy use it threw some segfaults related toE17; had some weirdness w/ unetbootin. It would show my usb flash drive as being full, tho the desktop app that showed all disc drives clearly showed it empty (was freshly formatted). Not that LXDE is perfect, but it's come a long way. Hopefully E17 is headed in this direction. And I must admit that it's a helluva lot more useful than I recall my last experience being.
It's kind of funny, I spend a good amount of my spare time (being that I work a min. of 50 hrs a wk.) playing w/ various distros & I read a lot of complaining about bugs or regressions. To me, most of the distros and various DE's, and linux apps are more user friendly, usable and bug-free than ever. I can recall slogging through early versions of Fedora, Gentoo, Arch and even Ubuntu. Getting Flash or Java to even work at that time was sometimes quite a chore & often would never work w/ certain sites & so on. Now I would proffer that one could paste some of the top distros off of DW's home page on a dart board, toss a dart, go w/ that distro and have a good experience out of the box. I also see a lot of crap about Windows being perfect...I use it at least 9 hrs a day at work (tho we recently got a few Linux thin clients w/ HP's branded linux) and I rarely use Windows at home. It is far from perfect. I can use F14, PCLinuxOS KDE or LXDE, Maverick or Lucid, Chakra, Debian, etc, etc, and feel no loss of functionality for what I do. And it's nice not dealing w/ AV progs and the update reboot cycles.
62 • pc bsd 8.1 live mode - anybody had this working? (by gnomic on 2010-11-24 05:00:47 GMT from New Zealand)
Lately got hold of the DVD of pc bsd 8.1 which has a live mode - but so far my live sessions do well if they last 15 minutes before freezing or crashing/rebooting. Have tried with a Compaq Presario V2000 (1.8GHz Sempron, 1G RAM, ATI video and chipset), Dell D610 (2GHz Pentium M, 1G RAM, ATI video), and a ThinkPad Z60m (1.86GHz Pentium M, 1G RAM, i915). All 3 laptops run a wide range of Linux distros without undue problems. As far as I can tell the DVD is OK, it verified install files. Anybody had a lot of fun with this (or a lot of hairpulling like me)? This never used to happen with Desktop BSD.
63 • Ref# 59 • Secure OS (by Blackbeard on 2010-11-24 06:07:27 GMT from United States)
If your that paranoid, then unplug your hard drive cables and then run a LiveCD.
64 • OpenBSD review: omissions, objections (by pseudonomous on 2010-11-24 07:55:57 GMT from United States)
Hi, I just wanted to point out some things I think are important about OpenBSD that I think the review either omits or (I believe) mis-characterizes a bit: (mostly omissions)
Omissions:
- The default window manager is FVWM, that's what you get if you install X (it's pictured in the screenshots, just not identified)
- OpenBSD is heavily BSD 4.4 inspired; there's a lot of differences with how Linux distributions tend to be set up because of Sys V influence, also FreeBSD has evolved away from 4.4 BSD in a lot of ways, (adding seperate init scripts for 0different deamons) but OpenBSD sticks to it's heritage much more in some ways.
- One of the main differences between OpenBSD and FreeBSD is that OpenBSD attempts to provide enough software in the base distribution sets to allow you to run OpenBSD to provide some basic services without having to install ports/packages. (OpenBSD includes a webserver, dhcp server, terminal multiplexer, lightweight emacs-clone, fvwm, ftp server ... I'm probably forgetting other stuff that OpenBSD includes in the base that FreeBSD doesn't) And, in contrast to Linux, these are all OpenBSD projects, so the same people who write the kernel code are writing the userspace code.
- The OpenBSD developer community is much smaller than either the Linux or FreeBSD developer communities, which is one of the reasons why OpenBSD has so-so hardware support. Also, they get very little official vendor support, so most of their drivers are either written by OpenBSD developers based off released documentation, reverse engineering, or porting from FreeBSD drivers.
- One of the nicest features of OpenBSD is the pf firewall, I don't know anyone who's used both pf and iptables and prefers iptables.
- OpenBSD runs poorly in VirtualBox without hardware support for virtualization (at least this was true of the 4.6 release).
- OpenBSD has poor SMP support; the kernel is giant-locked. (at least, it was as of 4.6)
Objections:
- I really don't think OpenBSD's package management system is any more complicated than FreeBSD's.
- For someone sufficiently accustomed to unix, I think OpenBSD's more intuitive than most linux distrubutions. It doesn't have alot of the complexity that's been built into modern unix-like OSes and remains very simple at it's core. This means that it doesn't have a lot of features that can easily be implemented by piping a few commands together, like the "killall" command available in Linux or FreeBSD. They leave this to the user to implement.
Other thoughts:
- I'm no longer an OpenBSD user, I've migrated to FreeBSD to take advantage of zfs, but I don't love FreeBSD like I loved OpenBSD. It's an operating system developed in a way that I think makes a lot of sense. Very simple.
65 • Novell buyout... (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-24 16:38:12 GMT from United States)
I see there`s already a shareholders lawsuit filed. Could get interesting...
66 • netbsd (by dudeintheatlantic on 2010-11-24 16:49:24 GMT from Faroe Islands)
I really hope you do a review of the NetBSD 6.0 release when it comes out. Maybe you could make a comparison of 6.0 and 5.1.
Just one mans wish:)
67 • OpenBSD (by Jesse on 2010-11-24 19:39:46 GMT from Canada)
RE: 64
I agree that part of the reason OpenBSD has less hardware support is due to a smaller developer/user community. However, I also think that a big factor is OpenBSD's approach to binary blobs. They don't use binary blobs which cuts down on some of their hardware support, but insures the code they do have remains open.
I'm not sure why you mentioned OpenBSD not running well in VirtualBox as an omission. It was mentioned (and linked to) in the review and mentioned again in the summary.
The reason I said OpenBSD's package/ports management is more complicated than FreeBSD's is due to the requirement of actually configuring the package manager and manually installing the ports collection. These are things FreeBSD does automatically at install time. OpenBSD requires the user manually install the ports collection and point the package manager to the correct repository. After that both systems work pretty much the same.
As you stated, OpenBSD is very simple. It doesn't really do anything for you and stays out of the way. Whether that is a blessing or a curse is in the eye of the beholder.
68 • The Fedora Community (by Landor on 2010-11-24 20:03:19 GMT from Canada)
I just had a few fun filled days in regard to the Fedora Community. Some of you might remember how I was vocally a proponent of how Fedora actively tries to get people to participate in its community. Some also might recall that at times I've talked about avoid IRC channels and forums like the plague. I recently had the two of those things meet, and it wasn't pretty.
Here's a blog post that some may want to read. Be warned it's rather long.
http://landorsplace.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/three-strikes-youre-out/
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
69 • Community (by Jesse on 2010-11-24 21:30:21 GMT from Canada)
Landor,
I read your blog post and I find myself in agreement of your observations regarding community interactions. I would additionally suggest that you're going to find those sort of environments regardless of which big name distribution you use. If your friend is still interested in contributing her skills to the open source community, perhaps she'd have better luck working with an upstream project. Usually I find those communities to be smaller and more friendly.
70 • @68 - Fedora (by forlin on 2010-11-24 22:00:35 GMT from Portugal)
They put immature, uneducated and arrogant kids, helping at an irc, and those things happen, of course. The others, instead of been keeping an eye on what's happening around, prefer to spent their time and energy fighting about useless things at the mailing lists. It's ok at many places. But this is one of those institutions that must be properly administrated about the public image they give to the outside.
71 • @68 • The Fedora Community (by Landor (by meanpt on 2010-11-24 22:07:01 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... anyway, what the fedora design came up with? ... a broken glass, right? ...
72 • RE: 69-70-71 (by Landor on 2010-11-24 23:05:26 GMT from Canada)
#69
Being no stranger to it all, and exactly why I avoid IRC in the first place, I knew to expect something, but I had honestly hoped Fedora would have a tighter rein on things. I'm not one to shy away from a fight either, but I figured in the end, what would it accomplish if I stooped to their level? I'm just here to enjoy, that's all. I'd regret having become worse than them, and feeding them in that manner. I don't like anyone owning me in any way, and responding in kind is akin to just that. It was obvious it was just time to move on.
I spoke to Adam Williamson about in e-mail and he assured me that other channels were not like that, and their respective mailing lists. The possibility is always there though. My friend will have to decide. The problem with her joining an upstream project is she was specifically looking forward to working in design/art on a large scale. She also viewed it as a way to learn all she needed (as there'd be a lot of support from the team in that area) to drop everything she used that was proprietary for graphics/art. So it would have benefited the community and her as well. I'll pass that on to her as well, though I'm sure she'll read it here. :)
#70
I wouldn't say they're all kids. Not really, in fact, probably more of the ones helping in IRC are older. One of the people I was involved with I am quite sure was older. I agree though, it is a reflection on Red Hat and Fedora both. To let it continue doesn't really say much for either of them.
#71
I couldn't ever critique someone's art, especially when I'm lucky if I can do some very light sketching, which by no means I'd consider art..lol But, it's their art, and thus, something very special to them. I actually enjoyed the background that was designed, more so the originals that didn't make it. But, I just found it as a desktop background far too distracting.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
73 • OpenBSD, blobs, and confusion (by Ralph on 2010-11-25 00:11:36 GMT from Canada)
According to the FSF what the the BSD world refers to as binary blobs is not the same thing that the Linux world refers to as such: BSD people will refer to proprietary *drivers* as "blobs" but nevertheless will ship with drivers whose code, though mostly open-source, contains what the Linux world refers to as "blobs" -- small patches of non-opensource binary code that are needed for the driver to be fully functional.
74 • grub 2 (by grubby on 2010-11-25 06:21:56 GMT from United States)
#39, #61
"I've had no problem w/ grub2 lauching PCLInux"
"I've had Ubuntu/ Mint's grub2 boot PCLinux"
There's a lot of people out there who have the problem. The consensus answer seems to require manually editing configuration. You may be onto something that everybody else has missed. You might review your experience again, and if you truly have no problem then please consider visiting some forums to help out some of those people. They're in the Ubuntu forum, PCLOS forum, and Launchpad to start with.
Given the nature of the issue as I've repeatedly seen it explained, I have no explanation of why the default install of Mint/Ubuntu/grub2 does not boot PCLOS (and Mandriva) for some, and yet causes no problem for another.
#44
"Grub2 is experimental beta software. It's bound not to work with something, or in some areas."
What a depressing thought... a not-uncommon problem that stops popular competing user-friendly Linux distros from just working, is bound to go uncorrected for over a year.
75 • openBSD not for dummies (by samuel on 2010-11-25 06:54:06 GMT from Italy)
I have tried this openBSD thing, with the few linux commands that i have seen here and there. I got to nowhere. I couldn't even shutdown the machine.
76 • @72 • RE: 69-70-71 (by Landor (by meanpt on 2010-11-25 09:25:32 GMT from Portugal)
:) Landor, I didn't say it's not a nice background nor were I criticizing the aesthetics - despite not being critical, I did complain when I lost it after one of those dreaded updates - but taking your experience in context, I couldn't stop thinking if the artist were not projecting subliminally a conflicting experience ... and that could also be one way to read fedora's broken glass :) ... e.g., verbal violence ...
77 • Re:51 (by kilgoretrout on 2010-11-25 16:56:47 GMT from United States)
It's a simple thing to call a grub 2 partition and have it work. Use this and change it accordingly, of course :) :
title Ubuntu
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/grub/core.img
savedefault
boot
That generally works for booting ubuntu from a grub legacy distro but it certainly won't work for fedora which has no core.img file in /boot/grub. So far, the only grub legacy distro that I have been able to boot fedora14 from is Arch and the identical menu.lst entry in other grub legacy distros fails to boot fedora. The whole thing underlines the mess you can get into when attempting to boot a grub2 distro from a grub legacy distro. Grub legacy varies from distro to distro and grub2 and the way it is implemented varies from distro to distro. What works in one situation may not in another in my experience.
78 • Re: 51 & 48 -- A possible solution for booting recalcitrant Grub 2's from Grub (by Ralph on 2010-11-25 20:29:09 GMT from Canada)
First of all, let me say that, using Grub Legacy with OpenIndiana, I've been able to chainload the few Grub 2 distros that exist with one "half-exception". The sometimes exception is K/Ubuntu. The first time I installed both Lucid and Maverick versions of K/Ubuntu (both of which use Grub 2), I was able to chainload Maverick but not Lucid. After the 'buntu partitions got wiped I reinstalled Lucid and Maverick again, but this time I was able to only chainload Lucid but not Maverick! (This *may* have something to do with the updates available at the time.) It's been a while since I've used Debian Lenny (Grub Legacy) to boot my other OSs but, if I remember correctly, I managed to get at least one of the 'buntus to boot via chainloading as well.
Sorry if I'm missing something here, but Fedora 14 uses Grub Legacy by default, so I have to assume you did a custom install with Grub 2. (I understand you to be saying that you are unable to get Fedora 14, with Grub 2 installed to its root partition, to boot using Grub Legacy from your MBR except in the case when you use Arch.) If that is the case then there may be a way of getting Fedora to boot without being dependent on Arch specifically. I noticed that even though I was able to chainload Lucid but not Maverick in my latest round of installs, I was able to boot up Maverick by first booting into Lucid (assuming I ran grub-update on Lucid of course) and selecting Maverick from Lucid's boot menu. So the thought occurred to me if you could install *just* Grub 2 (without an operating system) outside of the MBR and start it up from Grub legacy (in the MBR), you could use it to boot Fedora. I have no idea whether this is feasible (or even possible) but if you could get it working you wouldn't have to worry about manually modifying your Legacy Grub entry every time Fedora updates its kernel.
79 • @74 (by KevinC on 2010-11-26 02:35:50 GMT from United States)
I have had probs w/ Ubuntu/Mint's grub2 booting PCL. It worked for awhile then quit working and I was suspecting the mods to get Plymouth working w/ Nvidia drivers...but I'm not sure of this. Fedora 14 and PCL use legacy grub. Here's my menu.lst from PCL 2010.10 KDE, if that will help anyone:
timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,7)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0
title PCLinuxOS KDE
kernel (hd0,7)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID= splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,7)/boot/initrd.img
title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,7)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=
initrd (hd0,7)/boot/initrd.img
title failsafe
kernel (hd0,7)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID= failsafe
initrd (hd0,7)/boot/initrd.img
# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the PCLINUXOS standard grub entries
title Other operating systems:
title Linux Mint 10 Julia (10) (on /dev/sda10)
root (hd0,9)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic root=/dev/sda10
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-22-generic
savedefault
boot
# This entry automatically added by the PCLinuxOS redo-mbr for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/sda13.
title PCLinuxOS LXDE (on /dev/sda13)
root (hd0,12)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID= splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,12)/boot/initrd.img
savedefault
boot
# This entry automatically added by the PCLinuxOS redo-mbr for an existing
# linux installation on /dev/sda6.
title Fedora (2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686) (on /dev/sda6)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686 ro root=UUID= rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet nouveau.modeset=0 rdblacklist=nouveau
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.i686.img
savedefault
boot
I haven't cleaned it up yet; just ran PCL's RedoMBR and tested each distro (the 4 I have currently). Note to get your partition's UUID type as root:
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
80 • @ 77 fedora (by forlin on 2010-11-26 18:07:21 GMT from Portugal)
This one works for me
title Fedora 14 (2.6.35.6-48.fc14.x86_64) (on /dev/sda15)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.x86_64 ro root=/dev/sda15
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.x86_64.img
81 • lilo remains a good alternative to grub (by Caitlyn Martin on 2010-11-27 19:28:05 GMT from United States)
With all the debate over grub I thought that I should mention that the venerable lilo remains an excellent option for a bootlaoder. If all you are doing is dual/multibooting Linux, BSD and/or Windows it just plain works. It's still the default bootloader for Slackware and most Slackware derivatives.
See: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LILO.html and http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/workshops/linux_install/lilo.html
82 • My first RH5.0 install in 1998 was .. (by GreyGeek on 2010-11-27 21:44:02 GMT from United States)
a LOT easier and more reliable than the openBSD install that you documented. It leaves me dumbfounded. If all Linux distros had remained that klutzy it would be nearly extinct now, as openBSD is.
83 • Installer (by Jesse on 2010-11-27 23:31:19 GMT from Canada)
@82:
The OpenBSD installer does come across as primitive in appearance. The thought entered my mind toward the end of the process that the FreeDOS installer is quite a bit more attractive. However, I feel this is balanced somewhat by the way in which almost all the prompts have a reasonable default. One can pretty much hold down the Enter key (pausing to input a root password) and the installer will spit out a working system.
My only serious complaint is with the virtual hardware support. After I did the review, I also tried running OpenBSD in a KVM environment and found that OpenBSD wouldn't properly handle the virtual network interface. It would connect (sometimes), but the transfer speed was limited to about 3kB/s. Someone told me that if I re-install and use a different virtual network card it'll fix the problem.
84 • ref - 81 • lilo remains a good alternative to grub (by Verndog on 2010-11-28 02:24:04 GMT from United States)
I've heard that idea before. You may be right.
Right now Ubuntu testing - natty, has updated grub2 to 1.99 with some odd error messages. Be aware. The fix is somewhere inside "/etc/grub.d/10_linux".
Somewhere around line#192:
#if [ "$list" ] && ! $in_submenu; then
#echo "submenu "Previous Linux versions" {"
#in_submenu=:
#fi
They added a submenu.
85 • lilo prefered over grub2 (by RollMeAway on 2010-11-28 03:47:29 GMT from United States)
I prefer lilo over grub2. Lilo just does its job and gets out of your way.
Grub2 is spread across more than 3 directories, not counting execs.
/boot/grub has 189 files!! It requires you edit multiple files in a cryptic format.
Grub2 does NOT reliably install to the root partition, and the list goes on .....
You call this progress?
86 • Lilo (by KevinC on 2010-11-28 05:58:54 GMT from United States)
Haven't used Lilo in yrs....does it handle ext4 or btrfs?
I really have had pretty good luck w/ Grub legacy. At one time, the same could be said for Grub2, but have had issues w/ it. One was a horrible clusterf**k that screwed the partitions on my wife's computer & killed an (incredibly) old XP install (was playing w/ Peppermint One, iirc). Another *buntu-based distro (can't recall which one) dx'ed partitions on another machine, but I saved those, thanks to Parted Magic and a live Linux CD. IMHO, I don't really get the changes from legacy Grub to Grub2. I know it was supposedly necessary d/t the new file systems....but a lot of it reeks of change for change's sake. Maybe eventually I'll come to embrace the method to this madness, but for now I'll stick w/ legacy Grub....or maybe Lilo
87 • Re: 85; Grub 2 (by hob4bit on 2010-11-28 13:30:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, I just give up on editing multi configure files of grub2. This is a bad feature in my opinion.
I edit "/boot/grub/grub.cfg" and backup it as "/boot/grub/grub.cfg-ok". I restore it if it gets corrupted:
set default=0
set timeout=4
set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
set superusers="grub"
password grub
menuentry "Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1 LTS amd64, 2.6.32-24 (sda2)" {
set root=(hd0,2)
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-24-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1 LTS amd64, 2.6.32-24 (sda2, recovery)" {
set root=(hd0,2)
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=/dev/sda2 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-24-generic
}
menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP SP3 (sda1)" {
set root=(hd0,1)
chainloader +1
}
I also install grub2 to a USB stick and boot a customized Ubuntu off it:
set default=0
set timeout=4
set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
set superusers="grub"
password grub ???
menuentry "Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1-20101128 LTS i386, 2.6.32-24 (sfs)" {
set DIR=/boot/UBUNTU-10.04.1-20101128-I386
linux $DIR/vmlinuz boot=casper live-media-path=$DIR quiet noprompt
initrd $DIR/initrd.lz
}
menuentry "Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1-20101128 LTS i386, 2.6.32-24 (sfs, toram)" {
set DIR=/boot/UBUNTU-10.04.1-20101128-I386
linux $DIR/vmlinuz boot=casper live-media-path=$DIR toram quiet noprompt
initrd $DIR/initrd.lz
}
menuentry "Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1-20101128 LTS i386, 2.6.32-24 (sfs, recovery)"{
set DIR=/boot/UBUNTU-10.04.1-20101128-I386
linux $DIR/vmlinuz boot=casper live-media-path=$DIR quiet noprompt
initrd $DIR/initrd.lz
}
Grub2 is better than grub/lilo but I hate the multi-configure files. Manual edit is much better.
88 • grub2 & Lilo (by Tom on 2010-11-28 14:35:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
My info could be wrong but ...
Grub2 is developing fast and was already fine for noobs just arriving from Windows from long before April. The fairly advanced set-ups that have been causing troubles need to be reported to the main grub2 bug-squad and to individual distros if possible.
Lilo has been actively maintained and developed for slackware distros so don't assume it is old and out-of-date! I'm not sure exactly who is maintaining it and i could be wrong but many slackware distros seem to prefer it at the moment.
Regards from
Tom :)
89 • Data-recovery (by Tom on 2010-11-28 15:01:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi :)
I have been practicing data-recovery on a Samsung netbook with some results i hadn't really expected.
Parted seems great from pretty much any distro i tried but couldn't rescue deleted Logical Partitions as easily as it rescued Primary ones. I am sue i remember parted offering a choice of whether to recover partitions as Primary or Logical despite whatever they had been before.
Testdisk seems to offer more options. Hopefully it might allow me to change a Primary to a Logical. For undeleting individual file NtfsUndelete was a bit disappointing but testdisk was able to help. Apparently NtfsUndelete has been ported to Windows and even has a Windows LiveCd with a really nice gui!
Trinity Rescue Kit 3.5 is MUCH easier to use than previous releases. Nice menu and easy to drop to root shell. From the root-shell there were even more tools available, such as testdisk
Ubuntu seemed to have testdisk as-well but sliTaz (30Mb) didn't. SliTaz does seem to have the advantage of being able to LiveCd from some damaged cd/dvd-drives where most distros can't although TRK also didn't have a problem with this one.
I still see sliTaz as being the most useful general purpose recovery Cd for me as long as i can get a good wireless signal but Trinity has some excellent tools built-in and seems to focus on recovering Windows systems.
Regards from
Tom :)
90 • BSD (by Tom on 2010-11-28 15:03:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
At last i have booted into a couple of BSDs just to have a quick look. Both dropped me to the command-line but both seemed to have excellent documentation and mainly aimed at servers. Not quite my cuppa-tea but interesting to see that command-line is much the same :)
Regards from
Tom :)
91 • BSD command line (by Jesse on 2010-11-28 16:01:20 GMT from Canada)
Tom, you're right, the command line is much the same. The first time I logged into a FreeBSD machine remotely I thought it was a Linux box for the first ten minutes. The organization I had been working for was running mostly Red Hat servers and they asked me to take a look at something on this other box and provided me with the address. I think I was working for ten minutes or so before the "something doesn't feel right" voice in my head got loud enough for me to run "uname"
The same tools were installed and the projects were in the same location, so it was pretty easy to switch back and forth.
92 • RE: 76 (by Landor on 2010-11-29 01:52:35 GMT from Canada)
I'm sorry meanpt. My apologies for misinterpreting your interpretation of the artwork. :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
93 • Ref#84 GRUB@ (by Verndog on 2010-11-29 03:01:08 GMT from United States)
I found the answer to my problem from comment #84.
Those of you that edit grub.cfg directly (as I do), you need to change the root assignment and add another argument, as follows:
From: set root=(hd0,1)
To: set root='(/dev/sda,msdos1)'
The newest grub2(1.99) requires that added argument or your get an error. It will still boot but will require a return or a few second wait.
94 • lilo vs grub (by jake on 2010-11-29 04:42:30 GMT from United States)
As a long-term Linux user (16+ years), I have never had a problem with lilo booting other OSes ... although I'll admit that I have never tried Vista & 7 with lilo, having dropped MS products entirely a while back.
Grub/Grub2? Not so much. I'll stick with lilo, tyvm ... but I'll still check out Grub occasionally, and will switch to it if I find it more useful in my day-to-day life. I'm not religious about software. Life's too short ...
Number of Comments: 94
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