 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 382, 29 November 2010 |
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Welcome to this year's 48th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The acquisition of Novell by Attachmate Corporation and some unfounded reports about Ubuntu switching to a rolling-release model were the main events of the otherwise uninspiring week. But away from these headline-making stories there were some interesting reports about Debian's new(ish) package classification system called "debtags" and Jolicloud's new Jolibook netbook with the latest version of the cloud-oriented distribution. Read more about these stories in the news section below. This week's feature article should satisfy those readers who enjoy smaller and lesser-known Linux distributions as it takes a quick look at Upstream OS, Fuduntu and LightDesktop - three projects that few of us have even heard of. The Q&A section then discusses the differences between the distributions that largely use vanilla upstream packages and those that modify them heavily in order to create a better integrated user experience. All this and more, together with all the regular sections in this week's DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!
Content:
- Reviews: Triaging a trio - Upstream OS, Fuduntu and LightDesktop
- News: Attachmate acquires Novell, openSUSE project "safe", Debian's new package classification system, netbook distro group test, Jolicloud Jolibook review
- Questions and answers: Using a distro with upstream packages
- Released last week: Tiny Core Linux 3.3, Ultimate Edition 2.8 "Games"
- Upcoming releases: DEFT Linux 6, Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha 1, Pardus Linux 2011 Beta 2
- New distributions: Kajonix, linuxacessivel.org, Oz Unity
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (13MB) and MP3 (27MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Triaging a trio
A little while back I did a rapid-fire review of three distributions in one set. A few readers e-mailed to ask if I would do this again with new projects and this seemed like a good time to honour those requests. I grabbed three distributions which had recently been added to the DistroWatch waiting list and gave them each a one-day test run. Here are my first impressions of these projects in no particular order.
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Upstream OS 6.0
 Upstream OS is a distribution which was put together using SUSE Studio. The project's website says Upstream OS exists to act as a base for other projects. That is, a developer can clone Upstream OS and use it as a starting point for their own distro. This mission statement seems to be a bit on the redundant side as I consider it to also be the purpose behind SUSE Studio itself. The rest of the website is elegant, but sparse on information. I like the layout and it's easy to navigate, but there isn't much information about the distribution yet. There is a forum for asking questions and some screen shots available.
The project's downloadable ISO weighs in at about 650 MB and I took Upstream OS for a ride. On booting from the live disc, Upstream OS displays a pleasant splash screen and a boot menu. The options are pretty standard and I went with booting into the live environment. I was a bit surprised by what happened next. The YaST configuration tool appeared and asked me to select my preferred language, keyboard layout and time zone. The system then went to work checking existing packages and configuring things. Please bear in mind the system isn't installing at this point, it goes through this configuration process each time the computer boots from the CD. The whole process took about two minutes on my machine.
After that, the system brought up the distro's graphical login screen. There's no hint as to the username/password so, after trying a few combinations, I went back to the website. A forum post on the site provided the default login information. Once logged in, I was presented with a KDE 4.4 desktop with a soft blue background. The application menu features a list of common software, mostly the usual little apps that come with any full-sized distribution. There are a few surprises though, for example Firefox appears to be missing in favour of Chromium. The Wine compatibility software is also included straight out of the box. Otherwise, the system is essentially a standard openSUSE 11.3 bundle.
Kicking off the installer starts YaST 2. As with the parent distribution, Upstream was unable to display the installer's license agreement file, but still demands the license be accepted before proceeding. After that, it was an easy few steps to provide locale information, setup a regular user account and confirm the suggested partition layout. The installer carved up my disk, copied over its files and prompted me to reboot the computer. So far, things were going well. However, once I booted my new installation, Upstream kicked off the first-run configuration. Part of the configuration process includes downloading a collection of files from the Internet (I suspect to check for updates).
The configuration wizard was unable to download the desired files and, when asked if I wanted to retry or abort the process, I selected "Abort". At which point the config tool began the process again, failed, and started over again. Eventually it locked up and I rebooted. This time around Upstream informed me the first-run configuration had failed and that it would skip that step. It brought me to a graphical login screen where I discovered my regular user account, which I had requested during the install process, had not been created. My root password had been set, but instead of creating the non-root account I wanted, the system had copied over its regular account from the live disc. It's one of those things that are easy to fix, but I shouldn't have to, especially since the problem didn't appear in vanilla openSUSE.
From there in things went fairly well. Upstream OS is, essentially, openSUSE 11.3. It features the powerful YaST configuration tool and can make use of the same software and repositories. Performance on my machine was fair, not great, but not particularly slow either. The system is attractive, stable, but so far as I can see, doesn't offer anything above and beyond what the openSUSE team provides.
Upstream OS 6.0 - the login screen
(full image size: 271kB, resolution 800x598 pixels)
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Fuduntu 14
 Next up is Fuduntu, a new distribution which claims to be filling the gap between Fedora and Ubuntu. From the project's website I assumed this would combine the technology base of Fedora with the user-friendly enhancements of the Ubuntu family. The website is pretty bare at the moment, including a brief introduction and providing a 900 MB ISO download.
Booting from the offered live disc brought me to a GNOME desktop which looks very much like the Fedora 14 desktop, but with a green grass background as opposed to the regular blue theme. The application menu is placed at the top of the screen and has, mostly, the same contents as Fedora's. The main differences being Fuduntu includes GIMP and the Jupiter screen configuration tool.
Firing up the system installer shows that it is the same as Fedora's with just the branding changed. I ran through a quick install, taking the defaults wherever possible and, fifteen minutes later, was prompted to reboot. I was then guided through the first-run Setup Agent which helped me customize the system and gave me the opportunity to submit a Smolt hardware profile.
Upon arriving again at the desktop, I played around with the applications, did some web surfing and used the package manager and update tool. Fuduntu uses the YUM package manager and pulls packages and updates from Fedora's repositories. There is one Fuduntu-specific repository as well which contains customized packages -- for instance, I believe the project provides a custom kernel with the BFS scheduler enabled.
On the topic of updates, after I upgraded to the project's latest kernel, I rebooted and was presented again with the first-boot Setup Agent. The Setup Agent insisted on walking me through my configuration and creating another user account. This only happened the once and future reboots didn't cause the first-run wizard to launch, but it did strike me as odd that I had to run through the setup twice, a problem not encountered during my time with Fedora.
After playing with Fuduntu for an afternoon I came to the conclusion that there are no signs of Ubuntu in this distribution which claims to "fit somewhere in-between Fedora and Ubuntu." This is, for all practical purposes, Fedora 14 with the GIMP, some codecs and OpenOffice pre-installed. These are nice extras to have, but it comes at the cost of a larger ISO. The project's website talks about improvements to performance using BFS and cgroups, but I can't say I saw any improvement over plain Fedora 14. If anything the additional software loaded at login time seems to increase the time between login and a usable desktop environment and the cgroups settings would occasionally result in error messages being printed to my terminal sessions.
Fuduntu 14 - exploring the included applications
(full image size: 135kB, resolution 1024x768 pixels)
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LightDesktop
 Third on my list of distributions is LightDesktop. This project stands out in a few ways from other distros I've tried recently. The distribution is, in the website's own words, "a teensy Linux distribution that tries to boot off of the web. The install/live CD/live USB image is smaller than 32 MB. Because I hate X Window, it doesn't have it - it uses a Qt running on a framebuffer." The website is nicely laid out in black & white with nice big buttons for navigation. The site also has some screenshots and a quick rundown of what comes included with the distro (basically a web browser and a virtual console). At times I wasn't sure if LightDesktop's creator has a sense of humour about the project or if they just weren't sure how to express themselves. For instance, the download page includes the following instructions for transferring an image to a USB flash drive: "To get the USB thingee working, you have to dd it to the partition you want."
But I'm not here to quibble over terminology, I'm here to see what LightDesktop can do. The CD image is a mere 27 MB and starts off with a GRUB (Legacy) boot menu. We then move to a graphical login screen where I was able to gain access by using the username "root" without a password. The desktop environment is bare bones with a green background and three buttons in the upper-left corner of the screen. One button brings up a menu and the other two launch a terminal and web browser respectively. Maintaining its unusual approach to things, LightDesktop's browser is the Qt Demo Browser (version 0.1). The menu button brings up some options for "About" information, wireless configuration, an installer, an application directory, and the option to shutdown. On my system the wireless configuration button didn't do anything and clicking "Application Directory" brought up the project's website.
The system's installer is a plain text program which asks on which partition we want to install LightDesktop. It then sets about formatting and copying over files. Unfortunately for me though, after the install completed without any errors my machine refused to boot. Being left with the live disc to experiment with I found there wasn't much remaining to investigate. The terminal app worked as expected, the web browser is light on features, but worked well enough for browsing most pages. Both programs were slow to load, but otherwise ran trouble-free.
Honestly, where LightDesktop is concerned I am uncertain as to whether I'm missing a key feature or it just doesn't do anything interesting yet. The project is focused on cloud computing, but aside from the browser it doesn't appear to offer any applications. If this project continues I think it could turn into an interesting minimalist, cloud-oriented distribution. A step beyond what Peppermint is doing in regards to relying on the cloud.
LightDesktop - the web browser
(full image size: 27kB, resolution 1027x766 pixels)
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All in all it was a disappointing week for me. Upstream OS provided me with a lengthy start-up process which hit a few bumps along the way. Fuduntu is basically a Fedora clone with GIMP and OpenOffice, driving up the size of the ISO. LightDesktop's concept intrigued me, but the project needs to add some applications and improve on the installer before I would recommend it. It's at least trying something different and I believe that to be worth while. I found it interesting that both Upstream OS and LightDesktop booted into login screens rather than automatically loading the desktop. Fuduntu's concept of having a different scheduler and some tweaks to swap are interesting ideas, but I think the project would be better off presenting itself as a Fedora community spin rather than a separate distro.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Attachmate acquires Novell, openSUSE project "safe", Debian's new package classification system, netbook distro group test, Jolicloud Jolibook review
 The biggest news of the week was the (not entirely unexpected) acquisition of Novell, the maker of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Server distributions and the principal competitor of Red Hat in the enterprise Linux space. The lucky suitor is called Attachmate Corporation, a Seattle-based company that "provides software for terminal emulation, legacy modernization, managed file transfer, and enterprise fraud management." But perhaps more interesting than the acquisition itself was a mysterious transfer of some intellectual property to a consortium backed by Microsoft. Groklaw provides some juicy details and assumptions in "Novell Sells Some IP to a MS-Organized Consortium": "Novell has sold itself to Attachmate Corporation. There is a side deal selling 'certain intellectual property assets' to CPTN Holdings LLC, 'a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft'. SUSE goes to Attachmate, I gather, and will be a separate unit, so what goes to Microsoft's consortium? No doubt we'll find out in time. It is being reported that what it will get is 882 patents. Blech. How many does Novell own? Is that all of them? If so, will we get to watch Son of SCO, but with patents this time? But keep in mind that the WordPerfect litigation could be in this picture, and I wonder if this could be a kind of deal to tactfully settle it out, with Microsoft paying to end it this way?"
* * * * *
 Ever since Novell acquired openSUSE there has often been a sense of uncertainty surrounding the popular Linux distribution. Will a free software project which does not generate much revenue survive amid the heated discussions in boardrooms of a multi-million dollar corporation? The question was surely asked once again last week. Luckily, Attachmate has come out with an early statement, putting any fears over the future of openSUSE to rest. Pascal Bleser reports on behalf of openSUSE developers and provides a reassuring quote from the project's new owner: "'The openSUSE project is an important part of the SUSE business,' commented Jeff Hawn, chairman and CEO of Attachmate Corporation. 'As noted in the agreement announced today, Attachmate plans to operate SUSE as a stand-alone business unit after the transaction closes. If this transaction closes, then after closing, Attachmate Corporation anticipates no change to the relationship between the SUSE business and the openSUSE project as a result of this transaction.'" The Register also covers the story in an article entitled "Attachmate: Novell's openSUSE project is 'safe'".
* * * * *
 Debian GNU/Linux is the largest Linux distribution in existence. With nearly 34,000 binary packages in its unstable branch and growing with every week, how do you find the program, package or library you need? Debian developer Raphaël Hertzog has written an interesting article about Enrico Zini's debtags, a package classification system. From "A high-level search interface for Debian packages" as published at LWN: "The Debian archive is known to be one of the largest software collections available in the free software world. With more than 16,000 source packages and 30,000 binary packages, users sometimes have trouble finding packages that are relevant to them. Debian developer Enrico Zini has been working on infrastructure to solve this problem. During the recent mini-debconf Paris, Enrico gave a talk presenting what he has been working on in the last few years, which 'hasn't gotten yet the attention it deserves'. Enrico is known in the Debian community for the introduction of debtags, a system used to classify all packages using facets. Each facet describes a specific kind of property: type of user-interface, programming language it's written in, type of document manipulated, purpose of the software, etc. Its purpose is to allow advanced queries over the database of available packages."
Still on the subject of Debian GNU/Linux, a quick reminder that the 7th revision of "Lenny" was released late last week: "The Debian project is pleased to announce the seventh update of its stable distribution Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (codename "Lenny"). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments to serious problems. Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away 5.0 CDs or DVDs but only to update via an up-to-date Debian mirror after an installation, to cause any out of date packages to be updated. New CD and DVD images containing updated packages and the regular installation media accompanied with the package archive respectively will be available soon at the regular locations. Upgrading to this revision online is usually done by pointing the aptitude (or apt) package tool (see the sources.list(5) manual page) to one of Debian's many FTP or HTTP mirrors."
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 What is the best Linux distribution for netbooks? If you are still searching for that perfect fit for your small-screen computer, then read this interesting group review, published last week by the Linux User magazine. Once you'll get to page five of the article you'll learn that the winner of the test is Jolicloud 1.0: "Jolicloud is hands down the most impressive Linux distribution designed for netbooks. Discarding the tried and tested desktop metaphor and building a new interface from scratch is a risky proposition, to say the least. But Jolicloud's developers did a fantastic job of developing an interface that not only makes the most of the netbook's limited screen estate, but is also intuitive enough even for non-technical users. But the look is only part of Jolicloud's appeal. The distro boasts a few unique features that make it a truly cloud-oriented and social computing platform. The system makes it supremely easy to install conventional and cloud-based applications, and the ability to sync them between multiple machines is a real boon for netbook users."
 More good news on the Jolicloud front as the project is now offering its own colourful netbook (called Jolibook) with a brand-new Jolicloud 1.1 pre-installed. Engaget has tried the device and wrote a Jolicloud Jolibook review, which includes some nice close-up shots of the device. The conclusion? "The Jolicloud Jolibook -- oh, it's a real product, and it's an interesting one at that, but one we're not entirely sure you need for £279 (US$443). Don't get us wrong, we love the Cloud-based operating system and there's nothing quite like it out there right now (well, at least until Chrome OS arrives), but when you consider that most netbooks with Windows 7 Starter cost around £229 (or US$299 in the US) and that you can download the Cloud OS for free the value proposition isn't all that great. ... If you're looking for a netbook that's all about Jolicloud, the Jolibook and its crazy lid will fit the bill, but if you're not all about one Linux OS, giving up Windows, or having a cartoon all over your netbook you're best just scooping up one of our preferred netbooks like the Toshiba Mini NB305 or HP Mini 5103, downloading Jolicloud 1.1, and making a Jolibook of your own." Readers in the United Kingdom can now preorder the new Jolibook from Amazon.co.uk.
A preview build of Jolicloud 1.1 is now available for download and testing.
(full image size: 75kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Using a distro with upstream packages
Somewhere-in-the-stream asks: Are there benefits to using a distro that stays closer to upstream packages?
DistroWatch answers: There can be, though the differences will probably be less apparent (especially to most end users) than many other facets of a distribution. One nice thing about distributions which stay close to upstream and try to patch as little as possible (i.e. Slackware or Fedora) is that what the user ends up running is very close to what the original author of the software intended. From a developer's point of view, keeping close to upstream can be beneficial because it's easier to make patches for the distro which can then be pushed upstream. However, possibly the biggest benefit for a user using a distro which is close to the original package source is there are fewer places to report a bug.
For example, if you find a bug in Fedora, there are really just two places to report the issue in order to get it (hopefully) resolved. That's the Fedora bug tracker and, if that doesn't yield results, the source of the software, the original project. And chances are if it's fixed in either place, all Fedora users will have the fixed package shortly. However, if you're using a distro that's further downstream it can become a longer process. A bug report against a package in Mint might result in the user being told the issue lies in Ubuntu. Maybe the Ubuntu package doesn't have a maintainer assigned to it, so you try filing a report with Debian. The Debian developer then replies that the issue lies with Ubuntu or Mint, not with Debian. Contacting the upstream project may result in a fix or they might tell you a patch applied to the Debian package is causing the problem. It can become a long line of people dodging responsibility and patches being ignored. Once the bug is fixed, it can take a while for the fix to float up- or down- stream so that everyone benefits.
On the flip side, an advantage to using a distro which is further downstream is that software has passed through a few hands and thus been subject to formal or informal bug testing before it arrives in your repository. Once again, using a cutting edge, close to upstream distro like Fedora means you're getting software straight from the source and you could be one of the first people to use it and discover whether it has problems. People using a distro which is further downstream have more users (informal beta testers) between themselves and the source.
In general I find downstream distributions are more interested in polishing the end-user experience. Zenwalk makes Slackware more user-friendly, Mint makes Ubuntu more desktop-ready at install time, etc. The upstream distros tend to be more interested in producing a solid foundation.
Each of these is sort of a best/worst case scenario though and the end user isn't likely to notice differences based on their position in the flow of software. Something else which may come up is distribution expiry. If a user is running an original distribution (Slackware, Debian, Fedora) the project is either alive or it isn't. On the other hand, if you're running a distribution which is based on Zenwalk, which is based on Slackware, the question of whether your distro will survive takes on an added dimension. Then it's no longer a binary matter of whether the distro lives or dies but a case of if the chain of distros has a weak link. If you plan to keep using the same distribution for a long time, it's a good idea to check the pulse of all the distributions above yours.
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| Released Last Week |
VortexBox 1.6
Andrew Gillis has announced the release of VortexBox 1.6, a Fedora-based Linux distribution that turns an unused computer into an easy-to-use music server or jukebox: "We are pleased to announce the release of VortexBox 1.6. This release has Fedora 14, 4K sector driver support, and support for USB 2 and 192/24 USB DACs. The main goal of this release was to get VortexBox on a more current release of Fedora. This has many benefits including faster boot time, faster files transfers, and better hardware compatibility. The ability to support USB 2 is huge for users of high-definition USB DACs and USB s/pdif converters. Until now VortexBox could only support 96/24 playback. As always our goal is to create the easiest-to-use auto ripping CD and NAS solution. Thanks to the many VortexBox and SqueezeBox community members that helped with testing and features on this release." Here is the short release announcement.
Tiny Core Linux 3.3
Robert Shingledecker has released Tiny Core Linux 3.3, a minimalist desktop distribution in 10 MB: "Team Tiny Core is pleased to announce that Tiny Core 3.3 is now available. Change log: new FLTK integrated file manager, fluff, file associations; new FLTK minimal editor, on System Tools menu, and called via File Manager, configurable file associations; updated AppBrowser - integrated setdrive; new wbarconf replaces wbar_exclude - manage all icons (system and ondemand), as well as bar placement; new wbar_mv_icon for support of wbarconf; updated ondemand, appsaudit, and wbar_setup for single ondemand dir; updated flwm_initmenu - to support combined single ondemand directory; updated cpanel WbarConf replaces TCE Update; updated and reorganized boot help screens; updated Control Panel reorganization, moved more frequently used items to the System Tools menu...." Read the rest of the changelog for a detailed list of updates in this release.
BackTrack 4 R2
SOffensive Security has announced the release of the second respin of BackTrack 4, an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a collection of security tools for digital forensics and penetration testing: "Yes, the time has come again -- for a new kernel, and a new release of BackTrack. Code-named 'Nemesis', this release is our finest as yet, with faster desktop responsiveness, better hardware support, broader wireless card support, and streamlined work environment. The run down: Linux kernel 2.6.35.8 with a much improved mac80211 stack; USB 3.0 support; all wireless injection patches applied, maximum support for wireless attacks; a revamped Fluxbox environment for the KDE challenged; Metasploit rebuilt from scratch, MySQL db_drivers working out of the box; updated old packages, added new ones; new BackTrack Wiki with better documentation and support...." Read the full release announcement for further details.
Chakra GNU/Linux 0.2.4
Phil Miller has announced the release of Chakra GNU/Linux 0.2.4, an Arch-based distribution featuring the KDE 4.4 desktop: "The Chakra development team is proud to announce the availability of our fourth and last point-release of 'Jaz', the live CD using our stable repositories. During the last days our stable repositories got some new updates. This is done to prepare the KDE SC 4.5.4 build which goes directly into stable next weekend. Also we updated the toolchain to be even faster in compiling. Under the hood we still use the 2.6.33 kernel series. I'll try to backport the autogroup-scheduler to give this kernel more speed. The image uses larch8 now, which is more advanced and simplified for our needs. Features: Linux kernel-2.6.33.7-2 with LZMA support, KDE SC 4.4.5, X.Org Server 1.7.7; ATI Catalyst 10.8, NVIDIA 256 and legacy." More details in the release announcement.
Ultimate Edition 2.8 "Games"
Glenn Cady has announced the release of Ultimate Edition 2.8 "Gamers", an Ubuntu-based live DVD featuring some 48 games: "Ultimate Edition 2.8 Gamers is unlike any other gamer's edition built in the past. Besides the updates, many tools have been ripped out of Ultimate Edition 2.8, prior to the build to maximize room for additional games. In Ultimate Edition 2.8 Gamers you will not find OpenOffice.org, we are here to play games right? This does not mean you will not have a media player, just the very basics and a vast quantity of high-quality games. The newest PlayOnLinux is also included to allow installation of Windows games. What games have been pre-installed? Urban Terror, Armagetron Advanced, Gunroar, Hedgewars, Kobo Deluxe, Pingus, BZFlag, Chromium B.S.U., Grid Wars 2... A new repository filled to the hilt with games has also been pre-added to allow the end user to install additional games." The release announcement.
Quirky 1.4
Barry Kauler has announced the release of Quirky 1.4, a mini-distribution by the founder of Puppy Linux, but built with a different toolkit: "Yes, this is an official public release. The main purpose of releasing Quirky 1.4 is to test my experimental simplified module loading and interface configuration boot scripts (codename 'zzz'). This is supposed to improve the detection and setup of sound, analog modems and 3G modems, and maybe more peripherals. 1.4 differs from 1.3 in that it is built from the Wary 5 PET packages, of which the main feature is X.Org 7.3. Also an older kernel is used, 2.6.31.14 and the live CD includes the complete collection of analog modem drivers as used in Wary, plus SCSI drivers. There are some new features, in particular, a 'heavy duty' file downloader backend for the Puppy Package Manager and Video Upgrade Wizard." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Pardus Linux 2011 roadmap update
 The developers of Pardus Linux have published an updated roadmap leading towards the upcoming release, version 2011. This is now expected in the second half of January. From the mailing list message by Gökçen Eraslan: "We decided to make changes in Pardus 2011 release dates, taking into account date deviation and ambiguity at stable versions of Firefox and LibreOffice which are the most important applications used in Pardus and also estimated date of the new kernel release that provide more device support. As you know, Firefox 4.0 version was postponed recently to the beginning of the 2011 [1] and we do not want to include the old version of the browser. In addition, LibreOffice needs a little more time to become more stable. We also want to include the latest release of the Linux kernel." The second beta release of Pardus Linux 2011 is expected later this week.
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Kajonix. Kajonix is a German live CD, based on KNOPPIX, with an integrated PHP content management system called Kajona.
- linuxacessivel.org. linuxacessivel.org is a Brazilian Ubuntu-based distribution with improved accessibility and usability features.
- Oz Unity. Oz Unity is an easy-to-use Ubuntu-based distribution and live DVD created by the Australian Ultimate Edition team.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 6 December 2010.
Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • novell sale... (by Anonymous on 2010-11-29 09:32:15 GMT from Germany)
in next screen, you see microsoft, oracle, mates(!) and linus torvalds in court.....there is no free linux in next 3 years...
2 • 3-in-1 reviews (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-29 09:53:10 GMT from United States)
Next, maybe Bodhi, LinuxLex and Oz Unity as graphic-rich new distros? (I swear LinuxLex is using Gnome Shell, and Bodhi is the best E17 distro ever.)
3 • cloud (by jerome on 2010-11-29 10:03:34 GMT from France)
I'm fed up with those googlebook distros we call cloud... Which Freedom ? Free like a beer in a cloud jail...
4 • Oz Unity (by tdockery97 on 2010-11-29 10:22:00 GMT from United States)
Pay attention to this one, it's going to go far. I've been using it for the past week and I'm thoroughly impressed. It's got everything you could possibly need in a distro. Even Google Earth comes pre-installed. You have a choice of two different desktop environments included. To use a long used and maybe worn out catch-phrase: Try it, you'll like it.
5 • RE: Oz Unity @4 (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-29 10:26:12 GMT from United States)
I completely agree. Unity done right, with flair!
6 • OpenSUSE (by Dan on 2010-11-29 10:35:45 GMT from United States)
OpenSUSE will be safe for 6 months to a year. Then the shareholders will be bitching about it's lack of profit, and it will be cut.
7 • Netbook comparison not very helpful (by Vincent on 2010-11-29 10:56:34 GMT from United States)
No MeeGo or Smeegol? No Mint or Peppermint? No Linpus? No Aurora OS? I'd like to see a more complete look at netbook distros.
8 • VortexBox & others. (by Smitten on 2010-11-29 10:57:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Poor choice for purpose. One of the (many) Puppy mainline distros does it better, despite them all presently being in advanced stages of gestation. Rumours of successfully converting PII, early Athlon even K6-II machines abound.
Rumours of my literary talents go before me. Notwithstanding, never a dyslexic, you know how it is - you see something and read another. Twice or more in today's excellent reviews.
I see 'debtag' and read 'debt bag' - most topical!
I see 'Fuduntu' and read 'Food unto' or maybe it was 'Fund unto'.
There were a couple more but I couldn't locate them at second scanning. Scientifically speaking, these aberrations are due to the bizarre way in which the eye-brain transfer co-ordinates itself. Those not familiar with how it works, if your language reads from top-left, your eyes begin focussing somewhere top-right. Oh yes, it's all in the literature!
Pity the reader whose native tongue is not English. On second thoughts, perhaps it helps?
I mention these trivialities, hopefully, to bring a chuckle to a dismal Monday morning.
9 • @7 RE: Netbooks (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-29 11:58:54 GMT from United States)
MeeGo and Smeegol suck, Mint and Peppermint are not aimed at netbooks, Linpus is dead and Aurora is still under construction.
10 • Puppy Linux 5.2 (by lobster on 2010-11-29 12:14:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
Puppy Linux now into major beta testing for 5.2 release
http://tmxxine.com/luci/
11 • RE: Linpus (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-29 12:16:34 GMT from United States)
Pardon me, it`s not dead, in fact I`m downloading it now for a spin. Two things I don`t like right away. It`s an exe. file and requires Windows to install, (no problem as I have Seven, but still...). They wanted my email address to start the download, in fact I had to click the email link to start it. Hmmm...
12 • ubunto 10.10 alpha 1? (by Toon on 2010-11-29 12:24:50 GMT from Netherlands)
Hi DW. A nice article once again, I always enjoy these very much! Still, I couldn't help but notice, on the front page you mention that the Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 1 will soon be available for download, but of course you meant Ubuntu 11.04 alpha 1.
13 • 9 • @7 RE: Netbooks (by meanpt on 2010-11-29 12:39:54 GMT from Portugal)
Amen! :)
14 • 11 • RE: Linpus (by OnoSendai58 (by meanpt on 2010-11-29 13:04:37 GMT from Portugal)
Some time ago I went to their site, found I could only download one of the "products" ... I believe it was the "Lite" ... I guess so ... and, even there, it was a sort of an evaluation product only, which made to me give up cause I couldn't read elsewhere what were the catches of such an evaluation and didn't want to waste my time reading messages like "available only in the paid version" or "this evaluation will last 30 days". Moreover, the "light" requirements are the same of any buntu or fedora.
15 • @ meanpt RE: Linpus (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-29 13:14:04 GMT from United States)
As I just found out, lol. Plus, it borked my Seven boot. What a rip...
16 • Re: Feature story: "All in all it was a disappointing week for me" (by silent on 2010-11-29 13:23:27 GMT from France)
All in all it was an excellent week for me;). With the latest updates of video-intel (2.13), intel-dri, mesa and phonon, KDE4.5 just started to work. Stability has improved, sound and compositing are now usable. I am really impressed:). But really, I don't see the point in presenting three negative examples in one bunch as the feature story. One could pick a couple of good small specialist distros for a review.
17 • Community spin (by Fewt on 2010-11-29 13:35:15 GMT from United States)
A community spin would be nice, and it was one of my original goals, but I include packages in Fuduntu that are not in the Fedora repo which require me to remove the Fedora branding.
Thanks for the review, it looks like I still have work to do.
18 • Debian unstable is supposed to be cutting-edge (by T. Emulator on 2010-11-29 14:08:42 GMT from United States)
I am less interested in a new search interface for Debian packages than I am in knowing why Debian unstable is so outdated. Examples: Firefox 3.5 (3.6 was released 10 months ago), KDE 4.4 (4 months since 4.5 was released), Perl 5.10 (5.12 was released 7.5 months ago).
If they need more help with packaging, why don't they ask for it?
19 • Oz Unity (by Flip on 2010-11-29 14:25:47 GMT from United States)
Very nice right off the bat so far everything works as it should, now lets see if any upgrades breaks something this is usually were i run into problems with a distro.
20 • @Jesse The "Reviewer" and 16 by silent (by meanpt on 2010-11-29 15:02:05 GMT from Portugal)
@ Jesse, many thanks for pointing out how unpolished those distros are at the moment. It is a good review and taking the newly added to the list was a nice move. While the big cats keep hibernating, it would be a good idea to move up on the list starting at the bottom.
@silent
You can only know what's good after testing.
21 • FUDuntu (by Fearfull on 2010-11-29 15:03:31 GMT from United States)
I don't think I would ever install an OS with the first three letters of FUD ?! They could have easily called it Feduntu.
22 • @17 (by Rahul Sundaram on 2010-11-29 15:03:32 GMT from United States)
If packages are not in the repo, anyone is welcome to submit and maintain them in the Fedora repository as long as they are free and open source software and clear of legal issues.
23 • Bodhi - the best distro ever (by forlin on 2010-11-29 15:08:17 GMT from Portugal)
Bodhi is still experimental, but I guess that once ready and stable, it will be the best Distro ever made.
Why?
1 - Because its based on Enlightenment, witch is a desktop environment that offers the user the possibility to customize every and any graphical layout piece, one could ever imagine to think about.
2 - Made on top of Ubunto core, it has only three application: Synaptic, Cli and a Network tool. The later, is the same found at most of the gnome Distros and it assures compatibility to any modem in the market, including the usb 3g mobile broadband modems.
3 - Ubunto core also guarantees the best hardware detection available today for the Linux in the desktop.
So, why is Budhi the best Distro (and o/s) in the world?
It's easy to understand. Upon installation, the user is free and has all the tools to build exactly what he wants to, for its computer needs. Nothing more nothing less. Anymore distro-hopping nees :)
The Bodhi's owner is a young Linux geek and a mathematics student, so he is not working full time on it. He has a very small team working in the Bodhi project.
After the Ubuntu's based Budhi stable release, he would like to start another identical project, based in the rpm Fedora core. I'm sure he would be very happy and accept open arms, a cooperating offer from someone with coding experience with Fedora.
It would be a good chance for any one with a good will and the required needs, to join and be part of a winner project.
It is possible that many DWW never heard about Bodhi. Please feel free to have a look at the latest review I'm aware about it.
title: Stage 2 of The Linux Experience: Bodhi
subtitle: The Distro You Always Wanted
site: linuxplanet.com
author: Emery Fletcher
Only one advice: the installer (based on ubuntu 10.10) do not give the chance to choose a partition where to place Grub. This mean that it will override your previous boot loader. I installed it and besides that I had no installation problems. All my other o/s's were correctly detected.
Also note that Budhi is yet at a very experimental development stage. I don't recommended it to beginner users. The worst that can happen is that it will blow away your PC.
:)
24 • packages in Fedora (by Fewt on 2010-11-29 15:20:05 GMT from United States)
@Rahul, I honestly haven't tried to get my packages into the Fedora repo for two reasons, the first is that Fedora has an anti-mono philosophy, and the second is that I am building a lot of packages and I expect many wouldn't be approved for inclusion as they could and / or would change the distribution significantly.
25 • @23 • Bodhi - the best distro ever (by forlin (by meanpt on 2010-11-29 15:31:31 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... it would be wiser to base bodhi on pepermint ... still faster than the 10.10 core :)
26 • Reviews and Fuduntu (by Jesse on 2010-11-29 15:34:50 GMT from Canada)
@16:
I didn't set out to do a "good" or "bad" series, I simply selected four distributions from the Waiting list. As it turned out, none of them were really my cup of tea. (I dropped one which turned out to be Ubuntu with a different wallpaper.)
@Fewt:
I do hope you keep up with the Fuduntu project. The concept of an easy-to-use Fedora with performance improvements would be a welcome addition to the netbook community. I'm curious about something. When I tested Fuduntu in a virtual machine I found that the initial install didn't require PAE support, but after I updated the kernel I found that I had to enable PAE in the VM. Was that intentional?
27 • Pardus ... (by Coffee on 2010-11-29 15:49:15 GMT from France)
... I have no experience with Pardus Linux. Except for its DW profile, Caitlyn's positive review and a few friendly comments people have made about the distro on these pages I know next to nothing about Pardus. But I have to say I really like their intelligent and flexible attitude regarding their own roadmap. To me it makes perfect sense for a distribution to wait a short while for important upstream projects like Firefox or LibreOffice to finish development on a release that's just around the corner. Ubuntu has probably already carved in stone a release date for 11.10 or even 12.04 ... but I'm wondering what is the point of a clockwork-like schedule like this? Such inflexible policies prevent a distribution to take advantage of the latest developments. I also suspect they put considerable pressure on some upstream projects like Xfce, Lxde and others ...
28 • @ 18 (by Anonymous on 2010-11-29 15:50:32 GMT from United States)
Debian has been "frozen" for close to six months, if you don't like their insanity use a distribution that is not insane, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, because paying for security updates is "a good thing®"
29 • Reviews and Fuduntu (by Fewt on 2010-11-29 15:55:09 GMT from United States)
@Jesse - Thanks, hopefully I am building something useful. :D I have a pretty big list of changes that I'll be adding soon including an update to the cgroups problem you saw. I took last week off, but I'll be back at work on it very soon. Concerning PAE, it is integrated in the fuduntu x86 kernel, so there isn't a need to install a PAE kernel.
30 • Fewt (by Flip on 2010-11-29 16:01:03 GMT from United States)
I for one hope you keep the distro going. For some reason Fedora does not run well on my hardware I have never been able to find the reason why but Fuduntu runs great, I have it installed on a partition so maybe later I can let you know what the difference is.
I thought for awhile it might have been the SE Linux Fedora uses but after making sure it was completely turned off I still had the lock ups and crashes but with Fuduntu so far no problems Fingers Crossed lol.
31 • Oz Unity (by mmesantos1 on 2010-11-29 16:01:51 GMT from United States)
Great Distro, good to see something new and exciting.
32 • Oz Unity (by El condor on 2010-11-29 16:23:33 GMT from Romania)
Please give somebody exact address of Oz Unity distro. Many thanks!
33 • @25 by meanpt - ref.@23 Bodhi - the best distro ever, by forlin (by forlin on 2010-11-29 16:25:32 GMT from Portugal)
You know what else, Meanpt?
I would really really love, too, to base Bodhi on Paldo core. If I could code (I'm just a plain noob Linux user) I would not hesitate to join Budhi myself, with that project.
The most relevant advantage and value added about Enlightenment, is just the ability to build it upon any core distro: Debian, Fedora, Slackware, Gentoo, Mandriva, BSD (?) a.s.o.
So far, the vast Linux Distro choice, was based on a core o/s system, with different desktop environments to opt between. I think Bodhi was the first to do (he is yet planning it) things the other way around. The DE is Enlightenment, and the user will be offered the choice among different core o/s's)
That will imply much more manpower and overheads, I think, but it is an original idea and would be interesting to see the result of all that, inside a unique framework.
34 • @32 RE: Oz Unity (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-29 16:37:08 GMT from United States)
http://www.ultimateeditionoz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=231&t=1968#p9209
35 • Oz Unity (by El Condor on 2010-11-29 16:46:04 GMT from Romania)
@34 Thank you OnoSendai58 ! あなたがOnoSendai58ありがとう！
36 • Deb-tags (by Wouter on 2010-11-29 17:06:53 GMT from Finland)
That's funny, just last week I was wondering how to query and use those tags in the Debian package database. I know they've been there for some time, but I don't know about any front-end tools to actually use them.
37 • Small distributions - Fedora (by Landor on 2010-11-29 17:34:19 GMT from Canada)
Small Distributions:
There's a ton of really small distributions that don't even ever make it on any list here. Some have been around for awhile too. The problem with a lot of these distributions is it's not the old days. When Linux was new and distributions were just starting to pop up, the community (if the project was worthy) was free to participate in them more so than now. What I mean by that, there were far fewer distributions and not really any big names as we know them today. The flavours at first were not enormous and they didn't overshadow the smaller projects.
At least that's my view of why a lot of small projects don't really get going good and have a fair to middling sized community.
Fedora:
A lot of thing happened last week in regard to my problems in the main Fedora support channel in IRC (#fedora).
Due to it all I ended up writing a second blog to clear up a lot of things and deal with it all. Anyone that is interested feel free. Oh, it's far better written this time..lol It's also quite long to encompass all the information.
http://landorsplace.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/clearing-up-my-last-blog-post-and-finishing-things-with-fedora/
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
38 • ooops... still Bodhi (by forlin on 2010-11-29 17:43:40 GMT from Portugal)
I'm sorry to Ladislav if it may seems that I'm doing some sort of distro advertising here, but following my previous comments, I couldn't resist to tell this:
Yesterday, Jeff announced the third public alpha release of Bodhi Linux: 0.1.2.
For those who're following this project, the release notes and change log are here:
http://www.bodhilinux.com/news.html
39 • What is Oz Unity ? went to forum... no info. (by Jay on 2010-11-29 17:44:33 GMT from United States)
I just want to know what it IS. Is it another Ubuntu based distro. A Debian distro ? based on the unity project - the guys that got ticked off at PCLinuxOS and left - or what is it ?
40 • What a wonderful DW Weekly (by Saleem Khan on 2010-11-29 17:45:03 GMT from Pakistan)
Although I am not computing at all for past one week after I received a bad news about my health but because of the years of routine of reading DW Weekly every monday I could not resist to open and read it and I felt delighted and and a bit relaxed. As ever it`s another interesting DW Weekly and I thank Ladislav and his team for it.
I have posted few lines on my blog about my health issue and I will appreciate if everybody spares few minutes for me and honor me with his/her prayers after reading my blog post.
regards,
41 • @18, 28 Re: Debian Unstable (by Reuben on 2010-11-29 17:48:39 GMT from United States)
Yes, Debian Testing and consequently Unstable is currently frozen. I don't know where the comment about RHEL came from, but whatever.
There are plenty of distros that never experience freezes like Gentoo and Arch Linux. I believe that Fedora Rawhide also never experiences freezes. These are your options if you don't want your stick to be on the ice.
42 • RE: 41 (by Landor on 2010-11-29 17:54:25 GMT from Canada)
As you said, there's many distributions. Mandriva's Cooker is still going. openSUSE Factory. People could use CRUX. There's more than either of us have listed.
Also though, those would be their options if they wanted their stick on the ice, which in a roundabout way means they're in the game still, playing. :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
43 • @forlin (by Fewt on 2010-11-29 18:08:37 GMT from United States)
Please stop spamming the thread.
44 • fedora 14 is not for novice (by jagjit soni on 2010-11-29 18:43:55 GMT from India)
Fedora is quite popular distro and now I am going to depict experience with Fedora 14. I feel it not for novice user so I provide a easy to use Codec installation for novice user.
Distrowatch Ranking - 2
My Test Machine:
AMD64 3000+ Processor
MSI Motherboard
1GB DDR I Ram
ESPON C 58 Printer
Samsung 15" Monitor.
LIVE CD FEDORA 14 64 bit
First Impression:
I took Gnome Live CD for my experiment. Installation was excellen......
here Linux newbies also find easy tutorial to install codecs on fedora 14 distro.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/co/luOD/~3/B8Vi7gTQs_M/fedora-14-is-not-for-novice.html
45 • @39 RE: Oz Unity (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-29 18:45:54 GMT from United States)
Click on the link I gave and read, lol. It`s Ultimate Edition Ubuntu optimized for the Unity desktop.
46 • @38 • ooops... still Bodhi (by forlin (by meanpt on 2010-11-29 18:47:31 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... you feel enthusiastic ... I'm going to give it an other spin and see if the problems with authorizations are gone :)
47 • w/ 39 @ 4, 5 (by RS on 2010-11-29 18:50:27 GMT from United States)
Are you referring to Unity, the Madriva remix?
48 • @43 RE: Bodhi (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-29 18:52:11 GMT from United States)
Actually Fewt, I would much rather hear about Bodhi and anything new regarding it than yours, sorry.
49 • Netbooks & RHEL (by Anonymous on 2010-11-29 18:52:13 GMT from United States)
@ 7, 9, & 13:
I think part of the problem with that review is not just that they tested so few netbook distros, but also that they only tested Ubuntu based distros. There should definitely be some variety in there to test things that are actually different under the hood and not just comparing the paint and the interiors so to speak.
@ 18, 28, & 41:
I think Ruben summed up the situation very well, freezes are part of the Debian process like it or not. Go search for what works for you. As for RHEL, well that is Red Hat Enterprise Linux, emphasis on the Enterprise. They aren't meant to compete with Debian and certainly not with Debian testing. That's as much of an apples and oranges comparison as you can get #28, and the afore mentioned rawhide or Fedora proper provide your choice of either bleeding edge Linux or things fairly recent, both from Red Hat at no cost. Now if you want a stable environment and enterprise grade support for your businesses IT department you can use Red Hat Enterprise Linux at a price that would probably put Microsoft server to shame. If your not in that situation don't bother, and if you want a similarly stable environment with out the cost you can use Debian stable or a RHEL clone like CentOS or Scientific Linux. Most major distros have a purpose and should be judged and compared on their own merits and against competitors with the same purpose.
50 • SUSE, Debian and things... (by davemc on 2010-11-29 19:09:12 GMT from United States)
The whole Novell/Microsoft thing has had the stink of Ballmer in it since 2006 when they jumped in bed together, and this is its culmination for Novell, at least. Its just the beginning of SCOv2, so hold on to your seats because the drama is about to swing in to high gear once again! MS learned from their mistakes with SCOv1 and this time they now have the patents they need to put a stop to all this Linux/Free Software nonsense once and for all !!!!1111!!!!!!!111 [insane cackle]
882 patents! It is known now that some of these include MONO. Fedora and Ubuntu have excommunicated MONO in favor of real Open Source apps now and kudo's to them for good common sense. Yet to see whats happening with Novell's UNIX patents. Interesting times. Where is the Software Freedom Law Center when you need them? Sueing a FOSS friendly company over a minor pointless FOSS patent again? Oh help us all PJ! Knower of all things SCO!!
Debian. I spent some time with it this holiday and the commenter above is right. It was outdated even before the software freeze! By the time Squeeze releases, it will be a collection of oldies but goodies, not that thats a bad thing. Debian stable is well known to be just that, and that is what Squeeze will soon become. If you want screaming edge, you go with Sid. In any case, the Squeeze installer is the same as that used for Lenny, and its terrible. They really should port in Ubuntu's Ubiquity or Fedora's Anaconda. It failed to install with errors or segfaults 6 times in a row at various points and I finally was forced to just install Lenny and upgrade to Squeeze, which went flawless (KDE), except that it retained some of the legacy KDE3 apps and kept all the legacy libs in place instead of just getting rid of all the KDE3 crap and replacing it with pure KDE4 only and keeping it light. Debian has repackaged all of its KDE apps now into bundles (light, standard, full) and that is a sane way to go about it. A base install gives you the standard bundle, which is fairly light. It idled at about 300M, which is nice, but not anywhere near optimal for legacy machines. Plain XFCE on Debian base idles at 96M which is obviously the way to go if your running a machine with 512M or even 256M. However, for modern systems with 1G or more, KDE4+ is fantastic and zippy on Squeeze.
51 • RE #7 & 9 (by Anonymous on 2010-11-29 19:12:01 GMT from United States)
I agree any net book review should include the ubuntu netbook remix and Easy Peasy.
I want to run the live CD and if everything works OK I install it, no fuss or bother. I don't want the wifi or sound to quit working or mess up the dual boot.
52 • One man's experience with openSUSE (by Misfit138 on 2010-11-29 19:12:26 GMT from United States)
I wouldn't call openSUSE complete garbage. And, I would not go so far to say that 2 baboons and a blind man could probably produce a better OS.
However, in the past 6 years, including the 'before-time' when it was just 'SuSE', in my experience it has never risen above beta quality software.
Across dozens of machines of varying architecture, it has been consistently slow, buggy and ever falling short of usable for me.
It's sort of a shame too, because if it actually worked, it would be one of the nicest operating systems to use; central configuration program, excellent installer, beautiful logos, designs and integrated branding.
So, now that the ship is sinking faster than ever, I can't say I am sad or surprised.
Whoever said, 'I give it 6 months to a year', I agree.
53 • lulz (by Fewt on 2010-11-29 19:22:08 GMT from United States)
@OnoSendai58 - I suppose I don't know the comment policy here so perhaps I was too quick to speak up about someone spamming the thread. I'm sorry you don't want to hear about my work, but it was reviewed this week in this thread, so I hope to see more discussion about it and the other reviewed distributions.
54 • Novell (by Rich on 2010-11-29 19:25:35 GMT from United States)
First it was OpenOffice and then Opensolaris, Sunmicrosystem's acquisition by Oracle, then Mandriva's financial problems and the creation of Mageia, Now it is OpenSuse and Redhat. What will be next? It seems like the mysterious transfer of some intellectual property to a consortium backed by Microsoft is another blow to Suse and the Linux world. Wonder what type of underhanded tactics will be seen and deployed by these people with their monopolistic codes of conduct when it comes to Open-source software. It appears a lot of Linux is falling by the wayside. I hope this isn't the case and Linux will continue to thrive and prosper.
Rich
55 • Upstream OS (by M. Edward (Ed) Borasky on 2010-11-29 19:46:08 GMT from United States)
"The system is attractive, stable, but so far as I can see, doesn't offer anything above and beyond what the openSUSE team provides."
No, in fact, it is *less* than what openSUSE provides! That's because the branding has been removed to accommodate the attorneys and accountants. Why did you even test this?
56 • jolicloud (by tomas on 2010-11-29 20:16:31 GMT from Slovenia)
I had jolicloud installed on my netbook and it wasnt bad in the beta (since it was pretty much the same as ubuntu netbook edition) but as soon as they started using their own user interface the based on the oh-so-praised html5 the distro regressed and was completely dumbed down.
They claim their OS is intended for youngster but that doesnt justify the fact that they put websites into their app launcher... its a website - not an application and no matter how much hype you put around it, its still just... a... bloody... website.
nuff said
57 • RE:53 & Scared People. (by Eddie on 2010-11-29 20:16:39 GMT from United States)
@Fewt, You are correct. Forlin was spamming the comments section but DW usually lets someone do that because the person is talking about a distro. People usually don't stay on topic here as I'm sure you can tell. Anyway Forlin did apologize to DW for his distro commercial. OnoSendai58 can go to their website to check on info about Bodhi. It looks nice and there's more information on the distro there then in the comments section......
On to other things. Why is everybody so bloody scared of the Novell patent buyout? Stop sounding like a bunch of users who is ready to jump ship because they think that Linux will destroyed. The very 1st post was really stupid in context and in meaning. So why listen to it. Some things may have to change but who knows. If Linux was going to be destroyed then it would have been already.
58 • RE: 57 (by Landor on 2010-11-29 20:24:01 GMT from Canada)
I think Sirkitt77/OnoSendai58 jumped the gun there as well. It's nice to see forlin excited about a distribution though. I personally don't get excited like that anymore, well, for a distribution. :) I just usually shrug and go back to my tinkering. :)
As has been said many times, if there's any problem at all, pretty well all that has to be done is change the code. That's it. It bothers me though how the media gets everything all wound up, and the readers are a part of what media gets wound up.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
59 • Novell sale (by r3verse on 2010-11-29 20:45:42 GMT from Canada)
Please, please, at least read a little before engaging in the usual FUD:
"Novell will continue to own Novell’s UNIX copyrights following completion of the merger as a subsidiary of Attachmate," John Dragoon, Novell's Chief Marketing Officer said in a statement.
--http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/7233/1/
"The openSUSE project is an important part of the SUSE business,” commented Jeff Hawn, chairman and CEO of Attachmate Corporation. “As noted in the agreement announced today, Attachmate plans to operate SUSE as a stand-alone business unit after the transaction closes. If this transaction closes, then after closing, Attachmate Corporation anticipates no change to the relationship between the SUSE business and the openSUSE project as a result of this transaction.”
--http://www.attachmate.com/Press/PressReleases/nov-22-2010-SUSE.htm
Nothing. Is. Changing.
Look at the progress of the top 5 distributions in the past year or two. Ubuntu and (especially) Mint are arguably true Windows competitors for the end-user market. Linux is not going anywhere anytime soon. Will it ever take over Windows in terms of market share? Not likely, but that isn't what it's about. We have our choices and always have. Don't like Novell, and by extension, OpenSUSE any more? Don't run it.
60 • @ 43 - please Fewt (by forlin on 2010-11-29 21:35:33 GMT from Portugal)
I'm sorry my friend.
Linux is the subject of this site, and small, innovative distros, deserve the attention of many readers here. (@23). Don't like it? Skip it !!!
At any place where people communicate and excange opinions and ideas, small dialogs happen spontaneouselly. (@25/@33). Not of your interest? Move to next comments.
After my first comment, I found out that a new release of the same distro, had been issued just the day before. I would have included it there, if I had seen it at time. I made it clear I was sorry about it. (@38).
I think I'm correct to think to myself, that at that point it was clear that my intervention on that subject was complete and finished.
As a consequence, your comment @ 43 was totally redundant. Or Spam, as many could name it.
Over !!!
61 • Fed respin (by zaggy on 2010-11-29 21:38:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Fuduntu seems Fewtile!
62 • ref my #47 (by RS on 2010-11-29 22:01:22 GMT from United States)
Apparently they are referring to Ultimate Edition OZ.
Just barely noticed it in the "New distributions added to waiting list" at the bottom of this week's weekly.
I can't figure what the difference is between UE and OZ-UE or why they call it both Unity OZ and UE OZ.
The website is very.... 1996 as far shininess and animations go. The forum is very cluttered with shiny animations.
I think the Oz is a ref to Aussie/Australia, maybe...
63 • Jolicloud (by StarPicket on 2010-11-29 22:07:16 GMT from Australia)
I've read serveral reviews in praise of Jolicloud, and indeed it does work well on my Lenovo S10-3. BUT I don't care about social networking or netbased computing. I feel very suspicious and "controlled" by the way Jolicloud requires you to go online to use it.
I also didn't like the bog standard blue (people always comment about Ubuntu clours but never Fedora Blue or now Jolicloud Blue....)
I never seen any of the reviews question the need to plug into the Jolicloud network to use the OS. This is a limitation in my view. (YEs I did notice the word "cloud" as part of the title but my netbook travels with me where there is no cloud..)
64 • FUD and stuff... (by davemc on 2010-11-29 22:15:15 GMT from United States)
#57 -
There is a difference between FUD and fact and the fact is that nobody knows what the majority of those 882 patents are. The fact is that there has been statements by Miguel Icaza that MONO is one of them. The fact is that Novell never did own ALL of the UNIX patents, so there never was any serious threat there to Linux to begin with in regards to those patents. The fact is that there is no threat to the Linux Kernel core by itself. I don't foresee MS or any patent troll going after the Kernel because they cant!
The fact is that there ARE some very very real threats in this deal to components of the FOSS stack. Some of those patents are going to include things that most people use on a daily basis. Things like components of the Networking stack, components of the Desktop stack, Userland tools, etc...
While it is not likely that anyone would go after the average user, its very bloody likely that MS will go after businesses by using these patents as a tool to spread FUD about FOSS to force these "patent protection" racketeering schemes they have been doing for years now. Its very likely that they will sue, or threaten to sue, businesses that they feel now infringe based upon one or more of these 882 additional patents -- see Oracle v Google for how this works. Obviously, this was never an issue while SUN held the Java patents, or while Novell held all of their patents, but it quickly became an issue when Oracle bought them, and well see what happens when MS gets their hands on these.
MS has made no secret in the past about their thoughts on FOSS. Stallman has given many warnings. What is FUD and what is fact?
65 • Novell patents (by Jesse on 2010-11-29 23:21:17 GMT from Canada)
The whole thing with Novell patents is, in my opinion, overblown. People keep talking about Mono, but if MS really wanted to damage the Mono project they could have done so years ago. But why would they want to? Having more developers working on their platform isn't hurting them, it's helping them.
Some folks like to hype the idea that the UNIX material could be up for grabs, but that's been settled, MS isn't getting the rights to UNIX. Even if they did, it was shown time and again when the SCO suit came up that Linux wasn't in violation of UNIX copyright.
>> "There is a difference between FUD and fact and the fact is that nobody knows what the majority of those 882 patents are."
What do you mean "nobody knows"? The Novell patents are publicly available to view. You can get an (almost) complete list here:
http://www.the-source.com/2010/11/what-patents-is-novell-selling/
66 • RE: 65 (by Landor on 2010-11-30 00:40:07 GMT from Canada)
This is why DistroWatch will always be a favourite place to read. There's no hyperbole here about anything basically.
I think that's an amazing thing, at least in my opinion.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
67 • Oz Unity (by jbelvede on 2010-11-30 01:27:18 GMT from Canada)
Just installed it. Nicely done, very professional looking.
68 • @65 - Novell patents / Understanding the Novell Deal (by forlin on 2010-11-30 01:47:03 GMT from Portugal)
Thanks Jesse for the link.
At the end of the linked article, in the first paragraph, under the title "Technical Business", there is link to "The Standards Blog" witch is one more article about the Novell deal. The title is "Understanding the Novell Deal (and when we'll learn more)". It is a very long text, written by Andy Updegrove, "a transactional lawyer for over 30 years".
He used all the official information that is currently available to the public, "translated" every relevant paragraph in legalese language, explaining its real meaning and added a few comments and conclusions from his own.
It also includes a clear explanation on the differences between "copyrights" and "patents", side notes about how both concepts correlate with the various Linux legal issues, at the present and in the past, and some possible implications related to the patents sale to M$.
He was also able to find out if Novell sold all of their patents or not, and provide the explanation for the reason why M$ did never identified what are the specific patents they says that Linux infringes.
At the present days, this may well be the most complete and useful peace of information that is possible to find anywhere, about the Novell deal. Highly recommend reading.
69 • RE: Fuduntu, et.al... (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-11-30 03:29:46 GMT from United States)
My apologies, Fewt. Sometimes when I hurt more than usual I get harsh. Every distro has a place and I`m sure that yours does too. I simply thought that since you had had your`s reviewed in this issue, you would be more tolerant of people talking about another that we`re all excited about: Bodhi, possibly the best utilization of E17 to date. I personally agreed with the review. To me, Fedora Fusion, (Fedora + Debian), had more of a unique feel, but what do I know? Btw, God, man, change the name!
70 • @38 by forlin, @69 by OnoSendai58 - Bodhi (by Anonymous on 2010-11-30 10:11:46 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... just to stay on the thread ... I gave it a spin with 450 MB allowed in a VBox's vm. It idles at about 90 MB. The 0.1.2 improved a lot over the previous work, which were more like 10.10 than a 10.04. The performance increase was really huge in my virtual system, without making the cooler to complain. Problems I felt before with authorizations in synaptic are gone and only the problems in reading or ejecting iso images remain.
71 • Re: 40 • What a wonderful DW Weekly (by Saleem Khan (by Eddie on 2010-11-30 17:01:22 GMT from United States)
Dr. Saleem Khan, I always enjoy reading your comments here. Hopes & prayers for a full and fast recovery.
72 • @OnoSendai58 (by Fewt on 2010-11-30 19:17:35 GMT from United States)
No worries, I didn't realize that this was an open discussion forum at the time, so I apologize (to everyone) for being out of line. I have no plans to change the name though, unless someone makes a very compelling case or has an idea for a really great name. I like it because it is so awful. ;) Looking at the screenshot in the review, it looks like the very first Fuduntu ISO was tested, a LOT has changed since then. It doesn't look anything like the default Fedora anymore.
73 • bohdi (by Landor on 2010-11-30 21:18:51 GMT from Canada)
For those that are interested, I took a look at bohdi today because of all the interest and acclaim it's garnered here and other places. Since I like E17 I gave it a shot.
I blogged about it: http://landorsplace.wordpress.com/
Be forewarned though, it's not flattering to say the least.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
74 • @73 Bodhi by landor (by meanpt on 2010-11-30 22:44:49 GMT from Portugal)
:) I'm the poster of the comment nr. 70. Everything you wrote is correct ... except the "hype" thing ... There are some more problems you didn't find cause you didn't install it but from the previous to the current release the distro improved remarkably. I don't like the dark theme nor the way menus are organized either. But this is a start up and I was pleasantly surprised with the improvement in performance. ... all I need now is to increase the damned small characters of the E17 ... my current way to deal with it is looking at them through the bottom glass of a beer bottle :) ... after looking too much I'm feeling it's not good for my health.
75 • Saleem Khan (by ringzero on 2010-11-30 23:08:31 GMT from United States)
My prayers are that Dr. Khan is restored to perfect health. If there's a sudo cancergoaway -f command, I'll be typing it in the distro of my choice.
76 • RE: 73 Bohdi and other new distributions (by ladislav on 2010-12-01 00:13:47 GMT from Taiwan)
I wasn't all that impressed with Bohdi either. Many of the same issues as Landor, plus an incorrectly detected screen resolution (very unusual for an Ubuntu-based distro), so I gave up playing with it early. Additionally, a new ISO image is released almost daily (a new one appeared on SourceForge just minutes ago}, which gives an impression of a hastily created distro with little testing. (Yet the developer keeps pestering me with emails asking me to list it on DistroWatch. I think it needs much more time on the waiting list to give it a chance to mature.)
Speaking about new distributions, we now have over 250 distros on the waiting list. At the current rate, the number of distributions on the waiting list will soon overtake the number of active distributions tracked by DistroWatch. This is clearly unsustainable. It has come to the point that many distro developers get extremely rude when I ask them to be patient, so I've stopped replying to any emails that want to know "when my distro is going to be listed".
As an example, one of the distro developers wrote recently: "With all of your experience covering Linux distributions you should be able to tell the difference by now between a boring also-ran and something that is newsworthy. ... Watch the demo video. It's 2 minutes. If it doesn't blow you away feel free to continue ignoring [my distro]."
I think what I am going to do is create a mailing list for all the distro developers where they can argue whose distro is "newsworthy" and whose is just a boring "also-run".
That said, I will continue adding distros to the database as before. So if any of the readers here feel that certain distros deserve listing, please let me know or comment below. As for me (as many distro devs tell me), I am no longer able to judge that. Maybe they are right.
77 • @ladislav (by Fewt on 2010-12-01 00:34:12 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the work that you do to keep up the site, it is appreciated by many. Not sure why anyone would need to be rude, it is just a listing. As for Fuduntu, whenever it gets listed is good enough for me.
78 • Waiting list suggestion (by Jesse on 2010-12-01 01:46:37 GMT from Canada)
Ladislav,
Maybe it would speed up the process a little if you made up a form the distro developers could fill in. I'm guessing most of the data, such as package lists, icons and URLs, could be handled by a form. That way if a developer is serious about fast-tracking their project, they could fill out the form for you. Otherwise, they stay on the waiting list until you get around to it.
79 • RE 78 Waiting list suggestion (by ladislav on 2010-12-01 02:13:24 GMT from Taiwan)
Adding a distro to the database is the least of the problem - that I can do in less than an hour. A far more time-consuming task is to monitor the distro, maintain the page, write news, take screenshots, extract the package list, upload files... that's a continuous, life-long commitment that never stops. And for what? Knowing that possibly as many as 90% of distros created today won't survive beyond the first year doesn't exactly make me feel enthusiastic about doing all this.
I could give you dozens of examples of distro developers who kept emailing, begging, promising in order to get their project on DistroWatch only to quietly disappear a few months later. What's the point of promoting and announcing such distros here? I no longer even remember their names... With over 350 officially discontinued and dormant distributions in the DistroWatch database, I think you can understand my scepticism...
80 • Simple suggestion, ladislav (by jake on 2010-12-01 02:43:11 GMT from United States)
If they are rude to you and/or make demands of your *VOLUNTEER* time, simply ignore them and their distro. Life's too short to reward bad behavior.
Personally, I'd probably add a page for "rude developers & their distros" ... But then I'm a trifle intolerant of idiots, after thirtyish years of Usenet ;-)
81 • E17 distros (by RollMeAway on 2010-12-01 03:20:29 GMT from United States)
I think forlin's enthusiasm is really based upon the recent spike in E17 development.
The creator of budhi has the same E17 bug, as does texstar (PClinux) and a few others.
I have been totally consumed with every E17 distro I could find for the last 6 weeks or so.
The excitement is warranted, because E17 is TOTALLY configurable.
You can make it look like any desktop you are familiar with.
Unfortunately, most creators of E17 distros want to show off the more unusual aspects
of those options.
Pclinux offers two versions of E17 as live CDs. These are the easiest way to try the new E17.
Take some time to dig into the settings panel. You will be amazed at all the options available.
Another feature I especially appreciate is the ability to "remember window size, position".
Most all of Landor's complaints are quickly changed, once you are familiar with the system.
I hope Jeff's interest in bodhi continues. His work with PinguyE17 was great.
I think a "one button" setup would be helpful.
Click this button for a gnome like desktop.
Click this button for a kde like desktop.
etc.
82 • RE: 76/78/79/80 (by Landor on 2010-12-01 03:28:28 GMT from Canada)
First, it's such a shame that we both had the same issues with bodhi.
Correct me if I'm wrong Ladislav, but don't you download every distribution's release, or pretty close to them all?
I want to say that I think the developers should keep their opinions to themselves when it comes to your ability with judging a distribution. The level of the total effort alone in just the information that you track here makes it, and your skills extremely unique. There's not one site that even comes close to what you do. You're by far an Open Source Distribution Historian in my opinion, covering the years that you've maintained DistroWatch.com. I'd like someone to name me one other that can say the same, at the same level. I truly doubt there's anyone even remotely close.
I agree with Jake to a degree, although I don't like pointing the finger and naming names, you could easily create a policy page that states any ignorant behaviour will immediately result in your distribution never being listed here. Then if someone asks why such and such distribution isn't listed you can explain if you feel the need.
About the waiting list, I thought about this before. I might go through it and once, or twice a week download and test a distribution from it that's been there a long time.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
83 • @ Landor RE: Bodhi (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-12-01 04:34:12 GMT from United States)
Everything you complained about is an E17 trait. As Bodhi`s creator said on his site: if you don`t want to bother to take the time to learn how a desktop works then perhaps you should stick with whatever it is that you do, yes? Meanwhile, the rest of us are enjoying a refreshing new disto that isn`t another `Buntu clone. Keep your stick on your own ice...
84 • RE: 81 (by Landor on 2010-12-01 05:19:26 GMT from Canada)
#81
I do understand that some of the issues could be configured within E17. Not all though. To the point though, what's the sense of creating something that someone has to spend x-amount of time fixing? I haven't spent as near as much time with E17 as some people, I'll readily admit that.
I agree with what you said that some of the developers want to show off it's more interesting abilities. That doesn't help usability though. One thing I'd like to point out and it seems to have been forgotten. I wasn't judging E17. I was judging a released distribution that has it as a desktop environment. If I encountered the same problems with Gnome, KDE, Xfce, etc, I would've said the exact same thing. bodhi itself is really not impressive right now and needs work. Not the user doing the work, the developers.
I'm not too worried about it though, Jeff left a rather insightful comment into his personality on my blog. If you read this Ladislav, go look. No wonder he's pressuring you and such. I won't be looking at his vision of E17 again, and personally will recommend others to give it a wide berth as well.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
85 • @84 RE: Bodhi (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-12-01 06:08:37 GMT from United States)
Actually, anyone would have told you the same thing. Quit playing "amateur psychologist." Btw, I spent zero hours "fixing" and it works great.
86 • @73 @74 Bohdi (by forlin on 2010-12-01 06:57:19 GMT from Portugal)
I think the reason for many of the look and feel glitches in the 0.1.2 Bodhy version, is because it's still work in progress. What weights at the E17 is the high level of flexibility of its "look and feel". It's an extremely customizable environment. While navigating through the numerous configuration menu items, I found graphics and descriptions, some working, others not, that I don't guess what they will be for, and there's no documentation yet. Many upstream files are not yet finished and if the visual and aesthetic work was all done, it could be affected upon their conclusion. Also due to time constraints, the Bodhi developer may have decided to prioritize the technical part of the work.
At this moment it's possible to access the net, mount partitions, install applications and upgrade Bodhi almost up to the latest Enlightenment released changesets. It's a good progress compared to the previous version one week before, where only the net and the file manager seemed to be working well. Now, the users can test and report bugs with the Distro's structural developing stage close to that of the author's project. For that purpose I think its important now to get the Forum working, at the distro's site.
In the meanwhile, the E17 project has been progressing at an astonishing speed. The Beta 1 was announced at Oct 3, and the Beta 2 at Nov 12. The changeset number at Oct 3 was 52995 and yesterday was 55099. The reason for many of the excitement is because this project is quickly approaching its final stage and Distro developers have been working on it in a way that their users are following the upstream progress almost at live, testing, reporting bugs and cooperating with their distro's construction with ideas an suggestions. I believe that next year we'll see the E17 adding value and choice to the Linux desktop managers's club and the users will choose according to their personal preferences.
87 • @84 • (by Landor + @86 (by forlin (by meanpt on 2010-12-01 08:52:39 GMT from Portugal)
@84 by Landor
Friendly Landor, whatever they do, don't judge personalities but the work in progress. That tend to keep people on the right path of the discussion and the ice re-frozen. This distro still has a long way to go, I'm liking it and watching it closely. This isn't a hype, but a call to the attention of those among us who want to keep a record of it. Soon it will be ready for the waiting list, provided it complies with the remaining criteria set by DW. On the waiting list subject, I believe some distros could have already been discarded, not because they are dormant but too old.
@85 by forlin
You're right, the damned forum would be a nice thing to have.
88 • RE 78, 79: Waiting list suggestion (by Andy Axnot on 2010-12-01 14:33:19 GMT from United States)
Ladislav, I think Jesse's suggestion has merit but you need to take it further. Since distros really, really want to be listed on Distrowatch, and sometimes get upset when the info here is not totally up-to-date, why not make them do the work?
Make up some forms, templates for a distro's page, etc. Let them submit these, if they want to be listed/current, and most of your work would be checking and verification.
Just a thought.
Andy
89 • Fuduntu survey and idea for distrowatch (by Fewt on 2010-12-01 15:35:06 GMT from United States)
This morning I published a survey hoping to get users involved in helping to improve Fuduntu called the "Fuduntu defaults and direction survey" - http://www.fewt.com/2010/12/fuduntu-defaults-and-direction-survey.html
@ladislav, understanding that maintaining distrowatch is a lot of work, how can the process become automated so that new distributions can be added to the waiting list with all of the needed info by simply installing a package or running a script within the distribution. This would help in a few ways. 1: Automation does all of the work, so you just review and approve. 2: Automation would keep the data up-to-date. 3: Old distributions could expire automatically after not being updated for x number of days or months.
Anyway, just an idea. I (and hopefully others) would be willing to help refine it further if you are interested. It could be as simple as a perl script that collects data from the distribution builders "gold release" and writes it to a web service @ distrowatch.
90 • A list waiting for a distro? (by sudonym on 2010-12-01 16:23:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
It seems Ladislav is not so much bothered by the work, provided that the work is justified and there is a point to it.
I think Ladislav is probably more fed up with the fact that every man and his dog is coming up with a 'distro' nowadays. Obviously, for these projects to offer something of real merit and a certain longevity they require real passion and commitment from their creators.
I think Ladislav is probably evaluating the 'worth' of it. His passion and interest for the task is naturally relative to the passion an innovation behind the projects. Trouble is, decent stuff is becoming rarer - the plague of superficiallity is rampant.
Sigh.
91 • Scripting tool (by Jesse on 2010-12-01 16:41:10 GMT from Canada)
I really like the idea of the script which would collect the data and submit it to DistroWatch. That way anyone could run the script and Ladislav could just review it for obvious problems. Such a script could check packages/versions, take a screen shot. It wouldn't remove all the work, but it would crowd source some of the tedious stuff, I think.
92 • RE: Waiting list (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-12-01 17:01:45 GMT from United States)
Having tried many on the list and finding that most, if even still existing, are too outdated for new hardware, why not just start fresh? Delete the entire list and start a new one? I guarantee that builders of distros that are still operating will be in touch. The ones that don`t, guess what? Just like operating systems, sometimes a fresh install clears out the cruft.
93 • RE: 92 • RE: Waiting list (by OnoSendai58 (by meanpt on 2010-12-01 18:32:37 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... I vote for that :)
94 • A very special driver download from DELL (by meanpt on 2010-12-01 19:49:23 GMT from Portugal)
Got a Dell Inspiron M101Z? Yes? Proceed to reading the links posted below. What? No? Shame on you (and me). If you'll look at this driver downloading page, you may be thinking "what the hell is this mean thing thinking he is doing?". Right, anyway, here is the link: http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en....
You're not impressed, and that's for sure. Now, look at this story dated from yesterday: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/11/download-ubuntu-light-dell/. Fine, some time ago I asked around if anyone knew anything about it. Got no answers. But there you have it.
95 • RE: waiting list (by Anonymous on 2010-12-01 21:26:54 GMT from United States)
There are distros which have been on the list since as long ago as 2004, there are distros which are long gone, there are "distros" which are only alternate desktops of distros which are listed.
96 • Distros - too many? (by Ron on 2010-12-01 23:37:32 GMT from United States)
On the subject of too many distros, perhaps one has a point.
A long known theory is 'Duplication of Effort'. Yes, untold man hours are spent boilerplating distros. Distros with hardly any outstanding attributes to distinguish one from any other. Surely, the time and effort wasted by this endless duplication could be much better spent on improving the distros that we currently have in abundance.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm all for choice, but choice for choices sake is sort of silly.
On a somewhat similar gripe - and this is just an undisguissed gripe -
why-oh'-why does Grub2 have files spread all over the place? Look, I keep my pennies and nickles in the same change purse, it makes sense. How about having ALL the Grub2 files in the Grub directory?
Am I missing something here?
Ron
97 • Too many? here is another for the paranoid (by RollMeAway on 2010-12-02 06:28:19 GMT from United States)
Lightweight Portable Security (LPS)
A live CD/USB-flash created by the US Air force.
Do your online banking with this?
source:
http://spi.dod.mil/lipose.htm
Quick overview:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-distribution-lightweight-portable-security
98 • Still waiting - PC BSD comments? (by gnomic on 2010-12-02 06:31:26 GMT from New Zealand)
So OK, just ignore me then :-(
I have to assume that nobody here ever tried out PC BSD in live DVD mode? Or maybe nobody wants to talk about it? Just that as I said last week my experience was so bad I wondered whether I wasn't holding my face right or summat.
99 • @98 • Still waiting - PC BSD comments? (by meanpt on 2010-12-02 09:40:54 GMT from Portugal)
Don't know about the others but tried it and erased it cause it was too slow and heavy for my environment. For a KDE I'm sticking with Salix and can't provide you with any kind of useful feedback about PC-BSD. Sorry.
100 • @98 (by Barnabyh on 2010-12-02 10:05:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have tried it in live mode and it was ok. A bit slow and KDE too 'full' for me, could use a 'light' KDE option.
101 • Oz Unity (by El condor on 2010-12-02 10:08:43 GMT from Romania)
@5 Hi!
In my copy of Oz Unity all windows appear maximized. Certainly that can be restored to the desired size but is this a plus or a little bug? What is your opinion? Many thanks.
102 • Thanks for the constructively critical reviews. (by polycarp on 2010-12-02 13:02:10 GMT from United States)
Finally!
I throw up a little in my mouth every time DW adds a "distribution" to the list that is really nothing more than a mainstream distro with new wallpaper.
I think to myself, "Seriously?! Why don't they just tell these applicants to bugger off?" The I saw your reviews this week. It was refreshing not only to see you call a spade a spade, but do it in a constructive and encouraging way... sort of a "this isn't a real distro but don't give up and keep contributing," message.
Bravo!!
103 • @101 El condor - Oz Unity (by tdockery97 on 2010-12-02 14:55:49 GMT from United States)
Just go to Preferences>Startup Applications. Uncheck Maximus and reboot.
104 • @103 tdockery97 - Oz Unity (by El condor on 2010-12-02 16:45:20 GMT from Romania)
With your help I did it!. Thank you my friend. All the best from Romania, God bless you!
105 • Don't bash Debian stable (by Imnotrich on 2010-12-02 18:47:31 GMT from Mexico)
Over the last 10 years or so I've experimented with all variety of distros, but I always have one machine that runs Debian.
Why?
Because it WORKS. Upon fresh install it doesn't always "just work" there's going to be some tinkering involved but once everything is up and running it's stable, stable stable.
If I want to get work done or I'm just goofing off I don't have to worry about an update borking my install (for which Ubuntu is famous) or any other operating system screw ups/bugs.
If Debian sucked, all those variants, knock offs and rip offs would not use Debian as their foundation, right?
Still haven't figured out why/how the last three Ubuntu releases were total turkeys - how do you take something so good (Debian) and screw it up?
I used to be a big Puppy fan too until Puppy went with Ubuntu's base and released some turkeys as well.
Headed out the door to help some guy with a brand new laptop and Realtek wifi card that Ubuntu doesn't support. Joy.
106 • RE:105, Who's bashing Debian stable? (by Eddie on 2010-12-02 19:45:24 GMT from United States)
Nobody is bashing Debian stable. All that was said was that it was dated. And it is somewhat, but that's no problem for those who want to use it. Heck I know people who are still using Ubuntu 8.04. I'm still trying to figure out why you, for no reason decided to bash Ubuntu, and Puppy for that matter. Very strange. Anyway good luck with your friend.
107 • RE:97, Paronoid secure ISO (by Jan on 2010-12-02 19:54:27 GMT from Netherlands)
Thanks for your info.
I am downloading it.
That's what I like Distrowatch for, sharing info and knowledge for everyones preferences.
Jan
108 • Oz Unity (by Guy on 2010-12-02 21:59:29 GMT from United States)
I love this distro! This is the stuff that could put Linux over the top. I'm making a computer for someone who never used Linux before and I can't think of a better distro for them. Love the interface. So much easier for a beginner then all those nested menus.
109 • Email stuff (by Jesse on 2010-12-03 01:46:51 GMT from Canada)
Hi all. Sorry this is a bit off-topic, but I want to touch on something. Recently I've been getting a lot of e-mails which start out "Sorry to bother you." or "I hope you don't mind me contacting you directly." or "Would it be okay if I sent you xyz?" etc.
I want to make it clear that I have an open door (or in this case an open inbox) policy. If you have a topic you want to see covered or if you stumbled across an awesome distribution you want me to review, please feel free to drop me a line. I'm also happy to receive feedback on articles, whether it is kudos or constructive criticism. I do receive a lot of messages in the run of the day, but I don't mind and I do try to respond to them all. Please don't feel I'm going to be annoyed by feedback, suggestions or questions.
110 • what's wrong with being stable? (by imnotrich on 2010-12-03 03:17:21 GMT from Mexico)
I was mistaken, it wasn't a realtek card but the dreaded Ralink RT3070, a relatively common card which is not supported by Ubuntu. While troubleshooting with Puppy 5.1.1 live, the Ralink RT3070 is recognized and works great without encryption so it's not the lack of kernel driver. It's something Ubuntu added.
Ubuntu nearly lost me with their half baked broken Pulse Audio implementation around version 9. The 10's still have issues with sound but for me the Ubuntu deal breaker was when the 10's came out not supporting many common ATI, Intel and Nvidia video cards. You couldnt even boot the live disk or alternate install and even getting to a command line for tinkering was nearly impossible. And - surprise - when Puppy 5 first came out, same problem! NO VIDEO SUPPORT. This because Puppy was based on Ubuntu. Epic fail.
IMHO the best Puppy's were those where Barry was still driving and coding, the 3's and maybe 4.3.1, but even 4.3.1 has issues. Broken repos with packages that used to work but don't anymore, limited software, incompatible with pets and dot pups from older puppies with no alternative available. To find downloads for your version you had to scour the forums for days (since there was no way to update the puppy package managers offerings), some people in the forums were a bit snippy (like an ill mannered puppy) when noobs like me would ask for help or make suggestions for improvement. Other times, people trying to be helpful would point me to older/obsolete versions which (when installed) would over write newer stuff and totally bork my install. A suggestion I made was a sanity check when overwriting newer files but so far as I know that hasn't been implemented. Heck, even windows can do that when you're about to over write a newer version!
Puppy is still a great resource for rescues but since replacing my hard drive I no longer employ every day Puppy on my laptop. I just don't have the time to fix everything that is broken with Puppy.
111 • Re: Debian (by Dan on 2010-12-03 03:39:36 GMT from United States)
The problem with Debian is that any computer that's less than a year old won't work right with it. The older kernel and alsi don't account for new machines. It works great if your computer is older, though.
112 • Debian hardware compatibility (by imnotrich on 2010-12-03 04:49:57 GMT from Mexico)
Dan, Debian 5 works great on my Pentium III 800 with 512MB of Rambus Ram. I've also run Debian on a Micron p II server (goodwill, $35) with 512mb of PC100.
Currently using a Compaq SR1820nx. AMD athlon 64 2.2ghz, 3g ram, 500g sata 2 and 160g eide. Not a brand new machine, but not that old either. No complaints at all from Debian, runs flawlessly.
Thing is I believe ALL distros would be challenged by brand spanking new hardware. That's one (small) advantage we concede to MAC because hardware software drivers firmware blah blah blah are tightly controlled by Apple from inception to manufacture to the Apple retail stores.
113 • Testing Distrowtch's wating Distro 's List. (by forlin on 2010-12-04 04:56:30 GMT from Portugal)
In the first paragraph of this week's Feature Story, Jesse Smith explained the reason why he made a "rapid-fire review" of three distributions in one set, coming from the waiting list. Following that, a few users presented some ideas to keep up a more effective and useful waiting list. I could add one more, although it may be quite time consuming, witch if a three month interval period mini review, to follow up how those distro progressed. This could be done by filling a simple chart, thought in a way that would provide proof that relevant progress happened in that interval time stamp. As an example, based on Jesse review, Fuduntu's developer Fewt, said he will implement some procedures to improve it's distro. That's a good attitude. Otherwise some moths later, user would feel Fuduntu about a distro that has conditions to improve, and did miss the chance.
114 • Fuduntu 14.6 (by Fewt on 2010-12-04 05:37:01 GMT from United States)
I am pleased to announce the availability of Fuduntu 14.6. This is a minor change to existing Fuduntu users, but it brings a lot of UI changes; fixes BFS compatibility with the tickless kernel; and improves many of the existing battery life and performance tweaks. Fuduntu 14.6 has a base memory footprint of 150MB, and the ISOs have been reduced to under 800MB without any significant loss in functionality.
Screenshot:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_j-wDivmP2lg/TPkfpKU-5wI/AAAAAAAAATk/fG5zuTlYUME/s1600/Screenshot.png
Get Fuduntu 14.6 - http://www.fuduntu.org
115 • 113 • Testing Distrowtch's wating Distro 's List. (by forlin (by meanpt on 2010-12-04 11:13:33 GMT from Portugal)
... :) ... sort of what Fewt done in post 114. Well done. Hope Bodhi follows it.
116 • Ubuntu inspired distros (by Jordan Samuels on 2010-12-04 12:16:50 GMT from United States)
Actually, "inspired" is a bit weak when referring to Mint and some others. ;)
My question is about the developers of the Ubuntu distro itself: do they "bless" the ongoing use of their work in other distributions such as Mint?
After installing Mint some time ago, I kind of forgot about trying other distros; it's just too good to give up (I'm on 10 now). No, I'm not a "fanboy" for Mint; I don't care what distros other Linux users have. I'm just saying that Mint is solid, trouble free enough for me to just use and do my work on.
I know about the "but it's got illegal stuff in it, you're a criminal and you're cheating developers of software out of their livelihood" mindset, too. My question is not about that, it's just about whether or not Ubuntu feels ripped off or do they feel complimented by all the copies of their work out there under different names.
117 • Puppy linux mislabeled as independant (by Itsgregman on 2010-12-04 12:22:32 GMT from United States)
I'm sure it's an oversight but Distowatch has Puppy linux listed as based on "independent" when in fact its now another distro based on ubuntu. I discovered this fact after i downloaded and installed it, and then saw the phrase Lucid Puppy. Quite a disappointment to find I had been misled by Distowatch.
118 • RE: 117 Puppy Linux mislabeled as independent (by ladislav on 2010-12-04 12:50:12 GMT from Taiwan)
A distro is based on another if that distro's entire base system is taken from its parent. This is clearly not the case with Puppy whose base is developed independently, from scratch. Yes, you can now install DEB packages on Puppy, but that does not mean that it has suddenly become just another Ubuntu remix.
119 • Puppy is now an Ubuntu derivative (by imnotrich on 2010-12-05 00:39:31 GMT from Mexico)
Fact. Puppy was independent through version 4. All the Puppy 5's are just a stripped down Ubuntu.
Oh and regarding those 5's - I forgot to mention Puppy 5 live cd's overwriting things on your hard drive, even though they are not supposed to and even when you select "do not save" at shutdown. Totally borked a 4.3.1 install that I had spent many hours tinkering.
Slightly off topic but I wish the head Ubunut would stop adding features most of us don't want or need (that don't work all that well anyway such as that gwibber gwarbage , and stop messing with our user interface and instead concentrate on basic functionality. Like Sound, Video, and Wireless networking. Without basic functionality, I don't care how pretty the gui is - your distro is doomed to fail. Adios, Ubuntu and good riddance.
120 • agree (by m1k on 2010-12-05 01:08:45 GMT from Italy)
agree 100/100 with imnotrich !
121 • @119 Puppy (by james c on 2010-12-05 02:00:55 GMT from United States)
Might want to get your "facts " straight before your next rant. Lucid Puppy 5 is based on.............Puppy.The only relation to Ubuntu is the ability to install debs,as pointed out by ladislav.
It was possible to install debs in the 4 series as well,its just easier on Lucid.
122 • Puppy is now an Ubuntu derivative (by imnotrich on 2010-12-05 05:09:49 GMT from Mexico)
Fact: Puppy 5 and beyond is an Ubuntu knockoff. Barry is no longer directly involved. If you want fresh, genuine, real puppy you go with quirky.
Spend some time on the puppy pages and forums, Mr. 119 Puppy.
It's not called Lucid Puppy because they liked the name, and your first clue should have been (re Puppy 5) it suffers from the same KMS and other bugs that Ubuntu 10.04/10.10 haven't figured out yet.
123 • @122 RE: Puppy (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-12-05 05:20:43 GMT from United States)
It also isn`t called Ubuntu Puppy Edition. Get a clue.
124 • Netbook OS (by Dan on 2010-12-05 05:32:28 GMT from Philippines)
What I hate about current netbook distros is the emphasis on cloud-based services. Chromium is good enough for that. What I want are full-featured apps in a snappy linux desktop environment. In my desktop I have Mint + LXDE but I haven't tried it on my netbook. Maybe I'll try it during the holidays.
125 • Oz Unity (by D01Knight on 2010-12-05 06:33:29 GMT from United States)
Oz Unity is a treat. Excellent job done on this one. Definitely take it for a spin. Worthy of a partition. Enjoy! :)
126 • Puppy is not Ubuntu (by Barry Kauler on 2010-12-05 07:12:32 GMT from Australia)
I have learnt over the years that people post all sorts of crap, and it is often best just to ignore it. However, I received an email from someone that matters to me, who was confused by the comments posted here. Here is my reply to that person:
People say all sorts of things, some of it total crap like this, you need to let these things go by without responding. Kind of like the dogs barking when you walk down the street.
Anyway, Puppy and Ubuntu are like chalk and cheese.
Puppy can be built with packages from almost any distro, using Woof.
All the underlying infrastructure, boot scripts, basically everything that makes Puppy unique, is in Woof. I created Woof from scratch, there is no resemblence to any other distro.
Above Woof, there is a layer of specialised system-level PETs that we have created ourselves, and these vary from different Puppy builds. Lucid Puppy have their own special system-level PETs, which contribute to making Lucid different from other puppies built from Woof.
Above that, a Puppy can be built with packages of any other distro, as well as our own native PET application packages. Lucid Puppy 5.1 is built with Ubuntu packages, about 60% Ubuntu, 40% our PETs. You can consider that as applications that go on top of Woof and the system-level PEts.
So basically, you have a unique Puppy, different from any other distro, but using some of the application packages from another distro, including the libraries, so able to install any other packages from that distro.
But then, Puppy can be built from almost any other distro's packages also. It just so happens that at the moment the latest release is Lucid Puppy.
However, under heavy development and due to be released soon, is "Wary Puppy 5.0", a Puppy built entirely from PET packages that were created from source in T2. No connection whatsoever with Ubuntu in any way.
The reason for Wary is that Lucid Puppy is tending to leave behind older hardware, such as video and analog dialup modems. Wary is our commitment to keep supporting older hardware.
Note, I am not really retired, just working more in the background. With Wary I am back as sole coordinator, as I see keeping on supporting old hardware as a niche area where I can keep my hand in.
I tested some of the ideas in Quirky, which is my testbed for trying new ideas. Some of those ideas will migrate into the mainline Woof build system and will be used in the new Wary.
There is also another Puppy being developed with Debian packages, another with Slackware packages, but at this stage I don't know if the developers will have what it takes to get these to a release stage.
Actually, even if someone looks at Lucid Puppy in a very superficial way, it cannot be said that it is based on Ubuntu. If you look closely at anything, you find it is completely different. The posts seem almost malicious.
Note, if Lucid Puppy, a mere 130MB distro, can install just about any Ubuntu package and run it, that is a measure of how great is our achievement at creating a chameleon, a build system that creates a Puppy that can run packages from other distros.
Regards,
Barry Kauler
127 • RE: 126/Barry (by Landor on 2010-12-05 07:51:49 GMT from Canada)
I personally wouldn't have responded, but I understand your reasoning as well, those that matter, matter, period. :)
I'm glad you did though for the heads up for the next release being based on T2. I've always thought very highly of your work. I don't use it to be honest, but I like all the things you do, and try to do with it. I'm a tinkerer at heart, with more ideas than time as well, which lets me appreciate when someone else is too. :)
Keep up the good work, Barry.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
128 • Puppy (by fernbap on 2010-12-05 15:52:33 GMT from Portugal)
Thank you Barry for putting things straight.
Some ubuntu haters think that everything that consorts with the "root of all evils" shares the anatema. You can't argue against religious beliefs. Those that do think that way just don't understand what Linux or FOSS is.
Puppy is my "portable OS" of choice, i always take a pendrive with puppy installed with me, with a few addicional apps installed, when i need to "visit" someone else's computer.
What i love about Puppy is that you can do whatever you want with it.
Its main drawback, however, is not having a general repository where you can find all available pets for it. You have to search for available pets on many possible sources. I understand what it means in terms of cost, so i'm not complaining.
Making Puppy compatible with Ubuntu repositories (or any other large repository) is a good step forward and improves Puppy's usability.
Thank you fro your great work, i wish everything goes well with your next release.
129 • Fuduntu (by fernbap on 2010-12-05 16:04:05 GMT from Portugal)
Fuduntu can be a step in the direction of the idea i expressed earlier of adding a "Clement Lefebvre department" to a large distro.
If it is so, i wish it all the best. it's not there yet, of course, it still has a long way to go, but i think it can be going in the right direction.
Let's give it the time it needs to grow. This is one distro i will keep my eyes on.
130 • OZ Unity (by RayRay on 2010-12-05 16:34:23 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu netbook 10.10 with Unity locked up my machine when I first installed it, it was unusable, I went back to using the 2D interface of the Netbook edition on the 10.10. I figured that it needed 3D acceleration to work and that until I loaded the Nvidia drivers Unity would not work with my hardware. Since I use another distro as my main distros(openSUSE and PCLinuxOS) at home and Xp at work I never got around to tinkering with Ubuntu Netbook.
Surprisingly Ultimate Editions OZ Unity worked perfectly and installed just fine. Aesthetically, the frosted glass wallpaper looks great and doesn't distract from the Desktop Icons. On Ultimate Edition I usually get rid of the distracting wallpaper and animated browser and lighten up the theme (oops, I just made it look like a regular Ubuntu Desktop). I have the gamers edition installed unfortunately I can't get enough free time to play the games, but when my grandkids are old enough I'll load them onto their computers.
Great job UE OZ!!
131 • Puppy Linux (by v_ameglio on 2010-12-05 16:47:27 GMT from Italy)
Frankly, I wonder how anyone having installed and used even just one of the "classic" distros (Debian, Slackware, Fedora, Mandriva etc.) and subsequently tried Puppy Linux, in any of its several flavors and versions, may fail to see the huge differences.
Barry Kauler, the creator of Puppy Linux, has every reason to be deeply disappointed by comments like the above "Puppy mislabeled as independent": maybe they should be simply ignored, maybe it should suffice to say that Puppy runs perfectly even without a Hard Disk, or maybe it is better to fully point out Puppy's:
-> Size - applications for every need, ready to-use, included in a 120MB ISO (!)
-> Speed - boot from CD-ROM in less than a half-minute on low-notch boxes, everything running in RAM at blazing speed
-> Security - any possible corruption of the OS by malware or hacks is gone at power-down, the whole OS residing in RAM
-> Ease-of-use and flexibility - the specialized, or personalized, Puppies ("Puplets") are now counted by dozens (see http://puppylinux.org/main/Puplet for special features.htm#Archive). Practically anyone can build his own, using packages from Puppy's and/or other main distro's archives.
The latter, UNIQUE, strong point of Puppy Linux is now being mistaken for a Ubuntu derivation... (Thanks Ladislav).
132 • RE: Oz Unity and Puppy (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-12-05 16:52:38 GMT from United States)
Oz Unity rules! Puppy, not so much.
133 • Saleem Khan's Illness (by RayRay on 2010-12-05 16:56:50 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
134 • re 121 (by RayRay on 2010-12-05 17:22:46 GMT from United States)
I'm with you, Puppy is amazing. Barry Kualer has done a fantastic job.
There is a Pupplet for every taste and if you have an older machine you can always use an older version.
How can anyone complain about this great Distro.
When you develope a better distro let me in on it. Will you do it from scratch or will you base it on some other distro.
Although the explanation was not necessary, Mr. Kauler has graciously given a very good explanation.
135 • re 121 131 (by RayRay on 2010-12-05 17:28:40 GMT from United States)
I'm sorry about the mix up.
Part of the message was for 131:
I'm with you, Puppy is amazing. Barry Kualer has done a fantastic job.
There is a Pupplet for every taste and if you have an older machine you can always use an older version.
How can anyone complain about this great Distro.
Part of the message was for 121:
When you develope a better distro let me in on it. Will you do it from scratch or will you base it on some other distro.
Although the explanation was not necessary, Mr. Kauler has graciously given a very good explanation.
Again sorry for the confusion I had an interruption halfay through the post
136 • Bohdi (by itsgregman on 2010-12-05 17:46:50 GMT from United States)
I dont usually post here but I was impressed enough with Bohdi I felt I should. Bohdi may not be for everyone, if you expect a disto to have everything youll need + the kitchen sink, Bohdi isnt it. But you like Enlightenment as I do, and also enjoy installing your own choice of software rather than having someone elses choices preinstalled, Bohdi could be perfect for you. I sincerely hope it gets a DW listing in the near future as I would hate to see it "whither on the vine" so to speak. Funny thing is Im generally rabidly anti ubuntu, and I still like it.
137 • @ mr. fewt (by leroy on 2010-12-05 18:59:45 GMT from Serbia)
I think if yours were the last Linux spin on earth, I'd either dish out money and by a Mac, or stop using computers :)
http://www.fewt.com/2010/10/seven-months-with-windows-7.html
138 • @137 (by Fewt on 2010-12-05 19:11:58 GMT from United States)
That's fine leroy. I don't live in a make believe land where no one is allowed to have a critical opinion, so enjoy whatever distribution your closed minded self prefers, my feelings won't be hurt.
139 • @137 RE: Fewt (by OnoSendai58 on 2010-12-05 19:15:17 GMT from United States)
Nice blog, isn`t it? A linux user had the guts to talk in public about what a great OS that Seven is. Hey Mr. Fewt, believe I`ll try that distro of yours!
140 • @129 (by Fewt on 2010-12-05 19:15:48 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm working hard to understand what people need, and deliver a distribution that meets their needs.
Yesterday, I ported Nautilus Elementary, and secured redistribution licenses for Adobe Flash, and the Fluendo MP3 Codec. All of the integration work is complete and they are available in updates this morning. They will become out of the box components in 14.7.
141 • Idle memory (by Anonymous on 2010-12-05 21:46:30 GMT from United States)
What is the preferred command or commands for displaying or measuring idle memory usage?
Top, ps, memstat, free, or some other G.U.I. based thingy?
When I look at memory usage I see many things in different ways.
Resident, shared, virtual, swapped, etc.
Is there a standard to compare idle memory usage between O.S.s and Desktops?
Thanks.
142 • Crashless (by Anonymous on 2010-12-05 22:01:46 GMT from United States)
2c's:
Running Debian stable using Windowmaker on X.
Short of doing very bad and stupid things (software,power-failures), this setup has Never crashed (in many years).
Main browser is Firefox or Iceweasel.
It may not be the latest OS or Apps,
but it plays all of my media I have and encounter on the web
and it does what I want or need it to do.
Just my 2c.
143 • Oz Unity - First Impressions (by Jon Parks on 2010-12-05 22:22:59 GMT from United States)
Not a lot to say but WOW! When I heard it was based on Ultimate Linux I thought there couldn't be a lot to it. In my view Ultimate Linux is the ultimate in overboard distros trying to be all things to all people. Linux Mint's approach to distro building has always been my cup of tea, so booting Oz Unity to a live desktop was a real revelation. Need to spend more time with it, but once again the first thing that came to mind in describing the Oz Unity desktop is WOW!!! Introducing refugees from Windows land to desktop Linux and what it has to offer just became a whole lot easier!
144 • Chakra GNU/Linux (by Blue Knight on 2010-12-05 22:55:26 GMT from France)
Hey Jesse, when a review of Chakra please? Thanks. :-)
145 • Puppy is Puppy (by 01micko on 2010-12-06 01:16:11 GMT from Australia)
Fact: Puppy has some unique features in which it specialises.
*It loads entirely into RAM (in most cases)
*It can be installed to a variety of media and doesn't even need a hard disk.
*It can also save your settings back to the booted CD/DVD, provided that it is burnt "multisession" and the machine's optical drive is capable of burning
*There are many more unique features to Puppy.
Lucid Puppy includes all of these features and has the advantage of accessing Ubuntu's vast repositories.
Barry will have his Wary Puppy 5 ready soon.
Hopefully some of us can revisit Slack Puppy using Slackware 13.x packages. A Puppy using Debian packages is in the works, using Sid binary packages. These may or may not make it to release standard. I personally hope these projects are realised. That will certainly confuse the "Puppy is based on Ubuntu" brigade.
Thank you.
Cheers, 01micko.
146 • Oz Unity Debut (by RollMeAway on 2010-12-06 02:02:25 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu's "unity" is not even listed as a package available from the repos.
Whence the name?
147 • OZ Unity (by fernbap on 2010-12-06 02:29:35 GMT from Portugal)
I have to admit that OZ Unity presents a very polished desktop.
As to Unity, it's not my cup of tea, but i might get used to it.
So far, i had a few glitches, specially regarding desktop effects, it looks it corrupts the fonts sometimes. No showstopper, and i believe those minor glitches will disappear in time.
Unity is, perhaps, the best desktop for the newcomer, so i understand the move to Unity by Ubuntu.
Now, let's see if Ubuntu releases a gnome build as well... My sugestion is Gubuntu.
148 • Oz Unity (by RollMeAway on 2010-12-06 03:17:06 GMT from United States)
Let me try again.
Oz Unity uses ubuntu-netbook desktop, NOT unity.
I agree it is an interesting desktop. Somewhat different, but it grows on you.
A more appropriate name would be Oz Netbook.
149 • comic thought (by bluejeans on 2010-12-06 04:55:58 GMT from Nicaragua)
-128- " ubuntu... root of all evils.."
wouldn't that be "the sudo of all evils"?
:P
Number of Comments: 149
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| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
Jibbed
Jibbed was a (non-installable) live CD based on NetBSD. It was built from the latest NetBSD sources from the HEAD branch. The third-party applications provided on the CD are the latest versions, including experimental packages from wip-pkgsrc.
Status: Discontinued
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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