 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 384, 13 December 2010 |
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Welcome to this year's 50th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Slax arrived on the distribution scene in 2003 as the first Slackware-based live CD that booted into a graphical desktop. Furthermore, it also included excellent tools for remastering a Slackware installation into a live medium. Although the once popular project has seemingly disappeared from the radar, it is far from dead. Thanks to the Slax community, a new build, featuring KDE 4 and LXDE desktops, is now available for download. Bernard Hoffmann takes it for a test drive and finds it a worthy successor of the original project. In the news section, Debian edges closer to the release of "Squeeze" with an updated installer and artwork, Fedora prepares for transition to Btrfs as the default file system, CentOS developers consider their options before the much-awaited release of version 6, and openSUSE moves ahead with the development that includes the Galbraith Latency patch in milestone 4. Also in this issue, a quick link to an interview with NetBSD developer Amitai Schlair and news about a lightweight Ubuntu-based distribution from Belgium called Madbox Linux. Happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Bernard Hoffmann) |
Slax - still alive in the Slax Community remix
 Once upon a time Slax and KNOPPIX were the de facto Linux live CD distributions. Dating back to 2003 Slax was certainly one of the first, and its creator, widely known as Tomas M, gave the community the Linux-live scripts and pioneered modules instead of packages for an easy install of additional programs. The main edition CD image was around 200 MB and featured only the necessary base and a light KDE 3 desktop to allow customizing from there. Slax is, as the name might suggest, based off Slackware Linux, or perhaps better, a repackaging of the Slackware base and certain applications into Slax's module format LZM.
The module section hosted is vast and many are user-contributed which makes this way of operating a security concern. However, a system of approval is in place which warns you when downloading one that has not been approved and, of course, you can always make your own modules from pre-existing packages should you not trust what's available for download. For example, Firefox from the last official release is now severely outdated, but with the help of the provided utilities it is as easy as downloading the latest tar.bz2 from mozilla.org and converting it to LZM. It may even have given PC-BSD the idea for their PBIs, although these go further, including the dependencies in a static package as well.
The last official release of Slax was 6.1.2 on 2009-08-04 and it was based on Slackware 12.2 with a 2.6.27.27 kernel, but the system has not been updated since. I am not going to speculate on the reasons, but this coincided with a move to KDE 4 in Slackware which would have made Slax a lot heavier, and with plans to move to a 64-bit edition. Attempts to raise money for this through appreciative donations and the offering of server space for persistent storage and for backup in the form of the Slax drive, which had an icon on the desktop in the last updates, did not hit the magic target. Nowadays Tomas M is said to enjoy family life and previously neglected hobbies.
Enter the Slax community which is now keeping their beloved distribution alive. Slax can still be run from CD, extracted to USB drive or even installed to hard drive, although this is not supported and a once functional installer present around version 5.x was removed again. Tomas M stated in the forum that if people wanted a hard drive install they should install Slackware. This makes it pretty clear that Slax is for mobile use, but apparently there are people who still succeed using it on their desktops too.
Slax 09 Community remix - the boot screen
(full image size: 374kB, resolution 640x478 pixels)
Somebody known as "fanthom" on the forum set out to provide regular kernel and system updates to Slax 6.1.2 with the help of a brave few and called this the Slax Remix, of which only a few days ago v09 was released to the community servers. New releases are announced on the Slax forum. There is now even a version with 64-bit kernel available. It is important to emphasize that these releases are not official and modules for these are not supposed to be uploaded to the Slax website as they may not work with 6.1.2; instead they are distributed via a number of community sites.
There have always been contributed modules with other desktop environments like GNOME or Xfce available for Slax in the modules section, but the community remix introduced LXDE as a lightweight alternative to the latest KDE 4.5.4 which is surprisingly full and responds well. On top of this, work has gone on to integrate both and, as a result, the lightweight desktop looks particularly sharp.
Slax 09 Community remix - the LXDE desktop
(full image size: 323kB, resolution 1360x768 pixels)
Slax remix v09 is built from Slackware "Current" userland with a 2.6.36.1 kernel with the recent patch for better scheduling and responsiveness. Also, much better support for graphics and for wireless network cards have been added when compared to the last official release; for example; the broadcom-sta driver is in the remix which, in my view, is particularly important for something designed as a mobile computing platform. For the long list of features and things changed please read the release announcement, with pointers to more modules like the Enlightenment 17 desktop in the thread as it develops. There have been plenty of changes and additions over the many remixes, particularly easier network setup with a custom tool, new module management tools and the addition of the new Squashfs4 format. For more on how to remaster or convert old 6.1.2 modules to Squashfs4 see this resource for remix v08.
I still think that Slax has something to offer in today's landscape due to its flexibility and ease of creating modules, particularly thinking about how easy it is to replicate an install which is literally just copy over or extract and run bootinst.bat or bootinst.sh from /boot folder to make it bootable. Similarly, it is easy to create your own custom ISO image with the provided make_iso script once the desired modules have been added. The community remix has kept Slax bleeding-edge and brought many innovations and improvements to the Slax of old, wireless network driver additions particularly welcome.
Slax 09 Community remix - the KDE 4 desktop
(full image size: 1,018kB, resolution 1360x768 pixels)
It has become quite a different beast in some ways, having grown for the first time to over 200 MB size and introducing KDE 4 and 64-bit to Slax among others, like its founder had envisaged for the future of the project. At the same time it has also created a small team of developers familiar enough with the system to continue if the project is abandoned, or to help Tomas M out, should he decide to return for Slax 7. On the other hand I wonder if this is not just an operating system for a small group of hardcore fans now that it has had its time and may become increasingly irrelevant, in a day and age where almost every distribution offers a convenient graphical way to copy to a USB device and back or create spins. In any case, I am glad it's still around, and will keep using it from time to time just for fun.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Debian updates installer and artwork, Fedora prepares for Btrfs transition, CentOS considers release options, openSUSE includes Galbraith Latency patch, NetBSD interview
 As we get closer to the end of another year, there are further indications that the stable release of Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 "Squeeze" is a matter of days, rather than weeks. Firstly, the second beta release of Debian Installer was announced by Otavio Salvador last week: "The Debian Installer team is pleased to announce the second beta release of the installer for Debian GNU/Linux 'Squeeze'. Improvements in this release: Linux kernel updated to 2.6.32-27; partition detection improved - Windows Vista, Windows Recovery Environment and MINIX; improved OS detection in grub-installer; ZFS support; fixed hibernation with swap on LVM; fixed, on os-prober, data corruption if file system is being used by another host; fixed overwrite MBR of installation medium; improved USB CD-ROM devices scan; updated minimal memory values for lowmem installations; localization - 67 languages activated (included English), for 50 of these, translation is 100% complete." Secondly, the "artwork in Debian's testing branch has been updated for "Squeeze": "The desktop-base package just updated on my Debian 'Squeeze' desktop, and it brought with it the new wallpaper for the distribution's soon-to-be-stable release. Now it really feels like Squeeze is ... not Lenny."
Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 - does the new artwork indicate the proximity of a release?
(full image size: 213kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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 The next stable Fedora, version 15, won't arrive until May next year, but it's always nice to learn that the distribution's developers are hard at work getting the many new features ready for public consumption. Rahul Sundaram updates us on the status of Btrfs, a file system that is expected to become the default in Fedora at some point: "One of the important changes not listed in the feature list for Fedora 15 is Btrfs in Fedora 15. Anaconda, the Fedora installer has marked Btrfs as a supported file system in Rawhide, the Fedora development branch a while back. Btrfs integration is a long process in Fedora spanning several releases and will eventually result in Btrfs becoming the default file system in a couple of releases. In Fedora 15, you don't need to pass any option - Btrfs will be one of the options by default, but do note that live images don't support anything other than the default of ext4 still. The future plan for Btrfs in Fedora has been detailed out by Josef Basik, Red Hat Btrfs file system developer. Josef is planning on adding Btrfs support into GRUB 2 as well but Grub 0.97, the legacy version."
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 In many ways, CentOS, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is a distribution with a rather different development process than most other free software projects. Here the most important task is to remove all trademarks and logos before compiling the source packages provided by the upstream vendor. That said, it doesn't mean that the mechanism of building CentOS is a routine task. Quite the opposite, argues Nathan Willis in "CentOS grapples with its development process": "The RHEL 6 sources were released on November 10th, more than three years after the last major revision, RHEL 5. The size of the base distribution has grown considerably, and now spans two DVD-sized ISO images. In addition, the company is now offering four versions of the release: server, workstation, high-performance computing (HPC) 'compute node', and desktop client -- up from the two (desktop and server) for RHEL 5. These changes forced the CentOS developers to re-examine their own offerings, including the possibility of separate server and workstation editions (a change for CentOS) as well as a 'light' installation ISO image that would allow administrators to set up a functional minimal server without installing the full, multi-gigabyte image."
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 The openSUSE project has seen several changes of hands in recent years - from an independent Linux distribution to a Novell project and now part of Attachmate Corporation. As a result, it's only natural that many users wonder how all these transformations affect the development of the distribution. But as Susan Linton attests in "Has the Novell Deal Hampered openSUSE?", the development process for the upcoming release of version 11.4 continues at high speed: "The crowning jewel of the all the recent news was the release of the latest 11.4 developmental milestone. This release includes the much touted Galbraith Latency patch that is believed to increase desktop performance. They are also including the latest desktop environments: KDE 4.6 beta 1 and GNOME 2.32.2. GNOME 3.0 won't be released in time for 11.4. OpenOffice.org has been removed in favor of LibreOffice. Midori Web browser, Rosegarden music composer/editor, and Gnash Flash viewer have been added. Final release is planned for March 2011. So, add all this up and you'll see that openSUSE isn't going away - far from it. The Novell deal hasn't hampered their fun. They are moving forward full steam ahead."
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 Finally, a quick link to an interesting interview with NetBSD's Amitai Schlair, a member of a committee that oversees the development of pkgsrc and the maintainer of the official NetBSD Wiki: "Originally, the official Wiki wasn't intended to replace the unofficial one. People who wanted to contribute to a NetBSD Wiki had been doing just fine without us. That's no longer the case. We want these people to be able to keep contributing to NetBSD as they have, so we're adapting our Wiki plans to make room for everyone. This entails some careful rethinking -- every other official project resource is, by design, writeable only by developers -- followed by a fresh batch of integration work. We'd hoped to have time to prepare for a smooth transition from wiki.netbsd.se; alas, it's not in the cards. Instead, we're working as quickly as we can to make it possible for everyone to participate in the official NetBSD Wiki. A smooth transition would also, at minimum, involve moving worthwhile content to the new Wiki and providing HTTP redirects at the old URLs for a while. Of course, these require a modicum of assistance from the administrators of wiki.netbsd.se. For users' sake, I hope assistance will be forthcoming."
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Memory usage
One of our readers asked about programs which display memory usage, what to use and what the different types of memory (shared, virtual, swapped, cached) mean. Furthermore, what fields are important to look at when comparing different systems?
First let's talk about programs to use when monitoring memory usage. When in doubt, I generally fall back to basics and use "top". It runs everywhere and shows you most of the information you should need, both in regards to memory usage and CPU usage. If you're just concerned with how much memory is being used by the system and uninterested in CPU usage then "free" is also a good command to run as it'll show you usage information for shared memory, cache and swap. When looking at GUI applications, I like KDE's System Monitor. The default layout looks a lot like top's, but it's easy to configure System Monitor with different views and with different filters. My favourite feature of System Monitor is its method of displaying CPU, memory and network usage in a graph so you can quickly tell if your resource usage is spiking or holding steady. For non-KDE people, there is a GNOME application, which also carries the name System Monitor, and it shows the same information in approximately the same manner.
Of course having access to all of this information isn't very useful without knowing what the data means, so let's begin with shared memory. As the name implies, shared memory is a section of your computer's memory which is can be accessed (or shared) by multiple processes. Sometimes programs will use a common pool of memory as a fast way to communicate or work on a common task. Shared memory can also refer to items in memory that are common across multiple processes. Let's say, as an example, that you have a text editor open. That text editor requires certain libraries be loaded into the system's memory. When you then open another program which also makes use of the same library there really isn't any reason to have two copies of the same library in memory. In those cases the operating system can keep just one copy in memory and let both programs access it. In short, when you see shared memory it means multiple processes are making use of the same section of memory.
Virtual memory is, in itself, a big topic and it can get a bit confusing. In the context of what you see when using the top command, the amount of virtual memory a process is using really means the total amount of memory that task is consuming. It includes the size of the program's executable, libraries being used and any data that task is storing in memory.
Swapped memory is, perhaps, a bit easier to understand. Modern operating systems often need access to more memory than they physically have. When Linux runs out of physical RAM it needs to store data somewhere else. That somewhere else is typically a swap partition. This is basically a closet in which data can be temporarily placed until it is needed. Swap space is useful because it means we can effectively use 2 GB of memory, even if the computer in front of us only has 1 GB of RAM. That extra GB is stored on the hard drive as swapped memory. The down side to using swap space is that accessing the hard drive is slower than accessing RAM and so making heavy use of swap space can make the computer less responsive...
... Which brings us to cached memory. Since it slows us down when we access the computer's hard drive, it is handy to keep as much data as possible in RAM. Cache refers to data in memory which is not currently being actively used, but is instead being held for quick access. You can see cache at work if you open a large program, like OpenOffice, and make note of how long it takes to load. Then close OpenOffice and immediately open it again. The second time OpenOffice loads it should come up faster because the OS left the program in our cache. Some distributions (such as SliTaz) make use of cache by loading the entire OS into memory at boot time, making loading applications almost instant.
When comparing different systems, I generally look at the amount of memory the system uses, minus cache. Since cache isn't being actively used, it's not really impacting what we can load into memory later. An easy way to get this information is to run "free" and look at the second line. The number under the "used" column of the second line will show you how much RAM is being used (in kilobytes), ignoring cache.
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| Released Last Week |
NuTyX Attapu.1
Thierry Nuttens has announced the release of an updated version of NuTyX, a French desktop distribution built from Linux From Scratch and using a custom package management tool borrowed from CRUX. Changes since Attapu: the live media allows hard disk installation via a graphical installer; KDE has been upgraded to version 4.5.4; it is now possible to generate a live CD/DVD image from an installed system; a "MINI" edition has been re-introduced, it allows installation of extra applications via Internet; during installation seven kernel options are available, covering a greater number of hardware combinations; the maintenance interface has been revised and simplified, now using the JWM window manager by default; an available swap partition is now automatically detected and configured.... Please visit the project's home page (in French) to read the full release announcement.
ZevenOS 1.9.1 "Neptune"
Leszek Lesner has released an updated version of ZevenOS 1.9 "Neptune" edition, a Linux distribution based on Debian's testing branch: "We are proud to announce the release of ZevenOS Neptune 1.9.1. This is the first minor release to ZevenOS Neptune 1.9 which brings an updated Linux kernel (2.6.35.9) and an upgraded KDE SC (4.5) as well as VLC 1.1.5. The base Debian system was updated with security and bug fixes as well as our own applications such as ZevenOS hardware manager and Neptune installer. We are also proud to see that our effort in creating a good remastering tool, remaster-kit, has resulted in the first unofficial ZevenOS Neptune 1.9.1 release based on the GNOME desktop. Features: the newest, full-featured KDE SC 4.5 desktop with lots of animations and useful applications; the newest Chromium web browser including the newest Adobe Flash and full HTML 5 support." Here is the full release announcement.
Unity Linux 2010.2
Matthew Dawkins has announced the release of Unity Linux 2010.2, a minimalist operating system designed to serve as a base for building custom distributions: "The developers at the Unity Linux project are proud to announce a brand new snapshot of the 2010 release. The 2010.2 release provides many updates to core packages, much more stability, and refinements to the core tools of the project, like mklivecd and unity-installer. Since our 2010.1 release the changes include: updated toolchain, OpenSSL, X.Org, Python, Mono, Smart, Drak tools, Linux kernel 2.6.35.7; addition of more than 2,000 packages; Xfce 4.6.2, KDE 4.5.1, GNOME 2.32.0, Openbox 3.4.11.2, E17 0.16.999.52995 and EFL beta libraries, as well as several proprietary video drivers for NVIDIA and ATI." Read the full release announcement for further details.
Salix OS 13.1.2 "Fluxbox"
George Vlahavas has announced that a newly-built "Fluxbox" edition of the Slackware-based Salix OS 13.1.2, is released: "After a lengthy development period, the Salix team is proud to announce the first official release of Salix 'Fluxbox' edition. Salix Fluxbox 13.1.2 is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures and features the minimal Fluxbox window manager, customized with the Salix look and feel. The 'Fluxbox' edition provides the cleanest work environment compared to any other previous Salix editions and has been designed so that it stays out of the way, while providing a fast, versatile and powerful environment. The installation images allow the installation to be performed in three different modes - core, basic and full." Read the rest of the release announcement for additional information.
Jolicloud 1.1
Jolicloud 1.1, an Ubuntu-based distribution for netbooks with a custom user interface and extensive integration with online services and social networks, has been released: "With what we are releasing today, Jolicloud will bring all its users one step ahead of what Google, Apple and Microsoft are announcing. When everybody talks about HTML 5 as the future, we deliver it today, now and for everyone. We also hope that you will enjoy the brand new HTML 5 desktop that anyone on Chrome can use online at my.jolicloud.com. We have listened to your feedback and added some of the most requested features: Dashboard customization with beautiful background images; simplified access to the computer settings; ability to add any local application to your dashboard from a Jolicloud device; faster sign up and login using Facebook Connect; improved user interface design." Full details can be found in the release announcement.
Jolicloud 1.1 - an Ubuntu-based distribution for netbooks with heavy integration of online social networks
(full image size: 75kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Ultimate Edition 2.8 "Lite"
Glenn Cady has announced the release of Ultimate 2.8 "Lite", an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the LXDE desktop and designed for deployment on low-resource computers: "As promised, have the latest and the last release in the 2.8 series of Ultimate Edition. Ultimate Edition 2.8 'Lite' is dedicated to those with low system resources; it is also lightning-fast on machines that have the resources. There are no bells and whistles here, no office suite, no Compiz - just the pure essentials. It was built off Lubuntu 10.10, updated and upgraded, which is based on the LXDE desktop environment. Many applications were ripped from the operating system before I even started to build. This is the first time a light edition has been released from us; not that it has not been asked for by many for some time. Ultimate Edition 2.8 'Lite' will fit on a CD." Here is the complete release announcement.
Ultimate Edition 2.8 "Lite" - a Lubuntu-based distribution with LXDE
(full image size: 542kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Vinux 3.1
Tony Sales has announced the release of Vinux 3.1, an Ubuntu-based distribution designed for blind and visually impaired computer users: "I am pleased to announce that Vinux 3.1 is now ready for download. It is currently available as a CD or DVD in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions (USB and Virtual Machine editions will follow shortly). It has been a long time coming, but hopefully it will be worth the wait. On top of all the usual Vinux goodies, new features include a Quick Start Guide for beginners (Ctrl+Alt+Q), Autokey-GTK which can insert text automatically as you type based on pre-defined abbreviation, the Parcellite Clipboard Manager which allows to paste text from the clipboard history, X-Tile which allows to tile windows automatically, Gnome Media Player as an accessible front-end to VLC...." Here is the complete release announcement.
Vinux 3.1 - an Ubuntu-based distribution for visually impaired
(full image size: 824kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Asturix 3
Ricardo López has announced the release of Asturix 3, an easy-to-use, Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the KDE desktop and integration of popular social networks: "Asturix 3 is officially available. This version has meant months of hard work for all volunteer Asturix development team and we are sure that it will be a turning point in the short history of the project. Some of its features: elegant and professional interface, combined with an amazing design; total integration of social and micro-blogging networks, such as Twitter, Facebook or Identi.ca; Asturix Bridge lets you to add, remove and execute web applications as native applications; face login - write your password to login is a thing of the past; libre and free music thanks to Jamendo, and it is legal!" See the release announcement and this brief feature list for more information.
Asturix 3 - a Kubuntu-based distribution with added features
(full image size: 930kB, resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
- CrunchBang Linux 10-r20101205, the release announcement
- VectorLinux 7.0-alpha4, the release announcement
- Zorin OS 4-rc, the release announcement
- Chakra GNU/Linux 0.3-rc1, the release announcement
- Linux Deepin 10.12-rc, the release announcement (in Chinese)
- Scientific Linux 6-alpha2, the release announcement
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.9-beta, the release announcement
- FreeBSD 8.2-BETA1 and 7.4-BETA1, the release announcement
- Frugalware Linux 1.4-pre2, the release announcement
- PC-BSD 9.0-snapshot, 8.2-snapshot
- SimplyMEPIS 11.0-alpha4
- ALT Linux 6.0-beta
- Openwall GNU/Linux Current-20101209
- Tiny Core Linux 3.4-rc2
- GParted Live 0.7.0-11
- Clonezilla Live 1.2.6-52
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
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New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Groovy Arcade Linux. Groovy Arcade Linux is a Gentoo-based live CD/USB medium with a bleeding-edge Linux DRM with Kernel Mode Switching. It also includes patches to allow 15 KHz operation for Arcade monitors and NTSC/PAL TV output, and it uses the X.Org packages built from the latest git sources. It uses WahCade as a front-end, and includes the LXDE desktop and the FVWM window manager, as well as the newest Chromium web browser.
- Swift Linux. Swift Linux an antiX-based distribution providing a combination of lightweight operation, a superior repository, and user-friendliness. A separate edition, called Forensic Swift Linux, includes extra tools for forensic, rescue, and recovery tasks.
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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, 20 December 2010.
Bernard Hoffmann, Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • "New distros" (by Smog on 2010-12-13 11:07:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
In recent weeks a plethora of 'new' distros has been appearing on DW. Closer inspection shows that many are just remote derivatives of existing offerings. What is absolutely galling, however, is that many are way over CD-RW size and confer no more than personal selections of apps with little to commend and unnecessary duplications. It would be better if these wannabe developers concentrate on bug-fixing and extending HW compatibilities with substantial repos for personalisation. Perhaps we could have Ladislav impose a more rigorous filter?!
2 • Few more things (by Barnabyh on 2010-12-13 11:07:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
I did not want to put into the article:
1.) Login is still as root with access to all detected drives although they are not mounted by default. They can be easily mounted in Dolphin, for example. To change this to something safer, simply set up an extra user account and disable autologin.
2.) The bootinst.sh and liloinst.sh scripts did not work for me when installing to USB key, resulting in a "missing operating system" message, although they previously worked for me in 6.1.2 on another flash drive. I managed to get it set up easily with Unetbootin (recommended).
3.) Use .txz or .tgz Slackware packages, currently from Slackware-current, to create additional modules in Remix v09. There are also other tools like src2pkg. Don't forget dependencies.
4.) Modules can be loaded/activated "on the fly" or at startup. Review the cheatcodes, place optional modules in "optional" and activate as desired. Iso master is also a helpful tool.
5.) Attempting to convert .txz packages to modules led to empty space on the USB key to fill up and no module appearing. Converting in a live Cd instead and saving the resulting modules to USB key worked around the problem.
6.) Broadcom wireless worked for me without issues, good speed and no dropping connection. I believe all major wifi chips are now supported, important for mobile use.
3 • Live Linux system (by hob4bit on 2010-12-13 11:44:53 GMT from China)
I have used Knoppix livecd many years ago. In recent years I have used a remastered Puppy Linux CD/USB pen. However, in last six months I have given on Puppy Linux.
Now I use a remastered Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1 USB stick with 1.1GB. My portable OS is configured just like my usual desktop. I use GRUB 2 and port directly the sfs file. I am using this right now as I am on holiday. The "grub.cfg" looks like this:
set default=0
set timeout=4
set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
set superusers="grub"
password grub ???
menuentry "Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1-20101128 LTS i386, 2.6.32-24 (sfs)" {
set DIR=/boot/UBUNTU-10.04.1-20101128-I386
linux $DIR/vmlinuz boot=casper live-media-path=$DIR quiet noprompt
initrd $DIR/initrd.lz
}
menuentry "Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1-20101128 LTS i386, 2.6.32-24 (sfs, toram)" {
set DIR=/boot/UBUNTU-10.04.1-20101128-I386
linux $DIR/vmlinuz boot=casper live-media-path=$DIR toram quiet noprompt
initrd $DIR/initrd.lz
}
menuentry "Ubuntu Linux 10.04.1-20101128 LTS i386, 2.6.32-24 (sfs, recovery)"{
set DIR=/boot/UBUNTU-10.04.1-20101128-I386
linux $DIR/vmlinuz boot=casper live-media-path=$DIR quiet noprompt
initrd $DIR/initrd.lz
}
4 • Ugly artwork for Debian? (by anonymous on 2010-12-13 12:13:17 GMT from Australia)
Wow... that is some seriously ugly artwork in the Debian Squeeze screenshot. I think something cleaner and more colour/style-neutral would be more appropriate -- something to reflect the maturity and conservative nature of Debian, perhaps...
5 • @4, Debian artwork (by Barnabyh on 2010-12-13 12:29:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yeah, I've also been wondering about this for some time. There were better looking entries in the contest, but unfortunately no 'killer' theme. Perhaps they went for this because of the 'universal' operating system line?
6 • Debian Theming (by Burt on 2010-12-13 12:41:01 GMT from Germany)
Themes are irrelevant and are easily changed. It's what's underneath that counts and that's where debian shines. Rock solid stabilty. For a serious production machine and not a play thing this is where it's at.
7 • JoliCloud (by mechanic on 2010-12-13 13:30:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
This distro is good looking and useful for those looking to use cloud-based apps generally, but what's this with the need to log into a Facebook or Jolicloud account to access my computer? That's not going to convert me to a joliclouder from a potential user! No more accounts than I really need, thank you!
8 • I like it! (by Yasser on 2010-12-13 13:47:53 GMT from India)
Hey I like the new Debian theme....maybe a bit kid-like but cool...nice n friendly. Glad to know 6.0 is coming soon..cant wait to play with the MOST STABLE KDE4 version ever in any distro! I was thinking it would take another year for a stable Squeeze....so long Ubuntu :) On the desktop (maybe not a laptop), Debian rules! I wish Debian guys included home encryption like Ubuntu...that wouldve made me free from Ubuntu forever...things seem to crash so often in Ubuntu...but Debian never disappoints me...NEVER.
9 • @1 & SuSE (by Sam on 2010-12-13 14:03:52 GMT from United States)
@1: I agree. I can't remember the last time I looked at the "new distros" section of this newsletter and clicked through to find out more about the distro. Has "sitting in your parents' basement" or "back in the garage" hacker creativity become so vapid lately in Linuxland that all we get are new spins of Ubuntu?
RE: SuSE. I'm not sure I share Ms. Litton's optimism over openSUSE. When, in the history of corporate take-overs, has the new corporation immediately scuttled a Linux project? Oh, sure, point to Larry Ellison and Oracle's almost immediate impact on Open Solaris, OpenOffice, MySQL, etc., etc. But that's Larry and Oracle. Name a corporate take-over by a not-so-totally-evil-and-hey-did-Larry-ever-give-that-yachting-trophy-back?-corporation, and things take time. It will take time for Attachmate to figure out the role of openSUSE devs in the new corporate structure. So, despite being an openSUSE user since SUSE 8, I'm not very comfortable for now.
10 • re: #8 by Yasser (by brad on 2010-12-13 14:09:07 GMT from United States)
Have you checked out Linux Mint Debian Edition.. It's minty fresh, using the latest from debian squeeze and a rolling release model.. install once, keep updating.. puredebian at its heart, and linux mint for the adornments.. worth looking into..
the version always has updates.. i booted up the live version the other day, 612 updates.. but a brand new version, according to Mint's website , is coming out in dec, so that means any day now..
it' a nice debian alternative, but purely based on debian, NOT like other mint versions based on the latest ubuntu
just thought I'd give you and anyone else interested the HEADS UP!
11 • RE: Ugly artwork for Debian (by maconulaff on 2010-12-13 14:14:20 GMT from United States)
Why do so many get hung up on eye candy rather than features that matter in production environments - like stability. The functionality under the hood - most importantly - the stability of Debian - are the key features that make it my distro of choice. I can re-theme it if needed.
12 • Debian up to date? (by m1k on 2010-12-13 14:25:06 GMT from Italy)
So...why not Aptosid?
13 • Re: #7 JoliCloud (by mechanic) (by Leo on 2010-12-13 14:40:12 GMT from United States)
Totally agree. It seems nice and snappy, and this is, I think, where computing is moving. Chrome will do it. Android did it with phones. Ubuntu is moving in that direction.
But asking me for an internet account before i can even use _my_ computer seems silly, and was a turn down for me They need a smarter online/offline policy.
14 • re: @2 Jolicloud and the upcoming Chrome OS laptops (by michael King on 2010-12-13 14:45:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think Jolicloud in a years time will make more sense as Google's ChromeOS becomes the dominant consumer Linux OS experience, If you watch some of the latest Videos of the new Google smartbook, like the one here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11941601
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Vnx58UYo&feature=player_embedded#!
15 • Re: #14 (by Michael King) (by Leo on 2010-12-13 16:41:49 GMT from United States)
I couldn't agree more. It strikes me that we (the Linux community) are, for the most thing, ignoring the elephant in the room (except for some honorable exceptions like JoliCloud). We need to embrace google's efforts: Android, Chrome and so forth. People are writing apps for those, and they are doing it at a furious pace.
The weather app in my android phone beats the hell out of any weather app for my KDE-4 desktop. The PBK Kids app for google chrome has caught the attention of my little one to an extent that no linux app has (except for tuxpaint).
In any case, Google is finally providing cross platform API's, sponsored by a big corporation, and leading to revenue generation to the app developers, which explains their massive number. We NEED to get in that game.
Cheers!
16 • Jolicloud 1.1 (by Guy Stone on 2010-12-13 16:50:16 GMT from Canada)
re #7 - I don't go near Facebook. But Jolicloud lets you set up using any nym you want. And it doesn't spam you.
While they make things bone simple for newbies, it's tough for us more experienced Linuxers to change things around. Like making Mozilla the default browser (Chrome's add-ins aren't as rich yet). Or adding apps from the Ubuntu repository that appear on the Dashboard.
It's a zingy little system that runs great even on Celeron netbooks. I've got it installed to a 16GB SDHC card that's taken up residence in my EeePC-900, displacing Ubuntu Netbook Edition. It's used for all my surfing while another heftier system is doing the heavy lifting.
17 • reviews (by Dan on 2010-12-13 16:50:23 GMT from United States)
I'd really like reviews to focus more on how a distro works over a period of time, instead of how it installs.
18 • @ Jesse -Swap? (by Anonymous on 2010-12-13 17:06:05 GMT from United States)
OK, so I'm fairly certain that Linux Swap and Windows Virtual Memory are almost exactly the same thing, but do you mean to say there is a different thing in Linux that is also known as virtual memory?
@4-6 etc.
I think it looks similar to what one expects from Debian, all versions are named after toy story characters after all so the young at heart theme continues and doesn't look bad IMHO. And it does kind of set the stage for the user experience more generally so the initial background should have some thought put into it, especially if geeks are going to be giving something like Debian to others who'll leave the theme alone.
19 • LibreOffice (by Michael on 2010-12-13 17:11:00 GMT from United States)
I have a question about LibreOffice which I think it is an excellent switch f from Oracle...
I saw that many linux distributions have LO and I like to know opinion of the users if is possible. I am a BSD user and we don't have LibreOffice yet in ports.
Thank in advance...
20 • Slax Remix vs. Tiny Core (by schultzter on 2010-12-13 17:23:04 GMT from Canada)
I'm a big Slackware fan so it was hard for me not to use Slax but being out of date made that inevitable. I'm have to have found the community remix and I'm going to give it a try. If it works as well as Tiny Core does then I'll have to re-think my setup at home. Thanks,
21 • Re: 18 Swap and virtual memory (by Jesse on 2010-12-13 17:39:53 GMT from Canada)
"OK, so I'm fairly certain that Linux Swap and Windows Virtual Memory are almost exactly the same thing, but do you mean to say there is a different thing in Linux that is also known as virtual memory?"
Yes, virtual memory can be a difficult term to deal with because it means different things in different contexts. You may be familiar with virtual memory basically meaning a file on your Windows machine where the OS can dump inactive memory. As you pointed out. this is the equivalent to swap on Linux.) In another context it can refer to the way an application sees memory as it is laid out by the OS as opposed to how the memory is actually laid out physically. (Check out Wikipedia's article on virtual memory for more info.)
But if you're looking at memory usage on Linux, you will find virtual memory refers to all the memory used by a process, including its code, libraries, data and any swap space being used. You can get a full break down by reading the manual page for "top".
Hope that helps.
22 • LINUX WISHES HAPPY NEW YEAR (by Linux Fan on 2010-12-13 17:40:59 GMT from India)
Comment deleted (spam).
23 • RE #16 Jolicloud (by Anonymous on 2010-12-13 17:51:06 GMT from United States)
Glad to see someone has attempted it with a Celeron M EEEpc.
It is quite the quandary to everything working right on these as everything has seemed to move to the Atom and the larger screen and better web cam. Right now I'm dual booting the 8GB SSD, one OS for home the other for wifi.
How much space is it taking up on the SDHC? Is the Wifi, Webcam and sound working AOK? I know I had WiFi problem with one of the others I tried but it worked on my wife's Atom EEE but the hi-res web cam did not on her's on another that I use.
24 • Slax - I hope it doesn't die (by Open Source Software Torrents on 2010-12-13 17:59:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
I remember using slax from day one, and for me it has always been the best livecd. Its fast, clean and works well. The community at slax has always been very helpful. It would be an utter shame if Tomas M doesn't create any new releases.
I hosted the official torrents for slax for many years... and it was one of the most downloaded distribution from our website, with knoppix-std being one of the others.... although that has since died.
25 • Thanks Jesse (by #18 on 2010-12-13 18:34:49 GMT from United States)
Yes that helps, thanks. I knew was going to check old Wikipedia soon after I read your Q & A.
26 • Slax (by pera on 2010-12-13 19:24:04 GMT from Serbia)
I tested latest slax,and there is nowhere kde4,only kde3.
27 • Re #10 Linux Mint Debian Edition and Remastersys backup (by Teobromina on 2010-12-13 19:51:08 GMT from Spain)
The fact to have Debian as a base, as it happens with Linux Mint Debian Edition, seems good idea. But, do you know if the program 'Remastersys backup' can still operate properly in this version of Mint?
I consider essential this tool, which is working in Ubuntu and derivatives.
With 'Remastersys backup' is easy to build, graphically, your own customized 'live' & installable remasters of the system installed in the HD. This is very usefull to install exactly the same OS in different computers or to re-install, in about 10 minutes, a complete system with severe problems.
28 • Of course I also use Slax (by Teobromina on 2010-12-13 19:57:42 GMT from Spain)
I did not noticed that there was a Slax remix supported by the community. I have to test it.
In my case, Slax is part of my own multiboot recovery ISO, because sometimes live Ubuntus cannot start in graphical mode in some computers, and then may be Slax has a chance. Since it can read-write NTFS discs and is able to run some Windows programs by means of a Wine module, Slax, being small is a great recovery tool.
29 • Mint & remastersys (by fernbap on 2010-12-13 19:59:05 GMT from Portugal)
Yes, it works. I did my own "disto", in fact. Basically Mint to with a bunch of addicional apps like clamav, gparted, wine, etc so that i can use the installable live DVD as a rescue disk for windows machines.
It is also useful to show people what you can do with Linux from a live medium.
It works pretty well and found no issue with it whatsoever.
Note: remastersys has 2 versions, one for Ubuntu based distros and another for Debian.
30 • Re #29 Mint & Remastersys (by Teobromina on 2010-12-13 20:09:39 GMT from Spain)
Thank you, ferbap, for your quick response. I will download and try the remastersys version for Debian with this Debian based Mint.
31 • Linux Mint Debian (by fernbap on 2010-12-13 20:27:16 GMT from Portugal)
I have LMDE installed since it came out, and said at that time that it had a few rough edges still to iron out.
All the rough edges that i had related were ironed out meanwhile, and i have no issue with it at the moment. I would use it as my main distro if LMDE had a x64 version.
It was announced that a new build of LMDE will be released in December, which i think will basically be my current LMDE, so it is worth to wait for its release.
What i'm still not sure is wether you can switch trhe repositories to squeese when it becomes debian stable or not. I would love a rolling release based on Debian Stable.
32 • Linux Mint Debian (by Teobromina on 2010-12-13 20:35:25 GMT from Spain)
I have downloaded since, the present LMDE and put it into an Oracle Sun Virtual Machine for trials.
I have found the repository of Remastersys for Debian squeeze:
http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository/squeeze/
so I hope I will have fun for a while.
Thanks again, fernbap.
33 • re: 7 • JoliCloud (by Moe on 2010-12-13 20:45:26 GMT from United States)
I agree with the sentiments of those who are not too pleased with Jolicloud's mandatory sign in process. I requested they add a bible study app and they replied that they are not intending to offer any religious type apps so I downloaded a deb file and installed it myself. Installation was easy as pie. I just need to find a way to have it listed with all of the other up front launchers. Otherwise Jolicloud has one great distro on their hands. I'd love to see it run from a USB stick with persistence and without the dumb sign in.
34 • Slax re-visited (by Verndog on 2010-12-13 20:55:23 GMT from United States)
I too have fond memories of Slax. I haven't used it in recent years though. While I was in Japan I used it extensively. I think it was Slax 5 or 6 then. thanks for the memories!
35 • JoliCloud (by fernbap on 2010-12-13 21:05:34 GMT from Portugal)
Jolicloud lost me at mandatory sign in. That was enough for me to put it away and I don't intend to use it at all.
There are many lightweight desktop distros that you can use and add all cloud based stuff you want, and won't require you to sign in at all, AND allow you to make a USB stick with persistence.
36 • @21 • by Jesse (by Anonymous on 2010-12-13 21:11:07 GMT from Portugal)
Jess, I ran the free command and getting this:
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 443760 420316 23444 0 7536 82776
-/+ buffers/cache: 330004 113756
Swap: 747516 29040 718476
The values of "-/+ buffers/cache:" are under "used" and "free" respectively. "free" cahe? What's the meaning of this?
37 • Free output (by Jesse on 2010-12-13 22:17:31 GMT from Canada)
Re: 36
The output from the free command looks weird until you get used to it and it's not intuitive. On the first line, the first three items are total physical memory on the system, the amount of memory used and free memory. This part is pretty straight forward as it shows how much memory is available, the amount used and the amount left over.
At the end of the first line are two numbers showing us how much memory is allocated for buffers and cache. These are included in the "used" field.
On the second line, the -/+ buffers/cache line, there are two numbers. The first one is the amount of memory currently being used MINUS the amount taken up by buffers and cache. So the first number of the second row is really the amount of memory being _actively_ used on your system. The second number on the second line represents the total amount of physical memory you have, minus the active memory used.
So the second line gives you data on the amount of memory actively being used, which doesn't include the cache or buffers. They probably should not have the plus sign at the beginning of the line.
38 • @36 (by Vance on 2010-12-14 00:18:16 GMT from United States)
The "+/- buffers/cache" line is the one you're most likely interested in. It shows that your applications are currently using 330004KB and there is 113756KB remaining available. Some of that available space is being used by the kernel to buffer files from disk, but this is just a speed optimization that can be easily given up if you need the space to run something important like Frozen Bubble.
See also http://www.linuxatemyram.com/
39 • RE: Slax and Live Scripts (by Landor on 2010-12-14 01:07:52 GMT from Canada)
Nice review, Barnaby.
If I'm not mistaken, Ladislav himself at one time tested out the Live Scripts. I don't know how, or where I came by that information now though..lol
Don't let running the site fool you, Ladislav cruises around and does a lot of things.
Do you have the link somewhere, Ladislav? Was it an issue of DWW?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
40 • @ Landor (by Barnabyh on 2010-12-14 02:15:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hehe, thanks, it's a bit short but I reckoned a lot of people won't know about the Community Remix going on. A few may be interested in re-visiting an old friend brought up to date.
41 • "New distros" (by azazel on 2010-12-14 03:28:56 GMT from Philippines)
I agree with you Smog. It has always been *buntu* derivatives that i see every week when i read the news. It maybe the number 1 distro at DW ranking but I'm not a fan of the distribution, yet i don't hate it. I mean, is there nothing new to contribute anymore?
42 • Re: #31 by fernbap (by tdockery97 on 2010-12-14 03:48:21 GMT from United States)
Yes you can set your repos to squeeze instead of testing and your LMDE will become the stable version. But it will no longer be a rolling release if you do that.
43 • @42 (by Josh on 2010-12-14 04:19:33 GMT from United States)
I was thinking the same thing. Wouldn't be much of a rolling release if it based off stable. Though, if they could create a "stable rolling release", and that's using Debian's definition of stable, that would certainly points in Debian's favor and Mint's.
Good DWW.
44 • @8 @6 @11 (by Anonymous on 2010-12-14 04:37:46 GMT from Australia)
@8: Debian has has whole-disk encryption since Etch.
@6 @11: Yes, the theme is changeable, and what is under the hood does count, but why not make it look as professional as it runs? I wouldn't care if it was a crap distro, but this is Debian we're talking about. The look should be as polished as the software. Why make extra work for the end-user?
45 • @43, 42 LMDE (by fernbap on 2010-12-14 05:06:25 GMT from Portugal)
The point is that Mint LMDE doesn't use many debian mantained apps, like iceweasel. LMDE uses the last version of firefox, or pidgin, or OO, etc.
LMDE pointing to sqeeze repos would be debian stable with apps upgraded by mint (not ot mention the "mint layer" itself).
The best of both worlds, i think. Not sure, though, it will be like that or if i would be introducing some future issues between the "mint layer" and debian.
46 • 64 bit Slax remix - re # 26 (by gnomic on 2010-12-14 06:28:01 GMT from New Zealand)
Slax remix is found by looking at headings in the Slax forums (slax.org/forum).
The 64 bit version has its own topic heading with links to the download.
See [Slax-Remix] v09 x86_64/kde-4.5.4 is out :)
47 • Debian, Q&A (by Johannes on 2010-12-14 08:50:08 GMT from Germany)
Thank you for this new issue of DWW, indispensable as always :-)
The Q&A about memory usage refreshed my mind, and news coming from Debian are excellent! Cheers,
Johannes
48 • Re: #19 LibreOffice (by silent on 2010-12-14 12:24:03 GMT from France)
Well, in fact Arch no longer supports go-openoffice, so I had to make the choice to switch either to vanilla OpenOffice (3.2.1 stable, 3.3 beta and 3.4 devel are available) or to LibreOffice 3.3. So I picked LibreOffice. Frankly, so far I see little difference as compared to go-openoffice except for the splash screen. It works.
49 • Re: #26 Slax (by Elder-Geek on 2010-12-14 15:55:23 GMT from United States)
The only version of Slax Remix that has KDE 4 is the 64 bit v09 edition. All others are 32 bit with KDE 3.5.
50 • Slax is still relevant (by Elder-Geek on 2010-12-14 16:02:43 GMT from United States)
Slax is still relevant. Even Slax Remix still clocks in at under 250megs in size. With no knowledge of how to remaster linux you can drop modules in the /slax/modules folder and add new documents and icons in the /slax/rootcopy folder. It can be burnt to a CD, put on a USB stick OR placed in a folder on the hard drive and booted via GRUB4DOS.
That last bit is the most incredible. I maintain about 100 user systems at 6 locations, some of them almost 1000 miles away from each other. With GRUB4DOS I can set any computer to boot to WindowsXP or to SLAX running from RAM. I can boot to Slax, reset it to boot Windows and while still in Slax, run partdisk to backup the computer as a diskimage on the local server, then reboot. If the user ever has a problem, I can remotely reboot their computer to slax and restore the last imagefile.
All of this with Slax, no need for a 2nd partition on the hard drive for linux, only takes 250megs or so of disk space. Slax is still very relevant.
51 • The cloud again and whatever.. (by davemc on 2010-12-14 16:06:50 GMT from United States)
Jolicloud requires mandatory sign in's? Nice. I cant think of anything more counter to Open Source ethics than a Distro that requires one to sign in every time you want to use it or no go. People in the Open Source world are really buying into this "Computing in the Cloud" scam?.. Really?. Wow!!.. WIndows Live is here to save the day!
They say a sucker is born every day. More like every minute!
Its been said before by someone smarter than us all - "Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security" - Ben Franklin
52 • zenwalk "captura" on forum registration (by Anonymous on 2010-12-14 19:18:27 GMT from Canada)
This is the second time it has defeated me.
A pity as the os seems beautiful, except that the live cd loads without giving a password (root or user) and I cannot get into the forum to ask.
53 • #52 (by Anonymous on 2010-12-14 20:06:56 GMT from Canada)
should be "captcha"
sorry
54 • @37 by Jesse + @38 by Vance (by meanpt on 2010-12-14 20:19:56 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... many thanks for both. That's right, the last figure of the second line is what I'm interested in :)
55 • Zenwalk and the elusive password (by gnomic on 2010-12-14 21:23:12 GMT from New Zealand)
If I recall correctly, the user is called one and has no password set. The superuser password is ZenLive, caps required.
Bear in mind one wee gremlin with this live CD - should the screensaver start, when one attempts to resume the session, a password for user one is demanded. But there is no password. Agh. It's a Catch 22 situation. There is no way out but restarting the machine. The answer is to set a password for one and then log out and back in again. They're French you know. Well, there must be some reason . . . ? You might think it possible to log in to a console as root and set a password for one. Afraid not, not with intel video anyway, according to the developer not possible with the intel driver, something to do with the infernal kernel modesetting. The virtual terminals are not available. Maybe it is possible with other video cards.
Aside from this, the Zenwalk live CD is pretty good.
56 • RE #23 Jolicloud (by Guy Stone on 2010-12-14 23:29:57 GMT from Canada)
I don't know about the webcam, but everything else is AOK. All I had to do was crank up the input gain to get my Skype test call completed using a headset. And Skype was driving me nuts with the real 'buntus.
I don't take the sign-in issue that seriously. Anyone that doesn't have a webmail id for just such situations is flirting with disaster in my book. I'm more annoyed that Chrome's ad-blocker and Javascript choker aren't as well along as the ones for FF. But what do expect when an app is developed by a company that gets its revenue off of clicks?
As for getting things onto the Dashboard, well, if you've ever crawled through the .desktop and XML files vanilla GNOME uses for menus and desktop, it's not straightforward or transparent. I don't think the JoliTeam is being intentionally obtuse; it's just requires some user taking the time to suss it out.
Right now the Disk Usage Analyzer is showing 3.3GB of 14.6GB in use. That's after loading SAMBA, T-bird, FF and some plugins. I was running 1.1PRE on an 8GB card, but logfiles were sucking back too much space and needed periodic manual purging. Hopefully this is handled a bit better for Release.
Meanwhile, my Torrent is still seeding on another system. Peer count doesn't often drop below 5, so all the positive reviews are generating interest.
57 • Thanks Jesse (by Anonymous on 2010-12-15 04:20:10 GMT from United States)
Thanks for answering my previous memory question.
What I was really looking for was the proper and consistent way to measure idling memory usage.
Also it is confusing (my current free command):
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 516300 293372 222928 0 17576 165776
-/+ buffers/cache: 110020 406280
Swap: 999416 0 999416
Would mean I have 406.28M free.
Top tells me:
FireFox3.6 is using 205M virtual, 76M resident, 24M shared and 15.2 percent memory.
Windowmaker is using 7620K v, 5028K r, 2676K s, and 1.0 percent memory.
With 512M RAM how does it add up?
Is FireFox really only using 24Meg? If it was 205Meg then there couldn't be 406Meg free.
Thanks
although I was originally looking for the proper way to compare different desktop memory usage.
58 • Heads in the clouds ... I want nothing to do with it. (by jake on 2010-12-15 04:27:27 GMT from United States)
A couple links:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/dec/14/chrome-os-richard-stallman-warning
Normally, I wouldn't quote The Guardian, but mayhap Stallman's commentary on the subject will carry weight where a nobody like jake's will not.
But whatever. Follow your bliss.
59 • Free Command (by Anonymous on 2010-12-15 04:56:27 GMT from United States)
After looking here:
http://aplawrence.com/Bofcusm/2118.html
and cat /proc/meminfo
I realise that currently on my system:
Mem used(297916) minus buffers(19916) and minus cached(166736)
equals line two buffers/cache used(111264)(by programs).
Also line two buffers/cache free(405036) minus buffers(19916) minus cached(166736)
is equal to free(218384)memory in system.
So the first number on line two is mem used by programs
and the second number on line two is free ram + buffers + cache (total)
Weird, I did the math and I still have to think about it.
It looks to me like line two could be re-labeled programs-mem-usage/total-free-mem.
Thanks
60 • Oh! (by Anonymous on 2010-12-15 05:08:37 GMT from United States)
The free command:
Line two:
"heading: total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 516300 293372 222928 0 17576 165776
-/+ buffers/cache: 110020 406280
"-buffers/cache" is (used-(buffers+cache)) "used" from top heading
"+buffers/cache" is (free+(buffers+cache)) "free" from top heading
Takes me a while... (hope this formats better to see)
61 • #60 (by jake on 2010-12-15 05:12:07 GMT from United States)
try `free -lt` ... might help :-)
62 • RE: free command (by Landor on 2010-12-15 05:16:53 GMT from Canada)
For those that are new to it all, here's something to make it easier. (I also don't know why it's not the default now, since things have move to gigabytes)
free defaults to a display of information in kilobytes. You can change that to make it quicker to read by using these two commands (I think only using the first one is of any value. The second one if you're running a server possibly)
free -m (displays information in megabytes)
free -g (displays information in gigabytes)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
63 • Re 1, 4: New Distros, Debian Artwork (by uz64 on 2010-12-15 05:37:46 GMT from United States)
I actually thought the same about the new Debian artwork. I was excited to see the "desktop-base" package showing up as an update, thinking that might signify the final wallpaper, which might be interpreted as a new release of Debian coming very soon... but once I saw the background change, I was immediately disappointed. It looked so... boring and unprofessional. But I have to admit, it *is* clean, meaning that I can actually use the machine without the desktop background getting in the way, and I haven't changed it yet in my installation. The image shown while in the process of actually logging in (after selecting a user and entering a password) is much better for some reason, even though it is very similar to the wallpaper, but it's only shown for like 2-3 seconds.
First impressions *do* matter to new users (unlike what #6 says: that themes are irrelevant, since they can quickly and easily be changed), and I would count the background--as simple as it may be to change--to be a part of it. While I don't really "like" it, it does have the tendency to kind of grow on you, which is good.
And in response to the first post--I agree, I've noticed the increase in 100% pointless distros being added over the last few weeks (months?) on DistroWatch Weekly. I used to see one or two interesting new distros in every DWW... now it's usually boring "remixes" with nothing but a new wallpaper and a different selection of packages installed by default on an Ubuntu base. Considering Ubuntu is getting more and more annoying with their ways, this is starting to drive me nuts. Occasionally it's a remix of some other (not Ubuntu) major distro, which is only slightly better. I also noticed many directed at non-English speakers, which I can't fault (hey, can't force everyone to use English and choice is good for them too), but it's twice as annoying when it's yet another f***ing Ubuntu respin, just in another language.
Yeah, in case you haven't noticed... Ubuntu really has been grating on my nerves lately.
64 • #63 ... Months? (by jake on 2010-12-15 06:00:15 GMT from United States)
Last six or seven years, more like.
But whatever. Ignore the chaff, go for the wheat. Works for me.
65 • Re #29 Mint & Remastersys, again (by Teobromina on 2010-12-15 09:42:58 GMT from Spain)
After some trials with Linux Mint Debian Edition and Remastersys, in a Virtual Box, I find the following results:
-The Remastersys gui did not work, except to fix the options of the remaster. Apart of this it did not produce any output files neither ISO file at all. I had to use the commandline Remastersys, which is an added difficulty for users non experts in Linux.
-The commandline Remastersys produced a 'dist' mode ISO which, at booting, asked for a password. The password for the user defined of the installed OS was not able to open session of the live system, neither the default 'Mint' user was. So I tried later the 'backup mode' in order to preserve the password of the user into the live ISO.
-The commandline Remastersys produced a 'backup' mode ISO which asked for a password as well. In this case the user defined for the installed OS could open session of the live system. The inconvenient of this option is that if there is some data on the personal folder, the data appear reproduced in the ISO.
-And for completing the picture I was not able to install the 'backup' live ISO into a new HD, which is my main interest with Remastersys.
My conclusion is that may be Debian based OS is more solid (?) when installed but, for a regular-advanced user, the combination of the version of Mint based on Ubuntu plus the use of Remastersys, is better still to give, in an easy way, a stable, portable and reproducible OS.
Comments are welcome.
66 • @58 (by Josh on 2010-12-15 14:05:45 GMT from United States)
You might have a point there Jake. I don't care much for the cloud either, but mostly because I have no use for it. Plus my hard drive easily accommodates my needs. Considering the way most users protect their data, Stallman's point of careless computing is easy to see. Plus, the key issue of rights and ownership of data becomes important. Personally, I'd want a license with google or whoever saying that they cannot touch or even look at my data, and that they are responsible for it in case its lost, stolen, or reproduced. Then, I might feel a bit more secure. But, as humans will be looking over these cloud servers, all the data is vulnerable, no matter what they do to try and protect it.
67 • @63 Ubuntu respins (by Patrick on 2010-12-15 15:42:51 GMT from United States)
What has been getting on my nerves lately is all the complaining about new Ubuntu respins. ;) Seriously, like Jake said, just ignore them if you don't like them.
Shall we take this a step further? Maybe we should be complaining about all the Linux respins that are posted on this site. They're mostly all the same: they generally use the Linux kernel, the GNU tools, a DE like Gnome or KDE, Firefox, OpenOffice (or now LibreOffice)... why so many respins? They're all just GNU/Linux systems with a different selection of packages in the default install.
If you look at it that way, there wouldn't be much use for this site. So who cares where the packages originate from, whether that's Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, custom built or whatever. It's all pretty much the same software. They are the Lego bricks someone can use to build something. Now don't tell me one person's Lego spaceship is just the same old thing as another persons Lego house, just because they both used Legos to build them. Why should one of them be required to use MegaBlocks instead, or even get the equipment to mold their own bricks, just so they can be viewed as "worthy" or "different" enough? That would be rediculous.
Legos work well and are readily available. In the same way, Ubuntu seems to provide a good set of bricks that people like to use to build their own creations. Ubuntu provides a big bag of bricks or different varieties (all the packages in their repos). They use a small subset of those to build their default Ubuntu install. Now I agree that just taking the chimney off this pre-built Lego house and changing its color is not very imaginative. But it is possible to completely redecorate the Ubuntu default house and make it significantly more attractive, or break it down and build something entirely different with the pieces they provide in their bag.
All I'm saying is that distros don't deserve to be ignored or lambasted just because they are based on Ubuntu. Every distro should stand or fall on its own merits, no matter what they're based on. Heck, since you don't like Ubuntu and some of "their ways", there is likely an Ubuntu respin that exactly fixes whatever it is that irks you, and someone made it because it irked them too.
68 • Mint, Remastersys (by fernbap on 2010-12-15 15:51:53 GMT from Portugal)
All your problems may be derived from trying to do it on Virtualbox. Install the base distro first in the HD, then use Remastersys.
It also uses a huge amount of disk space, so perhaps the virtual disk you set on Virtualbox was not large enough. Anyway, i wouldn't try to use it on Virtualbox.
I never understood why people would use Virtualbox for doing stuff. Don't they know they can use gparted to shrink existing partitions but the amount they will occupy it with the virtual drives, thus freeing space for making a proper install?
However, my experience with remastersys has been only with ubuntu based Mint 10, so i never tried the debian version. Will try it, though. You made me curious...
69 • @67 Ubuntu respins (by fernbap on 2010-12-15 16:06:56 GMT from Portugal)
"Heck, since you don't like Ubuntu and some of "their ways", there is likely an Ubuntu respin that exactly fixes whatever it is that irks you, and someone made it because it irked them too."
I couldn't agree more.
What made Mint so popular is that point exactly. Mint remained faithful to his own concept, regardless of the direction Ubuntu is taking.
You may not like the direction Ubuntu is taking (i don't), but at this moment Ubuntu is probably the best base for you to use while making your own respin. It also offers a huge repository that will be available and continue to be upgraded.
You also have a lot of information available, on forums where ignorant newbies are not insulted and have their questions answered.
70 • @68 fernbap: Mint+Remastersys (by Teobromina on 2010-12-15 17:48:36 GMT from Spain)
Of course I can use Gparted, and I actually do, to prepare my computers to be able to have both Windows and Linux. In my web page I deal with this questions, advising to do so (I invite you to have a look to http://www.telefonica.net/web2/ttk/_TTK_p.htm .
As a last option I may actually install LMDE in a 'real' HD, as I used to do to create 'my own distro'.
The reason to use VBox is just to avoid destroying my present installation of Mint9 LTS, which is still my base Linux in all my devices, only for testing a new version. Thanks to VBox I can make as many installations as I want, but preserving my working environement. When I have the work done I 'export' the ISOs created by means of a FTP server outside of the virtual machine and with the FTP client, gftp, inside the virtual machine. In this way I can keep using my installed system while the v. machine is used only for making tests. I started with qemu, but Oracle Sun Virtual Box ( http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox ) is a very good product and I have decided to do the tests within this software.
To achieve the same results (keep my OS but make trials with new versions), time before, I had to have an external rack for HDs and to have, for instance, a working HD and a testing HD, interchanging them when working or when testing OSs (for fun). My computer used to be as a kind of Christmas tree...
I am using VBox with dynamicall expansion virtual disk up to 16 Gb. It is not a problem of space, because in the 'real HD I have exactly the same space.
Waiting for your news.
71 • #55. Zenwalk (by Anonymous on 2010-12-15 18:51:35 GMT from Canada)
Many thanks gnomic for the information
72 • #63 "pointless distros" (by Anonymous on 2010-12-15 18:59:27 GMT from Canada)
As operating systems develop they become more like each other. Just like the controls on cars.
As a newbie ii feel that the developers that "just" add a selection of apps to a basic distro are helping me. On my own I might find that some apps I am interested in conflict with preexisting apps and crash my machine
This, for me, is always a problem to recover from.
73 • 67, Legubunto (by Willi-amp. on 2010-12-15 19:46:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
Of course, people should be able to make re-spins of anything they like, in any language they like; but do they have to try to inflict their toy on others? What puzzles me is why they should want to. Do they actually use their re-spins, I mean for ordinary PC use, and are they better for that purpose than something existing and put together by dedicated teams? Contributors seldom say what they prefer to use for there day to day computing, so here goes. I use PClos......Firefox, OO.o. Scribus, I watch DVD's, TV and play Minesweeper (my wife Bubbles, that should read plays Bubbles). Why PClos? It doesn't let me down, nothing clever, it just goes on working year after year, what am I missing?
74 • Small distros (by Jesse on 2010-12-15 20:34:51 GMT from Canada)
@73:
Why do you think re-spins and new distros are inflicted on others? Everyone has the choice to use the distro or not. No one is making you visit their website or download an ISO. There is no inflicting going on. You might say there is some inviting.
From my experience talking with distro and re-spin makers, people generally do use their own distros. In fact, that's often how they get started. A user finds they like distro X, but always add/remove the same packages after every install. So, eventually, they automate the process and offer the result to anyone who wants to use it. When you get right down to it, that's pretty much how the entire open source ecosystem works. A person finds program Z useful, writes a patch and offers it back to the community.
When it's done well, working with a solid base, this often yields great results. Mint, for example, I consider quite good. Knoppix, Slax and PC-BSD each follow this same pattern of taking a good base, fiddling with it and offering their take on the product back to the world.
The above poster mentions using PCLinuxOS. Imagine, for a moment, that PCLinuxOS wasn't offered in English. It was offered up in... Japanese, for example. And, in this example, I'm assuming you don't read Japanese. Wouldn't you be thrilled if someone came along and offered up PCLinuxOS exactly as it was, but with English language support installed? It's a tiny little change, a simple re-spin, but it would make your computing life easier, wouldn't it?
75 • #74 (by Willi-amp on 2010-12-15 21:58:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank you Jesse for taking the trouble to comment and I do understand the point you are making. In your first sentence you lump re-spins and new distros together but surely a new distro should be more than 'add/remove the same packages' from distro X. Clearly PCLinuxOS was a re-spin once but it was more than that before it was offered, as was Mint. Of course, I add apps and codecs to my PClinuxOS, tailor it to my needs, but I wouldn't expect anyone else to want the same mix. It's hard to imagine that someone else's re-spin will exactly meet the needs of another user, and if it means finding, adding or subtracting packages to that re-spin then why not choose one of the many many excellent distros that are already available in the first place.
76 • In favor of Ubuntu (by Teobromina on 2010-12-15 22:09:19 GMT from Spain)
Thanks to the ranking issued by Distrowatch we may learn (sorry because it is obvious):
-Individual users prefer Ubuntu among other free Linux distributions.
-Most of the Ubuntu derivatives are also preferred to most of the other Linux flavors. Mint Linux is one of these.
-Some time after they are launched, most of the 'new' *buntus, as it happens with other distributions, decline and loss adepts, but the ones that are more useful to individual users, keep its high position in the ranking.
Let people choose what Linux prefer, as they can choose their preferred song. I have seen the process with Linux the last 10 years and this kind of 'natural selection', with distros that enter into the list and distros that exit and are forgotten, has been good for the health of the entire Linux world. Expontaneously a reduced group of leading Linux distros has been consolidated, crowned by Ubuntu.
So Ubuntu is the winner of that natural selection. Let us analyze the factors of its success.
-I think that the success of Ubuntu is that it has been able to standardize Linux for personal individual users.
-The fact that there are so many new distros based on Ubuntu shows also that Ubuntu has achieved a suitable base to build useful personalized re-spins. -Another factor of success of Ubuntu is their 6 month based frequency of issuing policy. It gives confidence to their users.
But you may have your own conclusions.
77 • Pointless distros (by fernbap on 2010-12-15 22:30:54 GMT from Portugal)
As i said earlier, i made my own "distro", which is Mint 10 with addicional apps, and a different theme. I like it a lot, because it saves me time each time i have to install Linux on a computer. Called it FernOS (lol).
My friend, which has a lowsy connection, asked me which distro i would recomend. I sent her "mine", she installed it and loves it (the merit goes to Mint, of course). Having all the apps she would ever use already installed also means a lot of time saved on a lowsy internet connection.
So, what do you think? Should i have not given it to my friend because it is a "false distro"? (as a matter of fact, my "distro" already has several users. Should i ask it to be added to Distrowatch?).
On a side note, have you noticed that all those false distro critics only mention ubuntu respins, and say nothing when the base is another?
78 • Distrowatch re-spin. (by zygmunt on 2010-12-15 22:47:49 GMT from United Kingdom)
HPD are an indication of how many problems a distro has: people seeking solutions!
79 • offtopic FUD- FBI put back door in OpenBSD (by RS on 2010-12-15 22:56:05 GMT from United States)
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/121510-former-contractor-says-fbi-put.html?page=1
80 • #79 (by jake on 2010-12-16 00:31:07 GMT from United States)
Read this note written by ken[1] from a few years ago:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html
I'm not paranoid, but the fact is that if you can't follow the tool-chain at a ones & zeros level, you really have no idea if your OS is secure or not. That's ANY OS.
Don't like this concept? Stop using computers.
81 • re-spins and stuff (by trv on 2010-12-16 00:47:43 GMT from United States)
@76 Many of us who have settled into a distro of choice don't even hit the pages anymore. PHR, in my opinion, is just a measure of newcomer curiosity. It doesn't mean that just because someone might start with Ubuntu that they aren't going to grow weary of the bloat and move on.
Respins: As far as respins go, package selection doesn't qualify a "release" as a new distro. Setting the bar that low is an insult to people doing real work.
Just opinion- you're welcome to have yours too.
82 • @75: Distros and re-spins (by Jesse on 2010-12-16 00:52:40 GMT from Canada)
I did lump re-spins and distributions together. Maybe that's rash, but I think there is a fuzzy line between what qualifies as a re-spin and what gets called a full-blown distribution. The debate has come up here a number of times and each person seems to have their own definition. It's a can of worms I'd rather not open up at the moment.
But to answer the question, why not use one of the many excellent existing distributions? I suppose because they weren't quite the right fit. Given the choice, people like to tailor their systems to best fit their preferences. Kubuntu is, in a way, a re-spin of Ubuntu with KDE packages and look how many users they have. For that matter you could say aptosid is a spin of Debian Unstable, and they've got quite a few users. This indicates to me that there is a demand for options outside of the excellent distributions which were previously available.
People are creative creatures and I think the flood of new distributions and re-spins is an indication of that. Granted, some of them may also be indicators of vanity, but I like to think it's mostly the creative nature in us which gives rise to these projects. Look at it this way, wouldn't the world be a dull place if we all painted our houses the same colour?
83 • MadBox (by meanpt on 2010-12-16 12:02:23 GMT from Portugal)
For a buntu 10.10, it has been an agile surprise for a 450 MB ram's guest in VBox. Before any system's update and guest additions' installation, the thing lands a desktop at a cost of 76 MB of RAM. Awesome. So, to be agile it's also light on the CPU, and I don't even hear the damned cooler. Out of the box and when logging in, it was kind enough to not show the hated (by me) login sequence of purple and white dots. In my virtual system, buntus always and painfully account for a sequence of very slow 12-13 consecutive lines of dots, but not madbox in this ... well ... "virgin" state. Boots fast. In the end, it lands to a DE which I do not recognize as an Openbox, but more of a Gnome. That's where I'm getting confused and unable to shutdown some starting services to make it even lighter. At least for those using VBOX guests, this is a go.
84 • respins (by Greg on 2010-12-16 12:10:03 GMT from United States)
In my opinion there are many great derivitive distros. The way i see it a distro is legitimate if it has a working repo of a decent size. Respins however are really an annoyance. I recently downloaded a couple of slackware respins and found they didnt offer anything new or interesting, so what was the point? Hopefully those distros will mature and one day offer a useful alternative. I must also admit I fell very disappointed everytime I check in here for something new to try and only seem to see Ubuntu respins week after week. To each his own of course, just stating my personal opinion about that.
85 • :) respins? (by meanpt on 2010-12-16 15:04:23 GMT from Portugal)
I don't use slackware but salix (openbox RC1 - the ligher, XFCE and KDE) and Zenwalk - the later only ocasionally. I don't use Ubuntu, nor Xubuntu, Lubuntu or Kubuntu, but Peppermint. If testing will prove it worthwhile, most probably I'll be using MadBox. I don't use Debian or Mepis but Minino, Estrella Roja, Knoppix and antiX. I don't use Fedora nor Red Hat but Scientific 5.5. Why this plethora of OS(s)? Because some applications run fine or better in some while they don't in others. Some requires PAE enabled processors and others don't. Some have a better portfolio of applications, while others are terribly meager in this chapter. I have more respins installed than those mentioned cause some are very specific oriented (eg sound and video) and come with installed applications that some times you neither heard of, neither install fine in other distros or have been nicely tweaked. The more you'll have to choose from, the better you'll be. This is also about the freedom of choice.
86 • #81, 82, 84: respins and distros (by Caitlyn Martin on 2010-12-16 15:18:13 GMT from United States)
"Respins: As far as respins go, package selection doesn't qualify a "release" as a new distro. Setting the bar that low is an insult to people doing real work."
Perhaps you should read this: http://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/6x/build/problem The problems Scientific Linux have run into with the packages for the upcoming release is with the srpms already created by Red Hat. There are more things that can go wrong when you are working from scratch. Packaging is not always easy and straightforward.
"I recently downloaded a couple of slackware respins and found they didnt offer anything new or interesting, so what was the point?"
Which ones? I've found most of the Slackware derivatives do a lot that is unique and interesting, often including building things like their own administration tools (both GUI and CLI), creating graphical installers from scratch, and building their own lightweight applications. I'm thinking of distros like Absolute Linux, SalixOS, VectorLinux and Zenwalk. Slax, the distro discussed this week, has it's own module/packaging system and was created by the same person who created the Linux Live scripts. When it first came out it was groundbreaking and innovative even if it seems like old hat today.
"I fell very disappointed everytime I check in here for something new to try and only seem to see Ubuntu respins week after week."
While many of those bring little or nothing new to the table I can think of a few that either have become really quite popular (i.e.: Linux Mint) or are really innovative (.e.: Debris Linux). How is Ladislav to judge? What criteria should he use? Why is an Ubuntu derivative automatically less important than a Red Hat derivative or a Slackware derivative or a Debian derivative? Ladislav has simple, sensible criteria. Can you come up with better?
87 • Debian Live passwords (by Al on 2010-12-16 15:30:54 GMT from Canada)
I like the way Debian Live behaves. It boots up to the GDM login screen and instantly elicits thoughts of "aw crap, there's a userid/password for a live distro??? Now I have to boot back to my hard disk, search the website, etc.". After a few frustrated attempts at various userid/password combos, and just as you are about to reboot, the timed login kicks in and you're brought in to the desktop.
To get a root terminal is easy too, just go into the accessories menu and click "Root Terminal". I missed that on first try, as I normally su to root from a standard terminal, in which case you sit there wondering what the root password could be.
My thought for this week
88 • respins (by Greg on 2010-12-16 22:18:14 GMT from United States)
I would not name a distro that I simply found a disappointment, maybe if I had serious problems I would. And I myself have always liked Slackware and Slackware based distros so I have no prejudice there. I was also not suggesting Ladislav should change his criteria for listing distros as he has to work with what hes given. I was simply stating my opinion of the situation with so many ubuntu respins, and not suggesting Ladislav was wrong to list them. It just seems the state of Linux in general is not what it was when I started using it, and I sure miss the old days.
89 • wow (by Anonymous on 2010-12-16 23:10:01 GMT from United States)
Someone's hit a new low by comparing Scientific Linux with the 'buntu of the week respins. When CERN starts using a 'buntu flavor of the week, I'll be willing to take a second look.
90 • Remastersys for Debian Squeeze Released Today (by Tony Brijeski on 2010-12-17 01:27:57 GMT from Canada)
For those on this thread that were trying to use remastersys for squeeze 2.0.19, I have released 2.0.20 which actually truly supports squeeze now. The previous version required grub-legacy to be used and only ext3 as the filesystem.
The new one supports grub-pc in the installer and asks you if you want ext3 or ext4 for the filesystem.
I also have an lxde control panel in the repo as well as a debranded mintmenu if you want to try them out. It is an older version of mintmenu but it still works well and I haven't had time to look at newer version of it.
http://www.remastersys.com/forums/index.php?topic=1132.0
91 • Desktop Memory (by Anonymous on 2010-12-17 02:25:42 GMT from United States)
Seeing: ps avx:
PID TTY STAT TIME MAJFL TRS DRS RSS %MEM COMMAND
4124 ? S 0:00 0 663 2424 1368 0.2 /bin/bash /usr/bin/startx
4132 tty1 Ss+ 0:00 0 12 1755 504 0.0 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1
4143 ? S 0:00 2 9 2854 804 0.1 xinit /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
4144 tty7 SLs+ 5:25 197 1632 41975 26052 5.0 /usr/bin/X11/X -nolisten tcp
4156 ? S 0:00 30 576 4983 1124 0.2 /usr/lib/WindowMaker/WindowMaker
4176 ? Ss 0:00 0 80 4675 564 0.1 /usr/bin/ssh-agent x-window-manager
4177 ? S 0:10 35 576 7043 4988 0.9 /usr/lib/WindowMaker/WindowMaker --for-real
4182 ? SNs 0:02 1 23 3064 1220 0.2 /usr/bin/wmcpuload -a 76
4183 ? SNs 2:55 1 27 3072 1288 0.2 /usr/bin/wmtop
4184 ? SNs 0:01 1 23 3064 1216 0.2 /usr/bin/wmmemload
4185 ? SNs 1:57 1 50 3221 1420 0.2 /usr/bin/wmnd
4186 ? SNs 0:02 2 23 3612 1668 0.3 /usr/bin/wmtemp -f -sf temp3
4187 ? SNs 0:03 4 23 3612 1668 0.3 /usr/bin/wmtemp -sf temp3
4188 ? SNs 1:51 1 23 3064 1304 0.2 /usr/bin/asmon -u
4189 ? SNs 0:24 4 249 3070 1412 0.2 /usr/bin/wmCalClock -24
4190 ? SNs 0:00 2 92 4667 1820 0.3 /usr/bin/wmbiff
4191 ? SNs 0:32 1 24 3263 1368 0.2 /usr/bin/wmtime
4206 ? Ss 0:00 0 663 1904 1092 0.2 /bin/sh ./firefox-3.6/firefox
4211 ? S 0:00 0 663 1944 1144 0.2 /bin/sh ./firefox-3.6/firefox-bin
4215 ? Sl 9:54 478 41 235850 79552 15.4 ./firefox-3.6/firefox-bin
6846 ? Ss 0:00 2 93 3418 1760 0.3 /usr/bin/rxvt-xterm
6847 pts/0 Ss 0:00 0 663 3956 3092 0.5 bash
6863 pts/0 R+ 0:00 0 71 2136 716 0.1 ps avx
How much physical ram is my desktop actually using?
Would Firefox be included in that?
Thanks
92 • respins (by forlin on 2010-12-17 03:11:18 GMT from Portugal)
I very much agree with meanpt @ 85. Everyone who creates a new distro has a specific reasoning for doing it, and discloses it to the potential users. I guess that Ladislav evaluates that reasoning, how the implementation was done, quality level, general public support (site, forum, wikis, etc) and makes a decision. Based on merit and not on what people think about existing too many or too few distros based on any other one.
Last month appeared in the DW waiting list a new distro based on Ubuntu. Those who feel there's too many "buntus" may have complained ... "one more bunu". The reality is that although based on Ubuntu, it has the new E17. It was created because the owner likes Enlightenment and noticed that very few or none updated E17 Distro implementations, with daily updates of the E17 development, existed at that time.
I'm talking about Bodhi. I'm following its development and noticed lots of improvements, both on user's support and the distro itself. Yesterday a new release was issued with many bug fixes and improvements based on users feed back. Going that way, It's normal that Ladislav will soon decide to include it in the current DW database. For me it would be a good new E17 Distro, and not "yet another buntu".
93 • Re: #69 - Ubuntu respins (by Anon on 2010-12-17 03:33:50 GMT from Norway)
fernbap wrote:
"You also have a lot of information available, on forums where ignorant newbies are not insulted and have their questions answered."
Very true, and certainly a big factor in Ubuntu's popularity. I am sure the Ubuntu fora have come to the rescue of many users of other GNU/Linux flavours as well.
94 • Re: #90. Thanks Tony Brijeski for developping Remastersys (by Teobromina on 2010-12-17 10:15:22 GMT from Spain)
Tony Brijeski,I am very glad to meet you.
First of all many thans for issuing a new Remastersys version specifically for Debian Squeeze, which has been a matter of discussion in this edition of DW-weekly.
I am using Remasersys to fix my preferred installation and applications of Ubuntu and derivartives, like Mint. Since I knew Remastersys I abandoned Partimage as a tool for recovering OS, because to make a new installation from an ISO produced by Remastersys is faster than to recover an old one by Partimage and serves for all computers, not only for the specific one as in the case of Partimage. Another good reason is that the files generated for the ISO can be used to boot the live OS from an USB flash disc, thus avoiding to burn a CD.
If Mint is moving to be based on Debian, a new version of Remastersys, solving the problems found before, seems very appropriate. I am going to test this new version ASAP.
You mentioned support for present Grub and filesystems as improvements in this new version, but, what about some other problems detected in the 2.0.19-1 version? (see my post #65).
95 • SLAX (by Stan Brown on 2010-12-17 12:47:19 GMT from Trinidad and Tobago)
SLAX has the added feature, which you may have overlooked, of providing a PXE server. This allows you to boot SLAX off one machine in a network, and by configuring other machines to boot off their network cards, bring up the other machines booting off the original copy of SLAX.
In effect, this means that single copy of SLAX can be used to create an entire lab of SLAX workstations without any more effort than reconfiguring the BIOS of the workstations to boot off the network cards.
Since SLAX is almost infinitely configurable, any Linux program can be installed on the original copy and provided to all the machines in the lab.
If one is willing to pay the Terminal Server licenses, SLAX can also provide a lab full of machines which boot directly into a Windows training environment with a little tweaking of the boot command line.
96 • Re: #94 (by Tony Brijeski on 2010-12-17 13:22:41 GMT from Canada)
All of the issues should be gone. If you do find something with the new version, please feel free to either email me or post on my forum about it.
97 • Jolicloud's ToS (by MK on 2010-12-17 13:57:32 GMT from Israel)
Jolicloud is an interesting concept, but its ToS (Terms of Service) is simply unacceptable. Now, I don't imagine many have bothered reading it, too bad for you. That said, it's never too late, so here it is. http://www.jolicloud.com/tos
... and here is the juicy part ...
QUOTE
You hereby grant to Jolicloud a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to: (i) reproduce, modify and publish any Content that you use; and (ii) distribute and/or display through the Jolicloud Software any Content that You provide or make available using the Jolicloud Software for the sole purposes of making the Jolicloud Software available to You.
98 • @17 (by Archetype on 2010-12-17 15:13:56 GMT from United States)
I agree.
The installer of an OS is extremely important, and some are far more comprehensive and inclusive than others. However, things 'feeling snappy and rock solid' immediately following an OS installation is hardly more than lip service.
A real 2 week trial period WITHOUT useless screenshots, but including objective and relevant methodology and functionality judgement would be a welcome thing.
Too much of these reviews come down to 'overall I was very happy with Distro X'.
Not everything is hunky-dory with an OS platform that barely scrapes 1% of the desktop market.
How about some real, constructive and legitimate criticism that a dev won't read anyway?
99 • remixes and respins (by Fewt on 2010-12-17 15:44:31 GMT from United States)
It is a lot of work building a remix, I now have over 100 hours of my personal time invested into Fuduntu (http://www.fuduntu.org), I never expected to put this much effort into it (not that I am complaining, I have enjoyed building it).
There are a lot of reasons people could want to build a remix or respin rather than sticking with a mainline distribution. In the case of Fuduntu, I created the Fedora remix just to learn how to build a live CD and in the process apply all of the packages and tweaks that I use personally. Now that others are starting to using it, it is quickly becoming much more than my initial vision. I have a lot more respect for those that build remixes than i had just two months ago.
100 • @99 (by Patrick on 2010-12-17 17:11:32 GMT from United States)
I always have the impression that those who complain the most, criticize other people's work and call it crap, junk, whatever, are usually the ones who never create anything themselves. As you brought out, if you actually do make something, you learn how much work it is.
So I'd like to say to the chronic complainers: if you have something to whine about, then show us how it should be done. And to those who actually create things: you have my respect, and keep up the good work. Don't let whiny consumers discourage you.
101 • Jolicloud (by eamonnb on 2010-12-17 17:31:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
The Jolicloud Terms of Service do puzzle me. How can they claim rights to material which, for instance, I upload to a webservice or storage site. My relationship/contract is with that site...not the Operating System (Jolicloud) which I just happen to be using to upload material. If nothing is stored directly on a site that Jolicloud controls how can they hope to gain access to it and thus enforce usage rights. Maybe I'm missing something but it does seem strange.
102 • Remastersys (by fernbap on 2010-12-17 17:52:08 GMT from Portugal)
Thank you Tony Brijeski for developing Remastersys, it is indeed a fine tool that should be part of the general toolset of anyone dealing with Linux.
Perhaps your example will motivate other developers to create equivalent tools for other major distributions.
Respect.
"Not everything is hunky-dory with an OS platform that barely scrapes 1% of the desktop market."
For how much longer will we have to cope with posts spewing MS propaganda?
103 • The 1% B.S. again! (by Anonymous on 2010-12-17 18:24:06 GMT from United States)
Not everything is hunky-dory with an OS platform that barely scrapes 1% of the desktop market.
Which OS would that be? It certainly isn't Linux which has 8-10% of the desktop market. http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/09/debunking-the-1-myth.html Show me the OS where everything is hunky dory. It doesn't exist.
104 • @101 - Jolicloud (by eamonnb..) (by Nate Swift on 2010-12-17 20:22:00 GMT from United States)
----------------------------------------------------
"These are the terms of service (ToS) (the "Terms") associated with the use of this website (available at www.jolicloud.com – the "Site"),.."
---------------------------------------------------
According to the introductory line as quoted above, Jolicloud's Terms of Service has to do with its website, not it's OS..
105 • Re: #103 The 1% (by tdockery97 on 2010-12-17 22:15:28 GMT from United States)
Personally I believe that article is more accurate than most of the other BS that is spouted regarding Windows/Mac/Linux.
106 • 104 Jolicloud (by eamonnb on 2010-12-17 23:28:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yes...you are quite right. My bad.
107 • Re: #105 -- Re: #103 (by Jon Thomsen on 2010-12-18 00:02:47 GMT from United States)
That article, in my opinion, presents no proof that the actual percentage of Linux desktops is 8% to 10%.
It it speculation and/or guessing.
And .... those who proclaim it is1% or 2% or 4%. or any other percentage are merely guessing also.
108 • @107 (by fernbap on 2010-12-18 00:30:02 GMT from Portugal)
All i can say is that in all my websites, the number of Linux hits is larger than OSX hits.
Conclude whatever you want.
109 • Per cent (by Jesse on 2010-12-18 00:32:00 GMT from Canada)
I think the linked article is very optimistic about Linux adoption. The numbers regarding sales may be accurate, but it largely ignores the existing installations. Put another way, if 30% of new machines sold come with Linux and everyone replaces their old machine with a new one, then we could assume Linux usage is around 30% of the desktop. However, since not everyone goes out and buys a new machine every year, 30% of sales translates into a lower number of total installs.
Counting is further made difficult in the face of dual-boot machines and defining "the desktop" market. Does it include laptops, netbooks, smaller mobile devices? Or just on-the-desk, traditional desktop computers?
The best guesses I've seen for desktop Linux usage place the OS around 3-5%, based mostly on web browser stats over a range of websites. I think it varies a lot by region too. Where I live now there are virtually no Linux/BSD users. Probably in the range of 0.01% of the population. But drive out to the town near the college where they teach operating systems and that number obviously spikes.
110 • RE: 109 (by Landor on 2010-12-18 01:07:43 GMT from Canada)
I agree with your evaluation of geography. I'm in a fair size city and I honestly cannot imagine the numbers being at best at 3-5%.
I also think we have to factor in age groups. I personally believe (though I'm not going to go into detail about it) that specific age groups have a higher percentage of use in Linux as well.
Does the math really matter though? What's the true benefits of it. Some people say hardware, but I'll argue that even Apple isn't fully supported by every manufacturer for hardware, based on the support MS receives. Then we have to remember, will these manufacturers even want to open up their drivers/hardware. So, in the end, what does the percentage really mean, or matter? Also, to who? Only thing I see as a definite result of increased market share is taking away from another OS, and to me, why do they even matter to do that?
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
111 • Benefits of usage numbers (by Jesse on 2010-12-18 01:33:52 GMT from Canada)
I think usage numbers do matter quite a bit. You mentioned hardware support. Even if device makers do not open their drivers, many of them may create their own binary Linux drivers. That doesn't please libre purists, but it's "good enough" for much of the population. Market share matters there.
Games and niche applications are another. Commercial vendors are only interested in developing for Linux if they can expect to make sales. More users means more companies will be willing to take that chance. I ran into an example earlier today actually of a developer porting to Linux due to demand. They probably wouldn't have done that a few years ago.
And the more users we get the more contributors. Developers, artists, translators all come from the user base. That's not so much a matter of showing off the numbers making a difference as just needing that extra mass.
Website access is another. Here in Canada there was a stink a few years back regarding the government not allowing access to a website if the user was on an open source system. Enough people protested and gave usage stats that the policy was changed.
112 • RE: 111 (by Landor on 2010-12-18 04:59:18 GMT from Canada)
First, I should have made it clear, I was talking mainly about it being 10% or even 3-5%. Not say in the area of 50%+ or the like.
Good enough isn't ever good though. That's why it's called good enough, it isn't what the person really wanted, or needed. To the point of hardware though, as said, even Apple doesn't have full hardware support, so if we even had their percentage we couldn't expect full support either. Also though, what really is the sense of using an operating system that you're padding it with hardware that goes against the very core meaning of using such an operating system. Negates it, no? That's nothing to do with "Purists", it's to do with common sense. You don't buy a cake because you like sweets to then cover it in with some severely sour, or bitter topping.
What software category is that example in? Have a link for the project's site? Is it closed or open though?
The next part isn't completely accurate. To a degree it is, but really, I'll argue that if developers were going to have interest in contributing in an open source operating system, they would already be aware of said operating system and be doing so. This goes back to proof positive that a school that teaches about operating systems and such would have a higher percentage of Linux users. I'm quite sure most people in the developer world are already well aware of Linux.
I never heard of that before, about the website. I'm going to have to search it.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
113 • Stats and such (by Jesse on 2010-12-18 13:28:31 GMT from Canada)
I think we have different views on the term "good enough". I'm of a practical bent. I find myself more concerned with whether a device works than if all my drivers are open source. I'd prefer my drivers to be open source, but it's a secondary concern. My work often introduces me to new and strange devices and configurations where open source was often not a consideration in the purchase/design. Regarding web cam drivers, for instance, no driver is bad. In my view, a closed source driver is better. An open source driver is ideal. The higher the number of Linux users the more likely we are to see the latter two offerings.
If all goes well I hope to talk about the project porting to Linux in a later DWW feature. At the moment they're in the beta stage and I don't want to rock the boat until the software is ready for release.
In my previous post I wasn't saying perception of higher numbers would draw more contributors. I was saying simply having more users will leads to some of them becoming contributors. As you correctly pointed out, most people interested in developing already know about Linux.
The thing with the website was regarding census information and tax filing. There's a mailing list post about it here:
http://lug.kamloops.net/pipermail/lug_lug.kamloops.net/2006-May/006768.html
And a Linux.com article here:
http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/54167
Due to a lot of petitioning from Linux users and pointing at the numbers of Linuxers in Canada, the restrictions were quickly changed.
114 • #112 hardware support. (by willi-amp on 2010-12-18 14:14:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
In separate negotiations with two peripheral manufacturers, one Chinese, one Taiwanese, they both said that they would add Linux drivers to their discs if there was but one, or at most two, package systems to deal with. These comments were made during sales negotiations to which I was not party and passed to me in confidence so I cannot name names.
115 • @ 95, Slax as PXE Server (by Barnabyh on 2010-12-18 14:29:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi Stan, thanks for mentioning that and the interesting example. I knew Slax has the option to be used as PXE server, but so do a few others and most people will never use it in this more specialized scenario. Have to look into this more and try it out on my home network.
It's great to have a real world illustration of use as you described. Thanks for the comment and enjoy Slax.
116 • 114 Package System (by pfb on 2010-12-18 18:01:44 GMT from United States)
It should be a no-brainer. Yum, Urpmi, Zypper, and alian all handle RPMs quite well. Debs might be a close second for the number of PkgMgrs that are usable. This will handle most of Linux. It may seem unfair, but Alien, (at least in my limited experience) converts FROM rpm much better than it converts TO it. But then, wasn't Alien designed specifically for this?
117 • Package systems have nothing to do with it & percentages. (by jake on 2010-12-18 20:48:45 GMT from United States)
If the corporations would release tarballs, the packages would be built by the community. In all reality, after close to 40 years in the industry, I suspect that they don't want to release the driver source because their code is crap, and they would be embarrassed by it. Anyone who has worked in driver development for any large corporation knows what I am talking about.
Percentage doesn't matter. What matters is that FOSS is here to stay, by it's very nature. Large corporations, on the other hand, are ephemeral; see Enron for a particularly egregious example. Microsoft, Apple, IBM, HP et ali are eventually going to go away ... but we'll still have Linux & BSD. Don't believe me? Solaris has become SoLarry's, and will soon become a footnote in history.
Learn FOSS, learn the future. Learn $BigCo's newest "cloud" offering, and expect to have to re-train your entire staff on whatever they come up with two years from now. Again. Lather, rinse, repeat. During the meanwhile, the basic UNIX[tm] skill set I picked up 35 years ago will still be valid, despite the all-mod-cons desktop ...
118 • Drivers (by Jesse on 2010-12-18 21:35:32 GMT from Canada)
Jake, you're over-looking an obvious hurdle which is it's entirely possible the company shipping the driver disc does not have permission to release the source code of their drivers. They may have binary distribution rights, but not source distribution rights. A conflict that comes up a lot with drivers and hardware makers.
You say FOSS is here to stay and point to Solaris as an example of a dying OS. But Solaris is still around, its open source children (OpenIndiana etc) are too. Also keep in mind that the companies you listed (Microsoft, Apple, IBM) are all older than Linux and two of those are currently posting record profits. Probably not the best examples of a dying breed.
119 • #118 (by jake on 2010-12-18 22:05:06 GMT from United States)
The fact is that the chip/hardware manufacturers could easily remove the source restrictions if they wanted to. Means of distribution is misdirection.
My point wasn't that those companies were going to be gone tomorrow, but rather that they are not going to be around forever. FOSS will. Should I mention Honeywell, Burroughs, Amdahl and Sperry instead? "Being around longer than Linux" is also misdirection, as a couple of them are younger than un*x.
SoLarry's is a dead OS, to all intents and purposes. I personally know nobody in the industry who is specing it for new installs. Interest in the open versions will soon die, I suspect. Although it may surprise me ... OS/2 lives on as eComStation, after all :-)
120 • Drivers and such (by Jesse on 2010-12-18 23:41:24 GMT from Canada)
There's no misdirection regarding the chip makers. Quite often the final distributor isn't the same company writing the code to make it whir. There are licenses, DNAs and copyright control to consider. The big hardware makers can't just wake up in the morning and decide they're suddenly going to go open source. Fortunately some of them do make the choice to switch over, but it takes time and work up front. Lucky for us, once they do open things up, development becomes cheaper.
Jake, you make claims about FOSS living for ever and Solaris, MS, et al dying, but do you have any evidence to back it up, or are you spreading FUD? Or you do mean "They are not going to be around forever" in the same way the sun is eventually going to die, technically true but not relevant for our life times?
121 • #120 (by jake on 2010-12-19 02:08:30 GMT from United States)
Are you intentionally misreading what I'm trying to communicate?
No company will last forever. It's only a matter of time before it goes away. Take DEC, for another example. The VAX and PDP lines (along with VMS and TOPS-10/TOPS-20 and/or BSD ... probably the best OS+hardware lineup I ever worked on) were nearly ubiquitous for twenty years. Bad management drove 'em into the ground. I personally thought Fiorina would kill off what is left of HP when I heard they had hired her ... and she very nearly did. Eventually, companies die. It's the way things work. Not FUD, just observation.
On the other hand, the only way FOSS will go away is if all the nations of the world tried to ban it. And even then, it would live on in the computer underground ... How many disks with source are already out there? Or perhaps you can come up with a mechanism to make FOSS go away? Heat death of the Universe comes to mind (I suspect that FOSS will outlast the Sun, unless the human race manages to kill itself off and/or otherwise move on during the meanwhile, which is probable given geological time).
SoLarry's going away is just a guestimate on my part, based on what I'm hearing from my contacts in the trenches here in the Greater Bay Area + Sacramento, the LosAngeles/SanDiego area, and the Chicago-Boston-RTP triangle. As I said, I could be wrong ... And please note that I actually LIKE Solaris; I've been making money with it since it was called SunOS ... and I used Sun UNIX briefly before that.
122 • Source ... (by jake on 2010-12-19 02:27:59 GMT from United States)
I forgot to comment on driver source. Did you notice where I said "chip/hardware"? What did you think I meant by that? I know that there are many sources of hardware in any given product, along with microcode, firmware, and the various shims that make the whole kludge work. My point was that the various corporations in the chain *could* release the source, if they wanted. They choose not to (at least for the most part).
I, personally, think this is daft. They claim that source and/or programming interface details will give their competitors an edge ... but in all reality, their competitors are reverse engineering their products ... just like they are reverse engineering their competitors!
As a side-note, there is no such thing as software. So-called software is merely the current state of the hardware. Opening the source would have the effect of allowing the hardware to run more optimally, and thus sell more product. IMO, of course.
123 • @122 by Jake (by meanpt on 2010-12-19 10:17:25 GMT from Portugal)
:) "but in all reality, their competitors are reverse engineering their products ... just like they are reverse engineering their competitors!"
:) ... if they opened whatever you want to call it, they wouldn't have to hide their ... hum ... sort of not so ... hum ... or so strategic stuff ...
124 • ubuntu 10.10 memory leak? (by meanpt on 2010-12-19 10:33:57 GMT from Portugal)
... despite having googled the subject, anything found goes too far to be relevant. In short, by testing MadBox, based on the U10.10, during a heavy use of openshot, ram usage increased to 70 percent and stayed there even when all the used applications were shut down and the system would supposedly achieve an idling condition, and the cooler fan kept kicking all the time. I found references to this problem in older ubuntu initial development releases, but not on the final 10.10.
125 • E17 (by RobertD on 2010-12-19 15:22:27 GMT from United States)
Is anyone else excited about the imminent release of the first stable e17? I really wish the slacke17 project was still active. If anyone knows of a project that supports e17 on Slackware please let me know.
RobertD
126 • E17 (by LinuxFreak on 2010-12-19 19:26:31 GMT from Germany)
@RobertD
How about that? It's a SlackBuild for Slackware 13.1:
http://palembang-slackers.org/linuxupdate/pub/slackware/addon/slackbuilds/13.1/desktop/enlightenment/
Number of Comments: 126
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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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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