 DistroWatch Weekly |
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Re: Distros merging (by Randall on 2011-04-25 09:35:35 GMT from United States)
It's clear you haven't read about the Canterbury Distribution, a new distro forming from the merger of Debian, Gentoo, GRML, OpenSUSE, and Arch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Distribution
2 • Gnome 3 (by Ponting on 2011-04-25 11:16:05 GMT from United States)
Gnome 3 is not bad at all. It has few problems in Fedora such as large icons in the applications section and inability to reboot or shut down. In OpenSuse, it works quite well.
Gnome 3 is much more easy to work with than Gnome 2!
3 • GNU/Linux & BSD Logo Zoo (by DG on 2011-04-25 11:26:28 GMT from Netherlands)
The logo for Lunar Linux is actually a stylized Rockhopper Penguin
4 • Gnome 3 and Unity (by richard on 2011-04-25 11:46:06 GMT from United States)
This week I've tried Gnome 3 on Fedora 15 beta and OpenSuse 11.4 (one click install). Also downloaded the latest daily build of Ubuntu 'Unity' . It looks to me like Windows might be a better alternative. Everything has gone to crap. Huge icons in Gnome 3 no support for video cards, etc. Unity the same. Just plain lousy. Instead of improving on a good functional design (Gnome 2.32 with compiz, Docky) etc. they've decided to re-invent the wheel. The look and feel of both Gnome 3 and Unity is sparse, minimalistic in approach. Might be nice if I used them on my Asus Eeepc with it's 4" inch screen and 4-gig of ram. Enough said. I'm sorely dissappointed the looks and feel of both desktops.
5 • Good ... (by John on 2011-04-25 12:00:10 GMT from United States)
to see you back, Caitlyn.
6 • Re: One distro to rule them all. (by Felix Pleșoianu on 2011-04-25 12:03:08 GMT from Romania)
I guess we should also have a single brand of cars in the whole world? A single religion? A single political party? And back on topic, a single big software vendor?
...Oh wait, that last one is exactly the way it was before Linux came along.
If it's still unclear why diversity is vital to any ecosystem, here's a little reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity -- it applies just as well to any human activity.
7 • DistroWatch Weekly Review + Calculate Linux (by Landor on 2011-04-25 12:03:47 GMT from Canada)
Thank you for such a great review of Pardus, CM. I've always found the distribution to be extremely interesting and very well built. I haven't visited the latest release and actually intended to look at Pardus '2' Corporate and maybe even give it a review as well. I will for sure take a look at the mainstream release now though to see what has changed in it as well.
Again, Thank you for pointing it all out.
----
A side note, I reviewed Calculate Linux and published it today at my blog http://landorsplace.wordpress.com/
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
8 • Pardus review (by Dr.Saleem Khan on 2011-04-25 12:05:14 GMT from Pakistan)
I like this review Caitlyn Martin , it has given all the details I wanted to know about Pardus 2011 . In fact I used the RC version of 2011 for few weeks and liked it a lot . I have used Pardus since v 1.0 and it was one of the distro I always recommended to everyone as a desktop linux distribution. But ever since I moved to Arch Linux I dropped it .
Glad to see how Pardus has shined and got polished over years. This reminds me for requesting once again here at DW about a detailed review of Arch Linux . Would you do it for us Caitlyn Martin please?
Regards,
9 • One update to Pardus review (by Caitlyn Martin on 2011-04-25 12:09:06 GMT from United States)
There is now a fix available for the issue/annoyance of the little black box or lines on the top left corner of the screen with nVidia graphics chipsets. See: http://bugs.pardus.org.tr/show_bug.cgi?id=16210#c12
#5: Thanks, John!
10 • Re: Gnome 3 (by Felix Pleșoianu on 2011-04-25 12:10:24 GMT from Romania)
As I don't use Gnome, the changes leave me indifferent. But I couldn't help but notice a remark on identi.ca to the effect of, "Testing the Fedora 15 live cd. Where's the **** shutdown command? I want to return to my installed OS."
That alone is evidence that whoever is in charge of Gnome 3 *did not think this through*. Not everyone has a 6-cell battery. Not everyone uses laptops. Not everyone leaves their computer on overnight. And sometimes you really do want to shutdown your machine... e.g. for switching operating systems or, dunno, *work on the hardware*?
Seriously, how hard was it to consider these most basic of use cases?
11 • Gnome 3 (by Anonymous on 2011-04-25 12:17:34 GMT from United States)
I for one am glad that someone who does not know my hardware decided I was using a tablet and am too stupid to figure out how to configure anything.
12 • Gnome 3 (by Dilscoop on 2011-04-25 12:26:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Its pretty hard to believe that people whine about something that had not been given out yet. Ok, Gnome 3 is out, but not yet good in distros, such as Fedora.
True, it doesn't have the reboot or shutdown buttons, which the Opensuse 11.4 has. This is a Fedora fault, but don't forget Fedora is still in beta, so why whine?
Unity is tried quite good too, but there will be a lot, who'd whine, but they won't stop Linux going forward! Some whiners could be Windoz guys, who knows...
13 • Shutdown/reboot gnome 3 (by ltjmax on 2011-04-25 13:03:55 GMT from Canada)
Seems like nobody reads the announcements of new release projects. To shutdown Gnome 3, it's pretty simple. Just go on the user name tab on the top right corner of your screen, click on it and hold the "Alt" button of your keyboard... The magic takes form here and a "shutdown" button appear.
It takes only a few seconds to discover this. Sometimes, it's good to read the notices before complain about anything.
14 • OpenBSD (by Rudolf Steiner on 2011-04-25 13:05:19 GMT from United States)
It's nice to see the great OpenBSD project getting some love. This may be one of the greatest less known/used projects by the average Linux/Unix user. I have spent the last year and a half (OpenBSD4.6) getting to know this OS, and with its incredible man pages and straight forward configuration it's hard to beat in my opinion.
RS
15 • Kubuntu 11.04, not so debated :) (by Leo on 2011-04-25 13:10:27 GMT from United States)
I've been upgrading my computers/laptops/netbooks at home to Kubuntu 11.04 over the last couple weeks. Rock solid, KDE 4 is now pretty established (except for the unfortunately continuous experimentation in KDE-PIM, with things such as akonadi, nepomuk, etc).
16 • Humble Bundle last day! (by Leo on 2011-04-25 13:39:10 GMT from United States)
Hi,
For anyone interesting in pushing Linux gaming forward, the third edition of the Humble Bundle is about to expire. There is still one day to make a difference.
We (Linux users) have brought 25% of the revenue. We payed in average 3 times as much as Windows users. And More than twice as much as Apple users. We actually generated a lot more revenue than Mac users.
Anyways, I thought I should share. I bought the bundle for my kids, they mostly play the only non-violent game, Trine, which is awesome (but they will play splot when it is released).
Cheers!
17 • Ubuntu - Beta broken (by Jim on 2011-04-25 13:50:03 GMT from United States)
I am going to try the daily today, because I am affected by the bug in Beta 1&2 of partman crashing.
18 • Pardus review (by Neal on 2011-04-25 13:50:10 GMT from United States)
Caitlyn, Thank you for the very nice balanced review of Pardus.
Three months ago when I decided to try 2011 out I was completely new to KDE and Pardus as a whole......Its been a pleasure getting to know Pardus and KDE and this is coming from someone who was a Gnome fan.
Pardus is the real McCoy...and its been an easy transfer of knowledge for me as long as the user keeps an open mind.
19 • Humble Bundle (by Jesse on 2011-04-25 13:52:51 GMT from Canada)
I got the Humble Bundle and was very happy with it. The offering is a great way to encourage development on Linux and support organizations like the EFF and Child's Play. http://www.humblebundle.com/
@1: Thanks for the chuckle this Monday morning.
20 • Humble Bundle (by Eddie on 2011-04-25 14:53:52 GMT from United States)
This is my second one and you can't go wrong with the value. They play like a charm under Ubuntu and probably under any other Linux distro.
21 • Caitlyn's Pardus Review.. (by Mark Pace on 2011-04-25 14:58:31 GMT from United States)
Your Pardus 2011 review was as well done and informative as anything I've read in a long time Caitlyn. After your Pardus 2009 review I gave the distro a go and found it to be everything you suggested it would be. Had it not been saddled with KDE I might have stayed with it. But being a GNOME user who is partial to Linux Mint, I found no compelling reason to stay with Pardus even though much about it greatly appealed.
Once again your in depth review on this distro's latest offering prompts another look on my part. Hopefully KDE has matured enough to make this GNOME user a lot happier than before. Mint is still my OS of choice, and as long as they avoid the dumbed down GNOME 3 desktop and stay far away from UNITY I'll remain with them. Pardus does however seem worthy of another go on one of my machines judging from your report, so we'll see how it goes.
22 • Cooperation / Merging (by Fewt on 2011-04-25 15:01:34 GMT from United States)
I don't think that we all need to merge, because we often have differing goals. Merging would just cause problems that being separate entities allows us to live without.
By the way, at one time I would have disagreed with that opinion. ;)
The Fuduntu team is always open to collaboration, we just don't have time to go join the mailing list or forum of every other remix.
We choose to host our own infrastructure and support our own packages internally because we apply a lot of Fuduntu specific patches that could break other remixes (and even Fedora in some cases). As we are growing we are depending less on Fedora's packages and becoming an independent distribution. By Fuduntu 16, we hope to be a full fork. That's a goal probably not shared with the other remixes.
We do collaborate upstream, though we don't really talk about it much. I myself have sent (small) patches upstream to Peppermint OS, Broadcom, and a lot of other places too.
To answer the question of "Wouldn't they achieve more when they work on one distribution?", I would have to say no we would probably achieve less.
The Distrowatch response was pretty accurate, we bring non-free software into Fuduntu to improve the end user experience, something that the Fedora project has decided against. This makes us incompatible with our upstream provider.
Could we cooperate more? I think that's the wrong question to ask, most of us are just very busy. When others come to us for guidance, or with questions we always try to take the time to help.
23 • Fedora 15 running great on my laptop (by Mr Shutdown Button on 2011-04-25 15:31:50 GMT from Australia)
If you spend a bit of time and get to know Gnome 3 in fedora you'll discover that the shutdown button is in the top right hand corner at the login screen. Until the release of fedora 15 a few days ago, never used gnome 3. I thought Linux users were smarter than that. May be underneath you're all just whinny Windows users. I've installed all the required codecs etc, added some configure tools missing with the package manager. All my hardware works fine. Until this release never been a big fedora fan. For a beta its very good. OK before you comment and complain, try using fedora 15 for more than 5 minutes and get to know it a little better. My none geek wife is using gnome 3 it only took her 15 minutes to get use to gnome 3 over gnome 2.
If she can so can you!
24 • More Debian Squeeze slug bug fun (by imnotrich on 2011-04-25 15:52:05 GMT from Mexico)
Ok, time for another installment of Debian Squeeze slug bug (alternate title: how to release a distro before it's ready).
Suspend and Hibernate from the Shutdown menu - clicking on these buttons will put the computer to sleep, but then the computer refuses to wake up. You have to power cycle the machine and then run fsck to fix disk errors. BIG BUG!
Update manager - is now offering me more updates I don't want or need. I'm using real Java, but now update manager is offering me updates for the imitation java. If I install them, will it overwrite/destroy my real java installation and create headaches?
If you've been following my series of slug bugs and have fixes for any of the unresolved issues, please speak up!
I don't have time for any more Debian headaches. I just want my stuff to be operational so I can get some work done! Squeeze is by far much better than I had expected but it's still woefully incomplete and buggy, clearly released before it was ready.
25 • 10 • Re: Gnome 3 (by Flip23 on 2011-04-25 16:09:19 GMT from United States)
That in some ways tells me we have lost our way. In Linux I try to tell everyone learn at least some of the basic cmds for the terminal just in case!
To shutdown a Linux system in terminal type "halt" or "shutdown -h" to shut the system down to reboot type "shutdown -r" of course you have to be root su - or give the sudo cmd then enter your passwrd. On some systems you dont have to be root to shutdown or reboot but most you do if you do it in terminal.
Hope this helps someone.
26 • Pardus (by Gendarme on 2011-04-25 16:13:36 GMT from United States)
Pardus is the premier KDE distro for the "lockdown" distros. It lacks the freedom of Slackware - but they mostly all lack that. 2011 will improve in its refinement, as did 2009. I've been running 2009 since it was released and to get it to crash I suppose one could stick a screwdriver into the motherboard or something. It is rock solid stable. 2011 is quite stable and will improve. I simply changed the theme in 2011 to dispose of the sawteeth in the upper left corner. For those wanting to upgrade 2009.2 to 2011 _32 using the PAE kernel, 2011 dropped the PAE kernel. The upgrade package is being developed and perhaps they will include the PAE kernel. A PAE kernel is available in Kurumsal 2.
Anyone familiar with RHEL will likely have a shock if they install Kurumsal 2 (Corporate 2). Somewhat like a blind date, I think. The default init takes one into X, as PretendRoot. It can be avoided, but one has to "find it". Changing inittab in Pardus 2009.2 to S1 hangs the boot process, so changing the inittab and associated configuration needs be researched thoroughly before an attempt is made to change the default init.
Quite a difference from the polish of RHEL, especially since Konquerer is the file manager (browser if you want). FF 3.6.13 is included - 3 security updates out of the running. That is easily remedied by standalone FF, which I always have done for 2009.
Doubtless, having Turkish would greatly improve the experience. But, the notable Pardus exception is that it is apparent that the developers are user proactive and considerate of users. I personally think they have done a remarkable job since the inception of the project. Pardus is not a clone, although certain proponents might look somewhat familiar to something from another distro.
Pardus is becoming "popular" as one can note the increasing number of posts on the Worldforum. There are a number of seasoned technical posters there, including Caitlyn and particularly Atolboo, who is indefatigable in his assistance efforts.
GRUB "legacy" is default throughout the Pardus variants.
Caitlyn did a good job - as usual.
27 • GNOME 3 and Merging (by mythus on 2011-04-25 16:35:41 GMT from United States)
Greetings,
I have been using GNOME 3 on my arch linux install on both my desktop and my laptop, with no real issues. I had installed it to give it a fair shake, but had greatly anticipated hating it. Why? I'm a control freak. I like having options and being able to set up my desktop however I see fit.
For the reason above, my favorite environments have been KDE 3 & 4, pekWM (fully set up with different tools), JWM, and e17. GNOME 2 was alright sure, but not on my top list.
However I have found myself prefering GNOME 3 to the others lately. It has been running remarkably stable, and while not as configurable as the others, including GNOME 2, there is still a fair amount of hidden flexibility. For example, there are GNOME extensions, GNOME shell themes, and though there aren't many GTK3 themes yet, it seems to take GTK2 themes decently well. The dash is more user friendly IMO than the dash in Unity, and the amount of hot keys and short cuts actually improves my productivity. A systray remains delightfully hidden, but easy to summon when desired, and notifications are tied in real well.
For tweaking needs there is the GNOME tweak tool and the more comprehensive dconf editor tool. It is also wonderful that the system uses more CSS for theme adjustment which is great for me. I have no problem using alt key to find the power off option but do note they may change that to include poweroff by default in future releases. I also note that there will be more options for the top panel in future releases. What I enjoy the most is the application-based alt-tabbing and how natural using multiple workspaces feel now. In the past I've always tried to find good uses for multiple workspaces but failed. Now though I am using them all the time. Oh yeah, those who hate the missing min and max buttons, just re-enable them in the GNOME Tweak tool and *poof* you have them again. I did that, but really, I haven't been using them. You can do the same with pulling down the window or whatnot.
I just wanted to state these things because I have been seeing alot of people complaining about a lack of these options, when things like poweroff, themeing, and the min/max buttons do exist. GNOME 3 is a brand new approach to computing. Being that, there are going to be people it will not please. Just like when KDE4 attempted its revolution, but became so embattled by a disconcerting public that they ended up bringing back many of the old mainstays of desktop computing that I've been using since Windows 3.0. I do hope that GNOME dev's will continue to perfect this new way of computing and not fall back onto the old desktop, panel, start menu motif that has only held back desktop innovation for the past 20+ years. There are likely many who will disagree with me but guess what, this is linux, and you have the choice to use something else that fits you more, or use fall-back mode, or not update. Change is hard, but change is necessary.
About merging, I say no. There is no such thing as a one shoe its all. If you want a lack of choice, there is windows and Mac. I though like choice, and I'd hate to have to use debian and apt-get when I prefer pacman and code-simple configuration just as I'd hate to force those who prefer apt-get and the like to use pacman and have to edit text files. What one person likes, another is sure to hate after all.
28 • Merging Distros (by Jay Lozier on 2011-04-25 16:43:25 GMT from United States)
As relatively new Linux user, the number of different distros does seem overwhelming. But what allows is one to find a distro that best fits. No OS is perfect and not every OS is a good fit for a specific user. I have my preferences that met very well by two distros, other excellent distros I tried did not fit my situation as well. I view as on of the great, hidden strengths of the Linux, more options to fit various needs and niches. Does this diversity slow the adoption of Linux, probably. But what other OS has this diversity, none.
Should there more cross and upstream developer conversations, probably. Should distros be merged for the sake of merging, I say no. Each distro, even the least of them, fits the needs of some niche very well. If distros merge, it should because the distros find their goals and philosophies match and it to them it makes sense to merge.
I refrain from mentioning any distros because I value them all even if do not like them or use them.
29 • Pardus review (by Antony on 2011-04-25 16:49:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
Very well put together review Caitlyn, thanks for the read.
30 • Pardus review (by Ozan Caglayan on 2011-04-25 17:19:18 GMT from Turkey)
Caitlyn, thanks for this wonderfully detailed description. I hope that the black squares problem will soon be fixed in the stable repositories as we've found the solution.
The remarks about the /etc/hosts file are completely new to me, I'll investigate as soon as possible.
And I hope that we'll be adding back XFS for 2011.1.
Thanks again!
31 • Shutting down a Gnome 3 desktop. (by Felix Pleșoianu on 2011-04-25 18:11:23 GMT from Romania)
Yes, I know you can do it from the command line. And I suspected you can still do it from GDM. But you see, that's missing the point. Why have an advanced desktop environment if you have to perform basic tasks manually? Might as well stick with Fluxbox. Which is exactly what I'm doing.
Funny how catering to beginners too much has the opposite effect...
32 • Re #31 (by mythus on 2011-04-25 18:27:44 GMT from United States)
Have you missed the several comments addressing this? If so, I shall repeat for you.
Hold the Alt key while clicking your name in the top panel. That changes the Suspend to Power Off.
There also exist a GNOME extension that puts power off in that menu by default, and it looks like it is slated to be in there by default in the next update or so.
33 • Merging Distros & Gnome 3 (by dragonmouth on 2011-04-25 18:29:52 GMT from United States)
@Jesse: It's all about egos. Developers and community groups are willing to cooperate with others, as long it is on THEIR terms. Looks like everybody is adhering to "Let's compromise, do it MY way"
@Felix Pleșoianu: No, we should not have one brand of car. But we also should not have each brand of car using an electrical system of different voltage or each brand of car using a different kind of fuel. Some standardization is necessary. What is wrong with all distros using the same installer and the same package manager? I can see being original in the purpose of the distro or in the package mix. But what is the purpose of "originality' in an installer or a package manager? How many different ways do we need of installing software?
@ltjmax: "To shutdown Gnome 3, it's pretty simple. Just go on the user name tab on the top right corner of your screen, click on it and hold the "Alt" button of your keyboard... "
You forgot the steps where one has to throw salt over one's left shoulder while pirouetting to the right, and click one's heels while reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards.
34 • PCLinuxOS 2011.04 Full Monte Available (by Rot10Crotch on 2011-04-25 18:57:07 GMT from Canada)
Don't know why you are avoiding this or if you just have not seen this - but PCLinuxOS 2011.04 Full Monty DVD Available - it was released last week
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,73118.msg599294.html#msg599294
35 • Poor design (by Jesse on 2011-04-25 18:58:18 GMT from Canada)
>> "Hold the Alt key while clicking your name in the top panel. That changes the Suspend to Power Off."
That's not at all a sane solution. Virtually every desktop made in the past twenty-five years has had a more obvious and straight forward approach to shutting down the system. The major selling point of Gnome is supposed to be that it's simple and easy for people to pick up and use. Hiding the shutdown option so people have to click their user and hold down ALT is terrible design.
>> "But what is the purpose of "originality' in an installer or a package manager? How many different ways do we need of installing software?"
You answered that question earlier in your post. We just need one, the one _I_ want. Try to select one installer to standardize on and you'll find hundreds of people lining up to tell you why it's the wrong choice.
36 • Every distribution with the same package manager. (by Anonimous Coward on 2011-04-25 19:11:44 GMT from Spain)
dragonmouth wrote:
--------------
"What is wrong with all distros using the same installer and the same package manager?"
--------------
I would have no problem if every distro used the installer Debian uses. I would have no problem if every distro used the package manager Debian uses. However, many people wouldn't like as much as I do. Slackers like Slackware because its package manager doesn't resolve dependencies as many other package managers do. Tell them now to use a standarized package manager! They will tell you that you are killing one of Slackware's advantages. The same goes for most Linux users.
Many installers are easy to use, but advanced users won't like them because they are not powerful enough. Other installers are incredibly flexible, but would be a Nightmare for the casual domestic user. If you standarize the installer, you will have to choose between the easy one and the hard one. Half the users would hunt for your head, no matter which one you chose.
I think many distributions have no good reason to exist. Lots of them are just flavors of a previous one, with some additional configuration or half a dozen diferent packages, but they do not differ with their parets enough to worth the effort of mantaining them. However, if somebody likes one of them, I am not going to tell him to use other one just because it is not similar to what I use.
Fragmentation is one of GNU/Linux's main stregths. If there only was Ubuntu, I would use FreeBSD. If there was only Gentoo, many newbies would stop using GNU/Linux. We have the fortune to have lots of distros to choose the one we like most, so there is a place in here for everyone.
This development model works more or less well. Is it perfec? No, it haves some huge problems. Anyway, I think that advantages compensate the disadvantages.
37 • Fedora 15 beta: Gnome 3 (by zykoda on 2011-04-25 19:29:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
Gnome 3 may be OK for a tablet, but broken by design for multitasking. Fortunately there are other choices: KDE, XFCE, LXDE..... Anyway Gnome was just a stop gap which has unfortunately developed at quadrature to my needs into version 3 whilst KDE matured somewhat.
38 • Merging - a developer's perspective (by Luke on 2011-04-25 20:50:46 GMT from United States)
I've said this on multiple occasions:
Whenever you hear anybody talk about merging distros, that person is obviously not a developer. Development just doesn't work that way.
Say it takes one great developer 30 hours to complete a task. How long will it take two great developers? I'll tell you: somewhere between 30 and 60 hours.
Cooperation already takes place between distributions pretty much as much as possible. If one distro comes up with a universally great piece of software, then the others will adopt it. Or they will develop their own in an attempt to make something better. This is where having different goals comes in.
39 • Kubuntu 11.04 (by David on 2011-04-25 23:53:36 GMT from Germany)
@Leo: Yes, you are right, nobody is speaking about this really good Kubuntu release, the first time I feel they made it right. I was surprised and shocked how good Kubuntu is now and that even with the Beta 2, its now my new distro of choice.
I would like to see a new review about Kubuntu when its out.
40 • Merging (by dragonmouth on 2011-04-25 22:07:53 GMT from United States)
@Developer Luke:
"Development just doesn't work that way." - I admit I have not "developed" software for Linux. However, I have spent some years developing other software. What you say is pure horse puckey. Development DOES work that way, IF you want it to.
"Cooperation already takes place between distributions pretty much as much as possible" - which isn't much. There may be cooperation between Ubuntu and Mint developers, or between AntiX and Mepis developers, but between Slackware and Debian or Ubuntu and Mandriva, fuhgedaboudit. There are too many big egos involved.
"If one distro comes up with a universally great piece of software, then the others will adopt it" - Oh really? Just like sidux developers adopted smxi? Is that why each distro has its own installer and package manager?
41 • Gnome 3 Terminal! (by Anonymous on 2011-04-25 22:44:29 GMT from Canada)
It took me about 10 minutes of groping around to find the terminal. I finally found it using the search, then whenever I try to use the mouse near the bottom right corner of the screen a bloody abortion-button keep flashing like a Macintosh trashcan and getting in the way...
42 • openSuse 11.4 (by Anonymous on 2011-04-25 22:50:04 GMT from Canada)
openSuse 11.4 refuses to run on any of my 5 machines, regardless of whether I use KDE or Gnome, or ATI or NVIDIA graphic cards. It used to be one of my favorite distros but perhaps something has really gone bad since the takeover. Sad...
43 • Gnome 3 (by David Smith on 2011-04-25 23:56:56 GMT from Canada)
I see Gnome 3 and Unity as exciting new directions that started with KDE4. Lest we forget, KDE 4, now a fairly mature desktop, got off to a rocky beginning, with lots of grousing that was maybe justified at the time, but has since been left in the dust. I like KDE 4, but I don't want to use it for my daily production work, because many of its features seem gratuitous and just get in my way, or consume far more more resources than they're worth. I expect Gnome 3 and perhaps Unity will be like this too. That's fine, it's important to try out new things and see what works, and what doesn't. A lot of impressive design and engineering work goes into it, but not all of it sticks. It's great to see and try out. Surely the Gnome 2 paradigm is at its end of life? I t sure will be intersting to see how it all shakes out. For those who hate change, don't change -- it's your choice.
44 • @15 AND 39 (by KevinC on 2011-04-26 00:22:24 GMT from United States)
I agree. Have posted about the Kubuntu natty beta in past 2 weeks' comments sections w/ no response or any love for this release (until now that is). I am pleasantly surprised---having never had much luck w/ Kubuntu or Mint KDE in the past. Keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it's been stable and everything is "just working." W/ the advent (& radical design changes) coming forth w/ Unity and Gnome 3, KDE 4 is looking more and more to be poised to be "THE" DE of choice.
45 • @44 (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2011-04-26 01:51:48 GMT from United States)
Agreed. With the radical changes coming for both GNOME shell and Unity on Ubuntu, KDE4 will get more looks, and this bodes well for Kubuntu. Plus, Canonical's support for Qt for Unity 2D will hopefully improve Qt4 and by extension KDE SC.
46 • @13 (by win2linconvert on 2011-04-26 02:00:41 GMT from United States)
Sound pretty simple but it requires two hands, one to click on the name tab and one to press the alt key, where as in Gnome 2.x I can shut down with one hand and two mouse clicks. They both sound easy enough but which one is more convenient? I say only needing one hand is way more convenient. Especially if that's all you've got.
47 • Re #42 OpenSuse 11.4 KDE (by Sly on 2011-04-26 02:33:18 GMT from United States)
I've had just the opposite experience with OpenSuse 1 1.4 KDE. Everything worked after installation, codecs were just a click away, and it"s faster than 11.3. I have a Nvidia graphics card installed. It's installed on an older Sony machine with only 500mb of ram. I love the 11.3 default wallpaper and carried it forth to 11.4.
48 • @40 (dragonmouth) (by Michael_S on 2011-04-26 02:47:18 GMT from Australia)
"I admit I have not "developed" software for Linux. However, I have spent some years developing other software. What you say is pure horse puckey. Development DOES work that way, IF you want it to."
=> Have you spent years developing software under the open source model? If not, who's the one really speaking from a "horse puckey" perspective?
Developing under open source community model is much different to developing software with a team of paid people under a commercial setting. The dynamics, politics, thinking, etc are all different. As such, a different approach is required. Leadership and clarity of goals/intention is more important when you're organising a group of volunteers to point in the same general direction.
This is from someone who's seen both sides of the coin in the last 10 years.
49 • Gnome 3 vs. KDE 4 (by Felix Pleșoianu on 2011-04-26 04:36:10 GMT from Romania)
@David Smith: I commented on this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. When KDE4 first came out, the devs apologized and said, essentially, "this is alpha quality; we know it's broken and missing features; please be patient while we fix everything". And they did! The Gnome 3 devs, on the other hand, are essentially saying, "you're all stupid; this is the new way and you're going to like it". You draw the conclusions.
50 • Gnome3 and Unity -- WHY? (by RollMeAway on 2011-04-26 04:50:20 GMT from United States)
It appears, maybe, the reason for these "new" desktops is the proliferation of tiny screens on nettops and tablets.
Most all of the common desktops (kde3/4, gnome2, xfce, e17 etc) are configurable. That is the taskbar(s) can be located top, bottom, LEFT, or right. Their widths can be adjusted. The size of the icons can be changed (to accommodate fat fingers on a touch screen).
Most all have keyboard shortcuts to jump between work spaces, etc, on and on....
So why aren't they being modified, instead of trying to re-invent yet another wheel?
51 • Gnome 3 @ Felix (by Petr on 2011-04-26 04:52:24 GMT from United States)
I don't think Gnome 3 devs are telling you that you are stupid, but they are saying that they will go forward whether you like that or not. Quite naturally, many would love to see GNU/Linux stagnate, but that won't be.
There is Gnome 3 and Unity, and also other DMs and WMs going forward. If anyone doesn't like GNU/Linux moving forward, he/she can go back to Windoz
52 • Gnome 3, or "the future is that way" and bad distros generally! (by Mark on 2011-04-26 07:09:52 GMT from United States)
To All,
I love the politicking and position-taking. I also love the classic "they will go forward whether you like that or not" (#51). But how many organizations of every type have tried exactly that...and run into the brick wall of reality. There is such a thing as ignoring the customer. I haven't had time to try Gnome 3, but it appears to have its challenges.
However, so did the lesser-used environments...
Having tried more distros and desktops than some of you have had hot dinners (thanks, Monty Python!), I am still totally perplexed at how many distros are the functional equivalent of DOS 5.0! If you expect average users to use the command line in 2011, I submit you are loopy! Wishing doesn't make it so, and many users like myself will not waste time recompiling kernels, typing archaic commands, or trying to figure out how to run an application that someone decided didn't need to show up with an icon, or even in a pull down menu. NO! BAD DISTRO!!
And another thing....BLOAT!! A basic distro should not require more bandwidth to download than the entire U.S. space program from it's inception through the Apollo 11 moon landing. How many video players/word processors/text editors/photo editors/web browsers need to be downloaded for a functional system? 1.2Gb?? NO!! BAD DISTRO!!
You're a hobbyist? Great! You're testing out your new programming skills? Wonderful! You're forking off because you really think there's a better way to do it? Fabulous! I wish all of you great success and fulfillment! But...you will never beat windows by making it hard for the real-world average user!
53 • So you bought Windows ? (by Noone on 2011-04-26 07:43:54 GMT from France)
@53: you didn't want to download any 1,2 GB bloated Linux distribution so you ended buying a Windows 4GB DVD with the non bloated all mighty notepad included ?
54 • The functional equivalent of DOS 5.0? (by megadriver on 2011-04-26 08:29:46 GMT from Spain)
I have an old adage for you: "Don't judge a book by its cover".
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html
Also, less GUI stuff = less BLOAT!!
55 • Gnome3 (by Gnome on 2011-04-26 10:07:16 GMT from Italy)
Haven't tried GNOME3 but I love the GNOME 2.30.2 that I am using now and see no reason, for my needs, why I should change it. This is not to say that GNOME3 might be bad. I believe the developers have thought about it well before making the changes, and it must be a good product. But I still need my old gnome and will stick to it as long as it's possible.
56 • Bloat (by Rulodf Steiner on 2011-04-26 10:21:42 GMT from United States)
I'm not really sure how one defines bloat but I personally define it as "more than I need". As an example I use mutt as my email client instead of Thunderbird. Mutt does one thing and does it very well unlike Thunderbird that does many things OK. I also use mp3blaster as my media player. Once again it does one thing very well.
Bloat is both subjective and personal but as a general rule of thumb I agree with #54 "less GUI stuff = less BLOAT" in most cases but not all.
RS
57 • OpenSUSE 11.4 Live (by Jozsef on 2011-04-26 10:24:38 GMT from United Arab Emirates)
I got kernel panic with OpenSuse 11.4 LiveCD KDE
Never touch the CD again :)
And didn't even think about trying out the Gnome version.
Best,
Jozsef
58 • On moving forward (by Felix Pleșoianu on 2011-04-26 10:29:55 GMT from Romania)
@Petr I never said Linux should stagnate. I loved the switch to KDE4. Even at the very beginning, one could see it was going to be good. Firefox, too, has improved with each new version (except for the memory usage...) and so did many other apps I use.
But! Moving forward can very well bring you over the edge of a cliff, and the first sign is that whoever leads is no longer listening to anyone else. When comment after comment were pointing out that hiding the RSS icon (by default) was a bad idea, the FF4 developers should have listened; instead, they argued. When comment after comment point out that hiding basic things such as minimize buttons (again, by default) is a bad idea, the Gnome3 developers should listen. Instead, they argue. Because their product is valuable in and of itself? Um, no. Only if people want it.
This isn't even an issue specific to open source. Again and again we see famous videogame creators arguing with their public when specific criticism is leveled at their latest title. Because the God Developer knows best and everyone else is an idiot? Way to reward the people who actually care enough to warn you of possible mistakes. Next time, we'll just shut up... and move on. That's all too easy to do.
59 • bloat and gui (by meanpt on 2011-04-26 10:59:19 GMT from Portugal)
Being a user and not a geek, I do support GUIs. Many things that comes with a distro can not be used because a GUI isn't included to deal with it. Moreover I do support light OSs, those that run fine within 250 to 500 MB of RAM. And I found that for my needs there are nice GUI distros that comply with both. Bodhi was a surprise, making a buntu working light and fast. Salix is great, Estrella Roja is great. The list doesn't stop here. Then, there are some minimalist distros, like tinycore, where one can work without fussing with cli. In the end, everything depends on what do you need and the hardware you're willing to get to support it. But 4 gigas dvds may not be the right thing for those who don't need corporate servers or an endless list of games. I don't.
60 • Merging (by dragonmouth on 2011-04-26 12:21:04 GMT from United States)
@Michael_S: The only difference between open source environment and paid-for software environment is that in the former everyone can go off on a personal ego trip while in the latter everyone better be a team player. Your statement is just a poor excuse for not cooperating. If the parties involved can keep their egos in check, cooperation is very possible.
61 • @52 (by Fewt on 2011-04-26 12:23:43 GMT from United States)
Well, we can have 1.2GB distros or we can drop the translation and documentation "bloat" and bring the distributions back down to the size of a CD. It isn't bloat that causes them to be this large, unfortunately. If it were you would find much smaller media.
62 • Fear of change (by Leo on 2011-04-26 12:45:51 GMT from United States)
Could everyone just relax a bit, please? Developers who volunteer their time will do whatever pleases them, not you, period (I’ve been there). They sure are nice people trying to help make this world sucks a bit less, but sitting on your hands and insulting them for not doing for you what _you_ need, in _their_ spare time … let’s see how that works out. Why do you _assume_ they are at your service? Talk about entitlement.
Companies building businesses around Open Source are a different story. While we were all busy bitching against KDE-4, Google did something similar (kernel + shell + apps/widgets) and took over the mobile market. I don’t believe Android built on top of our beloved - oh so nineties - Win95’esque good ol’ desktops. They kicked @ss. They started something new, something simple but pretty and easy to use. They made it easy to write apps.
Canonicalis trying a Google approach: make is simple, build on top of existing tools but own a simple, coherent interface. I can't see why everyone is so upset, I think it's the way to go. There is a large Free Software ecosystem, where each component serves its role.
Peace!
63 • Re: Fear of change (by Felix Pleșoianu on 2011-04-26 13:18:22 GMT from Romania)
I'm a developer, Leo. I write software both professionally and as a hobby. And while I've heard plenty of poorly considered (or even completely idiotic) feature requests from the future users of my software, I still listen to them as much as possible because I've also heard excellent advice that made my creations much better than they would have been otherwise. If you think a user making you a suggestion means they feel entitled... well, no offense, but enjoy the loneliness atop your pedestal.
64 • Mandriva 2011 Beta 2 (by Anonymous on 2011-04-26 13:59:49 GMT from Canada)
I tried this on a machine with Intel graphics and it had reverted to Software Rendering, and then put in an ATI 9600 card and the same thing, even after running drakconf! Mandriva used to always support graphics, even NVIDIA's proprietary. Now they cannot even install Mesa DRI modules! What's going on???
65 • Ladislav (by Landor on 2011-04-26 15:12:07 GMT from Canada)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
66 • Ubuntu B2 and others linux distros (by Marc on 2011-04-26 16:15:17 GMT from Canada)
Is it an incompatibility with my laptop that the sound stutters and
cpu stops after a few seconds ( like 30 secs). Then when i move
the mouse everything is back to normal. I want to get back to
linux but every distros i tried had this problem. Is it a pulseaudio
issue, when i googled this name came often.
67 • Gnome3 & Unity -- Why? (by RollMeAway on 2011-04-26 16:47:26 GMT from United States)
Why should a 3D graphics card be required to access 2D applications?
68 • RE:67, AFAIK It doesn't. (by Eddie on 2011-04-26 17:40:24 GMT from United States)
Well let me restate that. Unity doesn't. Unity has a 2D optional install for 2D systems. I have no idea about Gnome3. I've never used Gnome3, but I believe that Unity is a good thing. I will be sticking with the standard Gnome2 and KDE4 but progress is always good.
69 • That Mutt Dragonmouth (by Sean on 2011-04-26 18:23:53 GMT from Canada)
@Dragonmouth, are you trolling? Or just weighing in with a strong opinion about something you patently know nothing about?
Reread 60. First off, there are more differences than the one you point out. But, if you can't see how the one difference you did point out wouldn't have a huge effect on the development environs, well, kind of calls into question your assertion that you are a developer...
As for your ridiculous assertions about subjects you patently know nothing about, how the hell do you expect one true package format, or one true installer when even corporate coding shops can't get one true coding standard?
But, at the end of the day, why don't you judge the results instead of your preconceived notions?
I can run IE on both linux and windows, as a result of wine, a FOSS project.
I can run Konqueror on both linux and windows, as a result of cygwin, another FOSS project.
FOSS may look like the least co-operative model in the business, but the novelty of both of the above wore off long before IE ran on the Mac, and don't get me started on Safari for windows...
70 • @Sean (by dragonmouth on 2011-04-26 20:48:25 GMT from United States)
You sure told me off!
Your post actually proves my point. If there can be cooperation on just some projects, there can be cooperation on many more projects.
71 • re 64 Mandriva (by the magician on 2011-04-26 20:53:03 GMT from Canada)
If you are trying betas, why don't you try Mageia beta 2? It has just been released today here http://mageia.org/en/downloads/
It seems to work fglrx + most ATI graphics cards. It installs the open source driver by default but you can install fglrx through MCC just like in Mandriva.
72 • LXDE, not Gnome 3 or Unity (by AliasMarlowe on 2011-04-26 20:55:40 GMT from Finland)
Well, I tried out Gnome 3 and Unity (Live CDs are good for tryouts), and was distinctly unenthused. Neither of them was actually as dreadful as I had feared, based on the many adverse opinions gleaned from the 'net, but they cannot be described as improvements over Gnome 2. So our least-powerful PC has now migrated to LXDE, and it looks like a keeper. When the LTS support term runs out on the other two PCs, we'll reconsider their upgrade path, but right now LXDE is ahead of Gnome 3 and Unity.
73 • Kxde, Xfce etc... Debian Stable... (by Caraibes on 2011-04-26 21:21:43 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I agree with comment #72... Right now, still on Gnome 2/LTS/10.04... But aiming for Debian Stable anywhere else, mostly Xfce... Sometimes LXDE on older hardware... Fluxbox too, for a 35megs footprint :)
This is what I have on my older laptop...
I believe it is fine to experiment but "old-school" users should stick to Debian Stable, you can't really go wrong...
74 • @73 (by fernbap on 2011-04-27 00:46:08 GMT from Portugal)
Mint XFCE was just released, a rolling release based on Debian testing. Perhaps you should try it...
75 • Humble Bundle (by DC on 2011-04-27 01:14:48 GMT from Canada)
Thanks to those who mentioned the Humble Bundle. I managed to order mine and they're downloading right now. I hadn't heard of this deal before and I love to support things like this - especially when it could encourage development of Linux software!
76 • #57 and #66 OpenSUSE boot, and possible pulseaudio issues (by gnomic on 2011-04-27 03:04:32 GMT from New Zealand)
57 said - my machine had a kernel panic when I tried to boot SUSE 11.4 - odd that, no problems here with 4 different machines with both Gnome and KDE4. Perhaps your box needs to see the doctor? No basis for writing off openSUSE on this evidence.
66 said - is my laptop incompatible with pulseaudio? Er, who could possibly know from the information in your post? This isn't really a venue for specific technical issues, try the forums of the distro(s) with which you are having problems . . . or I guess there are discussion groups for pulseaudio and/or Linux audio somewhere out there.
77 • GNOME 3 (by James on 2011-04-27 03:46:10 GMT from United States)
"Its pretty hard to believe that people whine about something that had not been given out yet."
It's not that hard, considering that the GNOME 3 team is headed by the fellow who brought us the unspeakably high-handedly and arrogantly designed gnome-screensaver.
78 • standard linux distribution (by JB on 2011-04-27 04:57:28 GMT from United States)
I see a lot of new distributions show up on distrowatch, and a lot of distributions that are doing well on the popularity list (see the distrowatch front page). Most of them are based on Ubuntu. Most of the rest (Debian and derivatives) are largely compatible with Ubuntu.
Either that or they have an advantage that somebody is furiously at work trying to make available in Ubuntu. (puppy was tiny and ran from compressed files. certain ubuntu fans were jealous. Later someone made puppy into an ubuntupuppy.)
Ubuntu fans like myself still get to be jealous of slackware and arch sometimes.
79 • @78, Standard Linux Distributions (by Stan on 2011-04-27 05:18:25 GMT from United States)
Really? Let's test that claim. Taking the top 25 distributions in the page hit rankings, we have:
5 based on Ubuntu (Ubuntu itself, Mint, Puppy [kinda], Ultimate, Lubuntu)
4 based on Fedora (Fedora itself, CentOS, Red Hat, Scientific)
3 based on Debian (Debian proper, MEPIS, CrunchBang)
3 based on Slackware (Slackware itself, Zenwalk, Vector)
2 based on Arch (Arch itself, Chakra)
2 based on Gentoo (Gentoo itself, Sabayon)
2 based on FreeBSD (FreeBSD itself, PC BSD)
3 others (OpenSUSE, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva)
So Debian and Ubuntu derivatives together have 8, or basically a third of the top 25, and that's being generous by counting Puppy, which only uses Ubuntu packages, not the rest of what makes Ubuntu what it is. RPM-based distributions (which albeit are not all compatible with each other) have 7, or pretty much another third. The remaining 10 are a very diverse bunch.
The Linux distribution ecosphere is (thank goodness!) much more diverse than what you make it out to be.
80 • @76 - SuSE (by Jozsef on 2011-04-27 08:05:20 GMT from United Arab Emirates)
Check the post #42 also. It's not mine. It's somebody from Canada. So I'm not the only one. And how do you explain that other LiveCDs and distros works fine on the same machine of mine?
81 • #79 (by zykoda on 2011-04-27 08:19:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
Snapshots and arbitrary classifications of "dubious data" leave nebulous conclusions. The linux timeline (of distros) is quite useful but has no "user density" information. One could perhaps see the Debian-Ubuntu-Mint line as pretty prominent at the moment especially as Mint(LMDE) claws deeper to its real root. So I see Debian as the common base, and it has climbed the HPD charts significantly near the Squeeze point. Development continues unabated at Debian, with distributions fit for all affairs, including forks. There is the Standard Linux Distribution (with HURD and BSD variants). And the number of architectures supported is unsurpassed.
82 • #80 the crashiness or not of openSUSE 11.4 (by gnomic on 2011-04-27 09:20:51 GMT from New Zealand)
I see your #42 and raise #47 in rebuttal ;-/
Obviously I can't even begin to guess why your machine doesn't like SUSE 11.4 (some exotic hardware perhaps?), but I just wasn't quite sure what useful information your post was meant to convey. I expect a machine can be found to bring just about any distro to its knees. Now if you had been able to show what the problem actually is and that it is a bug in SUSE, that might have been of interest. Did you try any boot options to try and determine the nature of the problem?
As to #42, I should have thought the chances of that were vanishingly small. Perhaps the cosmic rays were especially strong? I'd be wondering about the optical drive the CDs were burned on personally, if CDs were the media. Anonymous of Canada doesn't supply much information.
My experience with 11.4 was that it ran OK on laptops from 3 different makers and a generic desktop with both KDE and Gnome live CDs.
83 • About 72: LXDE, not Gnome 3 or Unity (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-04-27 10:08:13 GMT from Spain)
AliasMarlowe wrote:
---------------
Well, I tried out Gnome 3 and Unity (Live CDs are good for tryouts), and was distinctly unenthused. Neither of them was actually as dreadful as I had feared, based on the many adverse opinions gleaned from the 'net, but they cannot be described as improvements over Gnome 2. So our least-powerful PC has now migrated to LXDE, and it looks like a keeper. When the LTS support term runs out on the other two PCs, we'll reconsider their upgrade path, but right now LXDE is ahead of Gnome 3 and Unity.
----------------
My PC is powerful as a nuclear reactor, yet I use LXDE in it. Why? Because there is a noticable speed boost with it, the ony problem (for some, not for me) being the lack of LXDE apps.
I addmit LXDE may be not for everyone, but I think it rocks. It is modular, light, simple to configure (in the Slackware sense, which doesn't mean is newbie-friendly) and doesn't force so much dependencies as many other desktops. A nice option for the gtk crowd, or for the many people that is scaping from the two biggest desktop environments.
I did switch to it because gnome 2 was too bloated for me. What I have heared about gnome 3 is that it is even more bolated! I have to try and confirm it, but by the moment, I've got a loyal, fast and stable LXDE desktop.
84 • Q&A - All back into one bottle (by Pierre on 2011-04-27 11:26:18 GMT from Germany)
Well, the question why all the different project don't work together more closely seems to be logical at first glance.
But honestly: Diversity is one - if not THE - strength of open source in common and Linux in particular!
And it's part of the game, that many ideas and ideologies simply do not fit together. Therefore you'll have the possibility to search and even FIND a system that fit to your particular needs. And if there is no distro that fits completely? Take that one, that fits to the most and make it YOUR OWN!
It sounds so simple and you know what? It even is that simple!
And that's the beauty of open source and it's diversity. I can understand that it all might look chaotic and frustrating to face and to deal with all these different solutions to sometimes even the same problem. But this makes it possible to find that one, that makes it easier to you to do your work. Without the diversity everyone would be forced to solve and deal with problems the same way as everyone else, even if it's sure that A will not think and work like B.
This said only a few things are left to say:
thanks to this new DWW and keep on the good work, praise diversity and have fun doing your work the way YOU want it to do!
Greetz from Germany!
Pierre
85 • Gnome 3 and Unity Projects (by tdockery97 on 2011-04-27 12:26:23 GMT from United States)
While I don't plan to use either Gnome 3 or Ubuntu Unity in the foreseeable future, I don't hate them or think they should fade away and die. The developers are determined to serve a certain audience (aren't most developers?). That is great for the quickly growing crowd of tablet pc users. I have no doubt that there will be developers who seize the opportunity to continue developing the DE's for real desktop pc's. Linux has a great history of having something for everyone. Those of us who choose not to use Gnome 3 or Unity will still have alternate choices. Everyone lives happily ever after.
86 • Re: 75 Humble Bundle (by DC) (by Leo on 2011-04-27 13:27:30 GMT from United States)
I am glad you did! Phoronix is perhaps the best place to follow these news. And, yes, I agree, it is a catch 22. The more we support linux vendors, the more they'll build for linux, which will be bring more users, who in turn will support more vendors ... cheers!
87 • Why we use Linux (by megadriver on 2011-04-27 13:52:19 GMT from Spain)
I recently found this:
http://i.imgur.com/jqIcv.jpg
Man, it's scary! It feels like this guy read my mind and put my _exact_ thoughts about why I use Linux into that JPEG image!
88 • @79 you're right but... (by JB on 2011-04-27 14:40:22 GMT from United States)
a year ago i tried fedora in two different spins (lxde and gnome [standard fedora]) and they seemed basically identical to the corresponding spins of ubuntu. don't type apt-get, do type yum. that's just my bias though - they're not the same, its just that the differences don't concern ME.
If you look at the # of page hits per day (which i suspect is the best indication we can get of how many people are installing each distro this week) you'll see that debian/mint/ubuntu and derivatives get an incredible amount of attention - today the 6 month average says 7858 h-p-d for debian+ubuntu+derivatives in the top 25 list. Fedora + derivatives get 3063 h-p-d.
not sure if "most" linux users are using a debian-based distro, but i'm glad that most of the good ideas outside debian-land are being copied by a .deb distro somewhere.(and i think it's great when ideas in debian-land get copied by other distros). yay for compatibility.
89 • RE: 88 (by Landor on 2011-04-27 15:05:55 GMT from Canada)
I'll make a pretty bold statement that I believe is fairly accurate. Most of the highly skilled users, development users, and enterprise users are in fact using Fedora, RHEL, or a build of the latter, CentOS, Scientific Linux, White Box, etc.
I would count those users as far in excess of any home end user numbers.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
90 • Linux Distributions (by Stan on 2011-04-27 17:50:49 GMT from United States)
@88
You know what: I would agree with your first paragraph. I'm a cutting-edge kind of guy so I appreciate the more adventurous nature of Fedora in terms of its having more up-to-date packages, but otherwise, I like Kubuntu Natty just as much as Fedora 15 KDE. (Maverick and F14 are already passé to me. ;) ).
@88, 89
Now, let's not get into a pissing contest about which Linux gets more users. You're probably both right in that Ubuntu is the most popular home-user distro and RHEL and clones are the most popular enterprise distributions, but so what? And due to the lack of necessary monetary transactions and product activation, there is really no way of knowing whether home or enterprise *desktop* use of Linux is greater at this point. Server use is rather irrelevant when talking about Linux desktop adoption.
The important thing is that the choices exist and at least home users are fortunate enough to be able choose whichever distribution suits them best, as long as they're willing to research and/or experiment to find the right one for them. We are all winners when the distros compete and keep getting better.
91 • RE: 90 (by Landor on 2011-04-28 00:16:41 GMT from Canada)
I don't use Fedora, RHEL, or derivative, so I have no qualms about anything stating otherwise, or getting into a debate over it. I was just stating a reality that there's far more work use than there is for end users use. It's been that way since the start, and most likely will remain that way too. Which is the really good thing. It's that usage that truly drives development, nothing anything any home user really does. What the desktop gets is secondary.
Even companies like intel, it's not the home user that drives them to have their wireless drivers (and non-free firmware blobs) in the kernel, it's the enterprise, the work force. I don't think there's enough end users to justify their dedicating so many developers to creating drivers for this platform for their various pieces of hardware. That's pure speculation though, and I'd be willing to put money on that speculation too.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
92 • RE: #82 (by Anonymous on 2011-04-28 01:57:56 GMT from Canada)
Your "laptops from 3 different makers" is mere ancedotal information compared to a matrix of 5 machines spanning a decade * multiple desktops * multiple graphic cards * multiple installation mediums (CD's and DVD's, Live and Install). The problems range from drivers to memory. Every version of Suse since 9.1 runs on most configurations but this one is a FAIL. Perhaps they are now focusing on the kiwi laptop market...
93 • Slackware (by Anonymous on 2011-04-28 02:02:26 GMT from Canada)
Does Slackware still require one to manually partition one's hard disk? Last time I checked (12 point somthing) it still did...
94 • RE: 93 Slackware (by Mike on 2011-04-28 02:14:11 GMT from United States)
Yes, you need to partition your hard disk with either fdisk or cfdisk.
95 • Bayanihan 5.4 using KDE3 (by Andy Axnot on 2011-04-28 13:40:57 GMT from United States)
After I saw it announced here at Distrowatch I gave Bayanihan 5.4 a try. It's actually quite nice and another option for us diehard KDE3 fans. It was especially nice to use the real, and excellent, Konqueror file manager rather than the emasculated version in KDE4 or its wimpy sister, Dolphin.
It's a small distro from the Phillipines, it will never be a world beater, but it's a nice distro. Old school installer, be prepared.
Andy
96 • Slackware the oldest surviving Linux distro (by RobertD on 2011-04-28 14:16:14 GMT from United States)
And the best in my humble opinion.
RobertD
97 • Distribution releases (by JakeL on 2011-04-28 15:11:19 GMT from United States)
Isn't it a bit funny that Slackware and Chakra released their distributions today, knowing very well that Ubuntu would be out today?
98 • @97 (by Barnabyh on 2011-04-28 16:45:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
You mean they deliberately wanted to be overshadowed? Maybe they just don't care, but the release notes for Slackware say released 25/04. Tbh these notes were not up until today though.
99 • barking dogs' silence (by meanpt on 2011-04-28 18:14:54 GMT from Portugal)
... hmmm ... tried to downoad natty from the link posted in dw and had to give up as the download speed was really bad ... than used the link in the kubuntu post and it downloaded fast ... for such a hated distro, the "real" ubuntu seems to be shutting all the geeky dogs' barking :)
100 • RE: 99 (by Landor on 2011-04-28 18:26:30 GMT from Canada)
You probably would have pulled it down very fast via torrents. I've made it a personal rule to only use torrents when they're available. Even if the torrent is slow, or slower than downloading from a mirror.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
101 • Gnome 3 (by jackie on 2011-04-28 19:18:28 GMT from United States)
Gnome 3 is better than Unity and more flexible!
102 • @99, K/X/Ubuntu CD Mirrors (by Stan on 2011-04-28 21:45:37 GMT from United States)
Considering that all download links on Distrowatch point to http://releases.ubuntu.com/, your conclusions are obviously faulty...
BTW, for a list of all the Ubuntu CD image mirrors, see: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+cdmirrors
103 • @100 and @102 - on yesterday's download speeds of ubuntu (by meanpt on 2011-04-29 10:44:36 GMT from Portugal)
Landor, I used the dailybuild of april 27 - it was fast
Stan, you're wrong and I don't enjoy or have any objective or subjective reason to spread any imprecision about this subject. And I do state it again: while the download speed of the main ubuntu was on the 47 ks, the downloading speed of kubuntu reached the 1.7 Ms, the same I got when alternatively downloading the daily image of april27 of the main ubuntu.
104 • RE:Download speed. (by Eddie on 2011-04-29 11:32:44 GMT from United States)
I used the torrents (Ubuntu, Kubuntu) and they seemed to be very fast for me. It is my opinion that it's always best to use torrents when you can.
105 • @ 101 about Gnome 3 (by Lucky on 2011-04-29 13:30:19 GMT from Germany)
Yes, you are right! Gnome 3 is highly intuitive, but if you want to change Unity to Gnome 3, Unity will break, and maybe even Ubuntu 11.04.
Can't Ubuntu give us a Gnome 3 version?
106 • Kubuntu 11.04 (by tdockery97 on 2011-04-29 13:32:56 GMT from United States)
I've seen a lot of postings today on the Ubuntu Forums regarding problems installing/using Ubuntu 11.04, and not many re: Kubuntu. I'm trying out Kubuntu 11.04 now and it seems like the Kubuntu team has come up with a winner. It will make a great alternative for those wanting to move away from Unity.
107 • Ubuntu 11.04 @106 (by Ubuntu on 2011-04-29 14:57:04 GMT from Germany)
@106
No need to worry so much about Unity. Gnome 2 is still there. All you have to do is uninstall Unity, if you wantthat, and if you want install Gnome 3, which is better.
When you install 11.04, it gets stuck when it tries to install other software and upgrades, all you have to is, if the skip won't work, click off the Live Cd and reboot. You are in...
108 • #97 Timing of releases (by Caitlyn Martin on 2011-04-29 16:25:57 GMT from United States)
I suspect the developers of Slackware really don't care what Ubuntu is or is not doing on a given day. The two distros have almost entirely different target audiences and very different goals. Folks who are interested in Slackware probably aren't paying all that much attention to Ubuntu and vice versa.
109 • @103, On Download Speeds (by Stan on 2011-04-29 17:21:52 GMT from United States)
It frankly doesn't matter what your motives are or are not. You made a factually incorrect leap. You stated that you used the links on the Distrowatch homepage. It is a *fact* that they all point to http://releases.ubuntu.com/. The fact that it bounced you to a slower server for Ubuntu than Kubuntu says absolutely nothing about the popularity of one versus the other. It could have just have easily been the reverse, and would you have come to the opposite conclusion then?
110 • Pardus Review Update -- bug fixes (by Caitlyn Martin on 2011-04-29 17:54:53 GMT from United States)
Some recent updates to Pardus 2011 have fixed both serious issues I raised. The screen blanking issue on my netbook is fixed and the system recovers properly. The driver issue with the USB dongle is also fixed by an updated kernel.
For all the hoopla around Ubuntu, I feel this is where Pardus is clearly superior. Pardus fixes bugs within a release cycle, indeed, as quickly as possible. Ubuntu simply doesn't as a matter of policy. Working around breakage is never user friendly.
111 • Mageia Review? (by Stan on 2011-04-29 18:08:42 GMT from United States)
When Mageia 1 comes out in about a month, any plans to review it, Jesse or Catilyn? I think it's one of the most interesting distro forks lately, as Mandriva (née Mandrake) is one of the classics. I've been trying it out the last few days, and it seems pretty solid for a new distribution, though it's lacking quite as deep a repository as Mandriva as stability over features is their first goal I believe.
112 • RE: 103 - 104 (by Landor on 2011-04-29 18:48:10 GMT from Canada)
#103
A daily build? I would never use a daily build when a new release was out. I don't know about how they do it, but most daily builds are only automated. Just my opinion though. :)
#104
It's the right opinion to have. The more of a load each person can carry lightens it for others in this community. That's a benefit for everyone. Even downloading/seeding torrents is a huge help.
There's the chance that for some reason someone might not have access to the mirrors (maybe blocked) but torrents are open. Someone might be the only seed available for that person. I'm sure they'd be very thankful too.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
113 • Mageia (by Jesse on 2011-04-29 20:39:24 GMT from Canada)
>> "When Mageia 1 comes out in about a month, any plans to review it, Jesse or Catilyn?"
Yes, I plan to take a look at it. I'm curious to see what the team has put together.
114 • Mageia (by Stan on 2011-04-29 20:44:48 GMT from United States)
@113, Great; I look forward to your review!
115 • gNome 3.0 (All The Commotion!) (by Paul Long on 2011-04-30 02:33:23 GMT from United States)
I am a user of, both Windows and Linux. I have used many variants of the Linux desktop, all the way back to Red Hat v7.2. I had to comment on all of the fuss being made over the recent inclusion of Unity and the departure from the "usual" gnome desktop. Since I have always adhered to the position of "avoiding os bashing and complaining", I believe there is a very important point that needs to be stated in order to remind the Ubuntu faithful. That point is that the usual gnome desktop can be installed anytime. If 3.0 is not your cup of tea, get rid of it. Stick with your favorite and reinstall the desktop that makes you happy. I spent most of the day using 11.04, with the new and old. It works beautifully. Since I prefer the last versions of gnome and kde, I had them both working in relatively short order and thoroughly enjoyed the day! MY inexperienced relatives really went for the NEW 3.0 desktop and were instantly ready for their NEW Linux experience. I guess, the thoughts that prevail here is allow the inexperienced to enjoy the new way and the experienced will always continue with their "hearts content!"
Thanks for giving me your ear. Best Wishes To All!
sasdthoh
116 • My Take: Gnome3 & Unity (by RollMeAway on 2011-04-30 05:34:19 GMT from United States)
If you are an experienced "SmartPhone" user, it is likely your brain is preconditioned to feel comfortable with Gnome3 or Unity. Choosing your "Apps" with a finger tip pointing at a large icon will seem quite familiar.
Those of us without the "SmartPhone" preconditioning, are not likely to jump on the bandwagon this time around. I find it takes a couple of extra clicks to accomplish most ordinary tasks.
It is likely this is just one more step in the direction of a common interface for most all electronics gadgets. Guess it is time for me to get a new phone.
117 • user 'fido' comes to puppy (by gnomic on 2011-04-30 09:07:50 GMT from New Zealand)
Some may be interested in Barry Kauler's latest blog posting in which he says he is trialling a user account in Puppy. Early days for this concept so far. He also makes passing comment on the use of sudo in a certain popular distribution which has just had a release.
http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02240
118 • @109 - measuring the ubuntu release by the downloading speed (by meanpt on 2011-04-30 09:23:11 GMT from Portugal)
"It frankly doesn't matter what your motives are or are not"
:) It does. I'm quite neutral regarding the flavor in which Ubuntu was released and found surprising that after so bad comments on Unity the main Unity's equipped distro was the most difficult to download.
"You made a factually incorrect leap"
:) Yes, I did, I should have added that afterwards I did try to download the 32 bit release from the ubuntu site and got the same and exactly slower download speeds.
"The fact that it bounced you to a slower server for Ubuntu than Kubuntu says absolutely nothing about the popularity of one versus the other."
:) If you tried it for some hours either from the distrowatch link either from the ubuntu main page, while you downloaded kubuntu, installed it in a virtual machine and played with it, what would you conlude? The downloading demand for both were equal? And would you expect be bounced hour after hour, again and again, to a slow server? And why would that happen? Because the other server or servers weren't too busy?
"It could have just have easily been the reverse, and would you have come to the opposite conclusion then?"
:) I would expect that the popularity of kubuntu would be high, for the server or servers the links were pointing to, but wouldn't expect the main distro to be poorly served than the kubuntu respin.
119 • Updates (by pfb on 2011-04-30 11:44:22 GMT from United States)
I have been using Fedora for over 6 months. I really like it. But... Fedora updates are glacially slow. In particular the clean up part. Yesterday I updated 17 files and the process took 35 minutes.
And this is AFTER I implemented the recommendations from the Fedora Forum for removing the partial updating process that is known to be slow.
In contrast I updated 9 files on Mandriva this morning and it took less than 2 minutes!
Is urpmi better than yum? Do the folks at Fedora need to take a field trip to France? What is the difference?
120 • Ubuntu 11.04 (by zykoda on 2011-04-30 12:13:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
Beware the Gnome3/Unity hardware trap!
After upgrading Ubuntu through 9.04, 9.10, 10.04, 10.10 to 11.04, a tedious process with manual intervention to recover several times from lockouts (no keyboard and mouse to get a tty screen) I find that the machine will not run unity! and I am safely back at gnome classic, but it's jerky and slow; unuseable. Thank you Ubuntu! what a waste of time! I should have known better! Gnome 3 also does not run on the same machine. CLI works great. What is taking all the resources to point and click? Inefficient code/interpreters? Up to version 10.10 was fine.
121 • RE: #71 • re 64 Mandriva (by the magician (by Anonymous on 2011-04-30 13:47:16 GMT from Canada)
Well with the Intel card on my board the Mageia install gave: "Graphical interface - not configured", so I selected the "Intel 810 and later" it defaulted to, but after the install it booted to a text login, then after logging in it froze. So not being a totally unforgiving person, I dd'ed the boot record, stuck an ATI x800 in the machine and did a reinstall and got another "Graphical interface - not configured", so I selected the "Radeon X1950 and earlier" that it defaulted to, but after the install it booted to a text login, but it did not accept the user password, nor the root password. So not even having a console to to dd the boot record, I was not going to waste my time also trying an NVIDIA card, so you can take your distro with too many vowels in its name and CENSOR it...
122 • re #120 ubuntu 11.04 with added 'Unity' and the need for 3 dimensions??? (by gnomic on 2011-04-30 20:45:14 GMT from New Zealand)
Hmmm, well as it happens this very evening I am encountering Ubuntu with Unity for the first time and wondering whether I ought to be a first time user on a late model tablet of some sort to try this out (or a quadcore with 1G+ of videoram). It took me around 30 minutes to work out how to get to a terminal, perhaps not something first time user would be seeking. However I suppose you might say it is working in its own peculiar fashion on this Pentium M 2GHz machine w/1g RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon X300. I believe it all depends on the capabilities of the video card, What exactly the benefits of requiring 3d video capabilities in the user interface are is a question one would have to pose to the developers or whoever wrote the spec. So far I haven't seen a specific cutoff list of what video cards will work or not.
You might want to look at some other distros and/or desktop environments slash window managers which don't require this year's boxen. Er Crunchbang, Slitaz, Puppies, Salix, Austrumi, antiX, porteus, aptosid, and of course plain old Debian come to mind. Then there's refracta, if you can deal with a distro that's hardly even a distro.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/refracta/files/
123 • Fedora beta and Gnome 3 (by Fed on 2011-05-01 05:08:18 GMT from United States)
I waited for Ubuntu 11.04 Unity just to find out that I needed 3 tries to get it installed, and then found out that the Unity DE is not that user freindly as Fedora's Gnome 3. Fedora didn't come out with Gnome 3 as default, but it was included for those, who wanted to try it.
I found Gnome 3 much more user friendly than Gnome 2, even though Gnome 2 was much better than KDE. The main problem with KDE is its German-like words starting with "k", which was a headache!
Ubuntu's Unity was a dissapointment, considering Gnome 3. In Gnome 3 it was just one movement of the curser to your top left hand corner, but Unity was acting just like Wbar or Docky, but Wbar and Docky are much better. This can be seen by using Macbuntu!
124 • Unity is heading to what I'm looking (by meanpt on 2011-05-01 09:50:49 GMT from Portugal)
Got 11.04 installed in a USB cruzer pen, using a tablet (hp tm2). Unity came working out of the box, as well as the wireless. Refused the installation of the ATI and Broadcom drivers and working without a glitch. Only missing are the multitouch features and the left bottom clicking in the synaptics touchpad. Unity as it comes is damned simple, not a boogie man, the menu integration in the upper panel works in most of the applications but strangely, there are system tools GUIs that don't comply with this .... heckt ... . Thermal issues seems to be more controlled, but can still be an issue and needs to be watched. All in all, I believe 11.10 will provide the needed polishing this releases deserves.
125 • apple (by Dale on 2011-05-01 21:39:33 GMT from United States)
I have been using both linux and M$ for about 5 years now. I have become so aggravated with M$ that I wish to migrate away from it completely. I have an apple itouch. Can anyone tell me if it is possible to reload the device with linux and if so what distro is recommended. Thx.
Number of Comments: 125
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| 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.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
| Random Distribution | 
trixbox
trixbox (formerly known as Asterisk@Home) was a CentOS-based Linux distribution that enables the home user to quickly set up a VoIP Asterisk PBX. A web GUI makes configuration and operation easy. The CD also includes an xPL (home automation) interface for easy interaction with other devices in the home.
Status: Discontinued
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
